weekend in review

i spent this past weekend in one of my favorite places in the world - southern pines, nc. it's sweet and beautiful and i have only happy memories there. bonus, my friend lacey's parents (the aforementioned laurie) live there and their house is one of the few places in the world where i feel as at home as i do at my own house. they are warm and hospitable and fun to play board games with. their couch is remarkably comfortable and i am always thankful when i get to spend time there. sadly this weekend, i took very few photos of anything of merit, but since it's so lovely there i figured i'd share the few i did find time to take.

when i arrived after what seemed like the longest drive ever on friday evening thanks to charlotte traffic, i was greeted immediately with wine and homemade pumpkin cream cheese bars. (and i did go ahead, in case you were wondering.) we ate dinner after that, which seemed like a great decision. then, lacey and i watched parks and rec reruns, i fell asleep on the couch before 9:00 p.m. and was in bed shortly thereafter. bliss.

 

the next morning, we woke up with the sun to hit the semi-annual fair barn sale, where i have scored plenty of fabulous flea market finds in the past. i wore my warmest gym clothes, which really just equal comfortable clothes that are not pajamas, and apprently looked sportier and more energetic than i felt, as i was asked by one of the vendors at the sale if i was running the half marathon in pinehurst that morning. because lots of people go to the flea market before they run a half marathon. although. flea marketing is sort of like a half marathon, as it takes a great deal of training, patience and stamina. perhaps i'll keep it in mind as a warm up if i ever do run a half marathon.

we scored a few deals, watched the horses on the track outside the fair barn and then headed back to swank (the best coffee shop in town!) for some lattes, muffins and catch up time with our friend, sarah martin, who is awesome. i have written about her before here, and you should be her friend too.

after coffee, lacey and i headed back to the house where we were greeted with more coffee (a homemade red velvet latte that was spiked, as a matter of fact) and homemade caramel sea salt pie. lacey's mom has got it going on. clearly.

the rest of the weekend was spent shopping and enjoying a dinner party hosted by lacey's parents on saturday night, where we had a delicious meal including homemade eggnog, and a great deal of chat with the neighbors. the weekend was relaxing and a wonderful way to kick off a short holiday week! laurie and dale, thank you for your hospitality as always, and thank you for packing me a cooler when i left. you're awesome. lacey, i'm glad you share my love for thrift stores, tjmaxx, replacing meals with junk food and not showering. and that you have a cool family and are from an awesome town. you're the greatest and i'm thankful for you.

autumn in new york

a few weekends ago, i took a quick spontaneous trip with my parents to visit upstate new york - where i was born and spent the first five years of my life. my grandma (hi, grandma!) and a large majority of my dad's family still lives there, and it's always one of my favorite places to visit. i haven't visited this time of year in quite a while, and i forgot how truly wonderful it is in the fall. i feel like i can share photos and tell you about it, but experiencing it is really the only way to understand what i'm talking about. it's idyllic. it's like something straight out of a country living magazine or a movie set in new england. the trees everywhere were literally ablaze. it was like they'd been photoshopped. seriously. there were corn mazes and farmers markets and pumpkin patches everywhere. haybales and scarecrows lined all of the streets in each of the small towns we visited and you haven't seen a farmer's market until you've visited one there. the produce is unreal.

we kicked off saturday morning with coffee at grandma's house and then we headed to herman's farm market for homemade doughnuts and nostalgia. i grew up going each fall to pick out a pumpkin at herman's and there's something about the smell there that takes me back to my days as a wee one. they make the most incredbile apple cider on site and have more varieties of apples than i knew existed. their produce makes me wish i could shop there every saturday morning. i was a photo-taking fool during our visit and it was likely very clear to every customer there that i was most definitely not a local. little did they know we have photos from 23 years ago at herman's. once a local, always a local.

after herman's (but not before i downed 1.5 homemade doughnuts before we left the parking lot), we headed to fairport, which is quite possibly the most adorable small town in america. i wish i'd taken more pictures there, but i was too busy shopping at the craft supply consignment store (the greatest idea ever) and roaming the tents at their farmer's market.

finally, we headed up to bristol mountain, which isn't actually a mountain at all, but just one of the really high hills that flank new york's finger lakes. the drive took about an hour and a half one way, but it was through tons of unbelievable farm land. the last time i was at bristol mountain, it was to ski with my family a few christmases ago. this visit was far better than the last, mainly because i didn't spend it tumbling down a green slope in a fit of frustration and persperation. i am pretty not awesome at skiing. instead, we rode the ski lift up a golden slope and enjoyed the lovely view from the top.

 

 

 

 

 

i like to think that this is about as close to heaven on earth as it gets. this time of year, i'm ready to relocate here permanently. but then it starts to snow and i generally re-think that plan when it's still snowing in may. and when i remember there are no chick-fil-as there. 

today

today i...
- slept in and woke up to coffee i didn't have to brew or buy
- left my hair curly, went without make-up, wore a white lace caftan as a dress
- rode a giant ferris wheel
- met an nfl star randomly at lunch
- shopped at the goodwill (and spotted some lanvin)

- bought some gorgeous sea anemones for my new mantel
- drank two white wine spritzers before dinner
- laughed over casserole at my grandparents' dinner table
- walked on the beach at sunset
- put on pajamas before 10pm
- ate brownies and ice cream
- watched hgtv for the rest of the night

my kind of weekend

fair-ly disappointed

the state fair this weekend wasn't really as awesome as i was expecting. it was basically like any other fair i've ever visited, just bigger, more crowded and more expensive. it was approximately $6 to ride one ride or eat anything. no thank you. the highlights of the trip were a corndog, which i don't think i've eaten since elementary school; and a visit to the prize-winning produce building, which featured giant cucumbers, watermelons and a 500-and-some pound pumpkin, which was awesome. i also enjoyed seeing the goats and piglets, but not really the smell of them.
for some reason i think i have it in my head that the fair is much more idyllic and lovely than it actually is. i always think of them as romantic and nostalgic, but in reality they're just kind of icky. i've decided nighttime fair visits are better than daytime ones because the icky-ness is somewhat hidden by darkness and the lights are pretty. after our daytime visit, we drove past the fairgrounds again around 10:00pm on the way to a movie, and they were setting off a fairly impressive fireworks show. the lights and colors of the rides, combined with those of the fireworks, all from a removed vantage-point, is the way i like to remember my visit. lovely and not-icky.
i was too busy fighting the crowds and taking in the sights to take a lot of photos, but here are a few fun ones. the sky was so blue and cloudless on saturday that it made for a perfect ferris-wheel backdrop. overall, i'm glad to have checked "visit-the-state-fair" off my north carolina to-do list and at the very least it was a fun way to spend a saturday afternoon with some of my favorite people.

hello, hillsville!

two weeks ago, my friend lindsey lee invited me to join her, her sister, leann, and her mom, robin, on their annual trip to the hillsville, virginia labor day flea market. if you have never visited this event, allow me to attempt to describe it to you. it's like a trip to the county fair combined with every yard sale you've ever visited, combined with a trip to your favorite antique mall, combined with a trip to the junk yard, combined with a trip to the campground, combined with a trip to the local family dollar. all stuck in the middle of the most podunk town in the the appalachian foothills. and then there are the guns. not only is this the most insanely large flea market i've ever seen (there was field after field of tents and booths) but it's also a gun show. that's right, folks. you can buy depression glass, period furniture, estate jewelry, every fried food in the book and semi-automatic weapons at this flea market. and not just semi-automatic weapons, but shot guns, pistols, ammo, and everything else that's gun related that i don't know the name of. i've never seen so many nra-loving republican southerners, mountain people and bargain shoppers in one place. there was literally something for everyone. i'm not entirely sure that combining guns with overly assertive deal-hungry people like lindsey, her mom, sister and i is a good idea, but who am i to say?

starting our loooooong day of shopping

so let's talk about hillsville with lindsey lee. three days in advance, i received an email from her outlining every detail of the day and the ways in which i could be best prepared. i was instructed to wear sunscreen, tennis shoes, a hat, sunglasses and i was told i was not allowed to bring a purse, as it was imperative that my hands be free. i was told to make a detailed list of the items for which i was looking so that i could best focus my energy, and that i needed to begin brainstorming the "card" i would play in order to receive the best price while haggling. lindsey's card was "it's for my new baby's room". leann's card was "it's for my first home with my new husband". i never really came up with a card, although "it's for my sanity because i have no job, no husband and no baby" might have evoked some sympathy? card or no card, we shopped and we shopped and we shopped. we shopped until every time lindsey stopped walking i searched for the nearest place to sit down and rest my tired feet (i wore chacos and definitely should have taken lindsey's advice on the tennis shoes. my feet were not. happy.) i left my house at 6:15am and returned home at 9:30pm. minus an hour for lunch and the time it took to drive there (about four hours total) in our giant four door chevy pick-up, we shopped the entire time. and i'd say we only saw about one third of all the booths that were there. this is no joke, people. bargain shopping at its most intense. i assumed that because lindsey was pregnant that i would certainly outlast her shopping stamina, but i was so wrong. lindsey, her mom and leann have more endurance than anyone i've ever met. not thunderstorms, not pregnancy, not intense heat and not one million rednecks talking about their guns stopped us, and it was a seriously great day.

approximately 1/16 of the flea market. seriously.

we started the morning with as many empty bags as we could carry, and we filled them all up. the empty pull-behind cart (named bertha and monogrammed because we're so classy) seemed rather cumbersome when we were starting out, so robin managed to attach it to her backpack. it was a storage device and a way to deter other shoppers who don't understand the meaning of personal space.

our first stop was this amazing linen booth that sold the most beautiful quilts, duvets, pillow shams, bed skirts, etc. and all at amazing prices. we all went a little crazy here. more on this later.

there were so many gorgeous shiny brite ornaments, and i wanted them all.

 

what's that you say? you want to buy an entire cemetery's worth of plastic flowers? well, you came to the right place. remember when i said there's something for everyone? i wasn't kidding.

 

i got really excited about these three tables full of jumbled jewelry and baubles. unfortunately, however, i couldn't find the match for the awesome vintage leopard print shoe clip that i found. 

 

this booth was really cool and the people were really nice. except all of their cool vintage clothes still had the goodwill tags on them. it's hard to get excited about paying $22 for a vintage dress that i know cost $4.99. removing the tags may have been a wise marketing strategy. just saying. 

 

a very nice gun-happy group was handing out these stickers. i figured with so many guns and sarah palin lovers floating around, it was safest to just appear to be one of them, so i wore it proudly all day. i have an opinion on almost everything, but i'm not sure i feel strongly one way or another regarding gun control. if i had a quarter for every old man that told me he liked my sticker, however, i could have bought a lot more stuff. liam ate this sticker (and by ate it, i mean chewed it up and ate it) when i got home. i guess we know how he feels. 

this was my favorite booth - the "carry chic" tent -  stocking all of your stylish gun concealment needs. that banner, in case you can't read it, says "defend yourself...in style." and just when i thought my pink pistol wasn't going to fit in my evening clutch.

at about 4:00, we were hit with a pretty decent thunderstorm. did i mention that lindsey also bought vintage boat oars for baby boy's nautical nursery? and that she carried them through the pouring rain? the "now all you need is a boat" jokes from passerby were a little out of control.

robin bought us some excellent ponchos at cvs so that we could continue shopping despite the storm. this is the first time i have ever worn a poncho and it was one part awesome and one part what i would imagine the wrestling team in college experienced when they were trying to drop a weight class in the gym.

aaaaaannnnd my very favorite photo of the day. these kind hillsville residents were willing to let you park in their yard for $5. they even made their own sign. we discussed what "come in own your own" meant until i realized it was redneck speak for "on your own". could anything epitomize this experience more adequately? i don't think so.

and i'm sure you're wondering about my great deals? prices at a lot of the booths were higher than than i was willing to pay. i'm a fan of yard sale pricing, not fancy antique pricing, but the flea market was large enough that there was something for everyone. i didn't get too much, just because my house is overflowing with good deals, but the things i did score were excellent. lindsey and her family, on the other hand, bought so many great things that we filled up the bed of our pick-up truck, as well as the cab. i can't wait to go back in the future when i have a job and a larger place to fill with unique vintage treasures. and tennis shoes.

milk glass pedestal bowls. most of the booths priced them around $20-25. these cost $2 and $3 and i looooove them.

vintage flower earrings, $1, and vintage flower bracelet (my favorite thing that i bought - so anthro and so much prettier in person), $2. 

 

 remember the linen booth i mentioned? i bought these excellent pillow shams (four total) for $1 each. i also bought my mom several other varieties, all $1 and all top brands. i plan to make them in to couch pillow shams instead of bed pillow shams, which should look great on my couch for fall.

and finally, while i didn't take a photo of it, i bought this full/queen nautica clearwater duvet, sold in stores for $160, for $4 at the linen booth. i don't have any need for a duvet, but i loved it so much and i'm pretty sure i'll never find another brand new duvet that i love so much for $4. i'll probably rotate it into my bedding for fall. isn't it gorgeous?

oh, and i almost forgot. the hot, fresh, made-from-scratch mennonite doughnut that was the size of my head. this was dinner on the ride home and i don't think i've ever enjoyed a doughnut quite as much as i did this one. it was a perfect end to an exhausting but excellent day of bargain hunting with friends.

robin, lindsey and leann, i know i fell asleep sitting straight up with my head tipped forward on the way home and in joe's words "looked seriously worn out" when we got home, but i had a great time - thank you so much for inviting me! 

 bedding image via the home decorating company

summer in the blue ridge

a few weeks ago. mom and i took a day trip up to blowing rock. it's a place we've been going since i was a child and it's just idyllic. beautiful boutiques, amazing views, and, thankfully, cooler temperatures. we started the day with coffee and muffins at kojay cafe, shopped in town, took a walk around the lake with the tiniest and cutest baby ducklings ever, checked out the original mast general store in valle crucis, stopped off at the moses cone estate and then hit the road home. we topped off the day with a visit to goodwill in lenoir and combos at arbys (i'm embarassed to admit how much i love it there). it was a pretty perfect day and i had fun taking a few photos on the trip...