Craft Room Part 1: Buy Aaaaall the Things!

I mentioned the other day that I went to Ikea to get all the furniture for the craft room in the basement. What I didn't mention is that Ikea sends me into sensory overload and makes me sweaty and panicky just being inside.  Nevertheless, I decided to grab the lovely Courtney and drag her with me on a busy Saturday.

Here's what I picked up, and probably won't put together for at least 3 more months. I could barely get the darn boxes out of my car. I'm not even try to get them into the house until I have help. Oh, the woes of living alone!

Sidebar, anyone want to come build all this crap for me? I will end up throwing an Allen wrench through a window if I try to do it myself.  What, no takers? Humph.

Anyway, here's what I picked up:

Alex drawer, but in white. Every fricking piece of furniture I buy is white. I have a problem. I'll put smaller accessories and whatnot in these drawers.

Alex tall drawers. I'm crossing my fingers that this fits 12 x 12 paper. I couldn't find it in the showroom when we were there to measure the inside of the drawer. If it doesn't, I might cry. I plan on keeping all my craft paper in here, divided by color of course. OCD FOR THE WIN!

This Ekby wall shelf is hard to see since it's white (shocking, I know). But I bought 3 of these to hold I don't know quite what yet. Probably craft boxes of some sort.

I also bought this Fintorp system, but in silver. I didn't get the dish drying rack, for obvious reasons. I'm planning on storing scissors, Sharpie's, and other utensils in the 7 silver hanging buckets I bought.

This Galant desk is huge and the height is adjustable. It'll be great for when I'm trying to work on large scale photo projects.

And lastly, I got this huge shelf to store big plastic bins for larger crafting and party decor items. I bought 8 of those, but I really didn't think you cared to see pictures of them.

Something that I found pretty helpful was this website here. When the arrange a room tool wasn't acting wonky, it made it super easy to decide what pieces to buy and how they would fit in the room. I customized each piece of furniture to the dimensions listed on Ikea's website. I even added the rug I have and some lamps I bought last week to see how it would all look together.

The next step is to actually go buy the paint samples I want to test. I'm going with a greige wall, and have no idea how it's going to look in a super dark, poorly lit, basement room.

I'll probably bring down a floor lamp in addition to the two desk lamps I bought last week,

So that's it for now, stay tuned for updates. And by tuned, I mean check back in a few months when I get around to doing anything productive besides shop. Ha!

Happy Tuesday, y'all!

The Adventures of Riley and Mom

This weekend was a bit chaotic, to say the least. Between Ikea on Saturday and the UK game that night, I was absolutely stressed out beyond belief.

Lucky for me, Sunday turned out to be a gorgeous day. Pretty weather always makes everything better, especially when you can get outside and enjoy it. I had stayed in Lexington Saturday night, so when I got back to Louisville Sunday to pick up the dog, I knew a trip to the new park was definitely in order.

Louisville is currently home to the largest park installation in the country right now, and it's estimated to be completed this year. The Parklands at Floyds Fork is four park systems linked with one main road over the span of 3,800 acres in East Louisville.

There are over 100 miles of hiking and I have been dying to get out there and try them out. The boyfriend had the mini this weekend, so I grabbed Riley and my mom and we headed out.

We took the easiest trail, the Black Willow, and were pretty darn pleased with our choice. Even though it was a bit chilly with the wind, the park is gorgeous and the walk was down right lovely!

Riley had a blast and even behaved himself around all the bikers and kids. Sometimes he's not the most social dog when out in public. The good weather must have put him in a good mood.

Riley is not a fan of getting wet. Bath time is super fun. I was really surprised when he walked right into the creek, but not at all shocked when he immediately jumped back out when he realized what he was doing.

Also not a fan of the stream walkways that were covered in water. He hopped right over them like a little ballerina. Such a weirdo...

He also had no interest in walking on logs with me. Such a stinker.

We had a great time and explored just enough for me to be tired that night and sleep like a baby, even after watching Walking Dead.

Anyone else addicted to that show? This season finale was way better than I expected!!! That's all I will say in the interest of no spoilers.

Until next time, Go Cats and happy Monday y'all!

Getting Crafty

When Robbie moved out last summer, I was left with a lot of extra space in the house that I didn't really need, but wanted to do something with. I turned his bedroom into a giant master closet (post coming soon, I swear!). I had totally forgotten about his creepy man cave room in the basement until a couple days ago, though.

My basement is unfinished except for this one weird little room that has plastic wood paneling and indoor outdoor carpet and a small closet. I think it may have been a teenager's bedroom back in the 70's. The original owners of the house raised 12 kids in my house!!! Can you believe that? I mean, the house is decent sized and could comfortably fit a family of 6-8, but 12 kids??? Holy hell! 

Anyway, I digress. So I think I'm going to turn the creepy basement room previously used by Robbie to drink scotch and listen to jazz into a craft room! And true to every woman in the digital age's habits, the first place I started looking for ideas was on Pinterest! Here's what sparked my interest:

Pin here

Pin here

Pin here

So my question to you, blogland, is have you ever actually attempted any "Ikea Hacks?" Should I spare myself the misery of another Pinterest fail? 

And what color scheme should I go with??? It's a really dark room, so I need something bright and energizing. I'm thinking something with navy, coral, mint, and grey. 

Pin here

So here's to another decor adventure that I'll never get around to sharing. I really am the worst at following up with blog posts, ha!

Till next time, cheers, y'all!

Cove Springs Day Hike

I'm not going to try and act like we spent all weekend outside enjoying the beautiful spring weekend we had here in Kentucky. We didn't, we spent most of it stuffing our fat faces with snacks, furiously checking our bracket standings, and watching the NCAA Tournament.

BUT.......WE DID GO HIKING FOR AN HOUR OR SO ON SUNDAY!!!!!!

Yay for us! I'm really glad we spent a bit of time outside and away from the tv this weekend, because now is the time of year I wanna run to the mountains and become all nature-girl like.  I am not a nature girl, btw. I just really like hiking and camping on occasion. Not for more than a couple days, And not far from modern day conveniences, like oh, running water. And blow dryers.

But I can get down with the best of them for a quick outdoor excursion, and am so happy that my bearded biologist boyfriend likes to do the same. It's nice to have a partner in crime that's always up for some outdoor splendor!  It doesn't hurt that he is way more knowledgeable about the parts of Kentucky to go do such things.

For example, Sunday he took me to a park in downtown Frankfort that I had no idea even existed. In a town I grew up in. Two miles from my office. Kinda crazy, huh?!? 

Actually, Cove Springs Park is a new installation in the past ten years or so. It was the original  water reservoir for the city when it was first settled.  The boyfriend filled me in on all of this. Pretty cool, huh?

There are a couple waterfalls that feed off the natural springs in the park.

And the original water overflow tower is still there.

Maggie (Drew's pup) was super excited to pee on everything.

This section of the park, The Wetlands, is still undergoing restoration and whatnot.

So not only did I get to spend some time outdoors (this was my idea, btw), but we all learned something too! Cue the "More You Know" rainbow and music.

Next up, some exploring of the huge park installation in Louisville at Floyd's Fork.  I'm not sure when we're actually going to have time to hike some of the new trails there, because things are starting to get super busy. We'll get out there one day!

Happy Tuesday, y'all!

PS. Courts is the greatest!

Kauai: Day 3, The Na Pali Coast Whale Watching Dinner Cruise

I'm really trying to not overload y'all with blog posts and pics from this trip, but it's so hard to not share all of the gorgeous shots and views of this island.  So with that being said, let me go ahead and do just that.

Monday morning we had an opening breakfast meeting for the entire convention. During this meeting, there is a guest business comedian. Let me just say that his best bit was about impersonating former President Bill Clinton. Soooo, yeah, It was boring. It didn't help that we were super antsy to get to the rest of our plans for the day.

After the meeting and a bit of time at the pool, we headed back to the room to get ready for a sunset whale watching tour along the Na Pali coast.  We were going to be served dinner and drinks on the catamaran, so I wasn't sure what to wear.  I opted for a silk tank, shorts, and a cardigan. It turned out to be a bit dressy compared to other guests, but that's pretty much par for my course.

We headed out around 2:45 out of Port Allen towards the western part of the island. I cannot begin to describe how amazing this tour was. The pictures I've posted will never do justice to the intense beauty and lush landscape that is Kauai.  But I'll try my best to describe.

We saw at least 15 different whales, but our tour guides estimated that there were probably 100+ whales in our vicinity. It was so cool!

Once we got passed the whale mating areas, we quickly forgot about the marine life upon seeing the coast line. It was so surreal and looked like it had been painted. The greens were so green and I have never seen water so blue. It was breathtaking, I actually filled up the majority of a 4gb memory card and part of another.

I highly recommend taking a tour like this if you are ever in Kauai, it was totally worth it.

Later this week I'll show y'all the pictures from inside those coast lines in the Waimea Canyon. It was just as scenic as Na Pali.

See ya later, friends!

Kauai: Day 1 & 2

We arrived in Kauai after about 24 hours of travel, but that didn't dampen our moods at all! We made the executive decision to leave for our connecting flight in Dallas a day early to avoid the impending ice and snow in Louisville.

It was a good move, too, because our fellow colleagues that didn't do so were delayed in Louisville and didn't make it to Hawaii until 5 am on Sunday morning instead of around 4 pm on Saturday.  We wouldn't be so lucky on the way home, but I'll get to that in a different post.

When we arrived at the airport in Kauai, we were immediately in awe of the beautiful, lush landscapes.  I've been to Maui before, but Kauai blew Maui out of the water in terms of beauty.

 After arriving to the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa, we immediately headed to our room, ordered room service and fell asleep. Traveling to the lap of luxury is rough, y'all.

Sunday morning, we woke up at the crack of 3;30 am, but forced ourselves to sleep til 5:30 am when the breakfast restaurant opened and to catch the sunrise. I don't think I've ever been awake early enough on vacation to get sunrise beach shots, so this was super fun for me. We walked the beach for a bit and explored a bit of the massive 54 acre property. 

After what was one of the best breakfast buffets (and most expensive) I've ever had, we decided to walk around the grounds a bit more and take it all in.  We also were trying to figure out how the hell to get around this enormous resort without getting super lost.

Upon seeing some of the hotel prices for things like beer and Coke, we decided to catch a taxi into town for some light grocery shopping. Plus they didn't carry Diet Coke at the hotel, so I was desperately in need of a fix.

We walked around the town of Koala for a bit and checked out some of the souvenir shops. There were some cool spots in town, like the tree below that dated back to the late 1800's.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing at the pools and getting ready for our first convention event, a cocktail party and luau!

Y'all, let me tell you about the pineapple over in Hawaii. It blows the pineapple over here out of the water. I assume because it's so fresh.  It's almost like candy. And my mouth is still raw from eating so much of it. Totally worth it.

We ended the evening with full bellies, a few Kona Longboards, and an early bedtime. 

I'll get to the rest of the week in a few days when I can through some more of the photos from the trip. I took over 4,000. Because I am insane. And it was beautiful.

Until next time, maholo for stopping by and aloha!

Waaaay Behind

I've got a mountain of work on my desk and about a billion loads of laundry to do when I get home.  Needless to say, I haven't even thought about posting about Hawaii (or anything else for that matter).

Here's a sneak peek at our wonderful trip to Kauai:

Until next time, have a great week!