Valentine's day...a little early

Well we celebrated Vday a little early this year. Mostly because hair school starts on the 13th and I don't want to be cramming a holiday into my first week of school. Also because my birthday is on the 18th and is NOT to be combined with Valentine's celebrations:) I'm a little greedy when it comes to my birthday and I suppose I married the right man because he loves birthdays too! Anyway, I kept telling Chance that he was not allowed to get me anything for Vday, because I was spending extra $ to get him a bigger gift that also sort of benefited me, so he obliged. I had to throw out lots of hints to throw him off course, because he secretly likes to try to guess what the gift is and ruin it for me...so I didn't want any close guesses. We have a two bedroom apartment, and the 2nd bedroom has just been sort of where we put his video games and the dog kennels. We always talked about it being an office for him, but never had the time or energy. Well since I quit my job, guess who has time and energy! I told him I was going to keep his gift in my closet but that it was too big to fit so that's how I kept him out the 2nd bedroom while I plotted my room. I love love love to shop around... and my bestie Erin, thankfully, loves to shop around as well. She's super mom, because she totes her baby girl around with us and lets her walk around the store and shop with us all while talking to me about our personal lives in the middle of TJ Maxx, and can see an awesome lamp or frame from a mile away (often even on clearance!)...all this at the same time. Awesome best friend, right? So since she works part time, we had some days to spend with each other roaming around to hobby lobby, tj, world market, target, etc. looking for the perfect items for my room. It all started with these pillows: they were the perfect colors for his office...not too girly, but not too man cave-ish, and warm and homey feeling to me.

The papasan chair is actually from my old house, I bought it from Pier One when I was in high school! I totally thought I would be all cool and study in it and it just ended up being where I threw clothes options all the time. I think I slept in it like once. So needless to say it hasn't been used much. So I stole it from my parents house and brought it over to use for a corner study area for me for the room. Basically the rest was just searching all over trying to find just the right frames, candles, or other decor to get the room ready for Chance. I'm guessing most people don't care where I found things, so I won't list all that out, but it was an adventure of going to the west side stores, then east side stores, then back again, then waiting for things to go on sale...etc. I will just put up all the pictures and give a few shout outs along the way:) I got little chalk board tags to put the puppies' names on for their kennel, a little wooden storage crate for their toys, also with a chalkboard front, and a container for their dog food so we don't have a huge bag sitting around. Not sure why I had an obsession with chalk board stuff, but it just kept happening and I was ok with it.

I was also pretty pumped to get our first wedding picture printed....and in an 18x24! Startin' big!

A few special pieces: Chance had this old computer hard drive that he had shot several times when he was mad at an old computer one time and when I tried to throw it away he told me "No you can't throw it out." Me- "Why?" Chance- "Cuz I have to keep it around to show other computers who's boss...it's like nerd cred..." SOOO...I found a cool shadow box and mounted in on some patterned paper I got at hobby lobby with epoxy and hung it for all other computers to see:)

I also used his old video game holder (which was black and cheap) as a tiny book case type thing and spray painted it brown to match the rest of the room. I was on a small budget, so I had to use a lot of what we had so I could afford things like the desk and chair and frame. I put his two custom discs on it, because he will never actually use them he told me, since they are special and he doesn't want to lose one in the water. One is a "groom" one I got him when we were planning the wedding and the other one I gave him on our wedding day. I also put a few tv dvd collections he had on the shelves, and a plaque we got in Jamaica, accompanied with a few honeymoon pictures for us to day dream about.

The lamp: We actually got this lamp about a year ago because we both loved it and it was on sale, but we obviously never used it...it just sat next to the dog kennels. Erin and I have been Pinterest junkies so we decided to glue buttons on the lamp shade:) Don't even ask about all the projects we ALMOST did and then ditched.

I hung baskets to use for bills or any other papers that Chance might want to keep around...and again with the chalk board pieces, haha:) I got this one just for writing fun messages to each other.

No office is complete without an "I love you" paperweight:)

Chance's parents actually had this at their house, it's one of those pieces where someone takes pictures of things in nature that resemble letters and it spells your name or whatever. I commented on it when we were visiting once and Chance liked it lots and his mom was kind enough to let us use it here! They are entirely too nice! So I spray painted the frame to match the shelves because it was black before and just didn't look right in the room, but I'm so glad we were able to use it! It reminds us of Ellinwood home and gives us warm fuzzies:)

I also wanted this room for Chance because we just sat down and REALLY budgeted our finances since I will be starting school soon and we needed a legit plan...so I made him this make shift checklist he can use every month to check off our bills. I just got some cork board from Target and some card stock and some push pins and drew some not so perfect lines 30 minutes before Chance got home from work that day:)

I lit some candles and made a tiny path to the room so Chance could open his "gift" and we spent forever talking about each thing and sitting around in the room enjoying the weekend:) Chance loved hooking up his desktop and the puppies hung around with us too. It's so nice to have more "sitting around" space in the apartment! Chance was really excited and I am so happy he liked it! I guess when you get married, it's totally ok to do gifts like this for each other and not pathetic that we liked it way more than normal gifts...right???....right??? Happy first married Valentine's Day!!!

PS I had to throw in this picture of the pups because they were totally posing for me! I couldn't recreate this if I tried! :)

Arcade date

Last year for Valentine's day, I got Chance an assortment of dates for the year, one of which was a gift card to Chuck E Cheese! We hadn't used it yet, mostly because the idea of going into a huge room full of snotty kids was not my ideal date, but today we had nothing to do and like zero dollars in the bank, so we opted for the free Saturday arcade date! I actually ended up loving this time with Chance. It had nothing to do with the greasy pizza I got either. I felt a little creepy walking around with a camera...especially since we had no kids with us, but I have really been wanting to take more pictures of our time together, so I sucked it up and hoped no parents gave me a creepy look. I am also pumped that my new camera has a self timer on it, so I dont have to always ask some stranger to take our picture.

We ran around like little kids playing all sorts of games and getting tickets. Chance was super cute as usual and stood in line behind 6 year olds waiting for the games he wanted. Look how happy he was!

We also did this funny game where it makes you into a collectors card sort of deal. We got the "pro skatboarder" one and barely fit our adult heads into the frame. But yes I will keep this and probably attempt to use it as a form of identification someday:)

We also did this sketch game where you sit in the photobooth, it takes your picture, and then it "draws" you and prints it out. We didn't really know how to pose so we just did what we wanted cuz it counted down from 5 really fast and this is just what we ended up with. Pretty great if you ask me. Sometimes I look at Chance and realize how much we are best friends. I would so have done this sort of thing with a girlfriend in high school or college.

More of Chance playing fun games, skee ball, obviously is a favorite.

I tried to take a picture in the mirror of this one arcade game and people kept walking in front of us so this is the best we could do. That place is crawling with kids (and germs!).

So the date was great. It took up our whole afternoon and we had a blast. And yes, we DID wash our hands 10 thousand times after we got home if you were worried.

For an added laugh you can see how we seem to get my boots and Beast confused a lot around the apartment. Can you see why? Haha.

My "new thang"

So my big life change (to me it's big anyway) is that I'm quitting my job! Ha, ok that's only part of it...but I am quitting my job and going to cosmetology school! WOOT! I have only wanted to do hair and make up since I was ohhhh 16....so this is a really awesome "dream come true" sort of moment. I get my "dream come true" sort of moment because I have an amazing, supportive, "dream come true" sort of husband as well. He didn't even try to hold me back on this. No talks about what does this mean financially or anything, just a sweet "We can TOTALLY live just on my paycheck" comment, which to be honest, I am not even sure is true! How great is he? I normally think that girls who talk about their husbands so much on Facebook or a blog or something are ridiculous and just make the rest of feel down and second guess ourselves, like "Why doesn't MY husband wear cute suspenders all the time" or "Why doesn't MY husband take me to eat on the top of a mountain somewhere like that?" (and more so, how did they get that huge sofa up there for that photo?). But I can tell you that Chance and I have our ups and downs, and you better believe I blab about them both. But when he is amazing (which is 98% of the time), you will REALLY hear about it. He was so great about all this. He knew I craved a career and wanted me to be happy. He also loves the idea of saying his wife is a hairdresser, he tells me. I think he also likes the idea of me doing hair because I can always do crazy things to my hair and get tattoos. That won't be me....entirely. I already try crazy things with clothes and hair, but I can tell you I will NEVER be able to rock a pixie cut and never be able to do things like shave half my head, bleach it blonde, and wear the other half long. These types...wont be me. I can't say I'll never get a tattoo, because I promised Chance before I said "I do" that I would someday get a tattoo for him since he loves them so much. And I'm assuming by my personality that once I get one, more may add on. They WILL be classy though...still working through all that, I'll save that for a later post. ANYWAY, I will never be this girl:

I might DO some hair like that:)...but never portray all that jazz. Ok, so I'm REALLY excited. I don't even know how to prepare! I wish there was a way to, but there is just being really excited. Here is the link to the hair school I am attending. http://www.ericfisheracademy.com/ It is amazing. Best in the midwest pretty much. I am so pumped that it is in Wichita and that I can drive there in 15-20 minutes! So I definitely want to keep up on my posting but I am sure that during those 9 months I am going to be swamped. I really want to photograph my way through school though, so I will be trying to post my little journey along the way. Chance is excited too, and we are trying to spend a bunch of time together since I will be busy from Tues-Sat 9-5 every week. It will be a big change for us. I have prayed and prayed and I feel so confident in this decision. Even if I just get the minimum of learning a skill that I can use down the road with a family, I will have succeeded in my book. I obviously hope that my hard work and passion for it will drive me to a more successful place than just earning a skill, but I don't even care because I get to experience all this! If you think of Chance and me during a certain day or night, please pray that God will give us strength, energy, and the ability to glorify Him in each decision we make. THANK YOU JESUS for this! I am so happy. Of course hair won't be the only thing happening in our lives, so blogging will not turn into a hair school parade...but it's just our new thing!

Kissy kissy

Ok so yes it has been like almost 3 months since I posted. I kinda thought there would be a bunch of after wedding happenings that I could blog about and actually it is the opposite. If I blogged about all the things Chance and I did each day, most of them would consist of us going to Target, watching TV, complaining about the gym, (which, if we just went right away we could be done with the gym by the time we were done complaining in the first place), and playing with the dogs. I know that everyone says that after the wedding you will be depressed because there isn't any attention on you and that is actually my favorite part. I hated getting asked questions over and over about wedding details. Not that I didn't love all my details, but the same ones...over and over. I am wondering how long it is going to take before people stop asking me "How are you enjoying married life?". 6 months? 1 year? next week? (PLEASE!). I also hate how when people ask "How are you enjoying married life?" with a lift of their brow I sorta cant help but hear in my head "So how are you enjoying sleeping over since that's the only thing that really changed since 'I do'". Maybe that sounds out of line, but it's just a horrible question to ask someone. It kinda also sounds like "I dont remember anything else about you to ask about so I will jump back to the last big event I remember which is your wedding". I want to say, "It's great, how's living without your grandma?" or something equally as horrifying. I am sounding entirely too morbid I think...especially since I started this post to show off my new found confidence in red lipstick. "Kissy kissy" is now not seeming like an appropriate title. I think I'll keep it anyway. I really want to boast about my new life change (that will inevitably be the next big event people ask me about for the next 2 years), but I'll put that in it's own post. NO...it's not a baby. Sorry for the let down. Ok so, I LOVE make up I decided. I never wanted to be the "I love make up" girl, because they seem to always look cakey and fake tan or something. But over the last couple years, I've discovered MAC. I think I may turn out to be one of those old ladies who will ONLY wear a certain kind of make up even if it's WAY out of style. So I hope, dear MAC, that you never go out of style. I got a Sephora make up case from Chance's grandma (and mine now, yay!) that my sister says looks like a tackle box and I should go on a fishing trip. I, however, am oddly proud of this case and the fact that I can halfway fill it! It is this one:

I have a lady, Renee, at the MAC make up stand in the mall, who is the only one I let give me tips, because (a) She showed me how to put on foundation with a brush like 2 yrs ago and I fell in love with her since then (b) I will admit the other sales people sometimes scare me with their adventurous eye make up and (c) she did my wedding make up and gave me fake eyelashes and made me feel like Kim K. I recently (ok like a couple months ago) got her to MAKE me like red lipstick. I was so envious of all the girls who looked so cool with like, a white tshirt, jeans, and red lipstick. I always had the idea that red lipstick was for, I dont know, a kids Christmas program and only the grandmas wore it. But magazines have pressured me and I jumped in. I wanted the fire engine red. Complete with lip liner. I LOVE it. I still don't like eating with it on, because of the obvious fear that my sandwich will smudge it onto my nose or something, but in general, LOVE it. Try to wear it as much as possible without being the girl that thinks she looks hott in it all the time. I also love it because my low lights in my hair are also fire engine red right now. So that helps. I'm looking up and seeing that I've been typing my thoughts aloud for a long time and it has nothing to do with anything interesting besides why I like make up and red lipstick. OHHH well....maybe you have some of the same thoughts as me and that makes me feel normal. Here are few shots of my lips....and a couple to show how it goes with my hair:) If you aren't already on the red lipstick train, jump on as soon as you can!