Friday’s Five

Happy Friday! This week, Chad and I decided to start popping around downtown with my iPhone to take my weekday outfit photos for Style Files. So we did it on Monday, and then… we missed the rest of the week. Ha! Back to mirror selfies next week, y’all. In the meantime, here are a handful of things I loved this week, as told through snaps from my iPhone.

(Actually, I’m kind of digging the thought of alternating Style Files and Friday Five each week… we’ll see how it goes!)

The one #OOTD we snapped. I pulled this sweater for the style feature I did with WH magazine last month, and loved it so much I bought it. It’s from one of my go-to brands for knitwear, Olive + Oak, that I always buy from m.marie, and this one has a super cute feature: it buttons down the back. Am I wearing it again today? Maybe.

I loved this bridal bouquet from the shop last weekend; the mix of colors and textures is so fun for a spring wedding!

My mom gave Doak this giant rawhide last weekend, and he’s still slowly working on it. Those eyes… can you even?! (I can’t even.)

Rafa Natural is one of my favorite local businesses, and they just expanded their Bartow shop with even more little luxuries to love: in addition to their amazing lineup of handmade natural bath & body products, they have super cute succulent gardens and a great assortment of gifts. If you’re local, I highly recommend popping by either — or both! — of their Bartow and Lakeland locations; if you’re not, you can shop online on their website. (I’m partial to their ‘Relaxation’ and ‘Pretty’ scents, love their body scrubs, and use their coconut bar soap in the shower every day.)

I just learned this week that one of my all-time favorite movies, My Girl, was filmed in this historic house in Bartow, which is less than 20 minutes from my hometown! (It’s probably best I didn’t have this knowledge as a kid, because I would’ve begged my family to drive me there every weekend.) When I was in Bartow yesterday afternoon, I cruised by to check it out and remembered that C and I delivered a small wedding order there way back when we first started working at the shop; before we even bought the business from our parents. It used to be a bed and breakfast called the Stanford Inn, but it’s out of business now and the property is for sale. If I had an extra half-a-million lying around, I’d definitely buy it; I’d set up the flower shop on the first floor and live upstairs, and spend all my spare time with an iced tea and a book on that wraparound front porch.

A note: I ordinarily don’t take photos of private property to post on social media. It’s becoming an issue for property owners as people become more intrusive and less respectful to get cute pics for the ‘gram; there’s a weird perception that if you have a cute house, people are somehow entitled to trespass and ‘enjoy’ it. In this case, this commercial/residential property is on the market, and I snapped a photo really quickly from my car window across the street so I wouldn’t be intrusive. Please be mindful of homeowners’ privacy and space when you’re scouting the perfect place to take a cute photo; unless you have permission, it’s not cool to sit on people’s steps or enter their yard for a photo, no matter how quickly you get outta there. (Lookin’ at you, certain influencers with millions of followers who set a terrible precedent for this kind of behavior. *side-eye emoji*) This piece on Curbed gives great insight into the issue.