Simple pleasures
I love grand adventures as much as the next person, but most days it's the simple pleasures of life that mean the most. Saturday my simple pleasures included lattes, thrifting, and most importantly friendship. When I got married over a decade ago to a man going into ministry, I just knew that I would never live near family or any friends from "childhood" ever again. For a few years as we went from Arkansas to Virginia, to New york, back to Virginia, back to New York, that seemed to ring true. In 2013, shortly after the birth of our first daughter, God saw fit to bring us back to Texas, within an hour of my parents, my old church, and many childhood friends. What a blessing that has been for over 4 years now! We have also since added another beautiful daughter to the mix.
Even though I live within an hour from where I grew up, life is busy, and matching up schedules with people can be hard. It's always like kismet when weekend schedules with others match up and we get to hang out. Ironically, this past Saturday when I was able to hang out with my sweet friend Anjuli (whom I've known over half my life - I'll let you figure out how many years that is), was exactly one year since we had last hung out.
Saturday morning my 17 month old and I took off to meet Anjuli, who actually lives 2 minutes away from my parents. We met at Fioza, a coffee shop I have been wanting to try since we moved back. https://www.facebook.com/Fioza-88157838163/
If you go, I highly recommend trying the S'mores latte. It was amazing. She got a Breve Vanilla Latte, which was good, but a little sweet for my tastes.
You know you have a great friend when you both think that going thrift shopping with a 17 month old sounds like a fantastic idea. You also know that you have an amazing friend when she prays over your shopping trip, that you will find the perfect pair of skinny jeans. First stop was Family Thrift outlet, where the clothes start at $2 every Thursday and decrease in cost every day until they end up 25cents the next Wednesday. Since it was a Saturday, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, was $1.50. Not only did I get a new pair of jeans, I got 6! (one pair somehow didn't make the picture). And these are White House Black Market, Hollister, Aeropostale jeans.
She got some great finds as well. I wish we had more time to stay and browse the kids clothes, but the native, I mean baby, was getting restless...and had a blowout. I will definitely be back. There are many Family Thrift Outlet locations in the greater Houston area, which you can view here: https://familythriftcenter.com/outlet-stores/
From there we visited the Bluebird thrift store. They have a variety of items, from clothes to furnitures, china, antiques and in between. Personally this store is a little out of my price range. If I'm going to be thrifting I don't want to spend more than I would for something new. We were hungry so we walked across the street to the Acadian Bakery for lunch. That was a nice reminiscent moment, as my husbands cake from our wedding was from there. It was some sort of chocolate raspberry with chocolate ganache. It was truly amazing. But I'm getting distracted as we were there for lunch. Anjuli ordered the cheeseburger and I ordered the grilled chicken wrap. Of course we cut them in half and split them. I liked her burger better; she liked my wrap better. If you're in the area, do yourself a favor and get a slice of cake, or a brownie, or both. http://acadianbakers.com/
From there we headed to the Catholic guild for one last thrift shop of the day. The baby was tired and cranky by this time so I did a quick run through. Anjuli got a nice pair of jeans though. This place also sells furniture and other various items. Tip for this store: make sure you pay attention to the dates on the price tag. The top price is what it costs the day it's listed. It then has a column on the left for later dates, and a column on the right where the price goes down with each associated date. So the longer the item sits "on the shelf", the less it costs. I think she spent $6 on her designed jeans. It's not $1.50, but still not bad.
By this point it was late afternoon, the baby was worn out, and I needed to get home so hubs and I could get the girls to bed. My awesome husband had spent the day taking out older daughter (almost 5) to the Kemah Boardwalk to ride the rides. They of course had a blast. http://www.kemahboardwalk.com/
Kemah is a great place just a hop away from Houston for a day trip to eat and have some family time, or a fun date.
Back to simple pleasures. There was nothing glamorous about the day, but it was wonderful. I'm blessed by our awesome friendship.
As mentioned before, we had hung out a year prior. When I got home, she sent me this side by side pictures from hanging out exactly a year apart.
I was in shock. On the left, 5 months postpartum. On the right, 17 month postpartum pic that she snuck when I was trying on thrift store jeans. This is a completely separate topic, but often from day to day we think our efforts are in vain and don't notice change. So moms, persevere on your journey! You got this!
I am so blessed beyond measure. What are your simple pleasures?