{T.I.L. #5}

I feel like I've exhausted the house news for this week, so I'll take a wee break from that arena to tell you that:

I have a specific style artistically and I have searched for bloggers & designers who stand out to me. 

One of my very favorite bloggers is Emily from Jones Design Company. Her art prints are easily my go-to prints and I feel like everything she creates is clean, classic, and beautiful. 

In fact, I love her style so much that when she started offering her Simplified Graphic Design Class, I jumped on it. I am still making my way through the lessons (it is self-paced, which is the devil for me) and I still need to buy Photoshop/Illustrator to practice (um, remember those fridges I spoke of? Photoshop. Fridge. Photoshop? Fridge? Sorry Photoshop. I'm busy saving right now.)

Someday, maybe I'll finally make my way through the self-paced class & start creating art prints for myself. Until then, I always have Emily and her darn cute art prints...

{T.I.L. #4}

If you have gone in sequential order, you should know by now that I bought a house cottage in an older part of town...the kind of area with big trees (which means lots of acorns) and walkable streets with little shops & bakeries. I mean, it's no 'You've Got Mail' scene, but it is what I'm after.

I know that my house was built around the 1960's (that was probably when it was last painted too. Jeez it's bad.) Because of this, I wanted this to be the opportunity to capture some of that character when decorating or adding to the house.

This leads me to what I've been researching for the last year and to the next thing on my love list:

{T.I.L. #3}

In yesterday's post, I started at Taco Casa and wormed my way around to the fact that I am now a homeowner. 

Though there is much more to this story and deserves its own series of posts later on, I'd like to add my new house to the list of things I love.

Side note: I call all houses 1000 square feet and under, cottages. Mine is close enough, therefore, a cottage by definition. Plus, I secretly want to be British.

I should've also mentioned that this post relates to my first post about the show Fixer Upper because my house is adorably small and not-so-adorably in need of some fixin' uppin' (only there's no Chip & Jo-Jo with a 40K reno budget to come in and save the day...)

I will post more detailed pictures later on, but this is an example of how it has not aged so well. Here is a pic of my cottage in its glory days:

I call this the Before-Before

And here is what it looked like when I bought it this fall:

This will serve as the Before...where did all the grass go?

Cute, huh? What you can't see in this picture is the flaky facade it has...I mean, I love chippy wood antiques as much as the next 36 year old Texas woman but I draw the line at the chippy wood being the outside of my house. 

Still, I love it and I'm thankful it is mine {well, I guess it'll be mine in 14.5 years.}

{T.I.L. #2}

I'm just getting back from a visit to California this weekend, but that is not what this post is about. This post is less important but leads to important news. 

I know this seems silly but it is true. I grew up in Natchez, MS and Taco Casa was our saving grace in that tiny little mall. We looked forward to eating there every Saturday after shopping with our mom at McRae's (read in MS accent: Muh-Craaaaeeys) and charging it all on those new-fangled things called charge cards. Oh, the 80's.

I forgot all about Taco Casa until last year when I saw it in Denton and realized it was the same chain as when I was a kid. And it tasted the same! Those bean burrito memories sure are strong. 

But to be honest, I'm kind of getting sick of Taco Casa now. I've had so many mild bean burritos with no onions lately...they are really cheap and filling. And I need cheap and filling when I have just signed my life away to a 15 year mortgage. Did you hear that?

I bought a house, y'all.

Things I Love Series

One February, 2 years ago, I wanted to share about some topics that were near and dear to me. My idea was to share some 'Things I Love' {or T.I.L.} each day for the whole month. Well, as with most things, my intentions are better than my actions. But hey, at least I know myself, amiright?

Sooooo, since it is February, the month of love, I thought I'd share some more Things I Love. They will be listed in no particular order (ok I lie a little...a few are in a particular order) and I will try so so hard to post one each day because I know your quality of life depends on it. If you want to start with the first batch of Things I Love, you can see them here on my About Me Page.

Here is #1 for 2015: