To the Island we go

Tomorrow (!!) we are headed up north to Canada to stay in Michael's family cabin in the Thousand Islands.

I cannot tell you how excited I am to be up there for a whole week - boating around the St. Lawrence River, enjoying the crisp clear weather, and just simply taking a break from life for a bit. It's been at least 2 years since I've had a full week's vacation from work, and to say I've needed it recently is an understatement.

It's kind of hard to describe how amazing it is up there, but it really is some kind of dreamland. The cabin is super old and rickety (occasionally we see bugs and mice), we shower in the outdoor showers, and we are either wearing a swimsuit or sweatpants 24/7. So I wouldn't exactly call it glamorous, but it is seriously the best vacation from the hustle and bustle of normal life. We will have no wifi or cell service, which I'm about 90% excited / 10% freaking out about. It will be good for me. To go whole days with no email, no instagram, no facebook, and just BE. I have a stack of books to read - The Paris Wife, The Guernsey Potato Peel Literary Society, and The Book Thief, to name a few - and for the most part I'll either be doing that or exploring out on the water. Cooper is going with us, and he is going to have the time of his life exploring the island, swimming, and running around with his favorite buddy Snickers. I. Can't. Wait.

I'll be posting photos on Instagram when I can, but I don't really know how often that will be. I'll for sure be blogging our trip when return!

>> Have you ever been to the Thousand Islands? Do you have any small town recommendations for exploring along the St. Lawrence River? Last time I was up there we went to Clayton, Alexandria, and Gananoque, but I'm open to exploring new places! I even thought about making the 2.5 hour drive up to Montreal since I've never been. Would it be worth it?

Roasted pepper, goat cheese, & basil pasta

Happy Friday! Thank goodness it's the weekend, amiright?! The weather here has suddenly cooled to a beautiful 80-degrees-and-sunny for the last couple days, which is unheard of mid-July in North Carolina. We have been eating out on our back patio in the evenings, exercising outside, and overall just enjoying the lack of humidity. It's been lovely. It also makes it especially hard to sit in an office all day, hence the strong TGIF emotions I've been feeling all day!

4th of July Weekend

How was your 4th of July weekend? Ours was fantastic. I loved that the holiday fell on a weekend this year! The weather was unbelievably gorgeous and unusually not humid, so we got to spend most of it outside and I have to say I loved it. I can't remember a 4th of July with such amazing weather!

Girls Weekend in New York City

Back in April, my mom, sisters, and I got to realize a dream that we've had for awhile - spend a weekend together in New York. And it was everything we'd hoped it would be! It was a quick trip, but we had two full days to eat and tour our way around the city, and that was enough to do a lot. I flew in from North Carolina, and they drove up from DC and we met at our hotel on Saturday morning to drop off our things and get started on our day! We had the best time just being together, having girl talk and seeing bits of the big city. I think we need to make this happen more than once in our lifetime.

Hello!

Okay, so it's been a while since I blogged. Like over two months. I didn't really plan on taking an extended break from blogging, it just kind of naturally happened and I went with it. There's no reason for me to write a forced post if my heart isn't in it, amiright?

So I'm stopping in to say hello! And let you know that I will be posting some life updates sometime soon. I can tell you some of what I've been up to: working a lot (work has been pretty stressful lately, to say the least), playing with my puppy, enjoying the glorious warmer weather, and doing a bit of jet-setting (the above photo is from a quick trip to Ocean Isle last weekend). I hope to recap all of that in the next couple weeks! It's good to be back!

High 5 for Friday

I haven't done one of these posts in a while! I decided I'd do a low 5 along with my high 5. I'll start with the lows and build up from there.

This week's lows:

1. I found 4 gray hairs this week - eek! Feeling really old. I may have to start dyeing my hair in the near future.
2. I cleaned the whole main level the other night - vacuumed, cleaned the powder room, straightened up. Thanks to the Coop man, not even 2 days later it looked like it needed a thorough cleaning again.
3. This has been a looong week at work. I am so ready for a vacation.
4. The rain. And the cold. I am just SICK of it! So ready for spring to come and STAY.
5. Since we were out of town last weekend and got home late Sunday night, the laundry and grocery shopping have yet to be caught up on... I am thinking it probably won't happen tonight either, even though it should.

How I Use Pinterest

a pin from my "decor" board

For some reason, Pinterest is something that I don't spend much time on. It seems to be an addiction for a lot of girls I know. I have friends who literally scroll through Pinterest on their phones throughout the day and talk about spending their evenings getting lost on it. But for some reason, I rarely ever get on to just browse. I'm not really sure why, because I love some of the inspiration I get when I'm browsing. However, I think a lot of time it makes me feel lazy. I look at pictures of food that I really want to make in my kitchen or house updates I want to tackle, and I feel lazy just sitting there on the computer instead of doing those things. So for the most part I don't spend a ton of time just browsing on Pinterest.

BUT this is not to say that I do not use it. I think I might just use it in a little bit different way than other people do. Whenever I go to Pinterest, it is with an intent purpose. Most of my pins are not re-pins, they are pinned from things that I'm looking at out on the web. I probably pin at least one article or recipe daily. Pinterest has become a handy tool in my kitchen, for design inspiration, and for life. I think it is an awesome central location for idea sharing and it's crazy to think that just a few years ago it didn't exist! Here are some ways I use it to keep my life organized.

Cooper

So if you follow me on Instagram, you saw that we recently adopted a puppy! Meet Cooper.

He is a shepherd chow mix (we think) but we also think there are some other breeds in there. I think we will find out more as he gets older and more features and behaviors become prevalent.