Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts

My Gallery Wall

After much debate as to how I should decorate the wall above my living room couch, I ventured to Goodwill to see what I could possibly find to refinish and stick up there. Once I got there however, my whole plan changed. I purchased 12 frames in varying sizes in order to create a gallery wall, with the focal picture being the largest - and one that I already had. 

I spent about $45 on all of the frames, so with that steal, I hopped in my car and headed home to lay out the design.  In case you don't remember what the space looked like before, you can look here for a whole apartment tour, or below for just the living room:


I came home and laid out the plan I envisioned


Then I made what is probably a gallery wall "no-no," I put the pictures up free-hand. I'm a bad blogger for not getting pictures of the process but that's what happens when this last minute idea unfolds. I eyeballed and hammered and to be completely honest, I LOVE it all turned out. 

Free hand and all. 
That's what happens when you go balls to the wall with random ideas... sometimes you get masterpieces like this living room.

*pats self on the back*



Have any of y'all decorated spur of the moment recently?
How'd your project turn out? 

Let me know in the comments!
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I Moved!

That's right, I've moved - yet again haha

Logistically it just made sense to move when I did, I work near Atlanta and while I'm currently working days, I'm about to switch to nights. Traffic hasn't been too terrible with the time I had to leave in the morning, however once I switch over to nightshift, it's a whole new ballgame. Driving into/near Atlanta during evening rush hour is just laughable... it's a no-no. So in order to be settled and established when I switch over to nights, I went ahead and got my own place (cross that off the bucket list, yes!) about 15 minutes from work. 

I'm super excited about this place and cannot wait to make it more "home-y" but right now I'm in that  whole "I-spent-all-the-monies-on-this-place-and-can't-afford-to-eat-so-no-decorating" phase. 
All that to say, please, please cut me some slack when you see the pictures.






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In Recent News

I'VE MOVED!

That's right. 

Half of the reason I've been so MIA is that I've been in the process of moving into my new apartment and starting my last year of nursing school. So between sweating my heart out to get all my stuff up 3 flights of stairs and sleeping like a cat, I haven't visited ye olde blog lately.

Let me give you a little tour of my new abode

Before






After









Meal numero uno in new apartment 

Hopefully I'll be back to the more regular blogging schedule soon!


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An Eye for an Eye

I made a most wondrous dish for dinner today - chicken and roasted broccoli (recipe to follow).
While that's probably a very basic dish for many of you, as it is for me, I was just trying to make something with ingredients already in my possession. 

So envision this:
You're cooking chicken, roasting broccoli, the world is grand when all of a sudden... 

*crackle pop pop pop*

... oil flies straight out of a pan onto your arm (you jump a tad) and then into your eyeball (you jump backwards into the fridge and turn dramatically like you just got slapped in the face).

Yeah, that happened.

As I'm typing this, my eye is burning and sore.
But my food was good y'all!

Anywho, on to the roasted broccoli which was DELICIOUS.

I adapted this recipe (remember, I used what I had) and came up with this:


Here are the completely scientific measurements of the ingredients I used

1 12 oz. bag of FROZEN broccoli 
½ tsp. salt
Dash of garlic powder
2 tbsp. canola oil
1/4 cup Italian breadcrumbs
3 shakes of parmesan cheese

Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 425 F
  2. Dump frozen broccoli into a bowl, remove ice chunks but leave little broccoli crumbs.
  3. Put everything into the bowl with the broccoli EXCEPT the oil and stir. 
  4. Pour a tbsp. of oil into the mix and stir. Add more to your liking (just trying to cover the broccoli in deliciousness here). It's okay if everything is coated, it'll still be good, promise.
  5. Grease a baking sheet or whatever you wanna put these bad boys on and proceed to dump (carefully - which is something I didn't do and ended up with broccoli crumbs everywhere) contents of bowl onto/into baking sheet/pan. Put whatever didn't stick to broccoli on top of the pieces that seem to be lacking. 
  6. Put in oven.
  7. Wait 15 minutes and let broccoli bake/roast. Your house will smell good. You will want to open the oven and eat immediately. Don't.
  8. After 15 minutes, take out and flip broccoli over and cook another 10-15 minutes (I did 10).
  9. Eat and enjoy immediately. Just don't burn yourself taking the sheet out of the oven like I did. 
Eat up!
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I'm All Alone...

(I'm warning you... this is a long post)
I'm finally settled into my apartment and I have cable (yet no TV...) and internet! I have a ton to tell you, but I'll recap it over the next few days.

Sunday
Bright and early, my parents, brother and I made the trek to school to move me into my new apartment. Talk about exciteddd! Once we got everything here, Padre and I went to pick up the keys from the leasing office, which is about a 6 minute drive away. While we were there, he got a phone call from Momma.

Momma: The apartment isn't finished.
Padre: What do you mean?
Momma: It looks like they just got up and went to lunch. There's painter's tape everywhere, the floor is dusty, the place hasn't been cleaned, the blinds are missing, there's no tv, the paint's messed up, there are ladders bottles everywhere, there's a radio still on, and there are wires hanging out of the walls... It's not finished.








Um. What?!

Naturally, I panicked. Padre had specifically asked me if the apartment would be finished come move in day and I said "Of course!" Not good at all.

So we headed back to the apartment and decided just to clean off the counters and stack everything on them until the painter's came and fixed everything, the cleaners came and mopped, and the builders came to look at what hasn't been finished. 

Sidenote - This is not the same apartment I had been looking at every single time I came to visit. Notice the one sink instead of two, the lack of a hall closet, the placement of the fridge, etc. All last week I had been setting up water and power under the address the property manager gave me ONLY to find out that I was setting up water and power for someone else because my apartment number was actually **3 and not **7 -__-

After dropping all of my furniture off, my entire family waved goodbye and left me with this:




I was left to my own devices to move this big couch by myself.. le sigh.

I honestly didn't even feel like unpacking anything because the floors still weren't clean and the painters still hadn't come but eventually, they did. The cleaners came that night around 6, so I unpacked and set up all but a few bags/boxes after they left (the painters came the next morning). 




I thought I was going to cook that night, but my friend invited me over for pizza, which really helped since my legs were so sore and swollen from not sitting down all day and moving constantly and I was SO HUNGRY. I came back home that night and attempted to crash into my bed, but I had too much on my mind, so no sleep for this girl. The sun also decided to wake me up at a lovely 6:15 the next morning.

Discovered this bad boy Sunday night... No clue how they appeared, but my legs are COVERED in bruises
Oh hey 6 AM....

One other AWESOME thing I have in my apartment is the Nest. I had read about it over on Young House Love about a week ago and thought it was the coolest thermostat, but knowing I would never have one because they're so gosh-darn expensive. Lo and behold my eyes when I moved in:


Stay tuned for Monday and Tuesday's escapades and also more on the Nest!
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Some Apartment Finds

Move in begins in 9 hours.
No internet or cable until at least Tuesday, so here we go:

I picked up some bedding, a bunch of kitchen stuff, artwork, and side tables from my grandma's house. Here's the bedding, all of it from Target, and some of it I couldn't find. 
Target: 64.99
Target: 24.99
Target: 24.99
I'll be taking new pictures of the apartment before it's furnished and during the move in process. Of course, I'll take some after but y'all won't see that til atleast Thursday.

A busy busy week ahead.

My friend is getting married in June so we're looking for wedding dresses on Wednesday. 

I promise I'll update throughout the week and let you know all about my first night in my new apartment, but I must get to sleep. Tomorrow will be A LONG DAY.

God bless you all!
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Graduation/Birthday Party

This weekend was truly a blessing.

On Friday, Momma and I went apartment shopping (as we have done for the past couple of Fridays) and finally picked up my bedding, mixing bowls, and a few other accessories. My uncle got in from New York a little after lunchtime, while my sister and her boyfriend came down from D.C and Canada later that night. We all talked and laughed and truly just enjoyed each other's company. 

Saturday was Padre and uncle's birthday/Brother's graduation celebration. Though we already had a semi-full house with Momma, Padre, Brother, sister and boyfriend, uncle and myself, the festivities didn't truly begin until Brother's girlfriend, my sister and her husband, the 3 babies, my aunt, my cousin, and a long lost cousin and his girlfriend showed up.

Let's count how many that is. 
I got 17.
Let's not forget the 4 dogs too. 

It was wonderful to see everyone and to have so many people gather together and really just enjoy each other's company. We were still missing A LOT of people from both sides of the family, but hopefully (fingers crossed) we'll get a lot of them down here next year. 

Momma made me in charge of the fruit salad (among other things) and she asked demanded I make a scalloped fruit bowl out of a watermelon though I've never cut any fruit before... So I did.





Not too shabby if I must say so myself. 

The spread offered soooo many delicious things to choose from, I probably gained 20 pounds just looking at it. 

After much of the family had eaten and while the babies were swimming, about 8 of us decided to play Catchphrase as we do at every family gathering. Let me just tell you, this game is fun by itself. Add 6 drunk people and it's even more entertaining to hear/see how they describe the word we're supposed to guess. We divided into Team Young and Team Old. About 4 rounds of Catchphrase passed before someone suggested Flip Cup.

Let's just say this was a disaster to watch. As someone who doesn't like beer and doesn't drink like that, I couldn't really see the fascination. I watched for maybe 5 rounds at how drunk (or should I say how much more drunk) everyone got. I only played the last round, when I got tagged in because one of the players couldn't do it anymore, before everyone decided to "take a break" (i.e never play again that night). 

We all went and ate some more, watched Brother open graduation gifts, played pool, listened to music, and just hung out. 

Sunday I went to the hospital to visit a family member. We had received the news during the party that they were rushed to the ER and then admitted into ICU, but we were told that there wasn't anything we could do until they were stabalized. Sunday was that day. I won't go into detail because I don't feel as though it's information I should/want to share at the time. However, prayers for my family are greatly appreciated. God works in mysterious, wonderful ways and I know that His Will will be done in any and all circumstances, especially this one. Most of you dont't know me personally, but that shouldnt stop you from saying a quick little prayer. Please, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Any who, I have a lot to do today, but also this week before I move out in 6 days. I'll probably be posting once or twice more before you all get to see the unveiling of my new apartment!

Remember, we are all God's children. He never left us, we left Him. He's waiting for you to come back and it's never too late to go back to your Father. 

God Bless and keep me and mine in your prayers as I keep all of you and yours in my prayers.
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You Wanna Know What Makes Me Happy?

This:

Which I got from Marshall's during my little shopping excursion for my apartment today!
((To know me is to know about my giraffe obsession.))


And this:




The whole cow shebang literally made me smile for a good 35 seconds. 

I met up with a girlfriend from school around 4:30 and we had such a good conversation that by the time we looked at our phones, it was 7! I love spending time with my girls, it always puts me in a good mood.

As for tomorrow, I get to spend the morning at my friend's basketball game.
Oh! Before I go, I spent a lot of last night after said friend's game last night listening to his family debate the Trayvon Martin case (which I decline to comment on) and listening to the Word. It was SUCH a good service. Seriously, y'all. Google Bishop T.D. Jakes and just watch. He explains things so well and so in depth and he relates it to real life, which definitely helped me. If any of you are seeking to learn more about God or at least learn more about/understand stories of the Bible, listen and/or watch him!

God bless all of you.
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