valentine's housewarming

hello lovebirds!
it's been almost 6 months
living in our new place.
and no, chris and i still aren't
fully settled in. lol. but we
decided that we are going to host
a valentine's day themed
housewarming party on the 20th! woohoo!

today we started some of the decorations
for the party--

here's a teaser picture:


[i'll go into more detail with the
things i made for the party in
other blog posts. i'll even do tutorials!]

as adults with no children,
we thought it would be fun to hand
out fun treats and valentine's
cards, like we did in elementary school.

we are also having every guest bring
decorated valentine's boxes and
giving out a prize for the best box.
that's the main part of the party!

we also have games lined up to win prizes.
one of the games is to fill out a worksheet with
'valentine's' related words for all the
letters in the alphabet. i found it on pinterest.
find it here: a-z party game

stay tuned for more pictures of the
decor and from the party!

state of mind

hello everyone!
yes, yes, i know...
i'm getting off track again!
i should work on that! but
i warned you all that i
was random and all over the place
with my thoughts. yippee! lol!

i don't think by now it's
a surprise to anyone that i'm still in
school. bleh. i have been attending
a community college and
going to school online until i
knew i could transfer back to
university.

it's been about 9 years
since i've last attended the university.
it's crazy! why i took so
long to go back? i honestly don't
have a legitimate excuse.
i just don't know.
i could say it's because of my full-time job,
but i don't think it was that, either.

but here i am, physically back
in a classroom. i felt so strange.
not happy, not mad.
more like a mindset of "let me do what i
need to to get out of here faster."

i admit that i was afraid. and still am.
afraid of failing like the first time
i was there. i am still afraid of
possibly giving up again.
i never thought i would make it
this far. back to a place that i
just talked about out loud.
and here it is. put right in front of me.

maybe i'm just putting a lot of pressure
on myself to be successful and
to not give up again.
but that's all i know so far.
this is just the beginning of what
could be. i hope there's some fight left in me.
i'm trying and that's good enough for now.

"budget"

hello lovelies!

i'm finally going to be right
back on subject with the wedding
keepsake book!
[i'm never able to stay on track, oy!]

the next chapter in the book
is: the wedding budget!


the book features a tidy spreadsheet
to track your expenses
and tips on how to tip some
of the people such as: the coat check,
the chef, the waiter, etc., etc.

although the spreadsheet in the book
was nice, i did make my own from
excel since it has the sum function.
which was super convenient for me!

here's a picture of one of the spreadsheets:


they even split up different topics
for you to record the expenses:
from decor to honeymoon and
stationery to ceremony. genius!

i also found that
keeping invoices and receipts
in the same binder was a great way
to stay organized. i just punched holes
in the paper and them to
the other stuff in the binder!

talking to your future husband/wife
about the budget and where you two are
comfortable is a major key to being
happy, too. my husband wanted
this amount and i wanted that, we met in
the middle and went only about $1000.00 over budget
which i am very proud of. i didn't even
have to cut out a whole lot to
stay within the budget! go us!

check back soon for the next chapter to come!

happy 2016

hello and happy new year everyone!
this year chris and i decided
to stay in with our pup, charlee
and throw our own new year's party!

we played games like uno and another
a game called the last word,
which we agreed was pretty hard to play!
[click the game name to see more about it]

we made little finger foods
like popcorn chicken and smokies
in a blanket and stuck
tiny fancy forks in them.
we also bought party hats,
horns, and sparkling juice [because
i was sick :( and didn't feel good]


and of course!
on the bright side i decorated the mantel:
if you can believe it
the gold and white striped stars
are made from tissue paper i got on clearance!


hope you all have a great 2016!
i sure will be blogging about my adventures!
stay tuned!