Emily Henderson, Please Be My BFF. Or My Boss.

This may come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, but, I have never watched Design Star. I know, I know, shocking! Well, this past week the blogs were all the Twitter (Did anyone get that Glee reference? I really hope so.) about the past Design Star winner, Emily Henderson's new HGTV television show Secrets From a Stylist, which premiered Saturday night.

Let's backtrack to about a year ago. When I started Interior Design school exactly 10 months ago I thought I wanted to be an interiors stylist or be a part of a retail visual team. That is because I didn't even know Set Decorating existed. Styling is definitely what I would like to do while trying to make it as a Set Decorator and on the side while hopefully being an actual Set Decorator. 

Well, Emily is a stylist, hence the name of her show, and I want to be her bestie and her employee. I love her design eye, she seems to have an excellent work ethic, and I would just love to learn from her. Plus, we have the same clothing style. In her first episode she wore a sweater I own (hers was in navy), boat shoes (not sure if they were actual Sperry's, but looked just like them), and a couple shirt dresses...hello, that is me. The girl obviously loves Anthro, and I work there!  Emily's About Me on her website says, "I believe strongly there is always a time and place for fresh flowers, and nothing is more important than simply being nice to every person, every day." To top it all off, she lives in Los Angeles, my future home come this summer. Meant to be? I think so!

You can watch this past Saturday's episode where Emily styled Glee writer, Ian Brennan's Hollywood Hills bungalow. Here are Ian and Emily (in my sweater) in Ian's fabulous new living room...

And, here are a few pics of the final product for ya...

Again, the Living Room

Guest Room Niche

Television Room

All images found via Google search "Ian Brennan Emily Henderson"

Oscars 2011.

"You're considered frivolous and silly if you are interested in fashion, but I think you can be substantial and still be interested in frivolity." -Sophia Coppola

There were perfect purples...

and a magnificent metallic (which kind of resembled Oscar standing behind her)...

and beautiful blacks (with a cute, but overtanned boy)...

and the reds were ravishing...

and The King's Speech boys were darling and dapper...

and the neutrals were very nice...

and Justin surely was justified (and hot).

And, did you see this? Hilarious!!!

Oh, yesterday...

Now that may be a little dramatic but, yesterday was one of those days. Just an all around bad day. I think I cried around oh say 50% of the day. About 8% of the tears came due to the tenderness in the last 15 minutes of watching Voyage of the Dawn Treader at the dollar theater, by myself, in the middle of the afternoon. But, a majority of the crying was out of frustration, anxiety, and self pity. Also known as, lack of trusting God, feeling like my life is completely out of my control (which it is), and believing the lie that my value comes in my life performance.
This morning I was searching Pinterest and came across some pretty little performance driven lies that I typically unintentionally let myself believe...

I would prefer to live my life by these beautiful truths (also found on Pinterest)...

Bridges.

Growing up my family went to the beach often. Living in North Carolina we had an endless supply of sand and surf a mere 4 hours away. Each summer we went to Hilton Head Island with two other families. It was my favorite week (sometimes two, if I was lucky) of the entire year. I loved having two sisters and four brothers for the week, being able to ride my bike to South Beach and Harbor Town sans parents, boogie boarding, building sandcastles in the sand (anyone get the Robin Sparkles reference?), and apparently eating chicken wings.

But, before you could get onto Hilton Head Island, then to the Sea Pines Circle, and finally to 19 Grey Widgeon, you had to cross a major bridge. And, the thing is I have no idea if that bridge really was huge or if I just remember it being really long. But, in any case that bridge terrified me. All I could think about was what if this bridge cracks, we go sinking into the ocean, and are trapped inside the car. To ease my fears, I convinced everyone in the car we needed to roll down the windows and unlock the doors. Typically my mother did not meet my request (because she does not roll down windows because the wind would mess up her hair), but others typically would oblige. Now that I am older I can think more rationally about bridges and honestly I think they are an engineering and architectural amazement. My brain has a hard time getting behind the physics it must take to know how to build a structure in the water that will hold millions of pounds of weight. Ground shifts, but the structure must stay supportive. I also love the design differences in bridges. There is such an opportunity to be creative and give a bridge beauty and a personality while also serving a function.

All bridge images found via Pinterest search "bridge".

Procrastination.

My day...

For some reason the 6 floor plan/furniture plan inkings, 2 sets of spec sheets, 5 more floor plan/furniture plan sketches, and paper I had to get done today were not on the top of my how I want to spend my Tuesday afternoon list. But, as of now, 5:30 p.m. all I have left are the spec sheets and paper. And, that sounds very doable. A large task can paralyze me at first. I am very proactive until it comes to something that I try to find my value in, then I freeze up for a bit before becoming proactive. At UT (Tennessee, not Texas) I didn't care about school. I cared much more about what I was wearing, spending time with my friends, making sure people liked me, being a good Young Life leader, going to RUF, being an ADPi, and eating at Sawyers and Silver Spoon. This go round is a totally different story (I have probably mentioned this on the blog before. It is a recurring place God has my heart.) and I tend to be on the other extreme when it comes to school. Last week I got a very good grade on a test and the elation on my face was ridiculous. Especially because while studying my mother had to tell me to breathe because I was freaking out so much about how unprepared I felt. Ridiculous I tell you. All of this is to say that today I had a bout of procrastination and fear of tackling all of the work I had to do out of the fear of what if I don't get a good grade (which in my mind means a 100). Good thing God is a God of grace and the sanctification process really is a beautiful and necessary thing for my soul. 

Happy President's Day!

Presidential Pillow

Presidential Hairstyles

Washington D.C. on a quilt

Letterpress of Presidents

American Flag/Ode to former Texas Presidents Cupcake Toppers

And, of course, everyone's request from our current President.