Growing up

Last night, as I sat surrounded by 5 of my best friends from college, I found myself evaluating what we've been through, where we've all come from, and where we've all ended up. Growing up is difficult, because along with age comes a loss of innocence. We eventually realize that the world isn't really as wonderful and simple as it was when we were children. We realize that after school, work becomes your life. We experience SO much. We love, we lose, we makes mistakes, we hopefully learn from those mistakes, we change, we grow, some friends come and go, unfortunately, and we learn that only our closest will survive our life experiences and be there with us until the end.

I thought back to where I was in my life when I met these women. 18 years old, college, parties, sororities, classes, dorms. My social life MADE me. Life has changed so much since then. We are all career-oriented women. Some of us married, some of us starting families, buying homes, moving in with significant others, making livings and establishing ourselves. Yet when we talk, its as if nothing has changed in these 5 + years that we have been friends. I feel blessed to have this group of friends, as well as the other close friends that I am lucky enough to still have strong relationships with. These women have laughed with me, cried with me, grown with me, held my hands, held my head when I've cried, and given me pep-talks when I've felt down. I've also learned that although I don't speak with these women on a daily basis as much as I'd like to, I always feel at home with them. These women are part of me and if there's anything that I've learned from growing up, its the importance of holding these people close and never letting them go.

Mixin' it up

After some long, hard thought and discussion with the hubby, we both agreed that it was time to rearrange our living room area to be more "welcoming." For those of you who have visited our house, you know that our couch blocked half of our entry way area and our tv sort of became the focal part of our house, laying along the wall opposite the entry way. It didn't really create a very welcoming space. I had been lurking around on the Target.com website and found an area rug that I immediately knew I had to have! It was brown, and has gold and maroon circle accents on it (which just so happens to be the colors of our living area). I totally almost impulse-bought, on the Target website, because it was on sale for $109, but my hubby insisted that we wait until we could at least see it in person. So, guess what appeared in the Menards ad this week? The same exact rug for a mere $79. Talk about meant to be! So we swung in after an ever-so-busy Saturday, snagged the rug, and completely flipped and rearranged our living room. Let me know what you guys think!

The new view of the living room when you are standing in the entry way

Kitchen! Not much has changed, but just thought I'd post a pic for those of you who haven't seen it.

Another one of the living room

Looking to the entry way from the living room

So those of you who had seen our house before .. what do you think? We think its a HUGE improvement and now we've really found a way to divide the space into separate areas. It's almost like the curse of the open lay out. When we were house hunting, we walked into this house and absolutely fell in love because it had the open floor plan, but was also in an older, more established neighborhood in St. Paul. Decorating and dividing the areas into defined spaces was a little bit more challenging that I had anticipated. I mean, I definitely watch HGTV more than the average human, but applying the things I learned in the shows to my actual house was tough. I can safely say I think the living room is complete. . . near complete. Still on the hunt for a new coffee table.