2014 Thus Far

Hi everyone.

So it has been a looooooong time since I've posted on here.... and it has taken a while for the urge to blog to return.

Originally I planned to resume blogging after the craziness of the holiday season had ended and I wasn't working 7 days a week for 10 hours a day.

Then New Year's hit, and well.... everything sort of hit the fan. My grampa had to go to the hospital because of a skin infection. Then my gramma fell, broke her hip, and had hip replacement surgery. And in the middle of that, my grampa has had arthritis flare-up and heart problems. So for the past six weeks my family has been taking care of my grampa at his house and my gramma at the nursing home. The good news is my gramma is back at home and doing well physically. The hard part now is the adjusting, for my grandparents and the rest of my family as well.

It has not been easy.

And trying to be light and happy and wanting to write about pretty things.... that has been the last thing I have wanted to do. It hasn't been the last thing on my mind, in fact I have been thinking about it a lot. For the past couple of weeks I have really felt the urge to blog again, to write about something that excites me, to write about something that I think is beautiful or a great deal.

So, I am going to ease back into this blogging thing again. I have recipes I want to share, DIY-s I want to post, and new ideas for leopardspot. I really hope to work towards my ultimate goal for this little bit of the internet. Fingers crossed.

xx, Amy

Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter | Tumblr

Summer Cleaning

Hi everyone! Happy Wednesday!

Source: cococozy.com via my Pinterest

Sorry for being MIA lately - last week I was at home in Illinois returning things, actually going to a shopping mall, and taking care of all those things I can't do at school, and I returned again this week to tackle some major cleaning I needed to do at my house (my parents' house? When should I start calling it that...? Uhhhh....).

I've spent the past two days holed up in my basement sorting through the past four years' worth of college stuff, from old books and notes to all of those glorious twin XL sized goodies.

Okay, maybe not all of the past two days. I went out to lunch with my mom and sister. And taste tested the new ice cream flavored iced coffees from Dunkin Donuts (by the way, the mint chocolate chip is my fave). And went on a pinning spree or three (oops!). I needed inspiration for cleaning, reorganizing, and redecorating!

Check out some of my latest home decor pins here:



Follow me on Pinterest here! Amy H (leopardspot)

Today I am going to be tackling the biggest task of all (one that will probably take me two days, ugh): cleaning my room. Oh my gosh, what a task. I have to purge my room of everything that is outdated (hello, pretty much everything on my bookshelves and all of those old tshirts from high school) and reorganize things to make sense for me now (which means I'm going to have to move my furniture and my shelving in my closet). It's just a large volume of stuff to go through, full of memories and emotions, and it's more difficult to detach myself from those feelings when I'm in my room (as opposed to our cold, dark basement... yuck). But, I've gotta grit my teeth and do it. I'm not sure where to start exactly with the purging process, so I'm enlisting my sister to help keep me focused and motivated. I'm motivating myself by promising myself a trip to my absolute favorite home decor store, Home Goods, and the craft mecca, Hobby Lobby, once I get through with things today and Thursday. Who knows what I might need after I'm done cleaning!

A blog that has been getting me super motivated is I Heart Organizing by Jen Jones. I was originally drawn in by something I found on Pinterest and the combination of her fantastic home and brilliant DIY solutions kept me poring over her posts. Only later did I discover that she lives in Wisconsin and well, I cheese-d out a little bit! See what I did there? I'm so punny. Seriously though, check her blog out. Her ideas are so innovative and I want to do as much as I can with my cleaning and organizing without spending a lot so I will be following in her repurposing footsteps!



Wish me luck! I'll update once things are clean and tidy!