blogger friends & nova trips

Yesterday I made a trip up to NOVA and visited my friend, Jess! We had a whole girls' day out planned and it was just the thing I needed after the week I'd been having. First, we started off with lunch at Cava Grill, which was delicious. I had a rice bowl with falafel, traditional hummus, harissa hummus (which was super spicy, but good!), and the dill yogurt dressing (the dressing wasn't vegan, oops). I'm so glad Jess had this on the list for the day. When I got home I wanted more falafel. I'm going to be raving about this place until I go at least fifteen more times.



Next we headed off to Tysons Corner. I'd never been before and I was super excited. GUYS, we don't have these kinds of stores down where I'm from. The first place we stopped was Lush, as I'd never been there either (I know, ugh). I had no idea they had so many products! I could easily have come out of there with a ton of stuff, but I managed to limit myself to a few items.



As we were heading to Lululemon, we spotted macarons! I got honey lavender and Jess got raspberry. They were so good!



Then there was Lolli & Pops! I love checking out candy stores wherever I go to see what others have to offer. This one didn't disappoint! We took a little tour and I only got one picture there - our feet. Haha! They had a massive selection of candies in bulk bins - we definitely tried some samples.



Afterward we stopped off and did some thrifting! I found some pretty great stuff (and some of it will be up in the shop once I have it photographed). It was pretty awesome having a thrifting buddy - I had someone to laugh about hideous items with! Jess took me by the used bookstore, too, and I found a couple Stephen King's I haven't read, yet. And everyone knows how much I love secondhand bookstores...

Then after a Wegman's stop for vegan Ben & Jerry's, we hung out for a bit so I'd avoid traffic. I had a fab day and can't wait til we make a trip to Richmond! It was pretty awesome to have someone to talk to that knew about blog terms and websites. And we even managed to take a selfie...the only one all day, but hey, time flies!



Have you had any interesting trips lately? Let me know in the comments!

thoughts

A lot's been going on and sometimes my brain can't keep up. I've gone through a split up several weeks ago, moved on, and I've started some great things since. Big shout out to my girl Jess for being such an awesome friend through all that!

I haven't had much motivation to write much of anything, and when I did I was snowed in away from my laptop. The area had a nice little blizzard come through last week and buried us in almost three feet of snow.

However, I've had some thoughts going on that didn't completely warrant an entire post for each, so I figured I'd get them out here.

• I've been listening to the British Invasion station on Pandora almost non-stop lately. It's such a great mix of upbeat and sorrowful songs. I've really fallen in love (again) with The Hollies and The Zombies. I guess the 60s are my music era? Haha.
• Being appreciated is a wonderful thing - and it's even better when you realize that's what you've been missing.
• Netflix has removed Doctor Who, and I'm so upset. I kept Doctor Who on loop all the time. I'd listen to it as background noise when I was getting ready, blogging, and more. Ugh. BBC, are the rumors true? Are you creating a streaming site? Yes, please.
• I've found that cooking dinner causes me a great amount of stress. Food in general causes me a great amount of stress, simply because I've grown so picky about what I eat. How does one stop being a picky eater? Help meeeee

I think I just need more yoga in my life. Warrior pose for daaaaays.

life lately - holidays and movies

Happy holidays! I was super busy over Christmas, so I didn't have much time to blog. I hope everyone had a great holiday. I had a wonderful day! Lots of family, gift giving and receiving, and food.

We went to our first Christmas Day movie the evening of the 25th. We saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens! I'm going to be honest, I was just going to wait until the end of it's theatre showing to see it. I assumed it was going to be packed, but we lucked out with an 9:20pm showing and the theatre had plenty of room.

And no spoilers here! It was a great movie. If you're even remotely a Star Wars fan, go see it.

I'm not one of those people who takes numerous dramatic pictures of what they got for Christmas, but look at this sweatshirt my dad got me!!!!

I love it! You can pick one up at Animal Hearted. (Sign up for their email list and get free shipping!)

The holiday isn't quite over yet for me, as on the 31st I'm heading out to Tennessee with my brother to have our Christmas with Mumma. So excited!

Any exciting end-of-season plans?

a day downtown

(boots, jeans)

I guess technically I spend every day downtown as I work there, but today was my day off so I got to peruse some of the shops. I don't normally get to do that since the shop's hours normally coincide with almost every else's, so it was a nice little treat!

Initially, I was heading down to drop off some clothing at the Re Run Shoppe, and afterwards I decided to get a little Christmas shopping in. So I visited Ladyburg (which just recently moved across the street!) and Irish Eyes, along with a couple antique shops, and my favorite, Riverby Books.

There's three floors of used books. My favorite.

I picked up a couple books there that caught my eye; The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women by Harriet Rubin, and The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett.

This photo also includes My Dog Skip by Willie Morris that I picked up at Manarc (along with a lovely teapot for my grandmother for Christmas). I haven't seen the movie, either. Yeah, I'm way behind. And definitely go check out Manarc if you're a local - proceeds go to local veterans!

I stopped by Whittingham to look at their window (again) because it's so well done. The mice are so cute. They're worshiping the cheese!

And how great is this unicorn mount?!?! It's just subtle enough for a gallery wall, I think.

I ended the day by picking up some Earth Balance mac and cheese at Kickshaw's since I can't seem to find it anywhere (and didn't know they carried it!), and then I headed back home before my math final (which I passed!). I'm glad I had some time to get out downtown, but now I'm ready for bed. How do you spend your day off?