wilw

Link up with Jamie!

It's Wednesday, and these are a few current loves:


{candle}
My sweet friend Calley gave me this candle recently. Not only is it made right here in Alabama, but it smells divine! I'm loving burning it every evening when I cozy up with a good book.

{Scentsy}
Speaking of home fragrances, y'all know I'm a loyal Scentsy customer. I just restocked my inventory. Rio Beach is always a summer favorite, but I'm loving the new scent Tingnanello.

{tomatoes}

I'm loving the endless supply of homegrown tomatoes coming at me from all directions this time of year. These are some from Granddaddy's garden and they always seem to be the best!

{hot&hot}

via

Last night Mr. M and I had dinner with 3 very dear friends at Hot & Hot Fish Club. This local restaurant has long been one of our favorites, but we have not been to eat there since Chef Chris Hastings won the James Beard Award or beat Bobby Flay at Iron Chef America. As always we had a WONDERFUL meal: gazpacho, tomato salad, fried okra, scallops, desserts, etc. The thing I'm loving most about our meal (besides the wonderful company) was the William's Old Fashioned signature summer cocktail. I'm not a huge fan of bourbon, but this was the smoothest bourbon drink I think I've ever tasted and the grilled peaches were an amazing combination.

Last but not least, I'm also loving that Chef Hastings came and spent a few minutes visiting with our table. He was so funny and humble about all of his success, and I loved the Alabama/LSU national championship jokes he made when discussing his Iron Chef victory over Bobby Flay (Chef Flay hails from cajun country).

{mjh}
Y'all know about my girl crush on Melissa Joan Hart. Well, I'm loving the news article I read this morning announcing that she will have a memoir coming out this fall. Another addition to my "must read" list!

Happy Hump Day!!!

bookworm

This post goes out to all my fellow nerdybirds in the blogosphere who love to read. I've recently discovered the site Good Reads, and I'm obsessed. I can spend hours on there reading reviews and adding to my "must read" list. The site has synopsis information, critic reviews, and real people reviews. Plus, if you have "friends" on the site, you can follow what your friends are reading and find out about their likes and dislikes. Sadly, as much as I love doing research on the site, I have virtually no friends right now. If any of you enjoy reading and decide to create a profile, please add me as a friend so we can bounce book ideas off one another. Right now, my books are mostly just a list of what I've read and what I want to read, but I plan to start leaving more detailed reviews in the future as I finish each book.

I just finished:

As a girl who lists Cold Sassy Tree, The Help, and To Kill a Mockingbird at the top of her favorites, I adored this book. There were times I laughed and times I wanted to cry. Such a good Southern novel, and after so much light reading lately, it was good to read a book with some substance. Highly recommend!
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Must-read for anyone who loves Southern fiction! Happy, sad, funny, heart-warming!



View all my reviews



Now from a Southern novel to.....
Yes, save your judgment for somewhere else. Despite all of my skepticism, I just started reading "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter". Yeah, I'm a little embarrassed...but I do have to admit that the author wastes no time grabbing your attention. You see, several coworkers have told me how good this book is, but I never thought I'd actually read it. In fact, I made several jokes about how dumb the title sounded and how silly the book must be. And don't even get me started on the movie. Then, Mr. M had to go and bring this home from Barnes and Noble. I think in the beginning even he was reading it as a joke...but then something unexpected happened. He actually really liked it and wouldn't stop talking about it. So I gave in to curiosity, thinking that if this was a novel that Mr. M would actually read (he primarily only reads humor books- think Tucker Maxx's I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell) then it MUST be decent. So there- I said it. I'm reading the dumb Abe Lincoln vampire book that everyone makes fun of. I'll let you know how it turns out.

And on my "to-read" list very soon:

What are you guys reading? Have you come across something you love? Or something you hate?

thankful thursday

I realized that I never posted anything about my birthday trip to the beach. To be honest, I didn't take a ton of pictures because I somehow forgot my real camera and only had my phone. But like I've said a thousand times, this blog is a bit of a scrapbook for me, so I wanted to be sure and at least document the high points of the trip. My mother-in-law's birthday is the day before mine, and she suggested that we take a family beach trip to celebrate both. Of course, I happily obliged, and because my family lives near the coast now, I also got to see them as well! It was such a fun trip, and I'm so thankful to have such an amazing family!

Pre-beach pedi

We couldn't have asked for better weather, and this is how I spent the majority of the trip. I wanted an easy beach read while sitting on the sand. Mary Kay Andrews never disappoints with her super cute novels set in various southern towns. One of her recent bestsellers, "Summer Rental " was no different. Light and fun- it's a great book for the pool or beach.

In-laws cutting a rug at Florabama. Such lovebirds.

My sister-in-law Brooke and her bf Michael

The world famous Florabama Bushwhackers

Sweet husby

It's not a beach trip without some Tacky Jack's

He's so silly.

The water was the clearest and bluest I've ever seen it at the Gulf, and the boys enjoyed it thoroughly. Gorgeous!

More beach lounging

All hail Bethenny! My newest obsession.

More Florabama fun!

Birthday Dinner at Cobalt

Anyone recognize the location of my late night date with Mr. M?

Always a good idea to pick up t0-go gumbo from Original Oyster House to be enjoyed once back home.

It was without a doubt another fun family trip that won't soon be forgotten!

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

Link up with Jamie!

{carpool}

I love it anytime that work allows me to work in town, but this past Monday I loved having the opportunity to work in downtown B'ham. Since I was only a block from Mr. M's office, we carpooled to work. I felt a little bit corny, but it was so nice getting to spend that extra time together. We also met and walked to lunch together- it's the little things people!

{marilyn}
I'm not sure if it's my Smash-induced Marilyn obsession or if it's my impending excitement over Nicki's summer concert, but I'm loving the track "Marilyn Monroe" by Nicki Minaj! Speaking of Smash, I'm also loving the news that Ellis has been axed from Season 2. I'll miss some of the other characters who are not returning, but it's a small price to pay to be rid of Ellis's eavesdropping and whining.

{fridge}
I'm loving that my refrigerator is currently littered with family graduation invitations and a precious birth announcement! Who doesn't love getting mail from special people?

{pj's}

I'm a sucker for cute pajamas, especially in the wintertime, but sometimes you just can't beat a t-shirt and shorts. I'm loving my Luke Bryan "pajama top" from last night (aka- my tshirt from the concert last week).

{bookworm}
I finally finished "Divergent", and I'm loving book 2 "Insurgent"!

{revenge}
I'm loving that today is REVENGE FINALE DAY! Eeeeee- can't wait to see what happens tonight!

{birthday}

With less than two weeks to go, I'm loving that the birthday countdown is on!

Happy Wednesday!

miscellany monday

Heyyyyyy party people! This post comes to you via our nation's capital. I'm in DC for work this week, and I always love it here!

Did you all have a nice weekend? Everyone all recovered from your mint julep/margarita/Talladega hangovers? It was quite the weekend of events. However, you chose to spend your weekend- I hope it was awesome!

We had our Cinco de Mayo party Saturday evening and also hosted quite a few overnight guests. I hope everyone had as much fun as Mr. M and I did - we thoroughly enjoyed celebrating with everyone! Also, a big thank you to Candace for her help with my fabulous party printables. She does fabulous work!

Anywho, on with our regular scheduled programming...

Link up with Carissa!

{sloppy joe}

Sloppy joe, slop sloppy joe, sloppy joe, slop sloppy joe... it's pretty much impossible for me to think about this food without mentally singing the old Adama Sandler song. Anyway, I fixed sloppy joes one night last week, and it was seriuosly the first time I had eaten one in FOREVER. Ummmm...delicious!! And just for good measure, I served up these delicacies on our finest paper plates, paired them with icey cold Miller Lites, and set the mood with a little TV glow ambiance. I had forgotten how much I love sloppy joes, and when I said as much to Mr. M, he joked that he was relieved to know that he had not married a high maintenance girl after all. Well I don't know about that. I'll take my designer labels and fancy restaurants all day long...but sometimes you just can't beat a good sloppy joe.

{divergent}
I finally got started with my newest reading material on the flight this morning. I'll be honest- it was difficult to get excited about reading anything else after 50 Shades. Luckily, this book is just as enthralling as everyone said, and I've quickly gotten sucked in. I'll update later when I've read more, but so far I'm digging it!

{derby}
We were too busy prepping for our fiesta celebration to watch much of the Derby. However, I always love to check out the hat photo galleries after the event. Here are some of my favorites:

This is not actually a favorite hat...I just love "Once Upon a Time". Ahh, Prince Charming and Snow...

Love Debra Messing.
All images via Yahoo

It's too bad we did not place any bets on the race. With a name like "I'll Have Another", Mr. M would have certainly picked the derby winner as his race favorite.

{fiesta}
I hope to do a party details post later once I have some pictures together (fingers crossed that Candace got some good ones), but for now- here's a little sneak peak at Cinco de May'all!

A glimpse of some of the printables by Candace.

Handmade Fiesta Flowers!

The margarita and dessert table.

Sweet girls (plus Tate)!

Have a wonderful Monday!