$126.74

If I had $126.74 to spend, I could:

-buy a fabulous pair of shoes

-get a killer haircut

-have my car detailed

-eat 4 times at Poe's

Or I could fix this:

That's right....I've literally cooked so much that I broke my oven. The bottom heating element of my lower oven broke last week. And the total was $126.74. $69.99 of that was just the trip charge. I asked if I picked the repairmen up from their office (which is only 4 miles away) if I could have the trip charge waived. The receptionist didn't think it was that funny.

Ta Da! I give you my very dirty buy fully operational oven:

And does this broken appliance thing sound familiar? Well it should. Three years ago our brand new refrigerator broke while Josh was out in Colorado for Young Life. I was visiting him and came home to the most horrible smell (think formerly frozen chicken now warmed in an 80 degree kitchen...for two weeks.) Turns out our fridge broke right as I was getting on the plane. Then, last summer, our fridge broke again. Same scenario. Hmmm, its like our appliances can tell when Josh is going to be gone for several weeks. They all go on strike and I'm left to sort through labor negotiations and contracts.

And did I mention that our AC broke two weeks ago? And that our dryer broke 6 months ago? And that I bought all of these appliances NEW when we built our house 5 years ago?! Man, they really just do not make good appliances anymore. Or we've just washed too many overalls, yodeler costumes and robert goulet pants.

can you smell it yet?!?!

So much to blog about from this past weekend! I worked a wedding with my friend Chelsea. We coordinated and directed until our feet hurt and our brains were mush....but there's no one I'd rather work with. Chelsea's extremely polite, well organized, assertive and almost as crazy as me. Its official, we're going into the wedding coordinating biz.

The bride and groom are honeymooning, families are heading to the airport, the tent clean-up crew arrived....and I'm taking these beauties to donate to hospice:

ahhhhh, if only I could keep these at my house!!

LOVE

got these is the mail....and i'm in LOVE!

i LOVE etsy. you can find just about everything on there....and its always more creative, cool and original than anything i could ever do! i mean seriously, how awesome are these??

contact robin on facebook or her etsy site to get something for yourself, yo mama or yo friends. or me! after buying these for my friends i had to order a custom piece for myself. can't wait to show it to y'all!

porch sitting weather

I think we had some seriously good porch-sitting weather this past weekend.

And nothing feels better than sitting on your back porch eating yummy pico and guacamole. I love it!

**Edit**

Ok, there may be something better than pico and guac on your deck.....and that would be a hot cup of coffee and sour cream breakfast muffins (courtesy of magnolia bakery cookbook)

recipe:

Bun:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
1.5 sticks unsalted butter (softened)
1.5 cups sugar
3 large eggs (room temp)
1.5 teaspoons vanilla
1.5 cups sour cream

Topping:
1.3 cups brown sugar (lightly packed)
2 cups chopped pecans
2 teaspoons cinnamon

directions:
1) grease large muffin tin and preheat oven to 350 degrees
2) mix flour, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl. set aside.
3) cream butter and sugar til light and fluffy.
4) add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each.
5) add vanilla.
6) add dry ingredients and mix until just combined
7) still in sourcream
7) fill muffin cups about half way
9) to make topping: mix all topping ingredients together. bam, you're done.
10) top muffin dough generously in muffin tin
11) bake 20-25 minutes.

word to your mom

yesterday was mother's day. in our family we take that to mean several things: brunch, corsages and hats*.

taylor and i met at my mom's house and took her out for the southern-est of brunches at high cotton in greenville, sc. after eating our fill of cornbread, eggs benedict and french toast we wandered the West End and had our own little art crawl.

*the hats didn't make it in the photo montage. sorry!
**please note that taylor had her passport with her (never found out why). the photo is from what i have affectionately termed "her emo years"

brybry graduates

brybry is graduating in a few days. sniff sniff. the only silver lining that i'm finding is that she'll be living just a few minutes down the road in spartanburg, sc. we found a fun spot just outside of boiling springs to take a few fun pictures for her graduation announcements. i love her fun spin on the traditional announcements.

PS: she's single.