Christmas Organization

Oops...I thought I hit publish on Friday....Apparently not. So Happy Monday!

HAPPY FRIDAY!  I still can't believe how quickly November came and went.  And I cannot believe I haven't decorated for Christmas yet.  I used to wait until Thanksgiving was over, but I found that decorating right before Thanksgiving makes December a lot less stressful.

So this year, after a fabulous Thanksgiving with my family, I have finally started to listen to Christmas music and am getting ready for the Holiday!  Unfortunately, the only thing I have decorated so far is my office.

So this weekend, after I finish a little bit more cleaning, we are decorating for Christmas!  And I can't wait!  I have picked up a few new ornaments to add to our tree and can't wait to visit some of the old friends in the ornament box.  Britt thinks I am lame, but I am excited to decorate our townhouse together for the first time AS A MARRIED COUPLE!  Even though we were living together and decorated together last Christmas, there is something about being married that just makes it even more special.

So we may be slightly behind the schedule I wanted to be on for decorating, however.........I am almost done Christmas shopping!  And by I, I mean we.  Because I completed almost all of BRITT AND MY Christmas shopping!  And I have ordered really cute Christmas cards that have arrived!  I am feeling very organized and ready this Christmas season!  Which of course means something is bound to go wrong!

How organize are you for Christmas?  Decorated and Ready to go?  Still Shopping?  I haven't even started yet?

Decorating My Office

Wow it has been way too long since I have posted!  Things have been busy busy!  I started a new job!  Yay I got hired!  And I am very grateful with the current job market.  Getting interviews was extremely challenging.  I feel very blessed to not only have a job, but have one that I really like!  I am basically in charge of all Fundraising and Development.  I am a one man department, but I am loving it.  Hopefully as the money grows, the department will grow too! I have almost complete say so in building this almost non-existant part of the organization!  It's pretty cool to be in charge and to be a part of the management team and have input on the way the organization runs!

Needless to say week one has been great, and I am getting ready for my first fundraiser in a few weeks!  With the new job has come a new office and decorating it is going to be quite the challenge.  The building manager won't let us put holes in the walls, which makes things a little bit difficult.  I am allowed to put a bulletin board and I am thinking about getting a wall vinyl so I have some sort of art and decoration in here.  Otherwise it is pretty drap and boring.  And that does not fit my personality!  If I have to spend a lot of time here, I want to enjoy the space!

Does anyone have any suggestion for decorating an office that doesn't involve holes in the walls or painting?

Badger Homecoming

Definitely feels like coming home

What Are You Reading?

So one of my unofficial 30 before I'm 30 things to do is read more.  I didn't put it on my list because it is a hard thing to quantify.  What is more?  I gave myself a break post-graduation.  For obvious reasons, it was hard to get motivated to read anything for fun after doing so much reading in grad school.  My fun reading this summer consisted mostly of wedding magazines, which was a blast!  But I am ready to get back into some good fun book reading again.

Some of it is to better myself -to always keep learning and growing - and some is for fun!  I am still reading The Happiness Project (I got stalled out for a bit), which is great.  So I've started a reading list on my blog to keep track of what I've read and what I want to read.

What are you reading?  I need some more suggestions!

Buoy

I dislike Sundays.  It means that Monday is around the corner and since I am working part time (for a few more weeks anyway....know of a full time job for me???) it means getting up with my alarm tomorrow and going into work.  So about 4pm on Sundays I try to start savoring every last minute of the weekend.  This weekend has been great.  We stayed home (two weekends in a row!!! a new record!) and have been cleaning up and cleaning out all weekend.  Slowly but surely our townhouse is coming back together after the wedding bomb went off.

So I figured I would post something on this gloomy rainy Sunday that should make everyone smile!  Pictures of our puppy Buoy!  Buoy is the best!  He was our very first wedding present, given to us by my awesome cousins!  So Happy Sunday!  I hope his cute little face brightens your Sunday as the weekend fades into Monday!  Enjoy!

                                                 Buoy helping fold laundry

                                                Buoy curled up in his bed

                                               Buoy loves to play with ice!

                             Buoy playing with his best bud!  My niece Macki.

Behind: Always Playing Catch Up

I can't believe how long it has been since I posted!  Sorry!!  I feel like I am always behind, always trying to play catch up.  Maybe one day I will be ahead of the curve?  Maybe?  Even when progress is made, it still feels like I'm twelve steps behind.  This is the first weekend since May that I have actually been at home.  It is pretty amazing. I got to do a little bit of shopping, got to sleep in and best of all - I wasn't in the car driving anywhere!!!

We FINALLY started going through all of the boxes of wedding presents.  It was like Christmas!  I forgot how many amazing things we got!  For about a nano-second we had a clean but together kitchen - then all of the chaos from the boxes erupted everywhere.  It looks like a bomb went off.  I'm not even going to post it because it is that crazy.  However - I did enjoy my first glass of wine last night out of our new wine glasses.

This morning, while I am writing this, I am enjoying coffee from one of my new coffee mugs (I say mine because I am the only one who drinks coffee, tea, etc and uses the mugs).

Ahhh chirp.   It makes me happy.  Britt hates our every day plates that I picked out.  They are Lenox Chirp (http://www.lenox.com/pattern/index.cfm?fuseaction=patDetail&wid=1&patId=1804)

I'm not even sure they are really me....but the colors make me happy.  I am picturing winter and no sun and being blah and these colors making me happy.  Almost all of the plates, etc are put away - we still have to find a few more in a box, but hopefully after today the kitchen will be put back to normal.  Britt is at the Bears game - so that is his project when he gets home.  My project today is to clean upstairs and get our master bedroom and closet put back together! This means trying to clean out some stuff too. Wish me luck! I need it!

A Little of This and That

Oh my goodness how did it get to be Thursday already??  Ugh I feel like I haven't done anything this week!  Well..I didn't do much at the beginning of the week. Oops.  But I do have a good excuse!  My BFF, my Roomie, my other half - Anna came down to visit for 24 hours, which (as always) was SO MUCH FUN!  Anna and I have lived together on and off since college.  I always say, I may live with my husband, but Anna is my Roomie!  So she came down and we did nothing! And it was lovely!  We hung out, catch up and had a movie marathon.  Even though I wasn't productive (like as always I said I was going to be) while she was here, the times we get to do things like this are getting fewer and farther between - so I LOVE when we can.

                                                            Anna and I at my wedding

This past weekend, we were up north.  On the way, we encountered some really cool weather!  A tornado had gone through a small town and done a bit of damage which was sad, but it left some really cool clouds in its wake.  We drove through at just the right time to see them!  It was then I learned that the Blogger app on my phone didn't want to upload in that area lol.  So I have a stuck blog post on my phone with those pictures!  Oh well.  These are the really cool clouds we saw in Wausaukee, WI.

The next 10 days or-so are nutty because of travel schedules, my parents coming into town, etc so my posts are probably going to be a bit random.  Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Fun Sayings / . on imgfave

Pinterest

Getting ready to head to the lake for the weekend so this will be a quick post!  I AM OBSESSED WITH PINTEREST!  Seriously if you have not discovered it yet, you need to jump on the band wagon.  My only regret is that I didn't start playing around with it 8 months ago!  It would have made wedding planning SO MUCH EASIER!  Especially when I was looking around for inspiration for my theme, colors, decorations, bridesmaid dresses, my dress.....ok really it would have made it easier for every single aspect of the wedding!

Here is my board of wedding photos

So to those of you who are engaged or are thinking about getting engaged Pinterest is the way to go for wedding stuff!  And for everyone else....it is just really fun and awesome to use!!!

Check it out this weekend if you have a chance!  You will be as addicted as I am!  Click on my link to the right to follow me on Pinterest!  And have a GREAT weekend!!!

The Pink In Me

So what is this whole Pink In Me thing??  Well...I was trying to think of a name for the blog.  And I think the best way to describe me is Hot Pink.  So of course the name of the blog had to have Pink in the name.  When I think about my life in the last couple of years - when I have been the most on top of things, having the most fun, been the most productive, etc etc etc is when I was "Pink."

Now that I have some time to think about things other than my wedding, I've realized I'm not quite as pink as I used to be.  I operate in life much better when I am on a set schedule.  Lately, I haven't been.  So I am trying to get myself back on a schedule so I can be more productive and accomplish more every day.  While I am looking for a full time job, there is SO MUCH I can get done around the house.  Besides thank you notes from our wedding, there is all of the cleaning out the old stuff to make room for the new.  And WE HAVE SO MUCH STUFF.  So I am trying to clean out stuff in general.  And I am definitely not using every day as productively as I could be.

Coincidentally, I just started reading The Happiness Project.  Have you read it?  If not, go get it!  I am only on month two, but man is it helping me out!  The first chapter/month - January - happen to go perfectly with what I am trying to accomplish.  I am trying to get rid of all of the clutter and get my to-do list waaaaay down.  It keeps me up at night!  And it's not just stuff around the house, but I need to go to the dentist, the doctor, register my car, grocery shop and the list goes on and on and on.  So hopefully after I make my massive to do list (ok and maybe start setting an alarm....) it will light a fire under me and re-store a little bit of my productively pink self!

My First Post

As I write this, I know that no one  is reading this.  But you will!  It has taken me awhile to start a blog, even though I have been thinking about it for some time now.  I'm sure my challenge is the same that a lot of people: will I write something that is interesting enough for anyone to actually want to read it?  I guess I will find out!

So first a little bit about me!  About a month and a half ago, I married my best friend and love of my life Britt.

In case you can't tell from the picture, we are both HUGE into waterskiing.  It is very cool being married to someone who shares almost all of the same hobbies and interests as you. So far married life has been great!  We went on an amazing honeymoon to St. Lucia and now we are settling back in to reality.

We have the world's cutest puppy, Buoy! (Can you sense the waterski theme?)

Buoy is a good puppy, but he still needs a bit of training so we are working on that as well.  He was our first and favorite wedding present!

Another thing you should know about me is I LOVE PINK (in case you can't tell from my background).  My husband is a good sport to put up with my love of pink.  It definitely was one of the colors at our wedding, and it was beautiful! (Stay tuned for more wedding pictures!)

Some other major things about me are: I graduated in May with my MBA in Marketing. It was good timing to let me get through all of the wedding stuff before going back to work full time.  I am currently job hunting.  It certainly is taking awhile to find something!  Although I shouldn't be surprised, I've only been looking for a few weeks.  I am also working on starting my own business - which I'll tell you more about later.

So those are some of the basics about me!  Stay tuned for more of my adventures, goals and life as I am learning from all of the new changes in my life!