Christmas Decor + New House Sneak Peek

December 20, 2018

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Just popping in to share a few snaps of our new house all decked out for Christmas! I hosted a few parties/gatherings this month so I went all out with the decor. Mark told me it was starting to look like the store that Buddy decks out for Santa in Elf🙄I'll take that as a compliment, thank you very much!

It's Christmas Time in the City

December 14, 2018

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We were in New York last weekend to visit our new nephew and before we left I warned Mark that I planned to be very extra on this trip...enter my embellished beret. I've always wanted to go to New York at Christmas so I intended to live it up and wear all of my holiday outfits. The weekend was mostly spent hanging out with family and the new baby but we went out one day to snap these photos.

What's New

November 28, 2018

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First of all, I want to say thank you for visiting the blog and for all of the love on the new site! It feels good to be back to blogging and even gave me something to talk about at Thanksgiving😉. Since my first post was mostly just to introduce the blog I wanted to dedicate a post to what I've been up to the last four months. I stopped blogging in August when Mark had very recently moved to join me in Minnesota and we were still staying with my mom. Here's what we've been up to since then:
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The house. Ooooh sounds so ominous and it kind of is! I lived with my mom for three months and Mark was there with me for about two months. We are so grateful to her for letting us live rent free but it was less than ideal, mostly for me. My commute to work was bout 50 minutes in pretty bad traffic, so I was not a happy camper. The silver lining was that I was always caught up on my podcasts. It was really nice to see my mom so much and to be in a familiar setting but we didn't feel settled because we knew we'd only be living with her temporarily. We apartment and house hunted for a few months but weren't in a rush at first because we wanted to save a little money after all of the moving expenses. We knew we'd be renting but weren't 100% sure where we wanted to live and whether to opt for a house or an apartment. Eventually we realized we were being too picky after we weren't finding anything that was ~perfect~. The house we ended up with was one I'd looked at before Mark moved to MN and had ruled out because the location wasn't great and it was quite small. We decided to go take another look at it together and reconsidered our little house in south Minneapolis. Needless to say, we pulled the trigger on renting and moved in in September. Problems arose on day 1. 

We had moved and stored all of our stuff in a PODS container and the way it was delivered was on an angle in our driveway with the door facing down. So all of our stuff had shifted and was pressing on the door, making it quite difficult to open. After about an hour with six people pushing on the door we could finally access our stuff! Unpacking is never fun but that went relatively smoothly but on day one we noticed that the kitchen sink drained verrrry slowly but didn't think much of it. Then on day two or three the kitchen sink randomly flooded with what was very clearly sewage (TMI? it was nasty) and the basement flooded. Our landlords were pretty much unresponsive even when we were telling them it was an emergency which was pretty disheartening when you move into a new place. After we were finally able to get a plumber to come out and "fix" the problem we were smooth sailing for about a day or two. Then the flooding happened again and around we went. They sent a different plumber and it's now been about two months with no plumbing issues so hopefully it's actually fixed this time!

I won't go into all of the details but this little episode was kind of an omen for how the first month and a half of living here went. We had a gas leak, our neighbors got robbed, our internet wasn't installed properly, a package got stolen, our brand new washing machine was broken. You get the picture. We seriously considered breaking our lease because we were both so unhappy here. Thankfully, things are looking up and now it's been about four weeks (not even joking) since we had any major issues so hopefully now we can finally relax and start to feel at home here.

I don't want to only talk about the bad so I'll tell you about how cute the house is. It's almost 100 years old but was remodeled right before we moved in so it's designed in a modern way. I've had so much fun decorating and Mark has been great indulging my desire to paint and install new light fixtures, so I'm really happy with how it's coming together! We have all of the major furniture now so it's starting to really feel like home. Here's a sneak peek of how the living room is coming together for the holidays:
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Social life. I have one! I'm only half joking. Friends were hard to come by in California so it has been an adjustment (in the best way) to have so many friends and family members to do things with now. I'd say we usually have plans two or three nights a week which is up by about 100% from CA. I've tried so many good restaurants that I'll have to do a whole post on my new favorites in Minneapolis. All in all it's been so wonderful to be back with all of our people. 
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Jobs. I can't remember if I previously mentioned this but my new job is at an advertising agency. I work as an Account Executive (AKA client services) and am basically the go-between for my client and our creative team. It's very different than my job at Google and has really challenged me. I've already learned a lot in the five months I've been there. For about two months the job was absolutely insane because we were in the thick of planning our holiday campaigns so I was working ten hour days pretty much without breaks. Thankfully that has passed and I'm back and a normal workload, so overall it's good!

Mark works as a Product Owner at a data security company downtown and overall really likes his job and exploring Minneapolis since he hasn't spent much time here as an adult. 
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Louie. Yes, he deserves his own headline. A surprising amount of people have asked me how he's adjusting and I'm happy to say he's been great. It's snowed a few times and he's been okay with it so far. He loves going on walks around our neighborhood and going to my mom's house because her basement has so much space for him to run around. I'm glad we have our house for him to have more space and a yard so ultimately I think the house was the right call. He did have a rough last few weeks though between breaking a tooth and having to have it removed and having the groomer shave him without asking us right before winter he's had some issues haha. I cried over the shaving incident but he's still our happy little pup so it is what it is. The photo about is pre-grooming debacle. 
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Minnesota. You guys, I just love it here so much. Minneapolis is such a fun city and the people are the best. This summer was so much fun exploring new restaurants and patios, we barely had a fall but the changing leaves were very welcome and we've already gotten snow! I cannot wait fore more snow and to be here for all of the Christmas season. Mark isn't nearly as enchanted with Minnesota as I am but he's happy to be back near his family so he's tolerated the weather for that tradeoff. 

I think we're all caught up now! We have a busy few weeks ahead of us but I hope to post some holiday content between in the coming weeks. I'm hosting a holiday party this weekend and we're going to be in New York next weekend so I'm sure I'll have some #content.

Hello!

November 12, 2018

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I am beyond excited to introduce you to Catherine Day Dreams! If you've been following for a while you know this is my third blog iteration. It all started out with Friends Fun Fashion Food (cringe) back in 2012 when I started a blog for something unique to put on my resume. It didn't take long before blogging became a part of my life and something that genuinely brought me so much joy.

FFFF (lol) then evolved into My Inner Fabulous in 2013 and now here we are in 2018 with Catherine Day Dreams. It feels so high pressure to pick a blog name because you want it to be cute and memorable and also have a nod to your content and overall just be a name you're proud to have represent you.  I loved the idea of incorporating my real name into the new blog because I (hopefully) won't get sick of that! 

 As I mentioned in my final post on My Inner Fabulous I was feeling pretty lackluster about blogging and especially about the blog My Inner Fabulous. Moving back to Minnesota felt like the right time to let it go and start a new blogging chapter. Catherine Day Dreams is obviously a play on my name but it also speaks to what you can expect to see here: the things I daydream about. The content will be pretty much the same content you've been seeing for years: outfits, decor, travel, life updates, books I'm loving, etc. but I'm not going to force anything. I was burnt out on blogging not only because I was going through a big life transition but because it was feeling a little too forced. I missed blogging these last few months but I did not miss feeling the guilt if I didn't get a post up. My goal here with CDD is to share when I feel like sharing. Pretty straightforward, yes? I know that goes against all of the blogging conventional wisdom but I think that's going to make it much more enjoyable for me. So I can't promise posts MWF like I used to do but I can promise content I'm excited about and I hope you'll be excited about it too!

We have a lot to catch up on but I'll save that for another post. For now, thank you for stopping by and please enjoy this autumnal outfit! If you want to follow along with future posts please subscribe via the widget on the blog or you can like my new FB page
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J. Crew coat (I went down a size). Rag and Bone jeans. Splendid booties. Halogen cashmere sweater. Tuckernuck scarf (similar). 

What's Next

August 1, 2018

You may have noticed that things have been pretty quiet around here and I wanted to stop in and explain. I haven’t been posting simply because I haven’t felt inspired to. I’ve been feeling a bit disillusioned with my blog and the blogging world for awhile and finally decided to take a break. Normally I feel guilty for not posting but honestly, this has felt really good to not worry about it. I started the blog for fun and while I still do enjoy creating content it was becoming a chore. I don’t know why I put so much pressure on myself to post three times a week because blogging is not my job, but I do. 

Things I Like Vol. 60

July 18, 2018

The above photo was taken at the adorable CōV Edina over the weekend. Their patio was so cute and brunch was delish. They even have complimentary cinnamon rolls that were obviously amazing. If you're in the Twin Cities definitely check it out! Last weekend was such a good one. I had plenty of time to hangout at home and relax with my book but I also had a delightful afternoon seeing RBG (so so good) and having rosé al fresco with a good friend. Then Sunday my sister and I brunched at the aforementioned adorable restaurant followed by some shopping. The perfect weekend if you ask me. I am itching for it to be the weekend again because Mark moves here for good on Saturday. Can't wait to see him. My week is thankfully flying by as I feel like I'm starting to get into the groove of things at work so I am all-around just the happiest girl!

Now, let's do this Things I Like post!

Our Wedding: Stationary

July 16, 2018

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Hello hello! Today I am devoting a whole post to our wedding stationary, because it was THAT GOOD. I think I've mentioned it before but my amazing wedding planner Emily and her friend Britinee own their own stationary business called The Making 89. They are so talented and were such a joy to work with! I am a particular person and wasn't finding what I wanted in the way of stationary so they came to my rescue to design a custom suite for us and it turned out even better than I could have hoped. If you're looking for any custom stationary, whether it's for a wedding or just a beautiful handmade card, they're your gals!

Things I Like Vol. 59

July 11, 2018

Hope you had a wonderful post 4th of July weekend! I spent my weekend up north with my family at the cabin and enjoyed a couple days of swimming, eating, reading and relaxing with family. I didn't take any time off last week but it sure was nice having that random day off in the middle of the week, wasn't it? I vote to institute that every week ;)


Recent Reads Vol. 17

July 6, 2018

It has been a minute since I last shared what I read so I've got seven books to share with you today! On my previous commute I was able to take a shuttle and really loved having a built in 1.5 hours of reading every day. Now, however, I have to drive to work so I'm going to have to make more of a conscious effort to carve out reading time. Wish me luck!

Travel Diary: London

July 2, 2018

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Oh, London! Definitely my favorite city that I've been to. Mark and I were lucky enough to spend five days in London a few weeks ago and we had such a good time. If you've been reading for a long time (5+ years) then you'll remember that I studied abroad in London back in 2013. I became absolutely smitten with the city during my summer there and couldn't wait to come back.

 So last year when I was perusing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child tickets (as one does) and saw that you had to buy them at least a year in advance I started to float the idea of a trip the following year to London. There were some pretty cheap seats so we figured if we didn't make the trip we'd only be out $80. Luckily we were able to make it happen and I'm just so happy that we went  together. It was Mark's first time and while I'm no local it was still fun to show him around the places that I lived and studied and drank Pimm's :) keep reading to see more of our trip!

Our Wedding: Portraits

June 29, 2018

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Last night I was making dinner whilst listening to music and our wedding song came on and I got a tad bit emotional. As you may recall, Mark is still in California and I miss him, BUT I am happy to report that he just accepted a job offer and will be moving in the next month! So excited for him to join me here at home. All this to say I was reminiscing about our wedding last night and therefore wanted to get up another wedding post. Today I'm sharing our "portraits" AKA the posed (and some candid) photos that we took together and with our bridal party both before the ceremony and right after. Not going to lie, this beautiful fall foliage is seriously making me wish for fall. That and the fact that it's in the 90's right now😅give me all of the crisp weather!

Things I Like Vol. 58

June 27, 2018

Happy Wednesday! I'm on day three at my new job and it's going well so far. The commute isn't ideal from my mom's house but I've got a ton of time to catch up on podcasts this way #silverlining. I feel so behind on my podcasts after being out of town for 10 days. Does anyone else get stressed out by having a lot of podcasts/TV/books to catch up on? Crazy that something that's supposed to be relaxing can be stressful if you get behind. Well now that we've talked about that very important subject we can move on the good stuff!

On Moving Back to Minnesota

June 25, 2018

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Long time no talk, huh? I'm so excited to be back to blogging! As you may remember I've spent the last few weeks since we talked moving across the country, spending time with family in New York and visiting London (I'll do a whole post on our trip later) so I've had a bit going on ;) This post is a little belated as I technically left California on June 8th but it still doesn't really feel like I've moved. I'm staying with my mom and Mark is back in California so it just feels like I'm visiting. I do start my new job today though (!!!) so I'm sure that will wake me up to the real world verrrry quickly.

In case you missed that news, you can catch up on our move here

Things I Like Vol. 57

June 6, 2018

This is my last week of work and TBH it's dragging a bit. I'm trying to soak it all in since I know I'll miss it, but I'm getting a little antsy for all of the fun things we have coming up like trips and you know...moving to a different state! I fly to MN on Friday with Louie and will then be heading to NY and London from there so it's all happening very very soon! Send me your patience vibes haha.

Our Wedding: The Ceremony

June 4, 2018

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We're back with round two of wedding photos! Today we have photos from the ceremony. In case you missed it, you can see the photos from the beginning of the day here

We're Moving!

June 1, 2018

OMG. I have wanted to share this for months! We are moving home to Minnesota! After our honeymoon we were talking and realized that we didn’t really know why we were living here. We live in a suburban neighborhood of the Bay Area where there’s not a lot to do and despite living in the suburbs our rent is still very high for minimal space. It just didn’t add up. The only thing keeping us here (aside from the fact that it’s California) was that we had good jobs and lived near our companies. After three years away for me and seven for Mark we were really craving more friends and family in our lives. Mark has a decent amount of friends here from college, and they’ve become my friends as well, but I’ve struggled to make friends of my own, which is important to me. I’ll cop to it and say that I could have tried way harder but as an introvert it’s so intimidating to put yourself out there! Three years of being away from family has taken its toll and we're both very excited to be closer to family and friends (and for the cheaper rent)!

Things I Like Vol. 56

May 30, 2018

What a great weekend! Normally long weekends still don't feel long enough but this one was just perfect. We had a wonderful mix of seeing friends and being lazy at home #thebest. Overall the weather was wonderful and felt like summer was here all of the sudden. I went to check out the San Jose rose garden on Monday – so gorgeous! That's where the above photo was taken. Hope you had a wonderful long weekend and that the short week flies by for you!

Our Wedding Day: Getting Ready + The First Look

May 25, 2018

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Hello hello and happy Friday! The Friday before a long weekend is just the best, isn't it? Let's keep those good vibes going with my first wedding post in a while. I'm going to break down our photos into different parts of the day and we'll start with all of the getting ready preparations and our first look. Buckle up because you're in for lots of pics!


Things I Like Vol. 55

May 23, 2018

Well here we are a week after I said I was going to write a wedding post and still no wedding post. Whoops. I'm the worst. As you may know we were home in MN this weekend and it's always such a whirlwind packing and only being home for such a short period of time that I never find time to blog on those weekends. Such is life. It was a fun trip! There was some seriously beautiful weather so we were able to spend time with family outside. I watched the royal wedding with my family early on Saturday and it was so worth the 5AM wakeup call. Did you watch? Later that day we went to my cousin's wedding IRL and that's always a blast. I absolutely love weddings and feel like they've become even more special now that I've been through it. We're back in California and back to our regularly scheduled Wednesday Things I Like programming!

Things I Like Vol. 54

May 16, 2018

Hello hello! How is your week going? I’m feeling good because it’s a short week for me! Mark and I are headed home this weekend for my cousin’s wedding and are taking Friday off. I’m doubly excited because I’ll get to watch the royal wedding with my family who are as excited as I am whereas Mark couldn’t care less. You better believe I’ll be waking up at 5AM to watch it all unfold!

Candy Stripes

May 14, 2018

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How cute is that little face? Louie was with us when we were taking photos yesterday so I pulled him in for a few snaps. I just got this top last week after ordering it nearly two months ago (hate when that happens) so unfortunately it's pretty much sold out but it's such a classic style and I've found a few similar options linked below. Recently I was feeling like I don't have any summery blouses so I'm happy this one fit because it's a nice linen material and the pink stripes are perfect for warm weather! It's the type that's extra long in the front so you can tie it but I tucked it in for this outfit. If I wore it with shorts I'd probably tie it for a cute summery look. 

My BBG Review

May 11, 2018

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My first ever fitness post! This has been a long time coming and I’m excited to finally sit down and write it out so I can share my BBG experience with you! I’ve been keeping little notes for the last 4.5 months while I’ve been immersed in BBG so hopefully I cover everything. I finished the program three weeks ago but have been really nervous to publish this post because progress photos are a scary thing to put out on the internet. I’ll share my results at the end of the post but just know it’s v. intimidating to share photos like that! Buckle up, because this is a long one.


Things I Like Vol. 53

May 9, 2018

Happy Wednesday, friends! This week has been perfect weather-wise in California and I'm officially ready for summer. Summer is actually kind of my least favorite season but it's such a nostalgic one for me. I always think about playing in the yard with my sister until the sun went down and getting Dairy Queen after softball games and trying to cram as many sleepovers into three months as possible. All fun stuff! Well we got off topic there, let's get back to why you're here ;)

Recent Reads Vol. 16

May 4, 2018

Happy Friday, I've read five books since we last talked and can't wait to share them with you today! I didn't dislike any of them but some were phenomenal and you need to add them to your reading lists ASAP!

Things I Like Vol. 52

May 2, 2018

It's Wednesday and I'm back with a new post finally! I'm going to have a new Recent Reads up on Friday as well so hopefully I'm back in the blogging swing of things! Hope your week has been smooth sailing so far, mine has been a little hectic. Just trying to get my life in order, you know how that goes ;)

Things I Like Vol. 51

April 25, 2018


You'll have to forgive the lack of posts lately! It's been kind of nuts around here with more work and social events than normal. The madness continues this week and so I don't think I'll be able to get up a Friday post either. Hoping to get back into a good routine next week! For now, please enjoy this week's roundup of wonderful things from the little place we call the internet.

Things I Like Vol. 50

April 18, 2018

Having a good week so far? I've been busier than normal with work and therefore am feeling a bit frazzled. Definitely glad we're halfway through the week!

What I've Been Watching

April 16, 2018

Remember this post from January where I shared what movies and TV shows I've been watching recently? I'm thinking about making it a regular series like Recent Reads since it started some fun conversations (and I just really love movies/TV). Let me know if you enjoy reading these types of things :) Like I mentioned in that post I love to talk entertainment recommendations IRL so figured this was a good place to share too!

Things I Like Vol. 49

April 11, 2018

Lots of good stuff for you guys today! I love weeks where I just organically come across tons of amazing stuff to share and this week is one of them!

Wide-Legged Stripes

April 9, 2018

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Hi friends, happy Monday! I had a wonderful weekend that was the perfect mix of rejuvenation and activity. On Friday we saw Ready Player One and as a non-gamer I really liked it. The plot was very interesting and I'd recommend! Saturday and Sunday were a mix of errands, walking the dog, relaxing and catching up with our shows. It's safe to say that I'm not ready for the weekend to be over, especially now that we're getting some nice spring-like weather! 

Things I Like Vol. 48

April 4, 2018

Hello! Getting a little bit of a late start to posting today so let's just get right to the good stuff!

Recent Reads Vol. 15

March 30, 2018

Hello hello and happy Friday! I feel like I say this a lot but man was this a long week. There were so many random things that happened that made certain days feel like other days. In short: I had no idea what day, let alone month, it was all week. Oddly enough I kept thinking it was already April. Oh well, that will be remedied on Sunday when it will actually be April. 

Do you have any Easter plans? In the past Mark and I have made a huge brunch at home (i.e. a brunch version of Thanksgiving). This year we’re just not feeling the huge brunch but can’t decide if we should go out or just do something simple like cinnamon rolls at home. I love an excuse to get dressed up so maybe we’ll end up going out. Well that was the perfect introduction for today’s Recent Reads post, no? I do hope to do some reading this weekend though because I’m in the thick of Seven Days of Us and can’t put it down! Keep reading to see what else has been in my library as of late!


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