Decorating Update

I've been working on a couple little projects in the master bedroom. I'm happy with how they turned out so I thought I'd share...First, I made a starburst mirror. I followed directions from this awesome home bio. It was pretty easy and I love the way it turned out.First, I went to Michaels to pick up some supplies. I got a round wood shape thing for the base, dowel rods, 4 packs of small mirrors, a bigger mirror, hot glue sticks, and silver leaf paint.
First I drew on the back of the round wood piece and split it into 16 equal-ish pieces. Then I glued the dowel rods on with hot glue.Then I glued bamboo skewers in between the dowels (I already had those at home). Then I attempted to silver leaf it, which was a major fail, so I just used the silver leaf paint and that was WAY EASIER. Then I glued on the mirrors.

When I was done, I attached a picture hanging thing and that was it!

Then it was time to attack our Boring Beige master bedroom. Picture beige carpet, beige walls, beige bedding, black furniture, and white curtains. I was going to post a picture, but I don't have one right now because I need to work out this iPhoto issue.

One way to ditch the bedding was to add color. But most of the bedding I like is neutral.

Here's the bedding I like from Anthropologie:
The duvet cover + 2 shams comes to $306. Yeah.
Here's the other bedding I wanted from Anthro for something like $370...


Then one day, I was walking through Target and saw a duvet cover and shams that looked an awful lot like Anthro Option 1.... but on clearance for $40!! SCORE!!

To add color, I decided to just take a risk and paint a bold accent wall. I wanted some kind of turquoise, but something more bold than the silver sage in the guest room. I decided on Tropicana Cabana from Benjamin Moore.

It's hard to get the color to look right with the camera on my iphone, but this is the best I could do. And BTW I just realized I never took the tags off the lamps. Oops.


This picture is probably the most accurate as far as color goes:


I wouldn't consider it "finished" yet but we're on our way! I LOVE the accent wall! On the other wall, there's a dresser that needs to be painted black, and I want to hang some black shelves and add some accessories. I need something else on this side too... maybe I'll recover the lamp shades, or add some accessories or throw pillows. The lamps look really tiny in these pictures, which is something I never thought about before. They are very practical so they'll stay for now. If anyone has any ideas, please share! :)

Go Me!

Fourth place! Sweet!

I had a terrible 4 1/2 mile run tonight. I kept going even though it completely sucked, and after 3 miles it got better. I did 8 this weekend (not terrible, but a far cry from last weekend's 12). I also started writing down everything I eat again cause it's time to lose another 20 pounds. Go away, fat. I hate you. I'll probably start posting a lot more updates to try to hold myself more accountable.

I Did Not Forget About You, Little Blog

I've been really busy since school started. Basically I get up, get ready for work, go to work, come home and run, cook dinner, do more work, and go to sleep. Then I wake up at about 2 or 3am from some work-related nightmare and attempt to get more sleep. Then the next day I'm even more tired. Repeat.

When work first started back up, running was a nightmare. My calves were burning, my legs felt like lead, and I could hardly fight my way through 3 miles. Fortunately, my weekend runs have gone phenomenally well and weekday runs have gotten better. Last weekend I ran 11 miles! Without stopping at all! I ran 82 miles in July and 74 in August.

I am in need of some gear. My iPod arm band is awful. My sweat gets in and has nearly broken the iPod twice. Also my hydration belt doesn't hold enough water for 10+ miles. I need either a camelback or one of those hydration belts that holds more, and I really need to figure it out soon. It also needs a zipped pocket to hold my phone and emergency powerbar. If anyone has any recs, please share!

The last Nike+ challenge ended, and I ended up in the top 10 which I was thrilled about. The new challenge started Aug. 15th and I'm currently in 6th. SWEET!!!!

I'm also joining a challenge that I co-worker told me about. The goal is to run or walk 300 miles between Labor Day and New Year's Day. That's a really hard one because it gets so hard to run outside when it's cold and snowy. I need to figure out if I should get a punch card to the rec center again or look for some sort of cheap gym membership somewhere. I don't want to pay for a gym membership when I don't want to use it from May-September.

Food is going so-so. I'm doing better on lunches since I'm back at work and am doing better with drinking water. I still struggle though. Running burns a ton of calories but also makes me REALLY hungry.