Things I'm Looking Forward to Thursday

It's easy to get wrapped up in the whirlwind of your day to day and find yourself in a bit of a lull. I think the weather warming up (here atleast) has helped improve my mood but I think there is still some post-winter blues hanging around.

One thing that has helped combat the rainy days and moods is thinking about everything I have to look forward to in the upcoming weeks and months.

So here are a few things that I focus on to keep myself in high spirits -

- Engineer Husband and I celebrate our 2nd anniversary on Monday! I cant believe it has been two years married and eight years together total. We have big weekend plans of a fancy dinner out, a Harry Potter movie marathon (probably more for me as I've been reading the books finally!) and general hanging out and celebrating together.

- Pretty dresses, pencil skirts, sandals and open toed shoes

- Derby Day at the Horse Races! I've already been keeping an eye out for a new dress and a big floppy hat to wear to the Jockey Club. The weather gets a little prettier every day so hopefully in a couple of weeks it will be absolutely perfect.

- Patio sitting, rolling the car windows down, and opening up all the doors and windows to the house to get as much fresh air as possible. I bet I can convince Engineer Husband to fire up the grill if we get a particularly warm night.

- All the trees suddenly turning green seemingly overnight - also all of the flowers popping up everywhere. Tulips have already given us a sneak peek but I can't wait for azaleas and hydrangeas and everything in between.

Those are just a few things that have been occupying my mind and keeping me distracted and filled with happy thoughts. 

What are you most looking forward to? 

Every Day Favorites

As much as I do love trying new beauty products and playing with the infinite options, there are always a handful of products that I return to over and over again. Below are a few of my favorite drug-store items - minus one but it's not a bank-breaker and it really is awesome so I thought I would go ahead and include it! 

1 - Maybelline Falsies Mascara - In between Sephora mascara splurges I always gravitate back to Maybelline mascaras. The pink and green tube works great but the Falsies line is my absolutely favorite. 

2 - Opi Rapidry Quick Dry Topcoat - I took a chance and ordered this from Amazon a few weeks ago after messing up multiple home manicures in one night. It's not that I'm not patient per say..it's really that I can't sit still and there is a certain fluffy dog that always seems to be begging for a scratch behind the ears after a manicure. Woops! This seems to help a TON - just wait 45 seconds after your final coat (and base coat, just to ensure the shine) and voila! Your nails are dry. I am still super impressed by this.

3 - Essie Fifth Avenue polish - A little more pink in person versus the image, but I wore this shade as the first post-winter-blueish gray color I previously sported and this bright color was fun and put me in a good mood. Great color to wear later into spring and also summer!

4 - Essie A Crewed Interest - I love this soft pink shade. I think it will work on all skin tones and is the perfect spring color without being too sweet. I've been wearing this all week and it am still very pleased with it.

5 - Almay Color + Care Lip Gloss - I've tried several of the different shades and they are all very pretty and sheer enough to not scare you away but Rosy Lipped has been the color I have bought repeatedly. Works great even on dry lips and provides a really pretty shine. I will keep buying this until they discontinue! (Please Almay, please don't discontinue!)

6 - St. Ive's Oatmeal and Shea Butter Lotion - I use the shower gel version of this as well and I love both equally. Anytime I try to stray, nothing ever compares. I love the clean, fresh scent and it helps keep even wintry dry skin nice and moisturized. I don't care if it's not very fancy - it smells amazing and works well so why change!

Hopefully the weather is warming up near you and also that you found a little every day inspiration to amp up the spring season! If you have favorite every day products, I hope you'll leave a comment and let me know!

A little spring for the door way

We rarely use our front door. That's my excuse for not realizing that we still had an ice skating penguin doormat out, atleast. 

Still, I had no real proactive plans to remedy this situation until Engineer Husband announced on Friday night that he wanted to peruse Home Depot for some supplies for the yard. Wanting to get out of the house, I joined him. And there - my inspiration was found!

I just happened to spot this bright doormat as we were headed to the sprinkler repair section. I love that it ties into our red door!

Still dreaming about my new doormat and our red door, I woke up Saturday and decided I wanted to make my own door wreath! I decided this especially after looking up wreaths on Etsy and seeing the $100+ prices. 

After two hours of back and forth between all of the faux flower aisles, I finally decided on this mixture - which admittedly is a lot more summery than I originally anticipated. 

To break it down, the door hanger was $19.99 and almost all of the faux flowers were $1.99 but at 50% off which definitely helped. If you look real closely you can also see the striped burlap I picked out for the hanger which was $7.99. I definitely recommend waiting for some sort of 50% off sale. All in all, this ran me around $60 but compared to the $100+ wreaths on Etsy and similar sites, I figured this was pretty good!

And here was the outcome -

Not bad for some faux flowers, right? I have a mini chalkboard that I attached after the fact - it's nice being able to write fun little messages! 

Not entirely sure how this will hold up being outside but I plan on trying to remember to bring it in when it rains or is especially windy. I think it should be okay but I'll be happy to report back.

Hope you enjoy!