+OUTFIT OF THE WEEK

I love wearing new clothes that I've just bought. Ughh. It's the best feeling. Bought this top at Marshall's this week. Paired with my favorite jeans and black Target wedges. Perfecto for a casual day at work.

+MARSHALL'S I LOVE YOU

I have a serious addiction to Marshall's. Like a go-there-every-week kind of addiction. I would say 90% of my shopping happens there. What can I say? I'm a sucker for good deals and I can spend hours sifting through the new merchandise.

I've decided I need to put myself on a little allowance for shopping. $200 a month is my budget. Once it' spent, it's spent. Now, I'm sure I won't spend this much every month, but it's a good cap to stop myself at. It is amazing how much you can  get for $200 at Marshall's. My fiancé loves to shop online for his clothes and he'll spend like $80 on one shirt from Banana Republic and I'll come home with like 2 dresses, a pair of running shoes, and a new pitcher for the kitchen all for $80. He's always blown away at my savvy shopping skills.

Even when I have money to blow and Justin keeps telling me to spoil myself, I just can't do it at normal stores. For instance, last weekend we were in San Diego and we went to the mall. I ended up at Guess and was totally shocked at the pricing they had. I found a really cute pair of sunglasses, but they were $35! Not pricey for the average person I guess, but for me? I instantly thought "I can get even better ones at Marshall's for half the price". So I left the mall empty handed. Whoa.

So yesterday, after a not so exciting day at work, I decided to go over to Marshall's and see what they had. I ended up spending $204. I got a brand new purse, two pairs of yoga pants, two new tops, and a CHI flat iron. Pretty proud of my haul so I thought I'd share. If you've never been to Marshall's or TJ Maxx (which I'm dying to get here in our town), you need to go take a look. I promise you won't be disappointed!

 

+OUTFIT OF THE WEEK

Wore this out to drinks and dinner with my future sister-in-law on Wednesday night. Take a look at these margaritas! Yeah mama!

 

 

 

+AND I'VE LOST MY MIND ABOUT HOME DECOR

So my fiancé bought our current home about 4 years before I moved in. He's an amazing decorator for a guy, but I definitely moved into his house. There's hardly any of my own artwork, family photos, or décor in our home. Actually most of it is still in storage from 2010 when I moved from Dallas to Arizona. I know.

But I've made due and I've added my touches where I can. (Like re-doing the entire spare bathroom that was still decorated, towels and all, like how his last girlfriend before me had it. Eww.)

But lately I've been feeling like I want to make an "us" house, as I realize my dreams of building a home are many many years down the road.

We recently went to a birthday party at friends house and when I walked in to their home my jaw dropped and stayed dropped for like 30 minutes as I took the house tour. Holy gorgeous. It was simple and clean and warm and just everything I want my own home to be.

So naturally I wrote out a list of things that need to be changed in our current home. Looks like I need to get a 3rd job.

 

This is what I'm going for in our home...



+THE PERFECT CHALKBOARD SAVE THE DATE CARD (for me)

Our wedding is a mere 8 months away. I can't really wrap my head around it because it seems so far away, but I know this next semester will fly by and I'll be freaking out because it's almost the new year which means almost my wedding.

We have picked the date, picked the venue, and booked the day-of wedding coordinator, but I still haven't told anyone yet. I've been taking forever to choose a save the date card. I would find one that I liked, then realize the price, then back out. Then I'd scour the internet for more and the cycle would continue.

Every night while watching tv, I'd be on my laptop with JT looking over my shoulder saying "just pick one babe, they all look good". That might be true, but good wasn't enough for me. I wanted the perfect mix of typography, matte finish, thick cardstock, photo, and style. Not to mention I decided a long time ago that I wanted a chalkboard style save the date.

Our venue has a lot of chalkboard painted walls and has artists on staff that will draw up anything your heart desires. Seating list? Yep. Menu? Yes ma'am. "This way to the taco bar"? You bet. So I knew I wanted to stick with that fun theme on my save the dates. It'll give our guests an idea of what our overall feel of the wedding will be.

So the hunt began (and lasted forever) for the perfect chalkboard wedding save the date.

First I started at Minted.com


This was a favorite: Charming Chalkboard Save the Date


Chalked Save the date

And even though this isn't chalkboard, I just loved it: Cottage Garden

Although I loved everything about Minted.com, the cards were just too pricey for me. I couldn't justify spending $250+ on 150 or so cards. So I moved on.

I decided to give Etsy.com a try and see what independent artists had to offer. In comes the king of all chalkboard wedding suites. As soon as I saw these I said to myself that I didn't care the price, I had to have these. BUT of course, when I clicked on the link the shop said it was "on vacation" and wasn't taking any new orders anymore. I was so bummed and tried for days, to find a duplicate somewhere. But I couldn't.


Yours is the Earth

I then went on a rampage and visited all of these wedding invitation websites to try and find my save the dates:
Invitations by Dawn
Zazzle
WeddingPaperDivas
Pear Tree Greetings
Papela
Love vs Design
Paper-Source
Ann's Bridal Bargains
David's Bridal

And I still came up empty handed. What a hassle this has become. All because I couldn't make up my mind and also because I'm so cheap.

But alas, my prayers were answered this week when I stumbled across Simply To Impress. Not sure why I hadn't seen this site before, but for whatever reason it never made it across my radar until Monday.

I ended up purchasing these chalkboard save the dates:

Chalkboard Date

I upgraded and did the premium cardstock and was able to add photos to the back of the card. This site is cool too because I was able to edit all of the fonts (except the "save the date"), so I enlarged the date and switched up the wording a little bit. Here's how mine turned out on the front:


They were having a 25% off your entire order deal so instead of $1.29/card I got them for .97 each. My total order for 150 cards was $145. A steal compared to the other websites I tried. You get free envelopes in the color of your choice as well. On the back is a photo of us with a little blurb about how excited we are to celebrate with everyone.

Since I saved money on the save the dates, I opted to get a little fancy and order some skinny address labels. Here are the ones I went with from Minted.com

Winter Flourish
I got 150 of these for $40 because I had a $20 gift card that Minted.com had sent me. So this is what happened. I originally started looking at Minted.com for invitations and ordered their free wedding sample pack. It's awesome and let's you feel and touch all of the different papers and envelopes they offer. Well I never went back and ordered anything after that, so they emailed me and offered me a $20 gift card for orders over $50 because they "missed me".
Just so happens 150 of these address labels were $62 originally so you bet I used that gift card and got hooked up. A little piece of advice for all you brides looking for a small discount...order the free sample pack and in a few weeks they might send you a nice little gift card :)

I also liked these address labels, but Justin preferred the one with our names so I went with the Winter Flourish.

Modern Classic

I'm SO freaking happy this part of the decision making is over...now I just have to get everyone's address and mail these babies out. Hoping the quality of the save the dates I ordered is good. Fingers crossed and I'll let you know how it turns out!

+GREEN GODDESS/MONSTER SMOOTHIE FOR BEGINNERS

I didn't put mine in a fancy mason jar or anything, but I promise it's really really good!

So I have decided to start eating cleaner in preparation for my upcoming wedding. Joy. Not really excited about putting the brakes on my Starbucks, donuts, and pasta addiction, but I also want to look great on my big day. So clean eating and working out it is. I even bought a yoga dvd and a Jillian Michaels 6 week abs dvd. Whoa now. Getting crazy over here.

I've seen and heard about this green smoothie craze for a while now, but I've never actually made or tried one. Not sure why, but I guess I just was too lazy to actually blend one up. Too lazy to use a blender? Yes.But I've noticed recently that my morning coffee is not cutting it when it comes to breakfast. I know. Terrible. I wake up and have a cup of coffee and then don't eat anything until lunch. It's really bad and I know it.

Especially with my school schedule about to pick up again in a few weeks, I wanted to start eating something more substantial in the morning to keep me going through lunchtime. Insert green machine, green goddess, green sludge, whatever you call it. I decided to go for it and try out an easy beginner recipe.

I Googled around a bit and found a recipe that was easy and one that I could actually find the ingredients at my local grocery store. I did end up editing the recipe though, to match my desired flavors, but it still was easy to do.

The first blend could have been better. When I drank it I could pick out little pieces of spinach, which at first wasn't weird but by the end I was a little grossed out. The second blend the next day was much better. I made sure to really blend this time and I couldn't even see the specks of spinach anymore. I even made Justin drink a glass with me and he really liked it. Ver niiiice! Mine didn't turn out SUPER green, but I think that's because I had the greek yogurt and orange in there.

I love this recipe and it's totally gotten me on a green smoothie kick. I'm obsessed. For real. I'm Googling all day long for different variations and recipes. I even went to the grocery store today just to buy more green smoothie ingredients.

But I'm excited. I've noticed after I drink them that I feel more energized and I stay full through lunch or the afternoon slump. So I've decided this will be my morning breakfast routine plus some turkey bacon and a cup of coffee. I think that will help me not go nutso during my shifts.

GREEN GODDESS, GREEN MONSTER SMOOTHIE for beginners:

1. A healthy handful (or more) of spinach. I used bagged baby spinach from Albertsons.
2. 8 or so whole frozen strawberries. I got a frozen bag from Albertsons.
3. 1 orange peeled and split up and chunked.
4. 1/2 of a banana peeled and cut up in chunks
5. 1/3 cup of greek yogurt. I used coconut flavored Chobani
6. 1 or more cups of ice

Throw all ingredients in a blender and blend to desired consistency. Then enjoy! Makes two servings or one really big glass. Super easy and super good. You can't taste the spinach and the addition of orange gives it a nice tartness. I can't wait to try more recipes and when I find others that I like I'll post them here!

Share your favorite if you have one please!

+WHOA NOW

Holy hell. I mean I knew I hadn't blogged in a while, but didn't realize how long "a while" was. Geez. What the heck have I been doing? Oh yeah, I had one hell of an end of the first semester of school. Jeeah! Two huge closings that happened within the same week...hello money in the bank?! And then I went on a family vacation to the mountains for 7 days plus tripped it over to SD for a wedding for the weekend. So that's why I haven't blogged since the middle of last month. What the shit? I hate when that happens.

Anyways. I just returned home last night from a fun weekend in San Diego for a wedding. It was stunning and great weather and great drinks and great food. Oh and the couple was so gorgeous too. I really had a good time relaxing. I hardly took any photos on my phone the best couple weeks, but here are my favorite gems.

Hangover Study food

A skiing bear. You're welcome.

My favorite ears

Makeupless

The best beer ever. Seriously go try this. The bomb.

It's raining/hailing and we're still fishing

 

Wedding lovers

Loved the navy tablecloths

Loved the lanterns

The photo booth was so fun too, we're stealing this idea thank you very much!