Fixin' this place up

Hello y'all! How was your weekend? Mine was great! It rained (sprinkled), I got lots of time with Mr. H, and I finally started making our apartment look more like a home and less like a giant dorm room. I think for a while I was kind of in denial about living here long term and refused to decorate. But I am over it! Kind of.

Hung up some pictures all crazy style, no measuring involved. And for me that's a feat, because when it comes to hanging things I'm usually pretty neurotic. We just have this ridiculous long wall in our living room and I needed something to take up a lot of it. So I hung every picture we have with a black frame. Super creative, I know. Brendon had been giving me crap about not hanging pictures (they were all still packed up) so BOOYA. Two birds with one stone. This covers about half of the giant wall, no clue what we'll do with the other half.

Aaaand I made a table runner for our huge coffee table!

Isn't this the prettiest fabric? Plaid is pretty much my favorite color. Jk, it's blue. But seriously I love plaid. Hipsters may have tried to kill it, but I will always be loyal. So anyway, I was at Joann's, which is a dangerous place for me, and I was walking up to the register with this other cheapo plaid fabric in my arms, when I saw this fabric and it said to me, "Marie, put that crap down and come get serious with me. I'm beautiful." And of course I grabbed it. I think it's the kind of fabric you reupholster chairs with. It's fancy. So fancy that it broke the needle on my sewing machine and it scared me so bad I almost peed my pants. Lesson learned, there are different sized needles for different thicknesses of fabric. I justified the splurge on the fact that not only are they fall colors, but also Christmas colors, and I'm thinking we'll just end up using it year round. Brendon did not see my logic. Whatever.

We also got a new bookshelf! Our movies finally filled up our previous one and we lost our other bookshelf in the move (don't buy bookshelves from walmart, they're about as sturdy as copier paper) so we headed on up to ikea to get another to match. What's that? You noticed there are a couple shelves missing? That's because ikea is the antichrist. They are always magically out of what we go there for. That shelf only comes with four shelves (which is moronic) so we needed to buy an extra two which is no biggie because they're only 5 bucks. But of course! They are completely out of those shelves in black/brown. And to order them online would cost $23 for shipping alone. SERIOUSLY? $23 for two $5 shelves? I'm assuming they're coming straight from Sweden and are wrapped gold. We had the same experience with that coffee table up there. It took us three trips to ikea before it was in stock. The second trip we checked online and it definitely said they were in stock so we trek over and NOPE. Not there. This would not be a big deal except ikea is always a good half hour drive both from our old place in Denton and us now. NOT CONVENIENT. Okay, sorry about all that, I really do like ikea. A little. END IKEA RANT.

And for your (my) enjoyment, here is a picture of my sweet man studying for pharmacy school. Obviously he loves having his picture taken. He sent me a text today that said, "I can't wait to have you bug me while I study tonight". Worst wife of the year award goes toooooooo.....

Greg love

I downloaded the blogger app so prepare yourselves for blog posts on the fly. As if I didn't blog enough, now I can blog anywhere. Lucky you, dear readers. Even more of my nonsense.

Also, Greg is a sweetie pie!

Pyrex and blood

DANG look at these beauties! I snagged both of these today. We were picking up take out at this Chinese place near us (so classy, I know), and there's a thrift store next door so I ran in to check if there was any potential pyrex steals. I had been there before and they didn't have anything so I wasn't optimistic, but these two babies were there waiting for me! Brendon actually spotted them first, I was so proud. Two big ol' casserole dishes with lids! Woodland and Autumn Harvest patterns which are perfect for fall! It was a match made in heaven. Too bad I'm not cooking for Thanksgiving this year, I'd totally utilize the hell out of these.

 

I went to the doctor again yesterday and they stole some blood from me. I can't handle needles or blood. At all. Every time I tell myself that I'm not going to be a weenie but I always lose my cool. I freaked out the poor phlebotomist (such a fancy word), she kept asking if I was going to be okay. It's just such a terrible feeling, I feel like I can't breathe, I'm going to pass out/combust into a million pieces, and I want to run for my life. Plus I learned this time that I go pale which Brendon said is why the lady was freaking out. It's totally embarrassing, I'm such a wuss. But I got this cool thing on my arm that looked like I donated blood. Psyche! The only way I'd be able to donate blood is if I were unconscious.

The feast

Tonight, for no reason at all, we made a little feast. When we were talking about what to have for dinner I actually was saying that I was super tired and just wanted to make something quick and easy so I have no idea how we ended up making all this food. And it was all from scratch, because we are that awesome and culinary geniuses. Not really.

Obviously we were keeping it super classy by sippin' on some lone star.

The homemade mashed potatoes were my favorite part. They were suuuuuper yummy. We've been making them from scratch lately and I kept forgetting to put milk in them. Today I remembered and they were exponentially better. We also had boiled carrots and kale chips. I'd been seeing kale chips all over the blog world and my friend Kristy recently made some so I figured we ought to try them out. I was a little skeptical at first because kale looks a whole lot like lettuce and I really really really don't like lettuce. But they turned out alright, and some pieces were pretty good. I think we may have over salted them and some of them were a tad undercooked and still tasted kale-y which is super bitter or as Brendon said, "harsh". But I'd try them again! Kale is very good for you and they had a nice crunch to them. The lamest item of our dinner was the lemon chicken. I don't really care for chicken, or much meat at all actually, so I just kinda threw some lemon pepper on them and called it a day. But it was still pretty good! Brendon whacked the heck out of them with one of those tenderizing hammers (I'm sure there's a proper name for them) so they were nice and tender.

Allowing me to take a picture. Don't judge our decor-less apartment.

I usually cook solo (by choice) but it was nice to have Brendon in the kitchen tonight. Even though he mainly just complained about how much of a mess I was making and cleaned up after me. Just kidding! Kinda. Regardless, any time I get with my man is nice no matter what we're doing. He's in study mode now so he's dead to the world. Pooooor little nerd. And I am seriously thinking of going to bed soon because I am actually a 85 year old in a 23 year old's body.

Happy Birthday AJ!

 Yesterday was my little brother-in-law's 10th birthday! Congrats Mr. AJ, you're into the double digits! I can't believe he's TEN. When Brendon and I first started dating he was only 4 years old! He's grown up into such a sweet and handsome young man. I seriously think he might beat his brother out on height, he's going to be tall.

AJ had the coolest birthday party ever. He had it at Jellystone Park (like Yogi bear-ed out) out in Canyon Lake. It was a pretty cool place! They have a game room, a bounce pad, pools, a playground, these peddle go-cart things, and lots of space to run around. I'm pretty sure everyone had a blast, including the adults! It was a refreshing little escape from life and wonderful to hang out with family for a day. 

 Cutest brothers ever.

 Hangin' out with Yogi

Riding around on the peddle carts! Those things were pretty neat, but a lot of work to get up hills when you're as lazy as I am. Brendon and I rode around on a two-seater and he definitely did the brunt of the peddling.

It was really a great day and we were sad to have to head back to Austin and real life. I'm ready for Brendon to be on Christmas break. Pharmacy school is rough! Brendon is working so hard, I feel like he never gets a chance to relax. On top of studying like crazy constantly there's always extra things he has to go do for school. He'll be at school from 9-6:30 and then he comes home, I force him to eat dinner, and then he studies until who knows when (I'm a weenie and go to bed before he does).  And then he works on the weekends! I think he's going to start only working one day a weekend every other weekend so he'll have a day off to breathe. I wish I could help him out! Unfortunately all I really do is distract him. Poo on you pharmacy school, you better go by quickly. I miss hanging out with my husband. BUT, it will be worth it and four years from now we'll be laughing about these days and how ridiculous they were and how glad we are that we got through them.