Seeing spots

Call it sowing wild oats...  I decided to get crazy and do something I'm not sure I'll be able to get away with after I tie the knot with Mr. Conservative.

I bought a leopard-print rug.



Please excuse the mess... it's still wedding central in there!


I've been wanting one ever since I saw this spread in Southern Living:

 

The lady of that house raved about how great it was to have flooring that totally masked any spills or stains.  It's just another spot, right?

So, how did the future man of the house take the news?

He said, "It's not as bad as I thought it was going to be."  And then he mumbled something about the rug having a border.

In my book, that's a definite win.

Here's how happy he was discussing it all over dinner with friends last night:

In all honesty, I'm just testing it out.  I'm not sure if I'll keep it or not, but I do think it could have potential in other "spots" around the house as well!

Smockaholic

No shame in saying it.  My mom is a smockaholic.

She's smocking all four of the dresses for my flower girls... and they are gorgeous!!!!  Here's a sneak peak:

Nathan's mom is smocking the ring bearer's outfit.  I know Nathan had reservations about it, but he's going to look so adorable!  He tried it on the other night...

Couldn't you just eat him up???????

In other wedding-related news, we got these awesome Adirondack rocking chairs as wedding gifts from Nathan's sister and brother-and-law.  (I've been coveting these since last fall---see blog post here.)

And see the gardenia tree between those two chairs?  It was a gift from the Easter Bunny (aka Nathan's mom:)  Love EVERYTHING that's going on in that picture! 

We're all ready for a sweet spring wedding and then a summer full of wonderful evenings spent grilling out and rocking on the patio.  Happy weekend!

Where the green grass grows

I drove up to my house after work the other day to see this familiar sight:

No, not Nathan attempting to make an awkward escape from my photo lens.  I'm talking about the stack of sod loaded onto the back of his truck.  Read about the first time my backyard was sodded here.

Well, this was round two.

On a similar note, I just have to brag really quick..... Although my backyard does have sod, my front yard is 100 percent au naturale and it's lookin' good....

That's a vast improvement from where my front yard was in October:

I may or may not have had a total meltdown when I came home to this in the fall.  Nathan promised it would grow back better than before.

I didn't believe him.

I have been proven wrong.  

Houses for sale in my 'hood

Yep, several houses are for sale in my 'hood.....

Aren't they precious????  Don't you want to be my neighbor???

Message me for details and I'll send you the MLS listing.

And if you're not the city-folk type, my fellow blogger friend Maggie is selling her house on the lake. 

 It's incredible!!!!!

Check out her adorable home (and blog) here.

HQ

My house has turned into wedding headquarters lately.

My dad gave me a hard time about not blogging much recently.  If this was the state of the only table he had to eat off of in his house, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be doing much blogging either (not that my father would ever really disclose that much of his personal life in a blog anyway....)

Hopefully these invitations will be all put together by this weekend and will be ready for mailing.  Thank goodness!

Wanted to show off the beautiful work of my calligrapher:

She was a life saver.  Seriously.

Another thing that's sitting at Wedding HQ right now is this:

It's a before and after picture book of us remodeling the house.  I think I'll use it as a guest book...

Did I mention that Nathan and I made headlines last week?  Well, not exactly headlines, but our engagement announcement did appear in The Times last Sunday.  I was pleased.  He is mortified.

Oh, and in the middle of all this madness, Nathan and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary Wednesday night.  We went on our first date on April 3, 2009---one of the best days of my life.  If you'll remember, Nathan proposed to me on our anniversary last week.  THE best day of my life.  You can read our engagement story here and here.

We went to Scott's on the Square in downtown Gainesville for our first date.  And we've celebrated there every year since then.  We did that again Wednesday night, then we walked up to the top of the parking deck next door where he proposed after last year's dinner.

It was nice to reminisce.


Oh, and one more wedding activity to note.  Nathan (finally) registered at Home Depot last night.  He was like a kid in a candy shop.  Let's put it this way:

Nathan shutting down a party on the dance floor = his worst nightmare.

Nathan wandering up and down the aisles of Home Depot until closing time = pure bliss.

Let's paint the town, he shut it down.... (He also probably won't understand that song reference either because he's already told me that the Black Eyed Peas music I listen to is inappropriate.  True. Story.)

Busy Bridal Bee

Sorry for my lack of posts lately.... I've been a busy bridezilla bee.

More to come when I get my life back.  Thanks!

Window shopping and such

I had a very busy weekend filled with some wonderful window shopping with some great friends (who put up with my embarrassing stalkerrazzi-esque picture taking:)



future porch swing



desperately needing this painting!

I have big plans to replicate this in my our closet :)



planning to do this also....



disposable placemats.  so cute!

looking for a leopard-print ottoman... want a round one though

Ballard Design's fringe burlap table skirt---would  be perfect in my bedroom

Thanks for a fun Saturday Alison, Ashleigh and Lauren!

And Daniel's cabinets are being installed as I write this, so hopefully I'll have updates on that soon!