Wonderful Weekend Events

This weekend went by in a flash.  Before I knew it, I was back here at work!  Friday night, I went out for a little bit.  I'm embarrassed to admit, I was in bed by 10:30.  I had a lot of things that I wanted to do Saturday, so a good night's sleep was mandatory.  I woke up early and headed down to Farmer's Market downtown to pick up some fresh veggies and cheese for the baby shower I was co-hosting on Sunday.  It was absolutely gorgeous this weekend and I was really excited to get out there and enjoy it. Farmer's Market was packed, but I still really enjoyed it.  It's one of those things I've been wanting to do for years, but never had gotten up early enough to experience.  I guess now that I'm spending less time going out and partying, I'm getting enough sleep to actually function on Saturday mornings!  Ha, who knew!?!

After Farmer's Market (where I also picked up two awesome necklaces, one seen below), I grabbed my friend Mary and walked over to Woodland Arts Fair.  I'm lucky enough to live close by so we didn't have to fool with trying to find somewhere to park in all of the madness down there.  Plus, I needed some exercise!  We ran into a ton of people we know, had a beer, and perused the local vendors.  I love outdoor shopping, so it was just my cup of tea!  Neither of us bought anything there, but I did find a cute tee shirt dress on the way that was 50% off!  Go me!

Mary, Cathy, and me.  Cathy works with Mary and also sold me my fantastic house!  She's awesome!

Antique air tanks used by fire fighters

Beautiful Bonsai trees...if it wasn't likely that I would kill one within a week, I would have dropped the enormous amount of cash they were asking for one.  They are so cool!!!

After spending the majority of the day outside, I got home, ran some errands, cleaned the house and got ready for a night out.  A friend's band was playing at Cosmic Charlie's and Kate, Adam, and I had planned on going.  We met at Village Idiot for a beer, stopped by Lynagh's and then went to Cosmic.  Unfortunately, Mark's band (She-male Fiesta) didn't go on until about two a.m., so we didn't get to see much of the show.  After a late Saturday night, Sunday morning came early and I still had a ton of stuff to do before Andrea's baby shower.  Luckily, I had hung all the decorations earlier in the week and put together a lot of the food on Saturday.  I thought the decorations turned out really cute!  I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the diaper cake was to put together and how cute it turned out.  Sometimes I wonder if I should start a side business doing party planning.  Not because I'm so awesome at it, but because I love it so much!  I'm not quite sure I want to give up my weekends, though.  Anyone have any thoughts?  Let me know in the comments section, if you feel so inclined!  I'd love to hear some feedback from outsiders!

 Kate's awesome chalkboard cheese board!  Also, some really awesome tasting cheese.  Yum...cheese.

 Fruit Salad with Mint

Turkey and Cream Cheese Pinwheels

Heirloom Tomato, Mozzarella, and Basil Salad

Cheese Tortellini, Snap Peas, and Grape Tomato Salad

The last little tidbit I have to share with y'all is this lovely little addition to my purse, an EOS lipgloss.  I read about them on a few of my favorite blogs as well as have a friend that uses them religiously.  I didn't realize how cheap they were until I saw one in the checkout line at Wal-Mart on Saturday.  $2.96 will get you this awesome little round gloss that is really fun to open and use.  I'm all about sensory luxuries, and this one totally does it for me.  I bought the sweet mint flavor and really like it.  There are a ton of different flavors out there, and I plan on trying a few more.  Possibly to coordinate with my current outfit.  Because I'm OCD like that.  For example, I painted my nails and toes a kelly green this weekend, and I have been coordinating my outfits to match accordingly since then.  I know, I'm insane.  But I'm okay with it.  Sometimes crazy can be fun!  Just ask the voices in my head!  Just kidding, I don't hear voices.  ANYWAY...have a great week!

She's crafty

So, it was kind of a slow day for me at the office today and I was feeling the need to redecorate.  As in immediately.  For those of you that don't know me, when I get an urge to do something, it's rare that I have the patience to wait.  Waiting for online purchases to come in the mail is my equivalent of the 7th ring of Hell.  But I digress...  In order to feed my redecorating need, I decided there were a few small projects I could embark upon to make my office a little more homey.  After a quick trip to Michael's for ribbon and craft paper on my lunch hour, I am now proud to show off my new French memo board, Post-it dispenser, and pen holder.

For the Post-it dispenser, I just simply traced the holes from the previous decorative paper and inserted it under the plastic top.

I don't think I really need to explain this, but just in case...wrap existing pen holder (or clean tin can) with craft paper and cut to size.  I used a binder clip and tape to secure it in place.

Ok, this was a little more labor intensive that the other two projects.  I started with six pieces of craft paper, arranging them in a checkerboard pattern.  I used thumbtacks to hold the paper in place on my credenza's built in bulletin board.  Then I started with the blue ribbon, measuring every six inches and stretching it as tightly as possible in a straight diagonal line.  It helps to know the the first piece of ribbon started at the top left corner and I made sure it directly intersected the four corners of the first four pieces of paper.  I used that as my guide and just added a new ribbon every six inches, making sure to keep the spacing between ribbons even (you can see that I wasn't exactly spot on in some places).  Then with the yellow ribbon, I did the same process, but in the opposite direction.  

The finished product turned out looking pretty cute, if I don't say so myself!  The only problem I had was the ribbon not being taught enough.  To fix this, I just put thumbtacks at each intersection of ribbon that was holding up a picture.  I added some more pictures of some of my favorite people to my existing photos that were already tacked up, and ta-da!  It really is nice to look over at the faces of people that I am so happy to have in my life when I'm having a particularly stressful day at work.  There are a few faces missing, but I'll take care of that soon.  As you can see, there is space left for them!  Bonus points go out to anyone that can identify more than five people from my picture of pictures!  Happy Hump Day!

Sangria and Picnics

This weekend was my first weekend in a month or so where I didn't have anything planned by the time I left work on Friday.  I had been absolutely thrilled at the thought of sleeping in, laying around in pajamas, and getting my house in order.  I should have known that the inner hyperactive child in me wouldn't let that happen.  I pinned this recipe for St. Germaine Sangria on Friday and decided that it would be the perfect cocktail for the perfect weather we were going to have this weekend.  It was delicious after a long work week, and even better on Sunday when it had time to marinate.

Here's the recipe:

One bottle Savignon Blanc (I used $3 Chuck's from Trader Joe's and you couldn't tell the difference between it and good wine)
One cup St. Germaine (I used the knock off version of Elderflower Liqueur, the real stuff is almost $40 a bottle!!!)
Two peaches, sliced
6 strawberries, sliced
1/2 cup of raspberries

I ended up double the fruits and kept adding wine as we drank it.  By the end of the night we were down to Pinot Grigio and we couldn't tell the difference, but that could have been the wine talking.  I'm not going to lie, we ordered a late night pizza from Donatos as well.  It was worth all 17 Weight Watcher's points.  I think it had been at least two months since I let myself have that much cheese in one sitting.  Delicious!

Saturday afternoon I decided to head up to Louisville to serve beer at the St. Joe's Orphan's Picnic with my two roommates from college.  It was a total blast!  We served beer, had a few beers ourselves, and ran into tons of old friends!  Sometimes, I really miss living in Louisville.  But not enough to move back (don't worry, Courts).

Sunday morning, my girls and I waited forever to have Wild Eggs for breakfast, and it was awesome.  I am obsessed with the Surfer Girl Omelette.  It's made with cream cheese, mushrooms, tomatoes, avocado, onions, sprouts, and spinach.  I had mine made with egg whites only, so hopefully it wasn't ridiculously fattening!  From breakfast, I headed by my mom's house and visited with them briefly.  I spent some quality time with my adorable nephew and I even threatened to kidnap him!  He's at that awesome age where he's all smiles, giggles, and fat rolls.  Love it!!!

I was feeling crafty after I got home and decided to go ahead and get started on my latest project, the office. I plan on painting the walls a pewter grey and using mint accents around the room.  So far all I had done was buy the paint.  My first attempt at DIY furniture restoration began with sanding and painting a couple coats of primer on a bookshelf that I've had since I was a child.  I don't think I did the best job, but considering I am about as unhandy as it gets, it will have to do.  I plan on painting the first coat of mint paint tonight when I get home from work.  This time, however, I'm going to use a drop cloth so I don't get anymore paint on my deck.  I'm a pretty sloppy painter and since discovering this, I'm considering paying someone to paint the actual walls in the office.  I might save myself a lot of headaches that way, not to mention my beautiful hardwood floors.

The rest of the day was spent having a glass of wine on my friend's deck and enjoying the weather.  All in all, my not busy weekend was pretty packed with activities, but I still feel refreshed this morning.  Hope everyone's weekend turned out as good as mine!

Bachelorette Party Weekend

This weekend was the official start of the countdown to Mary's wedding.  Courtney and I had planned a fun day and evening for her that kicked off with a lingerie party at my house.  I decided the theme of the party was going to be Tiffany blue, and spent a decent bit of time finding things that would fit in with that decor.  We had so much fun planning and preparing!  It seemed like everything went off without a hitch!  We served pimento cheese sandwiches, a cheese plate, puff pastry bites, fruit salad, rice and cheese balls, mini cakes, cupcakes and a signature drink of Hawaiian Punch, lemonade and vodka!  Everything was yummy and we even had leftovers to take with us for snacks at the hotel.

After the lingerie shower, we all piled into two cars decorated with soap markers and headed to Frankfort to take a tour of Buffalo Trace.  Despite the hot and humid weather, we had a great time touring, sampling and shopping at the distillery.

Following the tour and some browsing around the gift shop, we piled back in the cars and headed towards Louisville.  We had plenty of down time to get cleaned up and have some food and drinks at our hotel.  We had two adjoining suites at The Galt House in downtown Louisville, and they were really nice!!!  After everyone got beautified, we donned our little black dresses (with Mary in white) and headed to Ramsi's on Bardstown Road for dinner.

Following dinner, we walked down to Molly Malone's and started the night.  We met some very interesting guys, two of which offered to give Mary a lap dance.  I leave it at that, but needless to say, it was extremely comical.  Drinking and dancing ensued until the wee hours of the morning and I think we all burned off as many calories on the dance floor as we drank!  I don't think that the day and evening could have gone any better!  It was great seeing Mary surrounded by her friends and family that love her the most!

After some much needed sleep, we finally got out of the hotel and headed to breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  There was plenty of hangover food consumed as we rehashed the night and wound down from a great time.  I had an absolute blast and couldn't have asked for a more fun group of girls.  I had so much fun that I ended up napping most of the afternoon on Sunday and even going to bed extra early!  Great weekend, girls and I can't wait to dance again in a few weeks at the wedding!!!