Steam Cleanin Dreamin

For Christmas I was one lucky lucky daughter as my parents helped me out with buying a microwave and then gave me some money to also purchase some sort of device to clean my creaky hardwood floors that I so diligently searched for during my apartment search. I did some research over the past few months and after some debate I took the risk and purchased the Shark Vac-then-Steam mop.

So you are asking yourself "Well...Do you like it?" Ahem. Please pay very close attention as I write this....


This is hands down the best thing I have purchased for the apartment yet. It is amazing! I steam mop for fun. Yes I said I do it for FUN.

Ok first off. Manage some expectations here. The "vac" part of this product is like a bigger more powerful hand-vac. This in no way means that it is as powerful as a real vaccuum. But if you have hard wood floors and you need to pick up those dust balls and kitchen deprise that tends to come out of nowhere! this thing will get the job done. The "steam" part is where it gets fun. You put on the magnetic tray that you hook your steam "mop" too, flip the switch and you start hearing the water go to work. It dries almost instantly. You can see the dirt on the mop and your floors get all shiny and beautiful.

Hands down this gets my goldstarstampandreaisawesomeandsaysthisistoo endorsement. Buy one. Do it.

MSW Inspiration

Well it has been awhile since we have had a wedding inspiration post in awhile. Luckily I can use the thisisresearchformysistersupcomingwedding excuse. (But let's be honest-- do I ever really have a reason to look at this stuff? No. But I do. Because I love it) Anyways. A few points of inspiration that caught my eye recently:

From MarthaStewartWeddings.com

Frank Lloyd Wright inspired cake.

I want to throw a dinner party just so I can do these classy satin bow napkin rings.

I love the idea of draping ribbons on a table like this. I also love the crisp contrast of the kelly green!     



So there it is. Some weddingness for you to enjoy.



And the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon

Hand washing dishes was not something I was super excited about when I moved from Alexandria into DC. But I survived it when I lived at my old apartment and when I was looking for my new place having a dishwasher didn't even make it on to my "must have" list. It was somewhere on the "It-would-be-nice-but-if-I-have-to-pick-between-roaches-size-or-a-dishwasher-I-will-take-hand-washing-my-dishes".

So we hand wash our dishes in my household.

It really isn't that bad. With just one of me I really don't produce that many dirty dishes unless I got on a baking or extravagant dinner binge. But I wanted to make sure I had the mother of all dishracks. At my last apartment my roommate had a decent dishrack but it was always too small, the water built up underneath the plastic water catching mat (not good when you have a roach issue, and I am sure you all remember THAT!), and the water never really made it back into the sink even with the little mat that has the lip to drip water back into the sink from the dish run-off. So we searched high and low for a great dish rack.

Thank you Storables!

I brought hope this Polder Advantage Dish Rack and while the price should indicate it a top of line dish rack, I can say I love my purchase!

First of all the rack is angled so it forces the water to run "downhill". The water catcher thing also spreads all the way under the silverware holder so now missed drips from all my utensils. The pull out drying rack is awesome! You can pull it out just part way and put light weight items like knives and small kitchenware's or set it on another counter and dry all your glasses on it. For its $50 price tag- this has made all the difference with my hand washed dishes compromise.

We Zoku Do You?

For Christmas I got my sister, her fiance, and my nephew a Zoku from WS. When we went up to spend New Years in SV with her we could resist to see it in action. What transpired from the orange juice popsicle was one of my favorite memories from being home. (We also witnessed a Wyatt kiniption that was spectacular)

So we poured some OJ in:

and then we seriously stood around and watched it freeze (in SEVEN minutes!)

This is what happened next:

Trying his first popscicle

Taking things into his own hands.

And this giddy life moment happened. Yes, at the end he attempts to wipe his sticky hands on me and then goes for the couch.

We had to take it away, as the popsicle stick was going to choke the little man.

That was when the kinipstion happened.

Oh.

My.

We.

Were.

Not.

Happy.

So we put it in a bowl and had to spoon it to him.

All I can say is: Love <3

Apartment Updates

Well not intentionally I took a nice little sabbatical from posting. I thought I was going to have all this free time in Idaho to post and get myself caught up on what has been going on. Wrong wrong wrong. I was so in need of just being with my family and soaking up every moment with them and the poodle. I did have a wonderful trip back and the adjustment of coming back to DC has been rather hard this time around. I cried pretty much the whole time I was on the plane (unless I was sleeping). Yes, I was that girl that no one wants to sit next to on the plane. It was rather embarrassing. Guess it shows I had the most amazing Christmas and love my family a whole whole whole lot.

I'll try to get my pictures organized so I can show of the nephew and the holidays. But for now I will talk about some exciting apartment news.

1) After much trial and tribulation (ugh cable companies) I was able have my cable and internet installed. (I also scored a pretty sweet offer for a year contract thanks to a friend who emailed me while I was home). Needless to say....TiVo has changed my life and I am watching entirely too much TV these days after work. BUT I did do quite a bit of work from my apartment this weekend which was fabulous.

I love having full control over the TV set and getting to turn it on and off whenever I feel like it. One of the simple pleasures of finally living alone. Hopefully having internet will now motivate me to blog more and get caught up on here.

2) I bought a couch! I finally did it. Made a commitment, put it in the car (thanks IKEA for your brilliant compact designs), got it home, assembled and VIOLA! was sitting on my new couch in a matter of hours. Here is what I finally brought home:

I did swap out the wood feet for some more sleek metal ones. But she looks good. Need to locate some bright throw pillows and a piece of artwork (cough *nicole* cough) to hang on the purple wall.

I also finally purchase a dish rack from Storables (drool) as well as some shelves that are going to go up in the kitchen. Speaking of the kitchen....

Finally....a picture of the wall painted grey!

I am a huge fan. So I hope you all like it too!