One Room Challenge: Week 5

Friends, I have a confession. (Cue dancing Usher gif- circa 2006) I haven't made much progress on our nursery this week. We are in the final countdown to get done with the school year. 3.25 weeks, if you were wondering! And it's been a struggle to get all of us to the finish line. I've also decided to start taking on converting from my current blogging host to WordPress (Gods of Blogs, save me.) I think it is going to be a great move once I get it all figured out! I'm getting there! Also, it has been a beautiful week for weather in Colorado so we've spent a lot of time on yard work and cleaning up the patio for dinners and entertaining outside on the patio. 

So, here's a photo final list of all the things that we need to get finished. For actual progress check out week one, week 2, week 3,  week 4 for all the changes and updates. Check out all the guest participants this week and see the amazing work they've done!

I' would like to get more of the wall art set up and established. We are waiting for now until after our Baby Shower to purchase or frame anything major because we aren't sure what we might get for gifts or what other vintage pieces we may come across. We are still aching to put up the vintage National Park travel photos.

Remember these from my inspiration post way back when?

source

We're working on finding on a dresser or hutch of some sort for this area and have been missing out on all the vintage style ones we've located on Craigslist, so that is still a journey. But we've gotten the globe and salt lamp! 

28 Facts About Me On My 28th Birthday

Oh man, my 28th birthday is today! Friday the 13th. Whatwhat! I was also born on Friday the 13th, which was also Good Friday that year. Ha. I always think that is a fun fact about me. Especially when I tell my freshmen students, they get a little nervous. A good spot to have them in!

Just kidding!

Now that it is basically my birthday, here are 28 random factoids about me you may not know:

Nursery & The One Room Challenge

I'm linking up to the Spring One Room Challenge 2018 with one of my best blogging friends Sam at Away She Went Blog. She always inspires me to do the things so, here we go. What better reason, right?

We've decided to turn our second bedroom from a guest room/office into a nursery for the baby when it gets here. We luckily have a great landlord who lets us customize our space and, since we're staying for sure another year, we figure we may as well make baby comfy in the meantime. Right now, it is a hot filthy mess. Luckily we've got a few months left to get it all together.

Full disclosure: The following photos may trigger you into organizing your entire house. If this mood strikes you please let me know in the comments below and you can use that passion on this room! just kidding of course... but... here is a picture of the room as it is currently:

5 Things to Know About All This Messy Business

Moving away from my home town has been quite the experience. There have been so much to learn and so many new roads and directions to figure out! There's also been learning the ropes of my  teaching job at my new school and designing new coursework and curriculum for classes. We have way more freedom to do different activities and lessons here, but that means I have to build or rebuild a lot of it from scratch. Because of these tumultuous changes I've taken a break from blogging and we have tried to focus on our new life here.

Now! I realized just how much I miss it and am going to start all over, even if I never become a mega popular blogger where I can leave my day job to communicate and write all day with you guys, at least I have a spot where I can have a great time talking about things that are important to myself and others at this stage. So! Here are 5 things you need to know about This Messy Business moving forward into the new life and phase of this little bloggy and I'm excited for a fresh start!

Back in 2010 

In 2013.

1.  I am a 27 year old high school English teacher and Speech & Debate coach! I've been teaching high school for 5 years now.  I love all things reading and talking. I am hoping to incorporate more book reviews, suggestions, must read lists, and even some lesson inspiration. 
2. Brennan and I are engaged! We are going to be getting married on June 15, 2019 and I gotta tell you... I love wedding planning. If I were to forgo teaching I would totally go into the wedding planning business. It's awesome. 
   
3. I started this blog when I was 19 or 20 to document remodeling and renovating my 3 bedroom 2 bath manufactured home in Grand Junction, Colorado. We sold it in under a week in July 2017.  You could read all about how I staged it to have it move quickly here.
   
   
4. We are primarily a plant-based family! We are working to shift all our products to cruelty free and vegan. Brennan has been vegan for 4 years and I have been working to transition into that same lifestyle.  We love when we get to do a CSA with a farm in the summer, hopefully we find on like what we had in Grand Junction here in Denver! 
   
5. We now live in Denver, Colorado and it is a huge change! We are hoping to go on more adventures that I can document and share with you, try out different awesome restaurants, and find cool neighborhoods. We want to purchase a home in the next 3 years so we need to explore the right place for us.  Right now, we love renting. Read all about why here!
   

I'm hoping reinvigorating the blog and widening my scope from the previous years will make this a place where I can enjoy others, collaborate, and share some fun pieces of our lives. What do you think makes a successful blog? What do you like to read about?

Summer Blog Projects

Now that the school year is finally over and I have a couple months before we start back up I really want to focus on getting some things done on the blog. Not just doing projects for posts but actually doing a few things for the bloggy itself.

For example once I have my #totallyfly new blog look custom made by Jess at JWDesign I feel like the rest of the blog needs to represent, so the pages need a total overhaul.

The project page isn't the best at this point, right now it sort of looks like this still:

That is totally boring. Terribly uninformative. The links are all there but I feel as though adding in pictures would make a huge difference. Especially if those pictures are the links. What do you think?

Another thing that I want to do is expand my readership base. Obviously I can do that by linking up all over the place for various projects especially now that I've been posting consistently for a couple of months. I love love love meeting people like Sam at the Junk House and Brie at Breezy Pink Daisies. I just feel as though there are so many more people out there I would love to meet.

The house tour page also needs some updating:

What are some of your favorite things, as readers, about looking at House Tour pages? What sort of layout would be best for you? I hope to make that the "thing" about my blog is something that really works for the readers as well as for me.

What other suggestions would you make for updating the blog over the next few months? What would make your experience better overall? More Facebook or other social media interaction?

Tell me what you think, and as always, thank you so much for reading my lil blog. :)

A Little Less Mess, A Lot More Fabulous!

 

 

 

 

 

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I am super excited to show everyone my new wonderful and amazing bloggy! I had it custom designed by Jessica at JW Design. To be honest I'm not sure why I put it off for so long. It was so easy. We just emailed back and forth and she was super fabulous and super fast. She also put up with me saying things like "Can we make a 1 and 4 baby?" I mean... I hadn't even boughten her dinner yet. hehe. jk.

Check out all the amazing new updates! I plan on working on the pages individually as well to get them up to par.

 

 

 

 

My favorite thing is the play on font and color in the title. For instance the "messy" being a messy font and the "b" standing out... so it's sort of like "this messy B." Love that!

Oh! And don't forget to go over to my side bar to update my button on your blog if you want! It's pretty adorable also.

 

 

I hope that you all love my blog as much as I do and have a fabulous week! I have a bunch of updates headed your way. :)