Mark & Graham

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The one thing that I LOVE about blogging and other bloggers is how everyone shares information! I was reading Shannon Ables blog and she mentioned this very chic company called Mark & Graham. She shared a beautiful photo of their boarding bags and oh my was I smitten!

How chic is this? Fantastic right? This is the Concourse Boarding Bag in white. This is absolutely exquisite. You can also add a monogram to it and who wouldn’t. I think “SMS” would look fantastic on this bag. 
Concourse Bag in linen
These bags are incredible! Another bag that I saw on the website is their Caroline Leather bag. 
Isn’t this bag attractive? It looks like it is tastefully done and would be able to remain in your closet for eternity. 
After looking at all of their bags I then ventured off and looked at jewelry and home accessories. 
Cheese Board
This is an elegant marble and wood board and would look lovely on my table for a New Year’s Eve celebration. 
I could go on and on but you can take your own adventure on the website and find more wonderful things to fall in love with. I am seriously considering buying that concourse boarding bag in white. I think that would be so elegant in the fall with a chunky sweater, pearls, and some Chanel perfume. I hope that you enjoyed this post and this elegant new company!
(photos via Mark&Graham)

Wild Blueberry and Honeysuckle Cream

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It’s Friday and I am looking forward to getting into my flower garden this weekend. I am hoping that some of the rain will hold out. I really want to get some mulch, and flower pots for my porch. My Canadian cherry choke tree is blooming and it smells like fresh lavender out front. It is so lovely.

I love simple pleasures like that in life. Being out front with my husband looking at all of the work that we want to do this spring to our yard and then getting a whiff of our scented tree. Very nice….

Speaking of scents, I hope that some of you have had a chance to get to Bath and Body Works. Their new scents are amazing! It has been very hard for me to find a scent lately. I am still a dedicated fan of the oldies but goodies. Like the original cherry blossom, that has been the last of the retired scents that I have been able to order. I love it and order it in bulk when I can.

But now their new wild blueberry scent is a close second! I love it! I have been wearing it for about two weeks now and still love it. That is a good sign. Another great fragrance is their pink honeysuckle. It has such a clean smell to it. I really like the notes of pink mandarin and sandalwood in it. It’s lovely.

I hope you can all get a moment to stop by and smell these. Enjoy a simple pleasures!

(photo via Mrs. Shockley)

April Favorites

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Oh my… the end of another month. My goodness. It is truly flying by! I had to really think about my favorites for this month. I am still enjoying my favorites from March and still thinking about the cherry blossoms! 


One thing that I have been enjoying are the latest flowers that have been appearing at the grocery store. I get about 80% of my flowers from my local grocery store. They are affordable and I am able to start wonderful relationships with the florist. It’s great.

I will say this. I was so excited to find Queen Anne’s lace this past weekend! I could not believe it. It is so rare to see this in Indiana. The last time I had a bouquet with this was in 2014! So this was definitely a favorite for this month. 

My second favorite this month were these pink and purple roses. I was inspired to look for a bouquet like this because of this gorgeous photo below that was posted to Instagram and a few weeks ago. 
photo credit Rachel Parcell 
Oh my gosh! I don’t remember whose account this came from but goodness gracious is that stunning! I would seriously want to take that bouquet with me everywhere! I would want it in the car, in my office, at home, in my closet, in the kitchen, just everywhere! 
My next favorite was this screenshot that I took from a Hallmark movie that I was watching last week. I can not remember what movie this was from but this women’s outfit caught my eye. Isn’t she chic? Look at the hat and the blush colored dress. Very sharp! I even tried looking for her bag online. Hallmark needs to seriously consider sharing their wardrobe finds on their website. I should post this on my Instagram account and tag them in it asking for details. 
My last favorite is my first Youtube video! I am not sure if any of you have had a chance to watch it but I was so petrified making this video. Youtube is such a scary place and you never know what people are thinking or doing. I don’t know if I will be making anymore. I plan on taking it slow.
Well, I hope that you enjoyed this post and let me know your thoughts below about my Youtube channel.  
(photos via Mrs. Shockley and Instagram)

The Chic Assignments ~ April

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Goodness, April is almost over. It’s going by way to fast. I hope that you all had a wonderful Easter. I always to try to make sure that we continue to teach the children what’s important about Easter. Christ has risen! 

I was able to find some baby’s breath at the store. I was not sure if I would be able to its also prom month here in Indy and the baby’s breath is always elusive.

My table at home


Okay, now let me share with you all on how I am doing on the Chic Assignments for April.
The first assignment was to listen to Schubert’s Ava Maria. After seeing the Notre Dame Cathedral burn this was hard to listen too. That was so heartbreaking to me! I immediately starting thinking about all of the beautiful, historical buildings in our country. God, please protect them! We all enjoy them and honor them! 
I did, however, watch the video that Jennifer had on her site of the father singing it with his beautiful daughter watching. That lifted my spirits after seeing the news about the cathedral. 
The second assignment was to read poetry from author Percy B. Shelley. I did listen to the poem that Jennifer read on her blog but I also love Maya Angelou’s poem called “Woman Work”. I think we can all relate to this poem. 
photo credit Pinterest 
The third assignment was to dress up for no reason. I live my life like this so it is not hard for me at all. I enjoy dressing up every day. Even on the weekends. It is truly amazing how much people pay attention to that. I wore a floral dress and cardigan to the grocery store this past weekend and people were stopping me everywhere saying how much they loved my dress. I told my daughter. People love seeing well-dressed people. I don’t care how they act. People, deep down inside, love it!
Me in my floral dress and cardigan
If you are interested in this dress you may purchase it here.


And the last assignment was getting intentional rest. I try to make sure that I do this from time to time. A few years ago I realized that I did not take any personal days from work. Then one of my good friends who was a supervisor at the time said, “Don’t worry about this place. The work will be here when you return”. So now I take more personal days and enjoy my life. 
My office at home
And I spend them at home. I’ll watch a movie with a cup of tea, read, run a few errands, visit an antique store. I really take time to relish in the things I love. 

Well, that is all from the chic assignments of Mrs. Shockley. Let me know what all you have been doing for the month of April. Being chic I hope!
Thanks for reading!!!
(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

Floral Satin Scarf

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Finding a great satin scarf is a wonderful thing. I love finding a beautiful scarf each spring. This was a stupendous find! It is gorgeous and under $15! How great is that?
This is the patterned satin scarf at H&M.
The colors are tasteful and the flowers are very attractive. 
I wore this the entire time I was in D.C. It went well with all of my outfits. 
Goodness, I can’t believe that it is Friday again and Good Friday at that. I am keeping things simple for Easter dinner. I am making my crock-pot chicken with Campbell’s cream of chicken soup, buttery mashed potatoes, green beans, and some crescent rolls. I hope my store gets some stock in of baby’s breath. I love having that around this time. It gives off a light fragrant scent. I plan on having small vases of that as centerpieces for the table.  I hope that you all have a wonderful Easter and celebrate Christ. 
Enjoy!
(photos via Mrs. Shockley & H&M)

My Acrylic Chair

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Last month one of the biggest florist companies that we have called McNamara had a garage sale. Now they do this every year and every year I try to make plans to go. Well this year I said that I am going and I made sure that I scheduled it!
They had lots of faux flowers, pictures, Christmas decor and furniture. I spotted this stack of acrylic chairs in the back. Now I wrote about this in 2017 so I was really surprised to see these there. I have always wanted an acrylic chair and just thought that they were way to expense right now. 
But they had these priced at $40 each! A steal!!!! I could not wait to get it home and get it all cleaned up. 
A good soapy towel and some Windex took all that old dust and dirt off quickly. 
It looks lovely…
I placed it in my office here at home. I looks really chic and I got a feeling that I am really going to enjoy this chair. It’s something different which is so hard to do here in Indiana. As I mentioned everyone wants the same clothes, furniture, cars, etc. It’s frustrating sometimes but no matter. I will continue to following the beat to my own drummer and move forward in the things I love. 
If you are looking for an acrylic chair or ghost chair Target has this one and this one in seven different colors. 
What are your thoughts on ghost furniture? Elegant or non? 
(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

A Little Tour…

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Good Morning Monday, starting the week again is never fun. But here we are….. I wanted to start this week’s blogs with the last of my D.C. trip from last month. I did not take as many pictures on this trip. I wanted to walk around and “take” everything in. I hate being on tours or on vacations and you are behind your camera the whole time. It just drives me nuts! And also since this was our third time going I have seen most of everything that I wanted to see. So it was okay to take fewer pictures this time. 
The photo above is in the U.S. Capitol. This building is just so beautiful. I was trying to capture the peach color paint on the walls but this photo does not do it justice. 

This room is the original Senate room. It still has a majestic feel to it. 

Also apart of the original Senate rooms.

Love all of the details in the ceilings. 
You see majestic….

A little fun fact about this chandelier. The original price when this was being built was $1,500. They just had this insured for $4.2 million! WOW!
Once we finished the Capitol tour (we scheduled a private tour), our guide wanted to take us to the Speaker’s Balcony. I was so excited to see this. I used to want to be President (I still kind of do) so having this opportunity was just a dream. 

My family and I enjoyed it!
After that, we went and took another look at the Library of Congress and I was so glad that I was able to just walk around and learn a few facts about this glorious building. 

We took a walk around the National Mall and I found this wonderful monument of Eleanor Roosevelt. This quote has wonderful truth to it, especially now… “The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one nation. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world”.  

Well said! 



After all of the tours, we had dinner at some wonderful restaurants. This was my dish at Clyde’s in Georgetown. Some of you may have seen this on my Instagram. It was so delicious we went back a second time! This was the roast half chicken dinner with lyonnaise potatoes, madeira mushrooms, and swiss chard. Outstanding! 
Then we went to a restaurant called Due South.  This was their cornbread with rosemary butter. Oh mercy! So good!

I ended up ordering the fennel spiced salmon with beluga lentils, sauteed kale, roasted onions, heirloom tomato and spicy creole sauce. Another fantastic meal! So tasty!
This turned out to be a delightful work trip. I was able to get everything accomplished and still had a superb time with my family. The weather was perfect and so were those cherry blossoms. I thanked the Lord greatly for this trip. It turned out to be a dream. As always thank you for reading and enjoy your day!


(photos via Mrs. Shockley)