[Around the house.]

Happy Friday, you guys! I only have a few links for you as this has been a busy week at work and I've managed to stay off the computer and go to bed super early for most of it. Here are five or six things that I've enjoyed this week:

I seriously almost bought this print for my son's bedroom before I was like, "Oh wait, I don't have a son."

I loved Dani's post about Method's Pink Your Sink campaign. I'm also the daughter of a breast cancer survivor, so these efforts to find a cure are especially close to my heart.

I haven't read Fifty Shades of Grey, but I've done a bit of work with that damn Twilight "Saga," and I found this article to be really super interesting. My opinion is that an abusive relationship between two characters is going to look like an abusive relationship between two characters, no matter what kind setting and plot you drop it into.

New blog friends for you: Christine and Tif!

I'm a bit late to the game, but I've been listening to the new Mumford & Sons album and I can't get enough of it. Talk about passion eyes. The whole album plays over and over in my head and I don't mind at all.

--

Rob and I are meeting in Farmville tonight, and we're staying at Longwood with my brother, then going to Hampden-Sydney's Homecoming football game on Saturday. After tailgating and stopping by all of our old stomping grounds, we'll be heading to Charlottesville for the rest of the weekend to spend the night with my dear friend Patrick (but apparently not his fiance Chad, because Chad is now in Roanoke for a month doing med school things. I hate having all my friends scattered around!). Two of my best girlfriends, Shawna and Emma, are also currently in Charlottesville, so I'll hopefully be exchanging a few hugs and a meal or two with them. I can't wait! Homecoming weekend is always the best.

My mom and I aren't very good at keeping plants alive.

For what feels like three or four years, my mom has been given orchids by every single one of her friends who ever come over to the house. And every single orchid plant does the same thing--it sits there, looking beautiful, until it dies.

She follows the directions and waters it when it needs to be watered, but the thing turns brown and the flowers just fall off. Finally, she put three of them on a bench that sort of acts as a windowsill in our living room.

There, they grew.

Sometime in June, my dear friend Amanda came over for dinner, bearing the gift of a gorgeous pink rose plant in a little black plastic pot. They bloomed for a few weeks and we kept them on the kitchen counter, where the orchids used to be. We watered it when it got dry, until the flowers eventually all fell off and the thin green branches withered into rigid brown sticks.

"I guess we can throw it out," I told my mom, kind of upset and sad that I had let such a precious little thing wither away when the truth was that I really wanted it to bloom forever outside my bedroom door. I have dreams of always having fresh flowers--straight from my backyard--in little vases all over my bedroom. "Maybe I can re-pot it and it will come back."

I found an old pot in the garage and filled it with new soil, planting my dead rosebush in it and whispering affirmations into the branches. The pot was beautiful, with colorful tiles all over the outside of it. I watered it and placed it in the sunlight on our back porch. Nothing.

Our magical bench had since gained an indoor tree, and I decided I quite liked the way it looked with all these plants on it--a sort of weird greenhouse where abandoned plants go to start over. So the rose bush found a new home.

It soon turned green again. And look--new buds.

  

There's always hope, isn't there?

  

When Christine first sent me one of her blog-renowned Lady Ties, I must admit that I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. It was just so cute and so unusual that I unwrapped it from her beautiful packaging and set it on the counter of my vanity, then pretty much just looked at it for a month or two. I kept coming across photos of bloggers I admire wearing their Lady Ties (like Keiko Lynn and Katie of Skunkboy) and I thought, am I cool enough for this?

But then it started getting cooler, and I bought this perfect skirt, and yesterday I woke up to some leaves changing to a golden color and I got inspired, and it all just kind of came together. I am so glad I have one of these pieces of hers in my wardrobe. They feel so quirky and retro and special--and who doesn't need some of that in their life?

Lady Tie (this one): c/o Flapper Girl

Shirt and Skirt: J.Crew

Bag: Coach

Watch: Fossil

Shoes: GAP

Grab 10% off your purchase at Flapper Girl for the rest of October with the code FALL2012.