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You guys:

May the 4th Be With You.

And also with you.

Look, I’m not even a Star Wars fan (as in, like, I’ve never seen them. Shame, I know), but that joke cracks me up. I have no idea why.

A lot of things to high five about this week. Let’s get to it.

[one - this dog. you guys, i have two dogs now (you know, since you marry husbands and dogs) but this is my baby. she's been with me for over four years. and i love her. this is what she does to me outside my bathroom in the morning while i'm getting ready. SERIOUSLY? i can't handle her].

[two - burritos. i mean, burritos are my thing. they're my beat. i'd eat 'em every day if i could. breakfast burritos. lunch burritos. dinner burritos. fourth meal burritos. i love them. really, i love Mexican food in general, but you win me over with burritos. today, i'm going to purchase $30 in gift cards to Chipotle - cause if i purchase $30 in gift cards to Chipotle for "graduation" you get a free meal. psh. i mean, i'm gonna spend AT LEAST $30 at Chipotle in the next six months. i'm graduating... from being awesome. i give myself those gift cards. AND i get a free meal. that's called forward thinking my friends].

[three - these neon toe keds-looking shoes i made. yeah, i made 'em. you can bet your boots a tutorial is coming next week. they only cost me $5 dollhairs. BOOM].

[four - SWIM FOR SMILES is this weekend! the company i work for also happens to run a non-profit youth triathlon that raises money for the NC Children's Hospital and it's THIS SUNDAY. every one has been working SO hard and it's gonna be awesome to see it all come together on Sunday!]

[five - Christopher and his Lion Story. now, some of you who are new to my blog might not know that i went on a mission trip to Kiria, Kenya last summer. I also sponsor a young girl in Kiria named Anastacia (photo in this post). Kenya has a major place in my heart. i knew when i left that i would go back again, but i also knew i wouldn't want to go without my husband. so, john and i are going back in September. we're going to do the best we can to try and go back to the community once a year. it's going to be difficult, but God willing, it will happen. this post is not about that and i'll probably talk a lot about it later, but if you're interested in more information you can certainly ask me, or if you are feeling generous and want to donate - we listed information on our wedding registry on how to do that. ANYWAY. that's not what this is about.

this is Christopher. he is one of my many Kenyan friends. he has a story about a lion. now, this is a condensed version of the story i experienced, but it's still awesome nonetheless. i saw this video that was posted yesterday and it totally made my day. i miss that guy. can't wait to hear it again in person.

gah. i miss kenya].

Christopher and the Lion from The 410 Bridge on Vimeo.

Anywho. That’s what I’m high fiving today. What are you high-fiving today? Share a link below!

And as usual, I’m linking up with Lauren from From My Grey Desk.

xoxo, all for now.

You guys, per usual, I’m not gonna lie: I’ve had this outfit forever and I love it. However, every time I wear it I sometimes think I look like either:

A) a Catholic school girl in a school uniform of some kind (i.e. Mary Catherine Gallagher?),

B) a little kid,

C) I have no idea.

Yet, I still lurve this outfit. I mean, I know it’s not “conventionally” fashionable – but what does that really mean? Or is it? I don’t know. Still trying to figure all this out.

What do you think? Would you wear it? Do you like it?

[still awkward at the self portraits. i apologize, but i don't think i'm ever going to feel not awkward taking these]

[you know, trying to look pensive. or thinking about how stinkin' hot it is now in north carolina]

[you know, a close up to see detail?]

[i'd be remiss if i didn't take my standard thumbs up-mouth open shot]

Outfit Deets: White shirt: Theory (super old) | Green Vest: JCrew (super old) | Skirt: Lilly Pulitzer (super old) | Shoes: Kazuri Sandals (got ‘em in Kenya during my mission trip) | Bracelet: JCrew Warehouse Sale | Necklace: No idea.

BTW: I define “super old” as over 5 years old… yeah, I don’t shop much anymore haha. Huzzah for things that stay in fashion!

Also, I was, like, super honored when Bonnie of Mini Me Style gave me a “Versatile Blogger” award yesterday. I mean, I love her blog and when she commented and told me she’d named me one I was like WHAT?

That’s bananas.

Bonnie is a petite (5′ tall), PhD student (way smarter than me), lady blogger who mainly blogs about fashion for petite people (and just awesome people in general). I love her cause she has AWESOME style but is clearly super down to earth. I love this girl! So, thank you SO much, Bonnie!

I mean, I guess you could say I’m a versatile blogger in that I’ll blog about anything that’s on my mind. There’s been a lot of fashion posts lately, but I’ll blog about my wedding, food, crafts, bits, loving the Lord, and whatnot all the time. So I guess you could call that versatile! WOOP!

Anywho.

You guys, I love shorts. Also, I love doggie photo shoots.

We run. We jump. We swim and play. We row and go on trips
But the things that last forever… are our dear friendship.

Man I loved that show. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Then you must not have watched Nickelodeon in the 90s.

For a long time, I didn’t love shorts cause I’m short and I felt like they made my legs look stumpy. But then I just realized I wasn’t getting the right style shorts and I was getting them too small.

I have since learned from my short mistakes. And now I love shorts. LOVE em. 

I know these outfits are a bit more “caz” – is that how you spell the abbreviation for casual? Casual. Cas. Casj. You know what I’m trying to say.

The doggie photoshoot is at the end of this post. Don’t give up now.

Anyway. What do you think of these ensembles? Do you love / hate shorts?

OUTFIT ONE

[instagram, yo]

[i'm a creeper]

[seeing as how this is my only full length mirror (i know i need a new one) i was trying to go with the "flow" of the mirror]

Outfit Deets: Shirt: Old Navy | Cardigan: JCrew (warehouse sale) | Shorts: Belk | Boots: Urban Outfitters (really old) | Necklace: Express

+++

OUTFIT TWO

[haha why do i do these faces?!]

[you know, spicing it up with a jean jacket]

[sans jean jacket - and yeah, i'm in a target dressing room. sue me].

Outfit Deets: Shirt: Target | Short: Vineyard Vines (really old) | Boots: vintage / thrifted | Jean Jacket: Ann Taylor Loft (old) | Jewelry: Jewelmint

+++

OUTFIT THREE

[i decided that you guys deserve better and that i should at least try to get some better photos. it's tough to get someone else to take them - i'm not gonna make husband take them... so i attempted with a tripod. i felt awkward. i am clearly not made for fashion photography - also, notice my dogs supervising]

[does anyone else feel awkward when they take pictures like this? just me?]

[WHAT? a white jean jacket? so hot right now. or something. also, i like how tater is either smelling and / or about to lick my leg. thanks, tater.]

[tater decided, yes, she wanted to lick my leg right as the photo was getting snapped]

[up close and personal]

[i thought this was hilarious. i wanted to take a foot pic and BOOM, tater wanted to take a foot pic, too. tater's toenails are so hot right now]

Outfit Deets: Shirt: Wal-mart ($4, yo!) | Shorts: JCrew 5″ chino (old, but they still sell them) | White Denim Jacket: Old Navy (BUT, I found it at a consignment shop! WOOHOO!) | Necklace: I made it | Bangle: Jewelmint | Sandals: JC Penny (old)

+++

[You know, since tater and audrey are girl dogs, they wanted in on the fashion shoot. So I took some pics of them. This is them working the camera.]

[audrey with her "nose in the air" pose. it's her signature move]

[audrey with her "submissive" pose - another signature]

[Tater's pensive pose]

[tater's "is that a squirrel?" pose. a signature, for sure.]

I hope you liked my doggie fashion shoot.

Also, what do you think? Are you a shorts fan? You know, just trying to figure it out.

xoxo, all for now.

You guys, it’s Tuesday.

Why enlighten us, Captain Obvious.

Just thought you should know.

So, hubs has lived in our house almost three years and he did a few things to it when he first moved in, but since I moved in after the wedding, we’ve had so much fun doing little things here or there to make it feel like OUR house.

Well, one day, when I was washing dishes looking out the kitchen window onto our back deck, I got this sweet idea that I wanted to paint the flower planters YELLOW. Like, bright yellow!

Now, I know this is not a tutorial on how to build the planters or anything… maybe I’ll do that one day. But I wanted to keep it simple for now.

And so that weekend, we went to Home Depot, got a quart of BRIGHT yellow paint, and BOOM. Got to work.

[planters BEFORE]

[planters BEFORE]

[planters BEFORE]
[planters BEFORE]
[getting to work]

[tater was supervising]

[progress!]

[please forgive my old t-shirt and poor hairdo. i was helping... i just wanted to get this picture.]

[more progress]

[VOILA! i LOVE looking at these out the back kitchen window now.]

[i love the fun, bright, rustic look of them!!]

[YAY!!!]
whattya think? like? love? hate? i know this was such a simple project, but i just love the way it turned out. i think it makes our back deck a little livelier!

what projects have you done lately?

xoxo, all for now.

You guys, I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t know why I felt compelled to title this post “Floral WHAT?!”

[hike pics later in this post, if you care].

I’ll be honest and say that I felt kinda cheesy titling it “My Floral Pencil Skirt” or something of that nature. [HA! get it? nature? floral? #PunMaster] I mean, titles such as “My Floral Pencil Skirt” would work for someone with a much better innate fashion sense than I… but not for me.

Why did I just take a whole paragraph to address the title of this post? Another reason why I can’t have nice things.

Moving on.

I am linking up today on Marionberry Style’s “Floral Skirt” trend of the month challenge. I’m having so much fun trying new things and going totally outside of my comfort zone. It’s making me feel more creative and inspired when I get up in the morning and actually put a concerted effort into what I’m going to wear that day. Not that I slacked before, but I definitely wasn’t conscious about it all the time. Or something. I don’t know what point I’m trying to make.

Nevertheless, here’s my attempt a fashion: Floral WHAT?!

Outfit Deets:

• Floral Pencil Skirt – JCrew – it’s a couple years old – I never wear it, but now this makes me want to wear it all the time! I got so many compliments on it last week.
• Shirt – Target – $6 (on sale a while ago – plus I had a coupon!)
• Belt -  Target (old)
• Shoes – Nine West (Belk)
• Necklace – Target (clearance)

What do you think? I almost paired the skirt with a similar shirt but in yellow – but I liked the sherbert color pulling the bits of orange out of the skirt.

So yeah, in case that didn’t excite you – I figured I’d share some photos from the weekend.

After church yesterday, hubs and I decided it was a nice day out and so we took the dogs to Occoneechee Mountain. It’s a, well, mountain, about five minutes from our house and we’d never explored it before. It ended up being a great work out – the loop trail we took is about three miles all the way around, but it feels WAY longer than that since 75% of it is uphill. My calves are feeling it today.

Oh, and the dogs were SO tired. Poor babies.

[handsome husband with tater... and i'm walking audrey]

[pretty flowers]

[so many steps and rocks and uphillness]

[we made it to the summit! so pretty. i can't believe we live here!]

[husband likes to kiss my cheek in photos so he can avoid looking at the camera. avoider. hehe. he'll get used to my picture obsessedness eventually]

[me with the tired pups]

[seriously, how pretty is this?]

[i may have carved our initials in the fence. SHHH don't tell anyone... oh wait.]

So yeah. Good times.

What did you do this weekend? Any adventurers out there? Oh, and are you attempting the floral WHAT?! this year?

xoxo, all for now.

You guys, I’m gonna get surrious on you real quick.

I’m serving this morning in the Coffeehouse service at my church helping to lead worship alongside some amazing leaders. I love serving. Seriously. I love it.

I get way more joy out of serving others than I ever do serving myself.

What are you doing today to serve others?

45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve,
and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
-Mark 10:45

+++

35 In everything I did, I showed
you that by this kind of hard work
we must help the weak,
remembering the words the Lord
Jesus himself said: “It is more
blessed to give than to receive.
-Acts 20:35

What You May Have Missed This Week on Still Being [Molly]:

• Sunday Scripture: With Everything
• My Attempt at Fashion: The Bottom Dilemma
• My Attempt at Fashion: The ASOS Skirt
• Home Decor Fabulousness at High Point Furniture Market 2012
• My Attempt at Fashion: Jewelmint
• 52 in 52: The Village Diner
• Friday High Fives!

My rAVe [Publications] Posts (aka: what I’m doing at work):

• My rAVe SMB Tip of the Week with Guest Lisa Sullivan: Tip 1 of the Top 5 Ways to Get Started in Social Media
• 19 Things I Remember as a Child of the Late 80s Early 90s
• In The Cloud(s)?
• Fuggedaboutit Friday: It’s Gonna Be May

Tell me, what did I miss this week that you did? Post a link in the comments!

xoxo, all for now.

You guys, remember how I told you I was gonna blog twice on Fridays? Well, this is me blogging twice on Fridays. WHAT?! I know.

Well, a lot of bloggers I follow do “High Five For Friday” posts. I decided to call my similar version of “High Five for Friday” just “Friday High Fives” to celebrate awesome stuff that happened during the week and or high five for things that are GOING to happen this weekend.

I dunno, I thought it would be fun.

[I’m linking up with Lauren at From My Grey Desk 

Anywho. This week’s HIGH FIVES:

I love these Instagrams I took at Furniture Market last weekend. I thought the Instagrams didn’t fit in the actual Market post, but thought they were fun, so I figured including them here would elicit at least ONE high-five.

HIGH FIVE FOR MARKET!

MY DAVE MATTHEWS TICKET CAME IN THE MAIL! Gah. I can’t wait for May 23rd!!!!!!

HIGH FIVE FOR DAVE!

Remember when JIMMY FALLON, BARACK OBAMA, and DAVE MATTHEWS came to UNC on Tuesday and did a show from Memorial Hall and it aired on TV complete with Jimmy saying “Duke Sucks” and wearing a CAROLINA sweatshirt? Yeah, me too. #GoHeels #GoAmerica

HIGH FIVE FOR FALLON!

Remember when WRAL REALLY paid attention and pulled this little talking point from Obama’s speech?

HIGH FIVE FOR CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

You guys may not know this, but I love graffiti. Like, I LOVE graffiti. I think it’s beautiful. Now, there’s some UGLY graffiti, but I love graffiti. I love the art and self-expression of it and I think it gives personality to things like ugly doors. I’m just saying. I know it’s weird. But I do love it.

HIGH FIVE FOR THIS CRAY CRAY GRAFFITI IN CHAPEL HILL ALLEYWAYS!

Remember when I brought AN english muffin, AN egg, A jalapeno, and A slice of cheese to work to make this diddy for lunch? Me too!

HIGH FIVE FOR BEING OUT OF LUNCH MONEY AND WORKING WITH WHAT YOU GOT!

High fives all around! What are you high-fiving today? Do you do a high-five post on Fridays? Share your link in the comments!

Do you like this idea for these Friday posts? Feedback on this post? I’d love to hear what you think!

xoxo, all for now.

First, I’m going to throw this out there off the bat – I know the 52 in 52 posts aren’t very exciting for my blog-reader-friends who don’t live in my area. But that’s okay. Never fear. I’m gonna start posting twice on Friday’s with a little funsies in the afternoon. [Funsies = fun]

I know, what am I thinking? Oh well, I’m gonna give it a shot. I mean, it’s fun for me, so hopefully it’ll be fun for you, too!

Moving On.

You guys, not even gonna lie – I can’t believe I hadn’t even heard of The Village Diner before last week. And it’s in Hillsborough no less. I mean, we live in H-town. Apparently J had heard of it… but oh wells.

Well, Restaurant.com was running a special a few weeks back and we ended up getting a $25 gift certificate to Village Diner for only $2. WIN.

The Village Diner

600 West King Street Hillsborough, NC 27278 | (919) 732-7032 | Yelp | Facebook

Let me say this, The Village Diner is no fancy place on the inside or outside. It’s definitely, what some would call, a “hole in the wall” country diner.

Which makes it awesome.

J and I went with our friends to dinner that night (in part because you had to spend at least $35 to use the gift certificate… and it’s a diner where everything is like $3 to begin with). They have a buffet, which, of course, husband LOVED. That guy loves buffets. LOVES him some Golden Corral and whatnot.

Now, sadly for me, there was a ton of seafood on the buffet, and seeing as how I am allergic to fish, I can’t eat fish. Now, they also had pulled pork and fried chicken – but I had JUST had pulled pork for lunch that day so I couldn’t eat it twice. Although I did snag a taste from hubs and it was GOOD.

I got the sirloin, baked potato, and toast.

Here are some shots from the night:

MENU, y’all.

this is husband going back for seconds to the buffet. he will hate love me for posting this.

Yeah, it’s definitely nothing special on the inside.

This is C, he is the son of our friends. He’s pretty cool. He liked the food.

My dinner. The tater and toast were great. The steak? Not so much. Oh wells. I should have just gotten the buffet.

made him take a pic with me after din din.

Everyone else LOVED their food. I liked mine – but wished I had gotten something else. And oh man, I bet this place is BEAST for breakfast. We are definitely gonna go back for breakfast.

Overall Stillman Rating? My grade = 2 of 5 stars. Husbands grade = 4 of 5 stars.

Local readers: where are YOU eating this weekend? Non-local readers: where are YOU eating this weekend?

Remember when I showed you this teaser last week?

Yeah, so there’s a story behind the photo.

That’s Eric Church in the photo. THE Eric Church.

So, John and I danced to “Like Jesus Does” by Eric Church for our first dance. Well, a friend of John’s named Taylor, who was in attendance at our wedding, just so happens to be friends with Eric Church. YEAH. I know. I’m jealous, too.

Anywho. Eric was playing a concert the night of our wedding in Greensboro… and since we had an earlier wedding, Taylor was able to make the show. Well, Taylor just so happened to hang out with Eric backstage and show him a VIDEO of our first dance. SO, that picture is Eric Church watching a video of our first dance on his cell phone the night of our wedding.

HOW COOL IS THAT?! Seriously. We woke up the morning after our wedding with a text from Taylor and that picture. BEST. GIFT. EVAR.

So anyway. I wanted to get the photo printed and display it in a cool way since it’s such an awesome story for us and the picture means so much – and I figured getting some first dance pictures printed along with it would be uber appropriate.

Now, a few weeks ago, I saw this company on Pinterest – making 3, 5×7 wooden “photo boards” for $95! $95! WHAT?! That’s crazy expensive. I knew I could make the same thing for cheaper. Like, WAY cheaper.

And I did. BOOM.

Here’s what I did!

I went to Home Depot and bought 3 pieces of plywood in 5×7″ cuts. Total cost for all three pieces? $0.51. Yeah, FITTY ONE CENTS.

Luckily we already had wood stain on hand. Hubs helped me stain the pieces while I took a photo.

Gotta let the pieces dry. After that, I grabbed my brushes, printed photos, and Mod Podge and got to work. (I already had all these things on hand)

I put a layer of Mod Podge on the wood.

Put the photo on the Mod Podge.

Put a layer of Mod Podge over the photo. If this is your first time using Mod Podge, don’t fret. It dries clear! Also, beware of shedding brushes. I kept having to deal with stray brush hairs. UGH.

I repeated the process on all the photos and pieces of wood.

Let the Mod Podge dry COMPLETELY. This may have to happen overnight – but for me it took a couple hours. Then gather some Polyurethane. Now, I had this can on hand already… but I bought this can last year and have used it on close to 10 projects and I’ve barely used ANY. One can goes a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY long way.

Put a good coating of Polyurethane on your dried, Mod Podged photo boards. Get the edges good, too.

Once they’re dry – this part did take longer to dry… get what you want to use to hang your photos. I got these Hammer Sawtooth Hangers from Wal-mart for $0.98 cents.

I measured out the center points of each board (the hammer sawtooth hangers are an inch wide so I measured the inch in the center of each board on the back and marked it with a Sharpie).

Then I knew where exactly to hammer in the hangars. They were even and centered. Phew. Oh, and please excuse the paper towel residue. Woops. I glued the paper towel to the back a little bit. My bad. Oh well, you can’t see it from the front.

Now, obviously once the hangers are on, you could leave it at that and hang your photo like that and they can stand on their own, but I wanted RIBBON! Our living room walls are a light green, and I’ve been incorporating pops of Kelly green throughout, so I opted for Kelly green ribbon I got on sale from Wal-mart for $1.00. I measured three strands of ribbon at the same length and looped them through. You could definitely do this differently, this is just how I opted to do it.

Then I measured the distance between the braces of the shelf on our wall so I could exactly measure where to put the photos.

I used pretty drawer knobs I got from Wal-mart and put them in the wall…

Voila!!!!!!!! Don’t they look AWESOME?!

I loveeeeeeee the uniqueness of the whole thing. I love the mis-matching look of the canvas photo on the left and the wooden photos on the right.

NOW, I’ll show you the rest of the shelf / living room area later… cause we’re working on a project (and I made a BUNCH of updates to this area since this photo was taken). But I just LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the way the photo boards turned out!

So, yeah. I made all three photo boards for a total of… $7.25!! INCLUDING the photo printing costs. BOOM.

I feel like I should start my own Etsy shop making these for people. Would you order them or would you make them yourself? What do you think?

xoxo, all for now.