Hi!

I have so much I have wanted to write about, but when I get ready to start a post, my motivation would disappear. I am still getting over being sick, but tonight I feel a big improvement thank God! Thanks for the well wishes. :)

I wanted to share about decor things and plans for my son's room again. Then I wanted to do the usual Vintage Thursday that I love doing. But the idea of copy/pasting pictures or uploading them and putting links on them made my already fuzzy head feel even more fuzzy.

So it's just writing today, no pictures!

I have been doing so much to prepare for the craft fair that's on Saturday. I still need to finish seams on a couple more pillows. My parents are here which is a big help. My mom has been helping me figure out the display ideas. I will definitely take pictures! Now I am just hoping I sell things! The big fear of not selling one single item has crossed my mind from time to time! (haha) I guess it's the first craft show jitters, right? But I can't wait!

Giveaway Winner!

It's time to announce the winner of the improv, surprise giveaway!

To pick a winner, I wrote down the names of who entered on small pieces of paper and double folded them. I put them in a little bowl and then turned my head while mixing them up.

After mixing a few times I quickly picked one randomly.

Congratulations to Melissa of Oh, My Darling!

You are the winner! :)

I have your email address so I will send you an email as well.

I have the sniffles. Runny nose, sore throat, tired. I wanted to talk about more today but I think I will keep it on hold until tomorrow. Hopefully I will feel more energetic by then! I have a lot of craft fair prep to do too. I am probably over thinking it since it's my first one, but I want it to be good!

Anthropologie inspiration (again)

Anthropologie catalogs are always so beautifully shot! They are always good for fashion and home decor inspiration.

The clothing is priced much higher than I am willing to spend, but they definitely sell some awesome pieces to admire.

Here are some shots/outfits from the last few catalogs that I think are so pretty.





I don't live up to my own expectations for fashion for myself, and I'd like to more often! I know what I wear is not of extreme importance in daily life, especially since I don't have an office job I go to where I have to dress a certain way. And being a mom is a job where I can wear jeans every day, but I still like fashion.

I know newer mothers may evoke various images. Spit up stains on shoulders, crazy hair, yoga/stretchy pants out everywhere. Well in the very beginning, those things are hard to avoid at times as a new mom! But I generally like to wear something that I feel better in when I go out and about. Since I don't have reasons at home to wear cute things all the time, I like being able to not feel too "shlumpy" when I go out even to the store. And that's why I like looking at these kinds of things for inspiration. It's fun!

Craft Fair Prep

I had hardly done any preparations or new items for my first craft fair which is coming this Sat (Oct 16). Until today...finally!

My table was beginning to look a lot like Christmas as I laid out fabrics and Christmas pillow ideas.After a little while, I had four new pillows laid out. I need to iron and then sew up. I then moved on to putting together a couple more fall-ish pillows too.

I laid out all the pillows I already had to see what they all looked like together, and how to set them up for the craft fair. (These don't include any of the new pillows I started today, of course.)


I also started working on more earrings, like these, in all different colors:

I still have to figure out how I am going to display certain things. My parents will be here during that weekend so I know my mom will help me figure out last minute display ideas. She's creative!

Cruise Part 2

So we reached Cozumel last Saturday October 2nd after a really nice time at sea. The weather was perfect. Hot enough to want to swim, but in the shade the breezes were so nice you didn't feel hot at all. It's hard to capture the water's color with a camera.

As I expected, this port area is completely catered to tourists. I didn't feel like I was in a really different place. We got a taxi down near the road below after passing the shop areas in the picture above.
It was easy to get a taxi. If you happen to go there and need a taxi, just ask the price before you get into the taxi. There is no running meter, there are set amounts depending on where you are going. For up to 4 people it was $10, for us it was $13 since my son made five, though sat on a lap.
After a ten minute drive we were at Chankanaab National Park.
We walked around some trails before going to the beach. We saw their pretty lagoon area.

We saw two iguanas while walking around. The trails were pretty well shaded and very tropical looking. We saw replicas of Mayan ruins too. The beach area was beautiful and relaxing. The water in shades from light aqua to dark turquoise. And not crowded there!
First I snorkeled with my sister Jenny and friend Rachel. My husband took a distant picture of us girls getting into the water.
While we took the first turn snorkeling, my husband relaxed on a wooden beach chair under a (free) grass covered cabana while my son played in the sand. And they loved every minute of it!

You use steps to get into the water for snorkeling since it gets a few feet deep right away. There was a small sloped beach area for people to swim in as well. Below is me and my hubby snorkeling. The water was very choppy, you can't tell in the pictures. That really made it hard! Us gals had snorkeled in the past on trips in high school.

It was my husband's first time, which is why he let us gals go first to see how we do it before trying himself. Had the water been more calm, I would have liked to stay out there for a long time. My friend snapped the shot below with an underwater disposable camera.

These fish were swimming near us at different times!

My Chankanaab Review

I wrote a long review about our time at the park, click the link above if you want to read it! And there are a few different pictures there too.

We left the park in the late afternoon so that we would have time to shop back at the port area before getting on our ship again. The ship was in Cozumel from 8am to 7pm, and we needed to be back on the ship by 6:30pm.

I had to take a picture of the Starbucks there!

Our ship at Cozumel.

What we saw as we were walking on the long dock back to our ship:
A beautiful things to see at the end of a beautiful day! We only wish we had more time there.
We were back on the ship around 6pm. The next day we were at sea again. I took pictures of the ship from the top, near the front.

I took soooo many pictures! I'd love to share even more but don't want to clog up the blog too much. If I can get them on a website with an easy link to share, I can post that here.

Oh- about the giveaway! I didn't say when I would pick the winner. I think I will do that by Tuesday. :)

Vintage Thurs: Orange Suede! And a giveaway.

You heard that right. I got into an orange suede mood after seeing an awesome orange suede coat.



This is also entry #500 at my blog here! Wow. I feel like that calls for something special, but I was not prepared! So what I am going to do, is for whoever comes around to read this post, you might have commented anyway, but your comment will enter you into a little improv drawing. Winner will receive something...of which I do not know yet. A surprise! Maybe something I made, something someone else made, or just random goodies. So comment, friends!

I am going to share more pictures from our cruise tomorrow, the Cozumel/Chankanaab part!

We're back from the cruise! Part 1

We got back into Tampa early yesterday morning. We got off the ship around 10 am before heading home. We had so much fun! I feel so exhausted today and still need to unpack more and do laundry. I'd love to share so much about the trip but I will have to do a little at a time so it's not a massively long post.

I wanted to say something else:

You can still travel with a child and also not spend tons of money!! We don't drink alcohol, so that in itself will save you possibly hundreds of dollars on a cruise. I don't understand the people who have a drink in their hands sun up to sun down and act drunk all day. How much are they spending?? TOO MUCH. And are annoying everyone else. But I heard other people say this and totally agree that I guess they make the cruises cheaper for the rest of us by buying overpriced drinks all day!(hah) Water, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, iced tea, lemonade, and juice are included in the cruise price so you don't have to pay extra for those while on the ship. I drank a lot of coffee! I thought it tasted good. The lemonade was good too.

Our son has been traveling since he was 2 months old on road trips and long plane rides(mostly for visiting family from Alabama all the way to India!). I know finances can be difficult for planning vacations but having children does not have to! Kavi did great on the cruise. And what we did in Cozumel was very economical and fun for all.

But I will just post some pictures of the first part of the cruise and will save Cozumel pictures for tomorrow or another day.

The view in Tampa of our cruise ship, Carnival Inspiration, from the parking garage. We got really excited walking over!
We got an oceanview room, which I think was well worth the little bit extra. We had gotten a really great deal on this cruise.

Our room had a queen size bed plus a twin that came down from the wall. The room service was excellent and they would come every evening while we were at dinner to set up our room and take the bed down from the wall for us.
While sailing away from Tampa, a cruise photographer took this picture of us all. We ended up buying it for 9.99 because we all liked it so much.
That's the only photo we purchased. But if you end up on a cruise, let them take your picture whenever they want to. They set up all the photos on one of the floors for you to look at and buy only if you want to. We loved going every day to find photos from the day before.

There was a huge water slide at the back of the ship, next to two small water slides. I went on them all.

When I went on that big curling slide, it was torture! I was wearing jean shorts over my bathing suit and I got stuck on it in several places. I just wasn't sliding, I was sticking! I had to push myself down so I had sore muscles the next day. It was insane (hahahaha). Same thing happened to other people too. These smaller slides were much less problematic!
Dress up night, finally wore my purple dress!

Here's our ship docked on Cozumel... more from there another day!