This weekend, we finally got started on building the outdoor kitchen we’ve been dreaming of for 3 years.

When we planned out our wood plank stamped concrete patio, we knew that we wanted to add a caddy cornered type of built-in grill. My brother and sister-in-law built their own grill and bar area when they moved into their house about 5 years ago and used BBQ Coach. They sell grill frames, complete with plans, instructions and videos. You basically choose the shape you want, along with how many appliance cut outs, and they send you the parts. When we were ready to pour our patio 2 years ago, we went on the site and chose the New Yorker BBQ Island. With the measurements in hand, we decided how large to make the one curve of our patio.

(via BBQ Coach)

We assembled the frame this weekend, so we finally got to see how it was all going to work out!

I don’t have many pictures or much info to share at this point, but I figured I’d try to keep the progress up to date…And avoid a giant, overwhelming (mostly for me) “after” post. I admittedly did zero work on this, since I was with Easton all weekend while Mike and our friend Steve worked away. Steve’s sister is married to Mike’s brother so he’s kind of related and was more than willing and excited to help us out.

They spent the whole weekend just getting the frame up due to confusing directions and a whole lot of parts.

The frame was 3 rectangular pieces, connected by two 45 degree angles.

The good thing was that a) whenever Mike had a question he could ask my brother, who had built one of these in a different shape a few years ago and b) BBQ Coach responded so quickly to Mike’s emails that it was practically real-time support.

This is where we stand at the moment.

We finally brought out our patio furniture and though the island looks huge, it really works well with the size of the patio. I’ll have to take an aerial shot from Easton’s room one of these days, but we even have room to keep space behind the grill to add some bar stools. We could have done without that element, but we wanted it to feel nice and cozy out there.

Up next we have to decide how thick of a counter top we’re adding to finish out the frame. We want to do a concrete one and bought the thicker steel to support it. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out how to make one, or my concern, how to actually get it up on the frame since it’s going to be so heavy.

Then it’s adding concrete board, stone to the bottom, a backsplash and appliances. Who tackles a giant project two weeks before hosting a large first birthday party and having out of town guests? We do. I accepted a while ago that we are not logical thinkers. I just roll with it now.

We have a lot of major projects brewing around here. One of them is a first birthday party and another one is this…

We finally pulled the trigger and ordered a build your own outdoor kitchen kit. That picture is one I Photoshopped for our “planning it out” post 2 years ago. It shipped today and we may be certifiably insane.

But it should be fun, right? RIGHT??

::deep breaths::

Thank you all for your encouraging words about my last post. I think that for now, I’m going to stick with the good ol’ post when I want to/have time to. No one will be pinning this as “How to build a successful blog!”, but eh, it’s what’s going to work for me. Flying by the seat of my pants vs. rigid planning. It’s how I roll.

We’re currently knee deep in planning some landscaping out back and a first birthday party. The landscaping could probably take over a 6 part series here, so I’ll have to save that story for another day. For Easton’s party, I spent the last two nights designing invitations all by myself. Yes, my Photoshop skills are growing leaps and bounds at a snail’s pace. Maybe I’ll share what I came up with once they arrive and I know that I didn’t totally mess up.

I also need to realize that sometimes short posts, posts with only words or posts with only pictures are okay. Instagram takes over a lot of those types of posts these days, but it doesn’t mean that if I feel like I only have a short thought, I can’t drop in here and share it. Today is one of those days!

I dropped in on the West Elm website to check if the Tali window panels had gone on sale yet (nope) and I somehow ended up browsing furniture. Here are my 3 random finds…

1. Graham Glider

I felt like I had to shout it from the rooftops for anyone who has asked me about our Lacey glider, which was discontinued. Guys, West Elm sells a glider!! It’s $799 so it’s pricey, but given the amount of time each day that I sit in ours, I think I would buy this in a heartbeat. Since it’s pricier, I would probably forgo the ottoman because I don’t use it all the time, but it’s nice to have if you can swing it.

2. Rustic Dining Chairs

In another post for another day, our kitchen table set is falling apart. You get what you pay for and well, it was cheap from a big box furniture store. I have been drooling over these Rustic Dining Chairs for a few weeks and even scoured Craigslist for used ones. No luck yet.

3. Wood Tiled Nightstand

This is another piece I am madly in love with and our current nightstands leave so much to be desired. Dark bedroom walls, DIY upholstered headboard and these babies? I’m going to dream about it tonight.

One of the contestants in East Coast Creative’s Creating with the Stars competition made one of these. It was amazing, but I’m not sure I’m that much of a dedicated DIYer.

That wraps up my random finds this week. Anyone else think that West Elm is killing it in the furniture department lately?

ps- West Elm didn’t pay me for this, I’m just browsing around

It’s me.

I didn’t plan to formally say this, but I also didn’t plan to take a break for as long as I did. So, yeah I needed a blogging break.

I hate to bog you all down with the “I’m busy”, woe-is-blogger type of posts, but I also know that many of you can relate. I’ll start out by saying that being a working parent is hard, scratch that, being any parent is hard. Mommy guilt is a killer. I’ve said it before when my maternity leave ended and it’s gotten better in a lot of ways. But in many others ways, it’s still hard. This blog is one of those ways.

I still struggle with how to fit this blog into my “new” life. Don’t get me wrong, me, myself and I love everything about what I write here. I will always be watching HGTV, browsing Pinterest and coming up with things to change around our house. That is what I love to do in my spare time. The problem is that it’s not about me anymore.

I went down to part-time in about October, but I still work 30+ hours a week. Two weeks ago, I worked full-time for several days and it sucked. I don’t know how many of you do it. I don’t know how I did it for months. My longer working hours contributed to my break from here, as did some family commitments, technical issues, Easton not sleeping well for a few weeks and just being dang tired and it goes on and on. And repeat. You’ve heard it all before.

Truth is, about 3 Mondays ago I started my week as usual, checked my blog stats and started to plan out my projects and posts for the week.

Monday: Photograph weekend project before Easton goes to bed but not after his dinner or when he’s in clingy meltdown mode

Tuesday: After bedtime edit and upload photos, hoping computer cooperates and doesn’t continually freeze, write post

Wednesday: Work on new project after bedtime

Thursday: Photograph, upload and post? Eh I’m short a day here

Friday: Collapse.

Saturday/Sunday: Scope out new project and work on it during naps/bedtime

As I planned out my week, I got mad at myself for not accomplishing enough over the weekend. “I should have painted x!” “Why haven’t we finished the office?” “We need to get those shelves up!”. I stopped myself for a minute. What the hell am I doing?

I wish this blog was my job, but it’s not. I would love to work hard enough that it is my job, but I know that idea is far fetched. I don’t want this blog (or reading other blogs) to make me feel like I’m not good enough– not working hard enough, not crafty enough, not organized enough. I started to feel like that, so I needed to step back.

This blog is fun for me and if it ever gets to feel like work, I need to step back and take a deep breath. My time with Easton when I get home from work is for Easton. I didn’t go down to part-time to blog or for projects. My weekends are for Easton, not for this blog or projects. If some weekends I have loads of energy and I’m inspired to get things done, then great! If some weekends I just want to take a nap with Easton, then I can’t get mad at myself. Easier said than done, but I am trying.

I’d rather give you posts that I am proud of than posts I threw together because I was tired…or because I had a great weekend with Mike and Easton…or because I was busy rolling around on the playroom floor when I should have been photographing in natural light.

When I had this discussion with Mike a few weeks ago, I asked him why I should keep blogging. His response was a) because you like it and and b) because some day, when we look back, we’ve created an amazing journal. Maybe I don’t post 6 days a week like I did when I first started (say whaaa?), but just like real life, this blog has peaks and valleys. Lately, more valleys than peaks, that’s okay with me. And that’s all it has to be.

*THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED*

Congrats to entry #1 (whoa!), Ainhoa who said she’d order some business cards or art prints! 

It’s no secret that I love any type of paper product, so when Minted contacted me to try out some of their goods, I nearly died. I have been a huge fan of Minted since discovering them several months ago. They sell invitations, stationery, prints and more designed by a community of designers from all over the world. Their designs are always incredibly creative and modern, which is what sucked me in.

In a bizzare “is this a prank?” series of events, I was asked to review their business cards. I had actually already chosen business cards from Minted a month or so ago when I bought my ticket to the Haven Conference. The last time I went to a blogger event, I told you that I felt like I was the only person without a trendy business card and repeating “the lil house, that’s L-I-L, that could dot com” got old after about 10 times. In an attempt to avoid that awkwardness again, I knew I needed cards and I played around in Minted. Now I get to share the fun I had officially

I browsed every single business card they sell to make sure that my favorite was still my favorite. They sell so many great options that it was hard to choose.

Clockwise from top right: Real Simple, Pique Chic, Collegiate, Mustard Stripe, Steelfish and Bar Graph

In the end, I stuck with my first instinct, the Real Simple business card. It’s the gray striped one up at the top and the one I’ve had saved to my phone for the past couple of months.

Even though I loved the original design, whenever I order stationery products I like to customize them. I decided to go with the silver color scheme (out of 3 to choose from) and the pearlescent paper. I liked the idea of a little bit of shimmer in my business cards. A hedge fund CEO may disagree…I worked for one once, no shimmer in his business cards, but a private bathroom in his office…

I think a lot of people don’t realize that it is possible not just to choose colors, paper and edit text, but to change fonts and sizes as well. Minted makes it super easy to click around and personalize your product…

FYI, not my real last name.

I changed my name to the green color and chose a fun, scripted font. I also made it larger and changed the font for the title of my blog. I added an additional line so I could squeeze in my phone number. Mike told me I should do this, I was all like “What? Can’t people just tweet me?”

After a few minutes of tweaking, I then chose what I wanted on the back. My options were white, solid gray, a thinner stripe, a photo or a logo. None were extra to add, so I went with the thinner stripe and voila, all done and just ordered!

Now here’s the fun part for you guys, Minted is giving one lucky reader $50 towards ANY purchase on their site!!

Incase you’re not looking for business cards, I went through the rest of the site and pulled out some of my favorite designs. I tried to pick at least one item from each thing they sell, so it appeals to everyone. I told you paper was a guilty pleasure of mine, it was like browsing Pinterest…

Clockwise from top right: Urban Baby Circle Garland, Devon Birth Announcement, Train of Blocks Print, Vintage Keys Print, Stripey One Year Old’s Children’s Birthday Party with Skinnywrap Address Label, Paris Lights Wedding Invitation, Birthday Gig Invitations, Passing Notes Wedding Invitations

Here’s how you can get some of this stuff…

• One reader will win $50 to Minted.com
• To enter, simply comment on this post with what you’d order with your $50 if you won

And the rules…

• Only one entry per email address is allowed
• Open to international readers
• A winner will be chosen using Random.org
• This giveaway closes on Monday, March 18th at midnight. Any entries made after that time will not be counted.
• A winner will be announced on Tuesday, March 19th so check back in exactly a week!

Good luck and happy paper browsing

Disclaimer: I received a credit to purchase business cards in an exchange for posting a review of Minted.com‘s business card customization process. All opinions expressed are mine.