Thankful!

Did you have a good Thanksgiving? It has seriously thrown me for a loop having Thanksgiving so late in November. It was a busy month!

My best friend was in town for about a week. I hadn't seen him in almost a year! About this time last year he was living in Wyoming and came home for a couple weeks with his girlfriend before leaving for their 3 month bike tour of New Zealand. He was back in town for all of 3 days before heading back to Wyoming to help out at the lodge his parents bought. (I haven't had a chance to visit yet, but it looks beautiful and his family is seriously the greatest ever.)  While up there over the summer he got engaged (yay!) and found a job working for a paper... back in Wyoming. This is too funny because he and the gf were dying to get out of Wyoming, and they just can't seem to do it. Long story short, I've missed him like crazy and it was so SO good to finally catch up!

It was also my mom's 50th birthday and my sister's birthday last week. We had an amazing steakhouse dinner to celebrate. I feel silly to admit this, but I ordered the sea bass, at an incredible steakhouse... I know, I know. But it pretty much melted in my mouth it was so good. I've never been so uncomfortable full in my life. I made the mistake of betting my dad that I could finish the butter cake by myself. After a full meal. With a name like butter cake I probably should've known what I was getting myself into. I am embarrassed proud to say that I made it, somewhat painfully, through. Delicious but so rich and filling. I have the ultimate sweet tooth and that definitely did it for me.

Thanksgiving was a pretty quiet affair. B and I went over to my parents' for dinner with the fam. Usually we bring our fur baby but with the addition of Lux, and my family adopting another rottie, we wanted to make sure we could have puppy introductions before putting them all in the house together for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, we had some seriously crazy rain the last couple of weeks and all of the parks have been kinda flooded, neutral ground probably being best for first time intros. So hopefully we can fit something in with Christmas just around the corner so that the whole family can be included.

We didn't do any black Friday shopping this year. Well, technically I guess that isn't true. Kohl's had sheets on sale so B and I bought 2 new sets. I decided I didn't want to stand outside in the cold or wait in line for 2 hours this year, nothing that we need enough to make it worthwhile. And everything is online now! We finally brought my mom up to speed with the modern world and convinced her to order all of the dvds she wanted online, with free shipping, instead of going to Target/ Best Buy at midnight. Seriously.... why doesn't everyone do this?!

Hope everyone had a good holiday!

Office Inspiration

So, the next room on my list to work on is my office. I have put it off for a LONG time. That room has essentially been a dumping ground for all of the stuff we don't have a place for/ don't know what to do with. Needless to say, it is a disaster, when we have people over we sort of just shut the door and hide the mess. I'm ready for my own space though, I've sort of taken over the dining room table for my laptop and craft projects and now that is sort of a disaster too. Are you seeing a theme here?

If you follow me at all on Pinterest, I have a board just to inspire me to put together the amazing office/ craft space that I want. My very favorite room is from the blog A Bowl Full of Lemons. I love everything about this space.
The shelves above the desk, the pretty organization, that it is both functional AND beautiful. And that pretty much everything is from Ikea. I know Ikea can be very polarizing, personally I love the store but I know many others that feel differently. I worked there for 3 years though, so I may be biased.

This is sort of the look that I am going for in my own office space. I have a good amount of room to work with, honestly the space could perfectly function as a bedroom, not some tiny room that we're just repurposing as an office. I just scored these Finnvard trestle legs off craigslist for $20 for the set! They're $30 a piece at Ikea, which isn't bad but I'm trying to stay somewhat on budget. (I don't really have a budget, just an imaginary number in my head that I really don't want to go over. We'll see what that number is when I get there!) The table top I want to go with it is 59"x30" and $36. That's not bad but I'm still looking at other options too, like buying some wood planks to screw together and stain. B rolls his eyes every time I mention a new project, so we'll see how that goes.