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Thursday, July 11, 2013

Antiquing in South Beloit, Illinois

As I mentioned yesterday in my Lake Geneva trip recap, on our way back from Wisconsin we got to do one of my favorite things - antiquing! A little town in Northern Illinois called South Beloit had two huge antique stores right across from each other. Trent and I both found a few things to take home. It was a great way to end our trip!

The first store we went into was called Roscoe Antique Mall of South Beloit. I think we were both confused and thought the town we were in was called Roscoe after we saw this sign. But maybe this is just a chain of antique malls?

Nonetheless, this was one of the coolest antique stores we've been to yet. Between this one and the one right across the street, you could really find anything you're looking for! There was such a variety of stuff at these stores.




I of course was drawn to the plates. I stopped and looked for plates at pretty much every booth! Most were too much for what I wanted to pay. I don't like to pay more than $15 for a plate, even though I've seen some for $20-$40 that are gorgeous!

I got two pieces of China from this store - here they are already in my China hutch (The little bowl on top and the plate right underneath it):
I can't remember the exact amount, but they were each under $10.

The second store was another huge antique mall right across the street, in a building that looked like a huge barn attached to another more normal-looking part. haha.

The rooms in here wrapped around forever - it was like a huge maze! This place was big, and there were lots and lots of antiques! Even more variety. Like these awesome pig book ends:

I totally would have bought them if they weren't $39.50. That's a little too much for pig bookends when I wasn't really looking for any in the first place! They are cute though, in an ugly sort of way. :)

I saw TONS of mason jars, especially the blue ones. I regret not buying a couple now - some were actually really cheap, about $4 or $5.00. The blue mason jars are really trendy right now too, with the 100th anniversary of the Mason jar, or something like that! I still need one for my Lake Geneva beach jar, too.

 Here are my finds from this store:

I'm in love with my gold owl. I think it was $15.00 but I honestly didn't care because it was love at first sight. Another awesome owl to add to my collection. The mushroom shells in the bag were around $2 for the whole thing, so I picked them up for my vacation jar. Still totally regretting not buying one of the mason jars there! Oh well, what can you do! :)

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Our Lake Geneva Vacation

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Is it just me or is this week going by really fast? Anyway, I'm super excited to share about our trip this past weekend, along with just a few photos of the many I took! And I have plenty of time to do it since Trent is working until 8:30 tonight, so I have the whole house to myself :)

We left bright and early Thursday morning, the Fourth of July. We took Trent's truck this time in case we had to haul boats or something. We weren't totally sure what we were going to do up there, so better safe than sorry! We stopped at a gorgeous botanical center and rose garden near Rockford, IL and walked around there for a little while since we weren't in a huge hurry to get up to Wisconsin (It only takes us 3-4 hours, so we took the scenic route!)

We had perfect weather all weekend so we of course spent it all outside! Our hotel was right on Lake Como, between Williams Bay and Lake Geneva. It was kind of cottage-y and was a historic bed and breakfast. Our room had a little balcony overlooking the lake.




We had an early dinner the night of the Fourth at the cute outdoor restaurant connected to our hotel, then sat on our balcony and watched the sunset over the lake. 

We got to watch the fireworks right from our balcony that they were shooting off on the other side of the lake. And we snuck a few things like sparklers and roman candles in ourselves, including our first wish lantern! That was so cool to see lit up in the sky. I struggled with taking fireworks pictures, since I got a new camera this year and couldn't figure out the settings! Oh well! They turned out ok.


We spent Friday on the beach at Williams Bay, which was a small, beachy little town on Lake Geneva. It was a nice relaxing day! 
We had dinner with Trent's cousin Dan and his wife Jenny that night, then saw Dave Matthews Band at Alpine Valley. Neither of us had been to this venue before, and it was really cool! It's a ski resort in the winter, so it's very hilly but the view is gorgeous. The bad part is that it gets packed! There were more people there than any other concert I had ever been to. Ridiculousness.
The concert was awesome, though. We went to both nights. We had seats for the first night and were on the lawn for the second. I decided I prefer seats, since it can get crowded and pushy near the front of the lawn!

The next day (Saturday) we got to go boating with Jenny and Dan. Her grandma lives right on a lake in the area and has a pontoon so we got to ride around on that in the afternoon. It was a lot of fun!


That night was Night 2 of the Dave concerts! Another great night. We walked around in Lake Geneva on the drive back and it was really cool to see the town at night. It reminded me a little of Wilmington, NC, but about zero people walking around!


Our final day we just spent looking around in the shops downtown Lake Geneva and ate lunch on the lake. We did a little wine tasting and got to walk around by the beach one last time.


We even had time to go antiquing on the way back, and I got some goodies! Even though we were exhausted from our trip, I was so glad we could stop to go antiquing! I'll have a post up tomorrow with what I found!

All in all, it was a nice little getaway for our Fourth of July weekend. We definitely stayed busy! It's always nice to get away for a while, even though we didn't go too far. Maybe next year we can go somewhere a little more adventurous! :)

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

We're Bacckkk!

I know I haven't posted in a few days..I had no real internet access over the weekend, and since we got back Sunday night, we've been busy unpacking, getting groceries, working...back to the daily grind! So I'm popping in again really quickly to post a short update and say that I am promising to post a recap of our trip tomorrow night on here! For now, here's the beautiful Geneva Lake, taken from the beach we hung out at on Friday (It's Williams Bay Beach, FYI - it seemed to be in a much less busy area of Lake Geneva).


We had a great trip! I'm off to bed! Work in the a.m. I shall have lots of goodies to share tomorrow! Sleep tight my friends.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth everyone! Even though we won't be celebrating in Illinois this year, I put my patriotic pillow out on our porch last night. 


And of course our flag will be waving proudly...

I'm all packed and ready to leave. Trent's still getting ready so it looks like it might be closer to 8:00 before we're out the door...someone decided to sleep in a little longer than usual! :) But I'm getting excited for all of the Fourth of July festivities and will be sure to post lots of pictures when I get back. Lake Geneva, here we come!

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Garden Update Before our Trip!

Hello all. Popping in really quick before we leave for Lake Geneva tomorrow! So glad it is finally Fourth of July weekend! I might not be able to blog much over the weekend, since I'm sure we'll be busy most of the time. So between packing tonight and getting everything together for our trip, I thought I would post a few pictures of what's been going on in our vegetable garden lately.

We have some Roma tomatoes popping up:

Some more tomatoes....


And some jalapeños (Personally, I'm not a fan, but Trent is):

And some bell peppers: 

We're also seeing carrot plants and cabbage coming up, and even some basil, too. Trent got his dad's old weed wacker going, and we pulled some by hand. We've been trying to keep the weeds down this year! Well, we try, but they always seem to come back.

You can kind of see the corn coming up among the weeds:

This lone cucumber was our second harvest this year (Right behind our Cayan peppers):

We also had our first ripe tomato! I'm hoping when we get back from Wisconsin we'll have some more ripe veggies. Though, that's if they don't get taken over by weeds by then!

P.S. No strawberries in our strawberry patch. Darn!

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Dealing with Paper Clutter

How do you deal with paper clutter? You know - mail, bills, receipts...that stuff that just keeps coming and piling up? If you're anything like us, there are times when we have piles of that paper clutter all over. It's hard for me especially, since I can be a bit of a neat freak sometimes. And I have to try very hard to fight the urge not to throw everything away. (Sorry Trent, I love you!) So I'm sort of baring all today and showing you just how bad this can be. Especially in the kitchen. I've tried to contain this clutter in multiple ways:

A magnetic mail sorter stuck to the fridge....

A tabletop letter organizer...

Yet, piles and piles of papers still seem to form ALL OVER our kitchen!

On the microwave....

On the table....

And on the counters...

Really, any surface becomes a place to drop papers. So clearly, the solutions we do use aren't working for us! I'm tired of seeing them everyday and trying to look past them all the time. I even straighten the piles to make them look neater..but that, folks, just doesn't solve the problem! I am still in need of an organization solution that works for everything. 

So, I'm currently looking for new solutions! Scouring Pinterest and the internet for something that works for us. Here are a few I've found so far that look kind of promising:

(source: left, right - found on Pinterest)

(Source - with some good tips!)

I like the idea of vertical storage with a calendar right there to mark all of the bills that are due. If the section of the wall in our kitchen by the hallway ever gets finished, I plan on putting a chalkboard there where we can write bills due, groceries we need, etc. But that requires finishing of mudding and sanding....

Please tell me you have something better and that I'm not the only one this happens to? I'll keep you posted! :)

Monday, July 1, 2013

Color Personality Quiz

Hello everyone! Hope you had a great weekend. Is it really July?! Today I'm sharing a quiz that I stumbled upon the other day...the "Color Personality Quiz" from Better Homes and Gardens
Basically you answer some multiple choice questions and at the end, (you have to put in your email to get your results and sign into the website) it gives you the color that best suits your personality and decorating style, with some inspiring ideas and paint colors to use.

My result was Sea Glass.

This result was pretty much spot on for me, considering the one paint color I've chosen for wall colors in our house that isn't neutral (tan or gray), was a light green color in the kitchen.

Photo from our kitchen-painting-progress in 2011.
So, well done, Better Homes and Gardens. I applaud you! You can take this quiz here at their website.

(Not a sponsored post. Just me being random.)

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