A really cool old house

My friend Brittany hadn't ever been to an estate sale so when I saw one that looked coming up in Franklin where she lives, I made sure to invite her to come with me! It was built in 1900 and was a really cool house to get to look inside. It reminded of when we lived in an antebellum manor house in Columbia. But that is a story for another day. 

I was in LOVE with this wallpaper. I frequent the sales by this company and love talking to the mother/daughter duo that run them. They said there were rolls of wallpaper from the house in the workshop that they were selling for a buck a roll!

A little close up. Gorgeous!

Sadly only un-cute striped paper was left. There was some great fabric for sale though. I thought about getting a few rolls of the velvety fabric. They had green and mustard yellow, but I resisted. I got enough to reupholster some chair seats in the future though.

I love old houses like this.
It didn't seem like anyone had lived there in a long time.

If we ever move, I'm going to have to put up wallpaper. I'm obsessed with it. Luckily our current house came with wallpaper that I loved.

Outside was designated as the "project" area. I hope someone bought this great old couch to revive.
After the sale we stopped by a place that was new to me, Honey's Vintage Sweets in Franklin.
It was really cute! And they had so much fun candy! I couldn't resist a box of candy cigarettes.

They had lots of bulk candy that I haven't seen before (I used to work at a candy store). I took home some gummy brains for Travis and got myself some of their homemade ice cream! We'll be back!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today I am 27 years old! Sadly, I have to leave for Atlanta for a work conference today, so Travis and I mostly celebrated yesterday. I wanted to go camping, but of course the last few days have been really cold and rainy. So here is what we did:

Travis got me my favorite cake! A mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins! They always make me nostalgic because my mom would get them for me for my birthday. My favorite part is the frozen icing blobs. Yum!

We stopped by the outlet of course, and I found two little treasures: this deer tray, and a knitted hippo!
Seriously, how cute is she?

We've been hanging onto some free passes for the Franklin Theatre (we won them in their tacky Christmas sweater competition) and when I saw that one of my favorite childhood movies was playing today, we had to go! 

Can you tell what it is? Sadly it wasn't nearly as good as I remembered. But it was fun to see again.
We walked around downtown Franklin a little bit, though most of the shops were closed on Sunday.
We walked down one of the residential streets and I saw these cute pastel houses!

We went to one of my favorite antique malls to kill some time before we met my parents for dinner. I love this booth, even though everything is really expensive.

Ugh, every time I see this jackalope I want it so bad! Then I think "Could I really have taxidermy in my house?" I just can't decide! I love him!

I'm looking for a light fixture for our dining room. I keep finding stuff that I love on its own, but I can't ever decide if it will look good in the actual space. This one is so cute!

Here is a self portrait. Me at 27. Hanging out at the antique mall as usual.

We went to dinner at the Mellow Mushroom with my parents and I had a really delicious calzone. We talked about going to see Titanic 3D after (since it was my birthday date and I could force Travis to do anything) but it wasn't playing for two hours, so we just came home.

We ate a lot of cake and watched Nausica, one of the only Miyazaki films I hadn't seen. It was good!
Priscilla is having a pretty good day too. She is wrapped in a blanket sleeping between us. So I had a pretty nice special day. And I don't have to go to work again until Saturday! I mean, I'll be working, but being out of town will be a fun change of pace. 

Hometown Date

Here is the rest of our date day, after we left the estate sale we went for brunch at Puckett's in downtown Franklin. It is a meat and three, it is pretty good, if a little expensive.

Travis got the buffet. They had apple spice french toast that was AMAZING.

I didn't want to overeat so I ordered eggs and hash browns. I barely ate any of the hash browns, i was so full! They are really good though, I love the scallions on them. I got my eggs over medium as usual and they were great.

Then we went to a Goodwill we rarely go to. I found a dutch hex sign, and two books. There wasn't really anything else that even tempted me. What a bummer.

We saw this cute little dude outside though. He looks like an ewok! His face reminded me of Phyllis.

Then Travis forced me to go to the library to get an audiobook for our road trip the next day. I HATE going to the downtown library. There are men looking at bikini pictures on pretty much ALL of the computers and it creeps me out. Also, I don't like going without a plan for what I want to look for. I hate just standing there staring at the shelves. I'm such a nerd, you would think I loved the library, haha. Usually I send Travis with a list. He loves it and goes all the time.

Look at these dorks in their matching shoes.
Then we went and saw this movie!!

I loved it! The book is really good, so if you are interested in reading it, I would wait to see the movie, because the pacing of the book is just fantastic. Everything unfolds just perfectly. It is one of the best books I've read in the last few years. But I think they did a really good job with the movie. The kid actor is wonderful. I bet I cried 6 times. I even though Sandra Bullock was really good, and I'm usually not a fan of her.

After the movie we picked up burritos, then went home and hung out with the dogs on the couch. We're dog sitting the dachshund Chloe again this week so there were actually three dogs laying on me. Heavenly. It was a pretty perfect day off. 

Our Holiday

Travis and I were both off of work for Thanksgiving AND the day after! I couldn't believe it! It was so nice. We rarely have days off together, unless we request off for something. We had a very nice Thanksgiving day and ate SO MUCH food and say both our families. Then today we headed to historic downtown Franklin to see Travis' favorite movie on the big screen.


Christmas Vacation. He says that he has literally seen it at least 50 times.

They had a tacky sweater contest before the movie and we won! Too bad I never took a good picture of our sweaters! And you can't really tell that Travis' spectacular blue dickie shows through his white sweater pretty distinctly. We won two movie passes. I want to use the to see Meet Me In St. Louis, A Christmas Story, or A Wonderful Life.


After lunch we did a little window shopping.

There are some great little shops in the area. My favorites are Avec Moi and Yarrow Acres.

We did a little antiquing of course. All the booths finally have their Christmas out! I might go back for one of these choice boys. I really like them. So that means they will probably be gone. I went back for those dream pets and that cute tv tray that i posted about and there were ALL gone! I was so bummed.


funny toilet seat cover! and like that big santa actually. i don't know where I would put it though.

i got this little spun cotton santa. he is on the end of a really long pencil.

i love that travis loves looking for vintage with me. even if he makes that face when i'm trying to take a sweet picture. haah.
we went to the goodwill outlet too and picked up some more Christmas bits and bobs and I got a really cute Chinese dragon marionette! I'll take pictures of him tomorrow when I have some light. A lady was actually jealous that I found it and kept staring at it and telling me i was soooooo lucky.
I started decorating for Christmas tonight. I can't stop staring at that aluminum tree! It is so beautiful! I've been threatening the cats with the spray bottle whenever they get near it. I can just see one of them knocking it down.

Boiler Room Date

A little while ago Travis and I went on a double date with our good friends. We started off as we often do by browsing at one of our favorite antique malls:

 This mall is in Franklin TN. there are some really good vintage dealers. and some really terrible ones.  there is one case completely full of cat and dog stuff!  we didn't get anything, just browsed. i've gotten a lot pickier, thankfully. since my house is pretty much already full.  we went to dinner in historic downtown franklin. it is so cute in the fall. and all other times really.  we went to McCreary's Irish Pub as usual. i love it so much i never want to try one of the other restaurants.  i started bringing a little notebook around with me to jot down blog/fun ideas. it has been really awesome so far. and check out the cute sticker i won in a giveaway over at angel's art blog! i have been having really good giveaway luck lately! speakin of that... i convinced my friend crystal to give away something for the paper sparrow tim burton blog party. then hilariously i won the giveaway! she brought the wallet i won from her shop that night and included a note that said something like "i can't believe you tricked me into making you a free wallet.' hahaha.  after dinner we headed over to the boiler room to see a play! it is a theater that is in the actual boiler room of an old stove factory that has been converted into shops and living/event space.  we saw The Rocky Horror Show! it was really good. it was a little different from the movie and the theater was tiny and we laughed pretty much the whole time. it was great. i want to try and see more plays there. on tuesday nights it is buy one get one free tickets so it is really affordable. it was a perfect date.