Blissful Bits of Life Lately Vol. 1 [Random happenings around the house]

Crickets…

I feel like I have been MIA for soooo long, even though its only been a short while – like maybe a week. The strange part is, since I pop in and out of social media so frequently, it feels like you all know what I’ve been up to. But, if you aren’t seeing my Facebook page posts or my insta snapshots or even what I’m pinning everyday, then you really DON’T know what all is going on around here. So for today, I thought I would get you all caught up.

= how I feel. This week, I sort of felt like packing up the fall decs and telling them all to take a hike! I definitely got a little ‘pumpkin’d out’ this year for some reason. I do love pumpkin everything, though – lattes, bread, coffee creamer, cake balls, english muffins, pancakes – you get the gist. YUM! But, I guess I am mainly referring to the decorations around the house. So, they got packed up and shipped out to the big black hole that is my laundry room. This is an entirely separate top, but to keep it short and sweet, ever since we finished the basement, we basically lost all of our storage space. So, where did everything go? The garage and the laundry room/under the staircase. Where did all the junk our stuff go when we cleaned out the garage this past weekend? ALL. TO. THE. LAUNDRY ROOM. Since we didn’t finish the laundry room with the rest of the space, it literally has become our dumping ground and oh, the place I have to go multiple times a day to wash all of our clothes and having 2 not-so-clean little boys, makes it a real treat, I tell ya.

So, while I’m trying to take an organized approach to packing away fall & Halloween decor, I am ferociously digging out and hauling up Christmas totes as fast as possible.

Did someone say Target one spot?

Getting out all of normal Christmas decorations and mixing in a few carloads shopping bags of new things I’ve picked up over the last few weeks, I’d say our house will be decked. I can’t wait. There will be several holiday posts coming your way in the very near future – DIY decor, ways to work in your holiday decor with your everyday things, tablescapes, etc. I can see the glitz & glitter now 😉

Here is a sneakpeak of something I’ve been working on.

And even more exciting than that?! I’m going to be teaming up with some fabulous bloggers to bring a whole lot of holiday inspiration & goodness your way. YAY! You won’t want to miss it!

The basement. The basement is really, really close to being fully…dare i say?… done! At least the family room, the bar and the bathroom are pretty close. I have a bit more work to do in the play area, but the toys, books and puzzles are down there and the boys are happy, so that’s what’s working for us now. I posted about the bathroom progress and the bar progess, so next up will probably be playroom progress and then I will most likely do a reveal of the whole space in some way, shape or form. Stay tuned. It’s going to be good. I have worked really hard on everythingm so I sure hope it is!

This one is sort of a biggie…I FINALLY took the plunge and migrated to a self-hosted site.

What does that mean? I’m not really sure. ha! I can already see where this brilliant idea of mine is headed!

Basically, I will be maintaining my own site from now on. Making the back-end changes related to customization of how the site looks & feels from your point of view, managing my own advertisements, etc. I’m planning to attempt to do this on my own for as long as I can. So far, so good, but its only been a couple of days! If I need to hire a techie person to help me out – you better believe I will. I am not trying to add anything more to my plate or unnecessary stress, but it was time to take things into my own hands. The way the blog was managed before was out of my control in so many aspects. While it was the easy way to go for awhile, it didn’t make sense in the long-run. I want to be able to make decisions about how things work, look and quite frankly, if someone is going to be making money from the ads you see on the sidebar and footer of my site, why shouldn’t it be me?! And the biggest victory of all…I now have a “Pin it” button on every image you see in my posts. Go ahead. Pin away!!! Fingers crossed everything runs smoothly.

I’ve been working on a reader survey and will try to sneak it in and get it out to you all before the holidays so I can gather info, ideas and feedback to be able to make appropriate changes at the beginning of the year. I can’t wait to hear what you guys have to say about what you’ve been reading over the last year and a half (has it really been that long already?) and ideas you may have for the future of This is our Bliss. Big, exciting things, everyone. BIG.

Other randoms…

We just had family pictures and shall we say, there were – ahem – a few challenging moments with the boys. I’m not really sure what I expected dealing with an 18 month old & 3-year old. All I can say is I am fully confident my photographer will work her magic per usual and all will be well. wink wink.

the boys both have colds. tis the season. literally. I just checked my watch and its about that time again. cough, cold, sniffles, flu, runny nose, ear infection and then circle back and do it all over again. here we go!

Thanksgiving is next week already and wow! I don’t know how that is possible. I am not hosting, actually I haven’t ever, but I am really looking forward to getting back home to my parents’ house to be able to see all of my relatives and spend time with my grandparents. My grandma has been hospitalized for a couple of weeks now and I just want to go see her and hold her hand.

Aside from holiday decorating, we are in the midst of one other semi-big project. We’re not talking like basement-size project and we aren’t doing it ourselves, but nonetheless it’s still a project in progress. Here is the current state of the family room mantle.

Oh, dear, please let it be finished in time to be able to hang our 4 little stockings on it this Christmas! EEEEK!

It feels soooo good to be back in action after a week away from you guys! I know the reader survey isn’t out yet, but please drop me a note in the comments if you want to see anything in the coming weeks as we near the holidays or even into next year. Thanks in advance!!

The couch is now officially calling out my name. Goodnight!