It's been a busy couple of weeks for our little house recently!  And really...I don't see it slowing down too much  anytime in the near future.  Sometimes staying busy is nice, especially when, for the most part, we're not really "busy" people [you know those people - that never seem to have a free minute and always have things going on.  we don't like to live that way...].  But it also can get to you after a while.

Recap - I was in Illinois for work last week.  Had a GREAT time.  Who knew you could like your co-workers SO much??  I love mine, and just wish I had the chance to work with them regularly!  I got back from there late last Thursday night, and Friday afternoon (after working 1/2 day) Brad and I took off for Green Bay to see -->

The Green Bay Packers at Lambeau!  If you follow football at all, Lambeau Field in Green Bay is a legendary venue.  We had a great time visiting some of Brad's relatives - spending time at the Pro Shop, and also getting to visit WG&R, which is owned by Brad's family.  More importantly, we visited August Haven, which is a new furniture store they just opened.  I wish I had pictures of the place, but the only one I can find on Google is this one -

Their furniture was just gorgeous.  I walked in and fell in love.  It's like a Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware all in one.  

We left Green Bay on Sunday morning at 3am, got home around 8:30am and both were at work by 9am.  Needless to say...Monday was a rough day and I am just now getting over a pounding headache that started that morning!

But, my exciting news is that we're going to NASHVILLE!  I found tickets on Southwest Air for $65 ONE WAY from Minneapolis.  So, for Brad and I to book flights there (from a Friday-Monday, no less!) it only cost $340 for both of us!  Seriously??  You can't hardly book one plane ticket for that cost, much less two!  

I found these awesome rates via Airfare Watchdog - I set up Instant Alerts and yesterday it popped up that they had super cheap tickets, so I told Brad about it last night and couldn't believe it when he said, "Let's book it" cause I am forever throwing things at the wall and seeing which ones stick (meaning, trips/flights)!  It will be my 30th birthday present, and I really can't think of a better way to celebrate than by visiting my favorite city!  

Funny thing is that I'm always trying to convince Brad that we need to move there, so last night we were getting ready for bed and I told him, "This will be the 3rd time we've been to Nashville in a year!  I bet it's a sign from the Lord that we're supposed to move there."  And quick as that, he responds, "Or it's a sign that we can live HERE and just visit there a lot."  UGH.  He always gets me on those little smart comments :)  

Oh, and because I always appreciate it when other people do this, here's some new songs for a workout playlist -- 

1.) We Found Love - Rihanna feat. Calvin Harris

2.) Beautiful People - Chris Brown

3.) Breathing - Jason Derulo

4.) Without You - David Guetta feat. Usher

Happy Hump Day!

the zumba report

Alright, I'm going to admit it - I loved Zumba.  Loved it.  And attending the class on Tuesday night definitely affirmed my belief that it's our generation's Jazzercise.  I say that nicely, for the most part :)  I was the youngest one in the class, first off, and while we were standing around waiting for it to start I was able to watch a 40ish year old woman warm up by doing her Zumba moves.  Then another woman came in, she was very pretty and probably in her late 40's?  Very pretty makeup, seemed very sweet and conservative....and kid you not, the woman came alive in the class!  I mean, hip-grinding, butt-shaking, nearly-lifting-her-shirt at one point (yes, seriously). Then there were a few senior citizens in the class, as well, which always makes you skeptical at the intensity in the class.

Overall, I had a blast dancing and felt that, while I didn't get an intensive workout, I got my heart rate up and actually had fun while doing it. If you like dancing, Zumba is a great class to check out.

Did anyone else watch Hart of Dixie on Monday night?

Holy cow, I am obsessed.  First....can we just talk about the fact that it takes place in a small town in the South?  Hello, my dream life.  Secondly....Rachel Bilson and her ridiculously adorable self and wardrobe.  Can I have her hair?  And pretty much everything she wears?  Thirdly...really looking forward to seeing how they play her relationships out with Wade (is that his name?  The bad boy?) and George (who was also in Friday Night Lights, aka Best Show Ever on TV).  The acting isn't going to win any awards, but it doesn't matter.  I'm in love.

Is it feeling like Friday to anyone else today???

dubious

Being that it's Fall [in fact, we should be hitting our peak colors here this weekend or next week.  Un-freaking-believable...] I'm due for a hair color change.  I've found that, in a small town, getting your hair done is so reasonably priced that I typically can go about 4 times a year for coloring.  Health of my hair aside...I usually go dark blonde in the spring and lighten it up even more in the summer, and in the fall I'm always drawn to warm, rich colors.  Except that I've dated/married a man who just really doesn't want me to go dark with my hair.  I've appeased him all these years except for one, and here's the proof:

That also happened to be my year abroad when we weren't dating :) 

My hair appointment is this Friday, and here's what I'm thinking --

This is a little darker than I would probably go, considering that she's got gorgeous olive skin and I have very fair, pale skin.  But I really like the rich color of it.

Here's one other option --

This girl is much more my coloring, and the hair is a shade or two lighter than what I would want.  But I like the warm honey color.

I think I'll take both pictures and see what my stylist thinks.  I'll make sure to post pics once it's done.

On an un-related note, I'm attending a Zumba class tonight.  I'm a little dubious just cause something about the Zumba craze reminds me of the Jazzercise craze...and we can all remember how popular that was with moms in the 90's.  The Zumba instructor is in my Spinning class and she said she sweats as much in Zumba as she does in Spinning, so that should mean something cause I sweat like crazy in Spinning.  Plus the dancing aspect sounds fun.  Here's to hoping it's not cheesy!

inspiration + photo dump

Happy Saturday! I cannot even begin to tell you how much I have loved the weekends lately. We have had amazing fall weather (even if it's been a little rainy, ick), so we've been having campfires, spending time outdoors, I've set up my fall decs, got my pretty red mums on the porch...as much as I hate seeing summer leave, this is my favorite season of the year and because it's SO short-lived up here, we try to take full advantage of it!

First piece of business. I've been on a re-decorating kick lately, mainly in my living room. It's mainly been a lot of warm earth tones the last couple years - oranges, tans, olives, etc - and I'm over it now. I want lots of black and cream with tan. I just think something about black and cream is so beautiful.

See below. I love so many things about this room...

via House Beautiful - you can check out the whole article here

See those black and white striped pillows on those chairs? From the moment I saw this picture in the magazine, I knew I needed to have them one day. Here's a closer shot:

I believe those pillows were from Ikea?  Seeing as how I'm 3 hours from the nearest Ikea, I found some very similar fabric at www.babybedding.com (funny, right?  No babies here, fyi).  Using some fabric pins (cause I don't sew), here's what I came up with:

My fabric is a gorgeous black+natural canvas, very thick yet easy to work with.  I haven't finished with the pillow yet, that's just to see what it would look like with one.  I may do a simple duck cloth pillow there, not sure just yet.  Oh - and yes, that is an ugly old chair I think I got for $10 that I covered with an ivory sheet.  I'm sure you can tell :)  Hey, you do what you can with what ya got, right??

And finally, here's some of my latest photos of myself...mainly cause I have realized that, within the last year or so, there's hardly any recent photos of me on Facebook.  Or anywhere, for that matter.  So I guess if something ever happens to me, Brad will have these stellar bathroom/bedroom self-portraits to remember me by.  

Okay, funny thing.  This is what my hair usually looks like:

[@ a county fair eating a chicken wing in my girlfriend's fiance's fry shack.  she was taking pics of me trying all the terribly horribly awful food her fiance makes...chicken wings, deep fried cookie dough, deep fried butter, etc etc]

Usually pretty flat and straight.  Boring.

So I've been on this teasing/volumizing kick.  Here was the first picture (sorry it's so dark).  

Um...hello, bed head/mushroom head/messy hair...

Here it is after a little taming....

Too bad it only looks like that about once a month, ha.  

Here's another recent one...wearing my LC Lauren Conrad shirt.  (Kohl's site is being goofy and can't link)

Well, I think that's it for photos.  I'm heading over to my town's Fall Fest, which is really just an outdoor craft fair on Main Street with fair foods.  But it's still fun, nonetheless.  

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Lauren Conrad for Kohls

Growing up, I swear that the only place my mom ever took me school clothes shopping to was Kohl's. As a result...I hate Kohl's now :) However, I had some time to kill earlier this week in the next town over (actually 45 min away, blech), so I decided to stop in to Kohl's and see what I could find.

Now...I knew Lauren Conrad (famous from MTV The Hills) was doing her own clothing line, and I totally blew it off as, "She's famous and rich, it will probably be crap like all the other celeb lines." Until I actually saw her little section in my Kohl's store.

Here's a few of my faves from her (Kohl's) website:

This fall I have noticed myself only wanting to buy ivory, rose, and gold tones. They're immensely flattering on any skin tone - especially a fading tan skin tone, so sad - and just feel so girly and pretty. I actually purchased the ivory blazer up there, and I'm wearing it now with a white v-neck and gold jewelry. It's classic. The tanks up at the top I could picture with some dark trouser jeans, or skinnies & flats (or under a black - or even better, ivory! suit coat - Annie!) Her dresses are also gorgeous and worth checking out.

Best part of her line...it's well-priced and seems to always be on sale!

side note pet peeve - why do the mannequins have no chest?? very odd.

perils of a small town

95% of the time, I love living in a small town. I love seeing people I know every time I go to the grocery store, post office or coffee shop. I love that getting anywhere takes 5 minutes at the most (for us, anyway, we live close to town). I love the rural setting, being able to leave your keys in the car and not worry (trying to break this habit, though...while we've never had anything happen, I know it's risky, ha!). My list of reasons why I love a small town are very long...

But yesterday challenged my love of this little town. I had a check I needed to cash at a bank that we don't bank at, so I asked Brad the night before to check and see when they opened. He told me they opened at 7:30. The next morning I drove to the bank early only to find out that the drive through doesn't open until 8:30. And closes at 4:30. Hm...that's convenient for stay-at-home moms and the elderly.

So then I decide to go get some coffee at our local coffee shop. The only coffee shop in town. I wait in line and order an Iced Coffee that came to a couple bucks. I hand the woman my card, and she says, "Oh...we actually have a $5 minimum for cards now." Well, I didn't have any cash (and I really never carry cash) so I said, "Okay, you can cancel my order, thank you" and she goes, "Oh, we'll take care of it today and the next time you come in we'll charge you for it." So they did end up giving me my drink, but I can't even tell you how frustrating the "minimum charge" is. I understand that credit card companies are robbers to their merchants with their charges, but hello, that is the cost of doing business! And at a coffee shop, most of the time your purchases don't come quite to $5. (Plus, I would like to add that, per most credit card companies, setting a "minimum charge amount" is a violation of policy and can be reported by consumers). Anyway, I visit this place a lot and I rarely have cash, so that leaves me in a pickle.

And then the final thing yesterday that caused me to roll my eyes was when I called to make a nail appointment at a local hair salon and every day that I requested, the nail tech left by 1:30. Um...most people are working during those hours and I'm afraid my boss might frown on me leaving work to go get my nails done.

Which is why I'm trying with all my might to talk Brad into moving to Nashville.

starving

a girlfriend of mine recently decided to do a juicing fast for about 7-10 days, and she would randomly put updates on facebook about how it was going. I decided it was a great idea, but Ididn't have a juicer. last Sunday night, though, Brad and I were at his parents house and I remembered that his Mom had a juicer (side note, his mom beat ovarian cancer 6 years ago by doing all natural treatments in Mexico at a clinic that wasn't FDA approved - no money in it, ha - and it included doing lots and lots of juicing). I asked if I could borrow it, and a few hours later I was at Wal Mart picking out tons of fruit and veggies.

At first I thought I would juice exclusively for 3 days, but after almost wrecking on the drive home from work due to extreme hunger, I decided to just juice for breakfast and lunch and eat salads for dinner.

That lasted for 2 days. So now I'm juicing breakfast and lunch and eating veggies and fruits in between whenever I get hungry. I'm not gonna lie...I don't feel any better. Maybe it's cause I'm still drinking a cup of coffee in the morning? I don't know. Maybe it takes a while to see the benefits of it, who knows. All I know is, I'm starving most of the time, and when I'm starving, I'm cranky.

In other news, my sister-in-law got married a couple weeks ago! She was a beautiful, beautiful bride. Here's a picture of me, Marie (the bride), my sister-in-law Leah (brown hair) and Brad's Mom, and also Halle, Leah's daughter (the flower girl. She was my flower girl, too!)

picture via Wonderful Life Photography

I would like to add, I had approximately 7 minutes to get ready for this picture (I did all the photos besides the ceremony & family/wedding party photos), hence the icky hair! I did not wear it like that for the wedding :)

summer

this summer has been busy....so to keep it simple, here's a breakdown of life right now:

home - spending a lot of time on my own these days. Brad is working 60-70 hours a week right now, and to be perfectly honest...it sucks. Such is the nature of finishing up a home by a deadline, though. When he is home, we're grilling out lots, eating a lot of fruit & sweet corn, keeping up with yardwork (which consists of two piddly little plants and my hydrangea bushes) and playing with Bo.

work - I've been given the challenging task of taking over the company's eBay store and re-working spreadsheets for a catalog. It's both rewarding and frustrating...thankfully, I can spend my lunch hours lounging on my boss's family pontoon on their lake! [oh, and talking to one of my girlfriend's who happens to be working for his family this summer as a nanny].

work out - my current schedule is Mon - step interval class, Tues - yoga, Wed - spin, Thurs - cross training (whatever I feel like doing), and then I just workout on the weekend as I feel like it. I'm contemplating running the Medtronic 10 Mile in Minneapolis in October, IF I can get into it via their lottery system. We'll see...oh, and my spinning class is going good. I had some initial complaints the first time I took it cause, even though I generally like the instructor, the man does NOT have an ear for workout music. He has a knack for playing the slowest, most un-motivating songs during the hardest part of the workout. Thankfully he was open to using my own mix last week!

summer plans - it's so sad, Brad has worked SO much lately that we haven't done anything this summer! This weekend we're going to the rodeo in the next town over cause one of our favorite bands is playing at the dance afterwards, next weekend is Brad's sister's wedding, which should be a TON of fun! We'd love to get to Minneapolis one of these weekends coming up, and I'm sure that August will give us more opportunities to be out and about. Oh, and our 2 year anniversary AND Brad's birthday is in the same week in August! Definite cause to celebrate.

Finally...my current favorite:

Food - brussel sprouts & sweet potato fries

Song - anything by Ellie Goulding

Obsession - the Casey Anthony trial (still in shock over it, really interested to see how her life pans out)

Summer drink - Absolut Ruby Red & Tonic w/ a splash of lime

So...until next month! [kidding...sort of]

twitter

I joined Twitter about a year ago, I think. I'm not an active user, it was mainly to just keep up more with some of the bloggers that I love to read and also some interesting celebs, or whatever (I was following reporters at the Casey Anthony trial, which was really informative). I never expected much from it, it was just a time waster, basically.

But today I deleted my account cause I just got fed up with it. I suppose, like with anything, in order to build relationships with the people you follow/that follow you, you have to give them something to work with. I get it. I didn't Tweet a ton because, first of all, there's just not that many things to Tweet about in my life! Secondly...I noticed that some of my favorite bloggers, would Tweet all.day.long. And while I've been teased by some of my "backwoods friends" (Brad's friends, mainly) for being on my phone a lot (cause they all have the old-school flip phones that only make calls...sad that those are considered 'ancient' these days!), I couldn't ever imagine myself Tweeting as often as some other people did. And unfortunately, I think that was what contributed to my frustration. I would Tweet someone randomly (NOT a celebrity, mind you, just a blogger) a question, compliment, etc and be TOTALLY ignored. I can only guess that cause I didn't Tweet a hundred times a day what I was doing, what I was wearing, pictures of people in the store, links to stuff I wanted/bought, etc, that I was just overlooked.

The straw that broke the camel's back though was when a well-known blogger who is currently on a huge health kick (which is NOT a bad thing) re-tweeted a link about how sausage is really made. Okay....number one, I eat sausage. Not a lot, but I do. Number two, not everyone is on your health kick and only eats farmers market organic produce and no meat cause it's not "compassionate". I happen to like sausage and no, despite your Tweet saying "everyone needs to know how it's made" - NO WE DON'T. If we wanted to know, we would go look for ourselves. I got frustrated about this and Tweeted as much, and then realized....I don't even like Twitter. Most days I read what people write and get so annoyed at their pettiness (which I am not without, it just annoys me to read the gall that others have. I know I'm guilty, too), their materialism, and their ideals that they want others to have, it just ruins the whole experience for me.

So, I did what everyone always says to do: If you don't like it, don't read it. So I deleted my account. Yes, I will miss a handful of people's Tweets. I realize I could've just un-followed people. But I just wanted to be done with the whole thing.

I will miss Clay Mathews tweets, though.

No better city

When I lived abroad in Stockholm for a year, my Swedish family sent me to Paris for my 26th birthday, for a little weekend trip. I had met a delightful fellow au pair online who was living in Paris at the time, and she offered to host me for the weekend and show me the city.

I am here to tell you, Paris is like no other city you will ever, ever go to. It oozes beauty, romance, history, art...even on a short, budgeted weekend trip I felt the city. I spent two weeks in Thailand and two weeks in Bali, Indonesia and truthfully have fewer memories of those places than I do of my 3 days in Paris.

Here's a couple pictures for you of my time there:

[city hall]

[Eiffel Tower at night]

[Again, Eiffel Tower...it is breathtaking]

[Connie - my friend/host took this...I ate a million pain au chocolats that weekend]

With all that being said....I'm writing this in hopes that I'll win a 7 day trip to Paris with my love. Oh Happy Day! is hosting a contest to win a trip to my favorite city, and gosh dang it, I want to win.

You too can enter, even though it decreases my amazing (haha) odds of winning.

http://ohhappyday.com/2011/06/goes-to-paris/

Weekend!

And I've got some randoms for ya....

1 - I got some V-neck tees at Target last week (cause I only wear V-necks, HATE crews) and oh.my.gosh....I'm ready to buy a hundred more! I'm amazed at the incredible softness of them. Best part is that they're only $8.

2 - I have a new favorite summer drink: Absolut Ruby Red with Tonic and a lime. My "old faithful" summer drink was Bacardi Limon with Sprite, but my new drink has a little bit of a bite to it, which I love.

3 - I FINALLY got a folding lawn chair! You know, those cheap plastic tri-fold ones? I wanted one last summer, but of course could not find one in all of this town (and I went to every possible store that would carry them). So when I saw them at Target last week I snapped one up, and I can't wait to lay out on it! [the little things, right?]

4 - I love my job. I love the work, I love my boss, I love the people I work with (Mel!), I have never loved a job in my life, so this is a very good thing!

5 - Is anybody else following the Casey Anthony trial? I've mentioned it a few times on Twitter. For some reason, I've gotten really sucked into it and have been listening to the trial live all this last week. I think it's very clear that she did it, especially if you take time to read case docs that detail the way she lived her life after Caylee went missing, and even just watching Casey during the trial...if your daughter actually drowned and you had to bury her, you'd think you'd show emotion, which she hasn't done at all. And, her defense team is really not doing her any favors, they're terrible.

6 - I had gotten pretty excited about the idea of running a half marathon, but because it's such an extreme amount of training/running and I actually really like running right now, I think I'm going to wait until a later one, or wait til the time feels right. I want to join a fitness class at my gym, and maybe find other forms of working out. If I were to train for a half, I'd be spending all that time running and truthfully, I'm ready for a change-up in my routine!

7 - If you're big in working out and you're not taking yoga, I highly recommend it. My yoga class has strengthened my core and I've definitely noticed a difference from it.

....and I think that's it.

We have chairs, people!

For the last three (three) years, Brad and I have been doing the unfortunate eat-in-front-of-the-TV move because in this little house we live in, we do have a dining room but it's about twice the size of our bathroom. And our bathroom is what my good friend Dan would call a "shoilet" - basically a shower with a toilet. It's way, way small. So that makes our dining room way, way small as well. And on top of having a postage-stamp sized dining room, we didn't even have chairs for our dining room table. Hence, we ate in front of the TV.

One thing we do have in this cute little rental that I love dearly and will be sad to move from, is a back porch enclosed with windows. When I first moved into the house, we spent a lot of time painting every room and making the little house a home. Needless to say, the ugly back porch didn't get a lot of attention that year. Or the next, or the next. Until this weekend!!

I set out on the long task of painting the windows white. If you ever feel like you need a very justifiable reason to stab your eyeballs out with pencils, just paint a couple tiny window panes and you'll be grabbing for pencils in no time! Thankfully my sweet husband rescued me at the right moment - the "Just SCREW it, I don't need this porch finished anyway!" - and helped me finish painting the whole room. [For the record, he is usually GREAT about helping me with house projects. But he hates painting, and further, I'm terrible at starting a million things that I take forever to finish, so....]

Anyway - I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

BEFORE

This top photo is how the whole room looked - wood walls and tan windows. The bottom photo is how the initial progress on the windows on the opposite wall.

AFTER

The chairs I ended up finding at an antique store in town, literally because they were the only place I could go to find a set of 4 chairs. How's that for no options?? But honestly, I love them! They're antique wooden folding chairs, and the shop owner figured they date back to the '20's. They're also pretty sturdy and have a rustic patina to them that fits with the light tones in the room.

Needless to say, I love it out there now! It's so nice to sit out there and eat dinner and have a glass of wine with the windows open.

I'm on my own tonight as Brad's out fishing, so I'm going to finish my glass of wine and get crackin' on the laundry!

10k!

The 10k was this morning, and it went GREAT! My official time was 59:47 (even though the clock said 59:55?) and I couldn't have been happier with it. I was so dang nervous, even up until the 3rd mile (which let me say is a really uncomfortable feeling - breathing hard, legs hurt and you want to puke for nerves) cause I was just so worked up over the hills. Maybe I mentioned it, but there's not many hills in my town to train on, or at least, they weren't a part of my training program!

The first three miles of the course was pretty much uphill - there were a few short hills, and one LONG MUTHA OF A HILL that I couldn't even look up at, I just had to keep my head down and push push push. But the last three....all downhill! At one point I thought to myself, "If I hit a patch of gravel, it will not be pretty" cause it was pretty steep in certain areas. So, even though I'm so proud of my time, I'm pretty sure that were it not for those hills, I would've finished a little more around 1:02 or 1:03. But either way...my own two legs carried me across that finish line and you take your advantages where you get them, right??

Here's a picture of my "cheering section" - my husband, Brad, me, my father in law, mother in law, and my good girlfriend, Bobbie. It's so great to see people cheering for you at the end!

I also have to send a big CONGRATULATIONS to my friend Mike, who is the husband of my friend Annie over at Little Running Feet. He finished the Fargo Marathon today in 2:55, which is really, really, ridiculously amazing!

stationery

I'm a Minted addict. Seriously. If money would've been no issue for our wedding, I would've done every.single.printed item in letterpress on heavy cardstock paper. I dream of throwing parties and getting personalized invitations, of one day sending out sweet family Christmas cards, and am always on the lookout for pretty stationery.

I was browsing Minted today when I came across this stationery:

[front]

[back]

Holy me on a piece of paper. Black & Cream....stripes....a little bit of French "just a little note"...some cursive & print. I love it!

nerves

As I've mentioned before (about a million times), my first 10k is coming up this weekend. Want to see ALL the information I have on it? Yep, it's this little teeny ad right here. They also threw in a map of the course, which looks like something Columbus used to navigate his way into America. Really, no street names?? Odd. That's a small town for you.

Anyway, I definitely know that I'm prepared for it. I've ran (almost) the full distance, done a lot of running and training the past few months, and yet I'm still terrified that the day of the race I just.....won't be able to run it? I don't know what I'm worried about! But I almost get sick with nerves when I think of it.

One thing that I think is throwing me is that there's a couple hills in there, and I really haven't trained on hills at all, as we just don't have many in our town. Map My Run has a great feature that will tell you the climbs on your run, how long they are, the incline in feet, the grade of the hill, etc. And the biggest hill I'm worried about is truthfully not that big, but still. I'm worried.

I'm going to do my 3 mile run tonight on some hills in a more remote part of town, which I always hate cause it's road running and you just never know what crazies you might run into. BUT I carry mace so that helps me feel better.

Any advice for a 10k first-timer??

shopping!

I'm on lunch, so this will be quick!

This weekend my mother-in-law and I went to visit my sister-in-law since all the men were out of town. It was a fun weekend spent with Brad's family, and it (again) reminded me how thankful I am to be close to my in-laws, especially my mother-in-law.

So, here's the damage, 1st at Target:


I am obsessed with these shirts! I have to say, the website pictures never do the clothes justice. But anyway, these are the Mossimo Military Tunic in Pebble & Black, and yes I DID buy them in both colors. I bought them both cause I really couldn't decide which one I liked better, and as soon as I got home I knew I would have to keep them both. They're a lightweight silky material, fit like a dream, and can be dressed up or dressed down. I wore the Pebble yesterday tucked into black skinny's (skinnies? Anyway, promise it was cute) with my gladiator sandals that are the same color. Oh, and I also don't button it up that high, and wore a thin white tank underneath.

Also bought this shower curtain, which I love. The picture, again, does nothing for it. I recently painted our bathroom off-white, so this complements it well. I'm going to accent with the Robin's Egg Blue that's in the curtain, should be pretty!

Finally, I bought these two shirts from American Eagle (on sale for $10!):


If you know me, you know I am absolutely, completely, fully, ridiculously obsessed with big navy stripes. Brad rolls his eyes when I buy shirts that are navy/white striped now cause I already have so many of them! But they're my favorite. Anyway, these shirts are a perfect summer-y thin material, and I actually bought them to wear as a swimsuit cover-up. Sure, I'll wear them other places, but I loved the deep V-neck, the looseness and the gauzy material. Just felt like the lake to me!

I also bought a couple Old Navy tanks that they actually came out with last year that I LOVED - seriously, they're amazing layering tanks. Kind of a heart shaped neckline, deep v-neck (I also am all about V neck and rarely wear crew neck), and have thin lace straps (which I'm usually not a fan of but for some reason I don't mind these). But they brought them back this year and I added white & gray to my collection.

And finally I bought a new white Nike Cotton Dri-Fit tank. Best workout shirts, in my opinion!

Speaking of workout, I did a 6 mile run yesterday! Okay - technically it was 5.97 miles which really chapped me cause I had mapped out 6 miles, but I took a shortcut so I wouldn't have to run on a busy highway (downside of living in a small town and on a busy highway, it's hard to map out long distance runs that avoid them), but it ended up cutting the run short about .25 miles. Anyway, my legs got tired, but my breathing/endurance felt good to the point that I wasn't even winded when I finished. My pace was between 9:30-9:58, and while I'm sure I slowed down some on my own, the wind was absolutely wicked yesterday and running on an open highway (on a running path, thankfully) didn't help it at all. My knee is a little sore today, which concerns me some since my 10k is this Saturday. But I think I only run once this week, per my Hal Higdon plan, so that should help.

Okay, this was MUCH longer than I planned, so I obviously need to blog more, ha!

lonely nights...

well, it's about that time of year when the work starts rolling in (on overload - Brad thankfully has work all year!) and I don't see my husband too much. The last couple weeks he's been working until 8 or 9 on weeknights and also on Saturdays. While I am so very thankful for the income, it's not only tough to not see him often, but it also is pretty stinky sitting at home every night by myself. I usually spend my evenings at the gym or running, and then I come home and make dinner, do some laundry or dishes, and then hang out on the couch until he gets home. Yep. Lonely.

Anyway...here's a couple pictures from the last month. These were take at an photography studio's Open House here in town. The first one is of my mother in law, sister in law, and myself, and the second one is what I've dubbed my "Realtor Shot" cause it reminds me of the photos you see of Realtors on billboards, haha ;)

In other news, my 10k is in 2 weeks from tomorrow! I'm pretty nervous. I didn't run much this week, maybe a total of 7 or 8 miles? I'm planning to do a long run tomorrow - 5.5 miles. Next week I'll do my 6 miler!

Oh! I also just finished this book:

I really liked it. Maybe it's cause there's Southern in my blood, but I loved the story of Skeeter and Aibileen. Now, for me personally....I felt like this book was a little un-finished, but I'm also the girl that loves Christian romance novels cause I love the finality of them! But, that was just my personal opinion and my literary views are nothing to take seriously.

Well, shouldn't be too long before Brad is home, so I'll wrap it up. Happy Friday!

inspiration

my 10k is in one month....I'm excited, and confident that I'll be able to finish strong. but even in my knowing I'll be okay, I still get nervous. Thank you, Nike, for fueling my fire to keep on!

sun + love

my silly sister captured these pictures of me and Brad this weekend.

Love him and love these pictures! [even though they're definitely not my most flattering photos and he's wearing a hat - aka he needs a haircut]