Thanksgiving Table Decor

The Great Indoors piece I've been looking forward to is finally up! Ashley Hannan and Naomi Stein each contributed a separate table and they both did an awesome job.

Here are a few images of their tables but check out the full post here!

Ashley's table decor

Naomi's table decor 

Our weekend in pictures

Bill and I had kind of a three day weekend on account of his oral surgery Friday. After years of putting it off, the man finally had to get his wisdom teeth removed. After some funny antics in getting him out of the hospital and back home, we spent 99% of our weekend in the house (so its a good thing we like our home so much!).

Luckily, we did go out Thursday night to do a review on a burlesque show at the Walking Fish Theater in Fishtown. It was actually really, really fun. Here's my review.

Below are a few images describing the rest of our weekend.

A fun 'stashed smiley next to the Walking Fish Theater

A few select images from the show

Bill and I head outside for the first time in 24 hours and he wears this: a Go-Ruck hat, a MMA t-shirt, his black "adventure pants" and orange running shoes. I think he was trying to look as tough as possible to balance out his swollen chipmunk cheeks. 

Speaking of chipmunk cheeks...

The poor man has to ice his face for long periods at a time so we had to devise this chin strap. 

(He'll probably hate that I put this picture up here...) 

And this was what Megan was doing. I devised a yummy drink of mulled strawberries, grenadine syrup, dragonberry rum and raspberry seltzer. Red fruit goodness. 

I also failed at making a living room fort, which made me quite sad, but we did go see Take Shelter  which I thought was really good and would recommend it to someone who has two and a half hours they want to kill. But I would not recommend it to anyone who has elaborate 2012 fantasies as this movie will just make it worse. 

Finally, I'm SOOOO looking forward to driving home tomorrow! It's been too long since I've been home and several years since I've been home for a holiday, so needless to say, I'm dying with anticipation. In the mean time, my mother is already sending me little bits of joy...

Our Musical Household

I realized in our house tour I really didn't take many pictures of our den/Bill's playroom. Its a narrow room that is often hard to photograph. Yet, its where we do a lot of our work and Bill does most of his play. It's filled with all of his "toys": bike parts, computers and tech gear, hiking and climbing gear and numerous musical instruments... yeah, he's kind of a Renaissance man.

The space was an addition and still utilizes the old back door of the house so its more or less sound proof when the door is shut, making it even more like a music studio. Bill has two guitars, a piano, a microphone, a few harmonicas and his wonderful voice. I'm just here for moral support and to clap.

So here are a few images in honor of our music household.

The Big Box of Crayons Just Got Bigger...

If only I had some awesome studio, and a ton of money, to do this...

from Felissimo

Sneak Peek

I'm pretty excited about next Monday's post of The Great Indoors, my Philadelphia City Paper weekly interior design post. Next Monday I'm coordinating several different Thanksgiving tables between myself and two amateur decorators (well, one is a professional). I'm doing two tables, the first of which I did this weekend.

And here's a sneak peek....

What do you think?

Weekend Update with Jane Curtain

Ok, not really, it's just a weekend update with the MegEwans.

Saturday night Bill and I had over a couple acquaintances from his work who both happen to be from St. Louis- which made me ecstatic, needless to say. While they both hailed from North Country and I'm over the river and through the woods to Southern IL, it was nice to have someone know where Edwardsville is.

While I didn't take pics of the dinner I snapped a few pics before of some of the nightly decor.

Then today we woke up around 4 a.m. to go to the Tough Mudder in NJ. For those of you not in the know on this one, the Tough Mudder is a obstacle course challenge spread over 10+ muddy miles. For the most part the challenges are climbing over stuff, carrying stuff or running and slipping on stuff but they throw in ridiculous obstacles like "try breathing in a pound of smoke for three minutes" and "try not dying while we shock your muddy body from 13 different directions". Yea.... 

So Bill made it through... again. This being his third Tough Mudder. He's qualified for a Tough Mudder mega-race in December that is a 24-hour race in the freezing cold with more water obstacles. Silly Billy. 

Here's a few captured images and video from today's race. 

Bill running after the first water obstacle and at the finish line. 

At the beginning of the race they start by chasing a monster truck. To "Eye of the Tiger". Yep.

I couldn't get a video of Bill doing this one up close but if you look closely you can see camo shorts over black tights in the background. That's him. Oh, and he kicked ass at this one. 

A few extra images another team member's girlfriend took... 

The neighborhood...

In all its splendor