I Heart Shopping

This past weekend was Blake and my first wedding anniversary and so we went to Atlanta, GA to celebrate! I took pictures and made a couple of videos so I'll be sure to share them all once I get them edited and what not. But today I wanted to show you what I got while we were there! I LOVE going to Atlanta because that is where the nearest Ikea is and I'm in love with Ikea. But I'm not in love with the fact that almost none of their stuff is available to purchase online. Blake and I actually had a lovely conversation over an Ikea hotdog about why this is, but we didn't really figure out anything...sigh. Anywho! We went to Ikea on the last day of our trip and so we had already reached our budget for what we wanted to spend while we were in Atlanta so I didn't get to buy everything I wanted to buy, but I did get to buy enough to have some fun with!

I bought two sets of Merete curtains for $19.99 each (which are the same ones that I bought for the office on our first Ikea trip). Here's a picture of them:

I got them in white so that we could dye them whatever color we want! We bought these for our bedroom and I couldn't decide what color I wanted...originally I was going to go with a brown and orange theme for our bedroom, but then I changed my mind and I haven't really made it up yet. 

Right now we have a dark gray comforter that we both aren't really fans of, so we're going to make a change eventually we just haven't decided to what we will be changing. I'm leaning towards a blue and gray room...but that may change soon...so basically all of that to say, we bought white curtains so that we could dye them whatever color we want when the time comes. And I'll give y'all the play-by-play when we do, but if you want to know how to do it now, the guys over at Young House Love have already done it and you can find that tutorial here.

We also picked up this door mat for only $4.99:

The plan for that little guy is to paint it! After we purchased the new patio furniture, made new pillows, and made a new wreath, the old gray and very manly door mat just wasn't going to work anymore! So I'm going to paint this with probably some bright happy colors to welcome our guests! :)

And finally we bought four 5x7 white frames (found here for $3.99 for two) and two 8.5x11 white frames (found here for $1.99 each) so I can do some fun stuff with scrapbook paper, printables, and anything else I can find on Pinterest :)

I think I'll have bunches of fun with these things (if I can decide what exactly I want to do with all of them! That's my worst enemy! Indecision! Well, that and procrastination) :) 

So what do y'all think about the million questions I posed in this post? What colors do you think would be good for our curtains? Any ideas on what to paint on our new door mat? Or how about ideas for the frames we bought?

Flash!

Ah cameras. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and levels of difficulty. I'm definitely one to learn new things when I'm on google or bored or have someone to teach me, but for some reason when it came to our Nikon D80 DSLR camera I just did not have the touch. Blake could pick up the camera and flip some switches and turn some knobs and the pictures that I took that looked terrible would magically turn into these gorgeous pictures! Talk about frustrating! But that is about to change! Well at least a little bit. I'm still learning what ISO is and what kind of white balance to use and Lord knows I still haven't figured out how to change the shutter speed on that thing, but we got something that will make automatic mode look way better! YAY! We got this little bundle of joy:

It's an SB400 flash! It wasn't too expensive (at least in the world of DSLR camera accessories; it was $119.95 at B&H Photo) and man does it make a difference! Blake took a bunch of shots to depict what a difference it makes. The photos labeled D80 flash are the pics with the flash that comes on the camera and the ones labeled SB400 flash are the ones taken with our new flash! :)

Here is Blake's dad's super cool fretless bass!

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

Apparently this is used to wrangle all the cords that go inside a computer that you build..learn something new every day! :)

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

I feel like this doesn't need an explanation, but it feels weird and nonsymmetrical to not have something here, so this is our lens cap! Fancy huh? ;)

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

Yeah this is a motherboard, and yes I married someone who is just as much a nerd as I am...scary huh? ;)

 D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

More deets on this soon!

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

Her name is Precious and we pet-sat for Blake's parents and she was sooo cute! I was sad to see her go, but it was nice to be able to sit in peace without having to worry about someone tinkling everywhere :)

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

Our rings! :)

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

I did a fun craft with these I'll show you guys soon!

D80 Flash:

SB400 Flash:

Amazing what a difference that semi-inexpensive flash makes! It bounces light off of the ceiling and so it takes away that harsh light and shadows from a direct flash like the stock one on the D80. I would venture to say that if you are a blogger that puts pictures up on a regular basis, a good camera and flash is one of the most important investments you can make. But that's just my opinion!! :) So what about you guys? Have you guys gotten any new techy items lately?

Road Trip and New Stuff!

Sorry I didn't get to post yesterday! We were all over the place! Blake got up yesterday and wanted to go get some breakfast but when he went outside, he noticed his back tire was flat and his other three tires needed to be replaced really soon. I had also found a new (to us) washer and dryer set on Craigslist Wednesday and had asked the seller if we could come by Thursday after 5:00.

So we headed down to a place that could mount and balance Blake's new tires and get an alignment as well. Blake drove his car and I followed and we stopped at a place pretty near our house and he got into my car to head to get tires (because buying tires from the place where we wanted to mount and stuff just wasn't in the budget for two newlyweds who are already having to buy a washer and dryer and have had to buy a lawn mower recently). Once he got in my car he called another mount and balance place and got a quote that was $60 cheaper!! It was also quite a bit more down the road from our house (and now the car that needed fixing) so that just added in some extra driving, but hey! It's 60 bucks! So we drove about 45 minutes to get four pull off tires (at $50 a piece) and stuffed them in the back seat of my convertible (I now realize I should have taken a picture of this...darn). Then we drove back about 30 minutes to get Blake's car, then drove back 10 minutes to take the car and the tires to where they needed to go. Whew. Blake's car was in the shop....but that was only the first task of the day.

Next, we got some lunch (from the lovely Taco Bell) and called the Washer and Dryer person from Craigslist. And once we finished our delicious number 7's (chicken quesadilla and a soft taco...yum!) we were off to Gardendale (another 30 minute drive) and once we found the guy's house, we realized that we didn't pick up Blake's dad's truck on the way. So we looked at the washer and dryer, decided we wanted them, and headed to go get Blake's dad's truck and cash (because I forgot about the cash-only part..oops!). Once we drove about 10 minutes to his dad's church and 10 minutes back to the guy's house, Blake and his dad loaded up the washer and dryer and off we went! 45 minutes later we were back home! And we were ready to move out the old washer and dryer which looked like this:

These are at least 15 years old, but Blake doesn't remember when his parents got them (and we inherited these from his parents) and so he thinks they are closer to his age (26) but we aren't positive. Once they moved them, this is what was left behind:

Apparently our lint hose that connects to the dryer had come undone a few times and left us lots of presents. So I swept and vaccummed and then it was time for them to load the new stuff in! They got the washing machine in, but then we realized we had to get back to the car shop place to get Blake's car by 9:00 and it was 8:36! So we hopped in the car and 20 minutes later we were getting Blake's car and 20 more minutes later we were back home! Then Blake and his dad changed out the plug on the old dryer and put it on the new dryer (did you know you could do that? I had no idea!), and we stuck them in there! Here's what it looks like now:

And since I love some side-by-side comparisons, here's the before and after!

So that means that yesterday we drove 220 minutes (3.67 hours), got four new tires for Blake, and new appliances....whew. Glad that's over! And I've already done two loads of laundry and the new washer and dryer are doing great! :)

How was your Thursday? Have you ever had a day when you just feel like you have done nothing but drive?