What I'm Loving Wednesday...sunshine, food, and birthdays!

I know I'm a day late on this but I still wanted to participate since there were so many things to LOVE yesterday! So I'm linking up with Jamie to share a few of my Wednesday favorites!

First I am LOVING that it was my brothers birthday!! Happy birthday Nick.. I love you and miss you! But I am so proud of the hard work you are doing in North Carolina and that you are getting to spend so much time with our family there! I miss our lunches/ dinners but I know between grandpa's meatballs and granny's Sunday lunches you are probably thankful that you don't have to eat my cooking any more hahah! I hope you had a great day and I know you were probably missing these guys on your birthday but I hope you still felt special and celebrated!! I'm sure the fam made sure of it!

The birthday boy on the left & friends

I am also LOVING that March 30th is now also the birthday of little Ryland!

Congrats to my beautiful friend Kylie and her husband Bryce who are now officially Mommy & Daddy! Can't wait to meet him!

I am LOVING that I have been quite the Kitchen Queen lately with two new favorites in our house!

Homemade Fish tacos with special sauce recipe found here...

And LOVING Pioneer Woman's Spicy Dr. Pepper pulled pork!

YUM!

Last but not least LOVING that the sun has finally decided to make an appearance... I have the photos and sunburn to prove it!


Nothing better than morning coffee on the balcony in the sun with this view! My own little slice of heaven ;)

Happy Thursday my dears!! It's almost the weekend and officially Spring Break for this teacher!

XOXO- Miss V

Photo Diary...

It was a pretty quiet weekend around here, between the rain and fog and feeling slightly under the weather I didn't mind one bit taking it easy.

Friday night I did venture out for a quick dinner date with my lovely friend Cori at the cozy Park Chow...cold damp night outside, spicy noodles, roaring fire place and girl talk inside made for a perfect early night out.

via

Sorry Miss Cori this was the best of the two.. :/

Saturday was spent lounging around the house...

Feeling under the weather the only things that could cure my sniffles were a Sister Wives marathon, my favorite pink argyle knee highs and my new favorite...Cinnabon Creamer...and yes I took a photo I was that excited about this little set-up I had going on. Love waking up before Mr. Jones and partaking in a little indulgent "me-time" ha!

Cozy corners, and old favorites.

Oh and this is what was happening in my kitchen...

sigh.

Coffee date before Church at this little gem in the Mission ;)

A perfectly relaxing and quiet weekend.

And Monday is upon us once again...oh weekend how I miss you already.

sigh.

xoxo-miss v

Easter Treats!

Well it's been a rather gloomy and unexpected day off, but I have managed to take care of a few things around the house, one of which was getting the house decorated for Easter, bringing a little bit of bright and colorful Spring into the house even thought the weather outside is singing a different tune.

Again I shopped the house so to speak, and everything that I used came from other places in our apt. These items have been given a new purpose and life for Spring and the house feels refreshed and new just like the season itself.

The only thing I bought was a mini planter of daffodils that were on sale for $4 at the grocery store!

Love my new view from the couch!

What I did:

Switched out one blue blanket from the couch and draped it over the white chair for a pop of spring color...easy and could be achieved with a pretty solid or pattern scarf!

Fresh Spring Flowers !

What I did:

Vase/Ceramic container that I purchased last summer that recently had just been living in the closet..loved the pop of color

Natural Easter Grass...came as part of a gift/wrap at Christmas..totally saved it exactly for this purpose... hahah..crazy or genius...depends on who you ask!

$4 Daffodils purchased at the local grocery store

In the kitchen I decorated the ledge above my counter...which is practically like a mantel in the fact that it changes with the seasons...love having a place to display decor and photos year round.

Gloomy day...outside..fun spring colors inside ;)

What I did:

Used my old "card" trick again ;) Switched out my b&w photos with last years Easter cards...thank you Aunt Terry for the one on the right ;) And Grandma for the spring flower one on the left ;)

Replaced my cookbook with a yellow and white pattern plate

Hollowed out two of our eggs and placed in our decorative cups with more Easter grass.

I totally had planned on decorating easter eggs, but when I realized the eggs we currently had were brown I kind of liked the way they looked with my "natural" Easter grass.

Here is a tutorial for hollowing out eggs that was helpful!

In the corner of my ledge I have my adorable Easter Bunny filled with candy ;)

Bought him last year for $3

Last but not least I wanted to find a place for this card and I may just display it on the ledge but my mom made all of us the cutest handmade Easter Cards last year using stamps and colored pencil! Just thought it was another easy and inexpensive Easter craft anyone could do!

Bonnie is so crafty.

Just thought I would share in case anyone else needed a little diy inspiration for sprucing up their place for spring!

Happy Friday my loves!

XOXO- Miss V

Nat & Melissa... a love story.

I'm a little late on posting this but I just had to document for myself and my friends the wonderful news of Nat and Melissa's engagement!

I cried, I laughed, I cried some more and I am just so incredibly happy not only for this beautiful couple but just so overcome with emotion for my dear friend Melissa.

Melissa was my first "college" friend. We met in the dorms, and after "ignoring" each other because of dorm hall "boy drama" hahah we decided that we actually really liked one another, ditched the boy and spent an afternoon by the pool behind Zura Hall where our future as friends was set. That was 10 years ago! We lived together all throughout college, in our first apt together, in our sorority house and at our beach house as seniors. I can say with 100% confidence that College was infinitely more fun because of my friendship with this lady!

tina, melissa and me ... bridesmaids and the bride to be!

Her fiance planned the most incredible engagement surprise! Just one of many reasons why I adore him so much. Melissa woke up early two weeks ago only to find out that her and her soon to be fiance were jetting off to Vegas for a long weekend, everything planned, her work had been contacted and he had arranged everything. The second day of their trip after brunch and a "walk down memory lane" in the Venetian her favorite hotel, he popped the question, with a surprise photographer on hand to capture the moment. The rest of the weekend was spent celebrating and contacting friends and family with the good news!

I could not save this photo as vertical to save my life... sorry .. but look how cute they are!

Nat and Melissa are an amazing couple, they are full of life and adventure... these two were made for each other. They love to travel and try new things...

Yosemite 2009... right before we hiked Half Dome!

(it should be noted that out of the three couples in this photo 2 are now engaged...ahhhemm.. Mr. Jones.. are you reading? ) ;)

The last two years as Christmas gifts they have gifted friends and family with their own cook book which includes many of their favorite recipes...



They are always the life of the party and both of them have the biggest hearts, they love to entertain and make every friend they meet feel like family.

It's incredible to have known someone as long as I've known Melissa and to watch her future unfold and to be a part of it, after all the wondering and dreaming back in college about jobs, homes, marriage, and what our future would look like it's just such a beautiful thing to see it work out so perfectly. I get choked up every time I think about it!


Congratulations Nat and Melissa, I wish you an incredible year of enjoying your engagement and a lifetime full of love, fun, and adventure. I am so blessed to have you as friends and I am so excited to see what the future has in store.

xoxo- your friend, miss v

Ladies Night...

Besides hiding under the covers from the torrential down pours, lightning, thunder, tornado warnings, and the power going out TWICE I managed to have a fun and relaxing weekend which kicked off with ladies night on Friday!

We started out over at Tina & Jules house for plenty of delicious bites, wine and of course our very first book club meeting!

Some of the spread... Jules even made PW's stuffed mushrooms which were delish!

Black Heels to Tractor Wheels photo... check!

Friends, good reads & eats...great conversation and wine what more could a girl ask for?

After catching up we decided to venture out into the "elements" for whatever the night had in store for us ;)

There was some of this...

A little of that...

And a few of these...

Roomie love.

Saturday was spent curled up on the couch in full on recovery mode...

Heaven.

Love my friends. And cupcakes.

Happy Monday to you all ;)

Miss V

Lucky...

I may not be Irish ... but I am feeling all kinds of lucky today...

I came home to this man in our kitchen...


Making this perfect St. Patty's meal...

Lucky me.

Happy St. Patrick's Day my friends- Miss V

"Oh The Places You'll Go"...letting go.

Life is not perfect and there are times of valleys and mountains seasons of challenge and hope and moments where the butter falls out of the fridge as you're trying to put it back and you just lose it ... because somehow that butter not landing perfectly on the shelf is the last straw...and it's only 7am, you're cursing out loud at a tub of butter and you just know that you are seconds away from sabotaging your entire day if you don't just let go in that instance...and then divine intervention steps in to keep you from losing it, in your robe, in your kitchen, on a Tuesday morning.

It was sometime a little over a year ago that I really started to re-think my feelings on faith, I still have my questions and doubt but I also know that when I opened myself up to it, let go and started trusting in faith again some pretty incredible things started happening. Some simple, some major but mostly I allowed myself to lose control, give it up to a higher being and trust that I don't always have the answer and that's when I started to realize that I was finally feeling a peace I had been struggling to find for a long time. I'm not any kind of authority on faith and I certainly would never push my beliefs on anyone else, I know I sure as heck struggle with what it is exactly that I believe, so this isn't a post on religion per-say but it is a moment or series of what I like to think of as divine interventions and maybe this can speak to you at a time when you need it in the way it has for me.

Anyhow when I started seeking faith out again I serendipitously came across this verse... at a time when I, my family, school, friends etc. were all facing some major crossroads and the the stress, worry and anxiety were just about to take complete control of me... "Don't worry about anything, instead pray about everything, Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience Gods peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." - Phillipians 4:6 NLT.

I just had happened to open my Bible and come across this reading, a year ago when things seemed so uncertain and stressful, Phillipians also happened to be the study of my small group a few months ago... and then when I could no longer make it to small group in the new year it just so happened to be the study my church was doing for the beginning of the year in January... do you think someone is trying to get a point across to me??


Well let's go back to the beginning of my post, it's 7am and it's only Tuesday and for one reason or another the anxiety of a million things has decided to boil over and come out in a full on lashing on a tub of "I can't believe it's not butter- light" Light of all things right... ? Poor butter.

Luckily I stopped myself at about the third under my breath curse word and said "Stop calm down this is NOT about the darn butter now get a hold of yourself before you completely ruin your entire day. " I'll be honest...my relationship with God has been wavering in recent weeks...but in that instant I thought all of "this"...is out of my control and I decided to give myself a moment to open up my Bible and read whatever it had in store for me...unfortunately it was in my room, in my closet and it was dark and Mr. Jones was sleeping so I opened up the computer and just typed in literally the most vague search ever "Daily Devotional Blog" no idea where it would take me just hoping it would offer some peace of mind ... and I kid you not THIS... not a link, this exact post is what popped up...

http://devog.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/rejoice-in-god/
Rejoice In God

TODAY’S VERSE
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)

And then I.lost.it.

Tears just streaming down my face. And I knew what I had to do, I had to let go, I had to trust, I had to be thankful, and stop worrying and start talking, praying, asking, and writing.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned,
so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

- Divine intervention I tell ya.

XOXO- Miss V

What I'm Loving Wednesday...this & that.

Link up or head over to Jamies blog to see what everyone is loving this Wednesday!

I am LOVING my 100 followers! I am so grateful that I have such a great network of blogging friends and I know there are more of you that read as well, family & friends...it's been such a blessing to me to jot down my thoughts and spend a few hours each week reflecting and it makes me smile thinking that others would actually be interested in what I have to say.

I am LOVING this giveaway over at Schue Love! This fellow Northern California girl is so sweet and I love following her blog, she has a great sense of style and is doing a jewelry giveaway that you MUST enter! Too good to pass up on!

Some of the goods:

All pieces from this etsy seller

I am LOVING this blogging day of silence and all of your support in regards to my post on Japan.





I am LOVING my friends and finding a sweet note in my mailbox today... you know who you are and you had just the right words for me...so thank you, I am incredibly blessed to have such amazing women to call "my girls".

I am LOVING this new Insanity workout program that I've started I'm already on the 4th workout of the series !

Ok that one was a half truth... we borrowed this from Mr. Jones' brother and it is kicking my bootie..I just said that b/c I'm trying to psyche myself up for my workout today ;)

Last but not least.... I am LOVING that Kelly over at Kelly's Korner gave birth to baby Hollis this morning!! I've followed Kelly's blog for a long time now... and am so happy for her that after a long time of waiting to be a mother and after one difficult birth with her first she now has two precious and healthy girls!

What are you loving this Wednesday?

XOXO- Miss V