i'll know it when i find it.

Do we all have some vague idea of what our future safe space of dreaming-and-scheming, creative projects, licking our wounds, laughing with our favorite characters, and laying our heads to rest will look like?

 

You know, home.

 

The home that when you walk in, you feel like the weight of the world has temporarily floated off to bother someone else for a change. The way your parent's house felt until one day, it didn't.

 

You know the one.

 

It comes in blurry half-frames and fleeting visions. Sometimes you look out the window of your car as you speed by and see a tree, THE TREE, that could someday, someday, provide perfect shade in the backyard of your eclectic little bungalow.

 

At least mine is an eclectic little bungalow, on the water, doused from every angle with the perfect combination of shade from massive trees and sun from the light steeping through. For some people maybe it's a brownstone, or a loft, or a sprawling mass of a structure set against a background of fields upon fields of flowers. But mine, mine is old and small. A place with character. Something that's passed the test of time. Something that needs a little TLC, so I can build a bond, take some sense of pride. A labor of love.

 

When I think of my place, what I'm working to find so I can work for it and perfect it and make it my own, I just feel my shoulders raise up toward my ears and my eyes squint and my mouth press into a little smile. Because I know what it will feel like, what it will sound like, what it will smell like. I have ideas of what I'd like it to look like, but that's not for me to decide, not fully.

 

But when I find it, I'll know.

 

Because it will be home.

 

A place where I will pour glass upon glass of wine and crank up Fleetwood Mac on the record player some nights whilst silly-dancing around with my best friends and laughing until we fall asleep in piles of mismatched blankets upon cushions and couches and beds with the windows open and a breeze whispering through. Have I mentioned the window treatments? Think vintage scarves of all patterns and colors sewn together and draped over a hand-crafted wooden rod. Yes, I dream in detail. And window treatments.

 

It will be a place where I'll come home and sit in my shaded backyard and pull weeds and talk to my plants and cry after a particularly draining day at work. Because no matter what you do, some days are just due for a good cry. God, the garden. So much green. And edible things. And blooms big and small. It will be my greatest pride.

 

It will be a place where I center the main living space around a fireplace and not a tv, because when I live, I like to be engaged and not plugged in. That doesn't mean I'm not going to have TV, because I like watching movies on plasma as much as the next 2012-ite... but really, I don't want to center my life around it.

 

Oh, I will have bookcases upon bookcases. For books. Books for days rainy and days sunny. Books for every occasion. I already have quite the collection, but by then I'll have doubled, tripled the volumes, with built in shelves, artfully displayed. And knick knacks and keepsakes from the travels of my own and those who love me.  But mostly, books. I will be surrounded by books and arty little prints and big colorful posters. 

 

I can see my front porch now. It's a sprawling affair.  And my front door, oh, it will be yellow. Or green. Or purple! I don't even know yet. My house and I haven't met, I'll wait to consult her personality for such a decision. But I can almost see her. She's beautiful. Just knowing she's out there, my little refuge from the world, it makes me feel better. I will find her.

 

 

I can almost see it. I'm so anxious for it to get here.

i'm brimming with excitement

I've got some more BIG NEWS and it's actually kind of embarrassing, so yay.

As of tomorrow, the 25th day of August in the year of our Lord 2011, I WILL HAVE HOME INTERNET ONCE AGAIN.

That's right, for a myriad of reasons, I have not actually had internet access in my home environment since I gave birth to this little blog baby. This has added an intense degree of difficulty, such as only having 60 minutes during the day to compose, proofread, and publish a post each day, lest I want to pay $4 for a coffee drink at the Starbucks twenty minutes from my house, since one of my less charming exes (also my sister's ex!) works at the store two minutes from my house. GOOD TIMES! FAMILIES GOTTA SHARE!

Not really.


Anyway, I'm not really sure what unlimited access to all the interwebs will do to/for this little corner of the internet, but what can you expect?

GRATUITOUS PICTURES OF MY DOG!!!!!!

(hopefully) LESS GRAMMATICAL ERRORS! That expensive college degree will really show through, now!

(maybe) VIDEO BLOGGING AKA VLOGGING!

MORE CURSE WORDS? (probably not, I fucking curse enough)

I personally can't wait, the world is my oyster.

SEE YOU ALL SOON FROM THE COMFORT OF MY COUCH!

Xo Sara

lay off me, i've been nesting.

So I've finally managed to lay off the lazy sauce long enough to upload some picturess. And by lazy sauce I mean I've been nonstop reading every chance I get. It's summer, what else should I be doing?

 I BOUGHT THE COUCH. After three visits it was just getting pathetic, so I finally made my move. We couldn't be happier together. Talk about a harmonious relationship. I know I've been hyping it up like crazy, but eat your heart out.

This is where the couch lives now. In my bedroom. Someday I'll have an impressive domicile in which I'll display this impressive-ass couch in a way that will do it justice. Mark my words.

I'm going to go ahead and apologize now for taking all of these pictures on my phone and also for thinking I was cool enough to use the Hipstamatic app. Everything looks better with angles and weird lenses, right? Whatever. That's how it is and I can't help it.

Antique luxury meets college dorm crate style. I'd prefer to be called a visionary.

Still in the store. A diamond in the rough.

This is a close-up of the fabric. I'm really psyched on having a patterned couch and I feel like it's not too loud to go out of style. Basic pattern. classic. Plus it's like sitting on a cloud.

Not a blemish or loose string to speak of. Perfect upholstery job. This is the stuff that sets my pulse racing. I'm one of a kind.

The other day we were in the car and Manfriend jokingly asked, "So are you going to let people eat or drink on the couch?"


This is seriously not a laughing matter for me.


My reply was simple and dead serious "Clear liquids only."


And no sticky-ass fingers either.

Bitch, I'm crazy. I'll cut you. Spill/smear/stain ANYTHING on my couch and I will end your motherfucking life. That's a promise.



All of my shit needed to get off the kitchen table and into the walls, we'll see if I still like the placement in a few days. This stuff is currently hanging over The Couch.  


Anyway, now that I have a couch to decorate my entire life around, I'm really antsy to get on with it. Which is why being anything less than obscenely rich is really annoying. I'm not kidding I almost had a meltdown in the car last week over the fact that I can't afford everything I have ideas for.  Which is why I've been thrifting like crazy and painting the shit out of stuff. Most of the stuff hanging I already had, though.

Some more of the stuff hanging over my beloved couch.

Okay here's where I just start throwing up pictures of some of the other stuff around the house.

Half-assed attempt at the window treatment.

Please don't judge the bedding. I'm working on it.

I'll probably start hiding my valuables up there.

knicky knacky.



Kitchen poster and freshly painted mirrors. Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.



I'm kind of obsessed with birds.

Manfriend likes decorations too. Just not the same kind that I do.

THIS IS MANFRIEND'S CONTRIBUTION TO HOME DECORATING STYLE. He's into black frames with white mattes. This is something I can definitely work with. He's also into autographed pictures of sport's stars... which I guess I can deal with too, which is why he does have some prime real-estate wall space in the living room to display his man-art.  What can I say? The man plays into my soft-spot with nightly back-rubs and a Netflix account. Which can also partially account for why he won this battle:










I haven't named him yet, but trust me, I will.

 That's right. There's a carcass hanging from the wall of my own home. Wonders never cease. Remind me to tell you about my first hunting trip sometime. A gem among gems. 

I mean, it was his house first, after all. I just brought in all my crap and a really stubborn disposition and started bossing everyone around. Luckily, Manfriend lets me.  Plus when it comes down to it, I'm really no better at the whole home-decor  side of things than he is. I still end up occasionally with walls that look like this:

Not my most shining achievement.

A wall of total disarray that looks like a junk shop puked all over it.

And then I have to toss and turn in my sleep until I come up with some better idea that involves putting 2893748374 more holes in the wall. Trial and error. But in the end, having a place I feel comfortable living in and okay with showing off to my guests is the goal. Such as my smallest brother, below. Manfriend lets him play zombie killing games on the interactive media outlet, so he likes him the best, naturally.

They're killing zombies. Or something. Whatever, this picture is to illustrate the fact that we're AT HOME. You know, lounging in the lap of luxury and comfortable and stuff. WITH GUESTS EVEN.

Now you've had a jank-ass tour of my home, which is really more than I can say for the majority of my friends and family, so you're welcome. Portal to my soul and all that.  Oh yeah, I forgot one main thing. You may be wondering why my dream couch is being kept in the bedroom where it's unlikely to be used. Um, duh. Although comfortable, I'm trying to keep it BEAUTIFUL. Actual use by anyone other than me is basically unnecessary. Just kidding. Kind of. Seriously though, I'm trying to protect my lovely new (to me) piece of furniture from the jaws of death and destruction. AKA Hally. 140 pounds of raw destruction:

This is how she looks about 85%  of the time. The other time is spent looking guilty for chewing something up, slime-ing you for the sole reason that she can tell you don't have time to change clothes,  or looking sad because she can tell you're about to leave.

 Hally isn't allowed in Manfriend and my bedroom because it's the one place in our home that I'm safe from dog hair and whatever other airborne allergens she has to offer. I keep trying to tell her it's boring in there anyway, but she rarely buys it. Anyway, the couch is in there and safe and I can read on it without dying. Win-win.



For me and the couch, anyway.



And with that, I leave you with a charming picture of me getting heavy-handed with my cocktail:


I hope my weekend looks like a heavy-handed pour. It's been a bastard of a week.

Cheers to Saturday and Sunday!

 
XO Sare

squishy couch dreams.

After work on Friday I convinced my friend Erin that instead of our usual post-work-weekend-drink-scurry-for-bourbon we should first check out an antique store between our two houses.

We both live with our boyfriends at this point, and apparently nesting is NOT the typical reaction.

However, nesting is exactly what hit me like a ton of bricks about Tuesday of last week when we got back into town after living hard and fast for the weekend and home wasn't an immaculately cleaned house with a full fridge and a maid to do my laundry. Nope, my little 1.5 month stay-over at my parent's home was certainly cushy, but home now looks slightly less cushy.

So, since just thinking about painting walls colors that I actually like just to paint them white again in nine months sounds like a whole lot of wasted effort, I've been going decor crazy in other ways. Like, pinterest.com all day, errrrrday.

In other words, I'm trying to spruce shit up.

I'd say it's going pretty well. If I'm feeling techy I'll upload some pics of my masterful work at some point, but let's bring this full circle, shall we? 

Erin and I are dicking around in my favorite antique store, it's got booths partitioned off like many do, and each vendor is trying to sell a mix of vintage and junk. Plus for every thirty days something sits in the store, it goes down in price ten percent until it's half off. I get my fix, junk gets cheap, new junk comes in all the time. Perfect. 

Erin's kind of cruising through because she's more into the idea of drinks after antiquing, since I kind of had to entice her with them in order for her to allow me to drag her along. So we're making better time through there than I probably ever have before because usually I'm OCD and I HAVE to see every item and go in EVERY booth because heaven FORBID I miss a tiny treasure and then all of the sudden, There. It. Is.

My dream couch.


I spot this couch and I cannot make myself look away. It's like there is a magnet in my ass and the couch is metal and by god the next thing I know I'm standing over it. And then I'm sitting in it. I can easily say this is the favorite couch I have ever seen or had the pleasure of sitting on in my life. I could decorate an entire room home LIFE around this sitting device. It's that perfect. Antique. Oak framework. Flawless upholstery. And then I looked down at the price tag and it was about $300 less than I was expecting to see and I started rationalizing to myself why I needed it. Which is almost always disastrous.

I normally don't get emotional over furniture, but I swear to god I felt physically ill walking out of the store without that couch. It's really not a couch you can have with a giant dogcreature milling around and drooling all over everything and accidentally clawing onto it with her giant paws. Like, at all.

So thanks to Hally the English Mastiff, the part of my heart reserved for home furnishings is officially crushed.

I thought that would be it. The couch would never be mine and I would eventually learn to move on, just like when you get dumped out of the blue and you're still in love with the other person but they are clearly indifferent to your existence. It was like the couch took one look at me and my giant dog and lack of hardwood floors and was like, "Move along, you're wasting both of our time and some other customers just walked in, so shooooo." Plus Erin was doing that shift from one foot to the other thing and shaking the ice in her empty big gulp NOT GETTING THE APPEAL OF THE COUCH and I suddenly felt really thirsty for some Jim Beam.

And then I dreamed about that goddamn asshole of a beautiful couch on Friday AND Saturday night. And all weekend, I gushed to anyone that would lend me an ear about the couch. I'd arrange and rearrange existing furniture in my mind so that I could maneuver the couch into my bedroom, safe from giant dogcreatures. Hell, for all I care, the couch can BECOME MY BED. Manfriend is getting RULL tired of hearing about this goddamn couch.

On Sunday I'm lazing around my parents' house, talking to my mom about what else but THE COUCH, and I decide she needs to come with me to visit it. After all, she's the reason I'm antique-obsessed, this is the burden she is doomed to bear- taking her 25 year old daughter to musty antique shops to visit furniture they can't really afford or reasonably find a place for in their own homes.

This is my life.

So I walk in shakily, almost too afraid to hope to see the damn thing again, my mother trailing close behind,  and it's STILL THERE. Ready for purchase. And my own mother agrees that this is a badass couch and it's a crime that it's just sitting there. She totally fucking gets it. I bet SHE dreamed about my couch last night.

I've taken to calling it "my couch."

Sad.

Tonight I'm taking dragging Manfriend to visit the couch.

I honestly don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to restrain myself from whipping out my card, plopping it on the counter, and figuring the rest out after I can breathe easy again, knowing it's mine.

Wish me luck and happy couch dreams tonight.

XO Sare

i think this is a milestone?

Well well well. Guess who is NAILING her 100th post today? 

CHEERS!!!!!!!!!!!

ME!!!!!!!!! 

Let's not shit ourselves, when I started this little happiness project last November I had no idea I'd make it this far. In fact, I was even supposed to have a coupla co-bloggers. They bailed out as soon as I registered this little sideshow and made it all official-like. 


Dicks.


I mean we're still practically BFF, but I'm not going to pretend like I'm not mad about being deprived of a little photo shoot in cracked-out golf attire for our much anticipated "T'd off Tuesday" feature. The three of us swinging golf clubs at a camera in unison could have been totally dangerous epic.

Whatevs, I'm over it.


I'd be lying if I said that after 100 posts I feel like I know ANYTHING close to what it is I'm doing here, floating around in the blogosphere. But hey, it feels pretty damn good to have a place to use curse words gratuitously and bitch about how much the winter makes me want to hibernate. Plus, no one seems to judge me too hard when I listen to my Bon Iver pandora station a smidgen too long and start ranting and raving about god knows what in my fragile emotional state.

So, thanks Internet.

It's been a beautiful beginning to a lovely friendship. And for realsies you've done wonders for my attitude. Just ask Manfriend, he'd probably have killed me for the life insurance money by now if I didn't have this sturdy little crutch.  

SPEAKING OF THAT GUY.

Guess who got a brand spankin' new suit last night? Yes, my own boyfriend. Since we have four weddings to attend in the near future and all. And guess where my mall-phobic boyf let me drag him?

 H&M!!!! HOLY TRENDSETTERS BATMAN!

 If I could have had a video camera for the moment he opened the dressing room door wearing 'skinny-fit' trousers and a too-small suit jacket, I would have had a chance to bring more joy and laughter to the world. It was truly a sight to see. A hilarious, wondrous sight. We finally settled on a suit that looks snazzy on him and he needed my advice, so he had to stop giving me the silent treatment for making a scene in the dressing room and we jaunted off to our next glamorous destination.

THE STORE THAT SELLS VACUUM BAGS!

Because I'm 25 years old and I still own an old Hoover handed down from my parents. Except it's so old that they don't actually sell the correct vacuum bags anymore and that's when I started to panic.

I must suck all the dog hair into the vacuum on the daily or my lungs say "No Bueno" and give up. Yes, my lungs speak Spanish. I do not.

And you know what Manfriend did? He bought us a brand-new STATE OF THE ART ($$$) vacuum that DOESN'T EVEN NEED BAGS. It's great. You just rinse off the filter. And empty it. (a million times a day if you have a mastiff like we do.) I LOVE BREATHING!  He reaaaaaally doesn't want my life insurance money, apparently.

Plus he even bought me that Michael Kors watch I requested for my birthday. With diamonds. I feel like a magpie staring at it on my wrist all day. I think that means I'm in love. I don't hate it.

Anyway. Thanks for the memories, Internet. And thanks Manfriend for keeping me appeased the rest of the time.

X's and O's!

Sara

sticky lips

During my lunch hour today, I was perusing the clearance section of Kroger because I obviously don't know the meaning of words like 'budget' or 'time management,' and something a little odd happened.

 I bought a tube of lipstick. Granted, an on-sale-for $2.39 tube of lipstick, but still.



Lipstick has always been the most elusive of the cosmetics to me. A nice plum rouge? I can handle it.  A menage of mascara? I'm your girl. I'll even hit up that liquid eyeliner if I'm feeling particularly spicey, but lipstick? Let's leave that to the professionals.


I guess for whatever reason I just figured lipstick is for real adult women, and not a twenty four year old who spent their Monday night sweating her ass off at the gym and then proceeded to rush home to mourn a friend's declined grad school application with an entire bottle of cheap champange- without even bothering to shower or change. Clearly, I'm not glamourous enough to warrant the application of lipstick.


However, I realized today that I must be running on flawed logic here. Lipstick's popularity never seems to diminish, despite women getting old and dying and stuff. So like, obviously people who are young are picking up on this whole lengthy trend and perpetuating it along, right? Just not anyone I know personally.


But, what's the point, exactly? I really don't dislike the color of my lips at all. In fact, I think it's a rather nice shade. Plus, I greatly prefer the feeling of chapstick to that of chalky, dry, lipstick. Why don't I know anyone my age who regularly applies this cosmetic? WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME THIS TIME?! Naturally I went to the person I go to with all the troubles of my curious little heart, Manfriend.




Me: "Question. How do you feel about lipstick?"


Manfriend: "Is this a trap?"


Me: "I don't think so. Lipstick?"


Manfriend: "On me...?"


Me: "No. I just mean in a general sense, what are your feelings toward lipstick as a thing?"


Manfriend: "Um. I think it looks good on some people and some people overdo it, I guess. It's okay...."



... and then I stopped listening because I was driving, which, if you can believe it, actually makes my attention span even shorter than normal and because I was obviously asking the wrong person. Manfriend doesn't even wear lipstick! (That I know of.)


One of those major makeup lines now has Taylor Swift as one of their models for LIPSTICK. NOT GLOSS. STICK. So shit, I guess they're trying to accentuate what a youthful product this is. But, it's not, right? Am I a freak here? I just don't feel like I come into contact with THAT MANY women who wear lipstick. How can it be so wildly popular and I'm just in the dark? Shit, it's just like Twitter, only much, much older and an actual product, isn't it?


Today, I rushed out to my car after paying for my 'necessities' at Kroger and hurriedly ripped open the tube of lipstick. We stared each other down. I smelled it, because I'm a freak and I smell everything. And then I looked up into my rear-view mirror and applied that mystical stick-o-the-lips onto my supple smackers and leaned back to admire my handy work.


My lips were fucking orange. The color, as described on the tube, is "Kiss," but I can guarandamntee that Manfriend would NOT dare kiss me if he had been there to check me out. It looked so nude/lightpink/fresh from the tube, the deceptive little bastard! Undeniably orange. And flecked with shiney pearlescent looking shit, which, if you know me at all, you know I HATE pearlescently colored things. I wiped that shit off my now-dehydrated lips and drove back to the office to spend my last half-hour of lunch in the peace and dark of the uninhabited side-office that I occasionally hide out in.


I guess I don't really have any problem with lipstick. And maybe one day, when the time is right, I'll start wearing it around the house and putting it on before I go to the grocery store and stuff, and it will feel natural. Just not today; today I will waste away my afternoon pondering the popularity of a product that I'm not ready for, the nerve!



XO Sare