apartment tour part 3: my hallway

I told you I'd eventually finish my apartment tour ;) I think the only room left after this is my workspace. I like my new room so much more than my apartment, but I want to finish up the tour anyway, just to document what everything looked like. I love that my blog sort of serves as a record of my life (at least the last four years of my life, anyway) and I can always go back and peek at my archives whenever the mood strikes.

Also, I'm so sorry for the quality of the pictures in this post. The hallway in my apartment was SO dark, it's not even funny. It basically had zero natural light whatsoever, so I not-so-affectionately referred to it as the black hole. It was practically impossible to take good pictures, but in person it was actually pretty cute. I absolutely LOVED that as soon as you turned the corner to go down the hallway you were greeted by my enormous painting of Dwight Schrute. I originally painted him for the dining room but he fit so much better in the hallway.



The apartment came with a linen closet, but seeing as I have way more books than towels I decided to temporarily take the door off and turn it into a bookcase. I tried color-coding my books for the first time and I love it so much! I have a very photographic memory so this actually helps me to find my books easier. I'm always like "well, I know it has a red spine and yellow lettering!" etc. so this helped loads. I organized my books the same way when I moved back home, too :) I guess technically alphabetical order would be even more functional but it wouldn't be half as pretty..

The Read More Books sign was something I just drew to fill the space above the door. And to remind me to lay off the Netflix once in a while ;)



I love this little bookend guy! I haven't found a place for him in my new room yet but he definitely needs to find a home. I got him on amazon, here.



At the end of the hallway I had a little table with my cat book collection (I did a post on it here) and the letter that we received in the mail thanking us after my family adopted Hypatia. And of course, the Dwight painting :)

Sadness -- I actually don't have any place for him in my new room. Right now I just have him propped up against my desk but he really belongs somewhere where he can be the center of attention (like this hallway!) If you're interested in the painting (or prints!) I listed him in my etsy shop here.



The Hypatia dress that I designed last year had a place of honor next to my Hypatia art grouping. I blogged about the idea for the art grouping last year, as a way to grieve & honor a lost loved one's memory. You can read the post here.



My favorite addition to the grouping is the little beaded heart in the middle. My mom made it for me after Hypatia passed away last year, it spells out her name in morse code. It was such a sweet, thoughtful gift. I actually have more pieces to add, too. A few incredibly sweet readers sent me artwork via email that I still need to print and frame, and I also recently got a beautiful portrait from Danielle, as well. I had much more room for the art in the hallway than I do now, but I'll find a way to add them. No such thing as too much art on the walls, that's my motto! ;)

Well, that's it for the (dark, dark) hallway! I'll get the workspace tour out of the way soon so I can move onto the tours that I'm really itching to do -- my new room and my new workspace!! It still needs some finishing touches, like new blinds and a new light fixture, but it's already definitely home :)

navy and tan and scalloped all over

Yesterday I went to the beach for the first time this season and it was just so relaxing. A little chillier and windier than I had anticipated, but still wonderful. It'll be nice though when it finally warms up and I can lay on the sand without putting on a hoodie and cocooning myself in a beach towel.

I was thinking... it's pretty cool that humans have these places all over the world where we bring a blanket or towel (or nothing at all) and all lay down on the ground beside each other, listening to the ocean. It's one of those things that seems so perfectly normal if you grew up doing it, but once you actually think about it, it's kind of weird (in an awesome way of course!)

dress - c/o oasap | shoes - bait footwear | bag - asos | belt - forever 21

saturday night movie: say anything

I've spent a good portion of my life sitting in front of flickering images produced before 1980. I just prefer "old" movies (although I guess technically movies made after that are considered old now, aren't they? even *I* might be considered old now, mightn't I? ack!) for any number of reasons -- their timelessness, the fact that I can usually watch them with my parents and not have to hide under the couch cushions during any of the scenes (you know what I mean) and some undefinable quality that just attracts me in a way that modern movies don't. That being said, I've been trying to play catch-up for the last two years and finally watch all of the modern movies that most people would consider must-sees. I've enjoyed a lot of them! I still prefer the oldies (but goodies!) but I'm really having fun with this project.

One of the movies on my to-watch list was Say Anything (1989.) I've heard about the scene pictured above and I know the film is a staple in the lives of basically everyone from my generation. This week I finally watched it, and I really liked it! Do I need to touch on the plot? I feel like everyone (except me, until this week) has seen it. Just in case -- John Cusack plays a lovesick guy who is hung up on the school "brain" and finally asks her out right after graduation. Despite having a graduation party scene, it really wasn't a typical high school movie (although I'll be the first to admit - despite my aforementioned dedication to old movies - I'm a big fan of She's All That) and the plot went places that I wasn't expecting. Which was a good thing!

This is probably insane but I think my favorite thing about it was (SPOILER!) the fact that she didn't run downstairs and jump into his arms when Peter Gabriel's voice came streaming through her windows. It just would have been too typical, you know? I also loved that her reasons for going back to him were ambiguous, but he didn't even care. It was so much more satisfying to see her return to him in a moment of desperation and to have him accept her in spite of that, instead of a hokey "I couldn't live without you" kind of thing. You know everything will turn out all right but it can be implied instead of written in bold letters, underlined, and covered in glitter.

The only disappointment for me was the dad's storyline. I really liked him! It was kind of heartbreaking to find out he was guilty. Otherwise I thought it was an incredibly fantastic movie (actually, I really have no qualms with that plot twist, I just liked the character and was sad that his story turned out the way it did.) If you haven't seen it yet, it's on Netflix instant. And if you don't have Netflix instant, you can rent it on Amazon. So you really have no excuse not to watch it tonight. Go! Hurry! Turn on the tv and enjoy a really nice Saturday night movie :)

whatta melon!

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10 // 11 // 12

13 // 14 // 15 // 16 // 17 // 18 // 19 // 20 // 21 // 22

We just got our first watermelon of the season this week, so this theme seemed incredibly appropriate. I don't know about you, but I have a really hard time with portion control when we have a couple containers of freshly cut juicy sweet watermelon sitting in the fridge! I have an equally hard time resisting watermelon themed clothing or cute little do-dads like the salt and pepper shaker (no. 15) and scratch and sniff (!!) nail wraps (no. 21)