Weekend Recap

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Sorry for the late post, friends...but I am just now hooked up to the series of tubes (haha) called the internet.  

Guess what?  

Any guesses?  Yes?  

Yeah, that's right.  WE FINALLY MOVED IN!!!

We're homeowners livin' in a home, enjoying every last bit of it.  

The weekend was great.  We had our closing on Friday, which took less than an hour and we immediately moved in after.  With the help of our awesome family, it took an hour to unload our moving truck!  Can you believe that?  I'm still having a hard time believing it.  Some highlights of one of the best weekends ever include ::

• Closing + the best feeling in the world
• Moving in in an hour, obviously a highlight
• Having everyone over to check the house out + hang out
• Waking up in our new house
• Mowing the yard - it was my first time and I gotta admit I liked it *
• Unpacking
• Bringing Gus home - it was love at first sight for the little guy
• Saturday w/friends, pizza, beer and oldies
• Sunday dinner with the fam - I've missed this kind of stuff and I'm so happy to be able to get together with everyone whenever we want! If only MY family could move here :)

So many things about this house make me so so so so very happy.  It's quiet out here.  The only sounds we really hear are cicadas and crickets and things.  It's the complete opposite of our life in Chicago, especially because we lived on a very busy street and right next to a bar.  At one point in the night, my husband got up to use the bathroom and looked out the window to see the biggest deer walking around in our yard.  Until we have vegetables planted** I can say that having deer in our yard is freaking awesome.  

Today the internet/tv was set up and tomorrow our brand new washer and dryer arrives.  I am so giddy with all the excitement, I feel like I could explode with happiness any moment!  

How were your weekends? I'd love to hear!  Also, if there is a radio silence from my end, do not worry. We're busy bees unpacking, arranging and painting, oh my!

* It was my first time mowing because growing up my mom and brother loved it too much to ever ask me to do it

** We'll get a fence, don't you worry.

Have an amazing weekend!

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Holy donkeys, we're going to be this couple by days end!  I can't hardly believe it!  Perhaps because it's been a long time coming. Perhaps it's because we have been sweating it for the last few weeks and thought it might not even happen at all.  But patience has paid off and we are finally closing this evening.  So now it's FINALLY time to let the fun begin and the stress can melt away.

These past few days have been good for the soul.  We've been staying with family which is always nice. We've been fed, pampered and have really felt the love.  My days have been spent poolside, which couldn't be a better way to de-stress from the most stressful point in my life ever.  Seriously - this has all been like the few weeks leading up to your wedding...times ten.  

This weekend our plans consist of moving, settling and drinking.  Sounds good, right? What's on your plates?

Last, a BIG HUGE THANK YOU to my special guest bloggers!  I can't tell you how much I appreciate each and every one of your posts.  You guys are the best.

Have an amazing weekend, everyone!

*PS - I decided to pass on my weekly Friday's Fancies post this week because of all the madness, but I'll hopefully have a great one for you next time!

Weekend Recap + Goodbye, Chicago!

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The time has come...we're packing up our lives and headed south for a new adventure.  After living in boxes for the last few weeks, we've reached our breaking point!  I can't wait to see what lies ahead for us Badgers, and I'm so blessed to have you all along for the ride.

Chicago, you've sort of treated me well.  You introduced me to some amazing people, including my husband.  You scratched that big city itch I've had my whole life.  You allowed me to finish college at a pretty rad school.  But you also treated me in ways to be expected. Money, money, money.  That's all you think about.  How can I take her money.  You know I'm right.  Oh and those winters can kiss those dreams of making me miserable goodbye. Chicago, the time has come to say farewell.

In other news, our weekend was a decent one.  Nothing too eventful but good nonetheless.  Some highlights include ::

• Friday night dinner + games with awesome friends
• Brunch at Revolution
• Record shopping
• Breaking Bad (holy cliffhanger!)
• Packing, donating, packing, beer, packing
• Unexpected girls hangout at this lovely brand new Logan Square establishment*
• Natural Born Killers (just a great movie to watch right before bed after you've had cheese)

See? None too eventful.  But that don't matter, cause this week will be enough to make up for it.  Eesh, wish us luck!

How were your weekends? I'd love to hear!

I've decided to take some blogger time off this week to do some adjusting to our new lives.  But never fear, awesome Chicago bloggers are here! All week, as a matter of fact.  So get excited!

* I will miss Logan Square terribly.  Especially in summer.  But not in winter.

Thursday Randoms

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Well.  Today is supposed to be the day we pack up our moving truck.  But notice...I'm still here.  Yesterday we received some bad news from the bank.  We weren't going to be able to close on Friday because some forms needed to be rerun.  So now it's looking like next week for the move/closing and both of us are completely heartbroken.  Neither one of us were mentally prepared for this giant hiccup (especially myself, I am not happy with the way I've handled it so far).  Our apartment is seriously all packed up with the exception of some stray things we've been using.  It sucks.  Because this weekend is a holiday weekend and our original plans were postponed, we've decided to make the most of it.  We're already packed...so why not take a trip!?  With the help of our lovely friend Anna-Maria, we've decided to journey east to Michigan to visit the Sleeping Bear Dunes!  We realize this is totally last minute and it's a holiday weekend so we run the risk of every camp site being taken or there just being an insane amount of people trying to get out into nature.  But we don't care.  We need to get out of here and spend some time outdoors.  Hoorah!

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As an example of how we're trying to make the most of the situation, when life gave us lemons, I insisted we drink vodka lemonade.  So we did.  It was good.

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This eco-friendly handprinted clutch from Etsy shop seaoats has my heart all aflutter.  It's my favorite hue, I'm a lover of design with birds (put a bird on it!) and it's totally affordable.  Be sure to check this shop out as she has a lot of other cool things in there!

Have you seen this split-screen love story?  The video won the Nokia Shorts Competition of 2011 and it was shot entirely on a Nokia N8 phone.  The screen is split between Paris and New York, meeting up in London at the end.  It's worth the few minutes of your time :)  Via Refinery 29

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This Midnight Coral shirt by Rachel Rose is too beautiful not to share.  The colors, the design...brilliant!

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Last, how awesome is this twinkly entryway?  It would put me in a cheery mood every time I came home.  The rest of the flat is pretty neat too.

As I mentioned before, all of our plans are all kinds of messed up now.  Our closing date/move in date is still up in the air, but hopefully there won't be any more set backs.  The bank is completely at fault for this one but it really sucks to know we have no control over anything at this point.  I imagine truck rentals will get expensive and I have to forget about the fact that we reserved it weeks ago with the best rate possible.  But I digress.  

I am bidding you all adieu for the long weekend but please check in tomorrow as I have a very special guest stopping by!  You won't want to miss it.

Summer Bucket List

As some of you know, this summer is kind of huge for us.  We bought a house and are packing up our life in Chicago for a new life in Louisville, KY.  We're moving in a super short amount of time, which leaves me freaking out on a regular basis.

Our house is awesome. It's everything we wanted, it has many bedrooms and bathrooms, a big yard and a lot of character.  We're both incredibly excited to move, to start a new chapter of our lives and to put down some roots.  But we're both sad, incredibly overwhelmed and feeling nervous about all of the change.

Last summer was huge for us - we got married.  But that didn't really change much of anything, except for the fact that we can say 'husband' and 'wife' and we both wear rings and my last name is different.  But we didn't pick up our lives and leave behind good friends to try and make new ones somewhere else.

So my summer bucket list is kind of a strange one.  As much as I want to do anything and everything in Chicago while we're still here, I keep finding that we're not doing anything we thought we'd do.  I haven't been to Millennium Park for a free Monday night concert.  We haven't visited any of the museums we said we would.  We haven't gone to those restaurants we'd never been to, or the blues bars I have been wanting to experience.

Even though summer has just begun - I feel like it's already ending.  I have to do all of this stuff within the next two weeks or else we'll have to save it all for when we visit.

Before we move, I want to ::

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Go see a show at one of the two best venues in Chicago - The Hideout or The Empty Bottle.  It's been too long since I've gone to either of these two places and that really kind of breaks my heart.  

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Spend an evening hanging out at Kingston Mines with two very close friends.  I think this one will happen for sure (hint hint)

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When I first moved here (and even before I moved here) I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art many, many times.  It's such an incredible museum - the art is so much more my speed and the size isn't at all overwhelming.  The first time I went, I fell in love because I was able to see some of Cindy Sherman's work in the flesh.  I haven't been in years and will be a little heartbroken if I don't make it down there before I go.  I would also like to go to the Museum of Science & Industry again, but I really want to go there with my littlest niece, Ally.  She is big into that kind of stuff and I can't wait to potentially see her face light up!

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Most importantly, I really just want to spend the remainder of our time here with my friends.  I've made some incredible friends here and I'll miss them with every beat of my heart.  They're the kind of friendships that will last forever and ever, and I can't even begin to express how much that means to me.  

After our big move, the bucket list includes spending as much time as possible outdoors, going down to the lake with the in-laws, going for long walks at dusk to explore our new neighborhood and most importantly - get a puppy!  Oh and then there's the whole "getting settled into our house and buying new furniture, painting and carefully decorating the house room by room".  But I imagine that will take a long time and I've got no plans of rushing it!

Thanks to Jillian of Cornflake Dreams for the link up - be sure to swing by her lovely blog to read more bucket lists!