hotlanta ladies: come one, come all!

hey y'all! exciting stuff today for any girls in atlanta:

the lovely ladies of three happy eaters and i are hosting a clothing swap this weekend benefitting hagar's house, a women's shelter in decatur, and YOU are invited!

the short and sweet details:

what: a clothing swap. bring $5 and any unwanted, gently worn clothing/shoes/purses/jewelry
when: this saturday, april 13th at 10:30am
where: amanda's house
why: to support a local ministry, clean out your closets, shop, eat good food and drink mimosas

for full details check out the facebook event page and make sure to rsvp while you're at it.

all proceeds go straight to hagar's house and all leftover clothing will go to oakhurst presbyterian, where they will be distributed to hagar's house and other ministries in need.

who doesn't wanna snag some cute clothes with a drink in their hand and good food in their belly all while benefitting a good cause and enjoying some girl time?!

it won't be the same without you!

<3 jojy and the three happy eaters


p.s. the photos above show just a taste of some of the clothing we have already collected for your shopping pleasure! and yes, we are considering being part-time models... but we'll probably still have to keep our normal jobs.

"let your one day affect her everyday"

wowowow. i LOVE this organization.

love gives way is a community of wedding vendors who have set up different wedding packages making it so that a portion of what you are spending will go towards helping those who have been exploited by sex trafficking.

if only i had known about this when i was getting married!

i find all of the hullabaloo that goes into weddings very frustrating. it tends to make people very self-centered. it's YOUR day. YOU YOU YOU. brides are told that this is the one time in their life where they get to pretend like they are a princess and demand that they have everyone's full attention. wedding planning is not typically a time where you think outside yourself. because of this, love gives way is an incredibly unique voice in the current wedding culture.*

"love gives way is a community of brides and grooms who are choosing that their love gives way to the  recovery and restoration of sexually exploited people." -andy brophy, founder of love gives way

if you're recently engaged and looking to plan your wedding in a way that glorifies more than just yourself, this is a meaningful way to do it. you can choose from several different wedding vendors who are all passionate about ending sex trafficking and helping to make your big day beautiful.

cause even on the day when it's supposed to be all about you, it's just not.

<3 jojy

*i am not at all saying that i think you are a bad person if you love weddings and everything that goes into planning them. if you read this and i was at your wedding and now you think that i was judging you the whole time, i was not. i was most likely crying tears of joy and celebrating with you and embarrassing you on the dance floor. these thoughts on weddings are only my personal conviction on wedding culture in general. 

small town southern livin'

i'm feeling thankful to live in a small southern town. 

a lot of days, harrison and i pine for big city living. we want to move to nyc sometime in the next couple of years and as a result, every once in a while, it's hard to remember to live fully where we are and not miss out on life while we're dreaming of the next thing.

i love the south. i really do. but there are a lot of things that i strongly dislike about the south. i'm not going to go into any of those things now because i like to keep positive vibes around here, but lets just say most days, the pros and cons of southern life are about equal. some days the cons outweigh the pros. but yesterday the pros outweighed the cons. in just the littlest, nicest way. 

i was out walking errands around decatur yesterday. with my umbrella cause it looked like rain. i was on my way back home when all of a sudden it started raining hard and the wind was the kind that blows your umbrella up and makes you look silly. i happened to be passing by our local catholic church, so i ran for cover by their front doors, hoping the storm would pass quickly. 

i was only under the awning for 15 minutes before i had three different people come out and ask me if i needed a ride! now, i know that most of the time it isn't safe to take rides from strangers. but i weighed my options and after they insisted several times, i accepted one of them. she was a delightful woman, probably in her 50s, driving a minivan with carseats in the back for her grandkids. she was very sweet and i felt completely safe [and dry]. i wish i remembered her name! i would bake her some cookies for her generosity. 

nyc, we're coming for you one day. but right now i'm so thankful that i live in a small southern town where i felt totally at ease accepting this kindness from a stranger.

<3 jojy

[artist: mattie lou o'kelley title: yard sale]

my friend nia got her very first tattoo

i got to accompany one of my best friends, nia, on an adventure to get her first tattoo! she just had a birthday so it was her birthday present to herself.

we went to only you tattoo in grant park. i had never been there before but i really liked it! it was a very nice and clean atmosphere with very friendly staff. i'm thinking i'll try this place out for my next tat.

nia designed her own tattoo. it's a tree with the word "peace" in the branches and the word "grace" at the roots. she also included a quote that she had seen graffitied somewhere ["a singing bird will come"]. how cool is that?! i think its really beautiful.

she did great. tattoos can be painful [depending on who you talk to] and nia was afraid she would embarrass herself by crying but she didnt!! no tears! although there was some serious hand squeezing..my fingers were turning purple.

yay tattoos!

<3 jojy

my favorite street art

isn't it beautiful?! the artist is Molly Rose Freeman and this particular piece is called "The Soul's Bright Anchor" which comes from a poem by Natasha Trethewey [2012 U.S. poet laureate and atlanta resident]. 

i was researching this art a few weeks ago and found her website [she also has an etsy shop!] that lists the other cities where she has done street art. it all looks super cool!! 

i would like to commission her to design a tattoo for me. i've been itching for another one and i think it would be the coolest to have something lovely and geometric tattooed on my body. i'm thinking it would start on the back of my neck and move down across my right shoulder and continue down part of my arm. 

these are the things my dreams are made of, y'all.

<3 jojy

[this art is located on the underpass at whitefoord and dekalb. photos are my own.]