For some background.

In March 2022, Dana and I moved into a tall & skinny house in Nashville. Little did we know that April 2, we’d find out that we were going to be parents. If we had known, we would’ve picked something without so many stairs. I had no clue that morning sickness was more like “all day sickness” and would make it nearly impossible for me to accomplish all of craziness I had set out to do both with my career and with my home. If I could tell any freshly pregnant woman one thing it would be, “don’t wait to get the nausea meds, just do it.” I thought for some reason that it was just how you were supposed to feel. Anyhow, we are making this house work and we’ve finally finished the upstairs nursery.

We have a few challenges and things going on with this house. First and foremost, the second bedroom upstairs is small and although it does have an awesome full bathroom, it is shaped odd and it’s really hard to fit furniture. We ended up having to do some major tetris action to get it all ironed out. Second, my family is far away and will have to come stay with us, so we needed extra sleeping arrangements. Third, we will probably only be in this house until our lease is up in March, so we didn’t want to make any grand gestures that would be long term choices, simply because it fit this specific house.

For the last 10 years of blogging, I really didn’t do much with “products.” I thought that Instagram girls showing off their skincare was so cliche and I just wasn’t into skinny tea or MLM hair product vibes. I don’t like my house smelling like essential oils and I also don’t care much for gym girls’ pre workout. I also wasn’t able to get in early enough to Like2KnowIt and I am such a bargain shopper, that many of the clothes I buy would’ve been hard to find and share anyhow. A typical blogger’s online life just didn’t fit me. I started The Wine Shutter to separate my hotel/wine photography, which was much more of a professional endeavor, not a personal story of my troubles and findings. I rarely even tell stories in those blog posts; they’re mainly an account of the places I’ve reviewed.

After about 1 week of researching registry lists and baby products, I realized that I had an opportunity to use the following I did have, the pitching skills, and the extra time to drum up some collaborations. I figured, the worst they could all say is “no.” In the past, I had been worried that I wasn’t a big enough blogger to get awesome items for free, but it turns out… I was wrong!

I don’t really want this blog to be focused on “products,” but I did want a place to share some of the awesome findings and how I like them, simply because it’s fun and I want to share the deets! Some of the items are found at thrift shops, like the french provincial white dresser and gold mirror, but I’ll link the stuff that I know for sure.