barnes and noble date

Tonight, we went to Barnes and Noble down by the harbor to spend some Christmas/birthday money.

Here's the loot:

Coin albums for Tim, two boxes of Christmas cards, My Upmost for His Highest devotional, a daily planner for my work that was half off, and Pocket Ref. Yum.

Look how pretty the cards are. One box is by William Wangerin, the guy who photographs Weimaraners, my favorite dogs. 20 cards (5 different types) came in a box, and the box only cost $3 and change because of a 75% off sale. The other box are Unicef cards that say, "Hope is a gift all people can share," which is really sweet.

house tour: living room

Since I love looking at other people's living spaces, I figured I would post some photos of our apartment for the interested masses (ie. our moms).

We live in Charles Village, which was voted one of the 10 best neighborhoods in the country by the American Planning Association. We lived in this hood last year, too, but we moved into this new apartment in August for many reasons; it's a bit bigger, light and airy and not as hot in the summer as our last place.

First up, our living room:

Sealion chasing his toy mouse on our new rug, which was a Christmas present from my sisters.
Antique pedestal side table found via craigslist for $30 and painted white; antique set of drawers found at local furniture store for only $79; beautiful antique wooden armchair (that needs reupholstering) on craigslist for only $50!

Antique lamp bases climbing up the wall were found yesterday at a salvage shop.

These plants get lots of light! My lemon tree hasn't sprouted any lemons yet and it's been almost a year since I've had it. :/

Pretty little light catcher that I got in Spring Lake, NJ (right near where my mom grew up) when I was a kid.
The pretty art piece on the right is from Tim's brother, who made it for us for our wedding. It's called "The Sage Chapel, deconstructed" and has parts of the chapel in which we were married printed on it.

The framed hearts and sailboat pictures were made by me with recycled magazines.
Found these old floral post cards in the antique shop down the street from where I work.
Stained glass my wedding gift from Tim.

Stay tuned for photos from our bedroom and our spare room/office.

old phone photos

I found these photos from last year on my cell phone...

Antique side tables bought on craigslist and painted white.

Tim on our friends' moped that they used to store inside their apartment.

Tim and Greg at Fenway Park in Boston

In Annapolis (our favorite place) on Labor Day weekend.

St. John's College in Annapolis.

salvage

We went to Housewerks today. Housewerks is a really neat architectural salvage shop.

Old stuff is a passion of mine, and we spent about 90 minutes going through their 2 floors worth of gems. The warehouse was full of window panels, old lamp parts, old sinks and bathtubs, a lot of iron gates and grates, old signage, chandeliers, and other miscellany. After getting our hands very dirty from digging around, we walked away with the following for $22:

6 iron and/or brass lamp bases (I think) and 5 coat hooks.



We hung the lamp parts up on our living room wall:

I clearly need to figure out how to take proper photos. The top picture is with a flash and looks too artificial, but the bottom one without the flash looks too fuzzy. Oh well...

We're planning on making a coat rack with the hooks, but we first need to find the right piece of salvaged, distressed wood (or even better, a nice rectangular window/stained glass panel).

painted-on greek columns

Last Saturday night was Tim's work's holiday party. It was at a place called Valley Mansion, so it's sounds very nice and all; however, the name is deceiving because it's actually a fake mansion in the middle of a strip mall in suburban Baltimore. It's literally a building with a fake stone facade in between a Planet Fitness (I think) and some other store with a McDonald's in the parking lot. Inside the banquet hall we were in, the walls had Greek columns painted on them. ahaha. It was fun, though, albeit cheesy.

At least it was an excuse for us to dress up somewhat:

scenes from the weekend

1. Baked peanut butter Hershey kisses cookies and ate way too many of them.
2. Pretty Christmas dish towels I just received as a gift.
3. Relaxing and reading the Brothers Karamazov.
4. Sealion exposing his soft white tummy.
5. Our Christmas tree.
6. Sealion in his bed that Tim's mom gave him. He loves to lay in it and stare out the window.
7. Wrapped a bunch of gifts in engineering plans from Tim's work.
8. The lovely, festive interior of the Mt. Washington Tavern, where we ate dinner tonight.

christmas tree day

One of my favorite days of the year is Christmas tree day; it is glorious.

We cut our Christmas tree down the weekend before last. We chopped one down last year, and want to make it a tradition every year.

This year, we went out to Thomas' Tree Farm up in Manchester, MD, which is about an hour away, but it was certainly worth it. It was freezing, but sadly, unlike last year, it was not snowing. Because we have a bigger living room this year, we were able to afford a larger tree. It was a lovely day, especially since we ate at Five Guys on the way and watched Holiday Inn after we decorated. :)

Five Guys had Birch Beer as a selection in their fountain sodas!