Tired

My dear friends,
Only the first battle, and I already feel I'm retreating from the war. This blog isn't nearly what I want it to be yet. It needs to be WAY prettier and WAY more read....

will improve....will improve....will improve *mantra*

Long overdue post...

My dearest, most beloved, readers,

Please forgive my neglect. This post has been a long time coming, but since there was so much to say, I didn't know where to start! So a couple of weeks ago I took a trip to see my beautiful sister-in-law Sof. I'll call her Lady Sof! She lives in Charlotte, NC and works for a large corporate bank (I'll spare the corporate shout-out). She was a most gracious host, and greeted us with the most delicious welcome drink, one of my newest favorites:

Trader Joe's was by far one of the best discoveries. Unfortunately, we don't have any here in Miami....YET! I got the low-down from one of the employees there who told me they'd be coming into South Florida full force next year! We're talking 4-6 stores! Yay for Trader Joe's!!!! 

Moving along, I wanted to post some picture's of Sof's apartment!

The arrival:

Her Damask chairs are lovely, we'll see the accent repeated again...

Her house is actually an open floor-plan loft, HUGE kudos to her for the non-problematic layout. Very intuitive and the eye knows exactly where the spaces divide and flow..

I loved visiting because I got some great inspiration on what I want for my own new apartment :). Sof's style is a meeting of classic Ikea (if it can even be called classic) and rescued/revamped items. Apparently her whole gang has a penchant for dumpster diving! I'll introduce you to the whole gang shortly...

Meet Sof's Charlotte Crew! They were amazing... Cizzle was exceptional, actually. He was a great tour guide and even showed me around his apartment! (Sof hyped up my blog, wonderful sister that she is, to the point that people wanted me to look around! So flattered!)

Here's the gist of Cizzle and Papo's pad. Their man cave was actually very well decorated! Papo has artistic sensibilities! Here we are:

This is Cizzle:

Cizzle's {surprisingly} magnificent closet:

The next place I visited was the Smelly Cat Coffeehouse!

It was amazing! Super adorable decor and great coffee.

Sof and I sipping coffee:

We then visited one of the most adorable and clever little shops! Also in the NoDa district in Charlotte, called the Boulevard @ NoDa. I was able to purchase my first art piece for the apartment! The owner was just a doll!

Here go the other pictures:

The artist is actually Allison Wolf. Her work is amazing! Her work is light and airy and happy.

Super cute packaging for my purchase!

My new purchase at Sof's place....just testing! 

I was thrilled with the purchase!




Here's a picture of us at dinner:

For more pictures of our famous Pub Crawl, refer to the scrapblog below, or my facebook!

Isn't this gorgeous and whimsical?!?!? AND :::Drumroll::: it's public art!



And lastly, this was my farewell outfit....:)

Yours truly in ink,

Pao.

Scrapblog from Charlotte....

Random Ramblings...

It's funny how dogs, just like humans, like the good stuff.
When Ms. Mushipie was given the choice between the average dry unpalatable dog food an gourmet cuts, she swiftly made her choice. Note the evidence to the right...

I also wanted to share with you one of my outfits...next to me you'll find Eugenia, one of the best dressed gals at FIU. (Trust me, I've done my fair share of scrutinizing research...) We actually matched last week in our classic color palates...

On further news, I've been undertaking some self-torture. I've already commenced prep for the upcoming Trials & Tribulations of law school. I've been reading the following two little bibles:

I've always been able to temper my anxiety of new life chapters by indulging in almost excessive preparation. Not preparing would implicate the onset of extreme guilt. So call me a gunner, but I'll be prepping any which way I can.

What do you think, readers? For those of you trecking the law school path, how far would you go to inch ahead?


Yours always in ink, 
Purportedly Pao.

The prodigal land of Ikea....

Picture taken at the entrance:

Ikea is most definitely the motherland for us would-be-decorators on a budget. My decorating prowess, however limited, requires utmost variety. For those of you who've never had the pleasure, I'm posting some of the items I'm looking into purchasing for my new apartment...

I just loved this look: 

This Expedit bookcase is fabulous. You can actually customize it with doors/baskets OR you can attach a desk and use it as an office wall unit as I will be doing in the near future. My sister-in-law has it in her loft and it is simply excellent! 

 I'm loving this L couch.Most pull-out couches have one of those creaky mattresses. This one actually has cushions that pull out into a large almost full-sized bed AND STILL has cubby space for storage. Needless to say, Ikea realized how much we loved it. It's actually one of the more large-ticket items at about $647.00.

 This table is also fabulous. They managed to provide us with storage space even in the coffee tables!

The center actually pulls out like a drawer---amazing.

Yours truly in one of the frame isles: (I really like the look of disparate sized frames placed lackadaisically on the wall)

Look II:

Ok, by far my MOST FAVORITE thing at IKEA!!!! These personalizable cabinets. They are BEYOND amazing. They don't even fit within all the adjectivals I could begin to describe. I can just imagine pictures of Mr. G and I plastered everywhere!

Note the adorable magnet containers for the kitchen admired by my Mother Hen: 

 An amazing all-white room: 

Super cute mirror:

This is actually a "Truman" occurance [Truman: a coined term by one of Mr. G's many sisters (Ms. Vicky)  to convey serendipitousness]. I actually loved this mirror at first sight---and then saw it in Mr. G's other sister's house (Ms. Sof)!!! 

Now I've showed you the good...and must show you the BAD & UGLY!!! 

So, Mother Hen and I purchased an Expedit bookcase unit and desk for the Abyss. The Abyss is that extra room everyone has. The room was thought out with the best of intentions, but ended up being little more than a mosh-posh of everyone's surplus. In short, it is a disaster. Mother Hen dreams of it as her studio/study/serenity space.  I let her know that was highly unlikely. Here go the "befores" of the room:

The first problem with this space is the hideous red paint. Compounded by an awkward layout, and quite frankly, a total lack of purpose. In fact, this room reminds me of people with a lack of purpose. They're tacky and a mess. 

Here's the bookcase we built: (Disclaimer: practically everything produced by Ikea is held up by pegs. Tiny wooden pegs. My father rattled of a statistic while we slaved away on the pegs, realizing that after putting in one shelf, 2 others fell apart: 

Dad: "Ikea is in fact responsible for the high incidence of divorce in the US. The expense you save with their cheap furniture comes back to haunt you in court proceedings and surmounting legal fees."

Ms. Pao: :::blank stare::::

Even Mushipie decided she should aid and abet our mission: 

 Mushipie: "Oh dear, this project is going nowhere..."

Stay tuned for the slow but sure progress of The Abyss's transformation &  before+after pics...

Yours truly in ink, 

Purposeful Pao.