Home Sweet Home

Thanks to the snowpocalpyse that is hitting the Mid-West, we didn't get home until today, rather than last night, so I've been spending the afternoon unpacking and cleaning, so we can head back to work tomorrow.

I'll be back tomorrow, ready to go to tell you about our New Years trip!

Living at The Owlery

Today I am linking up with Kelly's Corner's Tour of Living Rooms.  I apologize for the poor quality of the photos; they were taken on my iPhone.  ;0)  We are still working on decorating our house, and it is a little cluttered and messy right now, but that is how we live at The Owlery...

a view of our living room from the front door 

one view from the kitchen

My husband always neatly stacks everything up on the coffee table, which drives me crazy because the scrapbook I made him and our wedding photo album can't be seen or be artistically arranged on the table.

I always pile up current bills and letters and books I'm reading underneath, which drives him crazy because he hates clutter.  *lol*  We are a perfect pair.

This is our TV that we got for Valentine's Day for last year.  Our entertainment center used to be an aquarium stand that we repurposed to hold all of our devices.  I think I would like to paint it red or olive green one day...

One of Zach's former bosses built the speakers on each side of the entertainment stand.  Someday, I will figure out what to hang over the TV.  I just feel like anything large and square/rectangular will compete with the TV as well as the picture over the fireplace.

I love that we have a fireplace!  I feel like it is so romantic.  :)  During off months, I would like to buy a set of candles in different sizes to place inside, but right now the natural log suffices.  Our fireplace tool kit doesn't match our screen exactly, but I like that we aren't too matchy-matchy. 

Zach's parents got us the "guest book" frame to use at our reception, which we held three months after our wedding.  Somehow, his dad broke the glass to it, and we still haven't gotten it replaced over two years later.  *lol*  The red glass candleholders were a Christmas gift from my cousin Erin, the smaller frame reads "One of the most beautiful blessings God gave me was you" and was a gift from my mama while I was in the hospital this last time, the HOPE candle holder was won by my mama at BINGO, the mantel clock was a wedding present (I can't remember who I got us it now--sorry!), and the dancing bride and groom came from my mama's house (It was a piece of decor in our home while I was growing up.).  Zach just recently bought the helicopter to terrify our kitties.  ;)

You will notice there are lots of LEGO in our house as I give you the tour.  My husband has been building since he was four when he received his first set; it was the only time my in-law's had seen him sit still up to that point, so they kept buying him bricks!  He now has a whole LEGO room to himself (one of his dreams growing up).  The Star Wars Death Star on his desk is always a big draw.  It's one of the larger sets that has ever been made.

Also, we got this desk at Office Depot for around $60 because it was on sale and we had a coupon.  WOO!

Finally, we are a Mac family.  :)

This is our balcony.  I use those birds there (purchased at Target on clearance) to measure the snow during the summer.  During the winter, these trees are absolutely bare, but during the summer, it becomes a jungle.  We have a few dead plants out there (the soil was infested with gnats, and our techniques to kill them killed the plants) as well as a cute red tiled table we got at World Market.  We are in the process of finding some chairs to match that will fit.  (The balcony is small.)  Zach's mom got me a hummingbird feeder for my birthday, but we still haven't seen any hummingbirds.  :(

Zach's sister Erin painted us this gorgeous scene for Christmas this past year.  I love it!

This is where our kitties live--the Kitty City!  This is Hobie; his little sister Dinah is somewhere causing trouble...

That flooring and rug you see in the upper left is the kitchen/dining area. 

When we graduated with our Masters degrees, Zach's parents got us a couch as a graduation gift.  I love our cinnamon settee!  However, I am not as found of the pillows, so I made an envelope case out of beige toile to cover one.  We always fight over the pillows in that Zach likes to have them on when we are both hanging on the couch, and I always like to remove the one from my side.  The white throw is actually a prayer shawl that was made by a local church to honor our wedding, and Zach stole the Christmas throw beneath it from his parents.

Our friend Michelle got us the King and Queen Chess hangings, and we bought the shelf lamp from Target.  There's a candy dish, white chess piece, and London phone booth bank on its shelves.  You can see into the kitchen/dining area through the window opening.

Finally, this is our extensive music collection.  One day we will have an nice and HUGE cabinet in which to store our music.  (You may have noticed more CDs stacked on the glass desk.)  This is another shelf lamp with a picture of Hobie in a frame Zach got me for my 25th birthday (its twin is on the desk), a cloisonné box Zach got in China, an Asian tea set from Zach's sister Erin (for our wedding), and some music DVDs.  The shadow box above our musical collection is most important.  Zach made this and used it in his proposal, which you can read about here.  His butt actually broke the glass in it as well!  I had it leaning against the couch across from these CD shelves so he would know where to hang it, and he came to sort CDs and sat down on it.  And, no, he didn't cut his butt!

I hope you enjoyed seeing where we live in The Owlery!  I assume you will see where we eat and cook next. :)

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my new blog! As I write this, I am sitting in the living room of our new home, watching season two of Gilmore Girls (Yes to Jess!) and drinking a cup of tea that has grown cold. From my seat on the settee, I can view our backyard through the doors opening onto the balcony. The December sky is overcast, and it must be a little windy because the half-bare trees are creaking, their branches gone bony. Our red and gold Christmas tree is lit up, and, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking about the ribbon I need to buy at Hobby Lobby today to make a tree topper. I’m also debating whether I should make spaghetti carbonara tonight, or wait until tomorrow. This is life in our new home, and life is perfect. :)

Wednesday morning: watching the sunrise outside our balcony. You probably can't read the temperature, but it was COLD!

I’ve had a Blogger blog on and off for a year and a half—give or take.

The first one I began followed our wedding plans and explored wedding traditions. I was rather snarky when it came to picking apart those so-called traditions. *lol* However, because we only had two months between our engagement and our wedding, and we were both in grad school and completing our theses and working and moving to Baridon…I quickly got off track. You win some, you lose some.

Then I started a daily photo album on facebook. I’ve actually kept this one updated for over a year. (The anniversary was November 30!) It is a lot of fun looking back over the year at everything I did and everything that happened—the good, the bad, and the crazy. About a third into the project, I decided to post it on here, too, because I could add more photos to each day directly. But I never publicized this new blog, and I continued to post the extra photos in their own facebook albums. That’s doing twice as much work for nothing.

In the past, I did XANGA, posted on Myspace, and did the notes thing a few times on facebook. Writing is integral to my life: I’ve kept a diary or a journal since third grade. It is intimidating to put your words out there for everyone to read, but I feel it is a necessary part of the process, especially within this modern age in which we live. My XANGA and Myspace were fairly well read, but they are of the past. Only when I started my Day-by-Day album did more people take notice. I know more people use facebook and use it more often than other websites, but I think part of the reason why my album has been of interest to my facebook friends is because I spend a lot of time photographing and writing about food. (“Food, glorious food!”) On more than one occasion, I’ve had a friend or acquaintance encourage me to start a cooking blog.

Now…this blog will not be ALL about food, as much as I love eating and cooking and talking about food. *haha* BUT food will be a B-I-G part. I promise. :)

Essentially I wanted to start another blog in order to remember this exciting time in our marriage when we moved away and began a new chapter in our life. Right now I’m taking pleasure in the smallest things, whether it is planning out our weekly menu or organizing our huge closets or watching Zach hang our pictures on the walls. (We have so much more space here!) I want to write about my adventures in the kitchen and decorating The Owlery, our little cottage, and searching for the right job. I want our family and friends back home to feel connected to our life here and to meet our new friends. I plan to write once or twice a week about the happenings here. For six months, our future was in the air, so it’s such a nice change of pace to have a home again. I haven’t been homesick since we moved…except when I was sick, but that was mostly the desire to be in my own bed. This is home now.

My daily photo Blogger blog was entitled “The Pharr Side,” and, because I loved the title so much (and thought it somewhat clever), I decided to title this blog the same, especially as NWA really is another state compared to central Arkansas. A professor at NWACC actually asked if I had experienced cultural shock moving here; thankfully Zach had prepared me for the move. Ha!

I thought of the subtitle “From Benton to Bentonville” before we actually found our place (in Bentonville). By the way, I’m a BRYANT girl through-and-through! My mama lives in Benton now, so that was my last home before Zach and I got married.

So, there you have it: what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Hope you stay tuned! :)