Anniversary Evening

Our original plan was to get our hibachi food to go and eat it on the beach. We thought it would be too warm so we chose to eat in the restaurant. There were only three tables and we were the only people in there so it was like a lovely, private restaurant for just us two. And  the food... sooo delicious. And, as you can see from the picture, we had leftovers because there was so much! Bonus! 

We grabbed our beach towel from the car and walked across the street to the beach. There was a nice breeze and it was 75 degrees, perfect day. It's been pretty hot lately so yesterday was a happy anomaly. 

We sat there, watched the waves and chatted. Luckily, the beach was also pretty deserted so we got our own little area to ourselves. It was lovely. 

Favorite Shots

Here's just a few of my favorite shots from the wedding...

This one makes me laugh because I have no idea what was going on to make me produce such a face.

I love these shots of Russ. He looks very thoughtful (and probably thinking, "How long until I'm not the center of attention?") and the colors are amazing.

Here's a shot of one of our wedding favors in the bottom right of the picture. We ordered those boxes online and filled them with 3-4 mini derby pies and tied them with ribbon and a monogram sticker. They turned out so beautifully (we DID stay up until after 3 am to make them too! Looooong night). 

And of course I've got a few more favorite pictures but they include some family and I don't know if they'd be comfortable being featured on the blog.

I can't believe it's been two years since this already! 

2nd Anniversary

Today is our two year anniversary. I can't believe it's already been two years! I've never really shared much of our wedding so here's some of the details. 


Let me set it up for you... Arizona... June... outdoor wedding. Yeah, it was a scorcher. :) Despite that fact, the wedding was gorgeous. 


My mom, maid of honor, and I went early in the morning and set up the table decor. We had worked tirelessly for weeks on deciding what would look incredible. And the colors! The colors together with the setting and crisp, white table linens looked amazing.

Every table had a damask table square that I sewed, a black covered book (I think most of them were Harry Potter or Jane Austen books), red topiary, a red candle holder from Kirkland's, and a picture frame. The one below is my family's table with a picture of my 4 year old self in black and white. 

And this is Russ' family's table with a younger picture of him. So adorable. 

We kept the arch simple and it was my Mom's idea to put the rose picks in every chair bow's knot. I think it looked awesome and very unexpected. 

Our table just had a damask runner, a Jane Austen love quote, painted letters, red candle holders, and a topiary. I wish I had a picture of all the red candle holders lit up in the evening, they were truly gorgeous. 

And the cake. So lovely, so gorgeous, so perfect. 

I decorated the guestbook with photobooth pictures that Russ and I have taken and the pen came from Hobby Lobby. The candle holder is actually a painted pencil cup from Marshall's.

This is a photo I took of the bouquets that arrived from fiftyflowers.com. They were amazing! If you're trying to do flowers on a budget, I highly recommend them. They came perfectly packaged and hydrated (we lived in the desert and they held up extremely well!). My bouquet was the one on the far left and the bridesmaids had a red and white rose mixture. 

My lovely bouquet pin from QVC, I believe. 

I'll be back later on to post a few of my favorite pictures from the wedding. 

Out and About Browsing

I was out the other day and Target seems to be between home decor transitions and I've been to two different Targets in my area and there are some GREAT deals. I'm talking I-need-to-pry-myself-away-before-I-overspend deals. 


I saw cute pillows, vases, clocks, floral accents, and pictures for around $5.98 each. There was even a lamp base that had been $49 marked down to $14! Isn't that crazy? Most of that stuff had been upwards of $20! To my extreme surprise (and my husband's) I did not buy one thing. I know, hard to believe right?!


It begs the question though, when you find such awesome deals on home decor clearance... how does Target make money on that stuff? I mean, every time I browse and there's something that I like I know I can just wait a few weeks and it'll be marked down because no one in their right mind would pay that kind of money for what you're getting. 


But, I did see some awesome stuff that Target brought out for this season:


I actually really want this fish. I don't even know why but I love the flow-yness of the fins. And for $19.99, I might actually talk myself into pulling the trigger on this purchase (maybe I can hint Russ that I want this as an anniversary present?). 

I loved the texture of these frames. They're very masculine looking and interesting. 

I really love the industrial look of gears and now that I've spotted these, I'm actively waiting for them to end up in the clearance bin. I love these but would never spend $15 each on them (especially when not an hour before I saw marked-down gears at TJ Maxx for $10).

I also made a quick stop to TJ Maxx/Homegoods and found two noteworthy things. Not things that I want, mind you, but noteworthy as in... what the? 


This beaut caught my eye and I was immediately repulsed. This sea life wreath reminded me of something that a whale would cough up that somehow made it to the shoreline. Real attractive. 

And finally, this Abraham Lincoln statue. It appears innocent enough, right?

Upon further examination of this figure it shows that Lincoln's head has been hollowed out to collect pens on your desk. The insensitivity of such a thing couldn't escape me and forced me into a fit of giggles despite how awful this really was. I don't know whose idea it was to think that an assassinated president from a gunshot to the head would be the perfect candidate for a pen holder but, it's quite ridiculous.

Then Russ immediately wondered aloud, "Where's Kennedy?"

Yeah, we have a dark kind of humor. 

Dear Younger Self,

Dear Younger Self,


Here's a few pointers:


These are a mistake. You don't need to be any taller anyways and might lead to a few twisted ankles.

Dawson's Creek is a funny show. Not a drama, it's hilarious and not an accurate depiction of teenage life. Repeat: not accurate! And, Dawson's romanticism is actually really annoying. Pacey is definitely better.

Middle school is not forever. It'll definitely suck and hurt but it's not forever. Be nicer to people because one day you'll be a new kid in school on the other side of the country and wish that someone would be nicer to you.

One day you won't have to ride the bus. Seriously. Oh, and see that kid sitting in front of you? Yeah, he'll be your husband one day... and a really awesome one at that.

Save more of your money.

Don't waste your entire high school experience pining for someone who... might not be interested in girls but hasn't admitted that to himself yet (ever thought of that?...). And don't get mad at your best friend for suggesting it, she's very perceptive and you should listen to her.

Keep pouring your heart out to your journal, it'll be great comic relief someday. 

Every time you ride in one of these, you're going to get hurt so don't even bother. (Or go ahead... your future husband will bring you a huge stuffed animal when you get a sprained ankle.) 

Take more pictures. You don't have nearly enough to look back on (especially with your best friend!). 

Don't take yourself too seriously and be nicer to people at your first job. Little Caesar's is not going to shut down if you're not there to bust your hump. It's just pizza. (And also, stay away from the jalapeños because you're going to drop a container and splash them in your eyes...)

Go on more road trips while you're still at home. There's so much you didn't get to see and your brother would've loved to have seen too. 

Love, 

Your Future Self

I had fun writing this today! It's a cool way to reflect what you've experienced in life but I actually wouldn't change a thing. If anything were different, I wouldn't be where I am now. Russ might not be in the Navy and kicking so much butt and I would've gone to a school across the state... we wouldn't have gotten married probably and so on and so on. 

What would you tell your younger self if you could?

When I Go To The Thrift Store

You may remember the first time I wrote about when I go to the thrift store here and how I never seem to find anything of consequence. Well, yeah that seems to happen a lot. I tried out a new Goodwill that opened a while back and rather than finding anything awesome, I was met with the following. 


(Oh and in the parking lot I also had the misfortune of finding another white hair on my head. I'm 25 and I've got a reoccurring couple of white hairs that keep sprouting. Wonderful. Not the kind of thrift store find I was hoping on stumbling upon.) 


There was a lot of weird things I found but only took three pictures of the truly bizarre things that I needed to keep for future laughs. I could have taken a picture of the champagne flute from a 1996 prom that was filled with a purple, wick-less candle but I didn't think it was very visually interesting. 


There seemed to be a large, large selection of Buddha/monk figurines for some reason...

Who wouldn't want a corn husk figure made in the likeness of Don Quixote? 

I call this "raise the roof." 

Once again, no thrifting luck for me. 

Before and After: Dumpster Nightstand

So it's probably been over a year since I finished this project and I'm just now sharing it. But, whatever. I haven't been up to much around here decor-wise lately because I'm feeling the Summertime laziness. I'm also feeling some Summer trips coming on and I don't want to splurge on home decor when I could save an splurge in places like the beach... or DC... or Charleston... or Savannah... AND in *gasp* 174 days we have to be up and out of Virginia for good.


I've been up to my neck in apartment searches and... it sucks. It sucks looking at apartments in a place I've never visited (I've done that before). And it seems that apartment reviewers are always so horrible. I'm not even sure what we're going to do and where we're going to live. I know I've got months but we're in the middle of June already and it makes me feel calmer about all the impending things to do if I start early. 


So yeah, the dumpster furniture fairies dumped this drawer-less nightstand.

At first I was hesitant to take it. I mean, it had no drawers so what the hell could I do with this thing? I envisioned maybe taking the middle rung out and hanging a curtain and storing a basket underneath it for something (?). Surely I couldn't find perfect baskets to fit the nightstand like drawers, right? Wrong. 

So I hauled the item upstairs (and really, what happened to the drawers? There weren't even broken drawers lying around either) sanded, and painted it with my leftover paint from my coffee table to make the project even more cheap. 

Upon a trip to Michael's I was astonished when I found and measured shallow baskets (which were 50% off!!) that would fit in the slots. Amazing. Usually my luck isn't that good. 

The baskets fit amazingly well. I mean, there is NO WAY I could have found better-fitting baskets. So far, the total for this piece is now $20 in just the baskets alone.

After living with the piece a few days I decided... something's missing. And since I'd been looking online at all the amazingly painted, intricate furniture I decided that the top was screaming for a cool design. 

I couldn't even instruct anyone how I did the design because it was difficult for my brain to wrap around taping off the figure. I'm pretty sure it involved drawing what I wanted on paper, making a stencil, and taping off the design for at least an hour before painting. 

And it's been living in my dining room ever since. It holds some table linens and candle holders and such (I also used it for a board game or two before we had a larger collection). 

That's the last piece of dumpster furniture I collected... and it's sad to me. The most the dumpsters at this apartment has produced is smoke and flames (and last week an awful, stained, green office chair... no thanks). 

Has anyone else discovered any dumpster treasures??

Bandwagony

Nothing too much happening over here at Casa de Wright-Cook except for I hopped on the Instagram bandwagon. I know, I know... everyone is taking goofy, artsy pictures of their food and posting it on Facebook. 

Whatever.

Here's a goofy, artsy picture of a painting I've been working on for the last two days. It's copied off of a t-shirt design off of threadless.com (they're having a cake competition where you make a cake designed around their t-shirts and... one of these days I'll make a cake for it!). But... until then, I'll just paint a cool picture. 

OpSail 2012

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go to downtown Norfolk and checkout the Harborfest '12/OpSail 2012 that's been happening this past week. 

Ships with sailors from around the world were there there. Among the countries I can recall were Indonesia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Canada.

There were marching bands, concerts, food, water and play areas for the kids.  But, we didn't do anything but take some pictures and hop from shady spot to shady spot. We don't have kids so that took out a lot of the possible activities and we didn't want to spend $8 for any food item made in a tent. 

I think this picture accurately shows my discomfort at what a hot and sunny day it was. The sun was in my eyes and made it impossible to look normal. We can't all have cool-guy sunglasses.