a little update

Wow it's been a week since I've posted!

I think that's the longest it's been. I've been super busy and wrapped up in a bunch of things, I just haven't had the time.

Last week at work was busy and went fast. I do most of my blogging during my free time at work so that's mostly why it suffered.

I've also been such a baby about the heat and not much. I did some scrapbooking though! I did a two page spread for my mom's book and did one page for me and Ben's. I also bought this date Smash Stamp from K&Company at Blick this weekend and some Mod Podge gloss from Blick art stores.

I also bought this Canon photo printer on Amazon! I figured it'd be a good investment. It's wireless, I could download an App to sync and print pictures from my iPhone. Ben has a really good camera and we could finally print photos from it. It got good reviews and it was pretty cheap! And I got free shipping on it. I think it's worth it. Plus, if I really want to scrapbook and document and Project Life, a photo printer was necessary.

Ben and I have been going out to eat a lot lately! We went to Fire and Ice with some friends Thursday night.

Hahaha FAIL.

Fire and Ice with Chris, Mike, and Ben

My food before it was cooked

On the grill!

Ben and I went to the Franklin Park Zoo on Saturday

Ben entering the butterfly house!

The butterflies they had

Waiting to be beauuutiful butterflies

Tree kangaroo!

and we spent the day in his hometown yesterday!

Adam and the horses

Feeding the horse!!

Flowers I got from the farm :)

I had a really great weekend. Especially spending so much time outside.

Currently Post

So I had an urge to do an update, but had nothing for an entire post. So I decided to do a Currently post! I always read Danielle's of Sometimes Sweet blog and wanted to give it a go myself. A little personal and a little update, yay!

Loving: My job! As much fun as an internship is, it could super boring. Especially since I have a desk job. My boss was on vacation last week and only left me a few tasks to complete. I went crazy with all my free time! This week he's been keeping me super busy and the days have been flying by. I'm done today within the hour so I'm just organizing my things and getting ready for tomorrow's tasks. Always keeping busy keeps me awake and alert and I actually am motivated to work on things I need to get done at home when I get out of work. It keeps my work flow consistent. Otherwise I just want to go home and take a nap. Isn't it weird how actually doing a whole bunch of nothing makes you tired and lazy? Hm!

Reading: What the rest of the world is reading... 50 Shades. Ah, this book. First I read the Twilight series because a good girlfriend loved them and wanted someone to discuss it with and see the movies with. I hate Bella as a character because she is so weak and dependent on Edward, so it made it difficult for me to read. But honestly, I was just waiting for the sex scene which was incredibly disappointing (I know it's a tween series, but still! Their sexual tension was ridiculous and just ugh.) But then, I heard about 50 Shades... then I heard about how it was banned in libraries which immediately sparked my interest What can be that bad that it's banned in a library?! and then I heard it was Twilight fan fiction. So, I was interested. I wasn't expecting to get anything out of it and honestly it wasn't as crazy as I thought it'd be. I got threw the first book, and was interested enough to get the second, but I can't get into it. It's just blah. It's too much Twilight and not enough sex. I know it's Twilight fan fiction, but I wanted it to live up to it's banned in libraries rep!!! Oh well. I gave up on that book and I'm about to start Lolita. Ben's sister, Lauren, gave me her copy. Can't wait to get into that.

Watching: BREAKING BAD!!! The finale season just premiered on AMC this past Sunday night. I could talk about this show for hours. Ben and I are so obsessed. It's about a high school chemistry teacher who gets diagnosed with terminal lung cancer with a prognosis of two years and he decides to cook meth and be a drug dealer to get money for his family before he passes. It gets crazy and super intense. Ben and I are also watching Dexter. He's never seen it before and I'm rewatching the entire series before the 7th season premieres. Ben has gotten addicted to that, too. We're currently on the 4th season. I can't wait until he's caught up and he could finally watch the first two minute sneak peak of the new season, ahh!!

Anticipating: Dinner tonight. Ben is cooking the fish that I caught on Sunday! I always cook for us, he even convinces me to take lunch at home some days so I could make it for him, so I'm pretty excited to be catered to a little bit. Ben is all about his fish so it should be delicious and I can't wait to watch my man cook for me!

Listening to: Lots of Lily Allen! She's back in the studio so I got in a Lily kick. My sister and I used to listen to her all of the time and saw her in concert a couple years ago. I just love her :)

Planning: My next project and ASB! For a short term plan, I'm deciding on what shorts and dress I'd like to start tonight. I'm done with work early today so I want to finish at least one of the two by the weekend! I could definitely get them both done if I start one tonight! And for a long term plan, last year I went on an Alternative Spring Break trip to Homestead, Florida to do volunteer environmental work in the Everglades. I applied to be a coordinator for next year, and I got picked! My co-coordinator and I are already starting to plan out details. We both were on the trip last year and are so excited to plan a similar trip this year. We'll be able to eliminate all the bad parts of last year, too! Not that there were many significant ones, but we could of planned better for dinner for 15 kids every night. As you could imagine that was difficult!

Working on: A student survey for work. Every freshman during orientation fills out a survey of what they expect college life to be like. My job is to organize the survey raw data and get it formatted and ready for my boss. It's pretty interesting to see the college from this perspective. It's also interesting to see where all those things we do as students go within the college and what the college actually does with the results. But I'm done with that for today and have the last stretch to complete for tomorrow!

Wishing: It was July 27th! My mom is flying in from New Jersey! Ben's dad has a ton of frequent flyer miles and offered to fly my mom from Newark to Boston for a weekend. Of course we had to take advantage of this!! I can't wait to have some quality time with my mom. She's my best friend! My sister's birthday is also the 28th, and since she'll be in Hawaii and spending it without us, it's kind of like we're celebrating in spirit. We're glad we could be together even though Sam is away. I can't wait to see my Mom and these weeks have been going so fast, she should be here in no time!

I loved doing this! Probably something I'll have to keep up :)
Tomorrow I'll post an update with some pictures of the things I start working on tonight!

Monday again!

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great 4th of July! I also hope you had a long break like I did! I was lucky enough to get Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off and paid! But now it's back to the full work week and being productive (after I finish this blog post...) Which I can't lie, I missed the routine. Doing tons of nothing gets to me. But I'm glad to get back into the swing of things.

So I haven't updated since last Monday, ahh!! I've just been too busy.

Tuesday - My last day of work for the week. I was able to leave at lunch time. So I went home and ate with Benjamin. Then I just cleaned, hung around the house, and started on a pair of shorts from some fabric and a pattern I had! Benjamin and I were having a sort of rough patch the past weekend so it was nice to spend the extra time with him. He knew we were both being difficult and I was a little homesick, so my baby surprised me with some much needed delicious desserts. I'm so lucky :)

I got TWO!! of these little fruit tarts. Soooosososo good!

I also got two chocolate truffle mousse cake things. Which I think were more for Benjamin. We shared this but it was still so good! The fruit was my favorite, but I'll take either any day :)

Wednesday - 4th of July!!! Though, Ben and I will be doing our celebrating at his house the following Saturday. His sister flew in from Chicago the night before (Tuesday) and her boyfriend was flying in on Friday for the family party. So Ben and I kept cool in the house all day and then went to the movies to see Prometheus. It kept us entertained, to say the least. We don't feel it explained anything... just left you with more questions...

Thursday - Ben's parents drove his sister, Lauren, to our apartment in Boston to spend the night by us. We went out to eat at Victoria's Diner (my favorite! and not just because we share the same name) and then Ben's Mom, Laurie, Lauren, and I went thrifting at a giant Goodwill which Ben and his dad, Bruno, went to a card shop. I got a skirt (which I'm wearing currently at work!), a dress from H&M, and some vintage plates, saucers, and teacups! I decided I'm going to collect a mismatch dish set with teacups. I absolutely love old plates and all the floral and how it's decorated. I also love mismatch. Now I just need some girlfriends to have a tea party, yay! Then Laurie and Bruno headed back to their house while Lauren, Ben, and I hung out. Lauren had a few of her friends over from high school who live in the city now. I told them about sewing and fruit dehydrating and just chatted and we had dinner at Tasty Burger. Seriously, best burgers EVER. I got the Kahuna burger. Mmmmm :) Should of taken pictures. Oh well, it was dark. Then we headed back to our place and chatted some more before we called it a night.

Friday - Lauren and I woke up early to go on a coffee date. A local coffee shop I have never been to that Lauren and I were planning to try was closed, so we just walked to Starbucks. It was so hot! I couldn't wait to have my iced coffee and petite vanilla scone. We were there from 9:30 AM -12:30 PM!  We just hung out and talked. I don't have a lot of girlfriends, and the ones I do don't know Benjamin very well so it was nice to be able to talk about my relationship to another female who actually knows Benjamin. That might be the most difficult part of being away. Having almost two different lives filled with completely different people. The people from home just don't know the people in Boston or even think similarly, and vise versa. Slowly my Boston life has taken over my New Jersey one, but that's life.  I'm so grateful for my new life and am so glad I followed the path I did that got me where I am today. After we got back, we hung around the house until Ben's Mom picked us up and brought us back to their house. Ben and I hung out with friends while Lauren and Bruno got her boyfriend, Josh, from the airport.

Saturday - Ben's family party! It was so nice to see all his family, and spent time with his sister. She went to school in Savannah and now lives in Chicago so no one gets to see that much of her. His family is truly my my family as well so I felt comfortable and welcomed. Lauren and I felt we needed sun hats for the party and being out on the boat, so we got some at T.J. Maxx's the day before. Best decision ever. I only have a few photos, but here they are :)

My colorful and huge hat and my Benjmain

Captain Ben on the boat!

Lauren and I and our hats :)

and I was lucky enough to go on a romantic canoe ride with my love, and I didn't have to paddle

Sunday - We woke up early and went to a giant flea market a couple towns over from Ben. All I got was some natural raw wildflower honey from Maine. My life goal is to have my own beehive on my property when I have a house. I want to be a beekeeper! And make my own honey, chapstick, beeswax, and whatever else. After we got back, we just slowly headed back to Boston. Ben and I watched Machete and I went to bed early.

It was such a perfect weekend!

weekend means....

Friday. Yes.

I'm mostly excited because a) I get out of work early today, b) good friends are supposed to visit today, and c) I could finally start tackling some sewing projects! Weekend means my time.Well my time I get to spend with Benjamin. No schedule, no obligations, just time with my man filling in time as the weekend passes. But thankfully it's midterms for Ben in summer classes so that means he'll be studying this weekend which leaves me some quality time with my new sewing machine.

Some goals for the weekend are...

• Order pictures from PostalPix App
• Go to fabric store and get some nice fabrics
• Do at least three lessons from the D.I.Y. Dress Up E-Course TWICE! (the first couple lessons are really simple just to feel out the sewing machine and get the basics down. I want to do the projects twice so I could keep the first product for myself, then make a second one, hopefully better crafted,  for my sister. I'm sending her a birthday/care package to Hawaii soon!)
• Sketch some dress/skirt/tank designs in a sketch book
• Think of 5 DIY Projects (I have three down so far!)

 I think these are pretty fair and doable by Sunday.

For today, I want to put together an inspiration post to get my creative thoughts flowing. I want to think about what I want to make, find similar things on the internet, and put together a little board of inspiration. I also want to put together a post of the things I ordered my sister/plan on making her. It'll mark my progress on my gift box and give me motivation to start putting together the handmade stuff. And if there is time... I want to put together another inspiration post to start re-doing my bedroom. Ben and I live together, but I have my own room. It's more like my giant closet. I have my vanity, dresser, a table and chair set, jewelry armoire and all my shoes, books, and everything else girls have. I sleep in his room and use half of his GIANT closet for all my dresses and nice clothes to be hung up. So this is completely my space to do as I wish. I love living this way. I think it's why we get along so well. We both have our own space and we're not on top of each other and we have little escapes. We're a perfect team together.

Time to get on with these inspiration posts!

xx
V

New Sewing Machine!!!!

I am so grateful. With my paycheck tomorrow morning, I was planning on buying myself a sewing machine to get my sewing projects started. Ben's parents were to visit tonight so we could go out to dinner, so I had one picked out on Amazon and was just going to run it by Ben's Mom, Laurie, to see if it was okay. When they got to our apartment, Ben's Dad walked in holding a box which turned out to be a sewing machine!!!! I was so excited! I couldn't believe Laurie bought this for me. It was so thoughtful and it makes me so happy that she's just as excited for me to learn as I am. It was great motivation and now I can finally stop talking about everything I'm going to do and now I could actually do it.

Tomorrow after work it's to the fabric store! Ben doesn't want me going alone but I'd rather do this trip solo. The last thing I need is him rushing me around when I'm trying to figure out what I want. Not only will I have trouble deciding what to choose, I also don't have any idea of what I'm doing. I'm mostly nervous about how much fabric to buy. I'd rather buy too much than too little but I'm also trying to save money here. I'm excited for this new shopping trip :)

As for Laurie's gifts, I got... (ignore the terribly quality of the picture. it was taken on my iPhone in my poorly lit room... or as Ben and I call it.. my cave)

a Brother LX2500 sewing machine!

a utility box filled with all the basic sewing tools

and..

a pattern to learn how to read them, alter them, and see how to make my own! :) Also those are the two fabrics I got on sale at Joann's that Laurie taught me some basics last time Ben and I slept at their house.

I made a basic wrap skirt with the second pattern on the bottom. We couldn't find any fabrics in my size at the time (the smallest they make is a size 6... I'm a 0 or 2. sigh.) so we used a hemp wrap skirt my sister sent me from Hawaii as our pattern. It actually came out very nicely! I'll be making my sister her own skirt to wear in Hawaii as well some other things as I learn. I'll post a how-to on the wrap skirt I make in the next coming days :)

I also plan on purchasing this D.I.Y. Dress Up E-course from Red Velvet (which I got to via A Beautiful Mess blog). It has 17 sessions, each it's own project. You learn how to make things from bags, dresses, tops, and more; as well as alteration and make-your-own-pattern lessons. If you're interested, you better hurry! This e-course is only available for purchase until July 31st. Everyone who has purchased the course will still have access to it, but after July 31st no new purchases will be able to be made.

I'm also going to convince Benjamin to let me use his nice camera to take pictures :) He's very supportive of all my new found hobbies, or my want to make these hobbies work. I'm too excited. My mom even asked me to make her curtains. Can't wait! :)