Thee Short List No.13

Happy Wednesday! Thought I'd bring back a fun series, I do every once and a while called The Short List, where I basically give you a life update on some fun happenings :) Enjoy!

What's New: Well, considering I haven't written this type of blog post in over a year, A LOT is new ;) But if you keep up on Instagram then you know the gist about us. The most new thing in our life is a new niece is coming this week! This will be my brother and SIL's first child. I'm so excited to see her face! 
Another new thing is that we recently both saw a functional medicine doctor. I've always been curious what our vitamin and nutrient levels were, so we got a panel done and met with a local practice called Root, who was amazing!! I was just blown away by how thorough our analysis was. After our labs were in, the doctor and dietician reviewed everything and then set us up with a vitamin and supplement plan specifically made for our unique bodies. We found that we were both deficient in different things, so the new vitamin regimen will help us even that out! Then the dietician went over exactly what we could improve with our eating habits. We've always eaten relatively healthy, but now we are really focusing on eating enough fiber, healthy fat and protein with each meal. I loved what they told us -- "never eat a naked carb!" This means that our bodies digest and process nutrients best when protein, fiber and fat is eaten together. So anytime you have a carb, pair it with one of the other things. For me, I need to make sure I'm eating enough protein each day, so I'm really focusing on that and over the last few weeks I feel like I've made big strides in this area. It's actually been so fun for me to make these changes! 
Beyond that, we're just living our normal day-to-day. My husband, McCann, is working from home most days outside of one or two a week where he goes in the office, he's golfing a lot (his summer hobby!) and I'm working and seeing lots of design clients, going on lots of summer walks, doing my yoga classes at the gym, gardening and spending time with friends. We just finished up our powder bathroom renovation, so I'm excited to share that with you soon!


What I'm Listening to: Let's see...I'm almost through the podcast series called What Killed Mars Hill. It has been extremely eye-opening, considering that's the church I attended when I lived in Seattle. Music-wise, I'm loving Needtobreathe's new album, anything Bieber (both my husband and I are big fans haha!), Ellie & Drew Holcomb, and Elevation Worship.
What I'm Watching: We are knee deep in One Tree Hill!! Laugh if you want, but oh my gosh, I'm loving it! I've never seen the series before, but my husband saw it in college. I'd never had an interest to watch it but he told me I'd like it and after the first episode, I was hooked ;) We're on season 5! I also watched season 3 of Virgin River (why is it so sad?! I'm not sure I can handle another depressing season of that!) and I am very into Married at First Sight ;) 
What I'm Reading: I just finished quite possibly my favorite book I've ever read. By "favorite" I mean it was probably the most helpful, encouraging, important book I've ever read. It's called Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy and it's about the biblical language and steps of lament. If you're familiar with the Bible, then you know there's a book called Lamentations. This book is filled with people crying out to God for their pain, grief, destruction of their city, etc. It shows us that God wants to hear our struggles and he can handle our pain. In fact, he can identify with it because he himself was a man of sorrows, enduring much pain when he walked the earth. 
The book walks you through Lamentations and how crying out to God in our grief can move us closer to God himself. If you've ever felt bad for complaining about your circumstances or have been told to just be positive and good things will come, or not to voice your grief because it will just bring more painful circumstances-- first of all, I'm sorry you've been told that. Believing in Jesus does not promise to take away our painful circumstances because we live in a broken world, but it DOES give you an eternal hope in Heaven and the hope of Jesus walking with us through pain while we're here on earth. This book really emphasizes that reality and shows you how to biblically process your struggles through lamenting. I learned so much about God through this read and I highly recommend it to anyone struggling personally (and if you're not now, you will someday!) or anything who's walking alongside someone else who is. Having language to help someone else process what they're going through is SO important to me as a friend. 
Now I'm onto another book called Every Bitter Thing. I'm also reading a fun beach-read called The Layover and it's been super cute!
Currently Loving: How long do we have here?! I've got a couple of really good loves for you!!
1. This dress. It's flowy and simple and feminine. I love the smocked top! I have it in green, but it comes in 3 colors.

2. This work out top. I have it in two colors now (pink and gray) because it's just the perfect fit, love the dry-fit fabric and the cut out in the back is super cute. I wear a sports bra under it, as it doesn't have builtin support.

3. Making smoothies! Such a great way to get all of our nutrients in! My favorite is a classic fruit smoothie with mixed berries, banana, almond milk, protein powder (we use pea protein), collagen, hemp seeds, and spinach. It's so good and you're getting your greens without tasting them ;)
4. Seeing glimpses of my parent's house coming together! It's taking forever, like all my other client projects, because every.thing.is.delayed. still. BUT we got the dining table and buffet in this last week! Big win!
5. Of course I'm loving my garden. There's nothing better than going out in the evenings and cutting a fresh bouquet of flowers for the house. I could do this nearly every night if I wanted, thanks to my little cut flower garden full of zinnias, asters, snap dragons, cosmos and scabiosa!

6. My On Cloud sneakers. I got these probably two months ago and they did take a couple wears to break in, but now I love them and wear them all the time!! The are a no-tie shoe and they're great. So easy to slip on, but you can totally work out in them without worrying! Size up half a size. They come in lots of colors! (PS. If you have wide feet, I wouldn't recommend these.)

7. This recipe! I've made it twice in the last couple months and it is just so yummy every time!!


What's on my Desk: I've got lots going on for work! I'm finishing up a new build, doing lots of finishing touches for other clients, helping my parent's with their house from afar, and starting with 2 new clients here shortly. Here's a fun mock up I did for a great room, dining room and entry!

Phew, that's all for today! Thanks for being here. Hope you have a wonderful week!
xoxo


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Client Powder Bathroom Design Plan

Happy Thursday, friends! Hope you'r enjoying your first few weeks of August! As you might remember, I was visiting my parent's during the middle of July at their new home in California. It was definitely a work trip, as we spent almost all our time shopping for furniture and decor for the house, since it needed a lot of pieces to fill it out. While not much larger in square footage than their last house, the scale is much larger with 12' ceilings in some rooms and 9-10' ceilings in every other room. Scale is everything!! So we had to get appropriately-scaled items for the house. If you fill a large-scale home with small furniture that looked nice in a normal-scale home, you will end up with that furniture looking like dollhouse furniture in the new space. We have a lot of furniture on order and it will start rolling in shortly! The delays the last year and half have been insane and they are not even close to catching up, sadly. So we're hoping most things come in before Christmas, if we're lucky -- ha!
Anyways, I forgot to share a couple projects we were working on while I was there. One of them is their powder bathroom glow-up. It's not a total gut, but it's getting a substantial makeover-- so much so that you probably wouldn't even recognize it when it's done. Love these kinds of attainable projects with such impact!
Here is the bathroom BEFORE we touched it:

Like most of the house, it has beautiful trim work as seen in the wainscoting and the shiplap ceiling, but the sink and vanity situation needed help! I'm not a fan of basin sinks that sit on top of countertops like this for many reasons, but one being that you lose almost all counter space. The second thing we needed to address was the lighting. It was so dark in here with just that one vanity light. 

To combat this, we added a recessed light in the ceiling and we got a new (gold!) vanity light with three lights to offer more light. The entire vanity is going, in favor of a more traditional looking vanity, an under-mount sink with a marble countertop, new gold faucet, new mirror, and my favorite feature-- we're wallpapering everything above the wainscoting! I'm so excited about this room I could squeal!

Here's the mock up I created to give you a pretty accurate depiction of the final look we'll get:

vanity / mirror / faucet / light fixture 

Everything in the mock up is exactly what we have picked out for the room. This vanity actually reads more light blue-gray in person, so it's going to be perfect with our Serena & Lily wallpaper (we found it at the outlet for $39 / roll...what a find!!) We're going to change the basic knobs that come on the vanity out for gold ones that will tie together the light and faucet. The mirror is just gorgeous and perfect for the coastal farmhouse feel we're going for. It almost looks like coral reef!

I can't wait to see this space come together. The wallpaper goes up on August 23rd, so it'll start take shape after that. Hooray!

Enjoy the rest of your week

xoxo

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