We followed our hearts rather than our itinerary.

Yesterday, I woke up early after going to bed late to trek my way to Jamie’s so we could trek our way to a small town an hour away called Copperas Cove. I was to be her date to a wedding and then later she was to be my date to Selina’s birthday barbecue. We started our drive with a trip to McDonalds, their coffees are pretty good now and their market for their coffees are explosive since it’s so much cheaper than Starbucks. I’ll still hit up Starbucks for the green tea latte but I really am digging McD’s mocha.

So Copperas Cove is an hour away. We drove for an hour and were still kind of lost. Decided to keep driving and just miss the ceremony but after another hour we gave up. At this time we’ve driven through Copperas Cove and Killeen about twice. So we gave up and Jamie asked me if I’ve ever been shopping in Salado. No, I’ve never even been to Salado. She swore to me that it’s the cutest town with the cutest boutiques. I immediately thought, hmmm.. cuter than Fredericksburg, Texas (another cute quaint town with lots of shoppes)? Can’t be.

Salado is cuter! I can’t wait to go back to either shop for home decor or for Christmas gifts. There’s a fantastic store of home decor called Horsefeathers. Jamie said her sister decorated her whole place from this store and I can completely see why? Charming stuff. I usually admire things from Crate&Barrel, and Pottery Barn and the likes but they’ve never made me lust after planters and paintings like Horsefeathers did. I actually longed to have an entry table so I could buy a few of their things to display. Also made me want my own house. I tend to be lazy to decorate since I end up moving every year.

We saw this frame and declared it our motto for the day.

Follow your heart

We both liked this painting.

painting

What Horsefeathers looked like from the outside.

Horsefeathers

So we were dolled up for our wedding and both wore stilettos. There was a lot of gravel and cobblestone and stepping rocks to walk on. We looked out of place. The owner of Horsefeathers actually mentioned to me, “You look very nice.” Cracked me up, we looked so out of place. So we walked the street of boutiques and shops. Here’s another lovely store.

For lunch, Jamie took me to the Ambrosia Tea Room. Ambrosia Tea Room is inspired by Audrey Hepburn. Her beauty tips are on the menu and framed in the bathroom.

See? Framed in the bathroom.

Audrey Hepburn

Also on their bathroom wall.

Audrey Hepburn

The whole tea house is decorated with clothes, hats, and shoes, hanging on the walls and ceilings.

Ambrosia Tea Room

Ambrosia Tea Room

My lovely date.

Ambrosia Tea Room

We shared a lot of life stories yesterday . It’s crazy when you get to know someone and are blown away by all the threads of which they’re made. Resilience is an awesome thing.

Then we drove back to Austin, did a few errands together and then I took her as my plus one to Selina’s bbq. I haven’t seen a lot of the people there in a long long time so it was a nice reunion. I used to see some of the guys out every weekend. They called me out on that but what can I say? It was fun times with good food, good company, good dogs.

One of my favorite part was Ryan telling me, “Linda…..I don’t know where she keeps the candles….”

I laughed and we poked around all the cabinets. We found some candles but it was a 2 and a 6. She’s 25 now. So we tried to fashion a 5 out of the 6.

I’m laughing as I type this. At one point the 6/5 cracked so he had to melt the pieces back together.

But we did it!

This is part of the group before the cake came out.

Cake! I adore this picture. Very tender and sweet. Sigh.

Cutting the cake.

Selina and some of her bridal party.