Holy... shop update!

It was a busy weekend in the sweatshop! Brooches and rings, earrings and necklaces, cool hooks to hang those necklaces on...

Go check out all the new loot! Yippeeee!!

a day at the downtown houston aquarium

"When the boxes are gone and you've cleaned up the mess you'll make a home of the house that was just an address". -John Bratton.

It's-a-movin'-time! You may think it's sick...but I love moving. I typically don't stay in one place for more than a year, and I've been at the Fargo house for almost 2, which is bizarre...but that just means I'm a year overdue for "the purging".

I love the process of going through drawers and closets, sorting, throwing things away, absolving the nooks and crannies of things I've held onto for absolutely no apparent reason. Carrying bag after bag to the trash can feels like dropping pounds. One trash bag = 5 lbs and y'all I'm gettin' skinny! (not literally...I'm throwing back boxes of nerds candy down my gullet as I type..) It just feels so good, in the immortal words of Outkast, I feel so fresh and so clean, clean...

After spending countless hours on the HAR site (Houston area real estate), and touring 7 units on Saturday, we applied for an apartment in this bad boy on Kipling near Dunlavy in Montrose. The house is broken up into 4 individual units, we're looking at the one on the bottom left. The neighborhood is fantastic, in super-short walking distance to Brasil, Poison Girl, Anvil, Boondocks and so many other coffee shops, bars and awesome vintage/ retail shops on the Westheimer curve....aaannddd they're building a big HEB at the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy so that would be ridiculously convenient.



The unit comes with stacked washer and dryer, we get our own private garage with storage space... It's almost perfect... almost.



[ we've agreed that the bathroom is a little snug with no counter space and the bedroom may be about 3 feet too small ]

 So here it is:

View of front




View of living room from front door

 

View with back to living room windows looking at front door, tiny view of hallway.

 

Dining room painted a dark red color with original vintage hutch (hello, bar area!) Would probably use this as office/craft space.

 

View of bedroom, looking at closet doors.

View of bathroom with accent tile.

...........................................................................................................

All of the above are realtor shots, except for this one....

 I took as Ryan and I were leaving... after our apartment locator guy drove us around for about 2 hours, Ryan was patient enough with me to go back, hours later, to the two properties we liked the most and walk around for a while. Thinking. Talking. Comparing. Contrasting.

Saturday was a stressful day. It's so hard to decide because there are so many good things we loved, and a few things we didn't and it's just... hard, you know?

This will be our first home together so maybe I'm letting that weigh on it more than it should...a home is.... it's where the heart is, it's where you hang your hat, be it ever so humble, there's no place like it... in the words of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, it's where ever I'm with you.

So with that attitude, I'm awaiting (not so patiently) a call from the realtor to see if we got it (we were competing with one, possible more people for it..).

I'm promising myself that if he calls to tell us we got it or if we didn't that it's meant to be and that if it means we keep looking, that's A-Ok.

fun at the amusement park... i mean bar.

Greetings from...

[ view from outside during the day]

Yup. I know you've been looking for a retro circus themed watering hole. Welp.. this is it. You're welcome.

[ drinking and driving discouraged...]

Wowsa

Sigh. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of this week were absolutely nuts, and I have 2 photos to show for it. The Lady Gaga shows were fantastic and we were so lucky to see them from such an amazing point of view...such a great experience. I couldn't thank L&S enough.

TA-DA! Now let's have a cocktail.

I would like to finally announce that Notes from the Republic, the Etsy shop, is now open for business and there are 11 fabric button rings for sale! OOOOOO! I've had so much fun today, taking photos, thinking of little descriptions for each one... I can't wait to list more- embroidery, wreaths, bulletin boards...

Super-big thanks to Nora for creating my fantastic shop banner! I love it.

EEP! Go look!

Summa Summa Summatimeeeee - Will Smith

Weekend, thank you. Thank you for being there for me when I want to pig out, lay in the sun, get a little culture, and sleep in. Friday Ryan and I went on a movie date! We saw Splice, which was creepy, gross, funny and weird. You could probably wait for it on DVD/On Demand. I was entertained... I'm just sayin'. After the movie, we met up with some pals for a few cocktails at Boheme and since we missed dinner that night, wailed on some late night Vietnamese cuisine: pot stickers, crab rangoon and spring rolls. Thank you Hollywood for being open until 4am on weekends.

Saturday, we were supposed to go to Galveston for the sand castle competition, but opted to sleep in and read in the sun. The ol' allergies were acting up later on so under the influence of benadryl, Saturday ended pretty early.

Sunday was great! We went to 11am mass at St. Ann's, had a fantastic brunch at Mia Bella, one of our faves! I always get the eggs and crab meat, 2 poached eggs topped with lump crap meat and jalapeno hollandaise over a grilled polenta cake (kinda like a cheesy grits biscuit thing...). You also get homefries and fresh fruit with your dish all for under 10$. It's a steal, ladies and gentlemen. Have I mentioned the 10$ bottomless mimosas, champagne, bellini's and bloody marys? Yeah, there's that too. (Excuse me, sir? Can you just leave the champagne bottle on our table? You'll really just be saving yourself the hassle...)

After brunch we went down to the museum district for free 1st Sunday! Thanks to Target, all of the museums are free the 1st Sunday of each month. I had never been to the Contemporary Arts Museum- it was great! I'm such a sucker for museum gift shops... maybe it's the kitchy things you come across, maybe I just love paying 200% over what products are worth, but I picked up a few little things.
[below, gift shop]

We moseyed on over to the Fine arts Museum to catch the Alice Neel exhibit.

She's famous for her oil on canvas portrait work, but Ryan and I loved her city-scapes the best.

Nothing like a visit to a museum to inspire you to break out the art supplies.

I'm excited about a new embroidery project I started this weekend! More to come!

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you're not as stuffed up as I am. (damn tree pollen.)

crazy cat lady inspired craft

last weekend, this happened. irl.