dear weekend, you're nearly here.

 link up with lauren

1.  Today is a great day because it's Friday! Last weekend we were away which was great, but I'm ready for a weekend at home. I hope to work in the yard and get on top of some house cleaning. Also bunches of relaxing but I may plan that into my weekend so I don't totally bum around.

2.   Tomorrow I will clean the bathroom if I get up after Matt, make breakfast (bacon!), veg for an hour or so, weed flower beds for a few hours, wash floors, dust upstairs, maybe another hour of yard work, shower, VEG.

3.  My favorite time of day is the evening because Matt and I are both home, usually, and we're together, eating something yummy and making fun of the cats and laughing.

view from the bed at the H last weekend

 

4. Sometimes you just have to plan the crap out of your weekend even if all activities occur at home to ensure maximum productivity AND maximum couch potato-ing.

5. A song that I just can't get enough of lately is... well, here's the one I've been wanting to hear:

  
6. My favorite accessory is a good necklace, I'm usually wearing one, unless my top comes all the way to my neck. Also hair ties, 99% of the time I have one around my wrist.

7.  My favorite thing about this week {so far} was serenading Matt in the car on the way home from dinner last night. It was pretty hilarious. 

 waiting for dinner at Cafe Zinc

Craving: bacon & pizza, things I've dreaming about all week and will be having this weekend

Seeing: a messy desk I need to tackle.

Smelling: oranges, mid morning snack.

Listening:  Meg's 2011 Playlist

Quoting: 

"Everything is flawed. Spending a lot of time on something is not going to make it perfect. Worrying about it and obsessing over it is not going to make it perfect."  -Elise

Loving: Getting geared up for Send Something Good & Week in the Life

Feeling: Well, a bit of that malaise is still hanging on, but mostly I'm feeling optimistic for a productive and relaxing weekend.

meet someone good, me!

first off: Please go here and listen to Adventures of a Misfit Librarian's 90's playlist while reading this. That way I know you'll be smiling while reading this post as I was writing it. You can't go wrong with Barbie Girl!

you can also smile at me with my lowest series of season trophy!

our season is long but it's fun even if you bowl like crud.

After quite a long lapse in blogging I've consciously stepped up my blogging this week knowing I have a stalker out there (hi!!!) thanks to Send Something Good. Last fall I participated when it was Package Pals and it was fun to pull a package together and send it off and get something good back in the mail!

Today the Send Something Good guru's {Gentri, Kaitlyn & Kristy} are starting a link up to get to know participants better. Throughout the day I've clicking into other linked blogs and really liked Misfit's list of details. Here we go...

I am 26.
I live in Michigan. I lived in New York City (Brooklyn & Harlem) for 17 months from January 2008 til June 2009. I miss it some days, but if I'd never come back to Michigan I'd have never met Matt.
Matt and I have been dating for 18 months, longer than I lived in NY?! woah!, and we'll have been living together for a year next month.We are ridiculous in the best of ways. I'm going to save all the juicy details for another post!
I am basically an only child.
I love watching tv {see new side bar!}.
I love Pinterest.
I love reading blogs.
I love food. So much love for the food!
I love beer and wine and mixed drinks (bloody mary's, margaritas, capiriniahs).
I love water. sometimes with lemon.
I am not the picture of health, but I'm trying. I'm learning moderation. Moderation, enjoyment, balance. 
These are the ways I spend most of my time.
I am obsessed with Draw Something.
I am excited to play outside this summer. This winter was mild, but it's time. Yard, you don't know what's about to hit you.
I have two cats, Sam and Lulu.
I want to run an inn; not a bed & breakfast which you must live in all the time, an inn a quint getaway for lovely people that serves up delicious, slow food and a relaxing atmosphere and reminds you to just breathe.

I'm a colorful girl. I'm always wearing some bright pop! Today my socks are bright yellow, I have a pretty purple top on and a great colorful necklace. Color is so fun.

 car wash kate

more stuff i like: sunshine. greeting cards. thunderstorms. scarves. lakes. flowers. getting mail! sending mail! tights. flip flops. instagram.

5 words to describe you or your style: {self} cute, colorful, cozy {home} vintage, eclectic. these are interchangable.

wind storm apple blossoms & room service daisy

mostly Week in the Life 2012

they're back! I'm loving this spring like weather!

Ali Edwards spring edition of Week in the Life is about to roll out. I really liked participating last year and having the photos I collected from a wonderful week of summer.

I've been reading Elise's blog (which I can't really tell you how much I love!) She has me so geeked about Project Life, I think I'm ready to tackle Week in the Life hands on!

 week in the life, July 2011

In preparation I may take up Kinsey & A Beautiful Mess up on the challenge of taking ten photos a day and playing with my photos beyond instagram. I've already been making notes about the content and questions I want feature and address during Week in the Life.

catstagramming.

malaise. melancholy.

sometimes you just have to say...

New York

i think a trip might be in order soon.

i wouldn't mind spending the afternoon laying under the pink trees that are starting to bloom and enjoying the snowlike fall of the white blossoms. i might be grumpy, but i can't stop appreciating the beauty of a moment.

Budgeting: What works for us

Following on the tails of some discussion of budgeting in relationship on the interwebs I figured I would post what worked for us. I know it helps me when I read what works for other people.

This is my comment from Rachel's post, {living in sin} The Joint Checking Account.

When Matt and I had our budget conversation, partially assisted by your original post, thanks!, we sat down with our two paychecks for a month each and all of our bills (student loans, cell phones, car insurance/payments), plus adding to our savings. With that information we were able to figure out what we each were able to contribute towards the monthly bills (mortgage, utilities, cable, house taxes and insurance.) Because what we spend each month on groceries fluctuates we decided Matt would save receipts when he bought groceries and we’d total that up with what I spent* and we’d split the percentage.

One of the things that makes a joint checking account a hard sell for me is I use a Rewards credit card that I really like, I’ve had it for a while and racked up quite a few point. I can’t imagine changing from accumulating rewards to just using a debit account. (I’ve never not paid of my credit card in full at the end of a month.) Matt’s not as sold on the credit card rewards as I am, plus he likes the credit union he uses. I can’t change banks because of the mortgage, I received a discount when I purchased my (our) house.

I also learned that while I love playing with numbers and budgeting it can make Matt a bit uncomfortable. I was excited to sit down and budget last year, this year I’ll be more reserved and make less of a geeky deal about it.

Thank you for this post. It kickstarted a couple of questions for Matt and I as we enter our second year of living together and will be revisiting our budget again soon. This budget conversation will bring practical discussion of traveling, growing our family, wedding costs, possible business ventures we’re dreaming of, really where we want our money to go in the future and how to start that now.

One more thing, reading the Practical Wedding post this statement caught my attention,

“Second, marriage is about pulling together. It’s about building a life together, through thick and thin. When we don’t let our partners pay down our debt with us, not only are we not letting them love us and support us, but we’re also not letting them help-us-pay-off-the-damn-debt-so-we-can-save-for-a-downpayment-together (practical considerations, says the woman working hard to pay down her husband’s law school loans).” http://apracticalwedding.com/2012/03/combining-finances-marriage-wedding/#ixzz1qqQ9lDqs 

While we’re working to individually pay down our debt now I can definitely see our conversation next year moving towards the joint checking account and working together to chip away a debt to make those plans above become reality.

lovey pins

hi.

this post was supposed to go up eight days ago, but then my grandma was in the hospital and priorities changed. priorities. i haven't been much of a blogger these past couple of months and i'm okay that. i'm loving reading my old favorite blogs and my newest favorite. i've been pinning more and that's fun. it's not even as dangerous as i thought it'd be. my love and i went on vacation. it was warm. my mum and i went skiing. life has happened, and it's been mostly really, very good.

click here to see the full board. 

oh and there was a treasury too. 

this is how i feel about tomato juice.

The Oatmeal

it's appropriate to post this today, as we just took a plane home from Florida. photos soon!