Dressing for Beth

My sweet baby younger sister is graduating from college at the beginning of June. I just don't feel like I am old enough to have my youngest sister be a real life grown-up! Mom and Dad, I can't imagine how you're feeling. Yikes!

Beth attends Ohio University where she studies fashion merchandising. She would love to be a buyer for a department store, and she'd be so good it. She is the most fashionable person I know, but she isn't so crazy that you can't steal parts of her style. Though usually I don't start wearing trends she does until a few years later.

Did you know that high wasted pants are back in style right now?? WHY?? I don't love low-rise either, but high wasted pants highlight everything about my stomach I don't want people to notice. I'm going on record today that I think it's crazy. Bets on how soon I'll buy a pair?? This is exactly what I said about leggings...

                               

Isn't she gorgeous? Sigh. She's also got about 5 inches on me...

Enough about how great my sister is. The real reason I'm writing this post is because I have no idea what to wear for her graduation. This seems like a great excuse for getting a new dress, but there's extra pressure to be super cute so her fashiony friends think I'm awesome. What? I'm the only one who thinks about stuff like that? I don't believe you.

I'm turning to my wonderful blog friends for support. Here are some dress options I've been drooling over online -- any opinions to share??

Striped dress from Anthropologie. Definitely fun for summer.

Lace dress from Banana. I could wear it with my rehearsal dinner shoes, but I would have to do about 6,000 lunges between now and June. And it might be too short, though the sleeves do balance that.

I think this might be my favorite. Aren't the bikes cool yet unexpected? This is from Eshatki.com, which personalizes the fit. Extra perk.

I can't decide if this is adorable or old-lady-ish. Thoughts? Also from Eshatki.

I think I'm leaning toward something more fun than basic, mostly because a lot of my other clothes seem basic. Are there places that I'm forgetting to look or other dresses you've seen lately? I need some fashion advice!

What I'm Pinning

Now that school is over (for all of 4 days), I have been dreaming about all of the projects I want to tackle next. Well, to be honest, I've been dreaming about them for two years, but now I finally will have some time to do them!

The first thing I did was head over to my Pinterest account to look at the things that have caught my eye over the past few months. Usually themes arise without me knowing it...

I want to have a fancy party.

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I want to crochet baby blankets.

And these guys.

I want to eat summer foods.

Asparagus with goat cheese

Zucchini pizzas

Zucchini roll ups. Mmmmm.

I want to become Martha Stewart.

Make your own cooking spray.

And make a wreath for every single season of the year.

What's a realistic "make things in real life that I love on Pinterest goal?" Because there are SO MANY THINGS that I really want to make!!!

Just Put it in my Dropbox

I always am excited to learn about a cool online tool, and I wanted to share a few I've found recently:

Dropbox is the most awesome thing I've found in awhile. It is an online storage tool that lets you access your files from anywhere. You just install the software on your computer, choose which files you want to share, and then voila! You can access them anywhere!

You can access your files online via the dropbox website, or you can download an app for your phone or iPad that lets you view files that way. I use this ALL the time... I'm at a meeting and I need to access a document for work, and I can just quickly pull it up on my phone. Awesome.

If this isn't the coolest thing since sliced bread, I don't know what is. How often have you been meeting someone for something (dinner, coffee, meeting, etc.) and tried to figure out somewhere in the middle? Use this website to make that process a breeze! Pop in both addresses and a keyword for where you want to meet (ie: coffee) and voila - a meeting place!

Note: I was not compensated by either of these companies, I just think they are great online tools that you might want to use, also!

Holiday Cards

It might seem early, but Christmas is less than 2 months away!! One of my favorite parts of the holiday is sending cards. I love receiving them, and I love sending them!

For the past few years, I've handmade our cards.

Sophie "helping."

I'm not really down with that this year because 1.) I've used up all of my ideas, and 2.) I'd rather spend my crafting time on other things.

The cards I like best are the picture cards. We open and love all of the cards we receive, but the ones we keep the longest are the picture ones. That got me thinking... is it weird to send holiday cards when there aren't any cute things (ie: babies) in them?

We could make them totally cheesy and put: "Merry Christmas from the future Mr. and Mrs.!" I don't know, that might be too much! =)

We aren't using our engagement pictures for our save-the-dates, so maybe that would be a good time to use them.

What do you think? Would you make fun of me if you got that in the mail??

Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning...

I know we've talked about this before, but my relationship with cleaning is tenuous to say the least. As in, I hate to do it, but I absolutely love having a clean house. Both Zac and I grew up in really clean houses, but unfortunately, neither of us got bitten by the obsessive cleaning bug.

I've been reflecting lately on how much coming home to a messy house adds to my stress level. When I come home to a clean house, I can feel the stresses of my day evaporate. Needless to say, this is not the same experience I have when it isn't clean!

When it comes to keeping this house clean, we needed to set ourselves up for success. First criteria for success was that we needed a plan.  Second, we needed that plan to be simple and easy to achieve. Finally, it needed to be presented to me in a way that I could check it off. I just love to check things off!

So we needed... a cleaning chart! We've tried to do this before, but we didn't keep it simple. We each had a few chores each day and it was overwhelming. So we never did it. Not even for one day.

I was reading this post from Clean Mama the other day and loved her idea of only having one real chore to do each day. Seriously? I mean, I can do one chore each day, no problem.

Here's our cleaning chart.

Do you love it?? Whoever is home more that day has to do the chore. No ifs, ands or buts - we'll both be contributing to keeping the house tidy, and doing so without it being it a huge inconvenience.

Right now, we're almost one week in, and successful!! If you want a copy of my cleaning chart, just let me know and I'm happy to send it to you. I made one that just has lines and boxes if you want to fill in your own chores.

Wish us luck on our quest for a clean house!!

I'm linking to:
* The Girl Creative * Tea Rose Home * Creations by Kara * Seven Thirty Three * Someday Crafts * Today's Creative Blog * House of Hepworths * Skip to my Lou * 504 Main * Kuzak's Closet * Fun to Craft * My Repurposed Life *

Oh hey there, August.

I've been reading all these blog posts today that say things like "Where did August come from? It's too soon!"

I say, "Oh hey there, August. What took you so long??"

Maybe it's because we're going on vacation this month, or maybe it's because July was the craziest month ever, or maybe it's because in our non-air conditioned house we are one month closer to fall, but I am SO ready for August to be here.

July was busy! A month ago I was still up to my eyeballs in Summer Camp. I wasn't engaged. I didn't have a wedding date, venue, photographer or dress (AHH! I got a dress! Details coming soon!). July was a long, crazy month. And I'm glad it's over.

Hopefully August will bring me a little bit more free time to make some projects. My things-to-make-someday list is out of control. And Christmas is in less than 5 months. And Emily's birthday is in less than 5 days. Those of us who like to hand make presents don't love deadlines. Hurts the creative process.

Oh - and at some point I'd like to finish moving into this house. We went to the coolest cocktail party last weekend (thanks, Megan and Drew!). They moved in around the same time we did but their house is finished. As in, perfect. Things on the wall - no boxes in sight - looks like we've lived here forever - everything is painted - perfect.  That's what we're missing in this house... the feeling of finished. Realizing that I'm not sure your house is ever really complete, we could kick it up a notch and get some of the rooms painted, make the pillows I've been dreaming about and hang some pictures.

And school starts the 3rd week in August. For me. Classes two nights a week plus an online component (yes, online class for graduate school. Yes, it's ridiculous. Yes, it leaves me with one more free evening so I'm not going to fight it). I'm apparently just a glutton for punishment!

What has your life been like lately?

I have an addiction to planners.

I discovered my addiction to planners when I was in my freshman year of college. When I realized that I could stick multi-colored post-it notes on the pages of my new planner to create a whole new level of fabulous, I was hooked.

I've had multiple planners from Franklin Covey.  Originally, I loved having daily pages but over the past few years I've started to prefer a weekly view instead. I love extras - like birthday pages and stickers! This year I used the MyAgenda from MomAgenda, which I LOVED, but it isn't spiral bound and I miss that.

So.... here's what I'm planning to order this week:

Obviously a beautiful cover design is a MUST.  And the weekly pages look like this:

And there are stickers!!!!!

All images from Erin Cordren

So what do you think? Do you just LOVE this life planner? You get to put your name on the front to personalize it - would it be too much to put my "new" name on the front, even though about half a year will pass by before I have that new name?!?