{inspired} a navy girls nursery

You guys! Today, I'm thrilled to be sharing with you a very special room - it's the nursery of a dear friend's infant daughter. And, I'm ridiculously excited to show you photos because I took them. And no, that's not a nod to my skills (or lack there of) with a camera. I'm excited because that means I not only went to Texas to see my friend (!), but I met her sweet, adorable daughter!!

Becky decided on a bit of a non-traditional girls room color palette, which I happen to adore. I LOVE the navy brightened up by hits of orange and yellow. She texted me a photo of all the fabrics after fabric shopping and I may have squealed with delight. I knew immediately this room was going to be beautiful and special.

Becky had all the bedding and drapes custom made on Etsy. One of my favorites parts of the chevron fabric is that the chevron was actually finished vertical instead of the usual horizontal. I also love that the fabric door mirrors the window curtains on the opposite wall and really ties it all together.

And of course, we need to take a minute to talk about this entire wall. As you can tell, it's what you see immediately as you enter the room. It's a little harder to tell what's going on in my photos, but the wall is a glossy/non-glossy grid, and it is BRILLIANT. And, gorgeous and subtle and gives just enough interest in when you're in the room to make it really stand out. Becky posted a few photos on her blog, and it's easier to see the treatment in them, and then she gave step-by-step directions.

The scrabble art is a nod to Becky's love of words - I never saw her without a crossword puzzle when we worked and went to school together in Boston! - and is also a great piece of art. You can find the how-to also on her blog.

The cute little gallery wall ties in the colors and patterns of the room with a few pieces of sentimental art mixed in. Becky listed all the sources in her nursery reveal post. (Psst. If you click over, you'll see which of the art is from me! :)

 Let's wrap this tour up with some details of the room, shall we?

Becky and her husband are both Texas A&M grads, so this sign is especially appropriate. And just another example of how important adding personal touches are to any room.

Now, I'm exited to hear - what's your favorite part of the room? The subtle grid wall? The fabric choices? The hand-made personal art? I truly can't decide, but I do know that I absolutely love that this room is not traditionally "girly," yet is sweet and obviously meant for a little girl.

{inspired} miami

So, I'm not going to give you the full run-down on all my May/June travels, but I did want to share a few photos of my trip to Miami with you all. Mostly because I was pleasantly surprised about how much I enjoyed it! :)

See, I have a long list of places I'd like to visit someday and Miami was most decidedly not on that list. In fact, I just don't really enjoy Florida all that much. So hot. So humid.

But of course I'm not going to say no when work offers to send me to conference in sunny Miami for a week! We stayed right on Miami Beach at the Fontainebleau, which was AMAZING. Omg. The pools! The palm trees! The gorgeous interiors! 

For some unknown reason I was upgraded to small suite, which had the most amazing views from my balcony. Above is if I looked to the right. Below is if I looked to the left. Gorgeous!

I also took a little time to explore the beach, since I was there. I took a quick sunrise walk on morning (top photo) and came across so many people who .... were just getting home from the clubs. Hahaha! Sadly, my week wasn't THAT exciting :)

But I also took a nice evening stroll down to South Beach and the Art Deco district. 

Sadly, by the time I got to all the amazing art deco buildings it was too dark to take decent photos. But, in general, I loved all the architecture along the beach. So fancy, gorgeous, classy.

Friends, I hope you have a fantastic 4th of July weekend! Enjoy all the celebrations! :)

{a home in the making} State of the Blog.

Let's just dive right into where I've been for the past month. Wait, has it been two months? Yep. I originally wrote this post at the beginning of June! So, I've edited to update to the rest of June, but the basic message remains unchanged :)

I started in May in Miami (above) for work, as soon as I got home we headed to the Oregon coast, then a long weekend visiting friends in Bend, Central Oregon (below) and I finished the month visiting a dear friend in Dallas Texas. May was awesome! And, my head is in fact still spinning. 

June was a little quieter, but included an amazing trip to wine taste in eastern Washington (below). Quite frankly, I'm not used to traveling that much and lots of other things fell through the cracks. Including, sadly, this lovely space.

There's another issue I've been having, though, with blogging in general. Early in May - pre-travel craziness - I actually thought to myself that I need to hire a landscaper to come weed our terribly overgrown yard and lay barkdust. My reasoning? Besides being lazy (!), getting our yard in shape would take a full weekend day and it's not something I could blog about so I didn't want to spend time doing it. What shocked me the most is that I realized this is only one example in a list of things that I've been avoiding doing because they aren't blog worthy.

It hit me hard that I don't want to live my life according to what's blog worthy. Since I started my new job about 8 months ago, I've had very limited time during the week to blog - thanks to crazy work days that often lead into evening work activities. I've been managing the blog by filling my weekends with starting and completing projects, photographing the projects, uploading and editing photos and then, at a bare minimum, writing Monday's post and starting the other two posts for the week. I'm sure you can guess how much time that leaves me for anything else on the weekends! :)

I was chained to my house last summer trying to make progress on our kitchen remodel, and I don't want to feel the same way this summer. I want to go hiking and pull weeds and go for bike rides and touch up the back entry steps that are chipping. I want to enjoy my weekends!

I'm not completely sure what all this means. I know I'm not going away. The first couple weeks of May I felt really free in my non-blogging life, but the few weeks I've really missed it - and all of you! I think this summer I'll just be winging it more than usual. There are still small home updates I'm working on - living room furniture, fabrics for the kitchen, the sage of our kitchen chairs - and I'll definitely be updating you as I get to them. But there might be weeks when I just don't have time to contribute here. And I think right now that's fine too.

Thanks for hanging in there with me friends! I appreciate you reading and checking in here and not giving up on me when life kinda gets in the way :)