Dashboard Diary

Feb 3, 2015

A year ago today this sweet little pup with the most ~~fake~~ convincing sad eyes in the world was born.

Last April, we drove to Mississippi to pick Molly up (and to reunite Charlie with his parents).

In case you've missed the 3482093843290 times I've mentioned it in the past, Molly and Charlie are biological siblings.

For some reason, I had this bizarre hope that the whole brother-sister connection accompanied by Charlie's well-behaved demeanor would assist in the training of Molly.

Wrong.

What's the opposite of well-behaved?

I'm too tired from cleaning up her latest atomic bomb of damage to use a thesaurus.

Bad?

We'll stick with bad.

She loves to imitate every single move of Charlie's, like a true sibling.

. . . even to the point that she pees with one leg lifted up while squatting.

She loves to be held like a human toddler, and for whatever reason we oblige.

Her tail looks like the grinch's finger.

She loves to wrestle but hates to share.

She's affectionate and cuddly when she's tired (5% of the day?) but the rest of the time she's just plain bad.

So far she has chewed up five pairs of shoes, my sunglasses, two computer chargers, 3489028340938 pairs of panties and underwear, a purse, anddddd our couch.

For some strange reason, we still love her.

A lot.

Nowwwww, here comes an obnoxious amount of photos recapping our first year with Molly.

That was a bit over the top, right?

Right.

I'm 50% sorry and 50% not sorry.

Minden's Annual St. Jude Auction

Jan 28, 2015

Every year on Superbowl weekend for the last 33 years, my tiny little hometown has hosted an auction benefiting the children of St. Jude.

The auction initially started as a "radiothon" but over the years it has fully transformed into a monumental event.

One elementary school raised and donated $44,000 alone, cars have been given away, and even the infamous Uncle Si has made an appearance.

The entire city is electric.

Everyone involved is donating every ounce of their time, talents, money, and effort to help make a difference.

Our tiny town of 13,000 people raises the most money per capita for St. Jude than any city

IN THE WORLD.

We talk about that fact every year, but it's still hard for me to wrap my head around it.

Somehow, each year we have managed to break the record of the previous year.

Only a few short years ago, we broke the million dollar mark, and we have kept the tradition each year since.

Here are the amounts raised from the last nine years alone:

2005: $509,179

2006: $703,604

2007: $755,846

2008: $788,611

2009: $876,264

2010: $881,885

2011: $943,628

2012: $1,065,235

2013: $1,106,269

2014: $1,198,296

There are tons of great items being raffled off this year (like a GMC Denali, a Mac desktop, a Rolex, and even a trip to Disney) but the greatest items of all are these playhouses.

It has become a tradition for our local firemen to create a custom playhouse for each auction.

They tend to out-do themselves each year, but I'm not quite sure the playhouses of 2015 will ever be topped.

This time they created TWO campers, one for adventurous boys and one for girly girls.

The girl camper was decorated by Laurie Sigler (owner of LaurieAnna's Vintage Home in Canton, Texas) and appropriately named Starlet.

The boy camper is named Danny Boy, after the St. Jude's founder Danny Thomas.

These campers are the real deal.

They have flat screen tvs, beds, refrigerators, microwaves, and will even connect to water and power!

If you don't have little ones of your own, I'm willing to bet you know a few kiddos who would absolutely love this.

Please take a second to visit the website MindenStJude.com to get in on the action and buy some raffle tickets.

Prices range from $5-$10 for most of the items, and grand prize tickets are $100.

Win or lose, you are still making a difference in the life of a child.

If this video can't convince you to give, I don't know what can.

Grab a tissue (and your credit card).

Jan 27, 2015

Work has finally settled down, and I have a few spare hours in the day to function.

. . . and by function I mean cooking and watching Netflix and cleaning and watching Netflix and decorating anddd watching Parks & Rec on Netflix.

You know.

Wife things.

Thanks to a few creative folks in our lives and some pretty excellent Christmas gifts, our shelves are getting filled and our walls are getting decorated.

Putting holes in walls that you actually own is slightly more terrifying than drilling excessive, monstrous holes in apartment walls that you personally aren't thaaaat responsible for.

Over the last weekend, I finally gathered some courage and nailed a few holes into our beloved walls.

I cleaned up a bit, kicked Josh out, and then snapped some photos so you could have a little peek into our home.

Enjoy!

K Book :: Anthropologie

Photo clips :: Target

Flowers :: fake

The watercolor portraits of the pups were painted by my sweet friend Maggie.

Aren't they incredible?

If you are interested in having a custom painting you can e-mail her at maggie.melancon@gmail.com

Shelf :: World Market

Let's Go Anywhere print :: Katie Daisy on Esty

Hey.

I'm a sucker for a good 'ole fashioned mirror selfie . . .

Photobombing dog :: Molly

Three tiered shelf :: World Market

Most of these items on this shelf (such as the antique books and bottles) were used as decor at our wedding.

The flower girls carried the birch J+E bucket, and I made the "would you like to dance around the world with me" sign for our wedding as well.

I created the words from an antique hymnal and modge podged them to an old wooden map.

The quote is from one of our favorite songs.

Having it on display in our home is the perfect reminder of that lovely day two years ago where we said some vows, became travel partners for life, and then jetted off to celebrate in Iceland.

Photos and photo clothesline thingy :: Ikea

The kitchen.

My favorite room of the house.

When were first toured this house before we bought it, the kitchen was honestly what won me over.

I remember thinking it was all downhill from here and that every house from there on out would pale in comparison.

I was right.

After all, it was the first house we ever looked at and the one we ended up purchasing.

Fake flowers :: Ikea

Barstools :: World Market

Tables and chairs :: World Market Hudson Pub Table and Hudson pub stools

More fake flowers in a watering can I will never use to water things :: Ikea

The Toms chip clip stand makes a pretty nice Christmas card/invitation holder.

. . . and now I present to you my favorite house piece in all the land:

the hutch

After weeks of coveting this hutch at a local sandwich shop, Patina Green, we finally bit the bullet and made an offer.

We brought it home last weekend, and I still haven't been able to stop admiring it.

Josh finds that his picklin' needs to be on display.

I'm not compleeeetely sold on the concept, but hey, marriage is about compromise, right?

Eh.

The center shelf is covered with an old battered piece of tin.

I think it's safe to say that is my favorite detail.

End table and coffee table :: World Market "Aiden" series

(Are you sensing a creepy World Market ~~obsession~~ trend yet?)

Rug :: World Market (but I couldn't find a link to it on their website - it may be sold out?)

Our little bar cart (that we found at Trade Days in Canton) is quite stocked with the essentials:

All the Moscow Mule fixins, High West whiskey from Park City, some random bottle of wine that we never got around to drinking in Switzerland, and a few of our favorite bottles of Sweetwater Brewery's Dank Tank (that we are "aging" for a special occasion).

The sign you see above the cart is one of my personal favorites.

We initially fell in love with it at Russian River Brewery in Santa Rosa, California on our three week west coast road trip.

After a few years of searching, I was finally able to track one down on eBay, and I surprised Josh with it last year.