Sneak preview of the Living Room - because I need your advice!

Ok - you're getting a sneak preview of the living room way before I was ready to post pictures.... because I need your advice!

We ordered this rug from Overstock (my very favorite website ever, as you know) and it got here yesterday:

We got the rectangle one, not the round one.

It's pretty... the colors aren't my very favorite ever in person (they're actually a little prettier in the picture) but I like it, and it's here in my living room and I have no idea what other rug we would put there so I think it's ok.

Here's my question - is the orientation below weird? I feel like it should be "horizontal" in the room instead of vertical, but it seems to fit a little better this way. What do you think - should we keep searching for a new one, or does it look ok? (Note: please ignore the clock still in its packaging and the various lamps / wall art that obviously haven't found a home yet - it's only been two weeks!)

                            See what I mean? Should it go the other way (more horizontal, like the couch)?

                            

I'm not sure these are great pictures... but what do you think?

The past few days...

I can't believe how long it's been since I've updated - totally embarrassed by my lack of blogging updates!  Here's what I've missed:

Wednesday - Long day at work followed by a Junior League volunteer training night.  Meeting was, well, a meeting. Drinks afterwards with some friends was very fun!!

Thursday - Another long day at work.  We did a few things around the house and then went to visit my friend Ashley and her husband John. They graciously donated a microwave to our new house. We re-payed them with some garden tools and beer! We had yummy pie and stayed WAY too late for a work night.  But it was just so much fun!

Last night, Josh and Alicia, friends from college, came to see the house.We had tickets to the Reds game, which would have been significantly better if it had been ANY other night of this week - it was so cold last night! Still had fun though...

Go Reds!

We sat just above this outfielder guy. He did this the entire game. Like seriously - he did nothing.

Zac & Josh

Reds had a Grand Slam in the bottom of the 8th - which is how they beat the Cubs when they had no business doing so.

Yes, it was really that cold...

Today the Junior League hosted Kids in the Kitchen, a project focused on combating childhood obesity. Erika, Erin and I rocked out at the seed planting station. The event was awesome - we saw more than 1000 kids, and at the end of it, we felt like we'd been run over by those 1000 kids!

  The Seed Planting crew in action

The event- before it got too busy to take pictures!

Erika and me

Our station - before the kids came, wrecked havoc, used ALL the supplies and left again!

Not much left planned for this weekend... finishing a quilt for my friend Alison, who runs an AMAZING non-profit called Bake Me Home. She and her 8 year old twin daughters provide "home" items to women and their children leaving domestic violence shelters, and also have a new venture baking soldiers back home.  They are so awesome, and have a fundraiser coming up on April 24!

Other than that... might take advantage of the 2-for-1 mulch special at Home Depot and trying to get a hold of how to start "couponing." More on that later!

Hope you're having a great weekend!

Easter Festivities

We went to Dayton to visit my family for Easter this year. The weather was GORGEOUS, which is why these pictures look more like we're on vacation than hanging out in Dayton!

The Bonistall girls + one Donaldson girl

This year, my mom staged our first ever (don't judge) Easter Egg Hunt. Since there aren't any kids in our family under the age of 20, she bribed us all to play by putting $20 in one of the eggs.  Needless to say, the Easter Egg Hunt idea became significantly more fun (for me at least) when I found the "special egg!"

Don't judge my creepy white sunglasses - I can't find my other (more subtle) ones!!

Lots of good food, fun to spend time with my family.  If you've ever hung out with the Bonistalls, you know that if nothing else, it will be a whole lot of fun. Most of the credit for that goes to my youngest sister, Beth, who is the funniest/most ridiculous/should be locked away person you'll ever meet. In a good way. She, for those of you who don't know her yet, is the tall beautiful one who looks like she's 5 years older than me. 

Hope you had a nice family celebration, or at least had weather like we did!

The first grill-out...

We were SO excited to try out our new grill tonight. We had zucchini from our "Happy Box" to grill, potatoes from the box last week to make potato salad, and some chicken to tie it all together.

Got home tonight, and the weather map looked like this:

YIKES!

Zac wasn't going to be deterred however, and we went ahead as planned. This is the best picture I could get for you, and it's out the side door.  Note, this is not where the grill usually lives, it's where the grill lives during a tornado watch.

Seriously, isn't he darling??

During this grilling process, I said: "Zac, do you read my blog?"  His quick response: "Baby, I live your blog." Point taken!

I also need to do a shout out for my most favorite candles ever. My mom went to the flea market by Jesus (if you aren't from Cincinnati, that probably sounds strange, but everyone around here knows what I'm talking about) and bought a case, and I stole some of hers...

Yum... the hot pink one is watermelon and smells just like a jolly rancher. If you come visit this summer, our house will smell delicious.  I don't think you can order them through their website, so if you want some, you'll have to take a trip to the flea market by this guy:

Yes, it's real. Yes, I pass it every time I go to visit my parents.

Happy rainy night... hope the rest of the week treats you well!

Easter Candy Break

I'm taking a quick break from working to munch on some Easter candy (thanks Mom!) and since I'm day-dreaming about this, thought I'd give you a sneak peak of what will soon be living on my Family Room floor...

(It's a rug)

If you hate it, don't tell me quite yet.  We searched SOOO long for a contemporary looking rug that wasn't striped or checkered or a million dollars.  We found this on Overstock (my most favorite place to buy things - like, I'm in their "you spend a lot of money so we'll give you perks" club. For real) and I think it's really cool looking...

I don't have any fancy photo editing programs, so here's what I could do in Publisher.  It at least sort of shows you what it might look like. New pillows and paint on the walls is definitely on tap for the near future...

More pictures of the house coming soon!!

Quick Update

Just a quick update about what's going on around here.  First, thank you to my wonderful grandparents for these beautiful housewarming flowers:

I LOVE the polka dot pinwheel! 

Friday we went to a really cool biergarten in our neighborhood (we walked! Yay!) and hung out with some of our new neighbors for happy hour. It was a lot of fun, and cool to meet some new friends.  Afterward, we came home and made a really yummy dinner (chicken with bacon and feta and rice with red peppers and asparagus. Yum!) and did some more unpacking. This whole unpacking thing is losing its appeal... fast.

Saturday I went to the first meeting of the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild. Heather, who runs a blog called Olive and Ollie that you will definitely want to visit, organized the meeting.  Here's a sneak peak:

It was a lot of fun, and there will definitely be more exciting things to come from this group.  Funny story - my mom has a friend whose daughter lives in Cincinnati and is also a quilter and they've been trying to introduce us for years.  Guess who was sitting in front of me at the meeting, without even planning it?! Yep - Amy!  Our moms, needless to say, were thrilled at the way fate just threw us together...

More to come soon... my parents gave us a grill for a housewarming present that we're planning to inaugurate tonight, so more pictures coming soon!

Oh - and it's Opening Day in Cincinnati, with warm temperatures and sunny skies. Let's go Reds!

An update on the Soph...

Nothing like posting one blog post right after the other to make up for a week of not blogging!

Side note: I can't believe this is my first post about my cat. I realize you may not be a cat person, but humor me now and then. She does A LOT of funny things, and likes to pose in strange positions for pictures.  And she's pretty cute.

Sophie (our cat) is was sort of mean. Well, more accurately, like really really mean to everyone except Zac and me. Especially my mom - she and my mom just do not get along!

Since we've moved, she's become a different cat. No hissing at strangers, just too busy loving everything about her new digs.  She's snuggly and sweet and just plain not mean.  Strange!

So yeah. Her new life is obviously really tough:

Yeah, tough. And after she spends time doing that, she moves on to do this:

Check out that sweet cat toy I made by having no where else to put her toy and thus hanging it from the curtain rod that doesn't have curtains.  I am so DIY this week.

More this weekend - but probably not 4 posts at once this weekend! Oh - I am heading to the first meeting of the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild, so I'll definitely give you an update about that! I'm excited to meet Heather, who I've been emailing about the event, in person. Her blog, Olive and Ollie is definitely worth checking out!

My affair with Value City Furniture

The title of this post should actually read "My love hate love ok-with affair with Value City Furniture."

I bought this couch from VCF with my college graduation money.  It was great in our house in Lexington, but when we moved to Cincinnati, we didn't have enough room for it in the condo, so we sold it.  When we bought our new house, the couch went on serious sale, and we thought it would be a great idea to buy it again for the new house.  Admittedly, sort of weird.

We were supposed to pick it up in the morning that we moved, and stick it in the truck with the rest of our stuff. Three days before, VCF called and told me that the couch wouldn't be available on Friday because it was back-ordered until mid-May.  I'm sorry - what?!?

After my initial shock gave way to blinding rage, I tweeted about my current feelings and my unhappiness with VCF.  Within 10 minutes, someone from their corporate office saw my tweet and sent me a message asking what they could to help.  Nice!

The corporate customer service people were really helpful, and long story short, we got to choose a new couch that cost more and got it delivered for free, all without paying any more money.  Not a bad deal!

Moral of the story - the corporate customer service people at Value City Furniture are AWESOME.  The staff at the Covington store are not so awesome, and while I would definitely shop at VCF again, I probably won't go to the NKY store again. 

So... here is a picture of the new couch, which, coincidentally, gives you a sneak preview of the living room!

Couch color is great, but doesn't go well with the walls, so they'll be repainted at some point....

Thanks, Clare!

Thank you to my friend Clare H. for these beautiful housewarming flowers!! They are even lovelier in real life!

Our new home - THE KITCHEN!

Hi everyone! People have been asking for pictures of the new house, so as it becomes unpacked, I'll share it room by room!

Here are some pictures of the first room that was unpacked - the kitchen! Believe it or not, this kitchen is about three times the size of the kitchen we had in the condo. My mom came on Saturday and helped me unpack, and my friend Ashley stopped by to help as well (bringing the coolest gift basket - thanks Ashley!).  

I wish I had some before pictures, because it was a hot mess of boxes and stuff.  It took us about 7 hours start to finish, which is ridiculous! It ended up being a logic puzzle of sorts... if this goes here, this will fit here, but then there's place for this. We finally found the perfect solution, and this is our final product!

How much do you love the wood ceiling and skylight??

Sink - eventually we'll replace with a deeper one, because this one is really shallow.

Beautiful tulips that came in our Farm Fresh Delivery box this week as a surprise! I'll do a separate post on FFD, but if you live in Cincinnati, you HAVE to sign up - and not just because I get a discount if you say I referred you!!

Our new solution to not having enough drawer space was to create this cute canister. You can buy one, but we had an extra canister with a top lying around, so we pried off the lid and created this.

A few through the "window" into the dining room.

View from the cabinet side. Yeah, that 70's squash gold radiator is hot.  May get painted over soon... 

The kitchen is pretty great - not too much that we want to do.  The blue color is brighter and more teal in person than it is in the pictures, so we'll probably repaint.  In a perfect world, we'll paint the cabinets (based on instructions from Jenny at one of my new favorite blogs, Anything Pretty), replace the counter tops and get a deeper sink. Nothing urgent - more of a wish list for when we have some extra time and money around (which is likely - oh wait, nope, not at all).

Hope you like it... more rooms coming soon!