Birthdays & Valentines

We found this tiny fur hat at Target and decided it was so cute and funny we had to get it.  

It was on clearance!  

It looked beyond cute on both of our sweet kitties and we tortured them with it for a few minutes while they were trying to nap in the sun puddle.

 hehe, yep

I still read magazines.  Do you ?  

I like Martha Stewart Living, Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, Fine Gardening & Carolina Gardener to name a few.  I borrow them from my library.  

The new March issue of Country Living magazine has a gorgeous article entitled, The Thrill of the Hunt, about collecting Jadite.  

I've been an avid collector of these beautiful dishes & glassware for many, many years.  After seeing this article I'm inspired to gather up all my the pieces in my collection and arrange it in a similarly cute display.

Seriously, how cute is that?

 Emily & I decided to spend Friday the 13th at the mall.  

We did some window shopping, got some Starbucks and met our girlfriends for a lovely Gal-entines dinner at Ruby Tuesday and more shopping afterwards. 

The Godiva chocolate store was packed!  

I contented myself with only a photo of the cute heart shaped candy boxes. Sigh.

Emily used one of my Free Rewards and ordered a venti white chocolate mocha with raspberry syrup. Doesn't that look amazing?  Mine was a iced coffee with sugar free vanilla.

I enjoyed a tasty Valentine's Day breakfast together with my girls & Steve at a restaurant they came across called Breakfast Anytime. Doesn't Emily's order of Eggs Benedict look scrumptious?  That girl knows how to eat!  My veggie omelet & hash browns were super with enough leftover for dinner.  Afterwards we did some thrifting.  It was a perfect way to spend a Saturday.

My thrifty finds:

I absolutely love treasure hunting in thrift shops, consignment stores and Goodwill.  Lately, I've been finding some remarkable things.  A few places I frequent sell hardcover books for .99 cents while other places are $1.99 so I love to pop in and see if there's anything cute that catches my eye.

Then I got the notion to take the dust covers off some books and create this rainbow shelf.  I had seen this organization technique on social media and thought it was very pleasing to eye.  I like to do something similar with my sock drawer and my wardrobe although I do tend to wear a lot of black.

I found this beautiful french book and on another shelf close by this nifty box of frenchy flash cards.  The little pink cat is a lipgloss I saw at Forever 21 during our Gal-entine excursion to the mall and had to have it.  Too cute!

I found the peach Fire-King baking dish and that box at the same store.  As soon as I laid my eyes on them I scooped them up immediately and peeked at the price tag knowing I just had to have them.  It was only .99 cents for the box of cookie cutters and either $2 or $3 for the dish.  I just love the graphics on the box of Halloween themed cookie cutters.  I can't wait to use them both in my Halloween displays this year. 

I should've taken another photo of them inside the box because they are cute but just have the tiniest bit of rust starting in the corners.  I think I will have to give them a good soak & a scrub to get that rust off of there before I use them.  Hopefully, the rust will come right off.  

Let me know if you have any advice on scrubbing off rust, ok?

Made a Starbucks‬  run after a fasting blood draw one morning at the Doctors. 

I couldn't help embellishing those darling hearts on the side of the special Valentines cup with my cute minty Sharpie and pink marker.  Pink and mint look so wonderful together, don't you think?

Recently, we celebrated with a Birthday Breakfast for my daughter Sarah.  I put up a few decorations and made some yummy food in her honor.

I think these fruit cups turned out so cute.  I wanted to make Sarah's fruit cup look extra special so i topped it with the adorable ballerina vintage cake topper.  I love the look of fresh fruit!

Read more about it on my other blog Make it special party planning 


I Just started reading:

I put in a request for Stephen King's latest book at my library and I've been waiting patiently for the hold to come through and at last it was my turn.

Currently eating/ Loving:

My fruity mix!

I fill my blender with all kinds of yummy fruit, some frozen some not.  This batch had blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, banana, mango, pineapple and I had a kiwi, starfruit & pear leftover that were ripening.

Then I add chia seeds, kale, fill with coconut water and blitz !

I pour off into these small plastic containers and freeze them.  Then I eat/drink one almost every day for breakfast.  Taste great and they've got all that fiber.

Lately, I have been feeling sad because my camera has not been working very well at all.  I couldn't figure out what had changed, why the photos were so blurry.
Was it my failing eyesight?  I really need to go to the eye doctor and get my prescription updated.
I even was using a tripod and still there was not the sharpness and clarity I wanted to see.
So disappointing.
Maybe my daughter, Sarah's lovely photos had spoiled me?
Then it finally dawned on me as I was cleaning my eyeglasses and sure enough the lens was dirty with what looked like water spots!  Did I use the camera months ago in the rain for crying out loud?  Hopefully I can wipe the lens clean with a special cloth and go back to taking some special photos.  It won't be long before spring comes bringing life back into my garden.

And with that I leave you.  Hope you are having a sunny day.

Highlights of my Week

Here's what I've been up to.

I dug out all our valentine relics and did some decorating.  I haven't done that in a few years but this year I was excited to see all these old gifts, some vintage and some newer.  

Pictured above is a tattered vintage candy heart that made a nifty gift from my sweetheart so many years, as well as the year it was made, filled with chocolates and given to another lady.  

I just love it!   Isn't it  unusual? 

I'll be posting more about the decorating details on my other blog,

makeitspecialpartyplanning.blogspot.com/

What I've been watching:

I may be a little obsessed with this melancholy tv show set in Sweden. I saw a few episodes on PBS a few years ago and thought it was riveting.  I've loved detective mysteries ever since Scooby Doo and Agatha Christi's Hercule Poirot and I've been a fan of Kenneth Branagh for years now starting back when I saw him portray Roman in the 1990's mystery thriller, Dead Again with Emma Thompson.  And everybody has seen him in Harry Potter as Gilderoy Lockhart.  Anyway, the first 3 seasons of Wallander have been on Netflix so I've been binge watching them.  I hope the 4th seasons airs on PBS or Netflix soon or I may need to figure out how to watch it on my laptop.

Here's what I'm Loving:

Currently Listening to:

I first heard this song on TV at the very beginning of the first episode of
my new fav show,  Agent Carter 

and instantly LOVED it! 

I googled it and discovered LOADS of fantastic videos by Caro Emerald. I think I'm obsessed with their sound, very big band swing with a dash of tango sultry.  There's so many songs on you tube and every song is dynamite!

My Thrifty Finds:

One of my Favorite finds lately {who am I kidding?  They're all my favorites!!} has been this adorable gem of a book about mushrooms.  The drawings are so cool. I dream about the day when I can take long walks in the woods, maybe bring this book along so I can identify any mushrooms or toadstools I see.

Another great find was this pocket astronomy book that was only like .60 cents at Goodwill because it's a paperback. I probably would've picked it up for that reason alone but then I opened it up and flipped through the pages and came across this wonderful diagram. I Love looking up at the stars at night, especially in the winter when there are so many clear nights and the constellation Orion is easily visible. To me, Orion's belt has always been the easiest part of a constellation to spot with those 3 beautiful bright stars so close together in a line.  When I take the dog out to do her business at night I look up in the sky facing south and this diagram is what I see!  I never knew that the north star, Sirius, is located diagonally off Orion's belt.  Or if I did I forgot!  The North star is another easy to spot, bright star that I've been wondering what it was.

My eyes just about bugged out of my head when I saw these 3 Nancy Drew books on the shelf at Goodwill.  They're children's books so they only cost .60 cents too!  I've been collecting them for about 5 years now, ever since my hubby surprised me with a few of them as a gift.  I read them all as a kid.

What I've been thinking:

I'll leave you with something funny:

Everyone Loves a Good Deal, Right?

I wanted to share some cute things I found while shopping at Target yesterday.

I always look in  the bins at the front of the store filled with the seasonal stuff, usually for $1.  I can not resist a bargain.  There's always something cute that I can use for scrap - journaling or crafts and  many other fun/useful whatnots.

Here's what I bought:
{Clockwise}
How cute are those paper straws with the hearts on them, perfect for a St. Valentine's Day Luncheon or just soda & popcorn on family movie night.

I could use the adorable blank notecards as Valentines or thank you notes.  Just for the record, I Love, love, Luv anything with an Eiffel!

Washi tape is one of my obsessions and I had to buy both the hearts and the chevrons, even the card in packaging  is cute.

And last is the ribbon collection that has silver ric rac, red felt hearts, cream colored grosgrain with vintage-y red keys printed on it, and some red lace.

With Valentines Day right around the corner these DooDads will come in handy.
What a great deal, all 5 thing for only $1 each!

        ~    It's been Lovely chatting with you,
                                    now go on down to Target and get some cute things for yourself ♥