Well the wedding has come and gone. We have got our tans in Jamaica. I'm sure you are all dying to know how everything went. You'll just have to wait a little longer. I want to tell the story with our professional photos (hey we paid for them, might as well use them) and it would be unfair to share the Jamaica stories out of context.
Here is a teaser from (hopefully my future sister-in-law) Kalin LeBrun.
I will say though, that we are very blessed by our family and friends. They surrounded us with love and support and really helped us in the last minutes pulling everything together. Thanks again everyone!
While we all wait for the stories of our special day, I would like to take this time to urge everyone to use their hearts and minds. We are very lucky to live in such a great country where we can choose our leadership and governance. If you are over the age of 18, and let's be honest, you probably are if you are reading this, please, educate yourself on the issues and go vote.
As of today, 30 million people (myself included) have already cast their ballot. This kind of response has been unprecedented in a Presidential election. One vote really can make a difference. For anyone who is unaware of where to vote or how to register head over to Vote411.org. Even if you just plug in "where to vote" in Google, it will spit out a place for you. Good job guys!
So get out there and let's make some 'Merican History!
Here is a little Will Ferrell to get you in the voting mood.
To our families, we made the call and you definitely answered. We asked for tools to take this house, and blog, to the next level. We were delightfully surprised when these were our Christmas presents.
My mom parents answered with so gorgeous decor that we did not expect. My mom being the deal hunter she is, said she found this pair of lamps at her local Goodwill for a steal. On her way to check out, she saw they also were selling brand new lamp shades in a different section. Double score for Mama Shelly!
She also got us this great neutral striped throw blanket from Lands' End (no longer available online, check stores). I love it because no matter how many pillow changes might happen in this living room, this blanket will always match. We received it in khaki and not navy so there is a slight difference from the photo.
Moving on to Max's parents, we received some things to really help with whatever projects we want to handle. As you remember from his birthday, he received some pretty sweet power tools to help us. For Christmas they really helped us out. Max received a new Wet/Dry ShopVac. We have had Mark and Ellen's on extensive loan for the last four months. I'm pretty sure they just wanted their's back.
For myself, they were more than generous. I have been going crazy pinning sewing projects on Pinterest with two problems. No sewing skills and no sewing machine. They fixed both of those! They gave me a new Singer 3116 Simple sewing machine. Included is a learn how to sew DVD. With 18 different stitch types, I'm sure I will be crafting up a storm very soon.
Last, but certainly not least, I got Max a new GreenWorks Leaf Blower/Vacuum with a mulching attachment. After hours of unsuccessfully racking and missing the last of city's lawn clipping collection date because our trees did not fully shed in time, we were done. When I found this leaf blower though, I knew we had found a winner.
After blowing all the leaves into a pile, instead of racking and bagging them, we can use the vacuum attachment and suck the pile up while mulching the leaves into a smaller bunch. We can either turn 10 bags of large leaves into one or throw them in our compost bin and turn them into mulch. It also is runs on electricity making it completely green and surprisingly light since there are no batteries or gas to haul around. Here is the proof.
Max's first impression of his new leaf blower, "This thing is fricken amazing!" He approves. Funny part about this video, this is January in Wisconsin. It should look like this:
We really can't thank our families enough. They really make this all happen. Hope you all got some tools to make your projects go that much better.
With three out of our four Christmas celebrations out of the way, we start to reflect on 2011 and look forward to 2012 with even more excitement. Max is more excited since he's sure the world won't end next December. I'm still a tad bit skeptical but thanks to NASA I feel a little better about it. Might buy some supplies just in case people get crazy for a day or two. Anyways, a little reflection.
At this time last year, Max and I were just randomly thinking should we resign our old lease or start entertaining the idea of buying a home. I had no idea we were in for such a crazy adventure this year. We hooked up with the buyer's agent in March and by May owned our home!
Then all things we accomplished in a year. Wowza!
Here is a vast, but definitely not complete list, of some our projects:
- Bought a new refrigerator and had many issues including cabinetry and store mishaps
- Got a roommate, then he moved out
- Replanted Hosta
- Planted a "garden"
- Took seven trips to Sears to get a working lawnmower
- Redid most of our master bedroom in a weekend
- Refinished the bedroom's hardwood floor
- Painted and trimmed both bedrooms
- Completely tore down and rebuilt both bathrooms...ugh just thinking about it
- Took out a wall in the living room
- Painted part of the living room (formally spoken of as the dining room until we decided on the eat-in kitchen space)
- Started composting, still working on getting Max fully on board with it
- Got crafty
- Got to experience all of Mr. Fix-It-Mark's full throttle forward work ethic
- Replaced all the hallway doors with fancy white ones
- Found some great furniture deals at Goodwill, Salvation Army and estate sales
Quite a list for just randomly thinking, "maybe we should buy a house" a year previous!
At our "family" Christmas dinner with just Max and myself, we brainstormed everything we wanted to get done this year. This might be a little ambitious but worth trying.
1. Re-do our lawn and landscaping.
Sounds simple enough, right? Well there is a lot we need to do with this beast.
- Regrade our front lawn. Although we like the humor of our Halloween gravestones this year, year round, it looks like a hot mess.
- Remove thorny corner bush and plant something a little more attractive.
- Add more plants/bushes throughout front yard. Maybe look into Stein's professional landscape design.
- Replants new flower beds. All of our current ones are over grown and not cute at all.
- Research better urban gardening techniques to prevent lettuce "trees".
- Install invisible dog fence for Turk.
2. Make a patio.
We love to grill, but right now we are limited to huddling around a tiny grill in our driveway. Not ideal.
- Research most cost-effective building materials (brick, stained concrete, pavers, ect.).
- Purchase new grill.
- Create privacy panels so our neighbors aren't raining in on our party, unless we invite them of course.
3. Finish painting all upstairs walls.
Pretty self-explanatory but we still have the hallway, kitchen and half of the living room to do yet.
4. Refinish all our hardwood floors.
This includes our second bedroom, hallway and living room.
5. Redo a piece of furniture every 1.5 months.
This is sort of a personal goal since I don't foresee Max refinishing furniture, but I keep hauling in great pieces but not touching them. So I want to finally start making them look like they actually belong here.
6. Start putting artwork and photos on the walls.
Again, self-explanatory but this place is really bare and we need to start looking like we live here.
So what do you think? Achievable? What are your house resolutions for 2012? Big plans?
I leave you with a fun YouTube video I found of Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt - What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?
Side Note: I immediately went and watched (500) Days of Summer again after seeing this video. Comic source here.
Here at The Parkland Project, we wanted to wish you all a very happy holiday season (whatever you celebrate!) For us it is Christmas.
If you were luckily enough to be on the actual mailing list, this is what you might have found in your mailbox. If you were not, step your game up(jk)! We just wanted to share the holiday spirit with all our loyal readers. This year's card design came from cardstore.com, where I got a 60% discount code I couldn't pass up. They are gorgeous cards too with a matte finish. Really impressed!
A few people have asked why Turk didn't make the card. Well he has been naughty and he wanted to be on his own card.
We're off to the family's for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and have our other Christmas celebration over New Year's. Should be a blasty blast!
I usually go way over board with Christmas decor as it is, my favorite holiday. But this year to my dismay, when I brought up the decor boxes I had from our old apartment, I found out we clearly did not have enough to fill a whole house festively enough (at least to my standards).
Being on a limited budget, I had to pick and choose where to spread out what I could buy and what I could make. Let's start with the make projects.
I found this tall skinny artificial tree at Goodwill for $6.99 when I was shopping for Halloween not know what I would do with it. Normally, I never have a good place to stick holiday cards, but not this year! You are looking at the "Card Tree". Decorated only with a vintage tree topper my mom gave me years ago from her childhood and some Dollar Tree ribbon from a previous year, I have just been adding the cards as we get them.
For each of the "ornaments" I have just been taking a hole punch and then tying a string through. These are pre-made ornament hangers.
This whole post I was playing with the settings on my camera with low light and changing ISOs so bear with me if some of the images are a tad blurry. I have no tripod.
Here is a close-up of Max's sister, Molly's family in "ornament" action. Isn't his niece, Claire cute!
The next project I had was none of our stockings had any names attached with them. I had bought them at Menards last year but never got around to labeling them. This year I used scraps from my burlap and linen and some extra ribbon and made us matching tags. All just with the hot glue gun.
Here they are in action. Since we have no mantel of any sort, I hung them using 3M removable hanger hooks in white to blend in with our living room windowsill. I have used them before and they really are great. Come off any wall without a scratch and hold up to three pounds of weight. In order they go (l to r), Maureen (me), Max and Turk.
Turk even posed next to his.
Since I have already shown you the ornaments I made for the Christmas tree, lets me on to her. And she really does look like a fancy lady this year. I used some more of the longer pieces of burlap for garland and some other beaded garland to counter balance the rustic with the sparkly.
The last few years I had not really had a proper tree topper and was using ribbons to complete our little 6' tree. This year, I upgraded to this rustic beauty that incorporates the red of the tree, the rusticness of the sticks and the white covered balls are mimicked in the round LED lights we have.
Here is a view of just the ornaments and garland so you get the whole picture.
This ornament has been on every tree since the year I was born. My grandfather gave it to me back in 1982, that same Christmas, he died of testicular cancer. I never got to know him but its a great way to honor his memory. The ornament says "Christmas... season of magical moments." and the bunny is there because apparently that was his nickname for me. His "little bunny".
Around the house, I filled random vases with ball ornaments from previous tree years. This one is silver and red.
Are ya sick of tree photos yet?
This one is my favorite. It's the perfect balance of light, ornaments and presents.
The reason I do all this. My boys.
Around the doorways of the living room I added evergreen garland from Menards, $2.99 a strand, on sale. This entry way took two strands.
I used one of Max's TKE fraternity pitchers from formal in college and filled it with silver and red balls as well. Their colors.
Here are my Christmas trees from here nestled in with my wood antelope from the estate sale. Its a nice little forest.
'
The JOY letters are kicking next to a photo of my parents since they bring so much JOY to my life (cue the "aww").
My Dollar Tree Santa candy jar is ready by the front door for visitors.
Back in the kitchen, I have a "Merry Christmas" banner I got last year from Target for $3.00. Maybe next year I'll make more banners for the holidays.
The dining room table is decked out in my burlap table runner from Thanksgiving (the project that started all the burlap), my Target place mats from last year and large green and white balls in a vase.
Some of the outdoor lights I couldn't seem to find the proper place for this year made it inside the house on top of our cabinets giving off a little bit of ambient lighting.
My festive holiday kitchen hand towels take center stage.
So what do you think? Over done? Not enough? Great ideas? Eh, ideas?
I was super nervous about hosting Thanksgiving. I had never done anything this big before (meal wise, I have thrown some crazy parties back in my day) and I really wanted it to go as smooth as possible. I also wanted the house to look perfect since my sister and her fiance had never seen it and my parents had seen it since the weekend we moved in Mother's Day weekend. I went a little over board with cleaning and trying to make everything as perfect as possible. Which when it really came down to it, your family loves you anyways right?
I had bought a giant bad of burlap from Home Depot with a helpful Pinterest tip for some home crafting projects for the holidays. And if you are curious where to find it (since I wandered the store aimlessly for about 25 minutes before I could find it) is located in the outdoor part of the garden area. Even in winter. Still not a bad deal though, although if you need a tighter weave burlap, try a fabric store.
I want a lot of burlap for a "very burlapy Christmas" (more on that to come) but for starters, we are I wanted a nice table runner for our grand fest. After I had prepped the bird and in between the first basting, I threw this little number together.
I rolled out the burlap just a tiny bit longer than the length of the two tables. Of course with a table runner, you want it to be longer than the length of your table. After I had my length, I folded the burlap in until the seams met and the width was even.
To make the edges raw, I cut down the length of the burlap on each side.
I saved the ends for other craft projects for Christmas. I also trimmed off loose ends to give a more uniformed look.
Here is the new beaut with just our new farm table with the leaf in. All this was done in about 15 minutes.
We had quite the spread for dinner. It was the first big family affair I ever put on so I was so happy all the food turned out deliciously. I was happy to use my grandmother's antique dishes.
My mother said that I had quite the bird and it was the kind you "had to take a picture of". I quite a few recipes for the dinner from Bon Appétit Magazine's November 2005 issue for The Ultimate Turkey and Gravy Base, Maple Glazed Sweet Potatoes and Mulled-Wine Cranberry Sauce. The great thing about recipes is that even though their are food trends, a good meal is still a good meal. I couldn't have been happier with the overall turnout. My mom actually said that she was always worried that I would never really learn to cook. She was delightfully proved wrong.
A Dolezal family photo to end the day. Smiles all around.
