A Southern Accent

Here's the full content of the post I guest-posted for Kara Paslay Designs ! She has a cool blog, has been house-crashed by Young House Love and is currently out doing set design for a movie! I'm in the process of converting an extra bedroom in my house to a fun, modern family room/office/playroom. And I've looked everywhere for design inspiration. Magazines, websites, other people's houses, stores...I'm learning a lot about design along the way, and sharing my new knowledge as I go! Amateur design 101: One thing I've fallen in love with is the zig zag print, which I've learned is called Chevron in the design world. A Chevron is, according to Wikipedia, is "the general shape of a V character, or a triangular shape pointing up or more often, down." Origins : The earliest known use of the chevron pattern is to be found on Minoan pottery, dating from 1800 B.C. It has been used to decorate armaments since the time of the Crusades. To...

My son has decided his favorite sport is football. He wants to be the next quarterback for the Tar Heels, hates the Dallas Cowboys and has memorized which team has won every NFL game this season. The sports obsession is passing on from my husband to my son, naturally, I suppose. God bless the woman that ends up him because she will be destined to weekends of football, golf, basketball - pretty much any sport that comes on TV. Thank goodness for DVR or my husband would always have an excuse as to why he can't go somewhere with me. I never thought football would be the thing that clicked with Walker. Mike's a golf professional and Walker's had a club in his hand literally since the crib. He's played soccer the last three years, and he's pretty good, but he doesn't have that determination and fire on the soccer field I see with football. With football, it's different. He wants his hands on that ball, wants to outrun the competition, wants to beat #4 (his ar...

Thank you to everyone that participated in the Jewel Kade giveaway! I hope you've found a new resource for some fun gifts for yourself and others. I had an overwhelming response, and generated the most comments on one post ever for my blog, so thank you to everyone again! I wish I could give something to each and every one of you! But, alas, I have to choose one! So after exporting the comments into a spreadsheet and selecting a random number, the winner is Carrie from Violet Cottage who said: Congrats Carrie! I'll be contacting you via e-mail!

Happy Monday everyone! Today, I'm guest posting all about my love for Chevron over at Kara Paslay Designs . Go check it out! This week it's time to get serious about Halloween, so watch here for how I bring everything together for my first ever haunted front porch, complete with brains, eye balls and spooky cupcakes! Wendy

Monday evening was a perfect night for a trip to the North Carolina State Fair. We didn't get a chance to go over the weekend, as we'd promised Walker, because Mike was recovering from a bout with pneumonia. You know when kids get something in their heads, you can't change their minds (I'm talking about Walker of course, NOT ME...hee hee hee). I hit up the cash machine before we left and we rolled into the parking lot with $120 in our pockets. Only 30 minutes later, we had five goldfish, three stickers, one sequin teddy bear and were $80 poorer. We hadn't eaten yet or bought ride tickets, so we hit up the cash machine, AGAIN. My dad learned a game trick last year that we finally were able to try. When you play the goldfish game and try to throw the ping pong balls in the fishbowls, the secret is to throw the ball up high and let it bounce around instead of trying to aim straight for the bowls. That's why we are now the proud owners of five goldfish....

Just popping in quick to say hi and share a little something Walker and I had fun putting together last week to continue the spookification of things around here. Best part about this little piece is that everything except the black bug stickers came from the dollar store! I've noticed that my creativity is being hindered by my guilt on spending money for such frivolous items as Halloween decor, so I hit up the Dollar Store to see what I could find to satisfy my craving to create and not break the bank. $1.00 Plastic Skull Platter      $1.00 Skeleton                      $1.00 Googly Eyes               $1.00 Trick or Treat Word   $1.00 Mos:                          $2.39 with coupon Bla...

Fun Shirts at Parker & Otis If you've been reading my blog for long, you know how much I love Durham, North Carolina. My husband is a born-and-bred Durhamite and I grew up coming here all of the time as a child since it was the biggest city close to Roxboro (and we didn’t have a movie theater). One of my favorite areas of Durham is the Brightleaf Square district. As a new graduate from college, I used to hang out down there at Devine’s and James Joyce.Now, as a thirty-something mom, I like to spend Saturday mornings with Walker downtown, hitting the farmers market, and walking around, looking for new discoveries and treats.  Walker drooling over the candy selection at Parker & Otis And the folks over at Durham Magazine must think it's lots of fun too because this Saturday, October 23, they are partnering with 14 downtown businesses and restaurants for a day of food, drink, live music and shopping! So, basically, it's gonna be a big old party downtown! I ...

This weekend I was able to tackle some of the smaller projects I've been putting off around the house and I kinda feel like I'm making progress in all of my home projects vs. creating new ones for myself. I've vowed to not start another project until I've finished what's going on in my current house. Of course, I can't do it all by myself, so I actually enlisted the help of some others instead of trying to tackle it all on my own (can't help it, I'm an overachiever when it comes to this stuff, or maybe I'm just a control freak??). First, my dad came over and finally finished installing that new faucet in the upstairs bathroom I've been working on for like a year (the one that caused that lovely house flood a couple months back ). We now have running water in our master bath. My husband is happy he no longer has to use my vanity area to shave (and so am I). He also determined that our non-working doorbell is an electrical problem, so I've ...

We're planning to head to the State Fair this weekend - one of my favorite things to do in the Fall! Some people turn their nose up at the fair, but I love everything about it - the crowds, the smells (good and bad), the noise - and most of all, the FOOD!!! Here's what's new at the NC State Fair this year. Mike said last night he is definitely going to try the Krispy Kreme hamburger. I think I'm going to have to go for the deep fried chocolate pie. Walker said he's going to tackle the 1lb hot dog. I bet he gets about three bites into it and decides he's done. Deep Fried Chocolate Pie Deep Fried Pumpkin Pie Pineapple Lemonade Gourmet Funnel Cakes: Black Forest (uses chocolate batter) Blueberry Bum Chocolate Obs...

My friend Cristina sent me an e-mail about some great new jewelry she's selling that is right up my alley! I think it's fun, eclectic, original and affordable! If you haven't yet heard of Jewel Kade, you will soon! The collection consists of handcrafted charms, bracelets and necklaces with a vintage, urban and romantic feel. Here are some of my favorite pieces, picked directly from Cristina's site . Aren't they fun??? You know I love the Halloween ones!!! I'm gonna give you a necklace and charm free!!! Here's what you get if you are the lucky winner! To enter, leave me a comment and tell me which charm is your favorite and why? For two entries, Tweet this content, then come back here and tell me. The winner will be announced Friday, 22 October. If you're interested in learning more about Jewel Kade or if you live in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area and would like to host a party, e-mail Cristina: cristinagarner at nc dot rr dot com. Also, th...

To keep the Halloween spirit going, here are a couple of free printables I came up with to share! Just click on the image and it will take you to Flickr, where you can choose the size you'd like to download! I think they would look cute framed on a mantel or wall, or just print out and put up on your fridge or office wall to bring a little spooky spirit into your day!

...is hard to find. When last we left "The Room", I showed you my idea for window treatments from a duvet cover . I still haven't finished painting yet, but I'm slowly making progress. I have been on the lookout for accessories, more specifically, throw pillows. So. Hard. To. Find. At least, hard to find ones that are cute, colorful and affordable - my three top criteria. There are some wonderful ones on Etsy for sure, but they can get a bit pricey because they are custom made. Some places I've found good pillows, but not necessarily in my colors, are HomeGoods, Target, TJ Max and Pier One. But have you ever looked at the pillows and home accessories at Urban Outfitters ? We dropped into one while we were in Charleston because I wanted to check out their home stuff I'd seen online and I was pretty impressed. The style is somewhat similar to some of the items you'd find at Anthropologie, but nowhere near as expensive. I picked up these two for $32.0...

I decided to go a bit further than usual with the outdoor Halloween decor this year. More than just the normal punkins (as Walker calls them). Even Lucy got into the "spirit"! Doesn't she look possessed? Mike thinks I'm possessed. I assured him that since it is October, it is OK for me to decorate for Halloween already. I tried not to go too overboard. The corner pumpkin lots opened this weekend, so Walker and I spent about 30 minutes picking out the perfect pumpkins for the front steps. Of course, he wants to carve them all. I love the contrast of the white and orange pumpkins and really wanted more, but I stopped myself at 10. My favorite part of the front is the happy orange light-up pumpkin I nestled into my honeysuckle vine, along with some orange flicker lights I picked up at Michael's this weekend.  I'll call this sophisticated spooky.

I've been trying to catch my "deeper" thoughts as they pass through my head, to try to nail them down in words. Evidently, they move too fast for me to catch, or I just don't have that many deep thoughts. My life is mostly consumed of what's coming next, being prepared for the next meeting, the next drive, the next morning, the next meal. I don't have time to have deep thoughts. These are the thoughts I could remember from today: -I wonder where J.K. Rowling got her necklace from (the one she was wearing on the Oprah interview) and how much it cost? I like it cause it's funky and different. - Is that hamburger in the refrigerator still good, or has it expired? - Do I have anything for Walker to take to school tomorrow for lunch? Oh good, tomorrow is hot lunch day, which means I don't have to make a PB&J sandwich in the morning to go with lunch, which means I may be able to sleep two minutes extra. - I'm hungry. - I really ...

Excited for this to come out! I love Colin Firth! (Can't talk much today, very busy, but will catch up tomorrow!) Movie trailer for The King's Speech:

As I'm drawing close to the end of the third book in The Hunger Games Trilogy, I am sad. Maybe not as sad as when I finished the final Twilight book, but I will miss these characters. It has filled a little of that void left from Edward and Bella and I can't wait for the movies to be made! I know I'm blabbering, let me get to the goods. Instead of sticking these three books on my bookshelf, I thought I'd give them away to someone else that is dying to read them. So, leave a comment, tell me if you'd like to win for yourself, or someone else! If you've already read the books, feel free to give your opinion on them as well! Giveaway includes the first book (paperback version) and the final two books in hardback versions. Still in great condition, only read once! Good luck! I'll draw a winner at the end of next week!