A new month

Its been awhile since my last baby post. Things have changed a bit for me and how I feel about blogging all of this before it actually happens.

I got a little discouraged sharing some things and have decided to keep specifics to myself until the time is right, so no pregnancy announcement, gender or name reveal until I get back to being comfortable sharing this very special first experience with anyone other than Luke. I only get to be pregnant and have our first child once and I don't want any of the specialness of the experience taken away. So when the time is right, I'll post more and more often.

Unfortunately, the time is not right, yet.
It was a very hard experience to have and after having a quick pity party in the morning, Luke turned the day into a day of fun-we went on a walk, made lunch, went shopping, lazed around a bit, walked to dinner and then went to an arcade. It was a day of not thinking about babies, money, job hunting, the rest of our usual stresses or anyone else but ourselves.

Its a new month now and I'm trying to stay positive and believe that this month is our month.

Sweet dreams are made of these

Holy crap, there are some amazing baby nurseries out there!!!
I can't wait to set our plans for a nursery into motion once we're pregnant and find out the sex.
It will be a challenge to not go overboard since we're uncertain where we will be living once our lease is up. We want to stay in our current apartment but the downtown lifestyle gets a bit loud and we'd like at least a patio for Monty...we'll see!

For now, I am having fun browsing Pinterest and day dreaming about the perfect little spot for our perfect little baby!!

Luke and I both like neutrals with pops of color, something that will be easy to transition the pieces and colors from baby, to toddler to little kid.

Here are a couple of my favorite finds on pinterest for Indy and Lowe:

How perfect is this room for Indiana?! Luke and I have already bought a couple Indiana Jones prints off Etsy that will be perfect for this room!!

I love the woodland theme of this room (the pin on Pinterest didn't have the original link). I think we'd switch out the wood furniture for white though and chevron instead of plaid.

This room is just what I imagine for a little Marlowe (without the bird pillow). I love the wall paper and plan on having an accent wall with it and the best part is, Luke loves wall paper too!!!

Not going to lie, I kind of want our bedroom to look like this...Luke would object, its too girly for him but for Lowe, it would be perfect!! The light and the floor pouf are my favorite!!




Luke and I had so much fun planning our bedroom and decorating it, I know when the time comes we're both going to put just as much thought and effort into the babies room as we did ours!

You make my dreams

Since my last post, Luke and I got married, moved into a new apartment, FINALLY got Monty living with us, bought lots of new things together to fill our new space and are now in the process of getting ready to start a family!!

I won't go into our planning process or our discussions or anything like that-that stuff is private but I will say we aren't going into this lightly or just because we want a cute baby. We had big, long talks and decided together that we are ready!

Being ready and having a planning period before we actually get pregnant is one reason I decided to blog again or eventually start a new one, because we live about an hour and half away from both of our parents, I thought a blog would be a good way to let them know whats going on in our lives on this new journey since we can't always make it up there or phone calls aren't enough.

Since we haven't "officially" started the nine month journey, I don't have any pregnancy things to talk about but I have started reading a couple books, bought a couple creams and oils that were on sale and even bought a super cute pair of baby leggings from H & M. Its been fun having this sort of seque period but its also making me impatient!

Pinterest has become my best friend-I thought it was fun searching and pinning stuff for a wedding, but oh my, its even more fun doing it for a baby!! There are so many cute nursery ideas, adorable onesies and awesome baby gear! I started board for each gender under the names we have picked out, I LOVE, love love our names, we picked them together and they flow so nicely.

Indiana Jamin Sedmak is our boy name. Indiana has been the name I've had picked out for a boy for forever! I love Indiana Jones, when I was little I wanted to be him when I grew up...I kind of still do, hes badass. Jamin is Luke's middle name and its important to him to have our potential son carry on the name, which I think is so sweet.

Marlowe Wren Sedmak is our girl name. We both think Marlowe is such a sweet name and it has a bit of my Great Grandfathers name, which is where my middle name came from-Arlee/Arlene. Wren is just adorable and makes me think of a cute little bird, I love it.

For now thats all we have going on with expanding our little family. I can't wait to have more to share and to share the news with all our friends and family!!

food and wedding crafting

We (more like I) love having an aquarium 5 minutes from our apartment!

Again, it has been quite some time since I posted.

I wanted to get back into blogging when I started planning my wedding, but things just got super busy with moving and family and friends having babies and the holidays, that I didn't make time for it.
The wedding is in almost 4 months and things have started taking shape, as far as crafting and flowers etc.
Not to mention the weather is getting warmer and that always renews me.
I'm in cooking, cleaning, crafting and exploring mode and I feel like I have actual fun, exciting things to share!

I'll start with a couple recipes, both super duper simple and both requested by the lovely, Sam!
So to start, here is the link for quiona mac and cheese. This recipe is seriously sooooo good and easy to make. Luke and I topped ours with some hot sauce and the next time I make it, I'm adding in more veggies.

The second recipe is for vegan fried chicken. I found a recipe for it but decided to just use the one on the box of fry mix that I bought/make it up as I went along.  I used Gardein chicken scallopini and a box of random fry mix from the grocery store, I forget the brand name but any fry mix for chicken will work. As far as the directions on the box, when it said to dip the chicken in milk, I used almond milk that I added hot sauce, poultry seasoning and cayenne pepper to, that was all I adapted for myself.  The chicken was sooo crispy and delicious, Luke said it tasted like "real" fried chicken but healthier, haha.

 vegan fried chicken, quinoa mac and cheese and orzo pasta salad (whole foods)

Now onto wedding talk!! Crafting has been so fun! I haven't done a ton but what I have made, I love. 

Our wedding has a loose deer theme, we're incorporating deer where we can but I'm not over doing it and making it be a part of every detail and decoration.
Mostly our decorations are going to modern with a girly/vintage twist. We both wanted to use mason jars and doilies but we aren't into a super rustic look, so I'm doing some more modern things with those aspects to make it fit our personalities better.
For instance, I'm making doily bunting on gold, sparkly bias tape and making 3-D doily garland that will alternate with gold, sparkly garland.
Can you tell I like all things gold and sparkly?!

We'll also be spray painting some of the mason jars gold and coral to make them a bit more modern and add more color. I want to add as many splashes of color as I can since the wedding is in an open air venue/outside. There are no walls to hang anything on in the pavilion so I plan on making the tables more colorful than I originally planned and perhaps making a make shift wall for behind the sweets table and for our reception site that will then be used for a photobooth back drop.
Eeep, it sounds like soooo much to do when I type it all out but I have faith I'll get it all done!

I also made some antlers for our head table!
I got the idea from a photographer, Kari Herer that I found on etsy a few years ago.
Her work is simple and dreamy, I love everything about it! I even registered us for a couple of her prints!
After I made the antlers, I saw the exact same thing on A Beautiful Mess blog, which doesn't surprise me since those ladies come up with the cutest crafts!

It was such an easy project (all supplies came from Hobby Lobby) and turned out better than I thought it would, considering it involves fake flowers and sometimes they can look a little too fake. 

name tags, doily bunting and garland, heart paper fans, head table antlers

Luke and I are planning on doing some larger/messier crafts this weekend with our friends who have a house, more space and a yard. Fingers crossed it doesn't rain like it says it will because I've been itching to make the messy crafts (which need to be done outside) and hang out with our lovely friends!

We're also hoping to finish up the invites this weekend and get them sent off to a printer!
Luke is a graphic designer/web developer/online clothing store co-owner and is designing all our paper goods, he even screen printed our save the dates himself! I'm a lucky girl!

photo shoot for Luke's portfolio

I can't wait to share more after this weekend once more crafting takes place and the invites hopefully get finished! 

Dont' call it a comeback.

I'm bringing the blog back!

I've had many a change in my life as of late, I'm engaged and planning a wedding for Aug 18th 2012, I quit my job and moved an hour south to Cincinnati to start my life Luke, I'll be getting back into being creative and crafting for the wedding, I'm a new aunt to my sisters little girl, Coraline and to my best friend who might as well be my sister's baby boy, Siddhartha.

Its safe to say my life has made a total 180 and I am loving every minute of it and feel so blessed.

I'm currently OBSESSED with Pintrest and am doing a lot of wedding planning/finding inspiration through it and need a place to put it all together, so that is why the blog is coming back.

I know my life will be full of adventure and excitement in the up coming months and want to share it all and remember it all.

So I hope some of you are still around and still following, I've still been reading blogs but not commenting much and that will change as well! I miss the blog scene a bit and can't wait to get back into the swing of things!!

I'm going to put together a post of wedding plans that have been made so far but until then, check out my pintrest, follow me on instagram-sandydeer.

best summer ever

It has been such a long time since I blogged which is silly because now is the time that I should be blogging the most!! 

I have soooooo many new, wonderful, fun, beautiful things going on in my life right now that I should be documenting it all!!! 

But I suck and have been too busy soaking in every last minute of it all that I haven't taken the time to do anything but just enjoy myself and the people around me.

Instead of talking about the last however many months, I'll just talk about the two most exciting things that have happened to me since I last posted!

And they are:

1. 

I am going to be an aunt...twice!!!

My sister is pregnant and due on Oct. 8th. 

She and her husband aren't finding out what they're having so I won't know until its born if I'll have a niece or a nephew.

And my other "sister"/best friend, Stephanie, is pregnant as well and is due Oct. 18th. 

She and Ravi did find out the sex and they're having a boy!! 

So at least I know I'll have one nephew.

My life is going to be filled with all the things babies in the next couple months and I'm totally ok with that! 

I love planning parties, buying gifts and spending time with wonderful people so its perfect that they're having their babies so close together!!

There are lots of other pregnant ladies in my life right now or ladies that have had babies recently and while I am not ready at this second to have one myself, it makes me think about how wonderful it will be when I am ready that I'll have so many amazing people and babies around to share it all with!!

2.

I fell ridiculously, crazy, stupidly, wonderfully in love with this handsome fellow, Luke!!!!

We've been friends for 6 years and it seems like us dating has always been on the verge of happening, so when it finally did in May, it just took my breath away!

I don't think I've caught it yet or will anytime soon!!

Things have been on the go since our first date and while we'd both like to relax and have time to ourselves, its been soooooo amazing experiencing so many new things with him.

He lives an hour away in Cincinnati but we've made it work wonderfully and I get to see a city I've spent lots of time in but never really explored and I get to explore it with him.

And when we're in Dayton, I get to experience my own city like its a totally new place. 

Doing everything with him is like doing it for the first time. 

Places take on new meanings, inside jokes are formed, little details of something he said or how he looked are etched in my brain and I'll remember then each time we visit that place or hear a certain song or eat a certain food. 

I could gush about him non stop, about how talented and creative he is. 

How sweet and kind and giving he is. 

How much he loves his friends and family and Monty, ugh it melts my heart!

He is the most genuinely beautiful person, inside and out.

I feel like a better person just being with him. 

Bottom line-he makes my heart so incredibly full that sometimes, I swear I can feel it spilling over. 

bad days, good friends

Once again, I did not get back into the swing of things when it came to blogging on a regular basis since my last post.
I've had a lot going on, nothing good and haven't really felt like sitting down and blogging about the bummers in my life.
I've had some issues at my house-flooding, sewer back up, plumbers being to the house twice in the past week for hours upon hours into the night and day and now I have been with out power/heat since Tuesday evening with power lines down in my yard and on my roof and probably won't get it back until Saturday or Sunday.
Luckily, I have nice neighbors who ran an extension cord from their garage so I could use a space heater until I couldn't take it any longer and went to Ravi and Stephanie's for the night. Ravi is always saying we should have a sleep over so what better time to have one than when you've been alone for a couple days and in desperate need of friends!! They made me hot, yummy food and coffee and gave a warm bed to sleep in.
On top of their kindness, my cousin was nice enough to pick up Monty on his way up north and drop him off at my parents house so he wouldn't destroy Ravi and Stephanie's house after being cooped up with me for two days!

This morning I went to the gym to work off some of my pent up energy/frustration only to find after taking my shower that their hair dryers were broken...boo!! I had to just hang out in the locker room until my hair was dry enough that my flat iron would finish the drying process. It is just not my week!!
Besides the bad weather and house issues, my Grammy passed away a few weeks ago and while we all knew it was coming and that she was miserable and was ready, it was still shocking when it did happen and I haven't really dealt with it yet.
Not to mention I had to spend time with family who are not my biggest fans. At a time when we should all be there for eachother, I just got mean looks, ignored, talked about and just made to feel like crap.

Other than all that I've just been working and working out like usual. I have big plans of starting my spring/summer workout routines and can't wait to get more into them, I always feel better when I feel like I've kicked my ass at the gym.

I applied for a job that I think I would really enjoy over the weekend, but haven't heard anything. I'm hoping the interview process has just been delayed because of the horrible ice storm we had the last couple days and that I hear from them soon.

I've also got a bit more done at the house as far as decorating goes. It feels like it is taking me forever and I just want it done but I don't have everything I need yet since it takes money and I'm a little low on it.
I am happy with how everything is coming together though and I hope I can find the last little things I need in the near future so that I can have a belated house warming party!!

Its almost time for me to leave work and I'm hoping that when I stop back by my house that the power is on, but I'm not getting my hopes up since I think it is just me in my neighborhood without and they're focusing on large outages first and individuals last...sucks for me.

I hope anyone else who has had to deal with this storm is safe and warm!!