christmas in my house.

christmas came early for me ~ i got an iPhone from my parents late last night as an early present! my old blackberry had once belonged to my bf while in college, and had spent about 6 months living under a fraternity couch. after i had adopted her, she wasn't treated much better as i left her everywhere and once ran over her, accidentally. :0

i will treat this phone with much better love, care and affection.

so, since i now have a semi-good camera, i took some quick photos around the house of some of my favorite things my mom does for xmas. 

the slightly more-formal-than-we-are dining room. note: we don't normally have that many chairs squished... my parents had just had a party and rather than take away the chairs, my mom kept them seeing as how 12 will be around that table in two days. 

twinkle lights in a jar! this one is under our tv in the family room - we have them in the dining room {you can sort of see them in the corner} and in the living room on the piano. i love them!

who doesn't love a great bar? this is the old roll-top desk i was talking about - this is in a little room off the kitchen kind of adjacent to our family room that houses just this bar {and the christmas tree during the season}. during the party a few nights ago, my mom had all the wine glasses and liquor glasses against those twinkle lights in the back and put the wine on one side and liquor on the other. it looked amazing at night! on top are all her snow globes she collects.... and a little skiing moose {b/c my parents love to ski, and we have a cabin named "moosehill"} with little earrings to be in the spirit of things.

dontcha want one? are you jealous? you should be. my mom makes ahhhmazing christmas cookies - all from scratch and hand decorates. the ones to the left are a shortbread type cookie dipped in chocolate with pecan sprinkles on top. the snowflakes are sugar cookies that my mom cut out and decorated herself! not to mention they are always displayed in the cutest ways. can i be like you, mom?

christmas time is HERE.

merry christmas!

i am back in new hampshire and couldn't be happier! i've spent the majority of my christmas break in dallas visiting my boyfriend, and now am home for a little over a week to spend some good christmas time with my family :) being in dallas {in a boy's apartment, non-the-less} i haven't felt like it is christmas quite yet. bryce and josh have no christmas decorations up {not even a twinkle-light in sight} and it has been upwards of 65 degrees every day in the great state of texas. so one i landed in manchester yesterday afternoon and my brother picked me up in his trusty subaru {NO ONE in texas drives a subaru} with ski's in the back, i felt that christmas was just around the corner! the long drive home i mostly slept, but once we pulled into my driveway and came to my brother's parking spot in front of the barn, there were beautiful christmas-wreaths on either barn door, signaling the holiday season. 

pottery barn outdoor wreath
$79

each and every year we spend christmas time with my family from new jersey, which entails my grandma, grandpa, pop-pop, uncle stevey, aunt jill, michael & amy (and this year amy's boyfriend, ryan). this year christmas is at our house, so all 12 of us are under one roof. whenever we have christmas here, my mom goes all out with the decorations. stockings are hung over the fireplace, which is constantly running when the family is here, tree is decorated with every ornament we have (and yes, this includes my flashing cow lights that get strung around the tree and michael's "christmas" plate ornament with his little face in the center he made in 1st grade), all of my mom's snow-globes out over the make-shift bar (an antique roll-top desk from my late-grandfather) with twinkle lights behind them, and glass jars filled with white twinkle lights sprinkled around the house. i love it! i also can't wait for when i get my first big-girl apartment/house and can decorate it myself. dad, i might need some help, financially, on that part......

since i have no camera to take pictures of all these decorations around my house, and nor do i have a working camera phone, i am going to show you pictures of my favorite holiday decorations in other's - and what i might steal once i get old enough to do so. enjoy :) 

while this is beautiful... i'm not quite sure it is realistic.
country living

take an old chandelier, spray-paint white, add the jewels and the greenery and BAM.
itsoverflowing.com

i am obsessed with this. took reclaimed wood and mounted above fireplace. i.love.it.
itsoverflowing.com

simplicity of the red and white and little twinkle lights above table.
trendzone.com

restaurants, dallas style.

i just recently met a new friend for lunch in dallas today at central market. instantly i was obsessed. it is a mixture of a food market, and also a fresh food market, where there is a salad bar, an asian bar, sushi, sandwiches, etc. etc. it's ahhhh-mazing. once we selected our food we went and sat down to eat! there is a cute little outdoor area {sadly it was raining so we couldn't eat there unless we wanted to go swimming} and a small little "cafe" - all in all it was a very enjoyable experience! it got me thinking about restaurants and how they are designed... it is not only the food that brings us there but also the experience. below are a few finds of some meticulously designed restaurants that i want to visit - i may have to spend a fortune... but if it's research, it's okay, right?

healthcare design.

concept sketch for one of the five spaces we designed: employee dining room.

my grades FINALLY rolled in (took long enough) and i have to say i am quite pleased with the results! i did work extremely hard and while i complained about this last semester more than i have ever complained before, i am proud of the spaces i produced.

employee dining room presentation rendering.

this past semester we studied "hospitality design" and worked with a real client over at the hotel at auburn university. i was upset that we didn't get to work with the restaurant, because i think that would have been more interesting and beneficial for our understanding of hospitality, codes, restaurant design, etc. we did 5 spaces: deluxe hotel room, executive suite, employee dining room, think tank & fitness center. whew! it was a lot of work!

employee dining room floor plan. see how teeny tiny these spaces were?!

next semester we tackle the big dogs. our final semester in the program and we are doing.... healthcare design!

need i say i'm excited? i'm not quite sure why either... i'm probably going to hate it once we begin. unfortunately, we don't know what kind of healthcare design we will be doing - whether we will be doing a specific unit, multiple floors, pick our own location or work with an existing building. since i am taking a "month-long sabbatical" as my boyfriend's roommate likes to call it, in dallas visiting bryce, i might take the time and do some research on hospitals and design - maybe it will help me once we begin the FINAL semester! anyone have any info on healthcare design? wanna throw it my way??

portfolio.

i realize i just posted, and you're probably thinking "woow this girl can't get it together... doesn't post for months and is really sporadic about it and now is posting twice in one day?!"


well hush -


i have created my portfolio AND my website and i'm so proud of both of them - please visit my website *www.mholsen.com* and if you're feeling kind, send me an email on the contact page, to let me know what you think! 


bye for real -

december in dallas.

i'm in dallas!

{at least for a little while...}

i am in dallas for my *last* month-long break. thursday at 930am i submitted the last college undergraduate exam i will ever take - as next semester i will only be taking my healthcare studio class, and continuing to be a teacher's assistant for the sophomore studio class. so friday morning i packed up the car with enough stuff to last me a year, put the pup in the back, turned on my nicholas sparks book on CD and began my 11-hour journey. i pulled into the city at 630pm, which was great. i was driving on the flattest highway i've ever been on, with nothing to look at until all of a sudden i came around a bend and bam - there was the city. i love a city at night - something about the lights on all the big buildings gives me chills. it's almost calming. 

i hope to move to dallas come may, and be working in an architecture/interior design firm within the city. since i grew up in a small town, and went to college in a small town, i never thought i'd be allured to a huge metropolis, especially in the deep south. however, i am! dallas is the ninth-largest city and part of the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the nation, but it doesn't feel like that. i feel safe here, because the city has strategically made neighborhoods throughout the large skyscrapers, so it doesn't feel overwhelming. i also love dallas for all it offers, from the historic, free mckinney avenue trolley to dallas arts district to the uptown area (where i hope i can live) with the cultural restaurants, pubs and boutiques.

i'll be posting pictures throughout the month and deliver more stories and interesting things i find while i'm here.

til then....