Last night I was going to skip writing today's post.  And then I called my mom on my way home from work and she said that I was slacking on the blog.  This was after she told me that she wanted a can opener and $3 slippers for Christmas this year.  Bless her heart.

The thing is that I have discovered Gilmore Girls on Netflix and I'm 145 episodes away from any kind of productivity.  I have a million posts ideas.  Just limited time.

So, the other night I get home from craft night.  I go upstairs to change into my pajamas.  As I walk by the laundry room, I heard a noise. I started to panic.  Something was wrong.  I opened the door to find the washer and the dryer running.

My first thought was that Ike learned how to use the washing machine.  He's such a smart dog.  I soon realized that he prefers clothes to be dirty.  Dirty laundry is better for rolling in.

Next thought?  Ghosts from previous owners.  Wait.  We built the house.  Nevermind.

Next thought?  I'm dying.  There is no other logical reason that Nate would venture into the laundry room to turn on both machines and wash both of our clothing.  I run to take my temperature.  What is going on?

Where is this story heading other than I'm a jerk when my husband does something nice? 

Man.  Between the lack of day light and my poor time management, I'm finding it hard to get a post with pretty pictures together.  So today you get this.  An Instagram mash-up where I boss you around.  (Are you following Decor and the Dog on Instagram?  What?  You're not?  Hop to it! See, bossy!)

Ike is pretty pumped.  He has a new chair.  Now all he needs is a robe and a cigar. 

We've talked to him about the dangers of smoking.  He swears he'll only use the cigar as a prop.

On a recent trip to IKEA, I picked up the Strandmon chair.  Nate and I both liked it's quirk and velvety fabric.

Ike likes that it makes him look extra sophisticated.

Whoopie Pie is such a funny phrase.  So funny that Nate and I had to look up how the phrase originated.  Because we lead exciting lives. 

According to the ever reliable Wikipedia, it's rumored that Amish women would place them in farmers' lunch pails.  When the farmers would find them in their lunches, they would be so excited that they would yell "Whoopie!" 

I can only imagine what they would yell if they found these pumpkin spice whoopie pies.  I've made them a few times already this year.  It's becoming a problem.  A delicious, delicious problem.

You may have noticed in some previous posts that I have updated our living room pillows to go with the new living room look.  Nate thinks I have a pillow problem.  I don't know what he's talking about.  Per usual.

I may swap out pillows often but it's because I only buy inexpensive pillows.  Today I'm going to share my inexpensive pillow sources just in case you're in the market to update those head cushions.

Today is a very important day!  It's Nate's birthday!  The big 33.  So old.  Luckily he appears to be getting better with age. 

To celebrate Nate becoming elderly, let's discuss how he built our living room built-ins.  This post is heavy on pictures.  Light on words.  Just like my husband.  Pretty on the eyes, easy on the ears.

Pretend that makes sense.

We recently revealed the finished built-ins.

Alternate Title:  Bookshelf Styling for Dummies by a Dummy

Sooo, I debated even writing this post.  I don't consider styling one of my life strengths.  Napping, yes.  Dog snuggling, yes.  Repainting every room in my house, yes.  Styling no.

I am, however, happy with how the styling on our living room built-ins turned out.  I mentioned previously that I still plan to add more books but I think this is the max amount of knick-knacks these shelves will see.  I'm in the camp that bookshelves should hold mainly books.  There is a "bookshelves full of things" camp too.  I'll let you decide how you want to spend your Summer.  No judgement on this end.

Before we talk about how we installed our fancy barn beam mantel, I would like to send extra happy vibes out to my fellow retail pharmacists.  Hydrocodone (a pain med) becomes a schedule II medication today.  That means lots more paper work and annoyance for pharmacy staff.  If you're picking up a med today, be extra nice to your pharmacist.  We'll totally appreciate any friendliness we can get!

Anywho, enough boring day job talk.  Let's talk about how we installed our barn beam mantel. 

Last week we shared our built-in cabinets.  Part of our built-in plan was to update the fireplace/mantel.  I picked up this barn beam from a craft night friend a few months back. It was pretty much meant to become our new mantel. Unfortunately it had to sit in our garage until just recently.  I whispered sweet nothings to it as I would walk by on our nightly walks.  I promised I'd give it a proper place in our home as quickly as I could boss Nate around.

Last weekend we hosted our 2nd annual beer tasting party.  It's kind of a big deal. 

If you're new here, Nate and I are extreme introverts.  We actually don't mind hosting parties.  We like people in our home.  Our home is great for entertaining. We like our friends. It's just that people suck all of our energy and it takes us an entire year to recover before we can host another party.

We actually did better this year than in the past.  Maybe we can host something again in the Spring?  Wait, let's not get crazy.

Beings that I am a really good blogger, I took approximately 6 photos from the evening and 4 of those are to blackmail my brother in the future.  (What?  He woke up our entire house full of guests at 5:30am on Sunday.  That deserves some kind of payback.)