Things I've Been Doing Other Than Blogging

I've been terrible about blogging! I just haven't been motivated and there's been a lot going on!

I just got back from 6 days off work - Andy and I went with his family on our annual Gatlinburg trip, which was really nice. When we got back, we headed out on different trips -- he had been planning a guys' trip to Florida for awhile and I figured I'd take the opportunity to go visit family and friends myself!

I drove up to Louisville and dropped Lucy off with my mom then headed to Indiana to see my friend Mandi and her family and then up even further north to visit my friend Dayna. I never realized South Bend was so far north and that we were basically on the Michigan border. We drove up and saw Lake Michigan and it was GORGEOUS. I love Michigan and I love water!


Our annual tradition is to visit Fannie Farkle's, an arcade on the Gatlinburg strip. A corn dog, a coke, and video games!

We're addicted to those games where you drop a quarter or token in and try to get it to push the other coins over the ledge to earn tickets.  Fannie Farkle's had an amazing, more digitized version that gave us soooo many tickets. We managed to earn almost 4,000 tickets and couldn't find a single thing to purchase with them, so we gave them to a little boy. I hope he picked out something awesome!


We all played Hillbilly Golf as a family and Ollie had fun putting, too. :) It's so fun to see him grow up! Isn't he adorable??

When I was outside of Indianapolis, Mandi took me to an apple orchard that had a petting zoo. Her adorable daughter Makenna had fun with all the animals!


I love goats so much!


And alpacas!


Then, I drove to South Bend and Dayna and I drove to St. Joseph, Michigan to see Lake Michigan and the beach!

It was crazy warm for October!


It was really strange to see a tree with fall leaves...planted in sand!


On the beach!


It was such a great trip! So good to see family and friends. It was hectic to drive all over the place (Nashville to Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg to Nashville. Nashville to Louisville. Louisville to Greenwood. Greenwood to South Bend. South Bend to Louisville. Louisville to Nashville!) but so worth it to see everyone!

If you're new to Owl Really, welcome! Please check out my favorite posts and consider subscribing! :)

The Kindness of Bloggers

I've been faithfully blogging for almost 2 years now and I have met and corresponded with some amazing people! I want to share just a few of those people because I've been the recipient of some awesome kindness from bloggers lately!

First up, I won this awesome giveaway from Betty Crafter! She has a love for crewelwork (like me!) and she even developed her OWN crewel pattern inspired by some of the most popular vintage patterns. I am so impressed by her talent! She held a giveaway on her blog and I was so ecstatic to win! I am completely intimidated by the project but I hope to work up the gumption to start it soon.


Secondly, through my mom, I was introduced to Robelyn of Redneck Chic. She is SO crafty - I don't think there's anything she can't do! She recently visited Nashville and she stopped by my booth at the antique mall and LEFT ME A PRESENT! What! She is so kind and thoughtful!!! Check out this awesome messenger bag she made!!


And finally, the oh-so-wonderful Eartha Kitsch opened up her garage to me, Lisa, and Rae and let us raid a stash of amazing vintage items that she was getting rid of. We could take as much as we wanted! It was like a vintage-lover's dream come true! I came home with 4 boxes full of awesome things, some of which you can sorta spy in this photo. I was running out of daylight and wanted to pack everything safely, so I was working like a madwoman to transfer and wrap the breakables into rubbermaid tubs.


Amazing, right????

I feel so thankful to be in such a kind and generous community!

If you're new to Owl Really, welcome! Please check out my favorite posts and consider subscribing! :)

Happy Halloween!

I hope you guys are safe out there. Not sure how many readers I have from the northeast but I'm praying for everyone up there. The damage is so devastating to see - I'm watching the fires in New Jersey right now. So, so sad.

---

Happy Halloween! I like Halloween but I LOVE fall. There's nothing better than the sun shining brightly with a brisk chill in the air. Fall is the BEST. I'm actually really sad that today is the last day of October!

I didn't dress up for Halloween this year (will I ever be able to top last year? Probably not!) because I assisted a wedding planner on Saturday, when most of the parties were. Tonight, we're going to hang out with family to be with Ollie on his first Halloween. :)

I wanted to get the most out of October that I could and I think we did a pretty good job. We went to Oktoberfest and to the farmer's market to get a pumpkin and mums, we went to the Smoky Mountains, I went to Glendale, and we had some friends over to carve pumpkins, watch football, and eat chili this weekend.

I carved a little pumpkin along with my friends Emily and her new fiance Spencer! (Congrats! Still so over-the-moon excited for you guys)! Emily and Spencer are both really artistic and their pumpkins reflect that! I was cold and impatient and my pumpkin reflects THAT. :)

First: Emily and Spencer's:


They both totally free-handed those. Impressive, huh???

Our porch is not the best - ignore the fact that it is too small and needs to be re-painted.... but here is my happy little fall scene along with my dinky little jack-o-lantern. :)

I tried to make a scary pumpkin but the eyes looked more flirty than frightening, so I decided to just carve a cute girl pumpkin!

The wooden box on the porch holds my hens & chicks! My mom made the planter for me and planted hens and chicks that came from my great-aunt's house. The plants originated in my great-grandmother's garden in Louisville but when her daughter moved to Michigan, she took some with her and over the decades, they grew and grew. My cousin Marybeth dug some up for us so we could use them in our wedding last year, which meant the world to me.

When my great-aunt passed away last fall, her family made sure to dig up the hens and chicks before selling her house. They passed them out to the rest of the family. I love having them and I'm constantly scared something is going to happen to them. They survived Michigan winters (Marybeth had to wait for the SNOW to melt in March so she could dig them up!) so I'm praying they survive our mild winters.

I love them! They make me so happy and make me feel connected to my dear Michigan family.

Wherever you are, I hope you have a safe and happy Halloween.

If you're new to Owl Really, welcome! Please check out my favorite posts and consider subscribing! :)

Katie and Adam's wedding

On September 8, two of our good friends got married! Through Andy's job, we have gotten to know some really amazing people. Hardly any of them still work at the company where they met, but they all still stay in touch and get together on a regular basis.

Adam and Katie both worked with Andy, but then they moved to Austin last year. They returned to Nashville for their wedding, which was amazing and beautiful!

The wedding was on the most gorgeous day we've had in months at a venue called Front Porch Farms.




























Photo bombed by a baby. :)

It was SUCH a fun night!!! Congratulations to Adam and Katie!!

If you're new to Owl Really, welcome! Please check out my favorite posts and consider subscribing! :)

Andy's 33rd Birthday

Andy's birthday was Friday and it was a fun day! In the morning, I gave him his presents (a close-up of one of my favorites is below). I baked his favorite cake - yellow with chocolate icing. I wanted to take it up a notch, so I crumbled his favorite cookies (Fudge Stripes) and mixed them into the icing between the layers. I also added some crumbs as garnish for good measure. (The cookies look weird because they were red - apparently Keebler has a marketing deal with Spiderman and these were colored red for the movie. Funny.)

Andy hangs out with a group of guys every Monday night so we had them and their ladies over for a cookout. We turned on the Olympic opening ceremonies and watched them together - but sadly we missed the beginning. I've heard it was pretty crazy and I'm bummed that I missed Mary Poppins saving the day!


I like to take photos of us and Andy likes to make funny faces. :)

If you spent any time in Nashville in the past 40 or so years, you might be familiar with Opryland, Nashville's country music theme park that closed years ago. I grew up in Louisville and we made the trip down to Opryland once when I was probably around 10. Andy grew up spending his entire summers at Opryland and those memories are really dear to him. I have been wanting to get him an Opryland souvenir for awhile and I searched etsy and ebay for something I thought would be fun and useful. I found these awesome coasters on ebay and thought they would be a fun gift. 

It was a really nice day! The past few weeks have been a rollercoaster of emotion (more on that later) and it was nice to just unwind with friends and celebrate my awesome husband.

If you're new to Owl Really, welcome! Please check out my favorite posts and consider subscribing! :)

Visiting Michigan

flying to Michigan!

I love Michigan. I always have! I think when I was younger, I rarely got to see my Michigan family so they seemed a bit exotic and Michigan felt like this really cool place where I got to fish and hang out on lakes and see this family that I never got to see.

Michigan still holds a dear place in my heart and I was so happy to visit over the weekend!

We flew into Detroit and visited the Motown Museum then drove straight to Pinckney to my mom's cousins Marybeth and Jeff's house for dinner with most of the family.

After dinner, the ladies and the kids went down to the neighborhood lake to wade and/or swim. It had rained in the afternoon, drastically dropping the temperate from 95 to low 70s and because it had rained, we had the pleasure of seeing a double rainbow!

After lake time, everyone gathered back together to talk and tell stories and catch up. It was so good to spend time with the kids - my first memories of their parents are from when I was their age! I want to know them and for them to know us! Happily, the older kids (2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders) remember us each time. (This is the last time we saw them, back in November.)

We talked way past the kids' bedtimes, so the families packed up and we settled in to sleep with the windows open since the weather was so nice!

Marybeth made us raspberry muffins for breakfast and we sat out on their screened-in porch and talked a bit in the morning. It was so peaceful. Andy remarked that it was similar to the peace and quiet we love about going to the mountains each year and I definitely agree!

We had to hit the road to meet Dayna and Christina for lunch but first we made a pit stop in Hell!

I remembered visiting Hell when I was in Michigan as a child and I thought it might be funny to go again and take Andy! He bought postcards and sent messages to a couple friends from the tiny post office inside the ice cream shop in Hell. They even burn the bottom of your postcard for authenticity! Now, hell is not something I would normally joke about, but this is so kitschy and such a tourist trap that it's pretty funny and harmless.

We then headed straight to Ann Arbor and had lunch at the Jolly Pumpkin, which was delicious and so nice to hang out with Christina and Dayna! After lunch, Andy & I walked around downtown just a bit. We checked into the hotel, took a little nap, then got ready for Dayna's big banquet!

Dayna was graduating from her residency program at St. Joseph's in Ann Arbor. She was chief resident, so it was really exciting to see her as pretty much the guest of honor throughout the night. We got her a silly little gift - the Toy Story version of Operation. We got a huge "Dayna laugh" out of her when she opened it. :)





The banquet was great and the next day, there was a BBQ to continue the celebration! Before the BBQ, however, we killed some time at some thrift stores of course! I will do a post about PTO, but it was the most amazing thrift store I've ever been to. If I lived in Ann Arbor, this place would be DANGEROUS.

We left from the BBQ to head back to the airport and come home. It was a short trip but really nice to see some of my favorite people all within a 30 mile radius! :)

If you're new to Owl Really, welcome! Please check out my favorite posts and consider subscribing! :)

Headed to Michigan!

I am soooo excited. We are headed to Michigan to see some of my favorite people!

One of my bridesmaids, Dayna, will graduate from her residency program (she was Chief Resident! I am so proud of her!) and we are attending her graduation banquet in Ann Arbor. We will also hopefully get to see one of my other bridesmaids, Christina, who also lives in Ann Arbor!

My Michigan family also happens to live in the area so we will get to see them and visit my favorite little lake (it's the only lake I've really spent any time at - I really haven't been to many lakes and we've made so many fun memories here as a family the past 2 times we've had our family reunion here!).

Two years ago, Andy came with me to my family reunion in Michigan and we had such a great time. Michigan and my Michigan family are just so dear to my heart!

After our reunion, I made this little video. I can't wait to make more memories on this trip!




Hunchman Family Reunion 2010 from Jamie Wilson on Vimeo.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

If you're new to Owl Really, welcome! Please check out my favorite posts and consider subscribing! :)

Birthday Wrap-Up

I really don't mean to beat a dead horse about my birthday, but I wanted to do a little wrap-up! We celebrated over the course of a week between our families and friends and it was such a great time. Turning 30 wasn't too bad, thanks to all our friends and family!

The Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, Andy & I met my parents in Bowling Green for lunch and thrifting for a few hours. My mom did a great re-cap of our time including photos that you can read here!

We had lunch, then hit up some thrift stores and consignment shops. I always drag my family around thrifting but luckily my mom enjoys it as much as I do and Andy and my dad always find something to look at too. :) It was so, so hot so after hitting a few shops, our final stop was to get some ice cream! It was too short of a day together but it was very fun!

Bowling Green has soooooo many consignment stores, I was so surprised! A few weeks ago, I received an email from a Bowling Green vendor who was looking into opening a booth in Nashville. I found out where his booth was and made sure to visit it. I loved it!! I bought the following items from him:

 

His prices were incredible and these items will be going into my booth soon! I really hope he does open a booth in Nashville (hopefully in the Tennessee Antique Mall!) because his taste is so similar to mine.

The next day, Andy and I swung by the flea market in the morning. I only bought one thing (can you believe it?) and it was the little fawn pictured below for $2. The flea market is great but the prices don't leave enough "meat on the bones" for me to re-sell. Globes are $25 which is what I would sell them for... so... it's hard to shop there unless it's Sunday at closing and I'm feeling confident enough to try to haggle.

That afternoon, we celebrated my birthday, my mother in law's birthday, and my brother in law's birthday with Andy's family! I raided Andy's grandmother's bookshelf and found this amazing book series called Foxfire. Have you ever heard of it? From their website, Foxfire.org:

"Foxfire" is the name that an English class picked, in 1966, for a student-produced magazine they chose to create, containing stories and interviews gathered from elders in their rural Southern Appalachian community.

"Foxfire" is the name of a series of books which are anthology collections of material from The Foxfire Magazine. The students' portrayal of the previously-dismissed culture of Southern Appalachia as a proud, self-sufficient people with simple beliefs, pure joy in living, and rock-solid faith shattered most of the world-at-large's misconceptions about these "hillbillies."

This series is amazing! It features explanations of mountain hobbies, activities, and ways of life. It also has interviews with experts on these subjects and people who live this lifestyle. It makes me want to be a mountain person! They talk about quilting, moonshine, banjos, and so much more. I am so fascinated by them! I am so happy that Nanny let me bring them home! (You can see one below!)

Then on my actual birthday (Tuesday), we met friends at Rumours (a wine bar in East Nashville) and hung out for a few hours. I accosted everyone with my instax camera and then asked them to paste their photos into a little book I had made with scrapbook paper.

Rumours treated us so well and it was a very fun night. I felt so blessed that everyone came out in the rain to celebrate with me!

Then Friday, Andy's immediate family came over for one last birthday celebration. We got Calypso Cafe take-out (the best salads ever! black bean salad with white meat chicken for-eva!) and hung out and watched That Thing You Do. It was a very nice night!

If you're new to Owl Really, welcome! Please check out my favorite posts and consider subscribing! :)

Bloggers at the Dress Barn!

Recently, Lisa from My Pretty Baby Cried She Was a Bird emailed a few of us local vintage bloggers because she had been invited to a bloggers' night out at our brand new Dress Barn. None of us really knew what to expect, but we were super excited for the opportunity to all meet! I had met Rae, Rae had met Eartha, and Rae and Lisa had seen each other at estate sales but never met. It was so, so fun to all hang out!

The Dress Barn ladies were super sweet and the new store at Opry Mills (our outlet mall that just re-opened after the flood of May 2010) is beautiful! We had a lot of fun hanging out in the dressing room!

Dressing room shot! Me, Rae, Eartha, and Lisa.

With their purchases! Eartha bought a really cute handbag, Rae got an awesome tiki-style dress, and both Lisa and I picked up some new shades.

Here's Rae with her fun new dress!

We also got to meet Adrienne of What Lola Wants! It was so fun to hang out and be girly!

Lisa recapped our time together here and is giving away a $25 gift card to Dress Barn! Eartha, Rae and Adrienne also wrote about our blogger meet-up!

Have you had a chance to meet any of your blog friends? It's a blast!!

If you're new to Owl Really, welcome! Please check out my favorite posts and consider subscribing! :)

What has been keeping me busy?

Oh, lots of things!

I have been loving plants and flowers lately and so I've been working more with them. Lucy (by way of her grandma Young) gave me a cute dog planter for mother's day and I got free* marigolds at Wal-mart the very next day, so I planted those.

So cute, huh? The dog looks pretty similar to Lucy and the head and tail bob, which is pretty darn cute. I put it out on our deck, which gets full sun, so the poor marigolds haven't been very happy, unfortunately!

Those aren't the only flowers I've been working with, though!

When we got married, I bartered with my hairstylist, Lauren. She did my hair and I pledged to day-of-coordinate her wedding in the future. She got married in April in a private ceremony and planned a super cute and intimate reception Sunday night at The Boundry in Nashville. My major duty was picking up the geraniums and cutting them and arranging them in tiny vases then transporting them to the venue. Lauren had everything under control and the reception was so relaxed and the Boundry staff were so amazing that I barely had any other responsibilities! I wish I could have done more for Lauren and Alex but they are definitely laid back and have the right attitude toward weddings and marriage!

Here are the beautiful geraniums I got to play with!

And a photo of the cute vases, a blurry pic of one of my little arrangements, and another show of the whole bunch of them. It was nice to play florist in my kitchen for a little while!

The reception was a great success! Lauren and Alex are about to move to California (agh!) and I am really going to miss her friendship and talent with my unruly hair!!

These are just a few of the things I've been working on... stay tuned for more!


*Free marigolds - ha! Funny story and also the biggest waste of 10 minutes of my life! I was checking out and was asked if I wanted to donate to Vandy Childrens' Hospital. I said sure and the cashier told me that for donating, I got a free plant. She told me to show my receipt to the person outside and they would give me my free plant. I walked outside (mind you, this whole time I am pushing a cart full of stuff) and there was no one out there. There was, however, an employee corralling carts inside. I asked him if he knew who to ask about the free plants and he had no idea what I was talking about. (red flag #1!) He said to ask in customer service, so I pushed my cart back inside and stood in line at customer service. There was only one person behind the counter and the line was growing longer and longer. When it was finally my turn, she (surprise!) had no idea what I was talking about.

I suddenly felt like everyone thought I was trying to scam them into giving me a free plan. Just at that moment, an older British lady started asking a greeter about her free "plahnt." She said "The cashier told me I get a free plahnt!" So, I officially knew that I was not alone and was not pulling a scam. The customer service rep started calling people and trying to figure out what was going on, but in a tone that definitely still conveyed that she didn't really believe us.

A manager finally came around and told us that the free plants were the hanging baskets in the black pots. The British lady and I were like "Wow, a hanging basket? That's awesome!" (She probably said "brilliant" and not awesome.) We both hauled our carts back outside and the hanging baskets were $16 each. Neither of us felt very ethical taking a $16 plant for a $1 donation, so back inside we went to clarify. The manager said, "The $1 hanging baskets," and we assured him there were no $1 hanging baskets.

So, skeptical customer service rep came outside with us and led us to the little trays of flowers and said "These." They were neither $1 nor hanging, which is why we originally passed them up. I was so done with the whole ordeal that I just grabbed the first ones I saw, which happened to be these very cute french marigolds that are now, unfortunately, dying.

If you're new to Owl Really, welcome! Please check out my favorite posts and consider subscribing! :)