Isn’t this arch from last weekend’s wedding beautiful?  I usually am not a fan of arches and flowers on them but the florist did an absolutely beautiful job.

Here are a few more pictures from the day:

And oh yeah, this is the first time I’m writing a post from my iPhone… We’ll see how this works…

-First wedding of the season this weekend

-Attempting to read this 246 page book and write a 5 page paper on it in under a week.  Yeah right.  I think I’ll end up writing the paper based on the introduction.

-Getting ready for 3 weddings in May

-Final exams for History of Architecture and Textiles and Finish Materials

-Debating whether of not to take the summer off of classes.  I think I’m going to have to- too many weddings (which I guess is a good thing?  Right now I’m slightly losing it).

-Easter Brunch with my parents the other week: Dad “You are really looking good Julie since you’ve taken all this weight off.  You are a real catch now.”  Me “Was I not a catch before?”  Dad “No, you were just MORE of a catch.”

That is all.

“If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

-William Morris

My professor mentioned this quote the other week in my History of Architecture class when we were learning about William Morris and I remembered that I had posted it here a while back.

I loved it then and I love it now.  If you don’t love something, don’t buy it.  Furniture or clothes, if you feel that you can’t leave the store without it, then buy it.  I think it’s far better to have a nearly empty room than a room full of meaningless or blah furniture and accessories.

It’s finally mine.  The ubiquitous 5×5 white Expedit bookshelf that you see everywhere.  E.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e.  I’ve wanted it for years but have put off buying it because I didn’t want to pay for the shipping ($150)  and the only other option would be to load up the sucker in my car and drive it home myself.

The other week I finally took the plunge and drove to the IKEA in Woodbridge, VA.  I made my usual stop to get a hot dog and cinnamon roll before the shopping began and then picked up a few knick knacks I needed from around the store and then headed down to the warehouse to pick up my precious baby.  Oh that’s the other thing, it is constantly out of stock.  I had checked that morning and it said online that there was a high probability of it being in stock at the Woodbridge store.  Guess what?  It wasn’t in stock.  Right then an IKEA employee pushed up a flatbed truck with my bookshelf (in 4 massive boxes) that someone had obviously just returned.  I’m so glad because it would have been very difficult trying to load all 4 boxes on the flat bed truck myself.

So I get out to my car and realized I hadn’t planned very well.  This book shelf is ummm, massive and my Camry is ummm, not.  Thank the Lord one of the IKEA valets came up to me and (all in Spanish, which I don’t know how he knew I spoke Spanish, he just was speaking in Spanish from the beginning) totally loaded all 4 boxes into my car, it involved having to take the passenger’s side seat apart, but somehow he did it.  45 minutes later I was home was trying to get the first box out of my car when my neighbor came out of my house and saw me obviously struggling and unloaded the rest and put them on my front porch.

Are you asleep yet?  My dad got it in my house and a week late assembled but I don’t want to show you the picture yet, because it’s not organized to OCD like perfection yet courtesy of several boxes and file holders I need to pick up from The Container Store, so until it looks like this:

Source

Does that not make your heart sing?  Mine looks nothing like that the moment.  I love the idea of putting some kind of background behind it… I think this person actually used wrapping paper.  How easy is that?  (Raise your hand if you love Ina Garten).

Progress photos to come…

Lately I’ve been thinking “so many Bravo shows to watch, so little time.”  Wouldn’t be nice if my job was to sit on my couch, watch the 15 hours of Bravo shows a week that I want to watch but I can’t due to real life.  I could sleep till late in the morning, watch a few hours of DVR’d shows, meal break (as if I hadn’t been eating while I was watching the shows), maybe blog about them, then catch the live shows that evening.  Wouldn’t it be glorious?  Or possibly very, very sad.

Do you know why I put up with this ‘pitiful job’, Mr. Donaghy, why I fetch these folks’ lunches and clean up their barfs? Cause they make television. And more then jazz, or musical theater, or morbid obesity, television is the true American art form.”

-Kenneth Parcell, 30 Rock

So I got the kids to the park which was totally empty expect for us.  The kids had been roller skating for a few minutes when a county jail paddy wagon pulls up, and out comes pouring a good 15-20 criminals in orange prison jumpsuits.  The one lone police officer gets out of the paddy wagon for a minute, looks around, I make eye contact with him in what I thought was a desperate plea for help and then he gets back in the car.  Uhhhh.  They all spot me and circle us picking up trash all around us all the time smiling, smirking and whistling at me.  Bollocks.  This is not the emergency situations you plan for when you are 13 and take babysitting 101 classes.  Suffice it to say I was relieved to have to cut that park outing short.  The kids had no idea what the problem was and were very upset when I scream/ whispered “WE ARE LEAVING NOOOOOW.  GET IN THE CAR NOOOOWWWWW.”

The end.

1.  My dog Henry decided to sleep in the bathtub the other night.

2.  I bought Pioneer Woman’s new cookbook which I have been waiting for for months and I have not had two seconds to look at it.  When I get a new cookbook I like to read it cover to cover.  I still have this cookbook in the queue of books to read.

3.  Once a year I turn all the hangers around in my closet and then once I’ve worn them I turn the hanger the correct direction.  That way by the time January comes around I’ll know if I haven’t worn something in over a year which means it’s time for it to go.

That is all.

(All graphics from The League of Moveable Type)

I recently took a webinar on design tips for blogs and they recommended some other sites which I haven’t checked out yet: fontsquirrel.com, typekit.com and google.com/webfonts.   I’d love to hear if you have found any other great font sites.

Anyways, the other day I was walking my dogs when a 8 year old-ish girl came out of her house with her own dog.  She asked if our dogs could play, I of course said yes.  I knew her dog was some type of poodle mix but I could not figure out what the other half was so I asked her.  “She’s half poodle half werewolf.”  “Oh wow that’s really cool, I’ve never seen one of those.”  I totally believed her that her dog was half werewolf.  I think I was thinking of how sometimes dogs breed with wild wolves?  I’m not quite sure but it was at the end of a long day and the girl said it so confidently.  I’m not sure if she knew if she was totally punking me or if she really truly believed her dog was half werewolf.  It wasn’t till I walked away that I was like “Wait, whaaat…?”

The other week I was leaving work and I was absolutely exhausted, physically and emotionally just drained.  My car was totally out of gas so I had to pull over to fill up.  A cute guy in a BMW pulled up at the pump next to me so I immediately got my act together and glanced him a little smile.  He smiled back at me, but it was kind of a sad smile which I didn’t get at the moment.  After a few seconds passed he shyly came up to me and said “ummm… miss, sorry to tell you this but you…ummm… might want to fix your skirt.”  The entire back of my dress was tucked into the top of my tights so my rear end was hanging out for the whole gas station to see.

So that’s what I’ve been up to.  I did run into a wall yesterday, but thankfully no one saw.  I’m really trying to find a schedule and balance life out so I can start posting regularly again because wedding season is coming on quick and I have double the weddings I had last year, which is a good thing.

Lemon out.