50 Cents of Awesome

This post is going to be absurdly long. So get your bowl of ice cream, or frozen yogurt, and settle in for it. No, really, Go! It'll be here waiting for you. I can't wait to tell you lots of things that are going on in this apartment and life of ours! 

First, a jaw-droppingly exciting lamp purchase! Yeah, I bought a lamp...wait, I bought two lamps! For a whopping 8.24. Be jealous! I was wandering around Lowes (yumm) one day and ran across this deal. The floor models were the only ones left, so I snagged them and ran! I didn't have to assemble them, and I even got the light bulbs that were in them. All for 8 Dollas! and 24 Cents! 

The floor lamp sits in our bedroom "reading" corner.

The lamp set was not absurdly expensive to begin with. Lamps can be really expensive! But, it's still a great deal!

And the little lamp sits on top of our hutch, to light our second bedroom.

Here's a little peak at the hutch too! I painted her grey, and the back of the shelves a light blue.

And to keep the fun rolling I'll show you pictures of a yummy meal I made a couple weeks ago! Jason actually said, "Can we eat this every day?" I had to respond with, "no, we would have to roll each other out of the apartment..." But it was tasty! Mom's Baked Chicken & Spinach Pasta. And how cute is that casserole dish? We got as a "housewarming gift" from an Albert Lea Co-worker. Love you Becky!

Come visit, I will make you this dish!

Last weekend we went to Mayfield, NY. Right at the bottom of the Adirondacks. I met a friend in Yellowstone almost 5 years ago, who went on to marry a nice gentlemen whose parents live on this lake. So we talked them in to meeting us at his parents house. They took us tubing and let us go swimming and fed us great food! It's crazy to think that I now live close enough to visit this great friend on the weekends!

Jason went tubing!

Ryan did most of the driving, but Kasey (my friend, Ryans wife) took him for a spin. It was her first time driving the pontoon with someone in tow! She did great :-)

Ryan is a pro. Look, can you see mountains in the background? Gorgeous!

Check out my hot husband! No seriously, the kid was crispy after this weekend. Even with all the sunscreen we put on him.

We met new friends!

Ryan was our captain for the day!

Kasey and me tubing!

This is me rolling in after Kasey fell off.

I just love this picture of Jason.

Oh, and the fun continues! Next on the list, my quilt! It's a scrap quilt, and I've had a blast working on it.

Here are all the pieces.

Here is a closer look at the blocks.

Here is the quilt after I sashed the quilt top.

And here is the quilt top after I bordered it too! I drew a blue line around it to show you where the border is.

Oh, and I wanted to show you this art work we hung up. It's a picture Jason took from our honeymoon. And it's Ginormous! I love it.

Ok, and now here is where the title comes in to action! I bought the below pictured chair for 50 cents at Goodwill! I kid you not, the chair was a buck, with a yellow sticker, on yellow sticker 50% off day. Yay! I forgot to take a decent before picture, but here is a picture of it after I reupholstered the top half. I actually just sewed a sorta slipcover thing and stapled it to her. But imagine the gross creamy colored bottom on the top, covered in stains and cat hair, and you've got the 50 cent chair I shoved in the back of the Taurus.

It doesn't show well in this cellphone picture, but the chair is all sorts of eww.

Well hello!

I actually purchased the fabric at a flea market only a week prior to getting the chair!

I got over 3 yards of the fabric for ten bucks. What a DEAL!

She's just so pretty. I stop and stare at her way too much. She'll probably file for a restraining order. :-)

 

Well, that's a lot of what is going on here in New Hampshire. Fun, right? yep!

Comevisitokaythanksloveyou!

Life in the Fast Lane

Well, we did it!

We are no longer NYC virgins! Yay :-)

We took the bus to the big city. We walked the 1.72 miles from our apartment to the Manchester bus station and took the 17:30 bus to Boston, hoping to catch the 19:00 bus to NYC. Well, if you know anything about cars and rush hour (something we were apparently ignorant to after years of living in Fargo)  you would know that we did NOT catch the 7pm bus.

Sorta Stresssssssful! We were sitting on the bus, in traffic, just glaring at each other. We had already purchased our greyhound tickets...

Greyhound helped us when we arrived at 19:12 and we caught the 8pm bus with a 30 dollar ticket transfer fee. Not bad. For a grand total of 176 bucks we both had round trip tickets from Manchester to NYC. And neither of us had to drive, we both could read, sleep, or use the free on board wifi. Convenient. :-)

We pulled in to NYC around 1am and took a taxi from the bus station to Brian's cousins apartment. We were lucky enough to crash on matching couches for the two nights we were there.

Enough talk, let's look at pictures!

Down in the subway. Hot hot heat.

We are so glad we had the Laphams with us, they knew their way around the subway.

The boys struttin in front of the flat iron

Point. Nod.

Babes

I love throwing up the Peace Signs when I've got my travel on.

I can not put in to words how WONDERFUL it was to see this woman, and her husband.

Guggenheim.

Guggenheim

We went to Wicked, and wandered around Time Square a bit.

How hott hott are these two?

I love Jason in that shirt.

Seriously, the guy is SEXY.

Bahaha!

I love Brian's fish eye.

The set for Wicked. It was SO GOOD.

And at midnight (after Wicked) we were introduced to Empanada Mama's. Jason said, "Mmmm, can we have these every day?" 

And we went to M+M World. :-)

Brian's cousin has a dog named Benjamin Franklin. What a wonderful name! Benny was pretty great, snuggled right up to us as soon as we arrived at the apartment.

My favorite part about Wicked is Jason's constant (and random) exclamations about "How Awesome Wicked Was!" --Seriously, we will be brushing our teeth and Jason will just stop and say, "Wicked was soooo good!" ha! love that kid.

Brian and Naomi are such good friends, it was great to see them, and hard to part ways from them.

Our bus ride home was perfect. I had purchased 10am tickets from NYC to Boston, but we ended up getting to the bus terminal around 8am, so we caught that bus, and we were home in Manchester by 3pm.

love, love.

Saving and Spending

I'm trying to learn how to save money. I don't spend like crazy, but I do dream like crazy. If I had it my way, the entire house would be big giant pieces of furniture side by side by side. Leaving little to know room to actually enjoy the furniture! Ha! I just love craigslist and furniture and the ideas of redoing things.

But, as it is we can't possibly do that. Jason "needs" room to see the tv, oh and sleep.

I also recently realized that I learn visually. So I grabbed my magazines and made a collage. Hello 4th grade! It was fun, and I love the end result.

Note: I pulled out my trusty goes-on-purple-dries-clear stick glue, and it was dark tan with a giant spot of MOLD! crazy. 

I posted this baby on the opposite wall of my side of the bed, so I can see it before I go to sleep and when I wake up. Oh, and here's what everything is.

Now, Jason and I are going to NYC to visit some friends who happen to be in the area. Excited! I had been thinking I want to bring a purse that I can wear like a messenger bag. But I wanted it to be big enough to hold things, but not as big as your traditional messenger bag. One night when I was pinning away, I ran across this tutorial. It's Fan.Tas.Tic! DETAILED!

Here's my finished product! It really only took a couple hours to complete. I made paper templates for the pattern pieces so I can do it again soon. I couldn't find the hardware I needed (metal sliders, etc) at any of my local fabric stores, and I didn't have time to order online (like she suggests), so I went to goodwill and bought a messenger bag that had the hardware on it, snip snip and I'm good to go! I actually spent less on the whole goodwill bag then it would have cost to order the material online. :-)

It took me 2.5 hours of wandering around Joann fabrics to find the fabric I wanted.

And it had to have a complimentary fabric. Look pockets!

I even did my first zipper pocket. Easy peasy!

And the front (just under the flap when the flap is closed) has a pocket.

It's perfect!

love, megs

Little Projects

I finally finished my quilt!

Look at how pretty she is!

There is a look at my binding, next to a map of NH of course.

Okay, I just picked this dress up at savers for 2.99! Ugly right? Yep.

Just wait until you see what I do with it!

Yay! Cropped and a .99 belt really spices it up.

C-a-ute right!?

And how great is the fabric? 

Oh, and I found this pear dish at goodwill for 2.99! Yeebo! And, that's the color I painted the side table.

Random Wedding Videos

The Hay Ride from after our wedding. SO windy. Miss every single one of these people.

The Girls doing the Throwdown.

That Moment

Jason passed both of his exams and is now a licensed pharmacist!

We went out to eat to celebrate last night. A tasty little joint located in downtown Manchester. For the first time in our dating or married relationship we bought a whole bottle of wine for the meal. Yumm.

There was a moment, a millisecond of time, but something about it brought tears to my eyes. I looked across the table at my husband who works so hard, and my heart swelled with pride, and eyes teared up. I couldn't help but think, "ten, twenty, thirty years from now we are going to look back on this happy occasion, what will our lives be like?"

I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know one thing. It will be Jason by my side.