Hair Keeps on Changing

Oh, hi. By the way, during my absence here I went from highlighted blonde to very dark blonde/brunette. I'm after a more natural, easier to maintain look. Truth be told, after 7 weeks grow out, my roots looked the same so this IS how dark I am. Shocking!

You like?

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Kitchen Storage Solution

Internet,

I am in need of some storage advice. We got a new refrigerator that has 2 side-by-side doors after us being used to the wide single door with freezer on top. This means the space is much skinnier than I am used to, especially the door shelves. Consequently, our (many) glass bottles of Colorado-brewed beer (and hopefully soon Huz-brewed beer thanks to my Christmas gift to him) have no home. They can't stand up straight on the shelves because the space isn't tall enough. So I've got them on their sides stacked on top of each other, but as soon as you pull one out, you risk an avalanche of glass and beer.

I'm looking on Pinterest and find plenty of solutions for 2 Liters, which we NEVER buy, and wine, but I'm a red wine girl and don't chill my wine:

But I can't really find much for beer bottles, other than this mat which is basically what we're doing now.

Any other solutions you can help me with?

The Family Calendar

What a hiatus this has been. I haven't had the time, energy, or desire, really, to sit down and write in length about myself for all of these months. Sometimes I wonder if my brain has just become lazy and used to the simplicity and brevity of Facebook posts and what, if anything, this blog space means to me anymore. Don't get me wrong, it's been a great outlet for me - both creatively and emotionally - and, frankly, it's served as an awesome record keeper. I can't tell you how many times I've come back here to see if I documented a recipe I really want to try again or referred to my pregnancy/parenting posts to assess how I was doing the second time around.

I sometimes wonder if blogs are dead or dying, but then I wonder if it's just me being too lazy to participate anymore. I'm not sure. Surely life is full and my time is stretched thin between a full-time job, a marriage, and parenting 2 young children. So where is there space for writing? I find time for working out and t.v. watching so I could find time for writing if I feel compelled to, right?

I thought about my blog this morning when I transferred all the birthdays from last year's family calendar to the new one and I realized just how much has changed in my life over the past 12 months. The beginning of last year was full of the attempted reinvention of myself: I was studying madly for the GRE and took it last January; I was shadowing a handful of Occupational Therapists to get exposure to the field and to narrow my interests. And then, with one simple flip of the page to the next month, we had moving companies scheduled to come and give us quotes. We were tying up loose ends by going to the dentist to get our teeth cleaned and getting doctor's visits in one last time before we were unemployed and without insurance or income. The calendar doesn't capture the torture we felt with this rejection and job loss; instead it shows the practicality of our response to the situation - taking control by leaving as soon as we got the news - an attempt to make our own future. In retrospect, I'm pretty damn proud of us.

Then the calendar shows several months of literal blank pages that reflected its time packed away in a box sweltering in the summer heat inside my mom's garage. Our life was on pause, it seemed. Wounds were being licked as we figured out our next steps.

The pages were filled in the calendar again when we moved into our newly purchased home in September. Our documented family life resumed full speed, crammed with home renovations (painting, painting, painting, carpet installations, hardwood refinishing, plumbing, bathroom tiling...) and kindergarten starting. Then there were housewarming parties, birthday parties, Thanksgiving with family at our place for the first time, Christmas and all the family celebrations that come in December.

It's funny how much I wanted things to be different for me - how I wanted to cease being a stay-at-home-mom and get into a new line of work. I got much more than I intended with a move to Colorado, a new home, a new job, lots of time with our extended family, and a new family calendar to fill up with this new life.

I think this blog space is like our family calendar - it's a reminder of the events that happen to me and my loved ones. It's a timeline of all the goods and bads, the ups and downs, and it's valuable. I need to remember these things because after I go through them it gives me the perspective I need to make sense of it and to process it fully. What happened to us in St. Louis was awful and unfair, but now that I'm through it and can look back at those blank pages and the flurry of activity before and after on that calendar, I can see it for what it was: a blip in our timeline (this is something my Dad tried to tell me, but until I saw it months later I couldn't see it as that). It's a blip that we will get past and move on from and, indeed, we have. Huz hasn't found a teaching job out here, but he's reinvented himself as a copy editor working from home which saves us tons of money on daycare. I am at a desk job in the medical setting and get to make my own hours and telecommute at will. Neither of these things is what we pictured for us and our family, but it works. We're making it work. We're moving on.

Here's to our calendar (and blog) being filled with family life both moving on and flourishing in 2014.

Pictures!

My mom recently mentioned that I don't have enough pictures of Charlotte on here. Hell, I don't have enough of ANYTHING on here right now what with the exhaustion of home renovating like mad so that we can move into our new (old) home as soon as humanly possible.

Here's some recent photos for your enjoyment.

Home Owning and Decorating

As I am about to own another older home in less than a week (eeee! so excited!!),
I am obsessed with painting and decorating and renovating on the cheap, because I
love doing these things AND because the 1952, original owner home really needs
some modern touches to feel like ours.

I am considering using the new rugs and curtains I bought for our bedroom last
year and using them in the living room to mix things up. The curtains are a pretty
faux silk blue with orange undertones. With that in mind, what color walls do you
think would look the best?

living room color scheme by tmlens on Polyvore

The reason I am loaning the bedroom stuff to the living room is because I've
decided to paint our bedroom gray again - like we did in Nashville right before
moved away. I never got the chance to enjoy the lovely Sherwin Williams Dovetail
gray before moving, so I want to enjoy the clean, cool color again. 

Here's what I'm thinking - the photo and the bedroom are my inspiration pieces. 
I just bought the mustard yellow duvet from West Elm and I already own the 
candle holder. What do you think?

bedroom by tmlens on Polyvore

One More Week

A week from tomorrow, and this will be HOME! :)

Bangs, Bangs, The Wonderful World of Bangs

Hey all!

I decided that, seeing how it had been 3 months since a pair of scissors touched by hair, it was time; well over time to get it trimmed. And I was ready for a bit of a change - hell, what in my life hasn't  changed in the past few months (job loss, move to another state, living with parents instead of on our own, new job, etc. etc. etc.). So it was time for my hair to get in on the changaroo action!

Looking for ideas, I found this old shot of me with bangs (taken about 2 years ago when I was still on honeymoon with St. Louis).

And so I decided to get some bang action going. I found an Aveda salon in Denver and had about 3 inches cut off since it had gotten suuuuuper long in my neglect. Here I am at a bar with my dear kindergarten - 12th grade girlfriends who flew into town for a mini reunion BEFORE:

And here I am at another bar (on a different night) with my buddies sporting my new fringe AFTER. You likey? I do. :)