Life in the Village

Say whaaaaat? Yes, that's right. I'm blogging again. I'm not sure what came over me, but here I am. I also want to mention I have had a peculiar amount of activity on the blog since I've stopped blogging. I still get over 100 views a week. I will thank Pinterest for that, as my pins are still floating around of the crafts I blogged about. I figured maybe I should bring back the blog every once in awhile. It's a very fun time in my life, and I kind of do want to share it :) I had a moment today after school when I just thought to myself, "I have a pretty awesome life." Though it's a bit of a stressful time in my life (ya know, being a first year teacher and planning a wedding), it's very exciting and busy is good in my book. I am so thankful!

I wanted to share the happenings of our little life down here in the East Village in downtown Des Moines. I must say it is better than I could have ever imagined. I reallllly hope we stay down here for more than one year. There is SO much happening all the time. I love the culture, the music, the street parties, the shops, everything! It's so awesome. Everyday I come home I just get so happy about living down here!

This is going to be a picture overload, but that's what happens when you don't blog for 3 months. I'll start with the "grand" tour! It's won't be long, as our loft is a mere 600 square feet :)

This is the view when you walk in. This is our living room. I loooove the brick walls! That is definitely our favorite part. The ceilings are SO high, which makes the apartment feel bigger than it is.

Kitchen. It's got a little bit of an "industrial feel" with the exposed ductwork and metal fixtures. The kitchen is plenty big, they definitely used the space well!

This is the view from the back of the apartment.

This picture kind of shows you juuuust how small our apartment is :)

This is our little "office/craft" space that fits nicely behind our living room furniture

This is our "bedroom", though I can't really call it that because there is no door. This was the part I was most nervous about, but it isn't an issue at all. We thought about getting some sort of vintage screen or tri-fold door, but we like it open now. Our queen size bed fits nicely with plenty of room to spare on both sides.

Another thing I was nervous about was closet space. I imagined a loft being open with no closets, but that is not the case at all. We actually have plenty of storage. This is our walk-in closet. It looks cluttered and cramped because I have a lot of clothes, but there's always room for more! :) A closet door would have been a nice touch so I could throw all our mess in there when we have visitors, but living in a loft like this definitely encourages us to keep clean!

This is our bathroom, which is bigger than it looks in this picture. We have a linen closet just to the left of the vanity, which is where we keep pretty much all our bathroom things Our shower is around the corner to the right. It's a half size which is annoying after coming from a giant shower with a bench! Shaving my legs is not fun in this shower, that's for sure. We also have a big utility closet next to the shower, which is where we store the vacuum, boxes, recycling, our cooler, golf clubs, things like that! (I'm sure you were all wondering what we store in our utility closet...)

Please also note the embroidery hoops and vintage handkerchiefs on the wall. I was pretty proud of that idea :)

One of my favorite features of our apartment...the patio! It's huuuge! 200 square feet to be exact (which is about 1/3 the side of the inside of our apartment, so total we we have about 800 square feet of outdoor and indoor space.) We haven't done much with furniture yet The two chairs here were the barstools in our old apartment, but  our bar is too short here. We're on the hunt for a tall table, so for now we use lawn chairs. I enjoy sitting out there doing school work. It's a covered patio, but it was really rainy this day Usually we stay pretty dry from the rain. This is also where I go when Kevin makes me mad.

This is the view from the balcony. We have 1 parking spot that is included in our rent, so we leave Kevin's car there because he walks to work. Parking on the street is NEVER hard to find, I usually park right out front. It's free to park from 6pm to 8am and on the weekends, and I'm usually not home until parking is free! I was worried it would be a hassle, but it's worked out.

This is what I wake up to every morning :) (Ok, I guess it's dark out now, but you get the picture...)

Ok, onto the fun stuff! Here are some of the happenings of our life in the East Village!

We have a wall outside our apartment that is a HOT SPOT for photographers. There is a constant stream of photo shoots, from senior pictures to wedding parties. I quite enjoy being a creeper and watching them all. We're getting our engagement pictures taken in a few weeks and I'm sure we will be using this wall!

Running downtown has been very enjoyable. There are some nice trails nearby and some pretty scenery along the river (though sometimes it's very smelly.) I have also been running the steps at the Capitol and in this little area by the river.

We often hear random live music playing and wander down to investigate what's going on. This is absolutely one of my favorite parts of living in the East Village! We love going to this on Sunday's. I couldn't imagine an event more suited to me.

My favorite store in the East Village! Hill Vintage and Knits. They sell yarn and vintage clothes. Yes please!

Another favorite shop is Raygun. They make the Des Moines: Hell Yes shirts you've probably seen around. I love seeing the hilarious shirts they come up with How can you not like a store with a street sign like this?!

Here are a few of my favorite gems from Raygun:

( I have to be honest Kevin and I both got that last shirt...it was on the $3 rack and we couldn't resist.)

Another favorite stop is City Bakery just down the street. They have AMAZING pastries that remind me so much of Italy. We usually go once every weekend if we're home.

Street party sponsored by our neighborhood gay bar! Always a fun time :)

Our favorite bar is right around the corner, Quintons. They have crazy good drink specials (that margarita was $4...every Friday!), darts, foosball, and play good music like the Beatles and 90's hits.

When we moved we also decided to do away with cable. Both of us stay very busy with work and decided we didn't need to watch TV so much. We have our basic channels and it's going well for the most part. The Packers games aren't always on, so we go to the bar (Quintons) to watch them. I usually take some work with me when we go :)

 We have also frequented the Downtown Farmer's Market which is HUGE and awesome.

 Another one of my favorite parts of living downtown is being able to properly entertain! Tonia came down for a weekend and we bar hopped all over downtown and met some very interesting characters, including this bunny.

There are also soo many festivals down here I never knew about before! We went to the Latino Heritage Festival a few weekends ago to enjoy some culture and yummy food. This quesadilla was scrumptious.

The World Food Festival went on last weekend on our street. That's our building to the right. Literally right outside our doorstep. There was food from all over and Heather came down for the weekend to enjoy it as well. My favorite dish was the French Toast Crepes from the French food stand. Kevin and Heather tried Bosnian, Mesopotamian, Ethiopian, and Cajun (I was not so adventurous.) I like the shot of the Capitol in the background.

So that's our neighborhood! I love it so much down here. I am so glad we decided to move downtown. There is so much to do and it's always right outside of our door!

I will leave you with this adorable picture one of my students drew of her pregnant relative. Gotta love the innocent and simple mind of a child :) 

I may be back next week with some wedding planning updates! I have gotten SO much done this week! YAY!

Eisley Concert

There are 4 bands in this world that I listen to religiously and I never get sick of them: Brand New, Manchester Orchestra, Taking Back Sunday, and Eisley. In this past year, I have seen all 4 bands for the first time! Further, I am proud to say I have seen all 4 from the front row. (To read about my past concert experiences, click here: Brand New, Manchester Orchestra, Taking Back Sunday).

When I found out Eisley was coming to the area, I knew I had to go. Omaha was the closest place (a 2 hour drive), and the show was at 8pm on a Sunday night. (Side note: Eisley stopped in Des Moines Saturday night [Instagram makes stalking easy] and I sent a message to band member Sherri and she wrote back to me!)

Knowing we both had to work the next morning, I threw out the idea to Kevin, not thinking he'd actually be interested in going. To my surprise, he said he would go! What a lovely fiancé I have!

Eisley is a 5-person band. Sherri Dupreee Bemis (guitar/vocals), Stacy King (keyboards/vocals), Chauntelle Dupree (guitar/vocals), and Weston Dupree (drums) are all siblings. Their cousin (Garron Dupree) plays bass.

Stacy King (With a 6-month prego belly!)
Chauntelle Dupree in the background (with another prego belly!)

Weston Dupree on drums
Garron Dupree on bass

I have a girl crush on Sherri. She is the coolest girl ever. She has pink hair and awesome tattoos and I love every single thing she wears. She sings, plays guitar, writes music, and draws! I want to be her.

Sherri's Guitar, illustrated by her

There surprisingly weren't many people at the show, less than 100. We could stand comfortably and just enjoy the music without being pushed around and cramped. It was very enjoyable! Merriment opened up for Eisley. Merriment consists of two more Dupree siblings, Christie and Collin. Christie plays acoustic guitar and Collin plays electric. Her voice is amazing and I liked them more than I expected to.

Christie Dupree

Collin Dupree

Without even trying, we ended up standing directly in front of Sherri. It felt awkwardly close since there was so much room in the venue, staring at her from 3 feet away.

The concert definitely didn't disappoint! Seeing them live made me love them 100x more. Their albums are more on the mellow side, and I was pleasantly surprised they rocked out in concert. They sounded great and played a lot of songs. Here is the set list if you're interested:

I Can Be There For You
Smarter
Lights Out
The Valley
Better Love
Marvelous Things
Laugh It Off
Watch It Die
Please
Sad
Oxygen Mask
Mr. Moon
I Wasn't Prepared
Golly Sandra
Ambulance
Deep Space
192 Days

If you have never listened to Eisley, you are missing out. They are fantastic musicians and put on a great live show! The Valley is my favorite album if you are looking for a starting point. They just put out an EP called Deep Space which is also a great album. They will be releasing another album early next year, which they are recording themselves. They said it will be more "Eisley unhinged" and authentic to them since they are doing it without the control of a record label.

Anyway, we had a great time and I'm glad we went! Kevin even came away liking Eisley. I occasionally make him listen to them when we're driving, but he never really caught on. He had a smile on his face the whole time and even requested we listen to Eisley the whole way home. (I think 87% of his new "liking" of Eisley is due to the fact Sherri is a babe.)

SO GOOD! I took quite a few videos that I'm working on uploading to YouTube. I'll update this post once (if ever) I get them uploaded. One thing I regret from Brand New is not taking more videos, so I made sure to record some more this time around. I have been watching them all day and reliving the awesomeness that is Eisley!

Moving On Up

It all started on Cinco De Mayo. Kevin and I spent nearly the entire day downtown, soaking up the sun and the culture and just being awesome. We got to talking about how nice it would be to live downtown, be able to walk everywhere, go to the farmer's market each weekend, enjoy all the downtown events, have a couple drinks together and not have to have a designated driver to get us back home. We'd be in an awesome place for visiting friends. He'd be able to walk to work and I'd be a lot closer to my school, saving us both a lot of money on parking and gas.

So.....we're moving downtown!

We found a cute little loft in the East Village. This is a "trendy" little area of downtown. There are lots of little shops, bars, and restaurants. It's a more laid back, artsy area of downtown. Our loft is in a historic building converted to lofts.

We have a view of the capitol to the east and the skyscrapers of downtown to the west.

Inside, we have exposed brick walls and an open "loft" feel. There is no bedroom wall or door, it's open to the living space (it's around the corner in the picture below). When looking at lofts, I was worried there would be little closet space and everything would just be open. This is not the case. We have 2 big walk in closets and a good sized linen closet in the bathroom. The loft is only 675 sq. ft., but the space is used well. (These next pictures are taken from the Craigslist ad I found the apartment through).

We also have a HUGE covered patio (200 sq. ft.) that will be useful when Kevin and I have had too much together time. Let's face it, we will be living in close quarters! I need somewhere to storm off to when he makes me angry :). I'm excited for our eventual house-warming party to see how many people we can fit out here!

The kitchen area is a nice size as well with plenty of cupboard space (I realize I'm starting to sound like a realtor. I blame HGTV.) You can kinda get a glimpse of the industrial feel of the loft here with the exposed ductwork and industrial lights.

I will of course provide many more photos once we move in, which will be at the end of July! I'll have to start crafting again as well to decorate our new pad! Until then I'm doing a little spring summer cleaning and de-cluttering.

I am really going to miss our current apartment. (You can see our furnished and decorated home tour here.) There is so much room here and everything is so new and nice! It was Kevin and I's first place together, and we got engaged in our bathroom!

More than anything I'm excited to live downtown and be in the center of it all. Come visit, friends!