well, you don't know what we can find...

we have been looking for a new rug for our living room/family room. (what do we call this room?) the one we had was a sisal type rug...too small and too uncomfortable to sit on if you want to lounge on the floor. this was evident at christmas time when i found myself sitting on the floor when we had friends over and when we were opening gifts on christmas day. so i started looking at rugs but everything i found was either too traditional, too boring, too busy (we have enough going on hanging on our walls) or not large enough. so we decided to wait. typically, if we set out on a hunt for something just to get it, we won't find it. the best method is usually, let it come to us. and it did, yesterday. we ran by tj maxx before dinner to look for some valentines treats and happened to spot this rug. (well, these rugs.) we saw it and both loved it, but this rug was the same size as the one we have now. however...there was another one just like it underneath the stack. there seems to be a discrepancy over who had the idea to put both of them together, but nonetheless, one of us did and i think it kind of works! when you have two people that pride themselves on their ingenuity and creativity, who gets the due credit is always disputed.

the rugs we found are wool and have a long, sort of loopy pile. very comfortable to walk barefoot and sit on. it really lightens up the space and makes the seating area much cozier. i think they were a pretty great find. and we could not beat the price. tj maxx has also restocked lamps that are fabulous. i have my eye on one amazing pair that would look great somewhere if i knew of anyone that needed them...bottle green glass with brown linen shades...

headin' south

we finally made it down to atlanta on saturday to celebrate christmas with some dear family friends. i am so ready for spring and over this cold and rain, that anything christmassy has been the last thing on my mind. but trying to get a family of 4 together with a family of 5, during christmas, birthday, anniversary and flu season was next to impossible for us this year. so we celebrated a month later. em had a cheer/tumbling competition on sunday morning at the world congress center so we spent the night with our friends and all the girls went to support em the next morning. these competitions need to be blogged about at some point but i am still trying to figure out the most delicate and prudent way to do that...

so for now here are some highlights from our night away:

1. yummy champagne cocktails waiting for us when we arrived. beer for the guys. chips and salsa and appropriate drinks for the younger set. i wish i had taken a photo of the cocktails because they looked like a piece of art...so simple and so beautiful. a sugar cube and fresh blackberries in the bottom of a flute of champagne with bitters. perfect to sip by the fire and discuss meaningless things...or thoughtful things. just a perfect little drink.

2. getting to hang out with h.h. while enjoying our afternoon girl cocktails by the fire. and so glad we found a weekend to all get together. now if we can just get both of these girls and their husbands to rome. we promise a fire on the patio if it is not raining...and to christen our new fry daddy for some homemade onion rings...

3. manchego cheese to go along with our perfect cocktails. our new favorite cheese. we had it with sausage and crackers : )

4. wil driving in atlanta for the first time. we were not brave enough to let him attempt i75, but he did drive the guys down howell mill road to the publix for a quick trip. i'm not ready for this.

5. the kids making their own homemade pizzas and us almost forgetting them in the oven.

6. meeting sammy, the newest addition to the hazlehurst family. he is a rescue dog and honestly the sweetest dog ever. he is a wheaton poodle mix (and my friend says, yes, called a woodle). this cat person enjoyed sitting by the fire with him so much.

7. a yummy dinner at 10:00 saturday night. shrimp and grits (pasta for me) with asparagus. a chocolate and whip cream cake that called for seconds even though it was midnight. coffee topped with milk that was frothed with a frother from ikea? still not believing that. it was one of the best cups of coffee i have ever had! the frother is a new addition to the must-have list at $2.99. my friend has the keurig version at work and says this one is just as great for the price.

8. shopping finds we looked at while hanging out on saturday night...comparing finds is part of the routine whenever we get together. frye celia boots on sale (neither of us needs any more boots but these little fold over babies were too amazing of a deal to pass up), lands' end canvas line of swimwear on sale (classic styles and solid colors), olay pro-x advanced cleansing system brush (like the clarisonic but a fraction of the price. ordered mine sunday night from drugstore.com)

9. pb's diana camera. we took some fun photos with this and it is a great blast back to the past because there is no looking or editing while shooting. you have to drop the film off and wait to see what ya got!

10. the cheer competition the next morning. again, this whole experience is new to us and a post for another time. her team did a great job. but glitter, cow bells, shakers, parents screaming and tiny girls with fake ponytails (not em's team) is a lot to take in on a sunday morning...

11. amazing lunch at yeah! burger. loved this place. fresh and organic with just the right amount of grease.

12. a quiet ride back to rome on a sunday afternoon and a cozy evening in our pj's on 2 pear street. home sweet home.

thank you hazlehursts, for another memorable trip to your home. wil and em think you are the greatest!

imelda marcos?

here is a funny story for anyone that understands the phrase "on a mission" when hunting a "find" of some sort or another...

a few days ago, i blogged about some new things that are of interest to me this spring. one being, the tory burch clogs. really, a good pair of leather clogs with the back strap around your heel is what i want. i just happen to love this particular pair, a lot.

on tuesday, i sat down to read one of my favorite blogs by a girl in boston. my jaw dropped as soon as the page was loaded on my computer. her feature that day was a store in atlanta that she has not visited, but is in love with and dying to see. i have been there! my precious atl friend and i spotted it one night last summer while on our way to drinks before dinner. we stared in amazement with our faces pressed to the glass, trying to take it all in. they were already closed. but after what turned out to be a late night out for a week night, she rallied and managed to get back over there the next day and scope it out for a full report. love at first site for her. so i vicariously live through her visits since i am in rome. she will call me anytime she makes a trip to ann mashburn and let me know the 411 on the newest treasures. i took emily there last fall when we had a girls day in atlanta and she loved it too.

so on tuesday, while hanging on every word i was reading about ann, her family and her fabulous life, i spotted a pair of clogs on one of her employees, jen. i tried to enlarge the picture for more detail. not very much luck. so later that afternoon, i started looking for them on various websites. i found a pair on piperlime that seemed to be a dead ringer for the ones she had...and they were on sale! i put them in my "cart" to ponder on over the next few days.

so this morning, i am looking at them again and decided to just call ann mashburn...the store, not the person. however amazing that would have been, i probably would have hung up the phone in a panic if she had answered. my friend's husband has accused her of stalking this woman because we are so intrigued by her. didn't want to appear as a stalker.

camille (the other employee in the photo) answered the phone. she is also the one that had helped me when em and i had visited last october. she was super sweet and helpful as i explained my quest for the clogs featured on this particular blog. it is so fun to deal with sales people that love what they do (how could she not love working there???) and totally get it when someone is asking such a crazy question. she pulled up the blog while on the phone with me and we looked together. no, they did not have them in the store but she said, "i'll ask jen where she got them and email you as soon as she gets here!". yippee...so excited now. i need to have a store...

so she emailed me back around lunchtime and said how much she enjoyed talking to me, and that jen had purchased those clogs a few years ago but she gave me the brand to help in my quest. jaw drop number 2. they were the exact ones i had found on piperlime. i couldn't email precious atlanta friend fast enough. we both clicked "submit order" immediately...they were in her cart as well. then i marveled at the will behind the way and the uncanny eye that we both never cease to amaze ourselves with. i should have a store...

get up, get up, get up, get up

my childhood bff is getting married in march!!! we are helping to host a party for the happy couple in a few weeks. the date happens to fall on valentine's day weekend, so we couldn't have asked for a better theme! we decided to really play it up...heart shaped lights on our porch, a signature valentine cocktail, champagne, red velvet cupcakes, conversation hearts and the best play list ever to complete the night. i celebrated being home for mlk day by spending way too may hours in front of the computer, sampling songs from our itunes library and carefully compiling a list of love songs....over 150 at this point. if you had to pick some of your all time favorite love songs, what would they be? we didn't want anything too sappy or too slow. just the classics, anything 80's and anything that would make you want to dance. it was a walk down memory lane, listening to some of these tunes. pb and i worked on it some more last night and think we have come up with a stellar list that will be perfect for this party.
don't want to spoil it for the bride-to-be, so here are just a few of our favorite picks:

al green: l-o-v-e
alicia keys: fallin'
andy gibb: i just wanna be your everything
ben lee: catch my disease
beyonce feat jay-z:crazynlove
billy idol: white wedding
bob marley: could you be loved
bob segar: tryin' to live my life without you
carole king: i feel the earth move
hot 8 brass band: sexual healing
lenny kravitz: come on and love me
outkast: valentine's day
peter frampton: baby, i love your way
prince and the revolution: kiss
rollin' in the hay: ring of fire
the spinners: then came you
salt'npeppa: whattaman
the white stripes: it's true that we love one another
the roots: the seed
u2: the sweetest thing

and that's just the tip of the iceberg...

girl talk

here are a few things on my radar for spring. with warmer weather still months away (and snow still on the ground here), i think most of these items would be great transitional pieces too. they are basic enough and present a lot of options. and for now, the nail polish is just a happy color on a gray winter day!

1. cute white skirt. could be worn with a lightweight sweater, a t-shirt or a tank. this one is j. crew.

2. layers of gold and pearls. found this on piperlime.

3. tom's gilded herringbone flats. so cute with white jeans. or any jeans!

4. navy dress by marc jacobs. probably not gonna happen but maybe something similar?

5. i still love the skinny jeans but we are seeing more of the wide leg pants back this spring. love these by seven.

6. vermillionaire by essie. great on fingers and toes. perfect with all the navy and stripes.

7. cropped skinny jeans. these are true religion but i found great ones at the gap on sale after christmas. wear these with flats, flip flops, or a wedge sandal.

8. havaiana flip flops. i have had this particular pair for a few years and still love them. so simple. the gold is the best neutral color.

9. still loving anything with stripes. this j. crew sweater would be a great piece with the white skirt, the wide leg jeans, white jeans or cropped jeans. and super cute with shorts.

10. another pearl and gold necklace. j. crew. i would wear this with a t-shirt and faded jeans...or a dress.

11. white jeans. bootcut or skinny. they go with everything. i had the toothpick jeans in white from j. crew last season. everyone i know that had them, loved them. they can be dressy or casual. a favorite and back again this season.

12. i want these!!! tory burch clogs. these are number one on my list. they would go with everything else on the list!

and last, download girl talk for your ipod. "The 29-year-old Pittsburgh native, better known as Girl Talk, is more of a mixologist. He brings together seemingly dissonant samples from rap, pop and rock to create something fresh. Consider his fifth full-length release, All Day, in which 350 songs are blended into the 71-minute mix, jogging the listener's musical memory at every turn."
liz gets huge props for this music find. it's perfect to listen to while walking, running or working out...or anytime. for grown-ups only, not kid friendly.

free your mind and the rest will follow

so we are on day 3 of no school because of the snow. on day one i was feeling very introspective. i should have blogged then. now i am just antsy and while not really ready to go back to school, ready for life to be normal again. i do think that the whole snow thing is god and nature's way of making us slow down. i think it comes when we need it and it is our cue to stop, look and listen to the things around us that we might otherwise be missing.

i had already been thinking about the word control before our snowbound vacation. control is something that i struggle with at times. when i feel like life and the things around me are out of my control, i will do something intensely, to get my mind off of it. the funny thing is, none of us is really in control. a good friend of mine and i have discussed this before because we share a lot of the same tendencies in this area. it is so crazy how one day i can be perfectly at ease, content and peaceful and then the next, feel terrified that life is going by way too fast. that is when i feel out of control. none of my circumstances have changed from one day to the next, really. it is just all a matter of perspective...and hormones, i'm sure.

wil just turned 15. how can that be? this is when i get freaked out and think about how fast life is changing, and about all of the things i don't want to miss with him. i was sitting next to him in the car last week...in the passenger's seat. no control. he was doing everything right. but i kept catching myself asking him if he had looked both ways, signaled when he changed lanes and various other laws he needed to heed while driving. i am trying to have a little faith, watch him, and keep my mouth shut until i need to remind him of something. no gasping and no breaking with my foot when he is the one in control of the break pedal.

i'm glad the snow was out of our control. we needed to slow down, have no distractions, and have to rest. slowing down helps to put things in perspective. life doesn't feel so out of control.

is it 5:00 yet?

new design?

we are trying out a new design for our blog...lots of time on our hands during these snow days! blogspot doesn't allow a whole lot of room for creativity as far as the layout goes so this is what we played with tonight. we'll try it out for a few days and see...

rock me mama like the wind and the rain

pb reminded me that things happen in 3's. so if we count our trip to jamaica, we are done. if not, i am considering not leaving floyd county ever again. we had a great time in nashville over new year's weekend but the actual new year's eve part was another "this wasn't what i planned or expected" part of a trip. and let me preface once again with the fact that we had a wonderful weekend, loved being with liz, loved seeing nashville again, loved shopping, loved dinner saturday night but did not love the ending to our friday night. we went to see old crow medicine show, which was a-mazing, but we didn't know about the monsoon that was to hit nashville or the lack of cabs after midnight on new year's eve. i don't know what i think armageddon will look like, but this could be close...on a much smaller scale. i would hate to compare what we experienced to hurricane katrina...because i know that was devastating on a tremendously larger scale. but when you are in the middle of a monsoon, can't get a cab, people are walking around drunk and delirious, hotels are booked, and there is no end in sight, you think you are in a natural disaster. i don't think i have ever seen so many drenched dresses and painful looking high heels, more runny mascara, or more defeated, disappointed and apologetic boys as we did on friday night. girls were stumbling around bleary-eyed and barefoot while their dates tried desperately to salvage what was left of new year's eve and flag down a cab. we were all stone cold sober and could easily have gotten ourselves home if we had driven a car downtown. but we tried to do the responsible thing when the night started and call a cab...just in case. the cab there was no problem. in fact, our cabbie, wyatt, promised he would come back downtown and get us later that night. somehow he never made it back. pb and friend valiantly stood in the sideways blowing rain sans rain jackets and tried to hale a ride for us for over and hour. and by this point, all beer and wine were clearly out of our systems so none of this was humorous. i kept thinking i should take some pictures of the total debacle before us. pb and liz kept saying what a great story this would make. if i had known for sure that we were not going to be spending the night in the hotel doorway, i would have laughed and taken more notes on it all.

we had big plans to go to the honky tonks before the downpour changed everything. we tried to go after dinner and before the concert but the line to every one of them was way too long. the last time i was in nashville was 5 years ago and the only way my friend and i got past the long line of people was to smile at the guy guarding the back door...and tell him we were carrie underwood's stylists and that we had to get in the place because she was supposed to be coming later on that night. it worked. somehow the chances of that working again seemed slim to none so we didn't try. we missed the honky tonks but got to see old crow medicine show at the ryman. both of these are highly recommended. they put on the best show. the talent that they play all of those instruments with is a sight to see. and the ryman...best venue ever. we don't think we can ever go to a concert that is any larger than this again. it was so intimate and relaxing...like spending new year's with your dearest friends. so this part was a perfect evening. if we could have gotten in our car after the show that would have completed it. but the rain came, the cabs didn't, and now we have another story to tell.

we endured the rain, stumbling people, yelling and crying girls, a homeless drunk and several other sights of interest until about 3:30 in the morning. our last ditch effort was pb and our other friend offering the completely confused papa john's guy a pretty sum of cash to drive us home. i really thought we might get mugged or jumped as we dashed out of the hotel doorway for his car. we were getting away and no one else had a prayer at this point. somehow we made it home. i had my eyes closed for most of the way. pb kept saying that this would be funny tomorrow.

so saturday pb and friend watched football and recovered. liz and i went shopping. we hit everything from whole foods to sephora. we all went to dinner saturday night at a new favorite restaurant to add to our list, whiskey kitchen. liz an i had read about it and it was a recommendation from our friend, gwyneth, when she was in nashville filming her last movie. i was dying to try it. the wait was supposedly 2 1/2 hours when we got there. but after the wait in sorority and fraternity hell the night before, this one didn't seem too bad. so we ordered the best drinks at the bar (muddled apples, cinnamon and fresh cherries with simple syrup and old forester bourbon) and went outside to a covered patio with a fire to wait. the wait was as much fun as the dinner. staying true to form, our creative juices started flowing by the fire. we have some new artistic concepts to explore this summer...so stay tuned. our food was incredible and we left there saying how we would all go again in a heartbeat. great brick oven pizzas, chipotle salsa, beer battered fish tacos and shrimp and grits. that it what each of us tried. the menu goes on and on and is described as southern chic at affordable prices.

pb says i forgot to mention that the ride to nashville on friday was delightful. we had entertaining company in the car with us and we got to stop at big daddy's outside of monteagle.

so i leave you with a few of my finds from the weekend in nash vegas. and hopes that all of those poor girls we saw on friday night made it home ok.

1. mrs. meyer's geranium kitchen spray. found this at whole foods. smells delicious but dangerous because now i am spraying the counter even more...

2. gin and rosewater no. 12. a scent by tokyomilk. it is a blend of citrus zest, rosewood, mimosa and mandarin. it really is intoxicating. liz got it and i made her take me back to get it after i couldn't quit smelling my wrist. found this at the cosmetic market. visit this store if you can.

3. the new-fashioned at whiskey kitchen. a drink worth savoring. the muddled fruit and cinnamon are indescribable.

4. old crow medicine show. download them. go see them if you can. wagon wheel is still my favorite tune. makes you want to dance.

5. anthropologie. i have been to this store so many times but really enjoyed this one in nashville. it was a large free-standing one and we spent over an hour looking at all of the home things and books.