Country Life

Hello there! Bob and I are just hanging out at home today. Friday night we went over my parent's for dinner, and my grandparents came, too. We had burgers, which I don't have much, but I like to have a good burger once in awhile, and these were really good. We looked at pictures from my parent's vacation out west a couple of weeks ago. Last night I met up with a friend for a drink.
In the pictures below I'm wearing my newest Retrospec'd dress. The print is called Country Life, and the style is called Connie. I already had one Connie, in the Gay Parisi print. Shirt dresses are my favorite dress style. I've gotten a lot lately, especially in the Bernie Dexter Kelly style. This print is gorgeous, just like so many of Retrospec'd prints. It looks like a painting. Even though I love going to cities, the print on the dress is pretty representative of the area I grew up in and still live in; very rural, with lots of farms. Speaking of that, it's funny to me how it seems most people think of New Jersey a very busy and crowded area, like the area right outside of NYC. We've had this happen a lot when we go on vacation, and we love to educate people about NJ, ha. Yes, NJ does have that area, but the area my husband and I are from couldn't be more different from that. The town I'm from is very small, and there are more cows than people there. There's a farm on the road I grew up on, and there's two stoplights in the town. It takes 40 minutes to get to a mall from there, 35 minutes to get to the movies, etc. The town I live in now is a little bigger than that, with more to do, but there are still lots of farms right around me. So, anyway, in case you didn't know, now you do! 

Dress: Grease Rags Clothing (Retrospec'd)
Bracelets: Splendette
Brooch: DNJ Retro (Erstwilder)
Heels: Modcloth (BAIT Footwear)

~Bye bye for now!

Southern Road Trip, Part II

Hello there! So, this post is about the second half of my recent southern vacation. We left Charleston on a Tuesday morning, and stayed in Savannah through Friday morning. It rained less in Savannah, which was definitely a plus. But, it was EXTREMLY hot and humid every day. It's the humidity that kills you. Regardless of that, Savannah was our favorite stop for the trip. There are tons of Irish, Scottish, and English pubs there, and we both love those pubs. We like casual atmospheres, and we usually will just sit at the bar, and order our meals from the bartender. So, we liked the restaurant options a lot better in Savannah than Charleston. 
I also liked the shops better there. I found some great things, like Pyrex dish towels, some lovely antiques (salt and pepper shaker, snack bowl, and a bowl with cherries painted on it), a vintage reproduction tablecloth, and cute potholders. We went in a few antique shops there, but the place whiere I got all the kitchen antiques was from an antique mall called Picker Joe's. I read about in Miss Victory Violet's blog post about when she visited Savannah. Otherwise, I wouldn't have heard of it! Their prices were very reasonable, too. 
We checked out a few bookstores there too, and I picked up a book on sale. I go to the library in my town, so I don't like to spend money on books, and rarely do. One of the bookstores had two kitties sleeping in it! They looked like they were Maine Coons, which is my favorite cat breed. I posted a picture below of the gray one. I had a gray Maine Coon, who ran away a year ago. She lived with my parents, not with me, but I probably paid more attention to her when I was over there, than they did living with her, ha. I just think they are the most beautiful cats, and they are also one of the most intelligent breeds.
The riverwalk is really neat too; it's a street that has a lot of little shops and restaurants and bars right along the river, so on the other side of the street is a sidewalk and the river.  We went to a rooftop bar for a drink one night, which overlooks the river. 
Right by our hotel was a very famous ice cream shop; it's 100 years old. It's called Leopold's Ice Cream. The lines are crazy there! They go out onto the sidewalk. We went there twice. 
I was disappointed that every ice cream place we checked out on our trip didn't have cookie dough ice cream, which is my favorite flavor. So, I just got vanilla ice cream at Leopold's.
It was good of course, but I wish they had cookie dough or birthday cake, which one of their menus said birthday cake was coming in August, ha. So, we just missed it.
On our way home, we stopped in Raleigh, and stayed there for a night. We got there around 3:00 p.m. So, after we checked into our room, we went walking. We were staying on a street that had a few restaurants and bars very close to our hotel, which was great. Of course, we found an Irish restaurant right away, ha. We went there for a couple of drinks, and then we walked to Raleigh Beer Garden, which has more beers on tap than anywhere else in the world (350)! I don't drink beer, but my husband does. We sat outside there for awhile (there's a lot of outdoor seating), and the weather had cooled off a bit by then, so that was nice. Some people had dogs with them, and one was SO adorable that I had to go over, and ask to pet it. It was a two month old puppy mixed breed that the woman had adopted for a shelter. I also asked to pet another one; a 150 lb Great Dane! I can't wait to have my own dog someday (when we have a house). 
We ended up walking back to the Irish restaurant for a last drink, and shared some chicken fingers there. We went back to our room after that, and left for home the next morning. 
We had a great time on the trip, but I wouldn't go back down there in the summer, ha! I'd go back to Savannah, but the other places I probably wouldn't.  

Our hotel in Savannah

Fireplace in our hotel room in Savannah

 

The Irish restaurant in Raleigh

Raleigh

Raleigh

On the drive to Raleigh, at a rest stop

Cranes L'amour

Hello there! Ah, one more day of work to get through for the week. Today I went out to lunch with my boss and two co-workers, which was nice. I've never gone out to eat with a boss before. It's cooled down a bit here, and the humidity has also gone down somewhat, so that's been a relief. 
This week's been pretty quiet, but Friday night Bob and I will be going to my parent's for dinner (my grandparents are coming too), and Saturday night I'll be meeting my friend for a drink.
In the below pictures I'm wearing my new Trashy Diva dress. This cranes print was released last Thursday, and I love it! Trashy Diva has been coming out with prints so much more frequently lately than they used to, and I love almost all of their recent prints. This is my third dress in the L'amour style. It's a comfortable style, and I think it's a little more on the casual side than a lot of their dress styles. It zips easily too, which is always a plus.
 The shade of blue in the dress goes perfectly with my Mak cropped cardi in viola. I wore this dress paired with that cardi to work today. I don't have shoes other than black ones that match this dress, unfortunately, and surprisingly! I'm glad my green Splendette bracelets match quite well, though. 
I love this print so much, I was even considering ordering it another style, as well, but decided to hold off on that. What makes this print even better is that a portion of the sales are donated to the Gulf Restoration Network!

Dress: Trashy Diva
Necklace: Modcloth
Bracelets: Splendette
Heels: BAIT Footwear

~Bye bye for now!

Cupcake Skirt

Hello there! I didn't do much this weekend so far, and am just staying home today, which is fine by me, since we were just away on vacation.
In the pictures below I'm wearing my new Unique Vintage cupcake skirt. It's the same skirt style as my Unique Vintage watermelon skirt. I ordered this skirt two months ago, during the Memorial Day sale, when it was only $56. It originally said that it'd ship by June 15. Well, June 15 came & went, so I did an online chat with their customer service, and they said it was supposed to come very soon. I did another chat a couple weeks later, and the same thing happened. You think they'd just sent a general email to anyone who ordeed the skirt to update them on estimated date changes for shipping. Well, finally, in the beginning the skirts came in. I got a call though, saying that since I hadn't been charged originally for the skirt, they needed me to pay for it now. So, they sent me a Paypal request for payment, I paid immediately. I was told my skirt would ship that night. I went on vacation, and while I'm on vacation (a week after I was told the skirt had shipped), I get another voicemail, saying I need to pay for the skirt. What the hell?!?! I was so mad! I checked my bank account, and the funds had been taken out when I paid for it the week before. I ended up emailing them, explaining, and they still didn't get it. After more back and forth, they finally understood what happened, and shipped it, and it arrived yesterday. It was so frustrating! It makes me not want to ever order from them again, especially not pre-orders.
Anyway, I do LOVE the skirt! It's soooo cute, and my shoes are perfect with it! The skirt is decently thick, too. 

Top: Pin Up Girl Clothing
Skirt: Unique Vintage
Brooch: Erstwilder
Earrings: Etsy (Scrumptiousdoodle)
Flats: Shoe Bakery

~Bye bye for now!

Southern Road Trip, Part I

Hello there! It really is SO nice to have off Fridays in the summer, and I appreciate it very much . It may be a little tough to transition back to a five day work week, but it's not like I'm a teacher who goes from having NO work for a couple of months, to then back to a regular work week! So, it could be much worse, ha. It also shouldn't be too tough, since I like my job! I'm just doing some cleaning, laundry, working out, reading, and what not today. 
I'm going to do this post on the first two stops of our vacation: Richmond and Charleston. We stayed in Richmond for one night; it was our first stop. With the bit of traffic we hit, and the rest stops, it took about 7.5 hours to get there. We first went over to Carytown (which is a cute section that has a bunch of little mom & pop shops and restaurants). I had been planning on going to Bygone's Vintage first, which is a clothing shop there. We got parking right in front of the shop, which was great, and I got a Trashy Diva dress there! I hadn't bought anything in the ruffled feathers print before; it came out about two or three months ago. I hadn't been sure about it, and wanted to see it in person before deciding. They only had a couple of sizes left in the two styles they had, the sarong and l'amour. The sarong I tried on fit, but I liked the l'amour on me better. The l'amour is a little roomy, but I still think it looks good. They didn't have the next size down. We walked around more after that, and went in a few shops. We went back to the hotel then to check in and get ready to go out to eat. 
We went over to another section of Richmond, which was really nice. The roads are cobblestone there. There's some restaurants and bars over there, and we went to an Irish pub called Seine. We love Irish pubs, and we this one didn't let us down. Dinner was good, and during happy hour I ordered my usual vodka crans, not knowing the happy hour price. It turns out they were $2 each! After dinner, we walked around the area, but didn't see a bar we wanted to check out, so we came back to Seine for awhile to have drinks at the bar.  
We moved on to Charleston the next day. We left in the morning, and got there in the afternoon.  We were there three nights. We were a little let down by Charleston, Bob especially. I mean I did like it, but was just expecting more. A lot of the stores there were chain mall stores, which I do not like. My first dinner there was bad, too, and I'm almost never disappointed by food I order. I ordered a side of mac & cheese, and it just tasted like burnt garlic! 
After we got there and checked into our hotel, and started walking around, we went into a bar at a restaurant called Toast. After we were there a little bit, the guy sitting at the bar started talking to us, and we ended up staying for hours, talking to him, and his wife who showed up later. He was really funny and easy to talk to. So, that was definitely a good experience.
There weren't really any bars or restaurants we tried that I LOVED. It also rained a couple of times in the afternoons we were there, so that was annoying. We checked out a place called Husk that  Anthony Bourdain recommended on his show "Parts Unknown". But, we weren't impressed with the food we tried. Granted, we only tried a small "bar bites" dish, and not a regular dish at the restaurants itself. 
We did venture over to a beach, which was about a 20 minute drive away (you have to drive to get to any Charleston beach). We hadn't originally planned on doing it, but when we were at Toast, we heard good things about the beach towns. We checked out a bar/restaurant that was recommended. It was right on the beach, so that was nice. It was a very casual place, which we definitely like that, but it was nothing exceptional. I think if we had gone at night, when it'd be a lot busier, it'd have been more interesting. We were the first people in there that day, ha. We walked along the beach after hanging out at the bar awhile, and waded in the water. It was SO warm! We had heard on the news that it was 87 degrees! It was nice to get to check out the beach.
The first two pictures below are from Richmond, and the rest are from Charleston.

 

The dress I got at Bygone's Vintage!