Living in Central/South Texas for 24 1/2 years means I don’t really get to live in an area with seasons. Our seasons are something like hot, hotter than hell, so hot you wish you were dead, and kinda hot. So, for you peeps with actual seasons, I envy you.

That being said, the months of September-December are my fave, and this coincides with fall. I don’t know what it is about fall that I love so much. It could be the fantabulous scents at Bath & Body Works, the yummy Starbucks drinks that come out, or the cozy sweaters that hide my fat rolls make me feel skinny.

I love it all.

I notice each fall I seem to have a theme or mood of sorts. Last year it was much about jewel-tones and glam. This year, I seem to be gravitating towards a vintage, romantic, renaissance like mood. Bows, velvet, light with dark, black, gray, ivory, peach, sparkles, etc. Weird.

Here are some of the items I have been coveting for my vintage fall mood:

From Payless

From Coach (duh)

From Overstock

From Etsy

From Bloomingdales

From Arden B

From Etsy

Perfect hair and makeup on Mary Kate (via Glamour)

Paul & Joe Fall 2009 Beauty Collection via FaceCandy

From Tiffany & Co.

From Forever 21

What are you dreaming of or coveting this fall?

A long time ago, I purchased this heinous creation from Goodwill for $2. I’m sure whoever made it thought it was adorable, as did whoever bought it from them. I, however, bought this piece for it’s potential…which shall be revealed at the end.

My first step was to remove the lamb/sheep/white fluffy animal & the backing that held it in place.

Once I removed the back, I had to remove about 20+ staples to release the lamb from it’s tacky applique prison. I did save the backing to hold my new “thing” in place, and I am going to also reuse the lamb portion as well.

And here it is all disassembled.

Next, I took the wooden part (sans dowel) outside to spray paint it a nice green (sageish) color. It’s by Krylon. I think it’s called leaf green. I am totally making that up, I must admit, because I am too lazy to get up and look at the name of the color. If you’re dying to know, leave me a comment.

Then somehow I didn’t take pictures of this next part, so bear with me. As I let the spray paint dry, I took a fat quarter I bought at Wal-Mart and cut it slightly bigger than the lamb thing. I used the lamb oval as a template, per se. The fat quarter was about $1.00 and I had MORE than enough fabric. They have lots of cute patterns, but for this project I chose a simple black/white dog print.

Finally, I assembled it all back together and hung it up.

But first, a story.

The whole reason I bought this item is because of a constant problem in our household.

The dog leash.

It never fails that it is 7:43 am on a Monday morning, and I am frantically trying to find Pee Wee’s dog leash to take him out to potty. Usually, this search happens in a frenzy since I need to leave for work at ohhh 7:47ish. Yeah, I plan ahead. Go me. I search everywhere. I mean everywhere. I do. I promise.

Then, I call Daniel who is usually at work or on his way.

Me: “Where’s Pee Wee’s dog leash?”

Daniel: “Wherever we last left it.”

Me: “Well, duh. You have no idea, really?”

Daniel: “Um, no Monica.”

Me: “You don’t love me!”

Daniel: “Monica, I gotta go.”

Me: “Are you cheating on me? DANIEL!”

Daniel: “Huh?”

Me: hangs up the phone

As you see, I completely go crazy. I then look over and see the leash on the kitchen table. I promise I totally did look there.

Point being, this could be avoided. My solution?

Ta-dah! It’s right by the door and easy to find/use. Isn’t it cute? It is! Not bad for about $4 total and about 20 minutes of time.

For the record, yes, that blue collar is Pee Wee’s Coach collar from the outlets. Also for the record, the faux Coach bag I have is totally a real Coach…in my head. Look, we’re on a budget people.

Remember last month, I bought a chair and a coffee table from Goodwill? Well, the table has basically been finished for about 3 weeks now, but I am just now blogging about it. Probably because I just decorated the table like yesterday. Literally.

Let’s look at the before:

Alrighty, and now we begin! We saw this table, and we loved it. It  was the perfect size/shape for what we wanted. We decided to paint this table a very glossy white.

First step is to sand. We used sandpaper and did it by hand. This was just easier for us than whipping out the electric sander we have, especially since we live in an apartment. The left handside is not sanded, right hand side is. Sand in the direction of the wood grain. We did this to the ENTIRE table to get any varnish off.

Don’t know what the hubster is doing here, but if you’d like, you can always flip over your table to stare at it. This is an optional step.

Next, we used a tack cloth ($1.20 at Wal-Mart) to remove all the sanding dust. This is critical so you get a smooth finish when you start priming/painting.

Here’s the hubster with the hose attachment on the vacuum. Don’t laugh! I know you’re laughing. The top of the table has an indented border thing, and the dust was not coming out with the tack cloth. So, we got smart.

Next step is to hug your dog at an awkward angle.

Refill your drinks.

And then PRIME! When I prime, I always freak out because it doesn’t look perfect. Yes, I freak out. I think OH MY GOSH what the HECK have I done? And I proceed to get more wine to get through this difficult 15 minutes. Lindsay can relate. So, to repeat, your primer WILL NOT look good. It will look about as good as Lady Gaga did at the VMAs last night.

We let that dry, and then we moved onto painting it with a white semi-gloss paint + 1 entire can of spray lacquer to finish it up.

And then 3 weeks later I got around to actually making the table look nice with some decor. Don’t judge me.

 

Don’t you just LURVE my pumpkins?! That blue one is to die for. I got that gorgeous, stunning, pearly blue pumpkin at Hobby Lobby for $10 (it was half off). The orange one is glass and it’s from Ross for $5, and the gray pumpkin is also from Hobby Lobby and it cost $5 (again, half off). I don’t pay retail for much. And here’s one more look at my prized coffee table:

Now I feel REALLY motivated to make our coffee table wedding album. How awesome would that look?! Eek!

Cost breakdown:

Table $19.99 + Tack Cloth $1.20 + Spray Lacquer $6.97 + Paint $6.97= $35.13ish, we’ll just say $40.

We had the wine, beer, primer, sandpaper, and brushes on hand. :-)

What do you think?

No, my husband and I aren’t breaking up or getting a divorce. We haven’t nearly been married long enough to justify the cost of our May 2009 wedding, so there. You can throw out that idea.

And if you don’t know what a Dear John letter is click here.

I’ve been absent from blogging and absent from a sense of my normal self for about a month. I just like went completely off in my own world, and I was unhappy, miserable, but oh-so-very determined. If any of you know me or have been my friend for awhile, you know that I become obsessed with things until I find what it is I am looking for. Ask Lauren, Ashley, or Jackie. They know. They know.

Judging by my tweets I have been obsessing about a house. And you probably know that as well if you’ve been following my blog. I know (really, I do) that we’re not in a position to buy a house right now. We could afford it if we didn’t have credit cards to pay off, but we do. However, this common knowledge of mine doesn’t stop nor deter me from looking at real estate listings in Beeville & San Antonio. Lately, I’ve been focusing on Beeville because it’s where I currently work and live, and I don’t want to leave at the moment.

First was this house. I liked it because it was inexpensive. And it’s a HOUSE! But in hindsight, I didn’t like that the bedrooms were the SAME size as the 2 in our apartment, plus the location was kind of um…crappy, so there were more cons than pros. Except that it’s a HOUSE.

Then we looked at this house. The current owner is a “stager” so she has it filled with awesome accessories. She bought the home 4 years ago, and essentially has fixed it up to resell it. Problem is that the house was built in 1950 and has the original ceiling. To me that=asbestos=cancer=death=not a good choice. I realize she painted some walls, bought some nice appliances, new roof, new plumbing, new electrical, but still. ASBESTOS! So, this house was out of the picture. Oh, and our neighbors on either side have foil on their windows. Which to me is the most heinous thing ever. Seriously, if you want to darken a room, please go buy the Eclipse curtains from Wal-Mart that are like $14 each. Heck, only get 1 if it covers up the whole window. Please. I have 2 brown ones I am not using if you need them, but for heavens sake, save the foil for Thanksgiving!

Finally, we looked at this house. This one was the closest one for us in terms of what we want. Good neighborhood? (it’s essentially right behind where we live now=new) Check! Good price? Check! Sellers desperate to sell? Check! Low taxes? No. Yup, the taxes are what would get us at this house. That’s what you get for being in a good neighborhood, and it’s what we would truly want and pay for.

Just not right now.

Some major cons of that house are the funky ceiling shapes (they are high, which is a want of mine, but funky), the kitchen is the same size as our apartment kitchen, and the living room is smaller than ours. It just wouldn’t make sense. And it has NO garage. Actually, none of the houses we looked at do, and that’s weird. I want a garage.

Overall, renting makes sense for us right now. If you’re going to leave me a comment about how I am wasting my money, I will promptly cry. Because I am not wasting my money. I pay rent, it gives us a home/shelter, and it’s cheap enough to allow us to be debt free by February 2011. I don’t think that’s a waste.

I will admit that I am fully jealous of the 3 friends I have that are currently looking for houses. I know, that’s bad, it’s wrong to be jealous. But, one day my time will come, and for now I can live through them without having to pay the mortgage.

And now, onto my Dear John Letter.

Dear House,

I need to let you go for now. I know this is painful, and that we can’t bear to be apart, but one day we will be together. It’ll be great. I’ll buy you pretty furniture, nice paint, sparkling new floors, and my overpriced Electrolux washer/dryer set. But for now, I need to put to rest my Excel sheets, mortgage calculators, and MLS flyers. I can’t do it anymore, it’s too painful. Yes, this also means I won’t be searching for you on Remax.com, Realtor.com, and Trulia.com on my computer nor on my iPhone apps. Yes, this means I decided to not sell a kidney on the black market to use towards a down payment. Yes, this means I will likely not get $8K when I buy you in May 2011.

But overall, I’ll be a better person when we do meet again.

And even better, I’ll have months worth of inspiration from magazines to make you gorgeous. And MINE. All mine.

I love you.

-Monica

And to be totally lame, writing that letter totally did make me cry. I’m a loser.

And to redeem myself for my hot mess of a post, here’s a preview of my next post/reveal…the living room!

A blogging funk. A life funk. A work funk.

I promise I will be back to normal soon. I have no excuse now that I am not taking a single class. Yup, Monica dropped out of her Masters program. Why? Online classes suck, that’s why. I was essentially teaching myself, and that is no fun. Part of the reason I enjoyed my time at the oh-so-freakin-fabulous University of Texas at Austin is because I learned a TON. A LOT. OH MY GOSH SO MUCH! Seriously.

An insane amount.

Not to say that I loved every single class (yeah, I’m talking about you biology of plants class…which was at 8 am!), but I loved that my professors held Ph.D’s in their area and they were amazingly passionate about it. They were. It was CRAZY!

Not so much with online classes. At all. They’re like, “Read/listen to this powerpoint. I sound like I’d rather be picking lint from towels as I narrate it, but it’s what you get kid. Riveting, I know. Make sure to take that quiz by midnight. I’ll be eating twinkies in my Lexus.”

No thanks, I’ll pass. So, until I can go to “normal” classes, I decided to put my Masters dreams on hold. Will I regret this later? Who knows. Everything happens for a reason, and now I can focus my time on my Etsy store, losing weight, and just being a 24-year-old newlywed.

Be back soon. Peace, love, and twinkies.

-Mon & PeeWee

 

Notice I have my Longhorn shirt on? HOOK ‘EM HORNS! Who are playing on pay-per-view. What the heck man? Isn’t my student loan debt enough to warrant me watching the game for FREE?!

But that’s another post.