Honeymoon and such...

Well, no this is not about my Honeymoon!  LOL!!!  Actually, maybe I'll slip some honeymoon in here to brighten the post later!

Anyways, I finished Honeymoon by James Patterson:

Oh was this a chilllllller!!!  It's about dear Nora Sinclair.  Beautiful, rich, loving....murderer!!!  This lady has got it out for men, so beware!  When an FBI agent gets on her tail, he finds it hard to look past the good and see the...well...seriously evil!  Its a GOOD read, you'll want to finish it, maybe with a whole body shudder!



My next book will be Water for Elephants.  I know I know, the movie is out and I do intend to see it but only after I read it. I don't like seeing movies before reading books.  Some people say that it ruins the movie, I think the other way around lol!  It ruins the book!  Since the book usually always comes first, I like to read the story in it's entirety before seeing the dumbed down version in a movie.  Sorry, I really love movies - I really do, but when it's competition between book and movie, the book always wins in my book!!  Ok that was cheesy!

I've been working a lot for my mom this week, so I really have not done a lot in our house to boast of here on my bliggity blog - but I promise I have some really fun ideas brewing. Also more on the home decor front - I'm getting tons of inspiration from Pinterest!!  I'll be picking a paint soon for our kitchen, and redoing the cabinets.

I want to make fun things to put in our home and make it more..."us".  So more on that later!  In the mean time, I'll be helping my momma get their house redecorating and renovated.  I'll post pics of it soon, because it will be going up for sale if anyone is interested in buying a 4 bedroom single family home right in the middle of Bel Air:)

That's all for now.  Hope everyone is having a pleasant evening!!  Oh and as I promised...a happy photo to leave you with - taken last summer on our honeymoon in Punta Cana:)

Pinterest obsession, DIY ideas galore, and the beach!

I am fairly obsessed right now with Pinterest now!!!  It's a website with millions of pictures of STUFF - home decor, food, clothes, people, ideas, places, jewelry....EVERYTHING.  You need to be invited to join (I'll invite you if interested) and then you can start pinning away - you pin the things you love and make pinboards of different things, you can name categories yourself and pin things into them to make the boards.  It's addicting...believe me.  Don't join if you don't want to lose hours of your life!!  DO join if you want fun, inspiration and ideas about everything and anything!

I have found so many fun DIY projects I want to do.  Look at this dress....its made out of a tank top and a few yards of fabric...I'm totally going to make a dress like this next week!  It's called the Alice Dress.  Yes Please!



and what about this little project?



you buy a whole bunch of candle holders from good will - and spray paint them all different colors for such a fabulous effect!  Something else I am going to try next week!!

how about inspiration for our kitchen?!?!  dark butcher block countertops, creamy dreamy cabinets and oil rubbed bronzed fixtures?!?  HECK YES!!



OOOOO I love me some Pinterest!!

As for my outfit today, I'm putting together something that looks like this, for our drive to the beach:



Minus the $8,000 purse of course!  I wish I had a Berkin bag, but we just aren't that rich yet;)  But the white/gray/jeans and chunky silver jewelry I can do!!  My shoes with be red fake snake skin (from AE) instead of leopard print - since I dont have those (yet!!)

Ok, enough about my new found love obsessions! 

Dave & I are off to Atlantic City today!  We are taking a lover's getaway to the beach to relax, maybe play some slots, eat yummy food, walk the boardwalk, dance, swim in the big pool at Trump Plaza, and just have a good time together.  I hope we win 1000's of dollars!  But that won't happen!  I usually win a little bit, but we never win big.  Its ok, it is just nice to get away and have a good time.  We get free rooms all the time at Trump Plaza (seriously, its nice...they send us about 4 free rooms every quarter so we dont have to pay for the hotel - it's how they get you in there to gamble your savings away LOL) and we really like it there.  No it's not the Iberostar Grand, but we'll take it;)

What is everyone else up to this weekend?  I have big plans for my week after we get home.  I am excited to be a housewife again and get working on a whole bunch of DIY projects for our house!!! 

Happy Saturday!  Still working on the Honeymoon by James P...review to come!

Mysterious Book:)

I finished the 3rd Mysterious Benedict Book:



What can I say?  These books are just so darn cute.  I loved it of course.  I give it a

Just like the first two:)  These books are so much fun to read, the children in them are adorable and admirable - these are just great great books for kids and teens, good moral stories about fighting off evil and doing what is right. So cute!

Now I am on to The Honeymoon by James Patterson...something a little darker;)  I have about 2 weeks to finish MOST of my list this month.  Quite a goal, hopefully with work ending this week I'll have more time.  I am sad to be leaving my little post as School Counselor, and I'll miss my kiddos so much - but it'll be nice to be home and work on house projects and get everything more organized.  I have lots of goals for the house this summer and I'll be sharing all of them and updating them here!

Hopefully I'll be getting a full time position for next year as school counselor, no more of these long term thingys...though I don't mind them because its SOMETHING and it's giving me such great experience.  It all has to be for something, I think!?!?  More on that as I get more news....

Hope everyone is doing swell and is reading some fabulous books!!!  Do share with me what you are reading!

It's been a while.....

It's been a busy busy month!!!! 

First of all - congrats to my brother Jonathan, and his new wife Krystal!  They got married on Sunday night in a beauitful ceremony that we thought would be all rain but it was SO perfect out!!!  Here is a lovely pic:

I'd have more but I lost my camera at the reception - we left without it in the family limo:(  It'll turn up and I'll add more...

I'm catching up on my fave blogs today, and one of my most favoritest (??) is giving away a SILHOUETTE!!  I'm dying to win one of these because they are so  darn expensive!!  iHeart Organizing is doing the giveaway so go on over and compete with me for this awesome machine.  Seriously...the stuff I could create with this thing is ridiculous! 

Anyways, I'll have another post later to review my latest book.  I'm slacking, I know!!  Life has been so busy!  But after Friday, I'm a house wife again for the summer....so I'll have LOTS of time to catch up:) 

Bella Tuscany - how I need to visit you!!

I finished this wonderful book by Frances Mayes yesterday.  I'm considerably slower these days at reading!!  Oh well...maybe its that I am busy, maybe it's that my age of 30 is catching up to me, but I can't speed through all books anymore!

This book was just lovely.  Frances talks about her time in Tuscany throughout spring and summer, and some more time after that, with her hubby as they continue to live and remodel and garden at Bramasole.  I'm telling you, the movie Under the Tuscan Sun is NOTHING like the books!  It's so delightful reading about homemade pasta and lemon trees and oh-so-much wine, it makes me what to drop everything in life except my family and travel, speak and cook Italian!!  Its a nice, lazy summer read.  My only complaint is that, while it's such a good book and so fun to read about all things Italian, it's a little slow going reading through it all.  I wasn't jumping at every chance I could to read it.  And it made me hungry....for carbs, every time I picked it up;)  Its a GREAT book dont get me wrong, I recommend it...I give it a:

Ah Italy....I hope I can go one day.  Soon.  I just want to travel the wine country with Dave, tasting and basking in glorious Italian sun and fun.  One day....

Moving on...Happy Mother's day to all the moms out there!  I hope you are enjoying this beautiful weekend.  I went to my parents yesterday to help mom ready the house for guests and a rehearsal dinner next weekend.  My brother is getting married next Sunday, and we are all so excited!  We went over there and helped clean and garden, and Krystal (the bride) & I finished her wedding favors.  It was such a nice day and fun being together.  Poor Dave had to work and miss the fun.  We took Frodo over and they brought their cat Rudy over, and we had a kitty face off:

Frodo (left) loved his cousin Rudy, but Rudy wasn't so sure of Frodo.  Frodo was a pesky little thing, following Rudy around all day.  It was cute watching them though.   Man, we really need to have babies...this love for our cats is becoming ridiculous;)

Today we are spending time with Dave's mom after he wakes up (from working all night).  I'm trying to clean and get things done.  I've hurt my foot somehow so I'm going sloooow today!!

I'm also starting book 2 for May:  The Mysterious Benedict Society & the Prisoner's Dilemma.  This is the 3rd and maybe final (??) book in the Benedict series.  I'm excited to read it, I loved the first two!! 

That's all for now!  Have a blessed, beautiful Sunday!



Project progress

I've been working on our "entry way" in our town home.  We actually honestly don't have an entry way, we just call this space right under our stair case our entry way.  Anyways, I re-purposed this an IKEA sofa table, it was beautiful and looked like new....only to find it was way to big for the spot.  The spot is sort of awkward.  It looks way to plain to NOT have something there.  But only a certain size shelf or table will fit.  It used to look like this:

So many issues here.  The white didn't match a single thing in our family room.  Plus, it was so open and showed all our junk!  Our cube shelf behind the dining room table helped with that.  While I love the IRISH stuff, we have to find a new place for Ireland, because it was too much green in this space - it didn't match!  Frodo's kitty condo got nixed from here too, it's fun for him but way too ugly for our public space!

So here is what we ended up with:

We had this shelf from Target in the basement, so we brought it up and it fits nicely in the space.  Don't worry we still have to jazz it up and decorate it.  The B I bought from JoAnns and painted black/brown which matches all our furniture. 

For our wedding we got adorable little cocktail plates that have cities on them.  We hardly every use them for parties (always use plastic for parties!  lol) so I decided to use them for decoration.  What do you think?

There are six different plates that have six different cities on them.  I love them here because it introduces our "travel" theme in the house (London in the family room, NY in the dining, Tuscany in the Kitchen, Paris in the bedroom, etc...)  We still have to fill that shelf with stuff.

 Close up!

 As for how I hung them, I stole borrowed a little idea from Young House Love where you trace your pictures on newspaper or ads and cut them out.  Then, with painting tape, you hang them up and move them around until your heart is content with the placement.  This way, you don't ruin your walls by putting lots o holes in them!

You measure down where your nail will hang off the frame, or in this case, the plate and draw an X on your ad where the nail will go.  Then, put your nail right through the X.....

 It's a genius idea.  My walls thank Young House Love and whoever else thought of this idea, it is truly genius!!  So anyways...then you have all your nails up and you just slip the paper out from under them.  The painters tape allows you to stick the paper to the walls and remove them without ripping paint off.  Genius....

Then you hang all your lovely pictures, or plates, viola - all done!!!

Here is a close up shot of one of the plates, LONDON of course:)

So that is what I was working on this week!  I'm also about halfway done Bella Tuscany.  I'm off to read that now...I have to get to bed early since Career Day is tomorrow!  It's my first as a school counselor! 

Have a great week everyone!!

Introducing....

The books of May!!!

So I didn't think I knew my May list yet, but after doing some inventory of the books I have here and books I want to read - I DO have an idea of my May 10 - I need two more but they will come to me as I do some looking.   Here is the list, so far,  in no certain order;)

1.  Bella Tuscany by Frances Meyers
2.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3.  The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
4.  Honeymoon by James Patterson
5.  7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey
6.  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
7.  The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoners Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart
8.  The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
9. TBA
10. TBA

Ok, that's all for now!  Night!

Au revoir April, Bonjour May!

I finished 7 books in April.  Not bad I guess, not great but not bad! 

I finished The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis.  This book is a weird exchange of letters between an "senior" demon and his "nephew" tempter-almost-full-time-demon about capturing the attention and soul of a British man who has become a Christian at the start of WWII.  It's an interesting read, the language is a little challenging at first but like all books this type, once you get into it you don't notice it much.  The letters talk about how the demons try to tempt humans and veer them away from God.  It's kinda creepy!  Definitely a good book for those who like reading about Heaven and Hell and all things spiritual.   I give it a....

And....All the books I read in April:)  I'll probably start taking my collective monthly book photo at the end of each month, since sometimes I change books!

Ok so it's not 10 - but I can't focus on that, I'm focusing on how much I AM reading, and how many different types of books I'm reading and all the fun things I am learning from them:)  I have no idea what my May books are yet.  The first one will be Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes.  I loved Under the Tuscan Sun (which, BTW, is NOTHING like the movie - book is WAY better!) and Bella Tuscany is the next book.  I'm starting on that one tonight.  More to come on May books later.  If you have some good ideas, leave me a comment!

This weekend is over already.  It goes by so fast as usual.  Today, Dave & I had my parents over for lunch.  We had jerk chicken and steak and a top round marinating in red wine and balsamic vinegar, with sides of baked potatoes, salad, grilled onions and grilled asparagus.  It was DE-lightful!  My dad help us decided what to do with our garden - we are just starting to tackle it. We pulled up/dug up four huge ugly tangly bushes.  Dad helped us dream up what to plant and we all went to Home Depot together to look at plants and flowers!  It's so fun planning our very own garden in our first home!  We bought some Gerbera daisies to put in planters for our deck...they were our wedding flowers so it's sentimental.  Pics to come of them.  Pics to come of the whole garden!

And last but not least - today marks 5 whole years that Dave & I have been together.  May 1, 2006 we started dating.  I can't believe it's been that long!!  I love him more everyday! 

I hope everyone had a very pleasant weekend:)