exciting news - but hurry!

oh my goodness. you guys. i checked my email this morning to find an amazing one - blooming branch has been nominated for a charlotte web award from elevate lifestyle for "best personal blog". my heart is full and i am completely floored.
unfortunately, i've been consumed this weekend with other things and didn't even see the email until now, and voting ends at 10:00 a.m.
if you have a moment, will you please follow this link and vote for blooming branch? it takes about thirty seconds. if you have facebook, twitter, and pinterest you can actually vote THREE times.
i would love you forever if you did. :o) more soon!

http://charlotte.citywebawards.com/best-personal-blog

image via modelcentric.tumblr.com

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

an invitation

hello friends!

it's a big day over at blooming branch. as of two weeks ago, i am officially a charlotte resident! i have a sweet little triplex house with a fireplace and a deck and a closet that comfortably fits all of my clothes. can you believe it!? it all happened rather quickly and while it doesn't feel like home quite yet, i'm so happy to have reduced my commute to work by 45 minutes (seriously. it's bliss.) and live among the cool city people. liam is adjusting well to big city life and i feel that i'm coming along quite nicely as well. i've been pulled between concord and charlotte for quite a while now, and while i'll still be going back and forth fairly often because i like concord and i like my parents, it's nice to feel settled and committed somewhere that i've wanted to be for so long.
the best part about this move has been all the downsizing. my new place isn't really much bigger than my old one, so i've tried to be really cognizant of how much i actually need versus how much i actually want. they are very different.  so, guess what? i want you to have all the things i'm getting rid of. and by have, i mean buy at yard-sale-like prices. so. you're invited to my in-house, invite-only moving sale. it's basically like a yard sale but in the air conditioning, more dignifed and with no aggressive yard sale strangers (you know the ones i'm talking about) and with cupcakes and delicious beverages. how can you pass that up?

also, PLEASE bring your friends or share with anyone who may be interested.
p.s. i had a rather unfortunate hard drive crash last week, so i'm still without a computer at home (boo) but much more to come soon, including blooming branch's first-ever GIVEAWAY.

twenty-something

i think it's safe to say that my twenties haven't quite turned out how i expected they would. looking back, i can't say exactly what i expected, but i've spent the last few years feeling stuck in one place. unsure of what to do next. frustrated. perhaps i've watched too many lighthearted movies featuring kate hudson in the prime of life, living in a beautiful manhattan apartment that would more than likely rent for about $3000 or more a month, working at a chic job doing something glamorous, dating matthew mcconaughey and spending two full hours looking bouncy and glowy and drinking martinis and wearing manolos. apparently in my younger years i thought that was what being twenty-something felt like. (although i'd gladly date ryan gosling over matthew mcconaughey. or zac efron...thoughts wander...but i digress.)

in all honesty, my twenties aren't that unlike kate's. i have a great family and truly excellent friends. i have a cute house. i spend at least a few evenings a month at happy hour. sometimes i eat brownies for dinner. i work in uptown charlotte. my hair is kind of bouncy. i own a pair of kate spade shoes. i'm actually almost like kate hudson. minus the handsome fellow. and the expensive apartment. and the tan. but despite this truth, i often don't feel like i thought i would in my twenties. i start comparing myself. i dwell on what i don't have. i don't have a husband. i don't have a high-paying job. i don't have a retirement plan or stock options. i don't own a house. i don't have any manolos. i don't have a tan. when i compare myself to where so many others are at this age, i freak out a little bit and wonder what i'm doing with my life. why God hasn't opened more doors for me. if i'm going to let my twenties pass me by without ever enjoying them.

...

i still remember the moment, last august in southern pines. i'd come to visit the lovely lacey and her family in the dead of summer and we did what we do every time we we're together: starbucks. i had just ordered my grande-iced-coffee-with-a-splash-of-soymilk and set my straw tote on one of the leather armchairs. i was wearing this dress and despite the horrible temperatures, feeling kind of fancy. from a few feet away came this voice. "where in the world did you get that dress!?" i responded. we started chatting. within moments, i was having an extremely comfortable conversation with this girl that i'd never met. talking about crafts and blogging and our lives. i was drawn in by her warmth and enthusiasm. we exchanged info. we became virtual friends.

since that time, i've read sarah's blog pretty regularly. she is completely passionate about ministering to twenty-something women. never in my life have i had such a random encounter with a complete stranger that i have been so certain was ordained by the Lord. while we haven't seen one another since, she has ministered to me in more ways than one, and i'm so grateful that i was able to meet her that day. we keep in touch every so often through facebook or twitter, and as of about a month ago, she published a book! a legit book. a sold-at-barnes-and-noble-and-on-amazon-book. i remember her telling me that day we met that she was writing a book (in fact, she was working on it at the time). i remember thinking i'd be interested to read it. and i finally got my copy tonight and am so excited to join the online study that she is hosting on her website. while i don't often get excited about books that can be bought at the christian bookstore (and feel terrible for even admitting that, but it's true), i feel certain that God has selected this book for me during this time and i can't wait to see what i learn through it. sarah is extremely genuine and extremely passionate and i have a tremendous amount of respect for her. if you're a twenty-something girl, you should join us for the study! you can buy the book here and you can sign-up for the online study here. hooray!

i'll be twenty-seven in a month. this makes me want to throw-up and cry and eat a lot of cake all at the same time. i am thankful for people like sarah who remind me that slowly approaching thirty is okay. that i'm right where i'm supposed to be, in the hands of the One who created me.

images 1.zap2it 2.eloranicole

well, hello, friday!

would anyone else like to agree with me when i say this has been the longest week? oh my goodness it is about time friday rolled around. today i took a half day at work despite the unbelievable list of to-do's and deadlines looming because my pretty friend lacey (of the famed humming right along) is in town to play! hooray! we went to the gavin degraw/colbie caillat concert last night thanks to some free tickets i won on the radio and we plan to spend the weekend hanging out and eating loads of junk food, which is essentially the best part of our friendship, we are great at doing nothing together and still having fun. we both very much like pajamas, swedish fish, wine, wine coolers, boxed wine (don't knock it til you try it), pizza, ice cream and chai lattes from dilworth coffee. since i have nothing of consequence to share today, here are a few links that you might enjoy:

the colorful jen ramos is making me want to paint.

the glitter guide turned one this week. if you don't read it you should. one of its founders, taylor sterling is my ultimate style inspiration/girl crush.

in the celebration of father's day, watch jimmy fallon dance like a dad. guaranteed to make you laugh.

concert with gavin degraw renewed my love for him last night. he is so great live. check out my favorite gavin song, a lesser-known one.

finally, for those of you that took the time to call, email or message me after my rather melodramatic post on wednesday, thank you. your encouragement is such a blessing to me. ♥

happy weekend! 

image via laurel from iiiinspired

growing pains

so there's this cursed disease in baseball, named after former pittsburgh pirates pitcher steve blass. eight years into his major league career, blass suddenly and inexplicably lost his ability to pitch. he struggled through a season walking batters left and right, spent another season in the minor leagues trying to find his mojo, and then retired. doctors and psychologists could find no reason for it, no solution for it.

now i know what you're thinking. self-professed-girly-girl-who-couldn't-give-a-flying-rip-about-baseball returns suddenly to blogging with a useless sports story, but bear with me.

i think i have steve blass disease. in blogging. in life. lately i feel like things that i used to enjoy, things that used to come easily to me have suddenly become stressful and difficult. i hate all my clothes. my house is a mess. my blog is, quite obviously, neglected. i think i'm over-thinking things. i think i'm putting a lot of pressure on myself. but try as i might, i can't find my mojo. it's missing somewhere. i want to blog, i loved to blog, but lately i think about my blog a lot but can't seem to find the words or inspiration to translate those thoughts into actual posts. i read a lot of other blogs, most of which have a massive following and endless creative posts and i just feel like 'what's the point?'. i know i shouldn't blog for the readership, and i can definitely say that i never have, but i have been having trouble finding the joy in just doing it for myself lately. the same goes for shopping and getting dressed every day, decorating my house, cooking, crafting. i can't find the the joy in doing any of it. i spend each friday making ambitious plans and eagerly anticipating the free time i'll have to do things over the weekend, and spend each sunday evening frustrated and depressed that i haven't made the time to do any of it. it's not that i don't have the time, it's that i'm not making the time. and that's the worst part. i feel like my funk is about 90% my fault.

so in short, i haven't felt like myself for the past few months at all. i don't like my job and can't seem to focus on tasks, i'm exhausted all the time, i miss blogging, i need to move but haven't found any apartment that is worth the effort, and most days i dislike what i'm wearing and feel quite frumpy and unattractive. i know none of these things are a huge deal. that they shouldn't necessarily impact my overall happiness, but put together they do. and quite honestly, i don't know how to snap out of it. i often feel lately that i see others living full lives while it's just passing me by. i feel like i'm in a holding pattern for something, but i don't know what. one thing that i've found in talking with friends and reading blogs is that most of our insecurities and frustrations are shared - that generally when we feel alone in them we aren't, and i'm hoping that's the case here as well. that i'm just in a completely normal my-little-brother-just-got-married-and-is-blissfully-happy-and-all-my-friends-are-having-babies-and-getting-married-and-buying-new-houses funk. so i'm forcing myself to be honest with myself by writing about it and hopefully pushing through it by doing so. one thing i know for sure is that i haven't been seeking the Lord in this nearly as much as i should be. i plan to focus on that pretty heavily over the next few weeks, individually and through an online bible study in conjunction with my friend sarah martin's new book stress point (more on that soon, but you should join us!). i am excited to see the way the Lord uses this time to make me stronger, draw me closer to Him and help me find my mojo again.

the reason i know about steve blass disease is because this american life did a story on it recently. i was fascinated with the concept and the interviews discussing how and why it occurs and how to overcome it. throughout the years, many players have suffered from it. some have overcome it, some haven't. one of the primary psychologists interviewed in the story recommends that instead of examining and trying to improve the elements of one's ability to play (stance, movement, angles, etc.) to focus the mind on something else while playing, something completely unrelated to the game itself. he suggested that the brain and the body already inherently know how to execute the steps and that players are essentially over-thinking the process. he felt that at some point, when a player doesn't expect it, things will suddenly click into place again. i gathered from this that the best way to overcome a funk is not to stop the things that are difficult, but move forward regardless of whether we feel they are as good as they once were. and try not to over-analyze them in the process. so my blog posts might be uninspired for a while. my clothes may look less than cool and my house might be a disorganized mess, but i'm hoping that even though steve blass didn't overcome his own funk, that i'll find myself again on the other side. i'm pretty eager to be back in the game and back on the mound again.

image of crystal meers via closet visit

wedding recap...still to come

so i had every intention of pulling together this awesome blog post tonight about this past weekend's wedding. instead, i got home from work, went for a run, took a shower and then passed out cold on my sofa for three hours. whoops. apparently i haven't quite recovered from all of the fun.
and it was so much fun. it was such a blessing being able to stand up beside gracie and aaron as they said their vows and support them in the promises they made to one another, and so much fun celebrating with them after the fact. almost everyone i loved was there, and we had a super time. i can't wait to share more photos, but in the meantime, i'll leave you with this one from their super cute, i'd-be-lying-if-i-didn't-admit-i-had-a-little-crush-on-him wedding photographer, zack hamby. enjoy and check back for more when i am able to manage staying awake like a normal person.

photo: zack hamby photography

here comes the bride(smaid)

tonight i did some serious searching for a dress for next week's impending nuptials. i haven't blogged much lately (sad), so in case you don't interact with me on a regular basis and haven't heard me talking incessantly about next week's wedding-of-the-decade, let me brief you. aaron is my brother. he is cool and stylish and has a swank job at one of charlotte's best architecture firms. he is marrying gracie, a girl he met while in college. she is beautiful, sweet, so smart and creative, and has the best manners of anyone i know. i get a thank you note for something almost every time i see her. and they're always the really pretty, fancy kind. the ones you get at paper source and want to frame. a + g are getting married in wilmington and it's going to be a big fancypants affair with lots of events.

first, let me say how MUCH i love gracie for choosing this dress for her bridesmaids:

isn't it gorgeous? (although the model is terrifying me.) it's lilly pulitzer (go figure) and the stripes are actually little golden threads woven into the fabric. it's one of those dresses i would see in the store and wish i had a reason to buy. now i have a reason and it's going to be mine forever after. i can't wait to wear it. seriously. i LOVE it.

i'd like to say i'm just completely amped about next weekend (because i am), but there's been a little sadness too. i would be lying if i said watching aaron and gracie walk through this process together hasn't made me jealous about the fact that i'm not getting married anytime soon. and insecure. no one wants to be the groom's-single-older-sister. ew. so naturally i've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to have some fab frocks for all of the festivities. combine that with the fact that i'm ridiculously cheap, and i've been having a time finding anything i like. i hit nearly every store at southpark mall tonight. first, a few thoughts:

1. what is with all the one-shoulder dresses? they were cool last year and aside from an occasional re-wear, i'm seriously over them.
2. never in my life have i found so many beautiful white/ivory lacy dresses. why does that happen the one time that it's inappropriate to wear such a dress?

3. why did this supremely perfect dress (alice + olivia) have to cost so much? if it had been up to me, i would have bought it and been done.
4. why do dresses cost so much and still fit so badly? i'm a size 6-8 here, people. pretty standard. most of what i put on was horribly unflattering and just fit poorly.

i had all but given up when i stopped in ann taylor on my way out of the mall. um. when did ann taylor become awesome? i think i might have found a new favorite store. i liked nearly everything in the place. color, neutrals, work wear, weekend wear. everything. i went a little crazy and tried on much more than dresses. look at all those goodies! that blazer was the best thing ever and if anyone wants to buy it for me, i'll take a size 6.

i ended up surprising myself by falling in love with the bright pink deconstructed sheath dress. (even before i realized it was 50% off). let me say that these images above from the site do no do it justice. it is gorgeous and modern and so flattering. and totally unfussy. it has that oh-i-just-threw-this-on-and-look-fabulous air. after wearing it around the dressing room for a while soliciting compliments from anyone who wanted to give them, i walked out of the store with a fantastic rehearsal dinner dress. 

in a perfect world, i would style it up like this. given that i own nothing even remotely similar to these items, the likelihood that i'm going to pull it together in less than a week is probably not great. i may have to get creative with what i've got. the good news is the sock bun is always cool and won't require any planning or effort.

in other wedding weekend fashion news, i plan on picking this little number up on monday at ivy & leo by my office. that is, if no one has bought it yet. i've been stalking it for a couple of weeks now and the verdict is in. i need it.


much more wedding goodness to come. for real.

photo credit: 1.brightyoungthoughts 2.lillypulitzer 3.nordstrom
 4. @cdcote on instagram 5/6.anntaylor 7.polyvore 8.designerbagsanddirtydiapers 

pink kisser

to be quite honest, when i started hearing talk of the onslaught of color this season, i got a little bit scared. i live in neutrals. nearly all of my closet is made up of olives, navies, blacks, browns and grays. i like to take risks by layering them together. unless you count the red on my fingernails and lips, i don't do color. (well, not since my elle woods phase my freshman year of college, anyway, which may have created my current fear of color. there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. my freshman dorm room is a key example.) the spring 2012 runways reminded me of skipper's spandexed teen-girl wardrobe back in the day. too much neon. something about it seemed so eighties. so third grade. so unsophisticated. but then, on my way home from a spring trends lecture at neiman marcus in february, i bought a hot pink and orange cropped top (not at neiman marcus, mind you). i wore it the next day, and i felt kind of awesome. then i got a mint green manicure. then i bought a neon yellow button down. slowly but surely, color started to find its way into my wardrobe. and i have to admit, while i still generally prefer to mix it with a tamer piece, i really like it. i don't feel young or unsophisticated. in fact, i feel fresh and feminine and cool.

all of this color has certainly inspired my make-up routine as well. i've always been stumped on how to make my beloved bold lipstick work for the spring and summer months. until about two weeks ago when i was suddenly wildly inspired by bold, pink lips. i bought a couple of cheap tubes last weekend just to try out the look, and i have to say, it's kind of fabulous. i generally gravitate toward more orange-toned hues, but the pink was actually surprisingly flattering on my fair skin. i totally love it.

so the moral of the story here? sometimes trends that are intimidating are actually really fun to ease into. lipstick is probably about the most non-committal way to ease into color, but, hey. i'm trying here, people.

1.kate spade image credit via emily 2.image credit 3.image credit

happy easter

 "He planted His cross in the midst of the mad and roaring current of selfishness, aggravated to malignity, and uttered from it the mighty cry of expiring love. and the waters heard Him, and from that moment, they began to be refluent about His cross. from that moment, a current deeper and broader and mightier began to set heavenward; and it will continue to be deeper and  broader and mightier till its glad waters shall encompass the earth, and toss themselves as the ocean. and not alone did earth hear the cry, it pierced the regions of immensity. heaven heard it, and hell heard it, and the remotest star shall hear it, testifying to the love of God in His unspeakable gift, and to the supremacy of that blessedness of giving which could be reached only through death - the death of the cross."  - mark hopkins

what kind of love tells me i'm the reason He can't stay inside the grave?

image via epm

lately

r1: springtime flowers in my backyard/sunday with bestie sarah and baby p/lunchtime sunshine uptown
r2: lipstick americano/glam sequins for gracie's bachelorette/liam on my nicest suit
r3: lovely downtown southern pines/end table lovelies/java bean plantation (southern pines)
r4: bachelorette invitation/blooms at the grove park inn (asheville)/my favorite lunchtime spot, the 5th floor terrace in my building
r5: work clothes/baubles/lazy saturday brunch at home
r6: flowers at the nc dance theatre gala/happy mary kay package from allison/java bean plantation
r7: sunrise on the queen city/mcglohon theatre/discarded cocktails at the nc dance theatre gala
r8: bedroom camellias/branches in southern pines/latta arcade and the duke building from my parking deck
r9: late night dessert and coffee with blair and allison at rooster's/valentine's night nap with sweet parker/liam and the hole he chewed for his head in the blinds

p.s. you can follow me on instagram @cdcote

"love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. if you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. but in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. it will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. to love is to be vulnerable."      - c.s. lewis

photo credit via megan b

spring is coming in a hot air balloon

this target ad is seriously making my life right now. these little colorful people and alouette song (learned all the verses to that one in high school french class) are just beyond happy.

random fact: did you know that the popular children's alouette song is about plucking parts off of a lark? it's true. je te plumerais le tete, la plume, etc. means "i am going to pluck its head, its feathers..." kind of ruins that song for you, huh? not so cute and happy after all.

monday mums

why is it that when you get out of a habit, it's much harder to get back in the swing of things? runway has been finished for two weeks now (best two weeks of the year so far) and i've so been looking forward to blogging again, but as it's no longer a part of my routine, i'm spending a lot of time thinking about my blog and not a lot of time actually blogging. with three major grant deadlines at work this week, however, i'm thankful that blogging is something that i can do when i'm in the mood and no one is forcing me to write when i don't feel like it. there are few things in life without rules and obligations and i'm glad that this is one of them.
in the meantime, above is a photo of my coffee table currently (the last surviving buds from my lovely runway bouquets), and i've made a new playlist, to which i've been listening pretty much nonstop. it's lazy and lovely as we wrap up these last few weeks of winter-with-an-identity-crisis. much more to come, including what i learned from co-chairing runway (a lot) and a few recent great deals. thanks for hanging in there with me!

p.s. in a random side note, the top book in this stack is one of my favorite possessions - it's a book of henry wadsworth longfellow poems from 1898. it's in surprising good condition considering its age and has a number of items stuffed in the pages (newspaper clippings, church bulletins, a funeral program for an infant) that are all dated between 1900 - 1910. i love thinking about who owned this book before me, what their life was like, and how the lovely words on its pages are still meaningful and timeless. while we're at it, the book below it is a 1950's unabridged version of victor hugo's les miserables (my favorite book) and the one below that is an old collection of cezanne's sketches and paintings. the final book isn't old, but is a stunning photography collection of france's lavender fields. all of these books came from the goodwill. go figure.

happy valentine's day!

"the boy at the far end of the train car
kept looking behind him
as if her were afraid or expecting someone

and then she appeared in the glass door
of the forward car and he rose
and opened the door and let her in

and she entered the car carrying
a large black case
in the unmistakable shape of a cello.

she looked like an angel with a high forehead
and somber eyes and her hair
was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.

and because of all that,
he seemed a little awkward
in his happiness to see her,

whereas she was simply there,
perfectly existing as a creature
with a soft face who played the cello.

and the reason i am writing this
on the back of a manila envelope
now that they have left the train together


is to tell you that when she turned
to lift the large, delicate cello
onto the overhead rack,

i saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted

when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something remarkable,
something that identifies him as God."

love, by billy collins


image via weheartit

tomorrow's the day!

runway for the ballet has finally arrived - i couldn't be more excited!

love x10

there are no words to describe how happy every little second of this commercial makes me. there's lots to love about february.

someday i will blog again

but until february 11th, my life is consumed. quite frankly, i've never been more excited for something to end. nonetheless, the show should be super. come support dance theatre and all of our hard work please? see you then! (i'll likely be the haggard sweaty looking one among all the pretty people.)

my feelings exactly...

image via hallmark

blog to book

tonight i got home very late and this little baby was waiting on my front stoop thanks to amazon and their free two-day shipping. if you don't already read design sponge, it's time that you start. i can not wait to find ten minutes to sit down, drink some wine and flip through these pages. it's going to make me want to redecorate my entire house, but you know...

i've really missed blogging lately. runway for the ballet has been taking up nearly every moment of my free time, but i'm looking forward to a little peace and quiet this weekend. more to come soon!