Our first new piece for the house!

This past weekend we were back in NY. I had an interview at a non-profit on Friday, so we stayed for the weekend and tried to get some things done before the big move. The weekend was jam packed with activities....most notably furniture shopping!

We spent quite a bit of time roaming around the furniture store contemplating formal versus casual furniture. In the end we decided to go with something casual and comfortable because it fits the house style and our personalities. We chose this sectional (but decided against the ginormous ottoman):


In this darker brown color:


You can't really tell how dark the fabric is in this picture, but it really is a lot darker than the fabric on the sectional. Because we ordered a different color and are having the chaise and love seat parts reversed, it will take a few weeks to get it delivered, which actually works out perfectly with our closing and moving date. Yay! Now we need to choose a coffee table and end tables, as well as paint colors and an accent chair. I also plan to jazz up the sectional with patterned pillows and a blanket or two. Color suggestions?

Paint

Well we are finally in the part of the process where I feel pretty confident that this whole house buying thing is actually happening. The inspection is done, the repairs have been made, and now we are counting down to the closing! Ahhh! Now that all that stuff has been taken care of, I can start focusing on the more important things (at least in my book).....decorating and painting!

There are two rooms in the house that need paint. The living room has a lime green accent wall and one of the bedrooms is baby pink. I love pink and green, but I do not like them as paint colors.We want to keep the accent wall in the living room, but we will probably play it safe and do a color from the beige family. The question is, should we pick furniture or paint first? We are planning on getting a new living room set, but likely won't buy it until after we move. Ideally I would like to paint before we move in. Is that the wrong way to go though?

As for the pink bedroom....we are hoping to use this as a nursery some day and I would prefer to not paint twice. I am not sure what color we will use, but I also want it to be neutral. Boring?

What are your favorite design/decorating blogs? I need to add them to my reader!

Our First Home

More details to come!

House Hunting

I'm still sick. I am so sick of being sick that I don't even want to talk about it. So instead, let's talk about some exciting news!

While we were in Grand Cayman we had to turn off email and internet on our phones so that we didn't incur a million dollars in roaming fees (or whatever they are called these days). When we landed back in the states, we turned everything back on. One of the emails AJ recieved was from our landlord asking us if we could move out at the end of May. Our initial reaction was to freak out, but we talked about our options and adjusted our time line. I think it is all going to work out.

The most exciting part? We are heading back to NY this weekend to look at houses! We have been browsing online, sending my parents to open houses, and have my mom and our real estate agent looking at houses today so that we only have to look at the best on Saturday. So far there are two that we are really interested in seeing. Hopefully we will find something we love!

Any house hunting or house buying tips?

Gaga & Tom and Lorenzo

Thanks for all your well wishes. I am still feeling under the weather, so when I returned home from work today, I immediately crawled back into bed. Here is my current view:

All three of us in bed, in our double back-up sheets, Bert & Ernie blankets, playing on our laptops, hoping and praying for this sickness to leave our home. Yes, I have infected my husband. I feel so bad.

Almost as bad as I feel for blaring Lady Gaga songs on You Tube all evening. I stumbled upon the LadyGagaVEVO YouTube site (because it has the Born This Way video) and the next thing I know it is two hours later and I have watched ALL of her videos. I never really considered myself a Gaga fan, but I think I am now. She is such a freak show and I can't look away. LOVE. In case you havent seen her new video, here it is:



Another website I stumbled across since coming down with the flu/cold from hell.... Tom and Lorenzo. Someone in my twitter feed retweeted them yesterday, so I started following their tweets before the Oscars, and then I clicked through to their website, and yada, yada, yada, I'm now obsessed. They had great pictures and gave amazing and hilarious commentary last night. On their blog, they post pictures and commentary for all the awards shows and other various events. I lost another couple of hours looking through their archives. Check them out. Actually, I'll get you started with some stuff from last night:

2011 Oscars Red Carpet Part 1
Vanity Fair Oscar Party Part 1

Hope you enjoy these two sites as much as I did!

Cough Cough, Sneeze Sneeze

Our lovely vacation ended on a low note....we sat next to a sick person on the plane from Miami to DC. This flight also happened to be delayed on the tarmac because of bad weather so we got an extra hour of exposure to his germs. Ugh! I've been flat in bed since Thursday night thanks to our seatmate. I feel a bit better today and my fever broke yesterday, but I sound like I've been chain smoking for 58 years and am still so stuffed up that it is making me dizzy. I am hoping I continue to feel better!

AJ is off playing hockey so I have the remote all to myself. I am switching back and forth between red carpet coverage and a Snapped marathon. My current medicine is a snuggly puppy, a mango peach salsa Yankee candle that is tricking me into thinking it is almost summer, and some tea with honey. I have been taking DayQuil regularly until today...this morning I decided I needed to give my body a break. I am such a freak about taking medicine. AJ basically has to force it down my throat. Any homeopathic remedies out there??

That is all my foggy brain can muster tonight. Hope you all had a great weekend!

Heaven

We had a great time on vacation. A long weekend getaway was just what we needed. I feel rested and relaxed and am ready to power through the last couple weeks of winter.

Grand Cayman is BEAUTIFUL and it felt very safe, so I would definitely recommend it to anyone planning a Caribbean vacation. Our hotel was nice (the Westin), but if you can spurge, definitely try and stay at the Ritz!

The water at Seven Mile Beach is so calm and clear, it was like swimming in a pool.


Here is my favorite picture from the trip:


We took this at 6 something in the morning while the sun was rising. I love that we just rolled out of bed. It feels real, as opposed to when I am all made up and straightened!

Sun and Sand

And we're off to Grand Cayman! See you in a few days!

Photo from here.

Veg Update

We have reached the end of our veg experiment, and I am happy to report that it went really well. We ate a plant based diet almost exclusively!

We did indulge in the "paris exemption" a few times, which is the acceptance of flexibility on special occasions...like when you are out to eat or don't have veggie options available. I think we opted for meat 3 or 4 times, which is pretty amazing considering we used to eat it, on average, once or twice a day. We also ate seafood 2 or 3 times throughout the experiment.

I have to say that I really enjoyed trying new recipes and learning how to incorporate vegetables as the main dish. It was also pretty informative to see that buying vegetables is not more expensive than buying meat. We also bought a lot of quinoa, lentils, and rice, and I found that you can make hearty, affordable dishes if you put in the effort.

Now that the experiment is over, we are going to buy meat again, but I am going to continue making vegetarian meals....in fact I am planning to do more vegetarian meals than meat meals each week. I think I would call that a success!

Veg Experiment

When you have to recap your weekend on Tuesday, it means it was a good one. One of my friends and her boyfriend came down for the weekend and we had entirely too much fun eating, drinking, and staying up late.

However, we overindulged so much that AJ and I have decided that we need to get ourselves back on a track to healthiness. Alcohol and junk food are not what I need to be filling my body with if I want to try for another baby someday soon. We have been itching to dabble in vegetarianism since we watched Food, Inc. a few months ago (and after reading Jenn Lives Well), but we have been lacking in motivation and initiative. We finally have both!

We leave for Grand Cayman in 18 days. Between now and then we are cutting out almost all meat and alcohol. I say most meat because we have a few Healthy Choice frozen meals in our freezer that we need to eat so that we can free up space. I know frozen meals aren't the healthiest option out there, but they make bringing my lunch to work a million times easier. (Sidebar: Have you tried the Healthy Choice kind? My favorite are Chicken Parmigiana and Roast Turkey. They are so much better than Lean Cuisine or Weight Watchers frozen meals. They actually look and taste like real food. They are a tad more expensive then the other brands, but I have found that they are well worth the extra dollar or two.) We are planning to eat those for lunch this week and then it is onto a no meat meal plan. I think this will be good because it will allows us to wean ourselves off meat during the first week.

I have a few recipes I plan to use throughout our veg experiment:

Quinoa with Spinach and Tomatoes
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=2001925

Rigatoni with Eggplant
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/trenette-with-eggplant-and-basil-pesto-recipe/index.html

Quinoa Stuffed Red Bell Peppers http://www.shape.com/healthy_eating/recipes/quinoa_stuffed_red_bell_peppers_recipe

Ratatouille
http://www.thedcladies.com/2010/03/ratatouille-from-moosewood.html

After vacation we plan to asses how we feel and at that point determine what kinds of meats (if any) we want to reintroduce into our diet. Have you tried something like this before? Any other recipes, thoughts, and/or tips for me??