projects: crocheting

i have jumped head first into learning how to crochet. my mom makes little bears out of yarn & it sparked my interest. i have started with a basic pattern & have made it half way through a chunky grey scarf shown below. i have to say, i LOVE it. the fact that i get to wrap this around my neck when it is done & have the satisfaction of creating it myself is so exciting!

 the half done scarf i am currently making with this chunky grey WOOL EASE yarn

& the yarn i spent hours selecting at the store. i wanted to get the perfect woodsy, natural, rustic colors & settled on these:

1. NATURE'S CHOICE organic cotton yarn in "mustard"

2. WOOL EASE thick & quick yarn in "grey marble"

3. VANNA'S CHOICE lion brand yarn in "pea green"

finished product of the scarf & mittens on their way!

favorite things: whippy cake

if you are ever looking for hairpieces that are simply divine... enter Whippy Cake. i found this website a year ago here and literally fell in love. they have endless handmade hair accessories that look like desserts, you just want to eat them all up. below are the two that i purchased last year. i wore each at my two bridal showers & received a million & one compliments on how adorable they are. click their names to see more of each.

 special sauce                  sweeney

cry baby              double dare

 for more, stop by their website here & check out their scrumptious blog here. enjoy!

outer banks, NC

 

 

as promised, here are photos from my college roommate's destination wedding this past october all taken by our ridiculously talented other roommate Minna Prisco. remember the name. she has been snapping amazing photos since the day i met her & her talent oozes out in every picture. she has even started to get into the wedding business & all of us gnomies are cheering her on. we call each other puzzle pieces because when we hug, us two midgets fit perfectly interlocking in each other's arms. true love.

hope you enjoy these pretty pics of the lighthouse, the view from our hotel, & the cute as pie wedding.
happy monday!

over the past week...

my dad and i watched the wind pick up at the beginning of sandy

and therefore many games were played by candlelight

including clue. my all time favorite game

(i won of course, because you can't lose with colonel mustard)

i drank pumpkin dunks every morning by the fire

we went to ikea to get some goodies simply because it was open

i discovered the "agingbooth" app & had WAY too much fun

husband and i are going to be one hot 80 year old couple hehe.

 kai kept a "moderate work schedule & took frequent cat naps"

 (if you get that, we can be friends.)

a mario kart battle raged on in our living room

and we finished painting our bedroom. 

(i got a little paint happy & started painting everything in sight

including the stools we stood on)

this past week was spent making the best of the aftermath of hurricane sandy. having no power was hardly anything to complain about so much time was spent playing board games, trips to dunks for wifi, mario kart by the fire (we hooked up the generator specifically for gamecube... priorities) and pete and i finished painting our bedroom. it was a sweatpants, no makeup, eat way too much food kind of week... with those horribly affected from the hurricane constantly in our thoughts. (pete heads down again tomorrow to sort out what they are going to do with the wrecked base & help as much as he can) hope you all are warm & safe & have a great rest of the weekend!

quiet over here

for obvious reasons. we have been without power all week & just got cable back today. but mostly, it has been a somber week on the whole east coast over the total and complete devastation hurricane Sandy caused. 

right before the storm, pete's coast guard base was evacuated due to its location on the tip of Sandy Hook, NJ, so he was in Connecticut safe with me when the storm hit. yes we lost power, yes trees, powerlines, and the CT shoreline towns were hit hard... but my heart is broken for the place we called home over the past three years. i simply can not believe that we moved out of new jersey a month before the towns where we lived were completely wiped out. people's homes, the streets, boats, buildings, & the entire town of Sea Bright are no longer there. 

pete drove down to new jersey yesterday to help his friends who lost everything and couldn't believe what he saw. as a person who pulls dead bodies out of the water for his job, not much shocks my husband, but he called me almost in tears at the scene he saw down there. his coast guard base is destroyed, the docks for the boats gone, the military housing under water, & roads washed away. the neighboring towns are occupied by the national guard to keep people out while they bulldoze buildings & attempt to clean up the four feet of sand that has blanketed the town. people are lined up for miles and miles waiting for hours to get gas at the few stations that are open...

i could go on & on describing the chaos on the jersey shore, nyc, and all other states that were badly affected, but we've all seen it on the news & read it in the papers. it is all heartbreaking & i encourage everyone to pray for those who lost everything & to be thankful if the only thing you lost was the power for a few days. below are pics pete took of the destruction at the coast guard base, the marks from the water levels, the flooding, & pics of Highlands, Nj. i hope in a few months (with the hard work of the military, volunteers, townspeople, & workers) that i can take new pictures of a shore that is restored.