The sweatpants chronicles

Garden gnomes and what they taught me about design

2011-06-16T16:32:00.000-07:00

My garden gnome collection had originally started out as a joke. After hours of registering for tea towels and all of the other items that the bridal websites insisted we needed, my fiancé and I decided that we needed some comic relief. We agreed to register for the first nonsensical item we saw and bet on who would actually purchase it for us. It didn’t take more than a minute to find the perfect item. He was brightly colored, tacky, and in all regards the opposite of anything that looked like it belonged in our home. While we did count a few of our goofy relatives getting our odd sense of humor, we didn’t count on more of them not getting it and simply assuming that we just really liked garden gnomes. At my shower alone I received three. For the wedding, we received two, and with every year that passes we always seem to wind up with another one. At first, I cringed at the thought of actually having to house the gnomes in my yard. I wanted every part of my home to look like something out of a magazine. However, as the days went on I found myself not being able to hold back a smile as I spied them out the window. While they may not have been picture perfect they became another part of our home that told part of our story. It was at that moment that I learned to stop following the trends in design and simply follow my heart.

What do these two things have in common?

2011-03-01T15:21:00.000-08:00

They both have something to do with my senior project. More details to come :)

Day 3-Your first love

2010-10-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

He’s my first and only. Jamie and I first met at the beginning of high school. We were set up on a date and by the end of it wound up not being able to stand one another. Despite the fact that we went to different schools, we knew a lot of the same people and always ran into one another. This continued into college where we started a routine of me giving him my number (with no intentions of answering his calls) and him taking it (with no intention of calling me). Our sophomore year I had given him my number again right before Christmas, and out of courtesy he called me to wish me a merry Christmas. Normally I wouldn’t have answered his call but I had just spent all day hanging out with relatives that were five times my age and was desperate to have a conversation with someone that didn’t need an oxygen tank break to finish a sentence. Go figure, as we started talking we realized we had a lot in common and decided to hang out some time. At first we met up with all of our friends… then that progressed to us hanging out alone after everyone left…then that led to just us going out…which eventually led to us realizing (months later) that despite our better efforts, we really liked each other and somehow were dating. Seven years (and many intriguing tales later) we are married, stubbornly in love and planning the rest of our lives together.

Day 2-Meaning behind your blog name

2010-10-28T12:59:00.000-07:00

This one will be an easy one…Brittany Ro is my name and I call the blog “The Sweatpants Chronicles” because I was excited to make the switch back to sweatpants from business clothes.

Day 1: Introduce, Recent Picture, 15 interesting Facts

2010-10-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

As has been pointed out to me way to many times, I am horrible when it comes to blogging. Ironically enough, I think that shows the best reality of being in interior architecture...you really don't get free time! In order to try and make up for it, I am taking on the 30 day blog challenge that is being done by all of my friends. Here is my mission for day 1: Introduce, Recent Picture, 15 Interesting facts.

My name is Brittany, and I am a student/wife/intern/employee. I will be graduating next year and hope that after that point, the bags under my eyes will start to go away!

This is the most recent picture of me... taken over the weekend. Typically I'm not one to wear belts, or anything gold, but I couldn't resist.

Here are 15 things you may not know about me...

1. I am addicted to Mexican food (Real Mexican food...not the Americanized stuff most places sell). It's one of the many reasons I refuse to leave Arizona.

2. I am deathly afraid of large fish and deep murky water.

3. I am not, however, afraid of sharks and insisted on going on a shark dive on my honeymoon.

4. I use to be a volunteer archaeologist.

5. I own a tent and a Leatherman, and use them both.

6. I loooooooove to cook.

7. I can't sew to save my life. I am attempting to learn though.

8. My favorite color to wear is purple.

9. I am a huge UFC fan.

10. My closet is organized by color, my DVDs are alphabetized and my spices are arranged by potency. Yes...I am that person.

11. The above mentioned are about the only organized things in my

house. I am married to a wrestler and have no free time. My house pretty much

always looks like a disaster zone.

12. I started playing violin when I was 3. I stopped shortly after I was 18.

13. My favorite holiday is the 4th of July. I'm not uber patriotic, I just really love fireworks and a chance to BBQ!

14. I love hosting parties, and can't wait until we own a larger home.

15. My lucky number is 13. Stephanie at Daydreams of a Diva thinks everyone needs to know that ;)

I've been a bad little blogger

2009-06-14T13:20:00.001-07:00

Alright, so I've been getting called out quite a bit on not updating my blog. Now, as much as I would love to wax poetic, I am in the middle of finals so I don't have much time to write. I would, however, like to share with you some of the things that I have grown to love since I started this blog. As is fitting, I will start with my first design love;Maya Romanoff. I discovered them while working on my first ever interior design project and was blown away. I had never know wall coverings to be anything outside of gaudy patterns of roosters or flowers. As I looked through their catalog, I couldn't help but be blown away by these beautiful masterpieces
made out of mother of pearl, woods, glass beads and so much more. If you ever have a chance to see their product in person, I suggest doing so. Pictures just don't do the products justice. Now, on to my newest love. I discovered this photographers blog by accident, and have been a big fan ever since. He has such and amazing ability to see and capture the beauty that most people would just walk by every day. Here are a few of my favorite shots.

Guess who got contracted to decorate the Barbie Dream House?

2008-11-15T11:50:00.000-08:00

Okay, well not really, but that's what these little color chips made me think of. They are actually for The New Munsell Student Color Set, which pretty much any art/design student has to make themselves familiar with at some point. This assignment sounds deceptively easy enough; separate the color chips, organize them into values and chromas and affix them on the sheet.
Well, the first few pages are actually really easy, but let me tell you, when you get about half way through the book, your eyes start to blur so bad that the colors all look the same. That, and if your anything like me, you start to get studiotac built up on your fingers, and the chips start adhering to you. Not fun! (**Side note- I still recommend Studiotac over glue for this project though. The chips stay put, but if you need to move them around, you can easily pop them off the page. That and it lacks the nasty glue smell.) In other news, I just had my midterms and I'm a little less than thrilled. I have an "A" in my drawing class, but a "C" in my manual drafting class. Luckily the "C" can be easily raised by editing some of my previous work, so I'm not too worried, but I still can't stand knowing that I have lower than a "B" in anything. I can't wait until we can start CAD and I don't have to deal with trying to sharpen my B pencils every five seconds just to keep my line weights even. I'm also excited about being able to get a job in the field soon. I really want to get my NCIDQ certification (its like the bar exam for interior designers) as soon as I can, but you have to be working under someone that has the certification for at least two years. So, pretty much if I get a job now, by the time that I graduate, I will be ready to enroll in the prep classes and then on to take the test. Yeah, having to take classes after you graduate.... gotta love it!

Has it already been a year?

2008-11-08T14:45:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow marks our first year as man and wife. Its crazy, before our wedding, time couldn't drag its feet any harder and now, its flying by before my eyes. Its crazy to think of how much we have changed as a couple over the years. I still remember a few years back when I was a

bridesmaid in Nicki's ( Jamie's sister's ) wedding. We had been dating for about three years at the time and marriage couldn't have been further from my mind. Everyone, of course, was asking me if I was going to catch the bouquet, so I made sure to let Nicki know that if she threw it at me, I would let it hit the floor. It was that night that everyone learned how stuborn and true to our word us Marks women are. I was forced to take the bouquet later that night, but they got a priceless photo or Erin and I avoiding the flowers like the plague. Its crazy to think that only a few short years later, I couldn't imagine not having the privelage of being Mrs. Jamie. I know it sounds super cheesy, but I really did get to marry my best friend and there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not thankfull for that. Oh, and speaking of thankfull, I can't tell you how happy I am to not have to deal with planning a wedding! Really, I don't see how any woman can take pleasure in that... unless you have the money to get an amazing wedding planner like Mrs. Kim ;) You never realize how many little deatails go into a wedding until you're knee deep in color swatches trying to find the table linens that best match your dinnerware that you had to have because it best represented the tone of your wedding. Oh, and its such a slap in the face at the end, because you spend all of that time trying to make every detail perfect for this one day, and once it gets there, its over in a flash. Honestly, for all of the hours of planning that I logged into my wedding, it should have lasted at least a week. Okay, maybe not that long, but for sure longer than 8 hours! I guess I can't really complain , even though no one else appreciated my centerpieces or my choice of silverware quite as much as I did, we all still had a great time. Just for fun, here are some more pics from the wedding... and if you could... please take a moment to bask in the glory of my centerpieces.

I passed!

2008-10-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

I got an A+ (99%...whats up?) and a B+, which I think puts me at about a 3.7 or 3.8 for my GPA. Hopefully I can raise it up even higher next semester. Until then, I'm going to enjoy my week off before I have to go back to school and start kickin some ass again. :)

Just for fun, here is the link to my favorite design product. I used the mother of pearl tiles for the accent wall on my final project. http://mayaromanoff.com

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!

2008-09-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

Yup, this is totally my life right now. Finals are coming up next week, so I have been living, sleeping and breathing drafting. Wish me luck!

Happy Birthday to meeee!

2008-09-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

So, it used to be that having a birthday made me feel more mature and grown up, and now days it seems like all that my birthdays are doing is making me feel old. Even just a few short years ago, I remember calling up my friends and planning out what bars we were going to hit up to celebrate, and of course, I always made sure I had the day after off of work. Not so much because I needed to recover, but more because the party typically ran over well into the next morning. As the years have gone on, however, birthdays have become less of a thing to celebrate and more of a thing I try to ignore. If it weren't for my car insurance going down every year, I think I would just skip them all together. I'm so not ready to be turning the big 30 soon!

How fast they grow!

2008-03-26T14:59:00.000-07:00

I got to see my neice on Easter and I can't get over how much shes grown since I saw her last month. Not only is she bigger, but she is starting to look less like a baby and more like a little girl. She is reacting to things much more than ever before. She has been a very expressive baby from day one, but now that she comprehends things more (or atleast tries too) you can't help but keep your eyes glued to her to see what funny thing she does next. Its strange, I guess I had never paid that much attention to babies before, but it is so amazing to watch them try to take in everything and sort it all out. I can't wait to see her grow even more. I can already see she has a lot of the great qualities that her mom has that make her the amazing woman that she is.

Knowing both of her parents, I'm pretty sure its only going to be a few years before she starts trying to help birds with broken wings and builing huts for the bugs in the backyard to live in. My nephew has been sprouting like a weed too. He is coming up on his first birthday and already seems like he is ready to take on the world. We took him to the zoo the other weekend and I was pretty sure that he wasn't going to have any idea what was going on. Much to my suprise he was wide eyed (well, for most of the time) and wanting to explore everything. He was also kind enough to share some of his rice snacks with me. Granted, by the time that he handed them to me they were so covered in drool that they were mostly mush so I had to decline. None the less, a very nice jesture. He seems to be becoming very empathetic. I swear it was only last week that he was a newborn, unaware of the world and the people around him. I'm not going to lie. Part of this whole thing makes me excited to have kids some day and another part of it makes me scared to death to have children of my own. They grow and change so fast, I don't know how I would ever be able to keep up with that! Well, as for now I am content to just watch from the sidelines and try to take as many notes down as I can before I have to take the field.