Happy New Year, everyone!  I haven’t posted in a while but with good reason – as it turns out, we’re buying a house and things have been pretty crazy! Somewhere around Thanksgiving we started mulling over the possibility of shopping for a house. This was not in our original plan, but on a whim we started evaluating current real estate prices which when combined with incredibly low interest rates and the extension of the appealing first-time home buyer tax credit, …

In my family, we still delight in crowding around my mother’s kitchen for Thanksgiving dinner. I swear, my mom is the best cook in the entire world. (And no, there is not a chance I’m even slightly biased.) Somewhere along the way over the last few years, it became my job to make sure to show up with dessert and a bottle (or three) of good wine. I’m more than happy to oblige. I love baking, but it’s simply not …

I have always loved the idea of a gallery wall in our house and as it is, there are a whole lot of framed photos in our house. For me, photos are a major part of making a house a home. And I take a ridiculous number of photos on any given day at any given event. I’m that friend who people tend to groan at because I’m insisting on yet another group photo. The result of that though is …

For a lot of newlyweds the first few months of marriage are spent nesting – carefully unpacking and displaying wedding gifts, inviting friends over for dinner parties, contemplating home decor and getting those new pots and pans dirty in the kitchen. Well, at the end of this week we’ll officially have been married for three months and I can happily admit to largely ignoring all of that thus far. While many of our gifts are stowed away, I still have …

My husband is turning 30 in December and as the party-loving wife, it sounds like the perfect occasion to host one heck of a surprise party. As the husband is a huge sports fan (baseball and football in particular) and an avid coach (both baseball and football…go figure), I’ve decided that a stadium-themed tailgate-style party is definitely in order. Luckily for me, all of his teams (the Atlanta Braves, the Buffalo Bills and the teams he coaches at school) all …

One of my bridesmaids in our recent wedding is literally my oldest friend. We started at the same day care at age 2 and even attended the same preschool before ending up in the same grade school classes every year from 4th through 8th grades. Somewhere along the way, she met my cousin and they both developed junior high crushes, although all the way through high school they were both dating this person or that person and never each other. …

Just about 11 months ago now, I made the decision to come out of the fat kid closet* and own up to having lost a massive amount of weight. It was a major move for me. I found incredible strength and support in sharing my journey with an incredibly loving online community and, in turn, great motivation to keep moving forward toward my weight and fitness goals as I approached our July wedding. To this day, I think opening up …

A month later, the cat is out of the bag. I got married and I didn’t change my name. (*insert shock and awe *) I will come right out and admit that it I find it rather insane that in 2009, people still assume that I changed my name just because I got married. Honestly, in the last month I have found myself outright stunned by the large contingency of people who are taken aback upon learning that, no, I …

Fair warning – there is just about nothing healthy when it comes to this recipe. But, honestly, this was too good not to share. I actually made this last fall, so while it may seem a bit premature to be planning for apple season, keep this one in your back pocket for when the cooler weather descends upon us. Here in Upstate New York, I’ve already noticed just the slightest hint of orange kissing the edges of leaves on a …

Hi everyone! Let me start off by saying that I am thrilled to be here blogging for Living as a freshly minted newlywed! For the last seven months I have been blogging about my wedding planning adventures on EAD Weddings, one of my absolute favorite wedding blogs, and on my own blog, The Sweetest Occasion. It a sincere joy to now cross over to share my nesting adventures with all of you! My husband* and I have been married just …