song in my head: I Don't Know by Lisa Hannigan

I Don't Know from ATO Records on Vimeo.

eenie, meenie, miney, mo...

Now that we may have a house, it's time to start thinking about how to furnish it. First things first, a new living room set. Our current sofa is apartment sized. I love it, but it's definitely small. Here are some of the new ones I'm considering. Which one do you prefer?

Westwood sofa from Room and Board

Piazza Sofa from cB2

Petrie Sofa from Crate and Barrel

Miramar Sofa from Crate and Barrel

Clark sectional from Room and Board

hopefully...our new home

So our offer was accepted and in June, if all things go well we will close on our first house. The inspection is next week. I'm not too concerned about the inspection. But I'm the type of person that worries about everything so nothing is ever 100% until we've signed all the papers. For now Below is a glimpse of the house. It's 4bed/3bath. It has an awesome glass mud room in the back overlooking the backyard. The garage is unfortunately detached, because the neighborhood is historic, but we'll live. It has ridiculously tall ceilings - 16-18ft at least. I feel like a midget in the house, but it's awesome. Below are some of the pictures from the listing website. For a better view of the house, feel free to check out this link from the original listing:

http://homesite.obeo.com/viewer/unbranded.aspx?tourid=520789

my favorite room - the kitchen.

More of the kitchen. I love the contemporary feel, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and hardwood floors. Plus it's bigger than our kitchen now. :-)

Master bathroom. Shower, jacuzzi tub, huge closet, and an awesome japanese style toilet that is unfortunately not pictured.

Master bedroom.

Living room. Not our furniture of course, but hopefully they will let us keep the mirror above the fireplace in the corner. The fireplace is one solid piece of black granite. Beautiful.

Another bathroom.

Another bedroom. This one is going to be my office. :-)

what's for dinner?

tom kha gai - sweet and spicy thai coconut chicken soup
better than at any restaurant in town :-)

barbeque pork shoulder with mac n' cheese and corn

shrimp and asparagas pasta

pork wonton soup

We haven't been remembering to take pictures of our meals much lately, so this is we have for the past two weeks. Definitely the most delicious was the tom kha gai. I could eat that soup for days because it only gets better. And if you're looking for a recipe you won't find one here, Michael doesn't do recipes. :-)

must have: textured walls

So our offer was accepted, which means we are closing on our new house on June 15. Already there are so many things to think about...furniture, paint colors, accessories, etc. First things first, since we have so much time I know I will paint or add something distinctive to the walls before we move in. Our lease is up the end of July, so we will be moving in slowly and prepping the house first.

There are three specific walls in the potential new house that I know I want to make distinctive. (1) The giant living room wall. And I mean giant. It's huge and the ceilings are like 16 or 18 feet so it's massive. (2) The wall in the dining area. (3) One of the walls in my office. And I mean in my office. We have four bedrooms. Master, guest, Michael's office and my office.



What I'm considering right now for one of the walls is a textured wall tile. Better than wall paper, they are self adhesive and certain kinds are paintable. Pictured above is Inhabit's Seesaw and Graham & Brown's paintable small squares. Inhabit's tiles would look awesome in our dining room. And Graham & Brown's would look great on the center wall in the office and painted a cool blue or a yellow. Love it! And I already convinced Michael. :-)

invites

Last night I finally started making Lisa's shower invites. I started at 7:30pm and I quit at 12:30am and still had two invites left to go. Of course, I also took a break for dinner, but still it was forever considering that I came up with my simplest design yet. I didn't want to do anything fancy or time consuming.

Part of the problem was my bird theme. I thought I could find a bird punch or a bird stencil. I couldn't find either, so instead I drew some birds and cut them out. I thought that the challenge would be drawing them, but instead it was the cutting. The other challenge was the text on front of the card. I used rub on letters, which is my preferred method, but somehow it took longer than usual to rub on each individual letter. Oh well, it was worth it. I think that they turned out pretty cute.

baby shower inspiration

I love planning showers. In fact I have the tendancy to go a little overboard with the details. I suppose this is my hobby - party planning. Anyways, I'm planning my cousin-in-law's baby shower this April. She's having her first baby - a girl! So I've been perusing the web for some inspiration. I stumbled upon these pictures from the cutest themed shower - momma bird/baby bird shower. The candy bar at the end is from a different baby shower - but I'm definitely doing a candy bar for the favors. :-) I think it's time for my trip to Hobby Lobby/Michaels!