Weekend Happenings - Little Rock Farmer's Market

Another weekend has flown by! The weather here has been nothing short of perfect so EH and I took full advantage.

Friday night we camped out at our favorite pizza patio - US Pizza. I love their patio and the food is always delicious. Get the Salad Supreme - it's the best. Our favorite pizza is the Dave's Favorite.

Later that night, the power in our entire neighborhood went out. We couldn't figure out what caused it so what did we do? Grabbed another cocktail, put Moose on the leash and sat out on the tailgate. It was actually quite nice!

Saturday was another glorious day and the opening of the River Market Farmer's Market so off to downtown we went.

So many wonderful items - jams, jellies and fresh honey.

Beautiful bundles of blooms. Sorry, couldn't resist an alliteration.

Huge tomatoes - I really regret not getting some of these!

So many choices! You could plan your Saturday night dinner just by walking around.

I was this close to picking up on of these bird houses - how pretty!

In the end I walked away with some corn, fresh strawberries, a bundle of flowers and a block of feta cheese from the new Kent Walker Artisan Cheese.

After the market we slipped into the new Damgoode Pies that has opened up downtown to try their new beer and to enjoy the patio. 

They had clever posters up of some of the greatest fictionalized beer. King of the Hill Alamo, Family Guy Pawntucket Brewery and several more. Too funny!

One thing I want to try and talk EH into this summer is going for a bike tour downtown - I can't even remember the last time I rode a bike but I think I'd look pretty good on this aqua one!

Or if we have one too many beers at lunch we can just take the trolley around.

The rest of the weekend we spent grilling steaks on Saturday night, trying a new restaurant for lunch today and generally taking it easy. I've been on a Once Upon a Time marathon on Netflix - the visuals are cheesy but I'm liking it overall!

Hope you had a great weekend!

Happy Day at Derby Day

One of my favorite events during the year is Derby Day at Oaklawn Racing and Gaming in Hot Springs. We're lucky that we usually are able to sneak away a couple of weekends to checkout the horse races, but there is something special about Derby Day. 

So Friday night we ventured to Hot Springs to my IL's beautiful lakehouse. The weather in Arkansas this past weekend was amazing. The night was all cocktails and take-out pizza and even an impromptu hat fashion show and it was a lot of fun. Almost a little too much!

The next morning was a blur of people eating breakfast, donning their hats and bow ties and pouring a mimosa or Bloody Mary for the road. I love the excitement of Derby Day mornings - guys on their laptops or phones trying to get hot tips, the women swapping hats and pouring champagne and pictures, lot of pictures!

I went for a beige sheath dress from Maude here in Little Rock. Hat is from Dillard's and shoes not pictured were navy peep-toe pumps from Jessica Simpson. I felt very Kate Middleton. Or like Kate Middleton's second cousin twice removed, hah.

After all of the pre-race excitement we were in the car and zooming towards the track!

Little blurry but I still love it!

The races, especially when the weather is pleasant, always seem to be packed. It's the ultimate people watching event - I would wager equal to airport people watching. No matter if you are hanging out on the benches inside, venturing out into the infield (which when the weather is perfect is one of my favorite places to be!) or entering the crammed elevators for the Jockey Club, the excitement in the air is contagious. 

The food is always delicious - I was craving a half dozen raw oysters from the Oyster Bar or maybe a piled up Rueben but we ventured to the Jockey Club buffet instead. Never a disappointment! I didn't snag a picture of that, but I couldn't resist taking a quick snap of the cutest little desserts I ever did see.

Aren't they precious? I don't quite remember the flavors but the yellow/green slice of heaven in the middle was my favorite. They're like tiny works of art. 

The remainder of the afternoon was spent pouring over our programs and the multiple cheat sheets, lots of beer and wine and trips up for snacks and of course, trips to the ticket machine to place our bets!

Unfortunately, as per usual, Engineer Husband and I were not too successful at betting on the ponies. We had a few victories but I suppose betting on "Oh, I love that name!" or "There's a gray horse, let's pick that one!" aren't always the best reasons to go off of. Ah well.

We had the greatest time and I'm sad that we have to wait a whole other year to experience it again.

If you are in the area, I hope you get a chance to check it out next year! Maybe we'll bump into eachother!

Things I'm Looking Forward to Thursday

It's easy to get wrapped up in the whirlwind of your day to day and find yourself in a bit of a lull. I think the weather warming up (here atleast) has helped improve my mood but I think there is still some post-winter blues hanging around.

One thing that has helped combat the rainy days and moods is thinking about everything I have to look forward to in the upcoming weeks and months.

So here are a few things that I focus on to keep myself in high spirits -

- Engineer Husband and I celebrate our 2nd anniversary on Monday! I cant believe it has been two years married and eight years together total. We have big weekend plans of a fancy dinner out, a Harry Potter movie marathon (probably more for me as I've been reading the books finally!) and general hanging out and celebrating together.

- Pretty dresses, pencil skirts, sandals and open toed shoes

- Derby Day at the Horse Races! I've already been keeping an eye out for a new dress and a big floppy hat to wear to the Jockey Club. The weather gets a little prettier every day so hopefully in a couple of weeks it will be absolutely perfect.

- Patio sitting, rolling the car windows down, and opening up all the doors and windows to the house to get as much fresh air as possible. I bet I can convince Engineer Husband to fire up the grill if we get a particularly warm night.

- All the trees suddenly turning green seemingly overnight - also all of the flowers popping up everywhere. Tulips have already given us a sneak peek but I can't wait for azaleas and hydrangeas and everything in between.

Those are just a few things that have been occupying my mind and keeping me distracted and filled with happy thoughts. 

What are you most looking forward to? 

Every Day Favorites

As much as I do love trying new beauty products and playing with the infinite options, there are always a handful of products that I return to over and over again. Below are a few of my favorite drug-store items - minus one but it's not a bank-breaker and it really is awesome so I thought I would go ahead and include it! 

1 - Maybelline Falsies Mascara - In between Sephora mascara splurges I always gravitate back to Maybelline mascaras. The pink and green tube works great but the Falsies line is my absolutely favorite. 

2 - Opi Rapidry Quick Dry Topcoat - I took a chance and ordered this from Amazon a few weeks ago after messing up multiple home manicures in one night. It's not that I'm not patient per say..it's really that I can't sit still and there is a certain fluffy dog that always seems to be begging for a scratch behind the ears after a manicure. Woops! This seems to help a TON - just wait 45 seconds after your final coat (and base coat, just to ensure the shine) and voila! Your nails are dry. I am still super impressed by this.

3 - Essie Fifth Avenue polish - A little more pink in person versus the image, but I wore this shade as the first post-winter-blueish gray color I previously sported and this bright color was fun and put me in a good mood. Great color to wear later into spring and also summer!

4 - Essie A Crewed Interest - I love this soft pink shade. I think it will work on all skin tones and is the perfect spring color without being too sweet. I've been wearing this all week and it am still very pleased with it.

5 - Almay Color + Care Lip Gloss - I've tried several of the different shades and they are all very pretty and sheer enough to not scare you away but Rosy Lipped has been the color I have bought repeatedly. Works great even on dry lips and provides a really pretty shine. I will keep buying this until they discontinue! (Please Almay, please don't discontinue!)

6 - St. Ive's Oatmeal and Shea Butter Lotion - I use the shower gel version of this as well and I love both equally. Anytime I try to stray, nothing ever compares. I love the clean, fresh scent and it helps keep even wintry dry skin nice and moisturized. I don't care if it's not very fancy - it smells amazing and works well so why change!

Hopefully the weather is warming up near you and also that you found a little every day inspiration to amp up the spring season! If you have favorite every day products, I hope you'll leave a comment and let me know!

A little spring for the door way

We rarely use our front door. That's my excuse for not realizing that we still had an ice skating penguin doormat out, atleast. 

Still, I had no real proactive plans to remedy this situation until Engineer Husband announced on Friday night that he wanted to peruse Home Depot for some supplies for the yard. Wanting to get out of the house, I joined him. And there - my inspiration was found!

I just happened to spot this bright doormat as we were headed to the sprinkler repair section. I love that it ties into our red door!

Still dreaming about my new doormat and our red door, I woke up Saturday and decided I wanted to make my own door wreath! I decided this especially after looking up wreaths on Etsy and seeing the $100+ prices. 

After two hours of back and forth between all of the faux flower aisles, I finally decided on this mixture - which admittedly is a lot more summery than I originally anticipated. 

To break it down, the door hanger was $19.99 and almost all of the faux flowers were $1.99 but at 50% off which definitely helped. If you look real closely you can also see the striped burlap I picked out for the hanger which was $7.99. I definitely recommend waiting for some sort of 50% off sale. All in all, this ran me around $60 but compared to the $100+ wreaths on Etsy and similar sites, I figured this was pretty good!

And here was the outcome -

Not bad for some faux flowers, right? I have a mini chalkboard that I attached after the fact - it's nice being able to write fun little messages! 

Not entirely sure how this will hold up being outside but I plan on trying to remember to bring it in when it rains or is especially windy. I think it should be okay but I'll be happy to report back.

Hope you enjoy!

Beautiful beautiful spring..

I'm so happy it's spring. Something about it becoming official today put a little pep in my step and I was extra grateful that the weather reflected the proclamation.

After quite a hectic week, Engineer Husband and I decided to soak up the extra post-work hours of sunlight by hanging out in the garage - him working on a project for our niece, and Moose and I lounging with a glass of wine and reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. This all followed up with frozen pizza and a little DVR.

All in all, I feel like this was a perfect start to the new season. And with the warmer weather and the blossoming of tulips everywhere, I feel invigorated and ready to take on some new projects. Stay tuned!