Christmas decorations!

I've had a lot of fun making my Christmas decorations this year! Lots of paper snowflakes in all my windows, cinnamon pine cones, and vintage ornaments everywhere. Did you make any of your holiday decor?

Thrifted finds and a little update.

I went to my local Goodwill yesterday and found some amazing little pretties to bring home! I had to share, even though it's been raining for two days and these photos turned out grainy and poorly lit :)

This lamp was $10 and the shade was $2! I think I'll be buying a replacement shade at some point, it's a bit too short now.

I've been searching for framed embroideries to hang in my bedroom for months, and this is the first one I've come across! And, it's perfect. I'm a sucker for little birdies!

I also bought the crystal dish in the bottom left (it might even be an ashtray!), to hold all my plugs! I ran out of room in my jewelry boxes, plus I like to have them displayed for everyone to see.

I got a few new dresses and a denim jacket too! One of my new dresses is this awesome 80s grandma style, but I want to do a little alteration before I share it!

In other news, Chris and I have decided that we will not be moving at the end of the month. We thought about it, and we actually really love this little house. The only reason we've had a pretty awful time living here is because of our terrible neighbor. But I overheard her (through the wall) talking about needing people to help her move, so hopefully she's on her way out. I'm totally relieved, I was having a hard time finding something to fit our needs and our budget, and we were running out of time. Plus, with Chris only recently starting his new job, we weren't totally ready financially for a move. So we'll be living here for one more year and hopefully next April we can find a new perfect little house!

I wanted to leave you with a quote I used to have written out and taped on my bedroom wall in high school (my walls were covered with quotes and magazine pictures!). I think you should try approaching every day this way!

"Choosing to live a happy life is not only our greatest gift to ourselves, it is also the greatest gift we can give to those around us. When we are happy, we radiate happiness, and that is infectious. Consider giving the gift of happiness to yourself as being your gift to all humanity." -Dalai Lama

Moving...

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Our lease is up at our current house at the end of April, and we're currently looking for a new little house to move into. The house we're in now is nearly perfect, except there's an attached apartment and the woman that's lived there since we moved in has been truly horrible. She's gone through our garbage, come into our house (uninvited, mind you) to yell at Chris (for no reason, mind you!), and made ridiculous demands and unfounded complaints to our landlords since the day we moved in. She's just an awful woman. Our landlords have been less than stellar in dealing with her, and we're fed up. We want to stay in the little town we're in now, and the past couple months we thought it'd be easy to find a new place. Last summer there were about six places in our neighborhood alone for rent. But now that we're getting close to the end I'm having a really hard time finding something that meets our needs and that's in our price range. I'm getting pretty discouraged! There's one little house that seems perfect, but the listing has disappeared from the site we found it on. I drove by tonight and the sign was still up in the yard, so I'll be calling tomorrow to see if it's still available. I really hope it is, because it's the best of the options we've found so far! The idea of moving, even though it's more than a month away, is totally stressful to me. I'm already feeling anxious about it. I'm a total worrier, I work myself up over 'what-ifs' and 'maybes', and thankfully I have Chris to keep me grounded, but it's hard to be calm about this kinda thing!

Do you have any tips for finding rentals? Any moving tips in general?