My top 5 of 2015

5. Boston

"Harvard of the Midwest" took on real life Harvard when the UMM group in the office (plus significant others) did a weekend trip to Boston in early December. It was a ton of fun to see historic sites that I had read about starting in elementary school. We took on the Freedom Trail on the first day (including pictures with all the bronze animals we could find) and then did Harvard the second day. It was incredibly fun to go with my office mates and even more reassuring that we could indeed still be friends after working a 40-hour week together and then spending a weekend together; I'm glad I work with such great people (especially one who will pick all the good restaurants and bars!) 

4. Williamsburg

This year was the year to visit historic sites! After telling my friend (and co-worker) she had to visit colonial Williamsburg, I not so subtly suggested she take me with her :) I think we were both a bit nervous about traveling together, not wanting to kill our great friendship, but we both discovered that we are excellent travel buddies! We rented a car and took it down to Colonial Willaimsburg where we toured, spun our own wool, drove the historic triangle, and got dirty in the trenches of historic Jamestown. It was an amazing trip and I'm so glad I went back as an adult! 

3. Parents visiting DC 

My parents visited me in May for Mother's Day weekend. And in addition to loving my parents, I really enjoyed showing off being a successful adult to them. I set up a full day of tours, cooked for them, bought tickets for a historic house tour and we even got to see my dads submarine. I know my parents know I'm a contributing member of society, but there's something about being able to give back to the people who have raised you to show them what a terrific job they did! And that all those late nights of crying, sickness, last minute projects, homework, etc. really did pay off! 

2. Moving to Towson 

After my lease was up in June, I sacrificed my 5 minute walked to work and moved to Towson, Maryland. While this might not sound like the best thing, it did mean that I got to move in with the love of my life. And while it took him 2 car trips to move his apartment, we had gradually started moving my things at the beginning of 2015 and ended with a uhaul for the furniture at the end of May. I now get to see Adam first thing when I open my eyes and he's the last person I see before I go to bed. I absolutely love living with him! It's wonderful to make a house (or yes, even a University apartment) feel like a home. 

1. Saying Yes to the Love of my life 

In early April, Adam got down on one knee and asked me to marry him and I immediately said "YES!" I am so lucky that I get to spend the rest of my life with this man. He always can make me smile and laugh, his passion, kindness, caring, intelligence and strength always bring out the best in me and I'm truly blessed that in 2016 I will get to call him my husband! 

2015 was a truly wonderful year and these are just 5 of the hundreds of wonderful memories that were made. I can't wait to see all of the amazing things 2016 has in store for me! 

Wedding craft #1

I'm working on getting all my wedding decorations set for my wedding next June - yay!!! My fiancé and I have decided on a literary theme wedding because we both love to read, and actually spend many weekend mornings happily curled up in bed or on the couch with good books! I've realized I also love theme weddings because then it gives you a focus for all decorations and other ideas. I see hundreds of cute wedding ideas on Pinterestbut if they aren't literary theme I can just scroll by them! 

Anyway, back to crafting. 

I wanted candles on my tables to add mood lighting/romance to each table (plus candles just seem like something you include for wedding decorations) but how to make candles literary? Apart from buying candles that smell like books, yes, those exist, I decided to make the candle votives themselves literary. 

My mom scoured a variety of thrift shops for small glasses (I didn't care that they didn't all match) and when I visited MN in October to go dress shopping, I also spent a day decorating all of the glass votives. I took my Modge podge and my falling apart copy of Pride & Prejudice and coated each class with the book pages to make literary votive holders! 

Step 1: get glasses (if you have some time and don't care if they match then I recommend hunting thrift stores, but if you want them to match IKEA or a wedding consignment store might have some) 

Step 2: get your Modge Podge and a brush - I used a stain brush because it's what my parents had

Step 3: apply Modge Podge 

Step 4: apply paper 

Step 5: coat entire thing with Modge Podge 

Step 6: let dry! 

Optional step 7: go back to do an additional coating of Modge Podge 

You could easily adopt this to use tissue paper in your event colors or some other lightly colored paper! Just make sure the paper isn't too heavy or you won't get much "glow"

Have you made anything crafty lately?

The Lucky One

I'm here, sitting on a train that will take me to see my amazingly wonderful boyfriend. While on the train I'm listening to two albums: one encompassing the wonderful talents of a high school friend, another is a funk album by a group of guys, including two guys from college that were my friends. As I do the typical scrolling through Facebook I see other friends/acquaintances who are in the peace corps, grad school, learning to be doctors, trying to make the world a better place, involved in cocoa service, making it in the theater world, and countless other things. I'm amazed, awed and I feel super blessed to know all these amazing people who are each brave enough to try and put their own mark on this world. 

All I feel in this moment is incredibly lucky. I have had the chance to interact with and become friends with such an amazing and talented group of individuals. Thanks everyone. 

Happy Valentine's Day to all the wonderful people that I see on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or only on Facebook status - you are all loved!