88 Miles Per Hour

When I think about our wedding, it was very much a nerd country hybrid. I wanted the everything to feel handmade, homey, family, and very much a representation of me. You know when you go into your grandma's house and there are layers of things, patterns, objects, pictures, textures, that blend into a beautiful tapestry of life and the lives that have touched throughout the years? Yeah that's me only I'm 23 years old, far from grandmothering. So what you got was lace, mason jars, Cheerwine, candy, and a Tardis wedding cake.

Me and Kasey planned that wedding in two and a half months. We had next to nothing to pay for it all. Which was no problem because I have been thrifting things for the wedding for quite a long time. I hand crocheted all the flowers. Collected all the mason jars from family members. Collected coffee cups for the last year for the favors. Handmade of the wedding invites. Family friend made hand-spun cotton candy. I DIYed pretty much every detail. I was out in grandma Maxine's garage digging out old metal wash tubs to hold the glass bottle Cheerwines. I used my own home decor to fill in the look with owls, Pyrex, glass bottles, clothes pins...and it was beautiful. It was beyond my dream wedding. So there is a tease for the upcoming fully detailed wedding post!

The point is when deciding on the cake, we knew we wanted a Tardis on the top, but I also wanted the DeLorean on it. I knew hotwheels had come out with one earlier in the year, but were proving impossible to find. In the end we had our amazing three layered, vanilla bean iced, lemon, Doctor Who cake. But I still wanted to find that DeLorean! Back to the Future is my favorite film, and trilogy, of all time. Of all time! They have been my favorite films since I can remember. But I don't own any kind of memorabilia. I tend to find things in trendy little vintage shops that are always so expensive that I wish at times to be a rich nerd.

Like this beauty. Found it in NoDa last week at a place called The Rat's Nest. It was a neat little place, but of course full of thrift finds turned over for nice profits. In others words: I can look, not buy. This was stuck up in the rafters and I began jumping up and down like a little girl. Of course it was $200. I kindly asked the man if I could take pictures and be on my way.

Fast forward to me and Kasey grocery shopping this weekend and at checkout was a small display of Hotwheels. I walk over to glance when lo and behold there it was, THE DELOREAN! For a cool $0.99!

Currently the DeLorean is residing in my purse. A constant reminder that if you put your mind to it, anything is possible! Great Scott! It's time to cook breakfast!

2012

Well I have ignored you for far too long, little blog of mine. I will not be doing some post about 'New Years Resolutions' and all that jazz, but of things I want to accomplish, see, do, and such in this brand new shiny year I have!

2011 was a year of change for me. I know that it is such a human way to track your life within the boundaries of a year. I would judge the first six months of 2011 as some of the hardest I have been through. When you get older, grow up, discover that you have become an individual, life takes on new challenges and flows differently. Suddenly life was less about a collective whole, but a stirring pot of my own with friendships, people, relationship, and responsibilities that had come about from my own making. I felt lost within myself. After planning a wedding for over and year and a half, suddenly we had to postpone it. My heart ached and felt as though whatever it is was we were doing in life, I didn't want to do it anymore. Kasey and I had grown apart. It was horrible. I was just so tired. Emotionally, physically, mentally...twenty-three years old and ready to quit everything. I didn't know what I wanted, but I knew I wanted happiness. I didn't know what that meant, what I would need to do, or how to get there.

It only took one conversation , one statement to change every: "I don't know what I want, but I know I don't want this."

Two days later we came back together and knew what we wanted. We wanted a life together. A life of happiness, adventure, joy, travels, discoveries, failures, love, wonder, and anything else we could experience. But we knew we wanted to do it together. I knew I wanted to do it with him. From that moment on we have just soared. I literally feel like I have experienced so much life since July. As clique as it is, you only have one life to live. One grand adventure. You only get to do this once. You have to make the most of it. God gives you each breath without promise of another. What do you want to do with that? I want to live it!

In 2011 I got to travel every time we had the opportunity. Tasted amazing food at restaurants I had dreamed of eating at or ones we stumbled upon by accident. Watched beautiful films. Met my favorite band in person. Went to concerts. Married my best friend. Bought our first car. Moved into our first home. Cooked all time. Baked recipes of my own imagination. Read every book I could get my hands on. Cried and laughed and felt emotions with every part of my heart. Did I mention I married my best friend? Sorry, that part is just really awesome! I can't help but talk about it...a lot.

For 2012 I have such excitement. If the last five months have been so beautiful with life, I cannot begin to fathom what this new year will bring. There are a few things I have in mind for this year, in no particular order:

Travel as much as possible within and outside the state.

Open up my own Etsy store to sell my handmade crochet items.

Have a booth at the Morganton festival this summer.

Blog (almost) everyday and document my fashion through the year.

Meet Jen and Abby in Chicago.

Get a pet.

Make my youtube videos every week.

Learn to accept the past.

Enjoy the moment as it is happening.

Thrift (a lot).

Cook every chance I get and explore new recipes.

Bake, all the time.

The most important thing I want to accomplish this year is to have some sort of start to my bakery. If it be my business license, funds started, recipes written, or actually having the space picked out, I want to end this year with something started on it.

And all of it starts today, right now, this moment! With that being said I will now go start on an amazing pot of cilantro lime chili for me and my precious best friend (who also happens to be my husband) for dinner.

Don't Care

I recently came across a pair of white tights with little peach flowers on them. They reminded me of the ones my mother forced me to wear when I was a child. I wore them today with my sheer pale peach dress with the poofy sleeves. This dress is actually a vintage nightie I snagged at Goodwill. Throw a thin brown leather belt on it and *poof* it's a dress! Anyways, it was freezing today and it was the perfect semi-summer-only opportunity I will have to wear them before Autumn. I didn't have much to do today before work, but I couldn't bare to be alone. I overslept, drank a lot of coffee, forced a shower, overlooked the hair-falling-out situation, then told myself to dress up so I would feel better.

I drove down to my favorite thrift store where my favorite thrift store lady told me I hadn't been there in a month...A month? A MONTH!?!? Well...actually that sounds correct. Work, eat, sleep, repeat has been my life for the past month. I went in for some personal shopping time not really thinking about finding anything. I just wanted to lose myself in the discovery, in the racks, in the stories of the beautiful objects, in the conversations around me, in my comforting world of collected things. My favorite thrift store had doubled in volume of stuff in the last month. It was wonderful. There was a late 1960's wedding dress in the window. Before I had the chance to play dress up in it some old lady who runs a rental business snagged it up. I felt really angry about this. That dress would never belong to someone who it was meant for because she would now only rent it to some rich girl who has a taste for vintage clothing.

I went on to discover all clothes were 50% off (too much volume of stuff I suppose) and to my delight I found three dresses on the $1 rack. All different, all late 60's/early 70's, all mine. And then a vintage Samsonite blue stewardess bag, a red leather belt, a pair of 70's lace up boots, and an 80's poofy purple snow coat that perfectly matches my 80's snow pants. All for $9.70.

I left with my little treasures and headed to work to eat before I passed out. I sat down with my mini tuna sandwich when Josh began sweeping the lobby. I heard him laugh and connected it to the fact I was scarfing the sandwich down without breathing.

"I'm starving!" I said through bread, lettuce, and pickles.

"Yeah, I see that, but that's not what I'm laughing at."

"....what?"

"Your tights, you just don't care do you?"

"They have flowers on them!" I exclaimed in defense.

"Yeah...Only you can wear that kind of stuff and just wear it and not care. It's nice. You just don't care." then he walked off.

Josh is different. He is kind of slow, grew up in special classes, regarded as never going to make it high in life, but I love him. He doesn't always do well in social situation or in expressing himself, but when he said that to today I just felt so...me. He didn't me that I don't care in the sense of what people think or anything along those lines. He meant that I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid to be myself.

I express myself through clothing. I love that peach nightie dress because when I wear it I feel the exact way I felt when I would dress up in my grandmas' silking nighties and prance around her house all day long. I wear those tights with the little peach flowers on them because I can remember sitting in church on Sundays, after my mom had forced them on me, and counting the flowers until service was over. I wore those things to be comforted, because I just needed some sense of comfort today. And those kinds of emotions drive the way I dress.

It's how I express things that I don't...that I can't talk about in spoken words.

That is how I "don't care." That is how I am me.

Sunbeam Mixmaster Complete

It all started with a yellow Sunbeam Mixmaster model 1-7A circa 1981. It was $8, but without a bowl or beaters. I am relentless, though, so there began my journey to find all the pieces so that one day I would be whipping out cookie dough and cupcake batter as far as the eye could see!

What began as a simple ebay search turned into something much more. I thought it would be simple, seeing as how I found many bowls that matched. Little did I know what started out as a $5 bid would turn into me watching because fight to an ending bid of $45. For a bowl? Beaters, you ask? $0.99 ends in $36. You have got to be kidding me! I paid $8 for the whole machine! I began feeling really upset about this whole mixer business. I thought I was going to have to be close to a hundred into just to be able to use it. I might as well just put the machine in the kitchen as a piece of conversation and wait for someone to buy us a Kitchenaid Mixer at the wedding shower. Then again, I don't give up easily. No, I would find that bowl and beaters and I was most certainly not paying $45 for anything.

Three weeks ago I determined that I would comb every thrift store, yard sale, and flea market until I found them. Two Sundays ago I walked into Goodwill as soon as the door opened at 1pm to let Kasey try on a blazer I was going to buy him the week before. I searched every corner of the house ware section until I was going to give up for this trip and wait till next time when I looked up and in some random shelf was this:

I knew it was a Sunbeam bowl without even having to look at it twice. It was dirty and smudged with years of use...and...it...was...mine!!! I think I might have let out a little squeal as I took it down from the shelf and read the $2 price sticker. It was identical to the ones I had stalked on ebay and on old Sunbeam Mixmaster ads.

Fast forward to today where I stalked through two different libraries to acquire all of these:

What can I say? I'm having a John Green kind of week. And I have been meaning to read The Hunger Games for about two years. I'm really excited about jumping in now that Catching Fire and Mockingjay are already out.

Anyways, I didn't really go thrifting today for myself. Amber is directing her own show in a few weeks of Alice in Wonderland and we were in pursuit to fill a huge box full of plates, teacups, and random things for the show.

By chance I thought I would go through the silverware and look at all the beaters, yet again for the billionth time these last couple weeks. I honestly did not expect to find anything. But then...I did. Again they were the same style I had been seeing on ebay. The beaters have been hard to identify as the right ones because they are not made with any model numbers. It's basically and hit or miss game. I was hoping for a hit. I danced to the checkout counter to hand her all $2 of the purchase price.

"I really hope these fit my mixer I bought here the other week!"

She smiled and put them in a bag, "Well you just take these home and see if they fit and just bring them back or pay me later this week. I know you will; you're in here every other day."

I went home in a daze, dug the mixer out of the numerous rubber storage bins now living in the spare room that are full of stuff I have gotten the last couple months for the future home, and said a prayer as I paused to stick them in the slots. I then they clicked. It was the best sound in the world. It felt like when you zip up they dress you have been longing to buy and it just fits.

I ran with it to the kitchen, plugged it in, and jumped in place for a good five minutes as I watched it spin and listened to the motor sing sweet mixing sounds.

Even though these are actually the dough hooks, but I still plan on using them to make some serious cookies this week. I know without a doubt in my mind I will find the regular set of beaters soon. I am so thankful that I keep getting blessed with all these amazing finds. It feel so good to find something then actually be able to search and discover all these pieces they go with it too. I feel accomplished!

So it's complete, mostly. It's really nice to think of the family that owned the mixer and all the wonderful things they created with it over the years. And also the other family who owned the bowl and the other other family that owned the dough hooks. So many pieces from so many different places that have been put together to now be a part of mine and Kasey's home.

Thrifting = happiness.