Just Call me Martha!

I have been out of commission with a terrible head cold for most of the week, but before I got the plague, I was busy becoming the next Martha Stewart.  My mom has always been a great sewer, so naturally, she tried to pass that along to me when I was living at home; however, it never really stuck.  She even offered to buy me sewing lessons for Christmas one year in high school, but I never took her up on the offer and I cannot tell you how many times over the years I have kicked myself for that.  Last year, I expressed my newfound desire to sew, and low and behold my mom bought me a sewing machine for Christmas!  I broke it out this week, and I was so proud of myself for using the manual and setting up the machine myself.  It took me FOREVER, but it was so gratifying when I sewed that first stitch!  I almost couldn't believe it when the machine actually made a straight stitch!  And my sweet husband brought me home a beautiful gerber daisy to celebrate the accomplishment. :)


I hope you enjoy the weekend!  We have a lot of plans to clean house and relax.

Happy Friday!

I just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful weekend!  Do you have any big plans for the weekend? We are in for a pretty low-key weekend, but I do have a few things on the agenda.


We are joining discipleship groups at our church, Resurrection Presbyterian, and we have our first monthly gathering of all the groups tonight.  The discipleship groups will be gender specific and will be a supplement to the home group, or bible study, that we are already attending together each week.  The discipleship group will give us a chance to have accountability and prayer time with about three or four ladies or guys that go to our church.  We are both really excited about these groups!  Also, if you are ever in New York on a Sunday evening, we would love for you to join us for our church service. 


We are also headed out tomorrow night to meet up with some of Mitch's co-workers at White Rabbit.  We have never been, but it looks as though there will be dancing involved...which is always fun!  I'll let you know how the place turns out.


I am hoping that on the way to and from these events, I can convince Mitch to stop in at a couple of my favorite stores, like:
Whisk
Moon River Chatel
Cat Bird


Happy Friday everyone!


P.S. My sweet friend from high school, Heather, featured our blog on her "Feature Friday" post.  Check it out here!

2011 Reading List

Do you love to read?  As long as I can remember, I have LOVED to read.  I have been known to screen phone calls and not the leave the house if I have a good book in hand.  They have a way of transporting you to a different place and you feel like you are living right along with the characters.  I remember going to the library with mom during the summers or at the start of Christmas break and checking out five or ten books to read....and reading them all and sometimes going back for round two!  


My reading tapered off during college, and I didn't really get back into it until one of my closest friends started a book club.  It was just what the doctor ordered, and I am back into the groove of reading again and love it!  During book club, Emmaline told us all about Goodreads.  It is kind of like Facebook for reading.  You sign up at www.goodreads.com and search for and mark books according to the status (i.e. read, currently reading or to-read).  After you have this set up, you search for your friends and you can see what books they are reading or want to read and their thoughts on them. It is a great way to find book suggestions from people you trust.


Now that I have talked your ear off about reading, my list for 2011 is below.  I made a goal to read twelve books this year, which is why my list is twelve deep.  With all of my subway riding, I am always in need of a good book.


1.   The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
2.   Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
3.   Outlive Your Life by Max Lucado
4.   Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5.   Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
6.   Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
7.   Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow
8.   Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
9.   The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
10. A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken
11. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
12. Unashamed by Francine Rivers

What book do you really want to read this year?

Our Kitchen

While this is not the whole house, it is my favorite room in the house.  In Williamsburg, you practically have to build your own kitchen, so as you can see, we (and our parents) have put a lot of love into this room.  I hope that you enjoy it as much as we do!  Oh and you get a sneak peak out our hallway.  It will be a work in progress for a while, but it is shaping up wonderfully.

The fuzziness of the embedded slideshow bothers me, so if it bothers you too, you can follow this link to the actual flickr site. 

Coffee Shops

I just love them!  They are always so warm and cozy and inviting.  I have not always loved coffee, but I have loved coffee shops since early college.  Ann, my roommate during college, introduced me to Chai Mai Chai Tea, now Big Train Chai Tea , during our sophomore year.  I fell in love with it and luckily every coffee shop in Auburn had this wonderful treat.  Chai tea was the extent of my coffee shop experience until my fifth year at Auburn when I started waking up really early to finish my accounting research projects and one of my roommates had a coffee maker.  After that, I became an avid coffee drinker and now have it pretty much every morning.  But my love of coffee shops does not come from the coffee itself, while very tasty, but from that fact that I would often meet friends there to catch up on life.  I have the fondest memories of my coffee dates with friends and will always love coffee shops because of that.  When I enter a coffee shop, I feel like I have left the hussle and bussle of life and have entered a quiet, comforting haven.  


Mitch and I have found a wonderful place about three blocks from our house to grab coffee and a pastry.  We go there at least once a week and usually more.  They have the most amazing almond croissants you will ever have!  And they make delightful desserts as well.  If you are ever in Williamsburg and are looking for a cup of coffee or pastry, you must make your way to Margo Patisserie Cafe.  It is amazing!  And if you come to visit, I promise to take you there!  Also, during one of my  many walks about the neighborhood, I noticed this coffee shop off the beaten path with no name, just a blue bottle on the window.  I was intrigued, but not enough to go in....until I heard about it one of my favorite blogs, Today's Letters.  My interest grew, and today I went for the first time.  They slow drip every cup of coffee, so don't go if you are in a hurry, but it was a wonderful cup of joe!  Seriously, the coffee is superb, and I will definitely be taking Mitch back there, but I think Margo's will remain my location of choice to meet friends.


Does anyone else love coffee shops as much as I do?

I hope ya'll have a wonderful weekend, and I am going to run because the lovely Sarah Godwin is on her way to see us and there is much to be done around the house!  


**The picture above is our favorite coffee place in Crozet.

Sweet Smell

Do you have a favorite scent that you just love and cannot get enough of?  For me that is Volcano from Aspen Bay's Capri Blue line.  I first discovered this wonderful candle at Anthropologie last year, and as I read the label a little bit closer, I realized that it was made at none other than Aspen Bay in Starkville, MS!  Aspen Bay has loads of candles since that is what they do best, but they also have a wonderful gift shop....so if you are ever in Starkville, pop into Aspen Bay for some great gifts.  You can go to either websites to purchase the candle, and I promise you won't regret it!  I have also been known to gift one or two.......
picture from Anthropologie

National Champions

WE WON!!!!!!!

What an incredible game!  We were on pins and needles the whole time, but we loved watching a defensive game.  We had quite the spread of tailgate food and some of our wonderful friends, Shane and Chelsey, came over to watch the game with us.  They were great sports and you couldn't tell that they weren't Auburn fans.  After the game we made our way to the Auburn bar, Bar 515, and did our part to roll the tree outside.  Enjoy our pictures!

P.S.  I can't figure out why the pictures are fuzzy in the slideshow, but I you get the picture....

THE Game Day!!!

Let's win a football game tonight!  Hope your day is filled with orange, blue and excitement!  Our household is so excited and ready for the game that we can hardly stand it.  Mitch has been dreaming about the game for almost a full week, and I have listened to the Auburn fight song almost a dozen times this morning.  In case you need something to get you excited for the game, this video had me dancing around the apartment.

War Damn Eagle!

View From Our Window

 

I just thought you might enjoy a view from our window.  If you can't tell, it is snowing like crazy!  I had to take a picture because as I am staring out of our window, some of the biggest snowflakes I have ever seen are floating by.  

So, I tried to get a good picture of the big snowflakes, but I couldn't get the camera to focus on them.  Does anyone know if I can do this and if so, how?  I am definitely the less skilled photographer in our family. :)

Hope you are enjoying your Friday as much as I am enjoying the beautiful snowfall!

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas Part I

Hey friends!  December was a crazy hectic month, so please forgive me for my lack of attention to the blog.  I have so many things that I want to write about, so I am breaking this post into two parts!  Grab your favorite blanket and get cozy because this is going to be a long post....


Mom and Dad Came To Visit!  
They were here for just over two days, so we had to get down to business.  Our days were filled to the brim, but it was so much fun to show both of them our new neighborhood and city.  As you know from here mom came to help us right after we moved in; however, our house looked a lot different then than it does now.  And we have a much better grasp on our little neighborhood and the city as a whole.  We did lots of walking: we walked Bo, we walked to lunch, we walked to church, we walked to Macy's, we walked to F A O Schwarz, we walked in Central Park, we walked to Times Square, we walked to Madison Square Garden, we walked to dinner, we walked to the subway, we walked to Lord and Taylor, we walked to Starbucks and we walked to Grand Central Station.  The one thing they wanted to do while up here was see all of the wonderful Christmas lights of the city.  So while Mitch was hard at work, the three of us went on a light tour of the city.  It turned out to be an extremely cold and snowy night, but we had a blast touring the city.  And I found out some really fun facts about New York and Grand Central that I can now share with everyone who comes to visit.  (I even made Mitch chuckle last night at one of my Grand Central facts while we were there grabbing dinner)

Cookie Decorating with Friends!
As some of you may or may not know, Mitch's best friend from Starkville, Ryan, and his wife, Catalina, live about a ten minute walk from our house. Before we went our separate ways for Christmas, we had them over for a Christmas dinner and cookie decorating.  It was a blast, and I hope it will turn into a yearly tradition.  See our handy work below and in case you are wondering, it was also Ryan's birthday thus the "R" and "M" cookies. :)

I would call us impressionist cookie decorators....

Christmas!
I headed back South a week earlier than Mitch so that I could visit a little bit longer with our families at such a special time of year.  I was able to see all sides of our family except for Mama Ree who got snowed into North Alabama.  We did so much that I am going to let pictures tell the story of my time back home.

Off to make dinner for my hubby, so be on the lookout for part II tomorrow!