guess what we're still doing!

believe it or not, that messy pile of crumpled magazine pages is actually proof of hardcore unpacking productivity! have I completely terrified you from ever moving ever again? I literally wrote myself a note in my journal that says, "we will never ever ever ever again move during event season. ever." we finally made our big trip to ikea this past monday & have been dedicating our evenings to building bookcases & filling kitchen shelves. it's slowly starting to feel a lot more like a home, which is fantastic & overdue. I'm ready to go back to filling my nights with reading & blogging & photo editing. seriously. once things feel settled around here, I'll take you on a tour of this little place. it's pretty cute.

a sunday sunset

the nice thing about taking pictures of a photographer friend + their significant other is that at the end of their shoot they say things like, "can I take some pictures of you two?" & you say, "sure, Malcolm!"

there are few great things about the moving process, but experiencing a sunset kiss in your new neighborhood is definitely a highlight.

like crazy

you know tomorrow will be a good day when the last words you hear before you completely drift off into sleep are:

"I love you like crazy."

just a twirl on the lake

hey, remember when I went to indiana for the 4th of July & took engagement pictures for emily & trent & then was still editing them at the end of August? yeahhh... me too. so that's what I've done with my evening. we've reached the point in unpacking where we can go no further without a trip to ikea/the container store, which are both located in northern virginia - a good 3.5 hour drive. (so guess what we're doing on monday!) this leaves me guilt-free, as I've been sitting here staring at the computer screen with my glasses sitting on the end of my nose for the last 3 hours, legitimately surrounded by boxes & suitcases that have nowhere to go.

I also reached the end of my not-having-a-pet rope tonight, & something just has to be done. I need animal companionship for these weeks when Jared is at work every night. unfortunately, this new building doesn't allow dogs, & I can't stand birds, & I think I'm technically what you could call allergic to cats. but that last one is debatable. at least I'm pretending it is. hmph.

this gif is making me dizzy. my GIFt to you. ;)

sunday best

his

jacket: h&m | tie: gap | shorts: h&m  | shoes: thrifted | sunglasses: that's a big ol' h&m

hers

dress: target | cardigan: f21 | belt: charlotte russe | necklace & sunnies: target

these pictures are a little bit on the cheating side, since we took them two sundays ago. these pictures are also a little bit on the HEY THERE, HIPS! side, as there is apparently no good way to hide my... uhhh, curves? in a knee length dress - consider this noted. I'm trying my hardest to embrace that I am a blogger with hips/thighs/not-a-teeny-waist. we're a minority ;) truthfully, it's an ongoing challenge to follow the trends while being aware of my body type. skinny jeans? doable... but I've certainly never walked into forever 21 & walked out with a pair of skinnies. no, no. it's usually a journey to twelve stores over the course of three weeks to find the perfect fit. then there's the upcoming Season of the Leggings, beginning promptly in september & lasting through mmm, april. ongoing challenge: ACCEPTED.

I'm typing from the coffeeshop around the corner from our new apartment. it's all drizzly outside & a very dry cappuccino is warming me up. a little old man walking a dog wearing a raincoat just passed by the window. it's like we now live in a scene from a Meg Ryan movie, like, for real. so I'm going to continue to sit here, ignoring the boxes covering every corner of the apartment & wait for tom hanks or billy crystal to walk by. it could happen.

apartment 207

The surfaces have been wiped down, the last box moved to the new place & the keys have been turned in. Jared spent all day yesterday finishing the move out/clean-up process while I worked, & we said our official goodbye this afternoon. It's so exciting to be moving on, & kinda fun to know we've been married long enough to have a "first apartment" now, but that didn't make it any easier to take down the windchimes or pull off the Polaroid that I taped onto the front door the day Jared got the keys to what would be our first home. Ugh, I've got to pull it together.

Apartment 207, you were everything we needed you to be for our first two years of married life. We'll miss you. But not your bullfrogs. I will NEVER miss the bullfrogs.

It's raining here at the new apartment. Jared just turned on Beauty & the Beast. We're spending the evening in, sitting in our new, charming little tree.

in limbo...

I'm making a very broad assumption that my lack of blogging is noticed by a tiny fraction (of a fraction) of the internet... But we're still alive & kicking! Better yet, we're about 87% moved in to the new apartment, which is really nothing short of a miracle. Thanks to a lot of strong family members & the dear, sweet Fitschen brothers, everything from our one billion year old antique china cabinet to our most gigantically, overwhelming mattress (because double sided sounded like a good idea when it was being delivered to our first apartment) was successfully moved in. & now begins the unpacking game. We're currently without internet, so you get a phone-typed update. I even have Sunday Best photos just waiting to be published. For now, real life remains on hold in what may be the longest moving process of ever. C'est la vie!

appsolutely! - music

I joined the iphone world back in april, & well. I just love apps. I love apps of all kinds, & am on a constant search for new + aesthetically pleasing. so! whenever someone from a trustworthy source posts a gem of an app, I get all sorts of excited. I just want to share the love! so I'm going to be sharing with YOU guys some of my favorite apps every once in awhile. plus, we all know how much I love advertising for free (?). & tonight, it's two favorites from my "tunes" folder.

songza

• like, the god amongst playlist apps. 
• SO great for finding new artists - new to you AND to the music scene.
• songza pulls up the day of the week + time of day & shows a list of activities to choose from (2nd photo). 
• once you've selected your "activity", it will show you three playlists with brief descriptions, & for the album cover diehards, some of the artists that are showcased on the playlist (3rd photo). 
• from there, your playlist will begin, but similar playlists also show up, so you can sorta rabbit trail into whatever genre of music you've selected.
• also has tons of options under the explore tab, letting you search by mood, decade, culture, etc.
• much like pandora, the more thumbs-up you give, the better it gets to know your taste, & it will recommend better music suited for y-o-u.
• no commercials (yet)... which is awesome. no frightening male voice booming through your speakers to advertise insurance or presidential candidates as you're drifting off to sleep = always a bonus.
• I do find myself going back to Pandora when I want to listen to mostly one artist (like when all I want is Florence + the Machine, mixed with Electric Guest & Black Keys), & back to Spotify for a whole playlist of simply Beirut. songza's playlists are very diverse.
• seems to have a couple of glitches every now & then, but it's mostly just the music taking a minute or two to load. 

relax melodies

• I don't know when I became one of those people that needs white noise to fall asleep, but I have a feeling it started when my roommate & I had to drown out our evil radiators in our 1920's apartment bedroom during college.
• but seriously, remember the equally-evil-bullfrogs? this had a lot to do with that.
• we tried playing music to drown out the bullfrogs when dear, sweet mating season began this year, but it was keeping me awake & made Jared's sleep pretty restless (which is HARD, because dude sleeps like aaaa... hibernating bear?). so we decided white noise was the answer to our problems.
• naturally, there's an app for that. but when searching "thunderstorm" or "white noise" in the app store, the options were endless & to be honest? pretty wonky.
• I think it was some mommy-blog that actually ended up recommending this app... for their toddler.
• I don't even care. Toddlers need sleep. I need sleep.
• basically, you get to create the background noise of your choice with five pages of noise to mix into sleepy perfection. (note: this is the free edition)
• bonus! you can control the noise level for each sound, so notice at the top of the 2nd picture, the thunder is set at 50%. 
• I believe the first words I uttered to Jared about this app was, "this would be so great for babies!" but that's just a guess.
• I SLEEP SO HARD WITH THIS SUCKER PLAYING! & the best part is the timer (bottom of the 2nd photo), so we have it set to shut off after two hours of glorious zzzzzz's. there's also an alarm if you're the type of weirdo that would wake up to the sound of campfire. or monks singing. 

got any secret music apps that you've been enjoying? leave a comment! I currently have TWO partially empty apartments to fill with jamz, people! help a girl out!

rollin' rollin' rollin'

I know it's been quiet around here, but we're just all sorts of everywhere these days. we're currently in the middle of moving from one city to another... only about a 20 minute drive, but I think knowing that it's so close has made the moving process more slow-goins than if we were moving 20 states away. I've felt a little frantic as I've watched things get pulled off our shelves & emptied out of cupboards & closets, feeling a little hesitant to close this chapter that's been so good to us. but! being in the new apartment tonight with the first load of boxes was good. good for my nerves. good for my emotions. I know I'll love the wood floors instead of carpet. I know I'll feel all sorts of fancy living on a cobblestone street instead of an apartment complex parking lot. & of course, I'll feel at home wherever Jared is. it's still hard, though. I'm still attached to this first little home & all of its wonderfulness.

so it was good when, right on cue, God sent us a new upstairs neighbor that has been rehearsing riverdance for the last two nights. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's riverdance, anyway. it's river-dancy enough to make this place seem a little easier to leave. just a little.

iphone does: an evening with ingrid

I fell in love with ingrid while writing an English paper as my freshman year roommate watched one tree hill. ingrid was the featured artist, & I immediately took to myspace to find out who she was & how could I hear more of her music. it's been deep, heart-throbby love ever since. jared surprised me with tickets to the show last month & I finally - FINALLY! - found myself back in the same room as the great & almighty ingrid for the first time since I saw her in concert in 2007. we took my littlest sister & her bff with us to share in the love, & middle-aged ladies who seemed to be at the concert just to ruin everyone else's evening aside... had a really pleasant time. pictured with ingrid is her new hubby, greg laswell. they're pretty presh. 

& it's only fitting that I share ingrid's impromptu Olympic song that she played for us... obviously, I was not the only one wondering how the women's gymnastics all-around was going during the concert that night. it's funny :)

minus & plus - olympics style!

-
missing a lot of Olympic coverage due to the whole Big Girl Job thing. every other Olympic summer, I’ve been a student, sitting around the house with not a care in the world except that the US team BETTER win this water polo game that I am suddenly a fan of.
+
cozying up to a husband every single night to watch the games. we mostly just crack each other up the entire time, & it’s usually at poor Bob Costas’ expense. we really do love him, but he really is a vampire.

-
opening ceremonies: scary, giant voldemort puppet, unhappy-looking royals & creepy face dresses.
+
opening ceremonies: kenneth branagh (swoon), rowan atkinson (LOLZ) & that cutie patootie, jasmine breinburg, who I maybe want to be when I grow up.

-
team USA men’s soccer team :(
+
team USA WOMEN’S SOCCER TEAMMMMM. USA! USA! USA! WHERE’S WALDO JERSEYS!!!! USA!

-

not enough soccer (football, for the rest of the world) coverage. period.

+

like, zero vuvuzelas. good job, world.

-
the return of the scrunchie, thanks to the Russian women’s gymnastics team
+
the curse of the scrunchie, which I’m pretty sure was a contributing factor to team USA’s gold medal

-
our poor mens gymnastics team. I couldn’t even watch.
+
they are all adorable. well, as adorable as bulging muscles-in-places-that-I’m-99%-sure-I-don’t-even-have can be.

+

missy franklin.

+

gabby douglas.

+

william & kate.

-
coughing my way through the evening as I get more & more excited (read: hyperventilate) about each event.
+
probably associating the taste of cough drops with the 2012 olympics for the rest of my life.

-
crying (seriously, sobfest) when the girls gymnastics team took gold. or when that stupid Sia/breathe me/special Olympics coca-cola commercial plays. or any time they show an olympian’s parent/s.

+
jared trying not to laugh at me whenever I’m misty-eyed.

-
those grey outfits our teams are having to wear on the podium. this is all I can think of when I see them.
+
men’s swimming “uniforms”… can I get an amen, or am I the only one will to admit this?

-
feeling like a completely inferior human being to these amazingly muscular demi-gods & goddesses, especially when I realize that I was 7 when some of these people were BORN. & in case you haven’t put it together yet, the average gymnast in the 2016 Olympics will have been born in 2000. … I know, right?
+
trying really hard to figure out how to involve myself in the 2016 Olympics. you know, like, being the girl who sits on the end of the rowboat, yelling. or one of the volleyball cheerleaders. or maybe missy franklin's personal assistant? I'd be really great at that. I have a feeling it involves laughing a lot.

& those are my personal reflections on the first week of the 2012 games. I'm transitioning into the track & field obsession as I type. myyyy liiiiiiiife...