Crankee.

Maybe it's because I got an hour less sleep than normal.

Maybe it's because this is the most stressful, over-scheduled week I've had in a long time.

Maybe it's because (seemingly) everyone I work with is in a crap-tastic mood.

Maybe it's just because I'm feeling like being a brat.

No matter what, I'm cranky. Not just cranky, crankee. I hate feeling like this, but it is what it is.

I'm stepping away from work, I'm stepping away from my sources of stress, and I'm going to go shopping (it's for work, so not totally stepping away, but you know what I mean).

How many days til I can catch up on sleep?

Disappearing Vogt

I disappeared without warning! Sorry about that, I didn't know it was coming or I would have warned you.

Things have been insane, so I imagine my break will last awhile longer, but I promise to come back. I promise.

Here's a little list of what I've been up to:
Re-designing our website for work. I don't know how to make it work, but I think I've got a handle on how to make it pretty. Hopefully our web designer can take my ideas and run with them.

Planning a special event for work. It's so much fun, but since this is our first year, it's a lot of work.

Basically, constantly working :)

Estes Park was awesome, and I have some great pictures. I promise to share soon.

We have another open house this week for a bunch of vendors, including Vogt Design Co. I'm so excited to display some of my Christmas creations, for the first time this year. If you're local and would like to attend, let me know and I'll be happy to provide you with the info.

My good friend Ernesto is coming to visit the last weekend of the month, so Mike and I are busy bees getting everything ready around the house and finishing up some year-end yard work, since it seems to be getting colder. I wish the weather could stay like this forever.

A couple more craft shows on the calendar for November, which of course means lots of holiday creating. I love it, but of course, I have zero time to make my own holiday projects.

Anyway, I'd better get back to all my projects. I promise to pop in from time to time, even if it's just to share all the awesome fall & Christmas inspiration I've been seeing in blog-land.

Have a great day, all!
Jen

Estes Park, Here We Come!

I mentioned before that Mike & I will be celebrating our 1st anniversary soon (next Sunday to be exact!) We had an entirely different trip planned, but yesterday, we decided we should go somewhere else.

This morning, we decided it should be Estes Park, CO.

I've never been to Estes Park, but my good friends go all the time and love it and told us we should go. I'm up for trying new things, and this a manageable drive for us (we decided wherever we go next weekend, we'll be driving rather than flying).

So, I started looking at pictures to find a place to stay this morning (because, you know, all lodging decisions should be based on how pretty the place looks on the outside), and settled on this one:

Isn't it pretty? I can't wait to stay there.

I checked out weather.com today and apparently it's supposed to rain the entire weekend. Yay. {sarcasm font} That won't stop me from doing things, but it might make me want to sleep a little bit longer.

We have a couple of things we definitely want to check out, but I'd welcome any advice or "must-see" attractions.

Cannot wait to get out of town!

Happy Friday, all :)

Fall & Halloween Decor - Outdoors

Happy Tuesday all...only 2 more days of September and then it's one of my favorite months of the year! Our anniversary AND Halloween...love it!

Chances are, you'll be seeing some blog posts with awesome fall and Halloween ideas and decor. Halloween is seriously my favorite non-sentimental holiday (Christmas is my favorite holiday that has some meaning behind it). I love everything about it...scaring people, handing out candy, pumpkins, the colors, the fun, pumpkins, costumes, little people in costumes, pumpkins, puppies in costumes (yes, I dress Molly up...deal with it), did I mention pumpkins??

So, here are some awesome outdoor decor pics for fall & Halloween:

(From Pottery Barn) I love this so much and wish I had a porch big enough to pull it off. I have a couple of those lanterns in my house, so I might re-purpose them as porch or patio decor. I have tons of garlands of leaves left over from our wedding, so I'll put them to good use too. And I found like 5 of the black birds the other day that I think will make things appropriately spooky.

(From here) I like this one too. I have to wonder if anyone ever trips on a pumpkin going down the steps? I'm loving the urns (or whatever they're called) at the bottom of the steps, I'm looking for something similar when I'm out yard saling. And I love the idea of the flowers in the bushel baskets...I just bought a couple of pots of mums this weekend, so I may be replanting shortly!

(From here) Just kidding, I like these urns better. And I love the hay bales, but after last year's incident with the snake, I think I might pass on hay bales this year. Though, if I just put them away in a timely manner (or had my husband take care of that chore), I may not have a snake issue.

(From Good Housekeeping) So stinking cute. Love me some pumpkins

(From Country Living) How cute is the entrance to this Halloween party?

(From Country Living) Ignoring the cheesy guy in the (very scary) clown costume, I really love the idea of lining a walkway with pumpkins. I wonder if I could pull that off on part of mine? (Without animal interference, I mean)

(From Country Living) How cute is this little vignette? One of the things on my junkin' list is a cute little table like this that I can try to weatherproof for our patio.

(From Country Living) Why on earth have I never thought of using the pumpkin stem as a nose?

(Still Country Living) All lit up at night. Very cute (+ practical for safety purposes when walking)

(From Country Living) This is a pretty little set-up. I don't know that a blanket left outside in Nebraska would fair very well, but it made for a cute photo shoot

There ya have it. Do you decorate outdoors for fall and Halloween?

Have a great day!

This Weekend

So, I mentioned that I was planning to go to the Junk Jaunt this weekend. It didn't happen, for numerous reasons.

The best way I can explain it is, I finally had to admit that I'm a grown-up and needed to rest for a day. Believe me, I was not thrilled to be staying home on a day I planned to get out of town and do some serious shopping.

The good news is, I got to spend the day with my husband, which was a really nice change. Being lazy was kind of fun too. (And I even snuck some shopping in.)

Since fall is officially here, and Halloween is sneaking around the corner, I thought I'd share some awesome fall & Halloween decor ideas with you that I love. Then I realized that all of these brilliant ideas have been moved to a different computer, and I can't share them. Boo. (No pun intended).

Instead, I'll share some of my engagement pics with you from 2 years ago (I cannot believe we took these two years ago...feels like it was yesterday). These were taken at Vala's Pumpkin Patch.. I love Vala's and it's just part of my fall routine to go check out the pumpkins and all that Vala's has to offer. When I was talking with my photographer prior to the session, I told her that we just wanted to capture how much we loved fall. I think she did a pretty good job of that.

Hello cart full of pumpkins. I love you. Will you come live at our house?

Mike & I have an odd sense of humor. I thought the idea of taking engagement pictures in front of a zombie bride was hilarious. Our photographer giggled along with me, but I secretly think she was scared for her safety with these nutty kids around her.



Rickety old fences are awesome.

Yay, pumpkins!

And some corn (not jungle leaves, as others have thought)

So, how's that for random fall-ness? Our 1-year wedding anniversary is a little under 2 weeks away, and since I never did any wrap-up posts on our wedding, I thought I might just share those on the bloggo. I know my friends from TheKnot will appreciate me finally doing that (even though everyone's already seen the pictures and heard the stories). I promise not to go wedding overboard.

Happy Monday, all! 

Fall TV

It's that time of year again...new fall TV! I'm so excited for this week. And since I use this blog as sort of a journal (more than anything else in my life), here's what we're watching this week:

(By watching, I mean DVRing, because there's no way we're home enough to watch this much tv.)

Monday:
Dancing with the Stars
Monday Night Football
(I want to watch LoneStar, but missed it last night, so I'll have to catch up online)

Tuesday:
Glee
NCIS
Parenthood

Wednesday:
Survivor

Thursday:
Nothing that I know of yet...

Friday: Blue Bloods (holy cow am I excited for this to start)

Saturday & Sunday are filled with football games and marathons of NCIS and Law & Order: SVU.

I miss my summer shows...True Blood (drool) and Covert Affairs, but this line-up will make up for it, I hope.

Who says being a couch potato isn't rewarding? :)

What are you watching? What summer shows do you miss? Are you as nutty as me and have to watch every show from the beginning or you can't go any further?

Happy Tuesday, all!

Locker Baskets

Have you gotten in on this trend yet? I love it. I've always been a fan of industrial type things (though they don't exactly fit into my decorating scheme). I love going into garages and outbuildings and asking, "what does this do?" Locker baskets fit right into this. Plus I love to organize. Don't do it very well, but the idea of it is nice. If I had all the money in the world, all the baskets you saw in my craft room post would have been locker baskets.

Here's some cute ones:

From Country Living. How freaking cute is that room? It wouldn't be remotely functional for all my stash, but my goodness, I wish it was.

How about these wire baskets at Pottery Barn? I have a shelf like that, how cute would it be to have this whole setup somewhere in my house? (Don't ask me where)

Love these from Etsy seller FrenchByDesign.

This is a little too industrial for my personal taste, but I love the look. Love it!

So, Mike & I are taking next Friday to go to the Junk Jaunt. You can read more about it here. I'm so freaking excited to spend the day junking. Top of my shopping list: locker baskets. :)