St. Louis Visit

This past weekend, I made a visit up to my hometown of St. Louis. The drive from Nashville is *slightly* more interesting than it was from Tulsa, as this time I get to switch highways and everything! ;)

Shortly after I arrived on Friday evening, I joined my mom and her friend Karen for a concert in the zoo. The Saint Louis Zoo is one of my favorite places ever. I even had my wedding reception there.

The band was awesome and I enjoyed creepily taking pictures of the people dancing.

This guy in particular was really getting down. He was so fun to watch!

There was a peahen strutting around as well. Lots of us were enjoying getting pictures of her...

Then she looked right at me! (Of course, I guess bird vision is different so I'm not sure whether she was actually SEEING me...)

I snuck away for a bit to visit the sea lions.

Sleepy friends.

My cute mommy and her cute friend! It was a great time.

My Pi at Starbucks the next morning. Isn't he magical?

This is Neville, the kitten Ryan and I got my mom for Christmas. He's growing so quickly!

On Saturday night, we went to my aunt's house to celebrate my cousin's college graduation. Here's the scholar pondering cake.

I had a great time visiting my family and confusing my mom with my obsession with picture-taking. ("WHY are you taking a picture of that?!" It's an art, mom....) ;)

My Kitschy Kitchen

I have been itching to post pictures of my apartment, but too much of it is still in progress. However, one area is (mostly) finished: the kitchen!

Come on in...

I decided to take advantage of the presence of a chair rail and paint two different colors. I knew I wanted pale blue in my kitchen even before we moved, and I decided on pale yellow for the bottom. I got the baker's rack on craigslist. Yay! It was a great find and perfect for storing my dear keepsakes.

This is my flowery elephant. It fell and its trunk broke into a bunch of little pieces, but I rescued it with superglue. In the background you can see the awesome tile my friend Josey found for me and the matryoshka measuring cups I cherish so much!

My friend Kristena custom-made this adorable coffee grinder cozy for me. I am so proud of it! She never ceases to amaze me.

I found this vintage wall hanging while antiquing in a nearby town. I love it! How appropriate in my kitty-cat-filled home :)

This is another Josey find. She has luck at Goodwill the likes of which I've never seen.

She also found me these great embroideries!

I still need to make a little valance to go over the window, and I realize I failed to get a full shot of the kitchen - I couldn't get a great angle so I'll wait until I feel like finding a wider lens to do that ;)

Hope you enjoyed the peek into my sweet little kitchen!

I'm back...again...

Just call me Slim Shady. Actually, don't. (But have you ever noticed how most of his songs are about how he's "back?" We were discussing with some friends how funny it would be if he got saved, changed his name to "Slim SaveMe" or something else horribly corny, and instead of all his songs being about how he's back, they'd be about Jesus coming back. I digress.)

Well, pretty much everyone who doesn't live under a rock knows that we live in Nashville now. There is a lot of exploring yet to do, but so far, we love it! Hellooooo, Anthropologie twenty minutes down the road! Why, greetings, American Apparel and Z Gallerie and West Elm and ahhhh, I need to get a job....

I wasn't sure what all the switch from nice, new house to apartment would involve. Honestly? I love it. Our apartment allows - nay, encourages! - us to paint, hang things on the walls, etc, which was my main concern - how much we were going to be able to make our new home look like our OWN space. We live on top of a tree-covered hill and it smells so...botanical...and fresh and lovely outside. I can sit in my own living room and hear birds chirping for the first time. My cats love to watch the chipmunks dart around outside our windows. Apartment life has been grand to us so far; we just have to look at the positives. Examples:

We don't have our own yard anymore. HOWEVER, A) we never really went out there anyway and B) Ryan doesn't have to mow in the heat and humidity!

We had to leave our own expensive, high-capacity washer and dryer behind. HOWEVER, our washer had been acting up for months - we had to press "stop" and "start" about ten times before it would go (computer problem), and it would have cost us hundreds to have it fixed. The other day, the dryer in our apartment wasn't working. I called maintenance. I went shopping. I came home and the dryer was in perfect working condition again. That was easy - and free!

We don't have lovely ceramic tile in our entryway and kitchen anymore. HOWEVER, that stuff was horribly difficult to clean and the linoleum in our apartment is an absolute breeze. The Swiffer WetJet with which I was so frequently frustrated before is now the perfect tool for getting the floors clean in no time.

The kitchen cabinets are old and very outdated. HOWEVER, this was the perfect invitation for me to go all out with my starry-eyed dreams of a lived-in, kitschy, vintage feel in my kitchen. Pictures to come soon.

Of course, there is still a LOT to do. Our living room currently consists of a loveseat, the TV on the coffee table, and boxes and piles of DVDs. It drives me a little crazy just to look at it. But we need to paint the walls, save up for new furniture (we gave ours away in OK), and head to IKEA - oh, that glorious day - and then things will have come together a lot more. Only then will I be willing to show you pictures of our apartment. Sorry, it may be awhile. Use your imaginations.

Well, I could have predicted that once we got internet, all of my time would be spent sitting at the computer. I'd best be off to run an errand and start painting. Thanks for reading and have a great day!!