I'm not going to make any excuses about my absence this week, because honestly, I have no idea why I took a break. I had things on my calendar, but they could all easily be shifted and I just didn't feel up to writing. I've been in an unexplained funk for several weeks and that translates to rarely eating, shirking workouts, reading too much, and laziness. I'm trying to get myself together over the weekend, so I'll be back with better content on Monday. In the meantime, why don't we share a little Five on Friday instead? UAB Football | I'm not sure I've ever mentioned this (and you probably wouldn't care anyway), but Josh and I both went to college at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. I loved the urban setting and the art department was amazing. In true Kristin (in the college ...
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Little Letters | September
Dear Readers, It would seem I completely flaked on this link up last Friday. I would tell you to blame Ella's surprise party, but I've had this written on my calendar for today the entire month. Whoops. Dear Calendar, Why can't all months just begin on Sunday? Wouldn't that be easier on us all? Dear Television, We have taken a much needed break from you (aside from football, obvi) and it has been wonderful. Aside from a show here and there, we've been avoiding you in favor of really long books and evenings on the porch. I won't lie, now that summer is officially over, I'm looking forward to some decent TV time again. Dear Friends, What are your fall television recommendations? I need help navigating the really long list! Dear Reading Life, I have several really long books I'd ...
The Daily Dime | September 2017
This should be called How to Throw a Golden Birthday Party in Ten Hours! Since Ella's party was a surprise, I couldn't do very much of the work ahead of time. Aside from ordering the cake (and a few paper products), picking up groceries earlier in the week, and stopping by a wholesale florist the night before -- almost all of the work had to take place while Ella was at school on Friday. I decided to take the day off of work, because there was no way I could pull everything together in the hour I had after school. My sister photographed the birthday party (because she's amazing) and I shared a few of her shots in my birthday letter on Monday, but I knew I would want to share behind the scenes of how everything came together. Since it was just in time for this month's Daily Dime post, I ...
To My Golden Girl
Dear Ella, How can you be eleven years old? We've been talking about (and planning for) your golden birthday for a whole year, but it still blindsided me a bit. You've grown leaps and bounds in the last year and I have to do a double take when I look at you sometimes. There have been years when you changed very little -- the scales didn't budge and your little feet squeezed into the same pair of shoes, two summers in a row. Then there was this year -- you got so tall and you're raiding my closet and your face looks less and less like a little girl every day. I could let myself get overwhelmed, or worry about the teenage years right around the corner, but instead I let myself enjoy these days. With every year you grow, we have more in common. There are fewer things to bicker over and ...
The Monthly Report | September
You know what I've decided? Not every post needs an introductory paragraph. For at least five posts a month, I sit here and stare at a flashing cursor, while trying to figure out how in the world to tell you we're about to talk about books or our day in the life or a list of letters. Maybe that's not necessary at all?!celebrating | Ella's birthday is Monday and I'm in crunch mode. Last September, she mentioned having a surprise party. Yes, it's weird to request a surprise party, but mostly she just wanted me to plan something without her knowledge. We're within a week of her birthday and it's nuts. She asks me 47 times a day what I'm planning and since she only asked for one gift, she now asks me when it will arrive / when she can open it / did I actually purchase it, every single day. I'm ...
What I Read in August
Disclosure: Affiliate links appear in this post. Any purchases made using these links will earn Taz + Belly a small commission. You can read more about our affiliate relationships here. It's that time again -- the day where we recap all the books I've read in a single month. This is one of those times where it feels like I read all the pages, but since one book topped out over one thousand pages, the number of books I read was smaller than it felt. I finally finished up my most recent epic novel (only to dive into another one and at the same time be anxiously awaiting a new release later this month) and it feels good. It's been so fun to expand on the genres I'm reading this year and I hope to continue that theme moving forward. Let's get to it, shall we? 40. THE COUPLE ...
Pupdate | Sixteen Weeks
I might not have a baby bump or a kiddo young enough to justify a monthly update, but I do have the sweetest puppy in all the land. So, that counts, right? I want to be sure I'm taking plenty of photos of her as a puppy, especially photos with the girls. We have plenty of Beemer when she was older and when the girls were little bitty, but I'm sad when I think of all the years that went undocumented. I promise not to make this some ridiculous dog mom series that pops up every month like clockwork, but I thought it would be fun to share an occasional update on how she's doing and how well we're surviving! The girls have had exactly zero experience with puppies. Aside from our own dog and one at their Nana's, their exposure to dogs has been very minimal. Beemer was almost five when we ...
The Best of Summer
Knowing full well that, in Alabama, we'll have temperatures soaring into the upper nineties for quite some time, it's hard to admit that summer is over. School is in session, intense dance schedules have returned, football season is a mere days away, and I already feel a shift towards blankets and fire pits and warm cups of coffee. While I'm sad that lazy pool days are mostly over for the next year, we enjoyed such a wonderful summer in our new-to-us house, and I thought it would be fun to revisit a few of our favorite memories before we moved, full stop, into a new season. What do you say to a walk down memory lane? On the very last day of school, we poured a new concrete porch between the pool and the barn. We couldn't possibly anticipate how much this would change our summer. ...