Outer Banks Trading Group Nautical Chart Giveaway

Nautical By Nature is definitely one of my favorite blogs to read everyday because I am a fan of all things nautical! She features a nautical item every day, ranging from clothes to serving dishes and everything in between. 

She is giving away a nautical trivet or set of coasters with the winners choice of nautical chart. I follow OBTG's blog and they featured these last week. I immediately bookmarked them. 

Charleston, SC

Johns Island, SC

Other great finds on OBTG's website...

Glass Sakana Fish on Stand

"Light Crab" Picture Frame

EcoArt Crab Pillow

Saturday in Blackberry Pics

8am - Woke up to my neighbors having a garage sale and a disrespectful customer parked in my yard. HOW RUDE!

9am - Since I was going out of town around 1pm, my assigned task for the day was to paint the entire master bedroom. Took me about 2 hours. Sorry for the crappy lighting.

12pm - I think Brady knew I was getting ready to leave him. :(

No clue what time this is. Probably around 7pm. Watching our embarrassment of a game.

Reunited and it Feels So Good!

This weekend Carolina plays Arkansas at home. This may be the game that I've been looking the most forward to all season (with the Clemson game being a close second) because all of my favorites will be there! Except for Cameron, who will be moving furniture out of the condo and into the house. Love you! I do feel a little bad for going to the game and leaving him to do all of the hard work though. I will just have to play catch up on Sunday!

Savannah, or Savvy as we like to call her, is the one traveling the farthest. Her and her super fun boyfriend, Dan, will be leaving Arlington, VA tomorrow to make their way down to Columbia! I only get to see her once or twice a year so I'm really excited that this will be her third trip to SC. We are trying to convert Dan into a Southerner and making him fall in love with Charleston so they can move here. :) When they were in town for Emily's wedding in July we took him on his first Sandbar Sunday, first Trio visit, and now we're introducing him to his first SEC football game & tailgate. I say we, but I mean Savvy.

Lovin' some Trio!

The girls..

Savvy & Katie like to dance on or around me because I get so embarrassed...

Savvy, KA, Kristen, Emily, Me, Jenny..at Jenny C's wedding

Jenny, Me, Katie, Savvy

If anyone wants to give me some recipe ideas for tailgate it would be much appreciated? Something fairly inexpensive and doesn't have to be kept warm. Thanks and GO COCKS!

I Heart CSN!

I seriously cannot get enough of CSN giveaway's! I've won two in the past month and I am determined win more to help Cameron furnish the house!

Dwellings by DeVore is giving away a $45 gift certificate so if you love CSN as much as I do, go check out her great blog about interior design, thrifting and more, and enter!

Flowers Freeze in the Fresh Fall Breeze

Thank you Lilly planner for my title of today's post.


This weekend was very busy and exhausting. Friday night I didn't get home from work until close to 1am. Set my alarm for 5am so I could get up, get ready and be at Caroline & Andy's by 6:30am. What time did I wake up? 6:10! I showed up at their house with wet hair, no makeup, and not dressed appropriately for how cool it was outside. 


We made it to Columbia around 8:30am, which gave us a good 3 1/2 hours to tailgate for a 12:21pm (what is up with that time for a game??) game. My mom and I were given great tickets by a family friend! Here are a few pics I snapped with my phone inside the game..

Marcus Lattimore #21

Vols wear jean shorts!...and Uggs? (this is a guy)

38-24

We hung out for a little while after the game before making the drive back to Charleston. Literally 5 minutes after we left, I get this text:

My mom & Marcus Lattimore!

Apparently his mom parked in the same lot as us and he came to visit her after the game. We were/are SO JEALOUS!

Sunday morning I attempted a pumpkin pancake recipe. No bueno. They had a really weird aftertaste. Cameron said he liked them, but I think he was just trying to be nice. After that we spent the rest of the day working on the house...taping, Home Depot trip, painting, taping, Home Depot trip, painting. The color we originally got for the spare bedrooms turned out to be too dark so we had to get it lightened once...and then twice more.

And the master bathroom tile is complete! Love it!

Hope everyone had a great Monday!

House Update + Furniture Purchases

Things are moving right along for the house! It looks like Cameron will be moving in in about 2 weeks or so..and I will officially be his roommate moving in at the end of April! I can officially announce that now that I've told my parents. :)

The most current thing going on inside the house is the tile being installed in both bathrooms. OF COURSE I forgot to bring my camera cord with me to work so I can't do a before and after post. So these in-between shots from my Blackberry will have to do for now. 

This is the hallway bathtub. The contractor installed white subway tile with a thin green glass strip going through it.  All three walls of the bath will be tiled.

This (crappy) picture is of the master bathroom. Cameron's mom helped us pick out the tile because they all started to look the same to us and we couldn't decide on one.

Where there is red in the picture above, is where this tile (pictured below) will be. Again, sorry for the awful pictures. 

Monday night I was browsing on Craigslist to see if any furniture caught my eye. I wasn't specifically looking for a vanity for our bathroom at the time, but it's the first thing I came across and omg, was I lucky! Our criteria for a vanity was: dark brown, around 60," drawers not in the way so that we could have two sinks and around $700. We were having a really hard time finding that. So when I came across this dark brown, 60" brand new vanity for $175, I got REALLY excited. The guy selling it bought it for over $500 and then later figured out it wouldn't fit in his bathroom. We picked it up Wednesday night and the guy happened to live in the same neighborhood! Anyway, here is a pic I found on the Lowe's website..we'll have to buy a top for it, obviously.

And lastly, I recently won a $45 gift certificate to CSN (woohoo!) so we've been debating on what to use it on. We finally decided that we didn't want the TV to be sitting on the floor so a TV stand was at the top of the list. Again, it had to be dark brown, at least 60," and I didn't want too many glass doors, in case I needed to hide junk. :)

This is the Tech-Craft Veneto 64" TV Stand in Ebony. We ordered it Wednesday a little after lunch time and Fed Ex delivered it TODAY before noon! That's CRAZY fast shipping! Can't wait until we can unpack it and put it together!

And so this post isn't ALL about the house, this is what I ate for lunch. It just looks too good not to share with you all! 

Tomato, avocado and melted string cheese on a whole wheat bagel thin. SO GOOD!

Have a great weekend and GO GAMECOCKS!

Exciting News & 5QF!

First, for the exciting news...

Cameron's brother, Gil, proposed to his girlfriend, Nancy, of 8 years last night! It also happened to be her birthday!

the happy couple

Also, yesterday Cameron's cousin, Hope, gave birth to a healthy baby boy!! They named him Emory and he weighed 7lbs, 5 oz. They did not know the sex of the baby before he was born and most of the bets were on a boy. I posted about her baby shower here.

So, October 28th will be an easy date to remember in their family!

1. If you could be a fly on any wall, which would you choose?

 I always suck at these kinds of questions. Ooh, I've got it. I would want to be on the wall of Cameron's thoughts so I could hear his true feelings instead of me prying them out of him. He's a guy, I get it (sometimes). :)

2. Do you budget your Christmas shopping or just get it done without budgeting?

I know what I can spend on each person (ie. not a lot) and I try to make it an even amount throughout my family that is thankfully, small. I wish I could get them everything they wanted though!!

3. What is the craziest fad diet you have ever done?

I'm pretty sure I haven't done any of them! I'm lucky enough (NOT bragging, and definitely knocking on wood) that I've never really had to go on any diets. I try to eat somewhat healthy during the week so I can splurge on the weekend. I could definitely make smarter choices when it came to what liquids I consume on a daily basis (coffee and soda).

4. Is there a TV show that you have seen every episode/season of?

I hate to say it, but probably a lot of reality shows. Real Housewives and Teen Mom for sure. Grey's, Desperate Housewives. Sad, I know.

5. What one song always pulls at your heart?

There are so many. I am such a sap when it comes to songs that are even remotely sad...or even sweet!  This will have to be in list form:

• "One Sweet Day" (yes, the old skool song by Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men) - the song came out on the radio right around the time that my Grandaddy Al passed away. 
• "When I Get Where I'm Going" (Brad Paisley & Dolly Parton) - this song came out days before my Aunt Sharlene passed away and was played at her funeral. Sometimes I change the song when I hear it, other times I think I can get through it without crying...but don't. I just keep thinking about sitting next to my Grandaddy and holding his hand during the funeral. Ok, now I'm getting emotional so I'm going on to the next one...
• Those are the two main songs that really get me, but other songs for no apparent reason include "God Blessed the Broken Road" (Rascal Flatts), "Holes in the Floor of Heaven" (Collin Raye), "Baby Girl" (Will Hoge)..I think I want that as my Father/Daughter song at my eventual wedding.