Business in the Front and Party in the Back

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Danielle

It’s true! This is going to be the mullet of blog posts. What can I say? When you’ve rocked a bad fashion, sometimes you have flashbacks.

Up front: The Business

The votes are in and I have lots to share.

Let me say thank you to everyone that voted in my very first poll. Tyson and I are still trying to decide on the room arrangement and we thoroughly appreciate all of your input.

The poll was split straight down the middle, but you all left some great comments of things to consider.

We are living with the T-ed out arrangement for now, but we are already brainstorming ideas of what we want to do next because of you. You guys are awesome!

I also wanted to thank everyone that voted in the Apartment Therapy Bedroom Retreat Contest.

Although I didn’t make it into the finals, it was still so fun to get to be a part of something like this. If you haven’t already, I would seriously encourage you to check out the remaining four finalists. The bedrooms are STUNNING! Some of them are in the tiniest of spaces, but they are packed with style.

And now on to The Party.

That’s right! Who doesn’t love a good party?! And I’m throwing one. My very first Link Party. I’m partnering up with Victoria from Victoria Elizabeth Barnes and a few of my blogging friends to encourage you to share your favorite finds with us.

Next Tuesday, April 9th, we are asking you to bring your favorite find and share it. Simple, right? You get to define what makes it your favorite find and it doesn’t necessarily have to be crafty or home related. Just share a discovery that has brightened your day. Tell your story.

If you’re a blogger, link up with one or all of us. You know the drill. If you’re a reader, shoot me an email (danielle@storypiece.net) and I’ll get you included in the party. We want everyone who wants to, to join in. Tweet it, Pin it, share it, invite your friends. This is gonna be the party of the year! Or a complete disaster… which always makes for a memorable party too.

Then, next Tuesday, be sure to check out the other creative finds. This is a time to mix and mingle and be inspired. Leave comments if you’re social. Ask questions if you’re curious. But most important to any good party… have fun!

So who’s in? Have you recently come across a favorite find? Have you ever hosted a party just to get friends together to hang out? What’s the worst fashion statement that you’ve sported loud and proud? Let’s be honest… I’m not the only one with photo evidence of some serious 80′s hair, right?

Bedroom Retreat

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Danielle

A few weeks ago, I noticed that Apartment Therapy was accepting submissions for their Bedroom Retreat Contest. Since the only room that I’ve shown on this blog from start to finish was Tessa’s bedroom remodel that we did last summer, I decided to throw my hat into the ring.

And when I didn’t hear back from them, I kinda assumed that it wasn’t what they were looking for and moved on.

So you can imagine my complete and utter surprise when I received an email this week saying that I was in! Now it’s time to sound the horn to all my family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, grocery store clerks, dental hygienist and anyone else:

Head to Apartment Therapy and vote for me!

Here’s the deal: You have to register to vote… but registering is easy. Voting closes April 1st at midnight EST. You should probably go cast your vote now. I can totally wait here while you do…

Getting accepted into the contest has been really cool, but the most amazing part for me has been reading the comments that people have left on there. Some of them are REALLY honest. And I love each and every one of them!

You see, as a kid it had been my dream to be an artist. But putting my art (an extension of myself) out into the world and having it critiqued was really hard. Hard enough that I decided to not chase after that as a career. I retreated. I gave it up. I continued to do things that were creative, but just for me or our family. Minimal risk? Yes, please.

But when I made the decision to start writing a blog, I knew at some point I was going to have to face that fear and be ready to not run from it. Even though the comments I received weren’t horrible, (I’ve heard some serious horror stories from bloggers) I felt a little heat. And I didn’t melt. I even kinda like the crazy pants honesty of it. Who knew?!

So even if you don’t like everything I do or if you don’t vote for me in the contest, we can still be friends. But if you DO vote, we can be BFF’s.

Okay… just kidding….

A little…

Have you ever done a u-turn in life to pursue a childhood dream? What made you take the risk? Have you ever been surprised by an experience in ways you couldn’t imagine?

Please don’t forget to vote!

B is for Birthday

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Danielle

Not too long ago, I caught this sweet post by Kelly at Studio DIY. For her husband’s birthday, she marked the day by having significant people in his life share special memories they had of him. She gave the written memories to him throughout the day with a unique activity to go along with the note. What an amazing gift!

This got me thinking about Tyson’s upcoming birthday… and then it got me thinking about a funny story of my own and I immediately knew what I had to do to celebrate.

You see… when Tyson and I got married, I had the most incredible bachelorette party.

Truly!

My girlfriends planned an entire evening using my soon-to-be last name as an acronym for the nights festivities. For the “D” they took me to the Disneyland Hotel and for the “L” they took me line dancing.

For “G” they pushed me through a grocery store…

… and for “R” they got a guy to put a ring on my finger. An Onion Ring.

I have a long last name, but you get the point; we had a busy night. Maybe you had to be there, but I thought it rocked! We were dressed in Goodwill finds and had a complete blast… no alcohol or strippers required!

So taking this goofball idea, I planned out a full day to celebrate my man. The kids had the day off of school and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to surprise him with something completely out of the ordinary.

Because of some of the things planned, we weren’t able to hit each activity in order to spell out his name. To keep things straight forward, I’ll take you through our day as it unfolded.

S – Slappy Cakes

We started Tyson’s birthday with brunch at this awesome local restaurant. Each table comes with it’s own built-in griddle and you can choose from a variety of items to make your own sweet or savory pancakes. It was so neat to come up with our own crazy combinations and I got lots of ideas for making pancakes at home.

However, my absolute favorite thing on the menu was their chicken fried bacon. Hello!!

Delicious and Dangerous!

What could be next?

N – Neon and Niketown

A trip to Niketown to check out some new running clothes. Nothing like stuffing yourself before looking at exercise clothing, am I right? Niketown is located in the heart of Portland and it use to be a fairly dark store… thus the neon.

Although we struck out on finding anything that the birthday boy couldn’t live without, we did continue wandering around the city and saw some other interesting sites.

T – Tryon Creek

A hike in this beautiful park seemed like a great plan after such a heavy brunch. But honestly, we spent so much time shopping and playing in the city, Tyson now has an official raincheck to hike another day.

Y – Yogurtland

What can I say… “Y” is a hard letter to come up with an activity for. But building our own frozen concoctions proved to be way more fun than a traditional cake.

O – Oz

We ended the day with a trip to the movies. Oblivion and Olympus Has Fallen are not out in theaters yet so we went to see the Wizard instead. Oz the Great & Powerful was visual eye candy and cheese-ball goodness.

Turning 40 something was action packed and made Tyson feel undeniably special. For a man who would rather have shared experiences than a bunch of presents, this was the perfect day filled with lots of silly memories.

So tell me… Have you had a unique party that was like no other? Do you have a favorite birthday tradition? Have you ever tried Chicken Fried Bacon? I’m telling you… it’s A-MAH-ZING!

Bloglovin’

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Danielle

Between switching the blog over to wordpress.org and then taking a few weeks off to be with family, I’m just now realizing that I’m no longer getting notifications from some of my favorite blogs when they post. So I’ve made a conscious effort to round up all the blogs I love and start following them through Bloglovin’.

If you haven’t checked out the site (and mobile app.) you definitely should. It’s super easy to read and manage. It is set-up so that you can “follow” most blogs like you would friends in any other social medium. You can then read them onsite, jump over to the blog and leave comments. My favorite feature is that you can mark the posts as read or unread if you want to comeback to something. You can also “like” a post which is like bookmarking your favorites.

It’s honestly taken me some time to fully embrace trying something new, but the more I use it, the more I enjoy it. I think they have the absolute best reader if you follow multiple blogs and I can’t recommend it enough.

And as for our next great adventure… well, Evan snapped this pic of his Dad while I was nursing a headache. Looks like we have a busy weekend with molding ahead of us.

How do you manage the blogs that you follow? What is the latest technology that is enhancing your life? Got any big plans on deck for the weekend? Looking forward to sharing all the installed trim with you next week.

Have a great weekend!

Storypiece

Stories About Life & Home

Category Archives: life

Business in the Front and Party in the Back

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