This is a Difficult Confession...

Okay, it's official.  I'm kind of a stalker.  I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but there really isn't any other way to describe what I did all weekend.  It's not as if I'm dangerous or about to dig through someone's trash, just a strong admirer, but I get how that can veer into weird territory if you're weird. 

I had 2 stalkers in college (little ol me!), one mini single white female thing (I woke up to her asleep on my dorm room floor- hey that's weird), and one that got slightly scary but thankfully abated fairly quickly.  Anyway, that was before the stalker's paradise known as the Internet!  Yes, I'm old....we had to go to the library when I was in college.  The library!  What?

The Library at Ole Miss...really nicely redone in my upperclassman years, so it wasn't all bad having to schlep there all the time.

Also The Library at Ole Miss!  Way more fun.

So on the internet it feels less like you'll get caught and I forged right ahead.  Okay, you remember when I posted about Emily Henderson the other day?  Yeah, her blog is awesome.  I'm kinda out of the loop on HGTV since I quit watching a long time ago when everything on Saturday and Sunday mornings (the only time I could watch when I was working) was about landscaping and I frankly don't care about my yard yet as any of my neighbors can attest to.  ANYWAYS I've read Emily's blog for awhile, LOVE Secrets from a Stylist, and bounced around on her site last week looking for the photos of that console that inspired me to go out and find my own.  I sort of knew that she had won Design Star but didn't think about it so much because I really didn't like the show (sorry!).  I didn't hate it, I just didn't find it compelling.  I watched Antonio's season I think, can't remember.  So for some reason I became interested in seeing what she blogged about before she won and while she was on the show.  Hey, why don't you just read every single post she's every written, Lauren?  CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Emily's awesome living room.  No I didn't take this through the window, she posted it on her blog. And I live in South Florida which is pretty much as far as you can be from LA where she lives.  Geez.

Is that weird?   I didn't have anything else to read.  Okay that's not true, I have a lot of things I could be reading but she is so awesome.  She is hilarious (like me?), she has major vintage inclinations in her design (like me!  Although 'design' is way to fancy and inaccurate for what it is I do in my house), and she is super fun and honest.   

She's so cute!  If you knew someone got to hang out with baby lambs at their job, wouldn't you want to read what she had to say? Duh.

Two major takeaways:  Her wedding invitations were too amazing for words.  You just have to go look at them here.  (Jen, this means you!)  Oh just kidding, I'll post them here.  I'm stalkery like that.  But seriously, go read about them...and then every other post on her blog so I don't feel alone.

The sad face takeaway is a little rough for me to share.  I'm sure she reads my blog (What?  You think the 267 clicks yesterday were all my Mom?  How dare you.) and was really disappointed that I painted the beautiful midcentury piece.  I ran across her post last year (I told you, I really read all of them!) when she outlined her rules for painting wood:  Under 30 years old you can paint it, older than that she thinks it's a really bad bad terrible thing to do.  Oops.

Are you ready for me to get to my point here?  Were you thinking that I was about to go for a name change and a hair-bleaching?  No, I'm not in real life crazy, just designer-blog-stalker crazy.  So it made me think about decorating "rules" and I decided there just aren't any except personal ones you set for yourself.  Because when people come into your house, they should see you!  Not anyone else's ideas about what's okay and not okay. At the end of the day, I'm the one that lives in my house and looks around at all of my things and goes "I just love that.  I just love our house, it makes me so happy!"  I really do do that.  And everyone should feel that way and I regret all of the years I didn't feel that way about my home.  And I happen to know that Emily would agree.  Because we're tight like that.  Oh, not really....I forget this is one-sided.

So far.

Duhn duhn duuuuhn...

Where she blogs.  Hello?  Of course you want to read what she's typing there.  

***Ed. note ~ so dramatic...she only actually made it through the first 6-7 months of the blog because she's lazy and easily distracted and has a 2 year old and husband that sometimes need to eat.

 

Baylor is way into punctuation right now which is really weird for a 2 year old, but whatareyougonnado?  He noticed an exclamation point on the Big Lots! sign the other day and started saying it the way he asks questions when he sees a question mark (palms up, asking a question).  I know this is so Rainman child, just bear with me here.  So when I explained how the exclamation point works I kinda yelled "BIG LOTS!!!" and scared him half to death.  Now I have a 2 year old that is terrified of Big Lots (fine, I hate that place anyway) and exclamation points.  Oh dear.