monday ramblings

This weekend I did a little experimenting with a new look for the blog. I've also changed my contact buttons to the right and added my new bloglovin' account and Etsy shop! Google Reader is going away, so I created a bloglovin' account that you can use to follow me instead. If you've never used bloglovin' before, I highly recommend it. You can follow all of your favorite blogs on one site and at the end of the day they also send you a daily feed with the latest posts! They also have an option to import all of your blogs from Google Reader, so it's seriously convenient. I've also got some ideas in my brain that I hope to implement shortly via Etsy... Stay tuned!

Charlie and I spent our Easter weekend being lazy. We didn't do a thing and it felt pretty good. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we did make sure to get in a nice long walk. 
Love that ranunculus are back in season!

Today Charlie and I start the Eat to Live diet. I found it pretty difficult to find appetizing recipes, but after what felt like hours scouring Pinterest, I found a few to get us started. I'll be posting the good ones on here every Monday in case you're interested in following along. Going all vegan isn't such a huge leap for me, since I usually eat 2 out of 3 meals a day vegan, but it will be a huge deal for Charlie. The biggest challenge for me will be limiting my grain intake to one serving a day and cutting out all sugar, except for fruits. I know these six weeks will be worth it though. My main goal is to lower my blood pressure, but any weight loss will be a much appreciated added bonus!

Dining Room Table Score

I am super excited about my latest furniture score. For months I've been eyeing this Romeo table from World Market, but I'm weird and I can't stand paying full price for anything.
 It's on my new home wishlist, which I periodically check to see if things have gone on sale. Last week I saw this went from $699 to $349, and I knew I was going to get it, but I wanted to wait a little longer to see if I could score it with free shipping. 
I've been checking the website daily, and yesterday I saw it had been marked down to $249 so I immediately called my store to see if they had any in stock to save on the $110 shipping fee. I got the last available one they had and I was able to combine it with a 10% discount I found online for a massive $566 savings, making this cheaper than the Ikea table I was considering. 
Since we have the tiniest dining room ever, we can't set it up until we move to our new home. Its current home is propped up in our dining room. It's driving my OCD brain crazy, but I only have to live with it for another month.
I've updated my dining room plan to include the pillows and rug that I've purchased. All that's left to purchase are the velvet chairs (swatch ordered last week), side chairs for the table, and the Expedit for the bar. 

I can't wait to see it totally put together.

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instagram updates

Almost all of my pictures this week are of Tobias. Mostly because our fun plans got cancelled this weekend due to the bipolar Texas weather. We were going to volunteer at a local arts festival that got cancelled due to the wind, and then attend the Holi Festival of Colors, but it was freezing and rainy which made it a no-go. I'm ready for spring!

Toby is the fluffiest little bear after his bath.
He lays beside my bed every morning waiting for me to wake up so we can go outside. It makes my heart happy.
 Charlie and I are about to start Eat to Live, so I've been doing a ton of reading to make sure I do it correctly this time. Toby wasn't too happy that he wasn't getting any attention.
Our balloons are still going strong. 
Someone is enjoying the new chairs...
I've wanted a fiddle leaf fig tree for a very long time, and was super excited to score this for only $12.99 at Ikea. I was worried I'd kill it since they apparently aren't the easiest to take care of, but it's been a week and still going strong.

If you were wondering what the Holi festival is, here's a video. Yeah, super sad that weather didn't cooperate for this one.