Progress.

Well, our house isn't quite as messy as when you last saw it here, though I'm afraid I'm the only one who can see the difference.


{pretend like you can tell a difference and please don't be appalled at how messy it is. I promise this isn't the norm!}

We are making progress though and I wanted to share a little bit with you!

{please ignore the blinding flash in these. it's late and I'm just trying to get some quick pictures up... there was no time to be a professional photographer!}

















See something you like? Mark your calendars for Saturday, June 18 when you'll have a chance to purchase them at Abilene's Largest Flea Market! I will also have new pieces posting on Etsy after that!

Hope you enjoyed the sneak peek!

Happy Memorial Day.

{source}

may we never take for granted the freedom we have and the cost at which it came.

Dreamin'.

Remember this post?

It's happening peeps.


And unfortunately, it's happening all over my house.

{the living room}

{the kitchen}

{every table available}

{and even the garage}

I know. It looks rather overwhelming, huh? More details to come, but I would especially appreciate your prayers for success. We're dreamin' big over here at Life At It's Finest...


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Guess what? The 48 hours expired and I never heard from my winner.  So I used Random.org to select another one

{pretend like you see the picture of the number 11 selected right here. Unfortunately I don't know how to do a screen shot on a Mac and it's too late for me to be interested in learning tonight.}

Congrats Leslie! You're the new winner! You have 48 hours to claim it... please don't make me draw again!

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Don't forget to hit me with your best must reads!

Have a fantastic Friday!

Help A Sister Out.

in just a couple of weeks, i will be enjoying this:

{tough life, i know}

one of my favorite things about vacation is lying by the pool and devouring books.

i'm not joking or bragging when i use the word devouring. i'm a fast reader and have made it through at least 6 books, if not more, on previous week long trips.

so, in order to prepare for the trip, i need some help.

what are some must read books that i need to get on my kindle for lounging by the pool?

here are some i have recently read or already have for the trip:

the hunger games trilogy

the girl with the dragoon tattoo series

water for elephants

the help

something borrowed series

mostly everything by karen kingsbury

hit me with your best reads peeps! 

(and thanks for helping a sister out!)

WIWW #15 - Hello Bold!

a few days ago on twitter i saw this quote: "dress to please yourself... forget you are what you wear...wear what you are!"

i spent most of the day thinking about it and realized that has certainly become my fashion style. i really felt like this outfit fits the bill on wearing what i am.

{sweater: jcpenney shirt: franchesca's belt & skirt: express}

this outfit is a little kooky, i realize. but i love it. i love the color, the play on patterns, the simpleness yet sophistication.  i realize this outfit certainly isn't for everyone and that's ok. that is the beauty of wearing what you are. we can all take inspiration from each other, but in the end it comes down to our own personal flair.


i'm linking up to the pleated poppy's wiww.

tell me ladies... what is your outfit to wear what you are?
{here's why i see myself in this: i'm cheerful, like the color of the cardi. i'm playful, like the polka dots. i'm fiesty, like the leopard belt. and i sparkle, like the gold jewelry. more in like a figurative sparkling personality and not like twilight style!}


thanks for stopping by!

Dear Heart, Calm Down.

As we were leaving the house tonight to take dinner over to a friend, something in the garden caught my eye.




The quick flicker of a tail and I knew our new "friend" was back.



I slowly peaked around the pole of the porch to see where he was and found myself quite surprised:



Yeah. That's a squirrel. Coming out of our drain pipe.



I found the situation funnier than I probably should have. {though you should have seen me jump every time the wind blew the tail. omg. my heart gets nervous thinking about it now.} Apparently this ambitious squirrel was jumping from the tree to our roof and happened to land so that he went straight down the drain. We've been out of town for several days, so we had no idea when this happened, chalked it up to bad luck on his part and went on our merry way.

Or so we thought.

We ended up getting home much later than we planned after crashing our friend's dinner {thanks Wiley's!} and went to examine the situation to see how we were going to get it out to dispose of it.

Imagine our surprise when we found this:



Um, where did that foot disappear too?!?

Apparently the squirrel was still alive and kickin'.

We then set out on a rescue mission. Cody took a hammer and tried to pry open the drain, as our gets narrow at the bottom.



You've never seen a white boy move so fast every time he thought the squirrel was coming out. {I would have laughed more, but I was running out of the way too}

We {term used loosely, as I only held the flashlight and camera} eventually came up with a plan to detach the drain and carry it to another tree where we could then turn the drain over and dump him out.

So that's what Cody did.



We dumped it in our neighbor's back yard {I feel I need to apologize to Scotty and Hilary... but they just moved out, so the vacant house seemed like the best bet!}



Everything was going fine and dandy... until some how that little varmint turned around in the drain and came out of the wrong end... meaning the one closest to us!! Oh my, I thought I was going to have a heart attack and could see it landing on and attacking Cody. He must have been just as scared of us though, because he took off running in the opposite direction and went into our other neighbor's backyard (sorry Joan!)

We are now slightly regretting our decision to go with a rescue mission... if he's dumb enough to end up in there twice, then he's dumb enough to die!


Anybody got any good suggestions for getting rid of squirrels?!

What A Man.

cody is a man who enjoys many things:

graphic novels, star wars, NPR and This American Life, Dr. Pepper, a nice steak. {just to name a few}

there's one thing he doesn't like though:

HEIGHTS.


i always wondered why he didn't get excited about the prospect of going to six flags.

and one of my funniest memories was of our family vacation to jamaica. in order to get up to the ziplining spot, you had to ride a chair lift for a rather long time... about 15 minutes, getting higher and higher.

oh my. cody was pale. super quiet. and had a firm grip on the bar.

it was rather humerous people.

though fear of heights is no laughing matter in cody's opinion.

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cody is spending the weekend at a men's retreat with our church and i received this picture as a text message today.

i couldn't be more proud:




he nailed the jump. twice.

what a man.

Like.

I need this:

Now who would like to buy it for me?

{pretty please with a cherry on top!}

 

WIWW #15- The Lean Years

 It was a very busy week around Life At It's Finest! and I didn't get as many WIWW pictures taken as I would like! It would definitely be in your benefit to check out The Pleated Poppy to get inspiration from other fashionable ladies!

Here's what I do have for you:

Wednesday: work / breakfast to celebrate cody!





shirt: walmart
skirt: loft
belt: target
necklace: f21

Thursday: work / friend's birthday party





cardigan: target
dress: loft
belt: target
headband: sam moons {do people outside of texas have this store? it's like the cheaper version of charming charlies. only not organized by color and overrun by crazy women looking for a good deal on a new necklace!}

Saturday: Cody's Master's Graduation



dress: Kohls
coat: Charlotte Russe

I really wish I had a better picture of this dress without the coat on because it is way more flattering on me than this picture makes it out to be! Unfortunately, my parents have most of the pictures on their camera.

I also changed into this outfit for the after party before getting sick:


{but for real. why does this picture make it look like i have a mustache?!?!?! um... will go check in the mirror and take care of that problem now!!}

shirt: old navy
shorts: loft

Sorry I wasn't the best WIWW picture taker this week, hence the blog title! I'm definitely needing some inspiration and can't wait to see what others share!

Done.

"I'm just one stomach bug away from my goal weight." It's a shame it happened on @CodyNeinast's graduation weekend.

If you follow me on twitter, you may have seen the previous tweet on Saturday.

We were having a lovely time celebrating Cody, until a stomach bug took me out of the party. {don't worry, they kept celebrating without me.}

The important thing is that Cody is officially done and I could not be more proud of him. Eventually I'll do a longer post, but I at least wanted to show you how cute he looked on graduation day:

Cody Neinast, Master of Divinity

Here's to Cody's summer of comic books!

Tradition.

{I'm linking this post up with Kelly's Korner Blog for Show Us Your Life: First Day of School Traditions. Even though this was a meal on the last day of school, I hope to start our first day of school off with a special meal too! Enjoy!}

This morning I fully initiated Cody into the Horrell family by letting him participate in one of our most long-standing and sacred traditions:



Breakfast at McDonalds on the last day of school!


I have no idea how my parents came up with this idea, but they created a tradition for our family that the four of us would always wake up early to celebrate the last day of school with a fun start to the day.



I have some really great memories over eating breakfast with my family there, and funny enough, we've shed many a tear over sausage biscuits!



Breakfast at McDonalds is so special to us that on the morning of the day before our wedding {we knew the actual wedding day would be too busy} the four of us loaded up to share one last breakfast together. Even now, I start tearing up thinking about the sweet time we had!

True story - as we were talking about special memories and the big day ahead of us, we were laughing about how we couldn't believe we spent 8 months dieting and getting ready for the wedding, only to blow it the day before with Mickey D's. My mom starts saying "Oh by this point, surely the girdle..." and broke out bawling before she could finish her sentence! {if you've planned a wedding, you know the stress and joyful emotions can just hit you at the strangest times!} We laughed so hard about it. It was the perfect time to close out our chapter as a family of four.



Cody is actually not a big fan of McDonald's food (more so the lunch/dinner menu as a result of eating it everysingleday over the course of one summer. Thankfully, he still at least {semi} likes the breakfast menu, so I really appreciate that he was willing to go there in order to keep our tradition alive.

I hope you catch the significance of us eating breakfast - on Cody's last day of school!  He's taking his last Hebrew final today and will walk across the stage on Saturday. We are beside ourselves... our whole marriage has been spent with us in grad school. We won't even know what to do with our free time! {justkidding! I have a to-do list up and running!} I'm tearing up now just thinking about graduation - it's been a long time coming and I am so proud of Cody and of us for making it through.


Here's to celebrating the lasts!