Shopping suggestions

When I have a little extra jingle in my pockets (which is rare, but does happen on occasion), I tend to dart for my top three shopping destinations: Loft, Anthropologie and J.Crew. Now, seeing that I have some birthday cash to spend, I find myself wondering what else is out there. It's not that I'm unhappy with the others, but maybe it's time to branch out a little.

So, enlighten me. What stores should I check out? What are your go-to places to shop?

I'm all ears!

N*Sync and Oreos

Justin. Timberlake.

That one name has elicited the same amount of excitement from me for almost 16 years. Although, back in the day, I was more of a Backstreet Boys girl, N*Sync was still on high rotation in my house in 1997. After Sunday night's (entirely too brief) N*Sync reunion, I found myself looking back on my own evening with Justin, JC, Joey, Lance and Chris.

I don't remember the year (or maybe I do, but I am preserving my age as not to embarrass myself for being "too old" to have all this happen to me), but my parents, showing the full extent of their love, had gotten tickets to see N*Sync in concert in Nashville. I say they showed the full extent of their love because I can't imagine my parents were too excited about an evening with squealing girls and paying TicketMaster surcharges. And this was back in the day when you had to go to a TicketMaster booth to buy tickets (ours was at Kroger). So Mom actually waited in line to buy them.

My sister and I were so excited; I even helped her color a poster board-sized "I Heart Chris" sign. (She always liked the odd ones.) The day of the concert, we were jumping up and down in anticipation. We had our N*Sync T-shirts on and vocal chords ready for four hours of "squeeee!!!!! — plus we'd watched our "N*Sync N*Concert" VHS tape several times. All this pre-concert excitement manifested itself in a weird way for me, causing me to eat nearly an entire package of Double Stuf Oreos. (Alas, to have that metabolism again.) It royally screwed up my appetite though, and I only ate a bite or two of dinner before we headed out to the concert.

Giddy and giggly, my sister and I entered the arena packed full of equally eager tweens and their begrudging parent chaperones. The walls were covered with posters and T-shirts of the boys in various stages of squeaky-clean boy band seduction, retailing for the same price as your average two-bed, one-bath home. The parents waiting in line for one of those looked even more begrudging.

Once we got to our seats, the yellow, blue and purple lights swirled around the stage located on the floor of the arena. When the lights went down, the screams went up, but it was just the opening act — Tatyana Ali (the little sister from "Fresh Prince of Bel Air") trying her hand at being a second-rate, Disney-powered pop star. Throughout her performance, I could tell something wasn't quite right, my stomach churning and not with boy band excitement.

I sat down in my seat, breathing slowly to ease my stomach. And then I got that feeling. They say when it's love, you know. Same goes for when you're about to be sick.

And I knew.

I tapped my mom and frantically explained the situation. She rushed me out to find the nearest bathroom, which was right outside where our seats were, but the line was out the door. I think she could tell how little time we had left by how wide my eyes had gotten because she quickly grabbed my head and stuck it through the flap door of the nearest garbage can. There, I proceeded to revisit that pack of Oreos and regret the afternoon's binge. A janitor was also taking that moment to empty his dustpan into the trashcan's other side, but my mom was able to stop him from dumping all of the contents onto my head.

Pale faced and dusty headed, my mom and I found the first aid station, and she explained to the attendant what had happened, hoping they had some Pepto or something to help my stomach. Instead, he gave me a barf bag. So, Mom and I returned to our seats, and she explained the events of the lobby to Dad and Courtney while we waited for N*Sync to take the stage.

My nausea kept me from standing once they did, and I watched the concert play out on the jumbotron overhead. I couldn't help but think that I could've done the same thing at home — watch an N*Synce concert on TV. Dad wouldn't let me use the barf bag during the concert; he had me save it for the ride home (He wasn't being mean. He was just being daddy and worrying about the interior of his car). So, when the sickness hit again, Mom and I dashed back out the lobby. This time she pushed me to the front of the bathroom line, shouting, "She's going to be sick!" You've never seen children pulled away quicker and crowds part so fast.

I don't remember much else from the concert; I guess it wasn't as eventful as literally tossing my cookies, but I do remember the ride home as my sister stared at me from her seat waiting to see if I would blow again. It's become a running family joke, how I don't eat Oreos and couldn't contain my N*Sync excitement, receiving one of those clever family titles like "That Time Jennifer Threw up at an N*Sync Concert."

Looking back on that, it made me thankful to enjoy the musical stylings of JT from my own home with  the self control maturity brings, having not eaten and entire package of Oreos.

Target fall lookbook

I've mentioned that one of my favorite blogs is Atlantic-Pacific. She recently partnered up with Target to style their fall lookbook, and it's got me excited for fall layers (despite absolutely loving this out-of-character Arkansas August right now). I especially love the plaid pencil skirt above and find myself strangely drawn to patterned pants, which is a little out of character because I'm pretty predictable in my love for pencil skirts. J.Crew has a few pairs for fall, too, but I'm sure Target's price tag is much less shocking.

I couldn't find these pieces online yet, but I'm sure they'll be rolling in soon. And I'll be scouring the site in the meantime.

Pegged

When we first looked at our new house, one of the neatest details in my opinion was the double pegboard in the master closet. I could see so many ways to use it ... only one problem. I had no idea where you'd buy hooks or pegs in order to utilize the board. Luckily, my friend Katie blogged about her own pegboard about the same time I was about to give up on my own. 

Several packs of hooks later, we've got a nice little addition to our closet. Scott finally has a place for his ties, (In the old house, they spent their days draped over the drying rack in the office.) and I have a place for some of my scarves (How sad is it that this is just some of my scarves?).

I'm not an organized person, so it takes something that is just as easy or easier than throwing my stuff in a giant pile for me to keep things neat and orderly, and this pegboard is just that!

Blinded

We've been in our house a little over a month now, and our windows have been bare for that entire time. No curtains, no blinds — nothing keeping me from feeling like someone is staring at me while I brush my teeth or like I'm a zoo exhibit for passersby on the street.

At first I was genuinely scared to be in the bathroom at night if Scott wasn't there, too, because obviously any rational adult would think a man's face would appear in the window — a window that is probably 10 feet off the ground from the outside. It caused me to cut my two-minute toothbrushing short on many occasions.

To remedy fears plus deal with the whole "showering without being the neighborhood flasher" problem, we put up this temporary blind we got at Lowe's. Not the prettiest, but it gets the job done ... and by job I mean it helps me brush my teeth at night.

To keep our guests happy and not feeling like they're sleeping in a glass box at the MOMA, we added some "custom window coverings" of our own devising.

Yep, brown packing paper is the new burlap. You're about to see it sweeping Pinterest.

As for the other windows, they remained uncovered, even the one on my side of the bed that angles east and serves as nature's alarm clock every morning. It makes me feel like a face-melting Nazi from "Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark" at about 5:45 a.m.

Now that we've gotten used to the openness, it's become rather nice. I get to see God's handiwork firsthand. I mean, the sun rises every day! That's amazing all by itself. With the thunderstorms we've had lately, I've gotten to go to bed and watch flashes of lightning streak across the sky and marvel again at the Lord's magnificent power. We've seen a momma and baby deer eating in our yard and enough birds darting about to feel like I'm a Disney princess going through her morning routine through the aid of woodland creatures.

Yesterday, we finally had blinds — proper blinds — installed in the bedrooms and master bathroom and closet (yeah, we've literally had nowhere to change without feeling like a self-conscious, middle school girl in gym class). I'm glad for the privacy in some places, but I'm also glad we decided not to cover every window so that we can enjoy the view we've grown to enjoy (and no longer feel like we're the view).

No more temporary blind! No more fear of my own reflection!

No more midnight terror when the paper comes untaped and crashes down from the window!

My greatest blinds joy, though, is the view from my bed. It's like a snooze button for nature's alarm clock. It did make it much more difficult to wake up this morning without the sun burning my corneas. 

Slowly, but surely, we're making progress!

Pudding remix

In the long history of my grandmother's banana pudding, there have been a couple of attempts to make changes and still get delicious results. One time, my dad tried making it with chocolate pudding to get a chocolate-covered-banana type result. It wasn't a huge success. 

Over the weekend, it was my turn to add a twist. In an attempt to fuse two delicious summer desserts (strawberry shortcake and banana pudding), I thought I'd add strawberries to the pudding instead of bananas. Afterward, I wondered why we hadn't done this sooner! It was delicious, if I do say so myself.

I followed this recipe, replacing the bananas with a large container of strawberries that I had sliced and sprinkled with sugar the night before, allowing them to macerate and create lots of strawberry juice. I drizzled the juice over each layer of wafers and strawberry slices so that they could soak up all the goodness and add to the shortcake taste. 

I highly suggest you try this before the summer's end!

H&M online

Is it sad that I audibly gasped when I read that H&M had opened online shopping to the U.S.? They offer some really cute items for not too much money. You would gasp, too! I've only been to an H&M once when I was in New York and was so happy when I heard my hometown of Nashville had recently gotten one, but there's something so satisfying about being able to browse online and not have to make a pilgrimage to a big city when you want to shop.

As a sign of where my head is at now, I first went to the baby clothing tab to see what they offered for the little guy. I love all of the cardigans and stripes for fall and the bright chinos, keeping Preston comfy and cool. The also had the cutest little mittens and hats for when it gets colder, plus suspenders (suspenders!), for a price that keeps you from feeling like you're flushing money down the toilet. I mean, he'll have grown out of them by tomorrow. (And leave me weeping as I the too-small clothes in the outgrown box. Every time.)

Striped sweater, striped tee, chambray shirt, cardigan, chinos, socks, and sneakers

Of course, I had to peek and see what I liked for me. I loved the jersey dress, which would look great with belt and necklace — my standard as it seems. I wear a dress/belt/necklace combo at least three days a week. The polka-dotted tee is a step up from a typical basic, and the hunter green dress would be a great transitional dress from summer to fall. The bright blue shoes and bracelets would be a fun touch to any outfit.

Jersey dress, polka-dotted tee, sleeveless dress, heels, and bracelets

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an online shopping cart to fill.