1000 Places to See Before You Die

I came across this book last night when I was putting away some things and got side-tracked... my attention span has been about that of a goldfish of late. I was tickled pink to see that Bora Bora and Moorea are both in there and then I got curious how many other places I've been that are on the list...

1. London, England
2. Oxford University
3. Stratford-upon-Avon
4. Blarney Castle
5. The Book of Kells
6. The Ring of Kerry
7. Vienna, Austria
8. La Grand Place - Brussels, Belgium
9. Paris
10. Chateau de Versailles
11. Brandenburg Gate
12. Sans Souci
13. Pompeii
14. Rome
15. Sistine Chapel
16. Cinqueterre
17. Milan
18. Il Duomo
19. The Last Supper
20. La Scale Opera House
21. Florence
22. Lucca
23. Asolo
24. Venice
25. Verona
26. Anne Frank House
27. Canal Cruise - Amsterdam
28. Red-Light District
29. Castle District, Prague
30. Charles Bridge, Prague
31. Old Town Square, Prague
32. Kronborg Slot, Denmark
33. Sydney Opera House
34. Great Barrier Reef
35. Grand Canyon
36. Hotel Del Coronado
37. Mark Twain House
38. Kennedy Space Center
39. Key West
40. Walt Disney World
41. Savannah Historic District
42. Oahu
43. French Quarter
44. New Orleans Restaurants
45. Mardi Gras
46. Freedom Trail
47. Cape Cod National Seashore
48. Martha's Vineyard
49. Mackinac Island Grand Hotel
50. Natchez Trace
51. Bellagio
52. Las Vegas Strip
53. Route 66
54. Carlsbad Caverns
55. Roswell
56. New York City
57. Historic Downtown New York
58. Biltmore Estate
59. Great Smoky Mountains National Park
60. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
61. Cliff Walk
62. Charleston, SC
63. Badlands
64. Black Hills
65. Graceland
66. Nashville
67. Monticello
68. Colonial Williamsburg
69. National Mall and it's Monuments
70. Smithsonian
71. Greenbrier
72. Yellowstone National Park
73. Niagara Falls

It was so fun to look through the book and re-live the memories/trips that took me to these places! (Also, to make a list of all the places I still want to go!!) I can't wait to add 74 and 75 on the Honeymoon! What about you?  How many have you checked off your list?! 

Closets thru the Years!

I confess... I have a deep burning love for CLOSETS!  Well, storage in general, but especially closets.  I thought it would be fun to take a trip down closet memory lane.  I could kick myself though, I don't have very good closet pictures at some of my houses so we'll have to make do with what we have.  I'm also not including my "current" closet because I have some changes in plan for it (minor ones) but it's still not photo ready!

First up, my college apartment closet:

Unfortunately, this was move in day and I never took another picture of my closet the other 3.5 years I lived there!  I do remember thinking that was the smallest closet EVER and got pretty creative with storing TONS and TONS of stuff in it through the years.  Plus, I can recall at least two times that the stupid wire shelf pulled loose and everything was in a heap in the floor.  Enter mom (remember her alter ego Shelf Expert) and we re-did the shelving and it never came down again!

After college, I moved into my first house in Cleveland, TN.  I may or may not have bought the house for the closet.  It was ah-ma-zing.  Again, I didn't do it justice with my pictures!

 

I loved that it had the little room (where I had a spot for ALL my jewelry) and then it went right into this awesome space with hanging on both sides!  I bought the shoe cubes that have been with me now at 3 houses and still really like them for my shoe storage.  They can be used like this or stacked (below).  Love love love this closet.  My first house had a lot of awesome storage in general.

Next up on the closet tour, Baton Rouge.  I wasn't so sure about these closets in the master bathroom at first but I ended up really liking this set-up.  There was one larger closet that had a lot of shelving and hanging space and then another smaller one with shelves and double hanging.  I'm not a big "folder" so I didn't think I would be able to utilize the shelves (at first) but have no fear, I filled those babies up in no time. 

I stored empty storage baskets on the top shelf, winter pajamas/boots below that, lighter weight pajamas, then purses and more comfy clothes, then jeans, shorts and some more purses and finally, on the bottom shelf, in the pink bins I had bathing suits, house shoes, tights/slips, etc.  The shelves ended up being awesome and I loved having my purses so easy to get to.

The before...

And the after!  Pretty self explanatory.  But, this is only my warmer weather clothes.  Didn't need many winter clothes in the B. Rouge!

This was the other closet off the master bath.  I ended up storing all my books on these shelves and it worked out great. 

These hanging rods housed all my cooler weather clothes.  Loved having a closet just for my winter clothes that wasn't completely accessible!

 

Bathroom Cabinet Redo

Our master bathroom has basically zero storage.  When I first saw the house, I knew this would be a problem, especially since my house in Baton Rouge had AMAZING storage in the bathroom and I got totally spoiled from that.  As part of the deal, I had the builder add extra cabinets in the master bath and the laundry room.  Over the last 2 years my cabinet hasn't stayed as nice and neat as I would like.  So, I gave it an overhaul.  I found these cute little baskets at Michael's and even snagged them when they were 50% off.  Win win.  The top shelf still looks a little messy but it's actually organized up there.. promise :-)  

With the 4 baskets across it's a perfect fit but still a little snug for my liking.  

The before... because who doesn't love the "before" pictures?

The after!  Well, the almost "after"

These baskets are the perfect size for corralling all the odds and ends

Yes, I have a love for little "purse" soaps and a hate for germs. 

The baskets felt like they were missing something so I added a cute little label with an even cuter little clothespin!  Who doesn't love a bling-ed out clothespin?!  I got these at Michael's -- they were only $2.99 for 12.  Score.

The finished product!  Makes me smile every time I open the door!

Close up of the adorable label/clothespin

 

 

Happy Saturday!

This is my first "downtime" weekend of 2013!  Adam & Henderson headed to Michigan so I'm using my "alone" time to check some things off my to-do list.  

(The reason for the Michigan trip ;-) )

First up was moving some stuff that's accumulated in the garage to the basement.  That led to sorting/organizing the wedding supplies that are quickly growing!  I FINALLY feel like I've got a grip on this whole wedding thing!  I boxed things up based on when/where they'll be used.. I have boxes for lobby, ceremony, cocktail hour, mantle, sweetheart table and favors!  Everything is all inventoried and accounted for in my massive wedding spreadsheet.

Then it was on to 13 listings on eBay.  I go back and forth on if it's worth the time/effort to list things on eBay but I figured since I had so many things and a little bit of time this morning, I'd throw them up and see what happens.

While the pictures were uploading for the listings, I multi-tasked and worked on my awesome Christmas present from Lauren!  She got me one of those matted frames with Adam (heart) Ashley cut out of it.  I had ordered all our engagement pics a few months ago so I laid it out and got that baby put together!  It looks so cute!  I may even use it to decorate with at the wedding.

 

I took a mini-break to watch 2 episodes of Grey's Anatomy (I'm SO behind on all my shows and I'm sad a lot of them aren't even on OnDemand anymore :( ). 

After my mini-break I headed up to my beloved scrapbook room! It's been so long since I've worked on my scrapbooks!  I had so many projects going on in December I neglected my books.  I did keep a calendar with how many scrapbook pages I made in 2012......152 total!  So.. being the competitive person that I am... my goal for 2013.... 200 pages!  I should get to count the 125 wedding invitations I'll be making here soon in that! :-)

I'm still working on my 2009 Labor Day Cruise.. once I find a good stopping point (either after the cruise or when the next 12x12 book starts) I'm going to switch up my scrapbook method.  I'm also NOT ordering pictures way in advance like I always have for several reasons - they take a lot of space to store, I want to order different sizes going forward and I need to start limiting how many I order for each event!

Now I'm off to unload my scrapbook table (it's covered in my haul of clearance scrapbook paper!) and maybe just maybe start cranking out some scrapbook pages!!!  

Note:  Some pages I threw together Saturday/Sunday:

Love these pictures of my niece.  She had just turned 1.  I totally bought the B is for Boys cartridge JUST for this picture of her in the little car.   

 

Who doesn't love a cute towel animal on their bed?!

This picture kept uploading sideways so I had to go with a screenshot because it's too cute to not share!

Our Save-the-Dates

Since most of our guests have by now received their save-the-dates, I thought I would share them on here.  I absolutely love them, they are so "us" ;-)

I designed a tri-fold card and had pictures/info put on the front and back.  I was able to use 5 of our engagement pics, a quote and still had room for 2 separate places with info.

I made these at peartreegreetings.com

In full disclosure, I did end up having some pretty significant quality issues when I ordered 100 cards but Customer Service made things "right" in the end.

Fiesta Store and some Random-itis

This past weekend, I made a mad dash back to WV for a friend from college's wedding.  I drove to Princeton Friday night and stayed at my parents.  Saturday morning my mom (aka my wedding date) and I made a little detour and went by the hospital in Charleston to see Lauren after she had Baby Logan.  Then, we made our way on up to Morgantown... after of course, a stop at the Everything Fiesta! store in Flatwoods.  I have always loved this store and have stopped their countless times on my many trips to and from Morgantown.  When I first started getting into Fiesta, I would stop there and buy 1 or 2 things and have slowly built up my collection.  Such a fun, beautiful, bright store!!

I wrote down some things I want to make sure to add to our wedding registry and also grabbed a few seasonal items that were on sale:

I think their Christmas Fiesta is a little on the plain side but decided to get a few of the serving side pieces to use with my everyday Fiesta during the holidays.  I don't understand why they put the tree on the bottom of the plates and then it's just covered up with food!  Regardless, it will make up a cute table come the holidays.

I also picked up this large mixing bowl to use as a fruit bowl.  I love the pop of color it adds to my kitchen!  It also tells me I need to get some more fruit!

This is the last purchase I made there.  This bowl was marked down to a fab price because it's a VT color!  They had a whole section of items that were maroon and orange they were clearancing out.  I mean really, what were they thinking with the store being so close to WVU?!  Oh well, love the shape/size of this guy, he'll be a nice addition!

I'm finally getting ready to pack up all my Christmas decor but wanted to share a few last things from this season!  First, is how I have displayed our Christmas cards the last 2 years.  I picked up this little Christmas tree holder at Ace Hardware of all places last year.  I like seeing it "fill up" as the days go by in December.  Only downside is that a lot of cute cards/pictures get covered up.

Here's a snapshot of our 2012 Christmas card:  I used one of our engagement pics on the cover and some pictures from Christmas 2011 on the inside and back.  No wasted space on our card!

 And, to end on a sweet note, my amazing fiance surprised me with this beautiful bouquet of flowers last night after work!  Isn't he the BEST?!  I think I shall marry him ;-)
 

5 Months To Go!

Where did my year of planning go?!  Where are all my plans?!  Ahh!

 

I did get the save-the-dates in the mail yesterday!! We sent them to 19 states and 2 countries!!!  That just blows my mind.  Our wedding will represent the good ol' USA!  Mom's coming down for 10 days starting this Friday and I'm going to have about 40 appointments set up to hopefully get some things rolling!

 

I can't even believe we are down to 151 days.. but who is counting??? ;-)