& then the world lay still
reading some F. Scott Fitzgerald. Tender is the Night. My Coralie Bickford-Smith edition came in the mail yesterday and I just love reading a gorgeous hardback.
writing…. yes. I will be writing this week. I didn’t write much last week because of preparations for our big weekend. Everything should start to look more like normal here soon.
listening constantly to Janis Joplin these days. I’m on a kick. Don’t you get those from time to time?
thinking how incredibly lucky we are to have such great friends and family. We had one of those all play and no sleep sort of weekends. And it rocked.
smelling the mint, lemon and lime from my ice water. Detox, ya know?
feeling this hollow sense of calm that falls upon me after every busy, exciting, crazy time in my life. My mom and Jim just got back on the road for Michigan, the house is finally cleaned up from our barbecue yesterday and Alex is taking a nap upstairs. Quite a difference from only six hours ago.
hoping to spend the rest of the day with my cats and my book.
wearing an old Madewell tee and my Matchstick jeans.
loving this fat, grey furball that sits on my lap as I type away right now. Baci and Misha spent the majority of the weekend hiding underneath our bed from a white, cat-eating mini schnauzer and masses of humans they cared little to appease. I think they are happy to have their house back.
wishing for a visit from Mr. Golden Sun. Please shine down on me. These grey skies can move along now.
wanting a soft cross breeze, two trees and this. Wouldn’t that be perfect?
needing a nap. In fact…
Did you miss the other Sunday editions of Currently? No worries. You can find them all here.
And head on over to link up with Lauren.
madly in love with my new hanging wandering jews….
missing my family up in Michigan. Especially my mom on this Mother’s Day. This is my very first Mother’s Day away from my mom. It’s…. weird.
reading not a whole lot this weekend. It’s been a busy weekend filled with spring cleaning and gardening and bridal showers so I haven’t left much time for reading.
listening to the birds singing outside. The storms have finally passed, taking the heat and humidity with them, so the first thing I did this morning was open the windows.
smelling a clean house! Well, cleaner. I’ll be cleaning the rest of today, too.
loving how our terraced retaining wall turned out in our front yard. More on that to come later this week. If you follow me on instagram, you’ve surely taken note to what we’ve been up to!
thinking that it’s going to be hard to focus this week knowing that my mom will be here on Friday!
wanting a tan… or maybe I shoud’ve left that one for “needing” a tan…
wishing I had a maid so that I could spend all day digging in the dirt outside instead of inside cleaning the house.
feeling relaxed and calm. Even though I’ve been anything but lazy this weekend, I’m feeling good about how our house is coming together. Come to think of it, I never feel relaxed and calm if I’m being lazy. That just gives me anxiety!
writing a whole bunch of blog posts. Ohhh boy. So I knew I wouldn’t blog every day in May like Jenni’s challenge said. In fact, I already had a good idea I’d be skipping a couple prompts because last week was very busy for me. Still, I’m really excited to sit in front of this screen and type away. Plus, the last installment of Project Green with The Home Depot comes at you tomorrow! AND I MADE A VLOG!!!!!!
hoping you all love said vlog when I post it tomorrow. Eeeks!
wearing my Lucky shorts and an old t-shirt. I’m running a ton of errands after I finish this post. You know how Sunday’s go.
needing an iced hazelnut macchiato from Starbucks. Doesn’t that sound just divine this afternoon?
clicking through my favorite blogs. I haven’t been around much this week, but I refuse to miss out on any posts!
Did you miss the other Sunday editions of Currently? No worries. You can find them all here.
And head on over to link up with Lauren.
slowly, slowly our deck is waking back up….
clicking on my blogger adoration, Natalie Holbrook. I do, truly, adore her. She’s the sweetest in-real-email-life (if only I could say I’ve met her in real life…. if only) and her blog is the first blog I read where I thought, wow, there are great writers out here in blogland and maybe one day I can be as great of a writer as her. When I’m uninspired, I visit her blog essays. They’re my soul food. So if you’re stopping by from Blog Every Day in May with Jenni and you haven’t heard of Nat the Fat Rat, you can thank me later for your new inspiration.
reading excerpts from some of my favorite, worn and torn books. Since I’m struggling to find the time to devour a book front to back (I think it may have been my marathon run through Les Miserables this winter), I’m just soaking in those little words that haunt me with inspiration.
listening to a whole lot of Alexi Murdoch on repeat. I’m waiting to grow tired of the Away We Go soundtrack, but it isn’t happening.
smelling lemongrass and lavender.
loving how alive the world feels around me. Spring’s awakening hasn’t ended and it’s fueling my energy these days.
thinking this week will be a fantastic adventure. I’m certain of it.
wanting the dress that Michelle Obama wore this morning on Sunday Morning. It’s gorgeous.
wishing our spring cleaning was finally over. But it’s not. And my mom’s visiting in a couple of weeks from Michigan (!!!!!!!!!!!) and it’s time to buckle down and finish it all!
hoping Whole Foods isn’t out of snappy sourdough loaves again. I am survived by sourdough bread and it’s surprisingly cheap. If anyone wants to send me a part of their sourdough starter, that could work, too. I just can’t live without sourdough bread in my life.
feeling very positive. Yesterday I completed Leadership Development Institute, we had our annual pre-k spring trip to the National Zoo on Friday, and our yearly barbecue is right around the corner. Great things are happening all around me.
writing tomorrow’s update on Project Green. We’ve been very busy with our front lawn this past week. I can’t wait to update you on how things are going!
wearing my trusty old Birks! It took three weeks of scrounging through piles of I-really-should-throw-this-all-away junk in our closets to find both of them. These black Birkenstocks are by far my favorite pair (don’t ask how many Birkenstocks I own, just blame it on childhood trips to Germany shaping my personal style….).
needing to find a better argument to convince Alex that we must install the leftover hardwood in our bedroom. Three years later and he’s still insisting this is a horrible idea. I’ve tried my allergies, tried an increase in our home’s value…. EVERYTHING!!! I’ve moved onto “For my birthday in September, I’m getting hardwood floors in our bedroom.” He says it’s not working…. I’m plum out of ideas, here!
Did you miss the other Sunday editions of Currently? No worries. You can find them all here.
And head on over to link up with Lauren.
…. in which we finally get around to our annual spring yard work day….
reading nothing particularly at this moment. I haven’t had much time to sit down and devour a good hardback recently but that’s about to change thanks to the fact that I can feel myself not allowing any time to just relax.
Listening Van Morrison. Talk about a way to bring back my childhood. Love him.
smelling sweat, soil and dirt. We’ve been outside all day cleaning up our front and back yards.
loving how productive we’ve been today. Besides yardwork, I also cleared out our desk and, trust me, that was one bear of a project in itself!
thinking we should try to be productive like this every day. Scratch that. It was so nice to come in from yard work at 3 this afternoon and think “wow, we’ve still got an afternoon left!”. I love it.
wanting a personal week. Yes, this has expanded from last week’s personal day. You know you want a personal week, too.
wishing the weather stayed this mild, calm temperature all summer around here. It’s bound to get dreadfully hot and humid in t-minus a few weeks. And my Seasonal Affective Disorder will be t-minus a couple days behind that.
hoping that the cat scratch below my eye doesn’t get infected. Little Misha sleeps under the covers with me each night and she wakes me to let her in by tapping my cheek with her paw. Well, she accidentally caught her nail in my skin and… well, it’s pretty nasty. I’ve got a little bit of a black eye from it, too.
feeling sick again. I have a soar throat and my voice sounds like a frog. Not Kermit… a croaky frog voice.
writing some drafts for Jenni’s Blog Every Day in May challenge. I love the prompts.
wearing some old running shorts and a my bright green Lululemon tee that Alex says makes me look like a neon green highlighter.
needing a nice, long run. Didn’t happen yet today. Maybe that will change before the rain rolls in.
clicking back over Lauren’s important post from earlier this week. We were talking at work the other day about how this etiquette seems to have been long thrown out the window. Be it a death, a new baby, an illness, or even just a move… whatever happened to these guidelines? I think it’s good to keep her post in your back pocket. And I am so glad her family saw so much love (and continues to see so much love).
Did you miss the other Sunday editions of Currently? No worries. You can find them all here.
And head on over to link up with Lauren.
gone hiking
reading some old stuff I wrote. Odds and ends. Press releases and little notes and journal entries and some of the most random stuff. Why do we keep these things?
Listening Leather and Lace. Classic Stevie.
smelling this awesome candle I bought at the Targets (picked that one up from the one and only Natalie Holbrook) that smells like Anthropologie. Not even kidding. Good work, the Targets.
loving my run yesterday afternoon. I was battling with my knee for the past month and now I’m back to my “normal” stage where I can run a comfortable and easy 3 miles. Time to start pounding more pavement. I miss my longer runs.
feeling ecstatic that we’re hiking today.
thinking about last week. I’ve developed this terrible life habit of linking American tragedies (9/11, the snipers, Sandy Hook, Boston) with otherwise still insanely stressful and memorable moments in my personal life. I won’t forget this past week, that’s for certain.
wanting to buy these amazing, heavy Belgian linen pure white curtains from Restoration Hardware for our bedroom but I really can’t spend $500 on window treatments. The problem is that the other, cheaper white curtains just can’t compare now that I’ve spoiled myself.
wishing I was one of those people who can’t recognize quality. Champagne taste. Wine budget. It’s terrible. Why couldn’t I just like the Franzia and be done with it?
hoping for a quieter week. And really, really hoping that I hear good news tomorrow from the men who are stopping by my classroom. I know. Vague again. Sorry.
writing a few posts for this week. I have been such a bad blogger and my mantra this week is “stay ahead of the game”. Wish me luck.
wearing layers because this hike is going to be a tough one!
needing a personal day, still. Oh, friends, if only you knew. I need a personal year.
clicking on my favorite blogs because I’ve neglected any and all blogs and their content for a few weeks now. Time to play catch-up!
Did you miss the other Sunday editions of Currently? No worries. You can find them all here.
And head on over to link up with Lauren.
so I finally hung the Gregory Beauchamp print above our bed and I think it looks quite nice….
thinking about how disappointed I am that the northern lights ended up staying north last night. We ditched our evening plans, camped out in a new, empty subdivision around the corner from us with my brother, his girlfriend, and my dad and just waited. They never amounted to enough to make their way down to us. It was a fun adventure, nonetheless, but I really wanted to cross them off my bucket list last night.
wishing I’d seen the northern lights last night….. I’ll be singing this woeful song for awhile now.
wanting to see those northern lights!!!! Isn’t it so funny? This time yesterday, I could’ve cared less. But right now my stubborn self can’t get over the fact that my “once in a lifetime, backyard chance” was stolen from me.
reading everything I can about white paint. We need to pick a white paint for our master bath and finding the right white is hard!!!!
Listening to Wild Horses. God, I love the Stones.
smelling fresh air and eucalyptus candles! I opened the windows today and, while my allergies are going to make me forget it later, I’m loving it right now.
loving the buds on our baby Japanese red maple. Baby tree made it through it’s first winter alive!
feeling so happy that springtime is here.
hoping Brooke and I have a productive evening tonight. She’s stopping by to do blog stuff (you should check out the sweet things she said about me here)…. but we always end up gossiping for hours instead…. Here’s hoping!
writing this post and then not much else. I wish it were a lazy Sunday but we were busy at Leadership Development Institute Friday evening and all day yesterday. That means all I am doing today is cleaning. Yuck.
wearing an old Lucky Brand t-shirt and some worn jeans.
needing to take a personal day here soon to get my ducks in a row. There just isn’t enough time these days.
clicking on not too much. But you should be clicking on last week’s giveaway for a print of your choice from Print Me Prettiful! The entries are still pretty low so you have a good shot!
Did you miss the other Sunday editions of Currently? No worries. You can find them all here.
And head on over to link up with Lauren.
wearing Lilly. May she rest in peace.
reading 1984 as soon as I hit the hay tonight. Apparently you all love it.
listening to the Folk Rock radio station on Pandora. I grew up on this stuff. They don’t make it the same anymore.
smelling sunshine. It’s a gorgeous scent.
hoping for a super awesome, super amazing Mad Men season premier tonight.
writing this week’s posts. It’s another very hectic week for us so I have to stay on a schedule.
thinking it’s rather sad that Lilly Pulitzer passed away on the advent of another spring and summer. But then again, perhaps it’s appropriate?
loving the weather. The sun will shine and the breeze will blow on Maryland for only a few more weeks before the heat wave begins. You’ll find me outside in the meantime.
feeling thrilled with how our weekend turned out. I feel rested, happy, and revived. It was a great one.
wishing Mad Men didn’t come on so late. I have meetings at 7:45 on Monday mornings. Yuck. This isn’t going to be pretty.
wantingto plan another blate with Betsy. I think we could talk (in real life) for hours. It was wonderful!
needing a tan. My legs glow. Yikes. And I need a pedicure, too. That way I can start wearing sandals again!
clicking through my camera at all of the fun shots I took at Union Market yesterday during my blate with Betsy. It’s a little slice of Pikes Market, Seattle, right here in DC. I loved it.
Did you miss the other Sunday editions of Currently? No worries. You can find them all here.
And head on over to link up with Lauren.
Can you see it? That’s springtime trying to bud it’s little head… It is Easter Sunday, after all.
reading The Great Gatsby again. That movie’s going to be out before you can say Dr. T.J. Eckelberg. Get re-reading, people!
listening to some George Harrison faves. Team George all the way. He was hands down the best of the Beatles.
smelling a lemon and lavender candle. Gosh, I really love candles.
hoping I can start running outside in the afternoons. If for nothing else but for the fact that my skin needs some serious Vitamin D.
writing nothing right now. I’ll be writing up this week’s posts later but for now it’s family time.
wearing not the same thing as in the picture above. I took that picture on Friday. My uniform, you know…. Minnies, a solid top, Murfee scarf, and the trusty Warby Parker’s.
thinking I’m pretty lucky to have such a close family, despite our geographical challenges. I’m excited to see some of them today. Easter’s good for that. Family, I mean.
loving the sunnier weather. Sun, if you are reading this, stick around. You make me happy.
feeling rested. Well, it would be a bit scary if I didn’t after this week. I didn’t see the 9 o’clock hour (or earlier) all week. Whew. I was exhausted, people!
wishing spring break wasn’t just about finished. What a tease. SUCH a tease!
wanting someone to tell me how to manage my time the rest of this year. I just picked up some extra tutoring jobs and I’m starting to wonder if that nominates me for the world’s dumbest person award. Hello, life, I’m sorry about this….
needing to work on that time management piece. See above.
clicking on this awesome Portrait of Christ. I posted it last year and I still love it.
Did you miss the other Sunday editions of Currently? No worries. You can find them all here.
And head on over to link up with Lauren.
so we went on a seafood binge this afternoon…. I blame it on spring break.
feeling so incredibly lucky. We had a major scare with our electrical circuits this week (hence the drop off the blogging planet). After thinking we just had a minor issue in our bathroom, we come to find out we’ve been living in a ticking timebomb of an under-code mess ever since we moved in. We were having mini fires in our walls! The electricians worked it out and cut us a big break on the cost. We’ve been counting our blessings closely.
reading bits and pieces of Happier at Home. I am not in a novel sort of mood but I am always in the mood for Gretchen Rubin.
listening to the History Channel. The Vikings or something. Alex says it’s a great show. I think it’s violent.
smelling yeast and barley. Gordon Biersch has a great seasonal right now and we brought a growler home. Hefeweizen Dopplebock. It’s spectacular.
hoping we can run through our house projects in the next day or so nice and quick so that we can relax the rest of our spring break.
writing down the measurements in our house for our lovely projects. Oh spring break, how you make me so happy.
wearing pink. If Mother Nature is going to deny me spring over my spring break, I’ll have to improvise. By wearing pink.
thinking that Life of Pi was a decent movie. Hated the book. No, wait, HATED the book. The movie wasn’t too bad. You should watch it, if for no other reason than the cinematography.
loving that it’s Sunday but I won’t be back at work for another week. Oh, spring break. I love you so much.
wishing I hadn’t been sick yesterday. I came down with some terrible 24 hour virus that made me incredibly nauseous. Imagine being seasick all day long, but being on land. It was terrible. Made for a great diet, though. Too bad I blew that today on shellfish.
wanting yesterday back. I didn’t get anything done because I was so sick. No laundry. No cleaning. Nothing.
needing chap stick. It’s the little things.
clicking on Gizoogle! In fact, why don’t you just head over here for a minute.
Did you miss the other Sunday editions of Currently? No worries. You can find them all here.
And head on over to link up with Lauren.
Kiss me! I’m Irish!
wearing the same Tippi sweater I wore Friday night and all day Saturdayuh, green. duh. I’m Irish. County Clare represent!
reading my friend’s newish blog, Who Moved My Cheesecake. Go say hello. She’s one of my close friends and a wonderful colleague. I think you’ll like it over there. :)
listening to some good ol’ fashioned Irish step dancing music. It reminds me of nights when I’d lay on my parent’s bed and watch Riverdance with my mom.
smelling my hair. Well, the sea salt spray that came in my February Influenster VoxBox. I like this stuff. Definitely my favorite product in that box.
hoping the weather cheers up a bit. It’s so crazy how dependent my happiness is on the weather. Most likely because I am always at odds with Maryland’s weather and I yearn so pathetically for what I don’t have here in the mid-Atlantic (weather-wise, I mean).
writing a ton of “development phase” posts. I’m not feeling super inspired to write today, but the ideas keep coming. So they’re hanging out in my planner for the time being until the writer in me feels it is time.
feeling accomplished. Still riding the new blog design wave of happiness. It’s not perfectly what I want it to be, but we were too busy celebrating my Irish heritage (Byland, clearly, is not Irish but I love Alex nonetheless) this weekend for me to clean the design up.
thinking about this mass evacuation from GFC to Bloglovin’. You know, the Marketing team over at Bloglovin’ must be so thrilled. GFC did their job for them this week. Speaking of…. are you following me on Bloglovin’ yet?
loving that a house was sold on our street for a relatively high price. The first house in a very, very long time. This is very, very good news for the future of my life. Oh, the woes of home owning. (no, seriously, I’ve been dancing on the inside about this for days now)
wishing I could visit Michigan soon. Things have been really, really wild and crazy for my grandparents recently (I try to keep this stuff off the blog). You know when one bad thing happens and you’re like, oh wow, this is stressful and crazy and really sad? Well, that’s been happening over and over again practically every day for maybe even over a month now. I’ve lost track. I just wish I could be there, even if for only a few hours, to help out.
wanting it to be Friday. Bring on spring break!!!! We have a humongous, gigantic, super amazing list of HOUSE PROJECTS(!!!!!!) to do over break. Many trips to Home Depot lie in our future. I am a very, very, very happy girl!
needing to stop eating my Andes mint chocolate homemade cookies. This is bad, people. Cookies and mints? My two favorite things ever. What was I thinking?!?!
clicking…. ready for this one? Turbo Tax.
Did you miss the other Sunday editions of Currently? No worries. You can find them all here.
And head on over to link up with Lauren.
