• Listening to: So-so by Brooke Waggoner.
• Eating: Homemade ginger & white chocolate biscotti over Vietnamese-pressed coffee (big thanks to my sweet globe-trotting friend Miss Tay for bringing it all the way to me, in Tennessee).
• Wearing: White on white. With September breathing down my neck, I thought I’d go monochrome one last time while it’s warm.

I suppose it is officially not the weekend anymore. Tuesdays are go-go-go days for me, & everyone knows Mondays are for making you feel low. It’s at times like these, cheri, that we must look back to those long periods of happiness (also known as Friday, Saturday, & Sunday), when mornings linger into the afternoon & evenings into the earliest hours of the morn.

Some of my absolute favorite moments of the weekend are those spent with my ladies. During the semester, my friends & I have a ritual of spending Friday nights in-house–cooking, laughing, & relaxing together. (That is not to say we don’t go out at all on Friday nights, at the very least we preface these dinners with some shopping about town. This week’s pick? The new Ulta–a very dangerous place. I walked away wearing 10 different shades of polish on my fingernails, oh my.)

There are so many aspects of these evenings spent with the girls, besides just making time for leisure after a week spent at work, that are something like healing. After five days of eating out, the process of cooking fresh fare–food we picked out & prepared–is just so fulfilling. And getting to eat it, well, that’s pretty good too.

It reminds me of an afternoon spent out with my mom this summer. We began with a brunch at one of my favorite casual cafes, The Early Bird Diner. The eclectic all-nighter has art-covered walls & some of the fluffiest grits in town. Their distinctly southern menu offers local favorites such as chicken & waffles & everything fried–pickles, green tomatoes, & okra, to name a few.

From there, we topped off the afternoon with manicures, pedicures, & a healthy amount of shopping in which the unachievable was achieved: after quite a lot of time spent trying on & taking off an even greater amount of denim, I found a perfect pair of pants. It was one of those flawless summer afternoons–the kind I know I’ll be missing come fall (& already am, a bit).

Anyway, here’s to girl’s nights! May we enjoy them for as long as we can. J’adore!

{Photos by me: 1. assorted European jams at the EBD 2. my sweet mom 3. & 4. my fabulous brunch}