Weekend

It's the weekend...

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...go get yourself a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks and celebrate. xoxo.

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Fit For Fashion Friday, Vol. , Wk. 5

Welcome to Fit For Fashion Friday, Vol. 1, Week 4!

Thank you to all of my readers that participated in last week's Fit For Fashion Friday challenge. I hope you all attained your fitness goals last week and hopefully I still have you with me this week. {Pretty please leave me a comment letting me know how you did!}

So now let's get started with this week's challenge!


All I ask are a few things...{these will be asked of you every week you enter the challenge!}

1. On any week you take a challenge, please post a link to the week's challenge post as a way to share it with your readers/friends/family and to ask them to join in on the challenge with you - via Facebook, blog post, Twitter, etc.

2. Leave a comment on this post or my Facebook page letting me know you're in! {I gotta know who's with me!}

3. Add one of my buttons to your blog as a reminder to check back each Friday for the weekly challenge. {See sidebar of my blog for button options.}

4. If you should so choose to chronicle your fitness progress on your blog, I would be most appreciative if you could link back to my blog in the post...spread the word, spread fitness! {This is an extra, above and beyond thing and I realize that...so it's not expected, but completely and utterly appreciated from the bottom of my heart.}

Now, without further adieu, this week's challenge {I read: "Carrie Underwood legs" and I had to try it}:

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The Challenge: Do this 4 days this week! Good luck!

Remember, this challenge is IN ADDITION to any regular workout routine you already have going...not in replacement of it. The goal here is to challenge yourself to do more...to get better. There are no losers here...if you give your best, you are a winner. Just do the best you can and keep improving your fitness level! xoxo

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Stylish & Compact Workout DVD Storage

Some of you may know, I used to have a blog called [just had] A Bright Idea where I focused mostly on interior design & decor and some DIY-ing. When I started Style Oyster, I wanted to incorporate those things along with my love of fashion and all things, well, stylish. Unfortunately, leaving that blog for a new url posed it's challenges. I lost the readers I had acccumulated over the 6 months of having the blog as well as the content...but wait, that content is NOT lost! Thanks to Blogger, I was able to move it over to Style Oyster. However, it was a little outdated (the wording in some, etc.) and of course the pictures were all tagged with my JHABI logo (and a few with even older blog logos than that! I had some name change issues...) I am putting this paragraph here as a preface to these posts because even though they are from the past, they are still projects that took a long time and are dear to my heart and I didn't want to lose them when I officially take my old blog off the Internet. So I apologize to those of you who have followed me since [just had] A Bright Idea, as you will be experiencing some deja vu, but I know some of you are new and this may all be new content to you. So bear with me, I plan on posting these once a week until they are all on Style Oyster. Thank you so much, and I do hope you enjoy. xoxo

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 I think it would be safe to say that I own about every fitness DVD put out in the last 10 years:

And quite frankly, I'm attached to the little buggers. But I'm not in love with the amount of space they take up. (I could utilize this drawer for so many other things I currently have "floating" around my house.)

Time for another solution.

I found this cute storage box at Wal-mart for $5.00 made for compact CD/DVD storage. (And it's PINK...perfect!):

I also already had some jewel disc cases in different colors. I decided to try and keep the workout programs separately organized by color of jewel case, i.e. Insanity in pink, P90X in purple, etc...

I kept what pamphlets I needed from the workout programs and tossed anything else.

Once I put them in the box, I realized the separate jewel case colors sort of got lost in the mix - it was hard to differentiate between the colors to quickly grab-n-go with what DVD I needed:

So I pulled out some of my Avery 5366 file folder labels and put them on the jewel case spines:

I then colored the spines with various highlighters to separate each workout program/series:

I still thought it looked a little unfinished, so I went the extra mile and pulled out my label maker:

Now my DVDs look like this:

I put them back in the box...and thought, nope, still hard to know which color is which DVD! So I hopped onto my computer and made a key to paste on the top inside of the box. Now this is what it looks like - all finished:

And since our workout space is also our office space, this little box will have a home on my new desk! I love how the storage this desk provides can help unify the space even though it is utilized for a few different activities.

Thanks for reading! What are your bright ideas for DVD/CD storage?

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Living Room Progress

As I mentioned recently in this post, I have the majority of my living room redecorated. There are still some minor things like hanging shelves and more wall art to take care of, but I am so happy with the progress so far. I wanted to take you back to what my living room looked like before and show you what it looks like now.

LIVING ROOM - BEFORE:

There was nothing particularly wrong with the space, but I wanted to challenge myself to try something more bold than my usual go-to earthy tones. I had been using these tones forever and was ready for a change, plus with the lack of natural light this room has, it was definitely in need of some "brightening up".

LIVING ROOM CURRENT {PROGRESS}:

What do you think of it? I know I'm enjoying coming home to a brighter space each day...it really does wonders for your mood! xoxo

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Get Cozy...

It's not even cold outside yet here in Charleston, SC, but nonetheless, I've had cozy fashion on the brain...

You know...scarves, boots, cardigans, sweaters...

Give it another month and I'll be striving to put together fabulously cozy little outfits such as these...

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{I always adore LC's style...I don't think she's gotten it wrong yet...}

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And then set me up with one of these babies...

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And plop me right down in front of something like this with some good company...

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Oh, I'm all warm and fuzzy now just thinking about it! xoxo

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Monday Musings

I hope y'all had a splendid weekend! Aside from working at 5am on Saturday, the weekend turned out to be pretty nice...

As soon as I got home, I got changed and ready to take my baby on a bike ride. He has been asking for a couple weeks every time he sees my pink beach cruiser on the front porch and there just had not been an opportune time until this weekend.

After that, my husband surprised me with having coerced the neighbor girls into babysitting so we could go out for a date night. It has been much-needed. Here's what I wore - I kept it simple:

Blazer / Top / Jeans / Black Pumps (not shown) *similar*

{Yes, I did recently add some highlights...still some more to do...and will be posting a tutorial on at-home highlighting soon!}

We went to Taco Mamacita on Sullivan's Island for some fish tacos and margaritas...then we headed back to Mount Pleasant and finished off the night with a few cocktails at O'Brien's Pub since it was on the way home. I wish I could say our first date night in a long while had been super-exciting, but I was just so exhausted from having gotten up for work at 3:30am all week, and including that day...so I told him we should try it again next weekend when I've had a chance to have normal sleep hours. {Two date nights within a week? Somebody pinch me!}

Sunday was nice...Jake did some more work on the project we have going on {gave you a sneak-peak here}, I played with the boys, took Breckin on a bike ride, helped Tanner with some reading homework and also got around to finishing a few projects that were looming in the half-finished state for far too long {can't wait to share all of them with you here on the blog!}

I also finished my first week sans dairy. I won't lie, I did have a little bit of cheese...hubby cooked lasagna one night {he had completely disregarded my dairy-free efforts}, so out of pure hunger, I ate a little. And I actually did feel the effects even after only having been dairy-free a few days. So it was probably good that I tried it so that I would know...if a few days made that big of a difference, imagine what a few weeks or longer would! I definitely feel better...less of that womanly bloat going on...so I think I'm going to stick with it. And I still plan on starting Whole30 on October 1st with Grit & Glamour, but I need to get to some serious meal-planning in order to stay on track.

Speaking of getting back on track, it's Monday and I'm officially one week out from starting my half marathon training for the Charleston Marathon in January. I've been working on my running regardless, but will be sticking to a program begining October 1st. The weather has been so perfect for running - I'm loving it! This week I'm sticking to my workout plans and goals and it will start today after work with the gym. Gym bag in the Jeep and ready to go - no excuses!

Happy Monday, y'all! xoxo.

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After-School Play Date: The Boys & Me

On Thursday evening, I decided to get out of our daily rut and try something a little different when I picked up the boys from daycare.

The weather was gloriously overcast, not too hot and surprisingly not many bugs out at the play park - that was a nice surprise!

I first went through the Chic-fil-a drive-thru to grab some chicken nuggets, fruit cups and chocolate milk {a special playdate calls for a special treat!} When I picked them up, they were so happy to see the Chic-fil-a bag on my passenger seat. {Holy cow, didn't mean to rhyme there!}

Off to the play park we went...

Tanner had already managed to get chocolate milk on his shirt within seconds of opening it. God love that boy!

"What Mom? Can't you see I'm too busy eating my fruit cup to be bothered with smiling for a picture?"

Exploring...

Tanner never has trouble making new friends...

I just love this cutie pie!

Breckin was trying to hide from the little girl...

Swing time is always a good time!

 It was nice to just let loose with them for a little while and change up the usual scenery...I feel like I'm always rushing to get home to get to my never-ending list of chores...but hey, they'll be there today...and they'll be there tomorrow too. Gotta make time for fun too - especially because these precious years will be gone before I know it.

 

Friends/Family - if you would like any of the pictures you see of us on the blog, please just right-click on the image and save it to your computer. You are welcome to print at your leisure! They are all high-pixel images.

If you do not know my family or me, you probably shouldn't right-click/save or print any of our images. Just saying.

Weekend

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Happy Weekend, Y'all.

I'm at work today {I know, what's new?} But I'm off tomorrow...and I've got plans to go on a bike ride with my boys this afternoon...have a date night with hubby tonight...and spend a nice Sunday going to church, playing with my boys and tying up ends on some projects that have been in the works {for albeit far too long}. See you Monday. xoxo

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Fit For Fashion Friday, Vol 1, Wk 3

Welcome to Fit For Fashion Friday, Vol. 1, Week 3!

Thank you to all of my readers that participated in last week's Fit For Fashion Friday challenge. I hope you all attained your fitness goals last week and hopefully I still have you with me this week. {Pretty please leave me a comment letting me know how you did!}

So now let's get started with this week's challenge!


All I ask are a few things...{these will be asked of you every week you enter the challenge!}

1. On any week you take a challenge, please post a link to the week's challenge post as a way to share it with your readers/friends/family and to ask them to join in on the challenge with you - via Facebook, blog post, Twitter, etc.

2. Leave a comment on this post or my Facebook page letting me know you're in! {I gotta know who's with me!}

3. Add one of my buttons to your blog as a reminder to check back each Friday for the weekly challenge. {See sidebar of my blog for button options.}

4. If you should so choose to chronicle your fitness progress on your blog, I would be most appreciative if you could link back to my blog in the post...spread the word, spread fitness! {This is an extra, above and beyond thing and I realize that...so it's not expected, but completely and utterly appreciated from the bottom of my heart.}

Now, without further adieu, this week's challenge {last week was legs, so let's give the arms a workout}:

The Challenge: Do this Pyramid 5-6 days this week! Good luck!

Remember, this challenge is IN ADDITION to any regular workout routine you already have going...not in replacement of it. The goal here is to challenge yourself to do more...to get better. There are no losers here...if you give your best, you are a winner. Just do the best you can and keep improving your fitness level! xoxo

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