fixation friday: lemons

Wow... what. a. day! I've been so busy at work and I nearly forgot about Fixation Friday. Without further delay, here's this Friday's Fixation...

LEMONS!

I love lemons.

I love the way they look.

via etsy • dearcolleen

Note: I'd really love something like this that read... 

"When life gives you lemons, just say F*CK the lemons and bail!"

via google

I even love THIS Lemon...

As in, SERIOUSLY, love this Lemon. 

She's one of my fave women, ever!

via google • Tina Fey as Liz Lemon • 30 Rock

I love the way they smell. And how much flavor they add to my favorite dishes.

Like SEAFOOD!!!! *DROOL*

via google • Lemon, Shrimp, Garlic - YES PLEASE!!!!

We already know I love lemon with my sweet tea, and my sweet tea vodka. We established this last friday, but I also love THIS...

via google • aka COME TO MOMMA!

Lemons are delicious, delightful and inspiring - at least to me. (Note: I love all citrus fruit equally, and feel the same way but lemons truly win every time for style). I mean how many of you love yellow as an accent color in a room? Hands down it's one of my favorites! Next to turquoise of course. I want to start using more lemon yellow in my home, very badly. 

How can you not love this....

via google • Lamp Love

OR THIS

via google • I LOVE THE FLOOR TILE!

And lastly... this kitchen that makes my heart sing.

All it's missing is a farm house sink, IMO

via google

Plain and simple...

via google

I hope all of you have wonderful weekends planned. M and I are taking it easy and trying to save some money. I hope the weather will smile on us tomorrow. We'd love to take our dog June to the creek to play, and possibly window shop for plants for our garden around town. M and I had discussed a ride out to the country but I think we'd rather wait for warmer weather for that. We'll probably get into some "mild trouble" with our friends Saturday night and ride out the rain all day Sunday on the couch. Afterthought: I just realized that this weekend is Wrestlemania, which means I will have a home full of dudes watching this monstrosity masterpiece. OK I can't lie. I do watch it with M from time to time but usually we have a lot more people coming over for this event. We make a party out of it but this year I think it's going to be mostly guys that M went to high school with and always discussed wrestling with. Fun for him, not so much for me. Maybe I'll make it a movie night.  Although the one movie I really want to see this weekend he wants to see as well sooooo I will have to wait for Hot Tub Time Machine until he's able to go. BOOO!

Have a great weekend!!! 

fixation friday: sweet tea vodka

I had a really hard time trying to decide what I wanted to write about for Fixation Friday this week. Truth be told I laid awake in bed until 12 midnight last night with different ideas swirling around. I will also say the reason I was up so late was because I was full of excitement for my buddy Surferwife and her Chelsea encounter of the BEST kind. It's always fun to see someone you know on tv (even if I only know her via the internet). I also get to watch a certain someone that I went to school with from K-12th grade each week on the tv show Southland. Maybe you've heard of him? Shawn Hatosy. That is another story for another time though... right now it's Fixation Friday.

After tossing and turning I narrowed my post down to a few different things. I figured I ran my trap enough about turquoise in my last post and that I should move on from that (did you notice the color update? the turquoise definitely got the most votes). After I nixed that idea my mind turned to the warmer weather and thoughts of BBQ's and then to the fact that in the morning it would be FRIDAY and I still hadn't thought of which drink I wanted to consume this weekend at a friend's party. For months now I've been harboring a mini bar in my freezer (where we keep all our liquor). I have lots of left overs, or 2 or 3 shots worth of different liquor up there. I've been nursing a bottle of Captain Morgan 100 Proof since Christmas. Not for lack of liking it or being able to handled it but because honestly, I don't know the next time I'll ever buy that for myself. M's been fixated on mixing his drinks with water lately. He figures it's better for his waistline, however not so much for my snore drama on the nights when he passes out before me on the weekends. He loves mixing whiskey and water, a trick he may have learned from my father when he purchased M a large bottle of George Dickle Whiskey. It's very smooth, and goes down well with just a hint of water. This is what he tells me - I only do shots of whiskey and they usually burn going down for me. I'm not a seasoned professional in the ways of whiskey though. M used to drink his whiskey on the rocks, straight, no added filler when I met him. On a wild night he will still do this. I myself can't bare to drink any liquor with just straight water, it has to be shot, or mixed with something for me to drink it. Maybe some club soda, or tonic water with a twist of lemon or lime but not straight tap water... until recently. This leads me to my Fixation Friday - are you still with me?

Last year while at a friends bar I was introduce to the sweetest nectar the liquor gods had ever bestowed on the human race. R, one of the owners of our favorite local bar was chatting with us outside before went in. He told me I had to tell the bartender to make me a Firefly. I had no idea what it was but he told me to trust him. R knows his business so I did. I ordered the Firefly and I have never been happier trying a new cocktail.

Three words, Sweet Tea Vodka. ZOMG this stuff is amazing. I'm pretty sure I've blogged about it before but my spring fever is acting up and I just had to talk about it again. And I will probably discuss it about 20 more times before the summer is over, so there.

Imagine the best glass of sweet tea you've ever tasted. Now imagine that tea infused with vodka. Still with me? Good! Do you like lemon in your tea? I do, I think it's a Yankee thing, but seeing as I was born and raised in Maryland - you know, Yankee parts. Well at least according to most Southerner's I've met, I'm a Yankee. Seriously, I won't go into the whole below the Mason Dixon line thing, they just stare at me like I'm from another planet when I do, so I won't bore you. Anyunion, do you like lemon in your tea? Do you enjoy a Tom Collins Arnold Palmer from time to time? You know, Lemonade mixed with sweet tea. It's only like my favorite non-alcoholic drink ever. And it goes great with grilled foods and BBQ! Well let me introduce you to what I like to call a Tipsy Tom Collins.

TIPSY TOM COLLINS ARNOLD PALMER

(Thank you EL for the correction - I knew that didn't sound right !!!

Hey at least this time I wasn't calling a celeb baby by the wrong name again, right?)

It's simple really, add ice to a glass, 

pour yourself a little bit of lemonade

mix it with a little bit of this sweet tea vodka deliciousness 

and you're done!

You may need to mess with the chemistry of this. I like my drink to taste a bit more like tea which gives me more vodka but to each his own. I have to say my favorite brand is the one pictured below. Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka. Many more have come out on the market since last year. 

via google • I'm partial to Firefly, we're summer BFF's.

via google • Burnette's, Sweet Carolina & Firefly

Also available is

via google • Jeremiah Weed Sweet Tea

I have yet to try the Sweet Carolina and I have never seen the Burnett's where I've shopped previously. After researching it's probably a good thing. I don't do well with cheap liquor, especially vodka and I think Burnett may be bottom shelf goods. I've sampled the Jeremiah Weed, and it's tasty but the name turns me off. I used to go to school with a boy named Jeremiah, he got really sick of me singing the song about the bullfrog to him in middle school and started to act sort of bitchy to me. Since then we've made up, and been cool with each other - we're even facebook pals now. However that being said, it IS tasty and seems a bit stronger in flavor than the Firefly.

I am thinking about sampling the Sweet Carolina this weekend. I like that it comes in different sweet tea variety flavors as well (minus the mint, that sort of grosses me out) - also to be noted Sweet Carolina has started marketing a Lemonade flavored vodka. This may taste great with water. Which is what started this post in the first place, right?  M usually takes a few hits off the bottle of Firefly when I purchase it. He mixes his with water. If you don't make the drink too strong you hardly notice the vodka burn and enjoy the sweet tea flavor. I don't know the science about how this stuff is made, all I know is that it's good and I will obsess about it all summer long.

Spring is here, and this is my message to you. If you're looking for a new drink to sip on at cook-outs or hanging out with friends and you truly love Sweet Tea but don't want your teeth to fall out of your face, you might trip sipping a little of this be it with water, lemonade or your own made up drink recipe. If you make one up and it's really good, you better share it with me!

So there you have it peeps, my Friday Fixation. I'm SO happy it's Friday! I'm really looking forward to hitting up the local ABC Store to snag myself a bottle of this yummy, yummy stuff and to having sunshine and 68+ degree weather most of the weekend. This will make up for the possible thunderstorms they are calling for on Sunday. Sunday is my lazy day anyway, I ain't worried one bit!

CHEERS YA'LL! (Southern for You All). *wink*

my spring accessory.

I've been trying to infuse my wardrobe with vibrant colors lately. When organizing my closet many weeks ago I discovered that not only do I really love navy blue and kelly green as well as black and brown but that I'm way too fixated on blending in when I get dressed rather than standing out.  That's not to say that I don't own a few brightly color outfits - I did purchase two super cute tops last summer one was bright yellow and the other was bright kelly green (again). I do have a few tanks that fall into the bright color category, but for the most party I sport them under cardigans or jackets. I'm not sure where this lack of color comes from - my guess is in the matter of me gaining weight in the past few years. I've tried to hide myself in darker clothing - I don't care WHAT fashion people say, it IS slimming. Lately people keep saying on shows that bright colors will flatter any shape - I don't buy it. That being said, I do want to break out of that rut. Not just the rut of wearing dark clothing but also the rut of feeling horrible about my style, my self and my body - it's a vicious, vicious cycle. (Note: I've purchased the 30 Day Shred, and I've been kicking my elliptical trainer's ass - or it's been kicking mine, for the past week, and I've been trying to make a serious effort to eat better, baby steps people). If all this works out well - I give you my vow to not bitch about this again and if not I'm totally buying P90X!

While I work on my inside transformation to help my outside transformation, I realized I need to get a grip on my wardrobe. I can't live in my favorite black cardigan once the weather gets warmer. We have about a week of Spring and then Summer hits and it's a hot, sticky, horrible thing - cardigans are pointless and will cause heat stroke if worn in the Alabama heat.

I kept trying to think of a way to infuse more color into my wardrobe without breaking the bank. I figured a few bright signature things would help. Shoes are always my first thought - but shoes are expensive. Purses are another fun accessory - one I have a TON of and yet again... expensive. I was running out of options, until yesterday.

In true "Wanna Be Irish" tradition I got decked out in my favorite green things. I sported my worn and faded Smoky and the Bandit T-Shirt (it's kelly green, see a trend? and I don't have to dress up for work), and my favorite black cardigan, some jeans and I decided to really go for it yesterday and put on my silky, different shades of green headband. Truth be told I purchased it last year the day before St. Patty's Day and didn't wear it - some how it went perfectly with the outfit I had on so I was pleased. Sporting the headband also helped me make my rumbled hair style look polished and pulled together. Two things of which I rarely look like when I got to work each day.

You should know that I have a drawer full of hair accessories. Yes, I said drawer. Most I've never worn. Again, yes, I said most I have NEVER worn. I always tend to go with the same tried and true, simple black hair tie, or simple clip to pull my hair up, anything else always seems over kill to me. I'm not a girlie girl by any means, but I'm trying to change that - and I also don't like to look like I've tried TOO hard. That whole, less is more thing is truly how I feel most of the time. How sad is that right? I also tend to be strange about attention. I love to be told I look good, especially when I try to look good, but I also don't like to get too much attention if that makes sense. I usually worry about this more when I'm at work, vs. a night out on the town. I just don't want to be too fussy when surrounded by guys at a print shop. That being said I was a big nervous about wearing my new-ish headband yesterday. Upon getting the work day started, I got three compliments on looking cute yesterday. It made me feel good. I had truly just thrown the outfit together but I think it was the headband that gave me the extra zing to my gear.

At the end of the day I returned home, took off my cardigan and started to cook dinner. While making BBQ Chicken stuffed Baked Potatoes (ok so maybe my meals aren't THAT healthy)... M looked at me and said.. "I really like you in a headband - you should wear them more often."  Really? Me? A headband girl? I really had never thought I could pull it off. Usually I just use my sunglasses for a headband - truth be told I can't leave the house without a pair of sunglasses in my bag and a hair tie on my wrist if my hair is down. I'm THAT girl. Creature of habit and one that has odd needs to feel complete. Often times while out for a night my good friend A tends to bitch at me when she sees my hair clip attached to my purse - she gives me the "OH HELLL NO" face, rips it off my bag and shoves it inside. She doesn't get that it will be CRUSHED in there with all my other times. But she doesn't care, apparently it's a fashion foo-pah to do that. By the way yes I know its faux pas, but I like saying FOO-PAH just as it's spelled. Anyfoo, she also likes to snap the hair ties on my wrist to inflict pain for this same reason, fashion foo-pah. Did I mention she's a really great friend? You can totally tell that from the abuse right? Most of the time when she does this she also is forcing vodka shots down my throat so she probably DOES love me, she just has a strange way of showing it.

After M's compliment, his always mean so much, I started to think about all the headbands I own. I've purchased them for special occasions, to go with certain shirts, or shoes and just. never. wore them. Upon looking at my collection I realized they were about as exciting as my closet. Only a few bands had a bright color, orange here, yellow there, baby yellow, and the rest were black, brown and white. Only the green one I wore yesterday was even remotely exciting.

Then it hit me - the perfect Spring accessory that won't cost me an arm and a leg that will brighten up my look as well as my face and hair would be HEADBANDS!!! Sure I'm slow and they are probably on the way out but for now, they are in and I want to see where this takes me.

Before I forget, I have to ask, how many of you wear what I call the "bra strap" headbands? You know what I mean, the rubber band like headbands most athletic girls  and sometimes guys wear. Often you see stars sporting them with big poofy hair. I love the LOOK but I can never get those damn things to stay on my head they always pull back and fall into my bun/ponytail and leave a huge dent where they were previously sitting. I've purchased plain ones, ones with rubber on the bottom - none will stay put. It's like the back of my head is too flat and it won't grip the back side of my head. In order to have them remotely work my hair has to be A) Dirty B) nappy or C) I have to wear the damn thing so close to my forehead I might as well not wear it at all - any tips/suggestions are very much appreciated.

But for now... here are some seriously inspiring headband finds I found while searching on etsy!

via jlyman01 on etsy

Seriously how cute is this crocheted headband? Almost as cute as that kiddo!
I have a big ass head, hopefully they make these in different sizes!

via ryeleighrose on etsy

I really love these flowers that are popping up all over the place in fashion.

via talltree on etsy

Feathers and Buttons - Yes Please!

And last but never least - I've been swooning over Taza's creations available at her Love, Taza store, almost as much as I've been drooling over her fur baby bulldog,  Kingsley for the past many weeks!!! (Miss M aka Banana - girl you MUST check this website out if you haven't, your babies and her baby need to have a face off for most adorable bullies ever!) If you haven't read Taza's blog you should check her out at The Rockstar Diaries - She currently lives in D.C. and every time I read I feel inspired by her words and images but it also makes me miss home, but in a good way. 

The following is my favorite of all her items for sale - which was hard to choose because they are all amazing!!! Note: She models all her creations - how cute is she? Best. Bangs. EVER!

via Love, Taza - Item is currently SOLD OUT

If you're a headband girl - where do you find your favorites? If you're not - tell me what's your must have bright colored "make me feel like Spring" accessory this year?