HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

My favorite pic from the night.  Us with the Pape's. 

Halloween was celebrated a few days early this year at our friend Dave & Audrey's annual Halloween bash.  This year they did a new spin on things (literally *rimshot*) by doing a trolley hop.  And hop we did!  We started out in BBC St. Matthews, which was great for us being that we live a few blocks away!  We imbibed at several different locations around the city going next to Nachbar which is sort of a hipster bar, next onto Patricks, your traditional Irish Pub.  Next was something for the ladies so we could get our dance on at Flanagan's on Bardstown Road.  The night finally came to an end wrapping up the loop back in St. Matthews at Molly Malone's.  All in all the night was great fun and Halloween once again tops my list for things to look forward to.  Great costumes this year by everyone involved... a crowd favorite was definitely "Keith Stone" as interpreted by Ronnie Eve.  Michael and Ronnie were representing two competing beer brands, Keystone and Pabst Blue Ribbon (Pibber) respectively.  If you haven't learned the legend of Tom Raper, please see this mega-Patriotic tribute here.  Another absolutely classic costume was Chaz Bono.  This costume was so dead on it was scary.  Chaz's perfect Dancing With the Stars ensemble accompanied by dancer, Lacey.  If you don't know what the real life versions look like, please Google it!  <--- There I just Google'd it for you.  I hope everyone had/has a safe and fun Halloween!  I hope to keep on celebrating tonight by handing out candy and watching a scary movie or two!  Any recommendations?

The Trolley!  Starting at BBC St. Matthews

Me with "Keith Stone" himself

 

 

Chaz himself on the trolley

"Tom Raper" and I

JR from Dallas, Robin and Waldo

Fall fun!

Creepy Cupcakes!

Zombies!!!

I get excited about Halloween.  I mean, really excited. Child-like excited.  It's my absolute favorite holiday and time of  year.  What's not to love?  Candy, autumn leaves, dressing up, scary stuff!  It's got it all.  I have had the house all Halloween-o-fied for about 3 weeks now, and now the countdown to festivities is only 1 week away.  Michael's undying love for cupcakes prompted a baking spree yesterday.  These were no ordinary cupcakes either, they were zombie cupcakes!  Thanks to an adorable cupcake kit from World Market we enjoyed chocolate cupcakes with green icing, bone shaped sprinkes, and heads, legs, and arms of zombies poking out.  We had planned to carve pumpkins but football got in the way and that will have to be tabled until another day this week.  Gotta spread out the fun. 

A couple of weeks ago we enjoyed a final warm weekend at the farm and got to enjoy some beautiful scenery.  It wasn't quite peak leaf time, but still managed to capture some great shots.  I got a beautiful one of the dogs that I'm going to have to get framed.  It topped out at around 80 degrees and was unfortunately probably the last we'll see of those temperatures until 2012!  A few little surprises also showed up at the farm.  A spunky little Corgi named Turbo, and a feisty little Dachshund we call Shorty.  These dogs have adopted my Mom and she has definitely adopted them.  Don't want to get our hopes up but after close to a month it looks like these little guys are there to stay.  And who wouldn't be with a steady supply of food, treats and toys!  Our dogs Pete and Rigby seemed to get along with them pretty well...but Pete still has that "only child" mentality.  Can't fault him for that. 

Gorgeous shot of the dogs

Us with Turbo and Pete

Love those fall leaves

Meet Shorty!  Worlds cutest Dachshund

Shorty and Turbo - two awesome pups!

The big costume shindig is this Saturday and this year a trolley is taking us around to different watering holes around the city.  I can't wait.  I think it will be even more fun than last year.  Don't want to give away our costumes yet, but Michael has a pretty clever one lined up.  I hope everyone has a safe, happy, and SCARY Halloween!!!

Living Room Wall Project: COMPLETE

BAM!  Wall ledges up.  Ignore Halloween knick  knacks.

Ledge, throw back door knob, Parisian print

Ferguson modeling the living room.

Parisian prints in dining room.

Oil painting finally hung.

 

In love with this wall clock!  

Finally...those bare walls were killing me.  As you can see, a major improvement from the bare walls a few posts ago.  Now...on to the next project:  Master Bedroom!

Year in Review

But you're saying, "Hey!  2011 isn't over yet!"  Well, I have no more travels planned and that's what I'm  mostly reviewing...it's technically the 4th quarter anyway.  So get off my back.  You weren't on my back?  Maybe I'm just paranoid.

Overall I'd say this past year has been a success.  It's also been a decent year for travel.   A trip to Louisiana before my Mom and Stepdad retired back to the Midwest, Seattle twice in one month, Las Vegas to celebrate my 30th birthday, a week on the beach in Oak Island, NC, and finally a long Labor Day weekend to visit Jennifer in Boston.  I have covered this country from coast to coast in 2011 and I've had a great time.  No international travel this year but I'm hoping to fix that in 2012!

Click to enlarge

Another huge event took place this year, I purchased a house in my new hometown of Louisville, KY.  Not knowing the area that well, we rented for a year so I could find a part of the city that jived with my needs.  Leaving the north side of Indianapolis wasn't easy...it's repeatedly voted as one of the best places to live in the country.  Also, the fastest growing.  I'm liking the east end of Louisville almost as well.  It definitely beats I-69 N traffic!

I also left my longtime comfort zone of being a sales person, to moving to the operations side of things managing our marketing department.  I'm really enjoying not having to travel all of the time, but do sometimes miss the thrill of the close!  No complaints though, I work for a great company full of great people.  I hope I'm always fortunate enough to be a part of the tech industry.

Here's to looking back on a fantastic 2011, and hoping that 2012 is half as good!

Buddah in the middle of a swamp - Avery Island, Louisiana

At the famous fish market- Seattle, WA

30th Birthday - Las Vegas, NV

July 2011 - Oak Island, NC

Labor Day weekend - Boston, MA - Harvard Yard

Living Room Wall Project

Thanks to Esty I've discovered a treasure trove of new art for the house.  A French artist called Coco de Paris repurposes antique 1920s Parisian periodicals for her canvasses:

Thumbnail versions, cropped some of the images off

"Mixed media of my original artwork in real acrylic hand painting and ink print. It's on an authentic antique paper from around 1920s of the famous Parisian magazine “La Petit Illustration” , a weekly French literary journal that published plays, novels and short stories.

Every creation is unique, you will receive the image as you see in the picture. Every artwork is handsigned and dated." 

At a going rate of about $10.00, I wasn't expecting much.  When I received these beauties in the mail (I ordered 6) I was blown away at the quality.  The pictures on the Etsy store do not do them justice, you really have to see them in person.  I was having a difficult time finding frames for these that I liked.  I ended up ordering online because when you're looking for 6 nice frames that sure adds up!  Kohls  had a buy one get one for $1 sale so I ended up getting six of these to put them in:

 

The idea is to incorporate lots of ledges and elements to go with the prints in the living room.  I've picked up several things here and there.  Large letters as seen below, ceramic figurines, smaller frames, and the like. Here is a few examples of my inspiration:

I can't wait to get this living room wall project finished!  Present home of empty walls.  Future home of awesomeness: