Friday Favorites – April Showers
Happy Friday, friends!
Has anyone else just been feeling weird this week? Is there some funky planetary alignment thing throwing everyone off balance, or is it me? I had way less work than usual this week (for example, 7 otel descriptions to write instead of the 40-50 I’ve gotten used to) and yet I’ve still been amazingly unproductive. All that sounds good is reading and logic puzzles on my phone. (Wow, subtract the phone part of that and I’m also describing 7th grade me! Maybe I should give in and get some Saddle Club books and early 90s mom jeans?)
Speaking of books, let’s get into this week’s first favorite thing…
1. One Part Plant by Jessica Murnane showed up in my mailbox yesterday (“showed up” = I begged the publisher for a review copy) and I’m already obsessed. I’ll write about it for real for May’s Show Us Your Books post, but I fully intend to spend a good chunk of today flipping through the recipes and making a grocery list for the shopping trip I have planned this weekend. (Living in Middle of Nowhere, MO means I make a monthly 50-ish mile pilgrimage to Springfield because there’s basically just Walmart and two small overpriced grocery stores where I live. I have to drive an hour just get to a freaking Super Target where I can buy the basics I like. Have I ever mentioned how much I miss Orlando???)
Wow, that was a tangent. ANYWAY – I’ve pretty much always identified a a person who dislikes vegetables, but I also really don’t lie feeling terrible all of the time, so I’m going to try as many of the book’s plant-based recipes as possible over the next couple of weeks and see how it goes. I’ll share what I try when I do the boo review!
Now, kindly disregard what I just said about healthy eating and let’s move on to #2…
2. Discounted Easter candy = yay! Walgreens somehow had both the Cadbury Caramel Eggs and the mini cream eggs for 50% off when I went, so I’ve been a very happy woman.
3. Not a great pic, but I found the perfect denim shorts for this summer at Target. I was playing around with ideas for a post about music festival fashion and just grabbed them to try on with the tops I was checking out, but ended up liking the shorts more than anything else! They’re mid-rise with a 4″ inseam and super comfy. Also, they’re only 20 bucks. (The tank top is here and kimono is here, if you dig either.)
4. TRIP PLANNING. I have incurable wanderlust, and while I can’t get away for a “real” vacation rght now, I decided that a night or two away somewhere near by would be perfect, so I started planning a trip to the quirky old town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, which is about an hour away. There are so many cool B&B’s and historic hotels there that it makes my little hotel nerd head spin. The one I’d most like to stay at is a former bordello with a totally phallic neon sign:
Nothing suggestive here…
A lot of the local hotels claim to be haunted (Especially the Crescent, which was formerly a boarding school, cancer hospital run by a total quack doctor, and mental asylum. I’m not 100% on whether ghosts are real or not, but I do know that my camera broke the last time I visited, and my then 3 year old niece kept asking to go back up to the 3rd floor”where all those people were”. There was nobody else there.) but the Palace’s resident ghost is said to have died “in the throes of passion”, so think we’d be buds.
I also REALLY want to revisit this gorgeous place:
You can read about my last visit to Blue Spring Heritage Center here!
So there I was, a million browser tabs deep into planning a little getaway when I found out that I get to attend a media event at the Crystal Bridges museum in Bentonville, Arkansas the beginning of June! So now instead of planning one NW Arkansas trip, I’m planning two! It makes my former concierge heart very happy.
5. Tomorrow is Earth Day (be sure to check out the Google Doodle!) so as a totally seasonally appropriate favorite, my #5 is the awesome eco-friendly cat litter made from walnuts that I’ve been using the past couple of weeks. A light nutty scent when you walk past the litter box instead of the usually chemical-y fragrance? Big thumbs up. I have a giveaway going on where you can win a bag to try out, so go enter, fellow cat ladies!
Let’s be friends on Instagram! –> 
Friday Link-Up Fun:
