Five on Friday--1/10/14

I took a few week hiatus while we were home to enjoy our time with friends and family and to be present in the moment...something I'm trying to work on in 2014. But this week I'm linking up with  Darci, April, Christina, and Natasha for another week! Enjoy...


{o.n.e} safe & sound: we made it back to New Zealand in one piece and with all of our luggage--thank goodness! Drew was deathly ill for the 2 days before we left and was still not feeling well on the first leg of our journey. Luckily, by the time we ate and slept a bit on the long flight to Auckland, he was starting to feel better. Once we got back here, he finally got back to his usual self after a few days of rest and a rainy afternoon at the movies finally seeing Anchorman 2!

{t.w.o} friends & football: in an attempt to get ourselves on a regular sleeping schedule after we arrived on Saturday morning, we headed over to the Bruffys' house with a few other friends to watch the Ohio State/Clemson football game. Even though we watched hours of football while we were back in the States, it was fun to be with friends and have a cool summer breeze coming through the open windows. I didn't really care too much about the game, but it was a fun afternoon and succeeded in keeping us awake up until a decent hour--8:00pm to be exact.


{t.h.r.e.e} cleaning & organizing: you all know how much I love organizing...the cleaning part...not so much. In the week we've been back here, I've been in super-cleansing mode. From papers to files on my computer to emails to clothes (we're hosting another clothing swap in two weeks to get rid of stuff)...I've been going crazy trying to pare down on things so that when we move home in a few months, there will be less stuff to go through. We've made a list of all of the things we will sell or give away when we move, and have already given away a few things and had some other friends offer to take the rest when they move into their new apartment--score!

{f.o.u.r} plannin' & dreamin': as you probably know by now, we bought our first house while we were home a few weeks ago and we could not be more excited! We've been in full-on planning mode ever since then to figure out logistics, get paperwork sorted and, of course, pick out all the fun things like paint colors and furniture! There's not a whole lot we can do until we actually move home and pick things out in person, but a girl can dream, right??

This is the color we're planning on for the dining room--I'm hoping it'll be very pretty with white wainscoting on the bottom half of the wall.

Top left: artwork idea for the dining room; Top middle: would love a huge mirror like this in our front hallway; Top right: hoping to get an armchair recovered in a pattern similar to this to go in our formal living room; Bottom left: awesome lighting fixtures done by a popular NZ artist; Bottom middle: absolutely love this bedspread from Nordstrom--not sure which room to put it in though; Bottom right: love this mirror for a living room or bedroom perhaps??

{f.i.v.e} experiences & blessings:

Until next time...