Those Sad, Awkward Spaces

There was a corner of my house that I didn't show off yesterday. It is sadly and lonely and pretty pathetic.

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What do you do with these spaces? My cable box is too tall to fit under my TV, and then on top of that is my DVD player and the modem is to the side. I at least put the antennae down on my modem, but it's not like that's really going to do it. It is just a big, ugly hole (and, for my graphic designer friends, talk about trapped white space)!

This is the best I have come up with. I felt like it needed something kind of full, and definitely some height. I have a small obsession with decanters even though I don't drink. They are just so beautiful!

Yes, you can still see the modem. But, better, right? Any other ideas? What do you do to disguise your ugly places?

Home Tour {Part 1}

Ok - you will need to contain your excitement. I know all of my adoring fans (or just my sisters) have been asking for pictures of my house for months. Well, thanks to an awesome Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family last weekend, I was completely glued to the couch and managed to take pictures. But just of the part of my apartment where I could still see the TV from. First off, you'll notice how much things have changed since I initially made my mood board. I dropped the yellow and embraced just random spots of color, relying heavily on the black and white contrast.

The walls somehow look white (I love my camera), but that, sadly, is an optical illusion. In reality, they are a gross very yellowy, cream color that absorbs all the light in my apartment. And I can't paint and it is nothing short of a tragedy.

My mom made me all of these pillows for my birthday/Christmas. The Greek Key ones are based off the Sarah M. Dorsey tutorial. They are absolutely amazing, and way beyond the technical skill that I possess! Albeit, that consists mainly of being able to sew a relatively straight line, so she was a real lifesaver. Love you, Mom. You rock!

The coffee table I just keep really simple, so we can take things on and off and use it as a work space. And by "work space," I mean dump the tray on the floor so we can watch Wipeout and eat dinner at the same time. Right next to my couch, we have a small chest of drawers from IKEA. They are COMPLETELY busted, but I use them for all of our towels, so they just sit there broken anyway. I cannot give up a single storage option in my 600 sq. ft. It's nice to have a mirror on the way out the door, and we use the small silver tray as a key plate.

This space is where we spend most of our time. Next up, I'll show off the office/kitchen table area! (We really only have two rooms, that comprise 90% of the space so I don't know what to call the little rooms within a room that I have created out of necessity...) But before that, any tips on taking pictures of your house? I found it difficult to capture how it actually looks. Maybe it's just because I live in a shoebox and the walls suck up all the light?

Oh Hey, Friday... and Detroit

Hey, All. Am I ever glad it's Friday this week! It was a long week of work travel, kicking off with a flight that was delayed 6 hours. That got me to my hotel around 2 a.m. before 2 days fully booked of meetings, meetings, meetings.

This week I'm joining September Farm again for the link-up. Since my mind has been on one thing and one thing only this week, that's what you all get to hear about. I am promoting a HUGE meeting in Detroit this year, so my Friday Five is Five Things You Did Not Know About Detroit. I get really aggravated promoting Detroit because of all the negative media hype. I had never been to the Motor City before December, but I've been going pretty much once a month since then and I have to say - I love it! It is vibrant and beautiful and if the winters were not so crazy cold I would move there in a heartbeat.

1. The Detroit River is insanely blue.

I took this photo from the 1 Woodward building. It overlooks Hart Plaza and is shows you just how  gorgeous the river is. It may honestly be the most beautiful color of blue I have ever seen. P.S. - that is Canada on the other side of the river. Yes, it is that close.

2. They build a park downtown every summer. 

As you can see, this may be my favorite feature of Detroit. Campus Martius Park is turned into a beach oasis, tiki bar and gelato stands included. This is about 10 a.m. so we are the only patrons, but come lunch hour this place is packed and they host a happy hour at nights.

3. The foodie scene is pretty decent.

Astoria Pastry Shop in Greektown - yum. I have to go at least once on every visit. They also have Roast by Michael Simon, Slows BBQ always has a line out the door, Joe Muer Seafood is killer for sushi... you get the point. And, while I don't drink, people recommend places to grab a drink all over the city.

4. It's safe.
No photo for this one, but it's one of the issues I come up against the most. I travel alone a lot, and I never worry about walking around, catching a cab, or anything that I need to do. Sure, I'm not going to take a stroll at 1 a.m. by myself, but I'm not doing that in any city. And honetly, the suburbs have more crime than downtown at this point thanks to all of the revitilization.

5. It's beautiful. 

 

I mean... come on. This is Belle Isle, an amazing park/island right in the middle of the Detroit River. As you can tell, I love it. The whole downtown area is beautiful. All of my colleagues have agreed that if you closed your eyes and we transported you to Detroit and had you open them, you would never be able to guess where you were. It looks nothing like what the national media would have you believe. 

Check out the other's participating in the link-up below!

Just A Stroll Through the Garden

This weekend, I got busy crossing things off my bucket list. My mother-in-law lives 3 minutes from Dumbarton Oaks,  a D.C. mansion that has been open to public tours since 1963, so we went together. We stuck to the gardens, which is all I really wanted to see, despite the fact that it was a heat index of over 100 with some real nice humidity around 80% or something. #SwampCity

National Geographic has rated Dumbarton Oaks #6 on their Top 10 Gardens From Around The World List. I wholeheartedly agree with their rating.

All you see here is their grounds, and there is even more off to the right side. If you have not visited NoVa before, you may not realize just how green everything is in this area. But the humidity makes the vegetation wild.

Kitchen gardens

Urn Garden

Pebble Garden

The Orangery was both my and my mother-in-law's favorite place. It was a beautiful enclosed veranda with these plants that cover the walls and hang in the windows.

 

I would just want to sit in here all day, every day, sipping lemonade under the slow turning fan blades, pretending to be a Southern Belle.

Wisteria covered walkways

Detail of the Pebble Garden

The main house's exterior was being renovated, but you can see how beautiful it was below. 

View from the backyard, through The Orangery, to the front yard.

I would highly recommend this as a To Do when you next visit D.C. I'll be coming back in either the fall or spring so I can stroll through it a bit slower and really enjoy myself!

My Friday Five - Irrational Fear Style

Hey everyone! I recently started following September FARM and think she is just too cute with her farmer husband, little "turtle" daughter, and another one on the way! So, when she announced that she was doing a link-up this week, I immediately bought in and began thinking of what to write up for my Friday Five.


I decided to highlight my Top 5 Irrational Fears. It was hard to whittle it down to just 5, but this anxiety-ridden girl decided to focus on the Top 5 Fears that terrify me on the daily. Somewhere deep down, I understand all of these things are a very far off, remote, minute possibility of danger but... cue the Monk theme song.

1. Every time I slip is a chance for me to fall face first into the nearest object, breaking my nose and busting out my front teeth. I'd have to hit something at just the perfect angle and with a pretty huge amount of force. I'm hardly sprinting from place to place in my every day life, hurdling around obstacles that are just waiting to permanently mar my face. Yet still... it could happen at any moment.
2. An escalator could eat me. This actually sounds more irrational than it has proven to be! When I was young, I slipped at the bottom of an escalator and it caught my shirt, sucked me in, and just like that - a lifelong fear was born.
3. My ankles may snap at any moment. Another fear about walking, huh? Well. I guess when you're as clumsy as I am, most of your fears center around injuring yourself. Every time I stumble, or step off the bus, or do pretty much anything, I have this absolutely grotesque image flash through my mind of my ankle not only breaking, but SNAP - broken so severely that bone is now visible. (excuse me while I dry heave and shudder for a moment.)
4. The Dark.  Yup. You got that right - fully grown woman, still afraid of The Dark, but not afraid to admit it. You just don't know what's out there! And if you lie to me and say that you've never turned off the lights in the basement and booked it up the stairs like you were running from the bogeyman, then I disown you.
5. I forgot something. I didn't. But maybe I did? Wasn't there something I needed? Or needed to do? Did I miss a deadline? Was it important? Oh for heaven's sake! Layne has diagnosed me with early, early onset alzheimer's. That nagging worry in the back of my mind that I have forgotten something plagues me to no end.

What's your Friday Five? Be sure to check out the others participating in link-up by clicking the button below!

4th of July Recap

I hope you had as amazing of a holiday weekend as I did! Living in America's Capitol, I pass the monuments every day and am still in awe of their beauty. But when I know the whole nation is feeling patriotic, and especially on the heels of another sojourn overseas, I feel an even greater sense of just how amazing this nation of ours is!

When it comes to celebrating America, we take the Jim Gaffigan approach. (See 2:10, but you should really watch the whole thing and laugh until your sides hurt.)



Layne grilled corn and steaks,  and he also made his roasted garlic mashed potatoes - because there is nothing more American than sweet yellow corn, a huge slab of meat, and some taters. I made some mixed berry scones for breakfast, and a cheesecake with more mixed berries for dessert. I essentially only wanted to eat sugary delights in red, white, and blue. #Murica

But, with our appetizers, we took a break from the All Americana, All The Time approach to the 4th.

Please don't shame us, but these apps were really good!!! The best part about all of these apps is how little effort they took to whip together. The figs required no heat or cooking, and all you have today is fry the bacon, toast the crostini, and call it a day!

Robiola Stuffed Figs with Pomegranate
I used brie instead of robiola since that's what I had on hand, but I'm a huge fan of both cheeses! I'd recommend a little less honey and a heavy hand with the pomegranate seeds. Not only do the soft cheese filling and luscious fig need the texture, but the burst of tartness is a perfect balance!

Fondi di Carciofi (Bacon-Wrapped Artichokes)
These were just - WOW. Certainly not diet friendly, but the salty, smoky bacon with the sour, juicy artichokes was amazing. We will be making these again.

Goat Cheese Crostini with Strawberry Bruschetta
I am a sucker for each of these ingredients individually, and they came together nicely. It didn't knock our socks off, but we are usually partial to savory crostinis. I'd use about half as much balsamic to macerate the strawberries, and don't be shy with that tangy goat cheese! 

What did you have for the 4th? I'm always looking for new recipes if you have a good one to try!

D.C. Bucket List

As I mentioned here, some things are possibly changing for us. There has been a fair amount of uncertainty for us this past year, a few tentative steps forward, but we’re not quite at the point where we need to take the plunge into turning our world around. In this calm before the storm, we have often talked about moving away from our city. There are a number of factors at play, and we still have not made a final decision, but I thought it best to make a Bucket List in case we end up packing our bags on a whim (much like we did when we moved out here). Since making the list, we are already leaning more toward staying, but I decided to stick with my list and make the most of whatever time I have left in D.C.

This is not a comprehensive list of touristy things to do in and around our Nation’s Capitol. This is just a list of things I have heard about or wanted to do and somehow have not gotten around to. I have already crossed a few off the list since I made it last month, but I’ll try to chronicle my journeys here and let you know what I would recommend. For his part, Layne made a D.C. Restaurant Bucket List, so I may chronicle some of that, too.

1. Montrose Park
2. Pentagon Memorial
3. Hike Great Falls Park
4. Picnic on Theodore Roosevelt Island
5. Fly kite and picnic on the mall
6. Gettysburg
7. Mount Vernon
8. Monticello
9. National Arboretum
10. Paddle boats on Tidal Basin
11. Williamsburg & Jamestown
12. Caverns in Shenandoah
13. Elevator on Washington Monument
14. National Cathedral
15. Newseum
16. Dulles Air & Space Museum
17. Watch planes at gravelly point
18. Concert at WolfTrap (July 5!)
19. Library of Congress
20. National Geographic Museum
21. Rock Creek Park Planetarium
22. Dinner cruise on the Potomac
23. Dumbarton House
24. The Mansion on O St
25. Fallingwater
26. Baltimore
27. Ford's Theater