media console lust

One of my favorite things to do on the weekends is swing by Starbucks for some coffee and then head over to Crate & Barrel to peruse the store.  Even though they don't swap out their merchandise all that often I still manage to come across things I haven't seen before.  And I always visit my favorite pieces of furniture and make sure they aren't a floor sample on sale.

Lately I have been lusting over a low, modern and long media console that would be perfect for our living room. Its beautiful. Pearson 72" Media Console, check it out. We currently have a console from Target, that while still in good shape and attractive is too small for our growing media equipment.  Last week we got a new surround sound system and we had to spill over onto a TV tray just to be able to hook everything up.  Its clearly time for a new piece.

The only problem with the Crate & Barrel console....its $1,400 bucks!  Yowza!  Our solution to this price problem?  Beg my talented and furniture making Dad to build us a look alike.  The design of the piece is relatively simple so it shouldn't be to terribly difficult.  Right?

Let the begging begin.  Meanwhile I will just visit and lust and pretend on my Saturday outings.

work life: slingshot video blog

A good portion of my life, and day, are devoted to my work life.  Because of this I thought I would start a new series about just that, work.  The new series is called "Work Life" and will feature snippets of info about my place of work, projects I am working on, industry news and hot topics, and other miscellaneous work related things.  To kick-off the series I am going to showcase my agency's new blog that debuted on Monday.

The blog is called Pushing Buttons.  Its all about checking out and reviewing the digital and interactive technology that is taking over our industry...and the world.

Slingshot (where I work) is a great shop full of digital thinkers and experts and this blog is the perfect place to get new information on mobile apps, mobile technology, the web and social media.  Put this on your RSS reader and pull up a chair because in the least its very entertianing.

So, no more words from me, I will let the blog speak for itself.

Stay tuned for more Work Life posts.

the all important wedding cake

A lot of things about our wedding were non-traditional, we liked doing things our own way and that didn't stop when it came to the wedding cake and the grooms cake cupcakes.

Our first priority was not how it looked but how it tasted.  Yes, surprise.  Taste was the # 1 factor.  I have been to so many weddings where the cake was beautiful but tasted like cardboard.  No thank you.  We tasted cakes at two different places to make sure we got the best cake possible.  And in the end we were very pleased.

After we got the yummy factor taken care of it was time to decide on the look.  Our overall wedding was fairly modern and simple with a small fall tree theme woven in.  That's exactly what we did with the cake.  Our wedding invitations served as inspiration and we kept a modern look with the bottom two tiers square and the top tier round.



We continued our DIY approach by making our own cake topper.  Chase and I wanted to re-create a tree trunk carving look so we dremeled our initials into a piece of wood and then torched it to make it look old and rustic.  The wooden cake stand was a butcher block my dad hand made.  Turned out perfect.



We decided on 3 flavors for our cake so to help educate the guests on their choices we made sure to display the flavors for all to see.



For the grooms cake we wanted to do something delicious and easy to eat.  Cupcakes.  Yes, I know.  Cupcakes as the grooms cake is all the rage but it fit for us.  We had red velvet and carrot cake.  To tie into our 'luckiest' clover history (our song is The Luckiest by Ben Folds and our symbol is a 4 leaf clover) we topped them off with green clovers. They were amazing.



The cake was the one thing I ended up being nervous about because I didn't have a chance to see it before the reception.  I had a nightmare that the entire cake would be completely wrong.  But it was perfect and I absolutely loved it!


Big thanks to Johnnie's Sweet Creations for making the cake and cupcakes.  You guys rocked!

the getaway car

When I was a little kid I would visit my Aunt and Uncle in Ada, Oklahoma for a couple weeks during the summer.  One of the best parts about the visit was cruising around town in their 1970's yellow Volkswagen convertible Bug named Bert.  He was so much fun to ride in and everyone always gave you envious looks because he was so damn cool.  So when we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do for our wedding exit naturally Bert came to mind.

The groomsmen did their part and dressed Bert up in Just Married decor.





We made our exit out of the reception venue amidst bubbles and hoots and hollers from our guests.



It was a chilly night in November but we wanted to ride in style with the top down, and at this point we were so giddy and high on having just been married we didn't even feel the cold.

My cousins were nice enough to stop drinking at the reception so they could safely drive us to our hotel.



It was the perfect way to ride off into our new married life together.  Thanks Bert.

the one day cleanse

About 4 months ago Chase came home from school (he is in Chiropractic school) with a bag full of ingredients for us to participate in a cleanse.  He was really excited about it so I got excited about it.

The cleanse is a 21 day process that involves shakes with cleanse, whey and fiber powder, cleanse pills, vegetarian diet, no caffeine and no alcohol.  The idea is to rid your body of harmful toxins and replace those toxins with healthy vitamins etc.  I knew my body could use it so I was in.

Well yesterday we started the cleanse and yesterday we quit the cleanse.  We made it one day. Woot!  After spending the evening sitting on the couch with massive stomach hunger pains, pounding headaches and a general feeling of yuckiness we made the decision that we were not mentally prepared nor did we have a good game plan for how to approach the cleanse.  We need to quit and come back to it when we are ready to attack it head on.

But, we are moving forward with eating healthier.  We bought a ton of fruit and veggies for the cleanse so our fridge is stocked with good foods.  We are also pledging to not drink during the week (except for special occasions) and we are going to try to eat vegetarian 2-3 times per week.  The one thing I am not giving up is my morning coffee.  The caffeine is what gets me moving with a positive attitude for the day. Gotta have it.

So, we will try this again in a couple months and I will make sure to let you all know.

officially over

Well Christmas and the holiday season is now officially over in our house.  We finished boxing up the rest of the decorations and hauled them into the attic just a few minutes ago.  It always makes me so sad.

The house looks so blah now that all the festive decor is put away.  BUT we did decide to do something fun with the largest Christmas decoration we had...our tree.

Yep, that's right.  We stuck it in the ground in our backyard.  It will probably stay green for a few weeks and the needles should stay on for a while.  Eventually we are going to grind it up and use it as mulch in the backyard.  Awesome huh!

Now I guess its back to normalcy.

jumping on this wordless wednesday thing

what a year

Its incredible how much time flies. Especially when you are busy with life changing events. 2010 really held some momentous occasions and was pretty intense and stressful at times but it was also a lot of fun. With another year gone Chase and I are looking forward to what 2011 has in store. But first lets take a quick look back at what made 2010 so great.

Dallas:
Technically we moved to Dallas at the very end of 2009 but we really didn't get settled until 2010 when we returned to Dallas from the holidays in OKC. We rang in the New Year with great friends and spent the next year trying to figure this big city out. Including trying to make our way through the streets and fight the crazy traffic.



House projects:
Much of 2010 was spent working on our first home together. Lots of small projects and some pretty big ones too, read Backyard Makover. We had a blast making our first house a home.



Travel:
While we didn't have any big vacations in 2010 we must have logged 100K miles driving back and forth between Dallas and Oklahoma City. We miss all our family and friends back in OKC so much we end up making the trek North pretty often. But it was worth it. I also managed to see both coasts this year...first in Oregon and then in North Carolina. That was pretty cool and both a first for me.



Sports:
One of the bonuses of living in Dallas is having several professional sports teams in town. Chase and I had fun going to Mavericks games, Rangers games and Cowboys game. Plus OU football team made an appearance in Dallas twice and we made sure not to miss those either. Oh how I love me some sports.



Jobs:
I started out 2010 in a new position after moving to Dallas. After working for that company for a year I figured out I missed the rush and energy of being in the Ad business so exactly one year to the day I started a new job at Slingshot LLC in the West End in downtown Dallas.

Wedding:
Obviously, by far, our wedding was the biggest thing to happen in 2010. I spent most of the year planning for it and it consumed pretty much every thought I had in 2010. We were married on November 20, 2010 and it was the best day of my life, let alone 2010. What a day. I will remember it for the rest of my life and 2010 will also be one of the best years.



So that rounds out the year. Lots happened and it was incredible but we are looking forward to another exciting, challenging, fun year in 2011.

Happy New Year!!