Italia Memories.

The summer after my second year in college I had the great pleasure of studying in Italy (or vacationing). It was a trip with my fellow college classmates, most whom I didn't even know. I had all the images from the trip on my computer and never looked at them so I decided to make a couple photo books, one for each city. I had so much fun going through them all and compiling the books and now they are proudly displayed on my coffee table!

We flew into Milan, which turned out to be a lot like New York City, but with a gorgeous Cathedral. Then we rode a train to Florence (my personal favorite). In Florence we visited the Boboli Gardens, which are so stunning. I could have a picnic there every day. In Florence, we ate so much pasta and gelato, but it was so delicious you'd never get sick of it.

From Florence we traveled to Rome and saw the all amazing Colosseum. I literally was speechless. It is such an amazing structure and since I love history and all antique things this was the greatest place on the earth to be. We went through the Vatican Museum and saw the fantastic Sistine Chapel (in which I did get yelled at for talking to loud and taking pictures). All in all it was an amazing trip that I would recommend anyone do at least once in their life time.

Fruit Pizza + Sweet Little Girl

One of my closest friends, Chynna, graduated from college and invited me to her family get-together. I didn't want to show up empty handed so I made a yummie (healthy?) snack. I bought a pack of sugar cookie dough from the store and an assortment of fruit. I cooked the dough in a pizza pan as directions called for and let it cool. I used an 8 oz. container of cream cheese, 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla for frosting and topped it off with the fruit.

It looked so delicious I didn't want to cut into it!

And to top it all off Chynna's niece decided to sing a beautiful song for us. This will make anyone's bad day better.

(Incase you were wondering, that is a chicken finger in her hand!) Congratulations Chynna!

Rainy Run

I've been trying to get into shape recently and my friend Chynna introduced me into trail running. Every Thursday night the Albany Running Exchange runs a different trail. The first time I was so scared people would judge me because I couldn't even run a mile but it was really laid back and the people were so friendly. Anyways, we loved the trail so much (it was around the corner from my house!) we decided to make it a more frequent event. So, Saturday morning we got up early and ran. In the cold, rainy weather. Yep. I think it was more fun than it was exercise, but it's better than sitting on the couch!

From the Retro to Sexy.

I just moved into my first place and I am in "starter house" mode you could say. Basically I want everything and just can't afford the nicest things my mind can conjure up. However, I am the type of girl that likes antique sand spicing them up. So when I got a call to see if I wanted this dinning room and chairs set for a super affordable price I was like sure, why not. I got them and man did they look like they were from the 70s.

Seeing as how I don't eat meat the leather (or pleater?) had to go. I removed the top padded section and already they were on their way to sexyville. I found this really bright red fabric and it was heavy duty feeling, so I knew it would hold up. I removed the bottom legs and used a staple gun (for the first time - let me tell you this could be a girls best friend) to attach the new fabric and voila - sexy new dinning set.

DIY Save The Dates

My best friend is getting married in August and I wanted to do something sweet (no pun intended) for her Save The Dates since she wasn't planning on doing any. I order some address labels from Pinhole Press and bought chocolate bars and wrapped them up in craft paper, added a little twine - and presto! Edible Save The Dates (which I guess you don't save?).