Five on Friday

I think y'all know the drill :)

{1} We had one of the best New Year's Eves we've had in a while and I'm just really happy. We had my BFF, Erin, and her fiancé {I still smile when I say that. And I squealed "YOU'RE ENGAGED!!!" no less than twenty times on NYE.} over for sushi, drinks, and Cards Against Humanity. Also known as an ab workout because holy hell, Erin rivals my parents in hilarious reading of CAH phrases. On New Year's Day we all just hung around the house no, not nursing hangovers, why would you think that..., ate Mexican food for lunch and watched football. Perfection!

{2} But! before all those NYE shenanigans could go down, I got to do the stuff dreams are made of...

I met Floyd!!! And his partner in crime, Pierre {Casey's Basset}. Oh, and Casey, Sarah and Kait were there, too. You can read all about how Sarah and Kait surprised Casey here, here, or here. But mostly you just need to know that all three of these ladies are simply wonderful and getting to hang with them for even a few hours was so fun. Crazy dog ladies, who?

{3} I know we just finished the official holiday season, but I'm shamelessly thinking ahead to the next holiday of 2014.

Or should I say, Buggins is thinking ahead! She's sentimental, that one. When Cardstore contacted me recently asking if I'd like to review one of their fabulous cards, I jumped at the chance and knew just who to use as my model! Cardstore's website is so easy to navigate and I was able to make this personalized card in under ten minutes. Bonus? It shipped the very next day! With Cardstore there are endless options to create any card your heart desires, from standard greeting cards to personalized cards using your own photos. I mean, don't you agree that someone is going to be verrrrry happy to receive this baby in the mailbox next month?!

{4} And because I'm not obviously obsessed with my dog... Oh, wait.

But really, coffee can't get much cuter than this! I got this mug for Christmas and it's from Dog is Good -- you might remember an adorable pillow my mom got me for Easter? Same shop! They have some of the cutest apparel, home items, and accessories for dog lovers like myself and I can guarantee their shop will be on my Christmas list for years to come.

{5} I briefly touched on this in my last post, but life lately boils down to I really really really freaking need a fresh start in 2014. Did I mention I want a fresh start? 2013 was all kinds of weird and dislike-worthy, but I'm done dwelling and am excited for the newness of 2014. And with a new year comes a new blog, right? Of course, because I'm extreme or something like that. So basically, the domain of southernourway.com expires in six days and I'm not renewing it. I love many posts I've written over the last year+, but I don't love a number too and hate that for an amount of time I got caught up in how not to blog. Or at least not how I know I should blog. I used Blog2Print to export a PDF of my blog posts from Day 1 to December 31, 2013 -- pretty awesome concept and I love that I'll have all my posts for the future! But new posts are to come, just not in this space. I've purchased the domain www.southernlivingourway.com - yep, I'm keeping the blog name the same, because I love it and I still feel like it fits my/our life perfectly. {Also, purchased doesn't = transitioned. So it's still an empty page at the moment!} But a fresh design, fresh posts {using the knowledge I wish I knew when I started blogging}, a fresh GFC box, and a fresh outlook are finally happening and I'm pretty pumped. I'm not sure when the new blog will be up and running, but there will definitely be a bit of a blog break between the time this one expires and the new one gets prettied up with her first post. I hope you'll choose to keep following my craziness and I really can't thank every single one of you enough for reading my posts since September 2012. I've met so many wonderful women on this journey and wouldn't trade the hours spent writing, both good and shiiitty posts, for anything. I'll update Twitter {@southernourway} and Instagram {alexa_2889} with new blog details so follow there if you're interested!