Confessions of a missing blogger...

So...it's been a long time. A really long time. I've  missed this little blog of mine and decided it was well past time to get back to it. But before I get back into the swing of things, here are my confessions as to why I went missing...

Confessions of a busy blogger...
Honestly, over the past year I have been very busy at work and with work trips. It sounds a little boring, but it did result in five work trips to the Bahamas. No complaints here. However, but it definitely took my time away from my blog. Don't worry though [okay, who am I kidding, nobody is worried about me now that I said I went to the Bahamas five times...], there was also plenty of fun mixed in over the last year. :)


Confessions of an over-thinking blogger...
There were a lot of times over the past year that I wanted to start my blog back up...but then I would start over-thinking it. Conversations like this were happening in my head:

Paige - "I really miss my blog and have a great idea - I'm going to go post it!" 

Over-thinking Paige - "That's a nice idea, but remember how you might want to open an Etsy shop someday? Are you sure you want to name it A Paige in History?" 

Paige - "Well, I'm not sure...but that won't happen for a while. And what does it have to do with my post?" 

Over-thinking Paige - "Don't you remember anything from all your business classes? All of the names should be the same to help with your marketing. Maybe you should start a new blog. And does that post even have to do with your message?"

So, I think you get the point. And it's not that I'm a crazy person with conversations in my head. :)


Confessions of a perfectionist... 
There were also times when I would look at my blog and just not think it was good enough. Take the header for example...

Yep, it's pretty annoying how it didn't line up right. But should it keep me from ever posting anything? Nope! And check it out, it wasn't at all difficult to update my header. 


To summarize...

• Sorry I went missing for so long! As much as I will try not to disappear again, I also know that with my busy schedule it is definitely a possibility. But, I also know that I really missed my little creative blog outlet, so I'll try to find a balance.
• My posts may not always be perfect. But, I promise they will be me. [Well, the part of me that's not busy over-thinking everything...] 

I heart you...

Mr. W was out of town the day before Valentine's Day, so while he was gone I used post-it notes to make this message on his mirror.

I wrote cute little notes on the leftover post-its and left them all over the house...on the door from the garage, the microwave, the fridge, his closet door, his pillow, everywhere. Very simple, but a fun surprise for him to come home too.

We also had been needing a new wine stopper for a while, so I picked one up from Pier1 and left it on the counter with a post-it saying "Your smile can stop my heart." Awe.

We had a wonderful evening together with a delicious meal at a Brazilian steakhouse. [Yum!] Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day also!

P.S. Our walls do not actually look yellow-ish like they do in this picture. That's just my not-so-awesome photo taking skills at work again. :)

P.S. [Again] I think it's funny that you can see my peaking out from my closet where I was trying to hide from being in the mirror.

The summer camp feeling [and a slightly random post transition]…

Throughout college, I worked for my school newspaper [the Washburn Review]. I started at the same time as two other girls and we decided it would be fun to write a column called “The Freshmen View” to talk about our experiences as freshmen on campus. In one of the columns I wrote, I talked about my transition from living at home with my parents to living in a dorm three hours away. I compared it to feeling like I was just away at summer camp. Between classes, extracurricular activities, hanging out with friends, and everything else, it just didn’t really feel like I had moved. I was so busy that it hadn’t actually sunk in that I lived there and wasn’t just away at camp for a few weeks.

Since moving to Houston [nearly six months ago now], I’ve had this same “summer camp feeling”. A few examples from the past couple of weeks:

• When filling out a form for work, I put that I was from the Kansas City office…oops.
• I told someone that I have only ever eaten at the Grand Lux Café when I was out of town. This was the day after I ate lunch there in Houston.
• When a friend asked me how long it took for our new house to really feel like it was ours, my response was that the house felt like ours pretty quickly. But that it still feels weird that the house is in Texas.

Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely loving living here - it is just taking me a while to realize that we live 13 hours [approximately 800 miles] away from the place we had always called home. It still feels more like we are just here at summer camp for a while.

But one clear sign that Houston is becoming more like home was how excited I got that an amazing new e-zine was founded by someone from my city. My city being Houston. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you need to go read the premier issue of High Gloss right away. It is amazing. All 181 pages are packed with great style tips, beautiful home decor inspiration, fun party ideas, gorgeous photos, interesting articles, and just all around incredible-ness. My favorite articles were:

• Modern Makeover
• Putting on the Glitz
• Striking a Balance
• Valentine’s in the Valley
• La Vie en Roses

Thanksgiving table...

This Thanksgiving Mr. W and I hosted our first family holiday. Not only was it our first holiday to host, but it was also the first time that our families came to stay at our new house. We had so much fun planning, organizing, and just figuring out how to feed and sleep seven guests. One thing that we had to decide on was where all nine of us would sit for Thanksgiving dinner. Our house has an eat-in kitchen with a table that seats four, a bar that seats three, or a dining room that we use a reading / sitting room. Umm...that doesn't really add up to nine very well.

This will all make more sense once I show more pictures of our new house, but we ended up moving the big chairs, coffee table, and end table out of the sitting room to make room for a "dining table." The table actually consisted of two six-foot long folding tables from Lowe's and the tablecloth was a drop cloth from Home Depot. I had this all planned out in my head and kind of completely lucked out that it worked as well as it did - the tables fit perfectly in our dining room, the drop cloth was the perfect size, and the people fit perfectly.

A few days before Thanksgiving, Heart of Light posted about her holiday table planning, including that "You can squeeze in with 18" of space per person around the table if you all like each other - if not, you'll want 24-30" instead." This was the perfect information to put me into full nerd mode - I mapped out our table in PowerPoint to measure that we would in fact all fit and plan how it would look. Here is what I came up with:

As you see, we didn't have enough of any one color of plate or glasses for everyone, but since it was planned out I was able to make it look intentional. The horrible wrinkles in the drop cloth were not so intentional...oops, probably should have ironed. The finished table did end up looking very similar to the plan though. 

We kept it very, very simple and didn't even have a centerpiece so we could all see each other easily. And so we could easily clear the table to start playing our favorite game. :)

 

This last photo has nothing to do with the table or planning, but it is us with our amazing family the day after Thanksgiving at the boardwalk [and random photos and posts in weird orders seem to be my thing lately]. It was such a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with our families!

[P.S. In case you're just dropping by, I do realize it is now January, but it's better late than never, right? :)]

Better late than never...

I tend to have really grand ideas of posts I am going to write on this blog, but then they never actually get posted. You'll have to trust me on this, but in my head this blog is ridiculously cool. Generally, I have pictures taken, links saved, and even posts half-written. But they still never get posted. I always seem to get busy and run out of time. The next thing I know, the holiday is passed or whatever else I was going to post about happened months ago, so I never end up posting about it.

But, I've realized that we've all been there - you know, when there just isn't enough time for everything you want to get done. So, I'm sure you all understand. :) For now on, I'm going with the motto "better late than never." So what if I post Christmas [or even Thanksgiving] photos in January? So what if I show the first photos of our new home months after we moved in? I want this blog to be all about sharing ideas and little pieces of our lives, and being too busy to post right away is definitely a part of my life right now.

I've got a little [okay, a lot of] catch up to play, but hopefully in the process I'll get better at being more timely. :)

And to prove my point about not finishing posts....here is a mood board I made [but never posted] for a Mood Board Monday in June that I just found looking through pictures on my computer. I'm sure I have all the links saved somewhere too and when I find them I'll be sure to post them because it's better late than never. :)

2010...

[Mr. W and I in Vegas this fall]

2010 was quite the year. I feel like about 2,010 major things happened during the year, but in the interest of time, here are just ten of the majorest major things. :)

1. I coached my first cheerleading squad [and made them cute cookies]
2. Mr. W and I celebrated a year of living in our first house
3. Mr. W finished his Masters' degree and got an awesome new job
4. We welcomed a new sister-in-law into the family [and celebrated with a couples' shower]
5. We welcomed an adorable new nephew into the world [and celebrated with a baby shower and fun games]
6. I got a promotion at work and passed the first three parts of the CIA [Certified Internal Auditor] exam
7. Mr. W and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary
8. We enjoyed trips to San Jose, Vegas, Dallas, KC, etc.
9. Mr. W and I made the big move to Texas and built a brand new house
10. We hosted our first Thanksgiving in our new home

It was certainly a great year and I have no doubt that 2011 will be just as great. :)

Happy proposal day...

Today marks the three-year anniversary of the day Mr. W proposed to me. The proposal was perfect - he put so much thought and love into every single detail. But most importantly, the most perfect man I could ever imagine was asking me to marry him. I felt like the luckiest lady in the world that day [and every day since] and love hearing proposal stories from others that make them feel that too.

To celebrate our proposal day, I had to share this sweet video from Hellcats. I have been saving it on our DVR for weeks [and may have made our families watch it at Thanksgiving...] because it is just too adorable to delete. Now it can live here forever. :)

Think pink | fire trucks...

This weekend the Pink Heals Tour came through our town. It was great to see how many people came out for the festivities.

Photos from here



[October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month - Think Pink!]

Missing Mr. W | part three...

Mr. W surprised me one afternoon while he was away and had these beautiful flowers delivered. It was so sweet and thoughtful that it just made me miss him even more. :)

Missing Mr. W | part two...

Sometimes, I not only forget to post a photo or two...but I forget to post an entire series of posts. Mega oops! Turns out I forgot to post the rest of the everyday moments when I really, really missed Mr. W when he had to move before me. Now, I have moved also (well, kind of, but that's a story for another day)...but I'm still going to post some more of those times. And, actually, being in the same place again [finally!] reminds me just how much more fun normal, everyday things are when we're together. :)

Okay, now to the actual point...

Mr. W and I are huge baseball fans, but I don't generally share his need to watch every Royals game on TV or watch This Week in Baseball. But after Mr. W moved, I would zoom-zoom [i.e., watch in fast forward] every game. And I couldn't bring myself to delete any of them.

I also usually really like watching America's Got Talent, but it was no fun at all to watch without Mr. W. So, I didn't watch any of the episodes, but didn't want to delete them either. Luckily, I had no problems continuing to watch Design Star. :)

[Speaking of Design Star, I also kind of forgot about doing the majority of my play alongs. Turns out that is somewhat time consuming, especially when I was supposed to be packing our entire house, working extra hours, and studying. If I ever magically get lots of free time, I'll finish that series too though. :)]

Missing Mr. W | part one...

So, I told you about our upcoming big move, but I haven't told you yet that the move is actually well underway. As in, Mr. W has been living and working there for well over a month already. And I have not. Bummer, huh? Luckily, I have been able to see him a few times recently, but I still miss him like crazy. Since he's been gone, I've noticed that there are a few sort of silly times when I really notice how much I miss him, so I thought I'd share those with you....

Every single day at dinner time.

I am a very lucky lady and Mr. W does 95% of our cooking. [My five percent primarily consists of making cookies. :)] Generally when Mr. W is gone and I have to "cook" for myself, I eat cereal or chips and salsa. But now that it has been a while, I've had to expand my meal choices a bit. So, lately I have been making lots of Asian salad. Yum! And super quick and easy - must haves for me.

Ingredients:

• 2 packages of beef (or chicken) flavored ramen noodles
• 1 package of coleslaw salad
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1/2 cup of vinegar
• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
• Sunflower seeds

Instructions:

• In a small bowl, mix up the sugar, vinegar, vegetable oil and packets of seasoning from the ramen noodles. [When we make it, we actually use a little more vinegar and a little less vegetable oil, but it's all up to what you like best.]
• In a large bowl, pour the liquid mixture over the coleslaw salad.
• Crunch up the ramen noodles and add them to the large bowl.
• Add sunflower seeds to taste.
• Mix everything up.
• Enjoy.

See, I told you it was easy. And, other than the package of coleslaw, we always have the other ingredients on hand which makes it extra easy.

Speaking of the coleslaw salad, I had another "missing Mr. W" moment the other day when it came to buying the coleslaw. See, Mr. W also usually does about 95% of our grocery shopping. So, silly me, when I had to do it myself, I totally bought the wrong thing and came home with "broccoli salad." Who knew that even existed!? But it still tasted good. :)

Two incredible years...

It is hard to believe that two years have already flown by since Mr. W and I said "I do". And what unbelievable years they have been...I passed the CPA exam, we enjoyed fun vacations together, celebrated the weddings of many family and friends, bought our first home, Mr. W finished his Masters degree, we began our first long-distance move, and welcomed our new nephew into the world. I am so lucky to have shared these exciting times with him.

I am also lucky to share the not-so-exciting times with him...the days we get up early, work late, run errands or even clean the house. Every single moment is amazing when you are married to your best friend and the love of your life. :)

We celebrated our anniversary with a wonderful dinner this weekend and exchanged gifts. As the traditional 2nd anniversary gift is cotton, I monogrammed pillowcases for Mr. W's gift. Considering it was the first time I had ever even turned on a sewing machine, I was pretty excited about how they turned out. :)

[P.S. If you'd like to see pictures from the best day of my life (our wedding, of course!), you can check out all of my wedding posts from last year here. :)]

Cutest nephew ever...

It's been a little quiet around here lately because I have spent just about every waking moment with my adorable new little nephew. I could not possibly be a prouder or happier aunt. :) Congrats again to his wonderful parents!

One week...

My beautiful, smart, incredible, all-around wonderful sister is due in just one week. I could not be more excited for my sister and brother-in-law. And, of course, to meet my new little nephew!

In honor of the occasion, here is a random sister story for you...

When I was in fourth grade, we had an assignment to write about the top ten biggest and most exciting moments of our lives. Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but when I was that age [9 or 10 years old], I really hadn't had that many overly exciting moments. I mean, my life was great, but other than some big family vacations, I didn't have too many thrilling things to write about.

So, my list of ten exciting moments included at least at few that were primarily about my sister. For example, when she got her first driver's license. It made the list because it meant she could drive me places, but mostly because when things are really exciting for her, they are really exciting for me.

However, my teacher disagreed and said that I hadn't done the assignment correctly. To this day, I stand by my list. And in fact, even though the top ten moments of my life have gotten a lot more exciting over the years...I would have to say, my sister having her baby will certainly make the updated list.

Couples' shower | wrap-up...

Now you've seen almost everything from the couples' shower we threw Mr. W's brother...

• The invites
• Chalkboard signs
• Decorations and guest tree
• Food and drinks
• Outdoor decorations and games
• The dessert table [including DIY cake stands]
• And even some cute pictures from opening the gifts

But what I haven't told you yet, are all the things that made the shower perfect. And most of those things weren't things at all...

• Drinking lots of wine with Mr. W, because we really needed more bottles to decorate with [or something like that]
• My in-laws coming over early to help with all the last minute setup
• The bride-to-be's face when she saw everything...she was so excited! That is my favorite part of any party - just making the guest(s) of honor feel special and loved. :)
• Mr. W's cutie little brother asking me for more "special" cookies about every seven minutes [The "special" cookies were ones that got stuck together because I was impatient and stacked them before they had cooled. I told him he could have as many cookies as he wanted as long as he ate the "special" chunks of cookies that were too ugly to go on the table.]
• The close friends and family that stuck around late for impromptu s'mores
• Drinking the rest of the margarita punch with the bride-to-be because we certainly didn't want it to go to waste :)

Yep, it's the little things like those that really make a party perfect.

Couples' shower | the gifts...

These pictures of the couple opening their gifts are just too darn cute not to share. Watch as Mr. W's little brother moves into the picture...then closer...then even closer...and then gets really excited about the gifts. He's pretty much the cutest ever. :)

Graduation party pics...

It's [finally] time for some pictures from Mr. W's surprise graduation party. :)

Okay, so this picture isn't technically from the party, but it is the reason for the party. This was right after he received his Masters in Public Administration degree from KU [obviously].

And this is when I made him put his hood on. Hehehe! I couldn't help it - you get "hooded" when you get your masters, so shouldn't you haven't to actually put it on at least once? It's a good thing he doesn't read my blog though, because I am fairly certain Mr. W would not approve of me posting this picture!  :)

Now to the actual party pictures...all two of them. Turns out I'm not so great at remembering to take pictures.

Mr. W's mom was my partner-in-crime in planning his surprise party and was even nice enough to let us have it at her house. And to order the desserts. And to take care of most of the other food. And to do a bunch of other stuff too.  She was a very good partner-in-crime. :) 

We decided not to do any decorations. We wanted to keep it very low key, since Mr. W had insisted that we not do anything to celebrate - we try to listen to him at least a little bit. :) It was a good thing we kept it low key though, considering he was wearing a dirty old t-shirt...

You can't see it in the picture, but his t-shirt literally had multiple, large, semi-gross spots on it. I kept trying to casually mention that maybe he should change clothes. And he just kept saying "we're only going to my mom's; she won't care." Oh well, his dirty shirt definitely made for a good story. And it was just close friends and family, so they really didn't care.

We all had a great time celebrating [despite the dirty shirt]. We laughed until we cried talking about getting approvals for craft club, hearing Mr. W's mafia man voice and just hanging out. :)

[P.S. The pictures for the couples' shower are coming soon too. I finally went through them all...get ready, I'm pretty sure it'll be about seven posts worth!] 

Fun facts...

Houston Skyline by Bayou City Portraits

Some fun facts about Houston, Texas...

• Houston is the fourth largest city in America
• "Houston" was the first word Astronaut Neil Armstrong spoke when he landed on the moon
• Houston averages 99 days per year above 90 degrees
• Reliant Stadium in Houston was the first retractable-roof stadium in the NFL
• Houston has the third tallest skyline in North America and one of the top ten in the world
• The Houston area will soon be home to me and Mr. W

That's right...Mr. W and I will soon be making the move south. New opportunities and new adventures are sure to come. This is certainly a new "page in our history!"

Cheerleading cookies [part two]...

About forever ago now, I mentioned that I was going to make cheerleading cookies as an end of the season treat for the squad of little girls I coached this basketball season. Well, as I was going through my camera recently, I realized I never posted the pictures of the final product. So, here they are...

I ended up making sugar cookies with green and white frosting (our squad colors) in clear bags with green poms and a little note. The girls loved them!

[P.S. If you want to see the cutie little girls in action, check out this video. And for the adorable video Mr. W made for his basketball team, check out this video.]

Graduation party invitation...

Next up in the series of invitations is the invitation for the surprise graduation party for my husband...

Mr. W just got his Masters in Public Administration from the University of Kansas [hence the colors]. :) The invitations were mailed in bright red envelopes with these labels...