getting my craft on!

yep, i got crafty the other day.... and i actually like how it all turned out! of course i totally found the idea on pinterest... but i actually executed it too!

i found a cute iron table and chairs set on craigslist for 80 bucks and thought "sold!"project time!! i forgot to take a before photo as i was just so excited to get going on my project.... but the cushions were old and ugly and faded. i bought outdoor fabric online - and without really knowing how much i needed for covering them, i actually guessed pretty darn well! and the fabrics actually coordinated surprisingly well! it's always hard to tell online the exact colors... but i really like how they coordinate and look together!

the first big project was actually shoving the whole set in my car. which i eventually accomplished. then the next big ordeal was hauling it up all five flights of stairs to the roof. not so easy, but i did it in many trips over a period of a few days. that iron stuff is heavy!! a few big deep bruises later, it was all up on my roof.

when my fabrics came, i realized i needed a staple gun. hmmm. didn't have one of those and didn't feel like going to get one right then... but i did wanna work on my project.... so i thought, wonder if a regular stapler will work?! ummm, the answer is no. so off to home depot to get a staple gun.

ok, so it doesn't quite look like an "after" shot yet ... but they don't sell spray paint in the city of Chicago.... so i have to go to the burbs which i haven't gotten around to yet. aaaaand, i need to haul the glass table top allllll the way up the stairs and i've sorta kinda been too lazy to do so. but! but! i have successfully re-covered all four of the chair cushions!

while it is hard to see, and it's a rather dark photo - the moon (see that little white thing in the sky?!) looked stunning that evening and it was a lovely night temp wise too. i felt quite proud of myself!

next up: bringing up the glass for the table, getting the chairs and table spray painted and enjoying a lovely drink up there!

botanical gardens

the culver club of chicago is pretty active here and since culver has a lot of alum in the area, we usually get a pretty good turnout. recently i joined the club's committee of planners and thus continue to take on a random assortment of commitments. for our latest culver get together, we held it back in june at the chicago botanic gardens. it was a gorgeous day!

we had a private room for a lunch of pizza, salad and soft drinks. the pizza was surprisingly delicious!

after lunch, we boarded a tram and took a guided tour of the grounds. we had the cutest older gentleman driving/giving us the tour. i'm pretty sure his name was elmer - or something very similar. 

pretty flowers!

the above pictures were taken by one of our alum. i also took some great pictures - but i can't find them right now. and i've been looking. it's driving me a bit crazy... so i hope to eventually find them and post some!

back to work...

I'm back! in the securities industry... i joined Moody National Companies in April and have been super busy ever since. Since my licenses had expired, I had to re-take them all which meant ridiculous hours of studying and preparing! The biggie was the series 7 - 300 questions and 6 hours to take it. Talk about stress... but I passed!

These pictures were from my first conference as a Moody rep and I had a blast. I love conferences and exhibit halls and meeting all the financial advisors. This one was in Iowa. Coraville. I'd never heard of it, but it's right next door to Iowa City which is where the U of I is (which I also learned while there).

The photographer told me to do my best Vanna White... so I did. He made me pose with the bowl of tchotckes too. It was WAY better than his original idea: laying across the table top. Um, no. Not happening at a WORK event!!

My old coworker, Michelle. She works for a different company and it was so great to see her! This was at casino night - where we got to play with fake money. It was a lot of fun.

So the guy on the far left is Logan - he's with Moody too and he's awesome. The others are mixture of folks and then there is me.

The photographer really wanted a "money" shot... so there is all my gobs and gobs of fake money!

Some more fine reps and myself. Chatting, drinking, wearing our awesome name badges...