~ Homebody Chatter

You may recall that IGTBH is now a bona fide one year old – well, time flies and I’d love to pick your brain (in a totally non-gross way) before another year whizzes on by.

You see, you guys are what make this blog fun – your comments always make me all warm and fuzzy and your feedback makes me want to make IGTBH as awesome as it possibly can be.  And how can I know what you guys think if I don’t ask you?

Here’s the deal – I’ve whipped up a super quick, down & dirty survey so that you guys can tell me exactly what you think about IGTBH – what do you like, and what needs some tweaking?  Your constructive criticism will be taken to heart and used to guide this blog towards becoming even more awesome in the next year (I know, you probably didn’t think it was possible for IGTBH to get any gnarlier).

After I get all your comments & put them into action, this is probably what people will be saying about IGTBH:

Or maybe I’m just dreaming.  Whatevs.

Anyhoo . . . pretty please?  I would be thrilled if you’d take a few moments to complete the 2010 It’s Great To Be Home Online Survey (that was the link to the survey, please click on it!).  Of course, fill out what you want, skip what you’d rather not answer.  I will love you forever, and probably mail you a pony.  Thanks!

A year ago, I sent an email to about 40 friends and family members announcing that I was starting a renovation/interior design blog, It’s Great To Be Home.  I didn’t know what to expect, but no matter how things turned out I knew that I would have a great time sprucing up my house, trying new projects, and sharing all of it with anyone that might be interested.  I’ve been so thrilled for this little ol’ blog to grow from 40 visitors to tens of thousands each month – how cool is that?

During the past year, tons of things have changed.  I left my job as an attorney, started a new career in real estate, flipped my first house, started working from home instead of driving 45 minutes to an office, began sprucing up the homes of strangers over the web . . . and it has been such a delight to get to share all of these changes with you, even the little ones like making our backyard a little less ugly and sewing some new pillows for the den.  Who new that there was a whole community of awesome people that are into the same things that I am?  Let me tell you, it’s been awesome to get to hang out with you guys.

Since it’s IGTBH’s first blogiversary, I thought it was only appropriate to share a video with you guys that we shot the day we bought our house – the house that started it all, way before this blog was even a twinkle in my eye.  Want to take a tour of our home and see how it looked before we renovated the heck out of it?

It’s Great To Be Home – Our Home Before The Renovation from It’s Great To Be Home on Vimeo.

If you weren’t busy getting seasick from Jason’s camera skills (sorry babe!!), here are some things you may  have picked up on from the video:

~ This was during my brief stint as a blonde – so weird to see myself like that!!

~ Our house had the most hideous collection of drapes ever known to mankind.

~ We pretty much stuck to our entire renovation plan!!

~ I say “Alright” at least 30 times.

~ Our breakfast room used to look like a circus tent.

~ I really think that was a gun cabinet in the laundry room – it had locks and everything!

~ I clearly had no idea that the “craft room” would ultimately turn into my office.

~ I’m hoping you weren’t blinded by the original fireplace – sorry about that.

~ Can you believe how dark our den used to be?  And that was with all the lights on!

~ Did you recognize those bookcases in the den that turned into my salvaged craft cabinet?

~ I’m pretty sure Jason’s closet is bigger than mine – don’t know how that happened!

~ Burglar bars were apparently “in” in 1968 when our house was built.

~ After watching this video, I’m going to burn those pants I was wearing.

Anyhoo, thanks for hanging in there with me this past year – I’ve loved every minute of it!!  Here’s to another great year!

If you want to see how our house turned out after the big renovation, be sure to check out the Home Tour page of IGTBH.

Eeek!!  I nearly fainted when I saw that my hosting company had disabled my account for about 2 hours earlier today – a total blackout of IGTBH was definitely not something I was expecting when I woke up this morning!  It’s all worked out now, and hopefully it will stay that way.

Anyhoo, back to regular programming.  Guess what I did this weekend?

A DIY project, maybe?  Nope.

Got all my blog posts ready for the week?  Ha, double nope!

I went skiing!!!

We stayed here in Park City, Utah – at the very tippy top of this building!

We’ve stayed here with Jason’s family for the past few years, and we always have this awesome view of the slopes from our balcony:

Don’t we look like pros?  Yeah right!  I managed to end the weekend with only one face plant, which I consider a total success.

We hit up the town at night . . .

. . . where I’ve been known to kiss a moose or two.  (This picture was actually taken a few years ago, but I just had to include it!)

But I know all the snow we enjoyed this weekend can’t compare to the Snowpocalypse that the East Coast is experiencing right now – how is everybody hanging in there?  And for all you folks that aren’t up to your elbows in snow, got any plans to go skiing before the season is over?

It’s been so gorgeous outside here in Texas over the past week or so, but now the word on the street is that we might be getting snow tomorrow night – what?!?  Even though we did have three snow days in December, we’re in Texas for crying out loud – enough of that cold weather stuff!  I’m ready to hang out on our patio!

Maybe I’m just in the mood for some outdoor chillin’ because of IGTBH’s newest sponsor, PatioSet.com.  I mean, how could you not drool over things like this?

And this?

And this?

I’m super excited to have PatioSet.com on board – if you’re gearing up for patio weather, be sure to check them out over in the sidebar (under the archives)!  Is anybody else ready for spring?  I can’t wait until we can leave our windows open all day . . . it’s such an awesome feeling!  What about you – what’s your favorite thing about spring?

Psst – if you’re interested in giving your business a little boost by sponsoring IGTBH, just shoot me an email to get all the details.  We’d love to have you!

I have plans for this sucker.

Someday soon he won’t look so sad.  I’ll keep you posted.

Even though I’m not a huge football fan, I was beyond excited when we got tickets to this:

It meant that we got to go to Phoenix (I’ve never been) and stay here!

Our room was perfect . . .

. . . and in our down time I got to catch up on my reading . . .

. . .  soak in this gorgeous view from our balcony . . .

. . . and lay by the pool.  (Yes, it was pool weather on the 3rd of January!!)

Even though we were busy bees . . .

I made sure to stop and smell the roses.  Oops, I meant the cactus!

Although we had some fancy meals, I think our stop here was my fave . . .

. . . which we hit up on the way here:

We had such an awesome time!!

What about you guys – have you ever been to a bowl game?

Long time no see!!  Sorry I’ve been MIA for so long – I hope your holiday was as busy (and fun!) as mine!

The past two weeks have been a blur, filled with a gift exchange with my girlfriends, driving around the fancy part of town looking at Christmas lights, and spending lots of time with family.  We even got snow on Christmas Eve that lasted through Christmas day – who would have thought Dallas would ever see a white Christmas?

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself – we had a Christmas Eve that couldn’t be beat!  We spent the evening in the penthouse suite at the Stoneleigh Hotel . . .

[Just imagine a night sky and tons of snow and you'll have a pretty good idea of how the suite looked on the big night!]

. . . where my future brother-in-law surprised my sister with an engagement ring!  Both families were hiding in a back room to surprise my sister after her fiance popped the question – it was so much fun, and I couldn’t be more excited for them.

The fun continued on Christmas day with LOTS of goodies (more about those later!) and good times with our families.  We’re so lucky that both of our families live in Dallas – the thought of having to pick one family to spend the holidays with sounds so hard!

And can you believe that as of December 26th we’ve been in our house for 1 year?  It boggles my mind, and I can’t believe that over the course of a year this formerly-empty house . . .

. . . now looks like this and this and this and this.  Crazy!

We capped off the holiday celebrations with a quick trip to see the ICE! exhibit at the Gaylord Texan – to say that it’s a Texas-sized ice exhibit in a Texas-sized hotel is an understatement.  As you can probably imagine, two million pounds of ice carved into scenes from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is pretty darn impressive!

[Yup, those are just random people from the exhibit's website]

So that pretty much sums up my holiday!  It was excellent, and I loved every minute – how about you guys??

It seems like we got our Christmas decorations up just in the nick of time, because look what we woke up to this morning!!!

Snow!!

It may not look like much, but it was such a thrill to be greeted with this fun surprise this morning.  As you might suspect, we only get snow here in Texas about once every bazillion years.  Now I’m feeling so Christmas-y that I hardly know what to do with myself!

Hope you have a great Thanksgiving!!

Hey guys! Today you can find me guest blogging over at the fabulous blog, Centsational Girl!!  (I’m so excited I hardly know what to do with myself!!)

I’ll be sharing my tips for creating beautiful Thanksgiving and Christmas tablescapes without spending a lot of time or money – and there’s a video of yours truly!!  Seriously, I don’t see how you can resist.  Aren’t you curious to find out whether I can form a coherent sentence?

Although if this blooper reel from the video shoot ever leaks out, I’m pretty sure a career on HGTV is out of the question . . .

It’s Great To Be Home – Holiday Blooper Reel from It’s Great To Be Home on Vimeo.

Ready for more?  Okay, click here head on over to check out my guest post!

This post is shared with DIY Day on A Soft Place to Land.