My Favorite Things Weekend

I was recently asked by one of my "FF's" to post some of my FAVORITES, much like Oprah but I'm not going to be sending you to Rome to pick up your new turquoise Fiat. I'm just going to let you know some of my newest finds that have lived up to the hype in my mind....



Jurlique Rosewater Balancing Mist
-Jurlique is this really great company that has been using all natural ingredients before it was cool, as well as developing 95% recyclable packaging and a commitment to reducing their carbon footprint as well as utilizing sustainable ingredients. The best part?! Their products are amazing! This one in no exception. It's a spritzer to calm the skin while delivering a refreshing wake-up to your whole out look on life... think "stop and smell the roses" on your face as you walk to work seeing the world through rose colored glasses!




Then there's my LONG time favorite
MARVIS ginger toothpaste
-You feel like you got your teeth cleaned at the dentist every morning and night with this amazing toothpaste. It comes in jasmine, mint, lavender and ginger. I've tried them all, ginger is the superior flavor in my opinion. Can be hard to find but recently is available through Amazon. Get the travel size first if you don't trust me, then you'll order it by the case like I do now. I've actually given it as birthday presents before.

Now the last entry for this weekend...

THE perfect handbag from Carolyn at LAResident on etsy

This amazing bag comes is so well designed and comes in incredible colors! Oh, did I mention that the belt buckle on the front is changeable? I prefer the beetles, but I do own an orange star to go on my LIME green purse. Cannot say enough about this one. I got mine in June and have not used any other bag since.

    

 laresident.etsy.com

Worth Getting up for

Everyone's lives are so full... with work, kids, organizing, reorganizing, eating right (only to find out it's not so right after-all). We forget that there are things that are definitely worth getting up early for (yes, i mean before the sun comes up!) I recently woke up early (6:30) for no apparent reason. I was at the beach with my friends had gone to bed very late and wanted to sleep... but couldn't. The light slowly started creeping in and reminded me that I LOVE to watch the sunrise at the beach on a chilly day.

dunes at sunrise on Tybee, 2011

clementseye.etsy.com

So what would you get up early for? or maybe a better question is, What SHOULD you get up early for?

Forever Friends

I have a nine year old daughter so I hear, "She's my BFF!" quite often. At that age, a BFF could last years or about 15 minutes. I just spent the weekend with my proven BFFs or I prefer my Forever Friends mostly because BFF is my nine year old's term. About once a year this group of 8 women get together somewhere. We've been to the mountains of NC to the FL beaches, this year it was a great house on Tybee Island, GA (west of Savannah). We are scattered from Cleveland to almost Miami and six spots in between. We have 23 children between all of us ranging from 21 to 3. We are Forever Friends.

We have seen each other at a highest high and our lowest lows and still love each other with everything we have. We are always there for each other, unconditionally and without judgement. The best part is that we have been friends since we were 4 in some cases and all since elementary school. We can call each other out when full of it and aren't afraid to say so. We've shared many a boyfriends (with Doug as the winner for kissing the greatest number of us), and share a loathing for those that really hurt us. We feel things as a group. We are there for each other with the great I'M PREGNANT kind of news and the sad "my mom passed" away kind of news. We remember each others birthdays and know how old we are and enjoy it.


We can talk honestly about the crappy parts of getting older and relish in the wisdom and focus you gained by aging. We don't have to explain when we mention a sybling because we know them all, as well as favorite friends and old roommates from our past. OK, some of us have really bad memory not from aging, just from having really bad memory and we know that too! So we help keep our history accurate (for the most part) Bringing packets of old lets we wrote to you at camp in 7th grade helps to keep our memories sharp as well!


I guess all of that is to say, treasure your history and make the effort with your valued friends. They are priceless and you will never be able to make them again. Not this in depth and knowledgeable anyway. We all have busy lives and forget sometimes to call on a birthday, but we know we are forgiven and will tell them the next time we see them with an extra special hug and an offer to "do" our hair for the evening.


Here are my forever friends, go call yours, or even better find an old note about how much you LOVED Scott and couldn't believe that he liked Casey instead and remember why they will ALWAYS be in  your life and your heart. 

Got Grass?!

I do!!!!!!!

Fall Cleaning

I've never had the opportunity to start completely from scratch in my yard. I've redone flower beds or added some shrubs or even a tree or two but never from scratch. This is, until now! We have needed to deal with the grass forever because, let's be honest, it was really green weeds. Hard to keep under control so it didn't look like a yard of weeds! AND the flower beds and shrub line have always been way over crowded and VERY over-grown... that was the past.


We have been killing our grass and weeds for the past 5 weeks. Our landscapers came in last Thursday and plucked the HUGE overgrown shrubs out with this incredible machine that took all of 30 minutes to completely delete all that was there. (would have taken me a month and would still not have been great!) Then they redefined everything to make it sharp and clean, spread an entire truck load of mulch in 2 hours and made my yard free of ankle twisting divets and ruts the deer have decided were needed in the yard. 


Today I get new grass, real grass, weed free grass! Gorgeous shrubs of my choosing and no leaks in the sprinkler system. It's like a cleanse for me mentally that the yard is simple and fresh and clean. And mine (well, ours, but really mine)


Here is the blank slate...

 

I think where I'm going with all of this is it's nice to every once in awhile Start From Scratch and make it how you have in your head. It's very satisfying.

The Value of Basics

You know the old saying "You must truly understand something before you can teach it."? Well, I'm going to be teaching a photography class and I am in the process of getting back to basics and feeling confident enough with explaining what I know about taking photographs to someone that doesn't already know it and get them to understand it. So, today I took a class for fun. A discussion and then a walking shoot in a great area of Charlotte, Plaza Midwood. I helped someone truly grasp the interaction between f-stop and shutter speed and helped me to realize how to get that strange concept across.

Well, these are a few of the pictures that came out of the shoot. I love to photograph cars and this reminded me of my childhood, no my father wasn't a pimp but my grandfather had a black car JUST like this and I loved that the headlights "winked" at you!

 More to come on the progress of the back to basics movement!

Vintage, Retro or just OLD?

I love things with a good story attached or a intriguing history. These items are usually OLD, but lately I'm noticing that I'm feeling a bit hipper because my OLD stuff I love is now becoming "Vintage" or "Retro". Unfortunately, these new cool labels also increases the price of my fabulous old stuff. Although, it bodes well for my children when I'm vintage and ready to part with my stuff. If they don't love it, well they can make a buck off it, but if they DO love it they will be even richer and a bit "cooler" I suspect.

Take My Hands, 2008

Here are two of my OLD obsessions... I love glove molds (my husband hates them and many of my friends find them creepy) and I love photographing old cars. They look like people that should not be ignored and with the right photographer have a fabulous history to tell us all if we just pay attention.

Headlights of Sal, 2009