something a little deeper

So the past couple of weeks have been somewhat unsettled and quite challenging. The bf (C) and I are wrestling with some inevitable coupledom questions and it seems that the people I love are being inundated with frustrations and fears. In the midst of this, I am realizing how much I need to rely on the Holy Spirit dwelling in my soul for that deep sense of peace I have been searching for. My soul needs rest and I am acutely aware that it can only be found one place. And that awareness makes me happy.

If you are the praying type, please keep my family and C's family in your prayers. Please keep my friends struggling with life change in your prayers. Please keep my bff and her unborn baby (he is almost here!) in your prayers. Please keep the Nielson clan in your prayers. Please keep our nation who is facing a time of great change in your prayers. Please keep me and my mine in your prayers. I promise to keep you and yours in mine.



P.S. Whether you are the praying type or not, if you are interested in learning more about the place that encourages me to continue turning my face Heavenward, I invite you to visit Watermark.org.

it's friday, i'm in love

Happy Friday! I love Fridays the most for the following reasons:

1.) It is almost the weekend!
2.) I get to wear jeans to the office (this doesn't sound like a big deal, but believe me, it is).
3.) I usually get to duck out a little early.
4.) We almost always take a long lunch.
5.) I always get my favorite treat- an icy beverage from Starbucks.
6.) I get to look forward to date night/seeing family/hanging with my amazing friends/quality time with the bf/travelling/vegging out.
7.) My puppy gets really excited when I come home and stay there for 2 straight days.
8.) I get to sleep in, not this weekend, but most weekends.
9.) Weekends almost always involve family time.
10.) Weekends almost always involve shopping.

Ah, bliss. Have a fab Friday folks.

that wasn't a tapeworm

In case you missed it, last night's episode rocked!

Thank goodness they didn't keep us waiting all season to see the proposal! I personally would not have thought getting down on one knee at a truckstop was the most romantic, but somehow it worked for the two of them. Plus it was pouring rain. How lovely.

Also, I loved loved the weight loss storyline. Kelly's "tapeworm" from Creed killed me. Oh the other hand, I wasn't thrilled with how they revived Ryan's character as a temp again. Meh. And, what was up with Meredith's face? Did I miss something? As usual, Dwight was awesome-he looked super hilarious with a goatee.

I don't know how you could not be into this show. What was your favorite part?

Jim and Pam picture from givemetheremote.com.

my life from 9-5

It is finally Thursday September 25th, and that can only mean one thing: the return of The Office tonight! I am so S-T-O-K-E-D-stoked! I became hooked on this show this past summer (aka really late in the game) after my bf introduced me to it via DVD. It is so absofreakingtootly amazing. I can so see some of my coworkers in the characters (especially Andy Bernard) and that is a scary, scary thing.

Even though I loved Toby-much to the dismay of my bf who pronounced Toby to be a "dork"-I can't wait to see how Jim proposes to Pam.

From now on, Thursday nights will be filled with wine, chocolate and The Office. I love Fall.

Picture from blog.wired.com

nie nie benefit sale at etsy

I am so excited about all of the blogging love going around for Nie Nie and her family. Stephanie and her husband Christian were in a private plane crash on August 16, 2008 and they are still on the long road to recovery.

Nie Nie's story is so touching and I am really impressed by the amount of love and compassion people are pouring out for Stephanie and Christian. I visited the etsy sight for the two day Nie Nie Benefit Sale on its first day yesterday, and of the 161 items Morgan at One More Moore posted, there were only 8 left 30 minutes into the sale at 12:30, CST. That is truly incredible!

Rumor has it that more items will be posted here today at 12 CST, and I know I will be there to support the Nielson's cause. The Nielson's and their children are certainly in my prayers.

If you want more information about Nie Nie and Christian's progress, visit C Jane.

Update: It is 12:15pm, CST and there are only 3 items left. This outpouring of desire to help is amazing! Also, Morgan has extended the Benefit Sale and will be posting more items on both Thursday and Friday at 12pm, CST.

bring on the fall

I know that I have two shoe posts in close proximity to each other, but be honest, how great are these shoes that Urban Outfitters delivered to my inbox today?


I mean, come on! I love the nude. It would be so so perfect with all things fall. Perfect with dresses. Perfect with skirts and tights. Perfect with jeans.

They are fabulous in black too. Love, love the Jefferey Campbell Ruffle Platform Heel. $135, online only, at UO.

magpiesandmagnolias on etsy

Also thought it was worth a mention that due to my serious estate saling on Saturday, I will actually be adding some vintage treasures to my etsy shop at some point this week. The bf has been tapped to do some photographing and styling. Can't wait to share!

fantasy monday

Hello lovelies! I hope you have emerged from the weekend refreshed and rejuvenated. The bf and I ended up skipping Oktoberfest in favor of an Amos Lee concert at the Granada Theater on Greenville. It was an amahzing show darlings! I truly truly heart Amos.

I have been having a serious case of wanderlust lately. Some friends of ours just jetted off to tour around Europe for awhile and how I wish I could have tagged along. My favorite kind of trip in the fall is a good oldfashioned road trip (with the bf driving of course!) I love the fresh air and the pretty colors you inevitably see along the way. (For the record, if you have never done a roadtrip in Arkansas in the fall, I highly recommend it. The changing of the leaves are just to die for.) So with that in mind, I present my fantasy Monday treasure:

A vintage 1957 VW Cabriolet. Can't you just picture a scenic drive with the wind whipping in your hair? Ahhhh. I don't know how much this beauty would cost, but I think cherry red roadtrip perfection=priceless.

Here's to the start of another work week!

it's such a perfect day

We are having the most incredible pre-fall weather in Dallas. It is days like these that make you want to play outside. This song reminds me of summer but makes me excited for fall all at the same time.

"Oh the sky could be blue, I don't mind. Without you its a waste of time. The sky could be blue, could be gray. Without you we're just miles away. The sky could be blue, I don't mind. Without you its a waste of time."

I am so glad it is the weekend. We are off to Oktoberfest in Addison on Saturday and I am looking forward to a balmy day filled with sunshine, wonderful friends and great German food. Beer and pretzels and sausage, oh my! I will return on Monday. Until then lovelies...

working it out

I am still learning the ins and outs of Blogger and I am having a bit of an issue with formatting. So, I apologize if all of my posts look a little off. I would rather leave them that way than spend another 45 minutes beating my head against the wall fixing and refixing then having the save button create an error and then the video be deleted again all because I want to make some text smaller and correct a typo. Also, it is Friday and yet all these posts are getting placed as if it were Thursday. Ergh.

Maybe I will try again a little later. Ciao!

fantasy thursday

So I know I said this post would come every Monday before noon, but it has been a crazy hectic week on all fronts so here it is on Thursday instead. (Besides, when you only have two readers, I don't think you have to be too picky about posting on time.) Anyway, here in all its sexy glory is the YSL Tribute Pump:



Molto bene! How beautiful! I have been devouring the Fashion Week posts on other blogs and I was super duper impressed with the YSL collection. And, as usual, the shoes were just to-die. I know the Tribute is a classic, but it is just so dang good and it is my fantasy. And fantasy it will stay because unfortunately $660 worth of perfect patent leather is just not in the cards for me. Sigh.

9/11

I am going to be sure to take many moments of silence today in honor of the men and women who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 and the thousands who served the relief, recovery and rebuilding process. I hope that we never forget.

how i love those rainy days of summer

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination." -Oscar Wilde

It is a lovely, lazy, rainy end-of-summer day today. It makes me want to curl up in window seat with a good daydream. What would you do if you could have this rainy day all to yourself?

"How I Got My Stutter" via etsy seller madelaine.

old navy? really?

I am becoming more and more impressed with Old Navy. Since their rebranding a few months back, they have become more than just a staple item store. Take this dress for instance:

Women's Stretch Ponte Cap Sleeve Dress at Old Navy

Tres, tres cute! I can see wearing it to work now with strappy sandals and then transitioning it into fall with thick black tights and a cardigan. And did I mention it is only $29.50? Love it!

fantasy football monday

It is almost Fall, and the big buzz around my office (aside from all the baby news-seriously there has GOT to be something in the water) is football, football, football. I was invited multiple times to participate, however, since I do not have the attention span to watch an entire game, and I definitely do not have the mental memory capacity to remember millions of stats, I sat out this year. I know, I know, lame. So, to remedy my laziness I thought I would institute Fantasy Monday. Each Monday I will post a fantasy vacation destination, wardrobe lovely, home, etc by noon (office rules, not mine) for the entire football season.

Since I am behind a week, here are Fantasy Football Mondays #1 and #2.

#1. The Fontaine Dress from JCrew. Only $650. A mere drop in the bucket for such lovely, lovely ruffles.

#2. A stay at the Agriturismo Il Vecchil Maneggio Bed and Breakfast, an ancient farmhouse in the rural hills of San Gimignano, Italy. The website says that it is nestled among vineyards, olive groves and orchards. How dreamy. Now wasn't that fun?!

la la love it

I recently moved to a new apartment to be closer to work (5 minute commute-woo hoo!) and I am in the never ending process of decorating my space. Last night my new roomie and I finally hung my collection of vintage "art" and prints from etsy in the den. I have been jonesing for a gallery wall for some time and I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I have one more etsy print to frame and hang above the large circle of trees, and it will be complete.

(picture to come, as soon as I take it)

We have the rest of the apartment organized and decorated (with the exception of my closet-THAT is a never ending process) and so the time has come to tackle my bedroom. I saved a few special treasures and some personal photos for the walls in the bedroom but there is still a ton of white space. Let me back track here and explain the sitch. I moved from a one bedroom, approximately 750sf space to a large two bedroom apt with 12ft ceilings. My new bedroom is several feet long and wider than my old one. So, infinite more square footage+freakishly high ceilings=bajillions of miles of white walls. Needless to say, I have a large blank canvas to work with. What to do, what to do? I have fairly eclectic taste, so I perused my usual daily blog reads for ideas and came up with quite a few that I love. (A pola gallery of kissing pictures! A strip of patterned wallpaper behind the bed! A mishmash of different sized letters spelling out favorite words!) Then I turned to my most favorite of favorites, etsy. Here are a few of my favorite things:

You Deserve Pie poster from etsy seller Tealtown. Because, frankly, don't we all deserve pie? And I la la love me some letterpress.

Wilco handlebar stache poster from pfahlert. One of the greatest bands of all time and one of the most epic staches of all time.

Handprinted botanical using three colors from nateduval. Just so, so pretty.

This iconic poster from, among others, 10thavenue, BluLima and sfgirlbybay.

And these three from SparklePower. I ended up la la loving the last one the most, so it's on it's way to me now! Hooray! I love you etsy.

i've caught the bug

Hello lovelies! It seems I have caught the blogging bug. I have been inspired by many of my blogging peers and I am excited to join the ranks. I am thrilled to share the many funny, pretty, thought-provoking, awesome things I come across daily with you. So here goes...