The World's Longest Yard Sale!

It's that time of year again! Time for the world's longest yard sale! This is our third year attending the 127 sale. You can check out previous years if you click the "world's longest yard sale" tag. This year we just went for one day since we had just gotten back from vacation. It was still awesome!

Like last year we just stopped in spots that had tons of vendors. That way we only had to find parking about 5 times.

 I have never seen this cute old Pluto toy, then we saw it three times this one day! It is from the 1930's and from Fisher Price. You pretty much have to be holding it to make it stand up though.

 I always love tombstone salt and pepper shakers.

 Hmmmmm....

 I really love crochet watermelon pot holders. I have a few hanging in our kitchen. I kind of wish I had bought this bundle. There is just something about them!

Along the route there are all kinds of food stands. I really wanted a spiral potato like we got last year, but we never saw a stand for one. I DID get some shaved ice! Yum! I got "tiger blood" flavor. It was good! And turned my mouth totally red. A good look I assure you.

 I almost bought this dog food. I did buy the little pile of Christmas in the above photo, don't worry. 

 I would have loved to bring this pennant home, but they wanted 30 dollars. 

 I've found myself really drawn to vintage souvenirs lately. Well, more so than I always have been. I was tempted by those little orange guys! I DID get that Reptile Land plate in the back.

 This year we decided to drive down to Chattanooga to start the route. Partly because we could head north from there and end up close to home. Partly so we could have lunch at Sluggo's in Chattanooga. Home of the Culture Club, our favorite vegan sandwich.

 I was tempted by this little kitchen, and by this "bear."

 Travis making a beeline to "military antiques". The guy selling them was asking crazy prices though!

 This little skate jacket was killing me! Robert went to the American Amateur Artistic Skating Championships!

 I kind of wish I had offered the seller 5 bucks and put the patches on one of my coats!

 Oh ET! I wanted to get this guy. But then I picked him up and he was SOAKING wet! Like someone had used him as a sponge! So I left him behind.

You know I took a ton of photos. So I'll show you some more tomorrow!

Recently

Here is what we've been up to while I've been busy posting thousands of vacation photos. Summer is drawing to a close and I'm trying to get as much as I can out of the last bits of nice weather. I'm really hoping I'll be able to go swimming at least a few more times.

 Last weekend Travis and I went to the Nashville Shakespeare Festival's summer event, Shakespeare in the park for the first time! They are doing As You Like It this year, set in the 1930's in the Dust Bowl. It was so good! They are doing it every Thurs-Saturday night until September 14th, if you are in Nashville you should check it out! 

Also, Travis and I have started jogging together. It was pretty fun the first few times so we'll see how it goes. On the way home we sometimes come in through the back gate of our yard and our house looks so different from that perspective.

There are finally movies coming out that we want to see! There was a dry spell in July. We've seen Guardians of the Galaxy TWICE (and I'd see it again!) and I went to see Boyhood and loved it!

 One of my favorite queens of all time, Raja, came to our local drag club! She is so beautiful, and NICE! One of the other queens, Suzy Wong took photos for the meet and greet and she tooks tons from all angles and even some where we are talking and look like best friends. Thanks Suzy! I'm hoping we'll be able to see Latrice Royale this weekend! And speaking of drag, I just found out RuPaul has a podcast (called "What The T?") and I love it! I've already listened to all the back episodes and I'm ready for more!

 If you follow me on instagram you know we had a scare with Priscilla when we got back from vacation. I didn't want to post about it here until we knew more and I'm glad I did that! We took her to the vet because when we got home from our vacation she was acting very strangely. She was hiding from us, wouldn't relax, would just sit under things shaking and crying. It was very sad and scary. The day I took her to the vet I got home from work and she had blood and puss allllll down her face, but was acting like herself. When she got examined the vet wasn't sure what was going on, but there was a huge lump in her head, down her throat and we were to come back in a week to talk about MRIs and tumor treatment and biopsies. I was devastated. Our vet is wonderful and cried with me and sat with me for an hour going over options. We started her on some anti cancer medication and pain killers then waited a week. And then, the lump was GONE. Totally gone. Our vet is baffled and says she's never seen anything like it. I'm so relieved. You know when you adopt older dogs your time might be short with them, but I'm not ready to make those kinds of decisions yet. So hooray for Priscilla!

Travis is a great cook and recently he made pineapple upside down cake. Twice! It was GOOD! And that is a gratuitous photo of little bitty Phyllis.

Little girls cuddling with me on my day off. My friend Kori came to visit with her three kids and Felix was climbing ALL over Travis. It was cracking me up.

Travis is still loving his scooter! I rode it for the first time. Just a short, slow spin around the parking lot because we don't have two helmets. It was fun though! Travis' friend Jeremy took that picture on the right. Isn't it cute? We both just sent in requests for custom license plates, he is hoping to get one for his scooter that says "STR LRD" or Star Lord! I really hope it isn't taken! I sent in three options for mine so we'll see what happens. I LOVE custom plates so decided it was time for me to have one. I'll keep you posted for sure.

We've got lots to look forward to this fall! A few weddings, scooter rallies, a visit to Travis' Grandma, and our road trip up north! Things have been going great for me lately, hopefully the rest of the year goes just as well (here I am jinxing myself of course!)

Host!

When Travis and I first got married we hosted tons of parties! I always went all out, usually with a dress up theme, and it was so fun! But I eventually got burned out and stopped hosting and hadn't thought about it in a while. Then I was talking to my good friend Marrion about what she wanted to do for her birthday and she said, "All I really want to do is karaoke." So I offered to host a little birthday party for her (since I have kind of an insane karaoke set up for personal use). 

After so many years over achieving in the party department I've learned some things. Like it's ok to buy a cake instead of making it from scratch. I got this vegan cake from Whole Foods with Marrion's personal catchphrase on it. It was delicious! And cute!

 We had a cookout in the backyard. So trays are very important. 

 Helpers.

I also used to buy matching utensils and napkins and things for each party. So this time I just got mismatched stuff out of my stash! I forgot I had this cute rainbow utensil holder!

Travis prepping the corn. He smothered it in Earth Balance, cilantro and a 10 spice blend I made. Then he baked it in the oven. It was amazing!!

 Look at this cute bottle opener!

Travis and I have talked about buying on of those little portable fire pit things, but when we needed something quick Travis looked on Pinterest and saw this idea. It's just a galvanized bucket on some bricks! I was skeptical but it totally worked! That's the birthday girl in the polka dot dress.

Somehow I never got a big group pic, there were about 14 people there! Which is a lot in my teeny tiny house. This is making me want to use that fire pit again!

 Party puppies under our picnic table.

We ended the night with an epic karaoke session. I got two Queen karaoke cds and they have taken things to a higher level! I'm so glad we had this little shindig, it's making me want to plan something else soon! Maybe that Nashville blogger meet up I've been talking about hosting for over a year!

Souvenirs From the Road

Someone I follow on instagram (I can't remember who now) once posted a shot of the souvenirs she brought home from a road trip and I loved how it looked! So here is what I brought home from our 10 day trip! While we were there I remember thinking I hadn't bought much, but pulling it out from our suitcases......

 Close up on my wand and some CUTE spun head ornaments I picked up in Orlando!

 A paint by number, weather house, some Dream Pets, a cute plastic deer...

 The most perfect brooch!

 Travis got a Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry mug. I brought those pumpkin juice bottles home to add to my Harry Potter shelf. The pot is a gift for my mom. You know I couldn't leave those shell people behind!

The woman selling these dream pets wanted 3 dollars each, which is great. Then I noticed and said outloud "It looks like this used to be a tiger and someone pulled the stripes off!" So she gave it to me as "a gift". Haha! Don't you love that dog's whiskers??

And my trinket box from Boom Art! It's hard to tell in this photo but there are a lot of sweet little glitter accents on the photo. I love it.

 And it's lined with space fabric!

All right, I think I'm officially done posting about our road trip to Florida! It was one of our best ever!

The Road Home

Can you believe it? I've finally reached the end of our vacation. I'm so glad we were able to take 10 whole days. It was so relaxing and I was able to completely chill out and didn't worry about work at all (I'm someone who brings my work home, not matter how unimportant!) We got up early Sunday morning. We decided to do the 10 hour trip in one day so we could have that extra day at Universal.

Here with are with my Grandma and Grandpa! Check out my sweet new shoes. I had to buy a pair because my other shoes got totally soaked on that dumb Popeye ride and stunk too bad to wear!

I posted more about it last time we were down there, but my Grandma has the most amazing house! LOOK at this kitchen! The yellow cabinets and flower paper kill me every time! There is yellow linoleum too!

 It's so good! I wish I could transplant it into my house. 

  We were on the lookout for a cheesy cheap souvenir place. Crystal wanted a cute shirt and I'm always in the market for shell art. We stopped here after seeing all their signs about t shirts and baby gators. 

 Look at that big taxidermy gator! They had baby caimans in a tank. Pretty cute.

 Crystal bought one of those weird shark fetuses.

 Florida classic: Jesus on the half shell.

 This one was just too good. I had to bring it home.

 We stopped for lunch in Gainesville at a place called Boca Fiesta. It was amazing! Maybe my favorite meal on the whole trip.

It was such a cute place. We loved the dinosaur/bones/saints theme.

 The chips and salsa were really amazing!

 Mmmmmmmm I had TVP tacos with rice and beans and watermelon. Best vegan tacos I've had! And I why isn't watermelon a side option more often? Crystal and Marc shared some kind of goat thing. It was kind of a weird place. Vegan options along side exotic meat offerings. They had some movie nights coming up, and a trivia night. Too bad it's not in Nashville.

 Nothing much happened for the rest of the trip. Lots of driving. We stopped in Atlanta to go to Junkman's Daughter and ate at the same pizza place we ate on the way down. I had to show you that pizza because who the heck knew that roasted potatoes would be so good on pizza!

We got home around 10 pm, picked up the pugs, and the fell into bed. What a great trip.