rainy weekend morning pancakes.

plain for me. chocolate chip for him. mini for huntie. 

red out!

one of the plates i acquired during my recent raid of mom's cabinets. loving all my new loot. 

 sweatpants & pancakes. yuuuummmm...

hooray for icicle lights!

our new abode all lit up and ready for christmas.

 

i've always loved icicle lights, but after a few bum strands years ago, ting has always refused to hang them. more about that here. instead, we hung simple white and then multi-colored string lights last year, seen here. 

but! much to my excitement, when we got ready to hang our lights this past weekend, ting realized the nails on our new home were on the backside and totally set-up for ICICLES! yeeeeeessssss! 

i was so excited because in my opinion our new home is ideal for icicles. 

luckily we still had a few strands in the old christmas lights tub and got right to hanging. 

and when ting couldn't get to the top of our super pitched roof, the genius fetched our fireplace poker and used that to hook the strands up on the nails. whatever works, i guess. 

 and then it all came to a screeching halt when about 3/4 of the way through hanging we ran out of icicles. off to the store i went only to find out that these icicles had been discontinued. not a big deal right? wrong. these are GE's "random sparklers" so half the house would be sparkling and the other static - yeah, not. happening. luckily i searched the web and was able to find something that would work. kinda. 

my holidays are starting off even brighter this year.

my view.

with the fire poker "hook" tool.

aaaannndd... that's where things stopped for a while. 

my annual girl's wine & cheese party.

hard to believe the thursday before thanksgiving has come and gone already. i was a little late to get to planning my annual little wine party, but it was one of my favorites yet. i almost considered skipping this year, but i'm glad i didn't. the holiday kick-off tradition lives on! year one here and year two here.

it was fun to host in our new home - change of scenery and layout. i have to say, it's funny how no matter what - people will congregate in the kitchen. it made sense at our old house, but this house has a galley kitchen and so i find it funny that's still the place to be.

it's fun to watch the invite list grow each year with new friends, new co-workers, new clients... to each of you who came - thank you! it was fun having you in our home and catching up. and to those of you who couldn't make it - we missed you! let's hope we don't wait until next november to share that glass of wine.
.....

life does go by so fast. we're all guilty of it - not getting around to making those happy hour or lunch plans. busy schedules. putting too much pressure on a coffee date. out-thinking reaching out to someone. but you know what? aren't you always so glad when you do it? i've very rarely left a happy hour with friends - even acquaintances - that i regretted. it's just an hour or two and you never know when that can turn into a new friendship or will strengthen an existing one. make time for friends. for laughs. for social hour. it's good for the soul.

so today, reach out to one person you've been meaning to get together with and get something on the calendar - even if it's a month from now. keep it there and don't cancel. no matter what. you'll be glad you did. and they'll be too.

antipasti skewers (recipe), chicken salad finger sandwiches (recipe - no nuts), chex mix (recipe) & cheese board

mom's deviled eggs, cream cheese + raspberry sauce, fruit & flowers.

and that's sadly the last time the camera came out that night. 

i didn't even think about it. i was busy chatting and catching up with everyone. 

i'm typically rushing home after work to get things finalized before the girls arrive. nothing crazy - but always easier with the wonderful (annual) help from danny and miss rachel troyan. they're so great at taking my crazy orders - slicing, dicing, lighting and getting things in their place. thanks, you two. xo

hello, arizona autumn.

loving my fairytale pumpkin. the felines, too.

mom, we can't wait to hear about tonight's haunted halloween party! it's gonna be great. deep breaths. 

trader joe's and their magical brooms.

fall really snuck up on me this year. not to be annoying, but how is it the end of october? seriously. 

 

i walked into trader joe's the other night and my sniffer started going crazy. i know that scent! i had completely forgotten about these gems i discovered last year, and the sight of them made me a happy girl.  

 

these magical brooms are just $3.99 and will fill your home with the sweet cinnamon smell of fall.

 

idea: paired with TJ's wine or a bouquet of flowers, this would be a festive twist on the typical hostess gift.

 

sunday snuggles.

mr. man is being super needy for mama today. 

can't get close enough in the nook of my legs. 

not gonna lie, i totally love it. 

super awesome tips for your everyday life.

i recently came across these tips on another blog and just have to share. some of them are new and  really great!

these were my favorites. for the complete list visit this blog.

would have been helpful in oregon! mom & dad - give it a try and let us know!

little things i'm loving in our new home.

moving is an adjustment and sometimes both d and i feel like we're losing our minds. currently the #1 phrase in our house is, "hey babe - do you know where <blank> is?"and it's not me asking the question #drivingmecrazy!

we don't have a spot for our keys. boxes are still unpacked. the cable isn't working. we have the world's smallest toilet and a tiny refrigerator. no idea what switch controls what light. i drove right past our house the other night. yup, our routines have been rocked. but it's all totally worth it and we're loving our little home. some of my favorite things.

the original glass door knobs throughout the house.

windows. windows & more windows allowing huntie to be part of the willo block watch.

our dining room nook with three perfect windows.

our bedroom. i'm kind of obsessed with it. it's so cozy and relaxing.

awesome interior light fixtures. 

high ceilings, curved hallways & original chandeliers in multiple rooms. 

original hardwood floors and a sunken family room. 

our lush backyard and paver patio ready for some strung lights and a BBQ.
and so much more...

i'm excited to get even more settled in this weekend, start decorating and have some friends over.

okay, so NOW it's official...

when we got the offer on our house, i was given strict instructions by our realtor, my husband and our escrow agent that i could absolutely NOT say our house was sold until escrow closed and the sale was recorded and final.

well folks, as of a few minutes ago it's official...

adios, arcadia.
we're closing the red door & the tings officially downtown dwellers.

 

we've been craving a change and we got one.  

it is pretty surreal to think that we'll probably never walk in that house again. 

the reason it's called a terabyte.

a terabyte is a humungo amount of digital memory. ahead of megabytes & gigabytes - it's one trillion bytes of storage.

and you know what? it's named after me. get it? ter-abyte. bad nerdy joke. i know. danny's so embarrassed.

why? because it's official. i'm a data hoarder. it's out of control. my macbook pro is maxed out again and i've been spending hours the past couple weeks backing up my files to external hard drives and then backing those up because i'm a byte hog and terrified to lose anything (especially photos and videos which take up 90% of my space).

it's terrible. and although my iPhoto library is extremely organized, from this point forward i'm vowing to:
a) only keep my edited photos
b) only keep my very favorite edited photos
c) delete. delete. delete.

ugh. this is so hard for me. i love memories, but come on. i do not need 8 different photos of the french crepes we ate on our honeymoon. pick one, teri.

the only good thing about this cumbersome backing-up process is that i've come across all kinds of video footage. i've been reminded of all the random video footage we have and encouraged to make something of it before i back it up.

get ready for some totally random, mostly crap, but fun little family iMovies to appear on the blog. we'll start with this one i made last night. it's of huntie playing in the backyard irrigation or "swamp" as we like to call it. more about that here.

Hunter the French Bulldog Sunday Swampin' from Teri Bockting on Vimeo.
song credit: Arcade Fire's "City with no Children"

cinco de mayo.

we had a muy divertido (fun) cinco de mayo. 

the house felt festive with our authentic mexican table runner from lisa & reed's tulum wedding... 

we made a healthy mexican-inspired lunch + afternoon corona lights & lime.

 veggie filled quinoa salad (we added our own sirachi spice). recipe here.

i wore my annual cinco fiesta top dating back to 2006. such a fantastic thrift store find.

bueno dinner & margaritas at los sombreros in south scottsdale (our first time) before 

our friend's fantastico backyard fiesta under the light of the amazing super moon. 

did you see it? so beautiful & bright. 

diy bedroom makeover.

it was one of those rare - but awesome - weekends when we didn't have anything on the calendar. not a single obligation. we woke up on saturday morning and brainstormed things to do and landed on an overdue diy project to spruce up our bedroom.

we've loathed our bedroom set for years. first of all, it's a set. it was danny's from back in the day and just didn't suit us at all. i changed the bedside hardware to try to help it, but that bed. ugh. it was time for something new. a neutral fabric headboard + new crisp white sheets. all light, bright and hotel like.

ting did some online research (he liked this tutorial the best), made a list of supplies and we were off to the races. in just 3+ hours we tackled this project and i'm in love with our new bed. it's a world of difference and we're obsessed.

breakdown of our costs:

$19 -- plywood cut to size (74" x 46") at Home Depot 

$46 -- 2" foam at Hobby Lobby (we found a 40% off coupon online)

$23 -- 2.5 yards of upholstery fabric + batting 

$.60 -- 20 buttons for covering in fabric
$.99 -- two decorative needles + thread

-----------

= $89.59 for a Cal King tufted fabric headboard
a little less expensive than some of the ones we looked at like this and these and these.
plus, we had leftover foam which we cut up to add some fresh fluff to huntie's bed.  

this was honestly a pretty simple DIY project that didn't require crazy tools - just some spray adhesive, a bit drill (to make the holes for the tufting), a staple gun, needle and thread. 

{ting created a grid on the plywood to mark where our tufts would go and then drilled holes}

{spray adhesive the foam to the plywood and then batting on top to secure everything}

{ironing all the wrinkles out of our fabric}

{making fabric covered buttons. there's a much easier way to do this, but we couldn't find the kit anywhere}

{fabric on and ready for tufting!}

{danny would poke the needle through the holes marked in the back. i'd feed the button and send it back through}

{the finished product!}

{loving my new headboard and crisp white sheets. i feel like a queen in our new bed!}