Instagram of the Week

It has been such a fun and busy week here, and I have been slacking on the Photo a Day challenge. However, I have been finding all sorts of things other than the items mentioned on the list to photograph. 

If you like these photos, stay tuned for tomorrow's post. It's like one big sneak peek!

Clockwise from top left:  The vintage bike fence | Tourist outfit | Fudge for days | Kitty meteor= kitty crater | Raspberry margarita | Errands outfit | Fancy pillow mint | Happy hour view with Jenni, Mallorie, Shanna and Jessica

{Beauty Mark} Suave Professionals Keratin Infusion Dry Shampoo

Oily hair season is here again. I have some seriously curly hair (read: dry with a tendency to frizz) and it protests being washed. So, I have to deal with a sweaty, product ridden scalp for most of my week. 

Sexy, right? 

I find myself planning my hair wash days around the events of the week, and prioritizing my activities based on clean hair. I have used baby powder in my hair for years to mask the greasy roots and give my hair the volume it lacks after a couple of days of non washing.

I recently started experimenting with dry shampoo, and have really loved what I'm seeing. There are some that are leaps and bounds above others, and I have found one brand in particular that not only controls the oil, but builds volume and adds a touch of shine. There is no George Washington-esque white tint and the smell is heavenly. It smells nothing like a baby's bottom, or really any powder at all. It has a fresh, almost fruity smell that even got Micah sniffing my head. 

With disturbing frequency actually.

It's Suave Professionals Keratin Infusion Dry Shampoo! It runs around $3-$4 in most drugstores, and is really the best low cost version out there that I've tried. It's light, smells gorgeous, and really builds volume and leaves my roots soft. 

I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a light, great smelling dry shampoo that really leaves the hair feeling a bit cleaner.

Amazon | Walgreens | Drugstore.com

Dressing The Nest

I am obviously a big thrifting junkie. The obsession isn't limited to clothes. 

In fact, it's much worse with decor, because you can never be too bloated for decor. It always fits. 

Last weekend I went and visited my mom, and she took me by a little store set off one of the main roads in her town. It's called Max's Haus and it is chock full of little treasures! I took one step into the little house, took one step back out and ran to the car for my camera. 

It. Is. Gorgeous. I immediately started snapping photos, and got about 50 before I thought to maybe ask the owner, Norma, if it was alright that I was getting all the photos. We got to talking, and the store actually has a beautiful back story, and the owner's life has become ingrained in the store's history.

The store is set up beautifully. It's one thing to throw a bunch of finds into a small space, making the buyers dig through the items, and possibly miss a gem. But this house is set up like my dream home. Plenty of space to walk through the displays, beautiful vignettes of little trinkets and books and so many little treasures just waiting to be discovered.

I am so excited to have found Max's, and if you ever make a trip to the Hill Country of Texas, make sure to stop in and check out this beauty. If you can't make it out here, check out some of the lovelies below.

SHAPE Diva Dash 2012

A couple of weekends ago, I had the pleasure of meeting up with a rowdy bunch of ladies for the Diva Dash 2012 here in Austin. It was a women's only 5K trail and obstacle run through a park with a SWAG party afterwards. With sponsors such as Origins, Luna, Birkenstock and Sahale, I knew I was in for some goodies! 

Is it sad that I'm talking more about the SWAG and less about the race? 

Our race wave began at 8:15am and we took off running through mulch, barreling through obstacles such as a bungee maze, balance ball tire run, bubble tent, log run and rope wall. I gracefully bowed out (ignored the race moderators) of the water portion of the race, seeing as how it was freezing out, thanks to a cool front that came in the night before. 

Well, and I just bought new shoes and wasn't interested in breaking them in on the bottom of a dirty park lake.

Blisters and Ebola? Pass.

I don't normally smile this early in the morning

Ready to roll

Racing in hairbows

Everyone have their timers?

Estrogen for miles

I couldn't help myself

We're a special pair

Trying on some comfy Birks (so I could get free socks!)

We survived!

I need to ask how she got her ponytail so full.

Friends In High Places

 As you may have already read, I went to a funeral last week for a little friend of ours that passed due to complications from a congenital heart defect at the age of 7. Well, the funeral was in a city in the high plains in West Texas that I spent many years in for part of college and grad school. Every time Micah and I return, it feels like we never left.

We catch up with friends, eat at all of our favorite restaurants and really just take a step back in time. Micah and I left just a few weeks before we got married, and as much as we itched to leave the city, we both feel a sense of melancholy when we return. 

I get the same feeling when I hold a baby. They're so soft and warm and smell like baby shampoo, but then they scream, make a angry poo in their diaper, and grow up to be teenagers. This place is flat, windy and seems to be about 60 years behind in time. I mean, they got a Chipotle only months before we moved.

C'mon people.

As anxious as I was to leave this place, this is where I met some of my best friends, met Micah, and really decided who I was and gained a voice for myself. I learned a lot about myself in this city, without a lot of distractions, and got really creative in my attempts at fun. So returning here, there was such a sense of peace and familiarity, but also of a bit of sadness that a chapter in our lives has closed.

Instagram of the Week

This past week has been a blur, and surprisingly, I've managed to capture some photos with my handy Instagram. I'm really loving having this app, and it has made my little everyday moments so much more fun to capture!

Clockwise from top left:  Roadtrip sunset | Flat for miles | Peppermint Patty Love | Cottonwood Snow | Pomegranate truffle with mom | New camera bag | Gift from mom | Sunday morning kitty time | New glasses

Follow along @ thesecondhandmagpie

Versatile Blogger Award {And Giveaway Winner!}

Ok guys, I'm back. The last few days have been very hard, and the loss has weighed incredibly heavy on my heart. No one should lose a child, and the world is a little darker without our Andrew. 

With death, many times we mourn for the living, not those who have passed on to a better place. At the funeral, a poem was read about children born with heart defects. The children were reluctant to leave Heaven, so they left half their heart in heaven, and brought half of it down to earth. This is very true. Now he has a healthy, happy heart, and is strutting around Heaven in his fireman uniform, putting out fires as they come.

After a lot of crying, a lot of talking and maybe more than a few margaritas, I'm back to the blog. I have missed reading everyone's posts, and am ready to rejoin the world of the living.

I must be doing something right, because I received two blog awards on the same day! Today I'm posting about an award I received from Bonnie at MiniMe Style and Ada at Elegance Personified.

I am beyond flattered and can't believe people are even paying attention to what I put up on here, much less liking it enough to award it! Here is how this award works:

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you.

2. Write 7 random things about yourself.

3. Spread the love to 5 more bloggers.

Seven Random Things... Here we go.

1. I ate a PB&J sandwich every day from 1st grade until my senior year in high school.
Why I did that is really still a mystery to me, but I still have a fondness for them, and can only eat them in this combination: JIF Reduced Fat Peanut Butter, Bama Grape Jelly, Grant's Farm Whole Wheat Bread. No strawberry jelly, no white bread, and definitely NO crunchy peanut butter.

2.  I invited Betty White to my wedding.

After my grandmother passed away when I was 15, I always longed for that grandmotherly figure in my life. We were very close, and would watch her favorite sitcoms together late at night when I stayed over. Our favorite was Golden Girls, and I always identified those four women as parts of my grandmother. When I got married, I felt like she had been such a part of my life for the past 10 years, that I felt it was right to extend an invitation and a letter explaining why, even though I knew she wouldn't come. Plus, I want to be her someday if #4 doesn't pan out.

3. I have never eaten at McDonald's.
People always scoff when they find this out, but I'm not much for fast food or soda, and my mom was always so vehemently against us eating there, so I never developed the taste for it. To this day, I have never eaten a french fry, chicken nugget or anything else from that place.

4. My biggest life aspiration is to become a mermaid.

Nieman's has a Christmas catalog every year that features extravagant, over the top Christmas gifts for that person who has everything. One year, they featured a $10,000 silicone mermaid tail that was customized to your body. It came with lessons to learn to swim with it, as well as care for and store it. Oh man. I begged and pleaded with my mom for that tail. It was beautiful, and if I had that, I wouldn't need a car. Mermaids don't drive.

5. I was once in a tornado

I was driving home one weekend my freshman year in college and had no choice but to drive through a terrible storm. About an hour away from home, I hit a mud storm. For those of you who don't know, a mud storm is essentially a dust storm that happens right in the middle of a rain storm. As I sat blinded by mud, I heard what I thought was a train passing through. Well, it was a tornado, and that tornado pushed me and my car down an embankment and into a fence. Scared the living daylights out me, but luckily my car took most of the hit.

Photo via

6. I was completely bald until I was two.
That's right. No hair to speak of. A mother of one of the children in my church nursery suggested to my mom that she use KY Jelly to stick bows to my head, so people would know I was a girl. Thankfully my mother left me lube free, and a head full of curls sprouted a year later.

7. I still sleep with my baby blanket. 
I know, lame. But she (yes, and her name is Gambolee) stays tucked in my pillowcase and now serves more as a head rest than anything else. At 26 I know it seems ridiculous, but for some reason, she has stuck around and I don't foresee her going away any time soon.

I would like to nominate the following bloggers:

Lauren at Clean Up Nicely
Whitney at cheerios and beer
Krystin at Suburban Faux-Pas
Sara at the Hinton Hookup
Megan at Freckled Italian

Also, check out my guest post on thrifting at The Mrs. and the Momma!

**The winner of the blog design giveaway is.... Yi-chia of Always Maylee!**