Mini Fall Décor Haul

Hello!

I love to decorate, as many of you know, and one of my favorite seasons is fall. When I was younger, I only adored it because that signaled to me that my birthday was quickly approaching, but now I have various reasons why I love about it.

On Instagram, I follow two accounts that post about everything autumnal and Halloween, and once September starts, the instantly see their content constantly and it’s eerie how quickly I become jealous because most of the time, they are sharing the ALL of the new stuff in stores. By week two, I could have saved up to like 10 items that I’ve found and possible want if it’s not too expensive!

Well, my parents agreed to give me $100 to spend last month, I could spend it on anything I wanted and I went back on Wal-Mart’s website for the third time to search for autumnal pieces for my room; and without the paint for our pumpkins and Command strips (even though those are vital for hanging things up!) I still come back under my original budget, which is really good because like I told my mom it could’ve been much worse!

THE PUMPKIN WREATH – $9.98

This was honestly one of the first things I saw back in early August that I instantly fell in love with, because it has everything I love about this time of the year: pumpkins, the colors orange and red, and sunflowers!

The wreath itself is very unique, because instead of being in a circle shape, it is designed to be like a pumpkin. It looks like it was made with sticks but my mom pointed out to me that it is actually metal! In the middle it has different fake foliage, berries and sunflowers in a series of fall colors. It is honestly so pretty and I like the fact that it isn’t your everyday fall wreath either.

It was hard to figure out where to place this, because I have a section of my wall for seasonal wreaths, blame it on my mom, because she brought home this cute and neon colored sunflower wreath and I thought it was cute and summer-y, thus starting me on this “tower of seasons” thing now.

However, once the hooks came in, I just ended up making my decision by having it hang on the front of my bedroom door. My mom and I actually love the placement. It gives our guests this little nod to fall.

AUTUMN SKULL SHIRT – $16.99

So, for the next item that came in, it drove us a little nuts because when my dad said I received another package in the mail, he said it was “pants” and I knew I didn’t order any pants. I was thinking about it but couldn’t find anything that I liked so I kept thinking on what it could be, and then I remembered my list and I thought dad had misread the text and instead of “pants” it could be “paints”? Well, after we got into a little argument about it, he opened it up and found out we were all wrong and it ended up being my shirt.

I was torn between this one and another I found, but the image on the website looked like it was glittery and I do not deal well with certain textures on my hands and this realization was the result to the conflict. This top is in a darker grey, and has the outline of an adult size skull in black on the right side whereas the left has green, yellow and orange colored leaves and a large sunflower in the eye socket.

I may not listen to heavy metal as much anymore, but I still enjoy my skulls and spikes hardcore, so when this popped up, I couldn’t say no to it. Hell, my parents wouldn’t been able to deny it either! I mean, if you are close to me, you would automatically say “this screams Meghan!”. So, I purchased it and my dad did say it is badass.

STACKED PLAID PUMPKINS – $16.99

For this next one, I was really unsure about it. I absolutely loved them to pieces, and the fact you got two for the price, I thought it was too mean to not get it but I didn’t know if I enjoyed the plaid part so much. These pumpkins came in both black and orange, and for a good thirty minutes I was going for the black and white ones. I thought they would fit better with the rest of my black stuff but honestly the orange just seemed more practical for me.

They are so adorable! When my mom brought them into my room, they were wrapped in a mesh case that looked easy to take apart, – I don’t do this because I can’t get my toes around a pair of scissors! Anyways, the pumpkins are stacked together with each one in a different size, overall it is medium and could fit anywhere you chose to put it, whether it’s on your porch or in a corner of a room.

MOON PHASE GARLAND – $20.94

As I mentioned at the top, I had two items that really inspired me to decorate my room for the season. I have always been interested in our planet system, my favorites are: Earth (of course!), Moon, Jupiter, and sorry to anyone who says Pluto is a dwarf moon, but I still adore Pluto. Anyways, the Moon has a lot of meaning for me. If I am outside at night, I instantly want to find the moon. I love to look for it during the day and night, and I am one of those people that will stop doing something and point with my big toe and say “there’s the moon!” So, with that being said, I want it even closer to me and make it part of my autumnal bedroom.

They have this banner or garland in two different colors on Walmart’s website: gold and silver! I haven’t been the biggest lover of gold anything, but since my walls are basically grayish, it wouldn’t look right in the silver. I just didn’t think it would shine as well, so I went for the gold instead and honestly, it can be a fall time color or at least that’s what I keept telling myself!

One little warning for everyone reading this post, since my mom and I had so many issues dealing with this, it might be easier doing everything DIY! The fact that we had no instructions, three pieces had some kind of red marking on the gold side, the clip to hook it to the top and pendent were hard as a rock, and half of the phases will not turn over to the gold (and because of that, I now have to paint them all!) that my dad literally hollered out to mom in the mist of this, “next time you are inspecting the list!” but honestly I don’t think they would have helped us in the end! Click here to find the video that seemed a lot more easier and cheaper compared the hassle we endured.

AUTUMN LEAVES BLANKET – $21.99

So, this is the final thing I got because let’s be honest, you can NEVER have enough blankets, right?! The really awesome part about it though is that, it arrived on the first day of fall too!

I have six blankets on my bed, four of which actually serve a purpose for me, but all but two are Christmas themed. Yes, this was my reason for wanting to get this blanket! To be honest though, my Transformers blanket is getting old, and feels really worn at times so it’s time to retire it.
For this blanket, it is fleece, which is like my favorite thing in the world! They keep me warm and I tend to use them to help ease my elbows–if I don’t have one underneath my elbows and lay on one side for too long, the skin on my elbows can break and according to my mom, it is a space that is really difficult to heal! The blanket is a light beige colored with a lot of varied reds, orange, brown, and yellow leaves scattered around the entire sheet.

WHITE CORD LIGHTS – $11.98

Last Christmas, my mom got me a box of “white” lights to wrap around my tree, but unfortunately the tree itself was way too small for them so we improvised and put them around my window and it just looked gorgeous surrounded by the tulle sunflower curtain that you instantly feel so much joy about what it brings to such a small space.

In the span of late November to mid-April 2020. we used up the lights a lot and I say “we” because I know for a fact that other people in my family enjoyed them just as much as I do. We did try to purchase another set of lights, but everytime we went to plug them into the sockets, they were blink like crazy and I didn’t like it and neither did my mom, especially since I tend to leave them on all night, I knew if we kept these on like usual I would be more paranoid than I already am at night. So, within an hour and a half after my parents put them around my window, I said nope and that was the end of that conversation.

Thankfully, my mom went to Dollar General about a week after I made up my original list of fall decorations and she found out that they were putting out early Christmas items and one of the things they had on the shelves were two boxes of the right kind of lights, which are the white cord and white or “warm” lights. They were on sale for $2 a piece so she ended up buying me two boxes just in case we needed a back up later on! After barely six months of being in the darkness again, I have them back and it feels even more like fall to me inside the four walls of my room. Although she found them from another store, I have the same brand linked to Walmart, and of course since Christmas is right around the corner the price went up to almost $20 but still, I don’t think this wouldn’t mattered to us either way!


Sometime next month, I will put up the kind of “decorate with me” or “bedroom tour”, I haven’t exactly figured out what the title will be but it’ll be about where I put everything in my room. You’ll see everything I got and hopefully by the time it goes up, I will have a before and after snapshots of the moon garland too. Cross your fingers and toes that it goes well for us! 

Now it is your turn, I want to know what kind of stuff you like to decorate around your space? Do you have a specific aesthetic you follow throughout each room? What is your newest piece you have now?

snowflake

OOTD: Wheelchair Rapunzel

Howdy!

Last Friday was my birthday. If you didn’t know I had a blog post go up that day, talking about things that make me happy. So, if you haven’t seen that yet, maybe after this post you will go visit it and take a look at what I included inside?

For today though, it will be one of my favorite type of posts to create and that is an outfit of the day! It has been so long since I’ve actually done an OOTD it’s actually a first for 2019, which sounds so weird considering where we are on the yearly calendar.

There was really only one thing that I truly wanted for my birthday and there’s a special reason behind it too.

Although I have strong opinions on various things in the disability community, I have never belong to any of the groups. I follow my own path as everyone should, but for once I found a person that knew I was ready to accept my life for what it is, a proud disable woman. Alex Dacy is the creator of the company Wheelchair Rapunzel & Co. Even though I have only been following her for a short time, I love the message she’s trying to share with the world. We are beautiful, our bodies are amazing and gorgeous! We should be proud of our different shapes and sizes.

Alex recently updated her logo for her company a couple of months ago into this watercolor painted person in a wheelchair sign with a giant sunflower blinded into it. I would be lying if I Didn’t mention that sunflowers are my favorite, but it wasn’t the driving force to make me ask for it, when I really loved the combination of both the sunflower and wheelchair were on it, plus knowing it was time for me show off how beautiful I am.

Now it’s time to talk about the actual outfit.

On the Wheelchair Rapunzel’s website, you can get the same design I have but in the colors gray or pink. Since I’m not really a pink girl, I went with the gray instead. Honestly, my mom and I have found some common ground in my closet since everything that fits now is in that exact color! Where she use to complain about how much black I had in my life, has turned to gray! Anyways, this is a much lighter shade than anything I have so that was afferent for us.

As you can see the logo is located right in the middle of my arms. Thankfully it is large enough where they don’t cover a lot of it, so you can still the yellow of the sunflower and certain spots of the wheelchair too. For my legs, my mom was going to put me in my basketball pants, that are in the same color of the shirt but has a thick white strip going down my waist to my feet. These are one of two favorite pants lately, but I thought another pair I had would be a better fit. I hoped she wasn’t washing it or this wouldn’t work out well for me, but it wasn’t. I wore a pair of leggings that are a darker gray with what my mom described as “cobblestones” pattern throughout, which I could agree with because I have been calling them “floral” when they don’t look like any flowers to us!

Lastly, I want to say that as much I don’t enjoy taking pictures of my outfit indoors, it was extremely cold outside. When I got up that morning, I had a chance to see my kitties on the back patio doors, the ground had frost on it! It had snowed on Halloween too! I saw so many people say that “well, it’s snowing! Can I put up my Christmas tree now?”. I was just happy that it was sunny as crap on my birthday.

When my parents came in to sing to me “happy birthday” although my dad was telling himself instead, he does this with pretty much all of us! My mom gave me two packages of chocolate candy: a large bar of Hershey’s dark chocolate and a jumbo pack of Reese’s. However, my dad stayed true to tradition and brought me some nice flowers, and yes, there were three sunflowers! However, since I had a vase of sunflowers and daisies from the other day when my mom went to the store, these went into the kitchen because we are running out of places to put them in! However, we used as a prop for the pictures and I thought they were a great addition to the piece. For once everything turned out right that we may need to do this again!

Before I go, I think you should look into Alex’s story and purchase any of the shirts or anything else that she has on her site. Tell her Meghan sent you! Okay, I have to go now! Hope you are enjoying your Wednesday!

Vloggers That I Love #5

Howdy!

I think I am going to try to do one Vloggers That I Love post a month, because I have quite a bit still on my list. Every time I feel like I’m finally done putting new ones on it, I literally add two more, but mostly to include a third onto every post. Anyways, this week I is either going to make you very happy or depressed you’re not rich; we’ll see what happens at the end of the post?


RemiLife | luxury fashion, beauty + weight loss


I first discovered Remi’s vlogging channel last Christmas, I was looking for new Vlogmases to watch and I happened to find hers throughout the long list of channels. My first impression of Remi was that I loved her personality; she’s a fast talker, lovable woman. I knew I would be back day after day just to see what kind of craziness she’ll get into it!

Remi talks mostly about luxury fashion and beauty products, which is the reason why I said in the first paragraph that you might be a little sad while reading this post! Honestly, I love her hauls and gifted videos the most, because she gets so excited for everything! I’ve noticed that a lot of others that post similar videos, they’re not as thrilled on camera. I especially love it when her doggy Daisy gets in the middle of unboxing and wants to play at that exact moment. Poor girl!

Another thing I love about her is that she is real about her weight loss journey. Apparently that’s why she created her channel in the first place, which I thought was interesting because I figured that would be something that I would be afraid to share online, knowing all of the horrible comments a person can get on just about everything! She likes to talk about food, what she eats on a regular basis and even on her cheat days too! I actually love whenever she takes trips to Whole Foods because she’ll show you what she likes the most and goes for both healthy and junk food! She’s just me and she’ll find something and go “ooh!” for things she hasn’t seen in a while! She makes food shopping so fun!


AlishaMarie | luxury fashion, beauty, podcastor


Remi has a best friend that is featured quite a bit in her vlogs, and that is Alisha! She talks about the same things but her style is way different!

Alisha lives with her sister Ashlee, who also owns a YouTube channel! She has a puppy named Chloe, and her personality is similar to Remi’s but less bubbly. I honestly don’t watch her as much but whenever I do, I actually like to binge watch a few in one day! I love watching her makeup tutorials, I’ve been craving these videos lately and not only do I wear makeup, I don’t even own anything either. I just love watching the different ways to put it on I guess!

I left this last part to the end because it goes with both girls, they are pocastors of their own channel called Pretty Basic where they talk about everything in their lives like past relationships, insecurities, hottest trends, it’s a mixed bag and whenever my Spotify does work, it is fun to listen to their sometimes wild stories.


Inthefrow | luxury fashion & beauty


When I first found Victoria, I only knew about her blog (and her beautiful lilac hair!) but I didn’t really like her until I saw that she had a YouTube channel and I started to really get interested into her tastes! For a while, she was my only luxury blogger/vlogger, and while I was scrolling to see who follows and my original list of three turned into like eight or nine in a very short time span!

I think the main reason why I love watching her videos is that she has a gentle voice, her British accent is a little thick but I have been learning a lot about some of their terms over the years, so I’m becoming a bit of a pro now! She is into a lot of luxury items, and gets invited to a lot of events and sometimes they lead her away from London to various countries, like Paris, New York City and Tokyo. One of my favorite things is that she tries to take us along with a vlog or two of her adventures! It does nothing for my wanderlust but I am getting through it pretty well I think.

Unfortunately, I haven’t really kept up with her stuff and it sucks because she was one of the first few vloggers I started watching when I discovered the mother load of other blogs and YouTube channels in 2014. Maybe after this post is up I will get back into watching hers again? Has she gotten married yet? I would love to read that blog post or watch the vlog if it’s published already.

So, we are done with this list, but I do have like two more luxury vloggers that I tend to watch every once in a while, but I am going to keep them back for my next theme so you will have to wait for that! do you have any guesses as to the others are?

do you enjoy watching YouTubers that talk about luxury things like fashion, cars, and/or trips? Who do you love that you think I would like too?

Nolan’s 1st Party!

Hello!

Last weekend we celebrated my nephew’s first birthday with a big party! It’s been a long time since I have been at his house. I told my mom that he had to been around three months at the time, because Brandon and I were watching Black Panther after it just came out on DVD. It was very difficult to keep my eyes on the screen and not on a certain little baby in the pack-n-play! He was surprisingly very good for us, until towards the ending where he wanted to be fed quickly and he wasn’t – he wasn’t very happy! He has yet to grow out of that by the way!

The theme of the party had changed a few times over the coming months, but ultimately they decided on one thing: Llamas! So, in March, my sister found him this cute little llama stuffed toy at the store for Easter and he apparently liked it so much that she set out to find other items to fit in that theme, thus making the entire party about llamas. The only thing that wasn’t in a llama shape was the cake, although she did try to find someone to make one for her back in May!

One of my favorite things that had llamas on it, were our shirts that Blondie found for us. Both sides of the family were given customize T-Shirts of a black silhouette of a llama with whatever we are to Nolan. For example, I am his “auntie” so that’s what I got on mine, but both of his grandmothers have different names. My mom is “Mimi” while Brandon’s mom is “Grammie” to him. I have always had a small stack of tops that fit perfectly on my shoulders and if there was a special design on the front, it isn’t blocked by my hands the whole time the stack was even smaller! I’m very glad to tell you that I can add this to the pack! You can see everything, I love it so much!

My mom and I were the first ones to get there. I was greeted by Chipper and the cats. Chipper was SO excited to see us, but the look on Nolan’s face when he realized that Mimi was the one waking him up from a nap in his crib, was so cute! He was so surprised! He looked stunned when he found out I was there too! We were there about 10 minutes before my dad and our “uncle” Russell came over. Nolan was very happy to see his papaw! He just wrapped his small arms around his neck (and beard) and my dad was all too happy to deny him. Nolan was a little unsure about Russell at first but after a couple of minutes, he actually asked to be held by him and it was so adorable.

They were originally supposed to have 30+ people coming to the party, but since we were under a Tornado warning all afternoon, we were happy with the small get together instead. It was an interesting mix of people though, the best thing was everybody got along perfectly! We ate food, chit-chat with one another, played with Nolan. Our friend Jayde, who is expecting her first baby boy later this year, ate around three cupcakes. She and I made a deal that she could have the cupcakes and I can have the broccoli. I love broccoli! She fully agreed to that! I’m actually shocked on how little I snacked though, because I’m known to eat quite a bit at parties but there wasn’t a lot of room for me to eat by myself or have my mom feed me easily without being in the way of little guy eating his strawberries in his high chair! Honestly, I made myself a deal at the end of the party, I was going to have one vanilla cupcake. I did get my cupcake, but I almost regretted it on the way home…

After everybody grabbed a seat, we decided it was time to open some presents. He got a LOT of interesting toys for his birthday! The first one that “he” opened was from his Grammie and his aunties too. Blondie opened the cards first, which is always a nice gesture even though they are usually the last present anybody ever wants to open, because they usually have a message inside that could make you cry in front of your guests. Nolan was another story entirely, he loved his cards! The one that his Grammie got him had shiny glitter inside the number one symbol on the front, so you could essentially shake it like a snow globe and everything will move around. He literally did not want to put it down! It was in his right hand during the rest of the unwrapping.

These are some of the gifts that I could remember of the party.

  • A small red and blue slide (that was wrapped in Batman paper! I loved it, and I’m not a big fan of him either!)
  • A large stack of different summery clothes.
  • Bubble making lawn mower
  • Tool bench and belt full of tools he’ll need to fix my ‘broken’ wheelchairs
  • A standing drum set
  • A big yellow truck to put all of his toys
  • Paw Patrol trucks with characters of the show
  • A book for bedtime made specifically for him as it has a blond baby named Nolan.

There were a lot more that you will see at in the gallery below. He will certainly be really busy making lots of noises in the next few months! My sister actually sent mom a picture of him standing at the drum kit in the middle of the pack-n-play without any help of the walls after the party was over! We’re getting closer to seeing cutie pie walking around on his own.

Once we were finished with the presents, we moved on watching him eat his smash cake. For this, he had to become semi-naked and as much as he loves being like this, he absolutely hates taking off his clothes! After everything was off, he was placed in his high chair again. I will be inserting the before and after pictures of the cake itself in a minute, but Nolan isn’t necessarily a messy eater, he likes to inspect things so he was really puzzled by this cake at first. He literally only would stick one finger into it at a time. Brandon quickly realized that we’d be here forever if he continues doing this, so to make things go faster, he literally grabbed Nolan’s hands and planted them right into the cake! Nolan was not sure what to do with all of the icing on his hands so he was literally shaking his arms but he actually accepted the fact that it did taste pretty good!

The part that made me remember that I am still teaching him things without even realizing it, was when he started leaning his mouth into the cake. As everybody was laughing and taking pictures at this, I was like “oh, crap!” Whenever I eat in the kitchen, he is at the same level as me, so he can watch me like a hawk, because I do lean into my plate so my tongue can reach everything. So seeing the now one year old mimicking what I do for every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, was pretty cute! He was trying his best to get into it, to the point that my sister actually had to hold the cake up in front of him to reach with his mouth! He’s such a smart cookie!

Once he was done eating the cake–well, actually his mommy had to take it away from him! He wasn’t very happy about that, but after he was basically washed down with many, many wipes, he was rewarded with his new toys! He quickly went back to his tool belt and started waving it around in the air. This was also the time where half of the guests were leaving to go home. Russell and dad were one of the firsts to leave because we needed them to be ready to get back into the house, which was a fun mini adventure on its own!

My mom and I left about 10 minutes later, but we were going to get food from Applebee’s and it was roughly a 20-25 minute wait to pick everything up, we decided to go look at the expensive houses in town. I’ve been watching Property Brothers like crazy lately so this was my jam! However between the two of us, we realized how different our tastes in houses were as far as exterior design goes! I still love my ranch-style houses, but even I started finding some of these larger houses to be very beautiful, especially that Tudor house! Once our 20 minutes were up, we went to pick up our food and eventually made our way home!

I had an awesome time spending the day with a great bunch of people, and what I think really made it better was the fact that after the small storm we had, the sky actually perked up. It was sunny again, which was really nice considering how much rain we’ve had in the last couple of weeks or so! I also had lots of fan watching my little nephew enjoy time with each family and friends as well!

What do you think is the most weirdest theme for a birthday? What did you think of my day too?

Dear Papaw III

Dear Papaw,

Tomorrow marks three years you’ve been gone. It may have been years, but it honestly still feels like yesterday. The whole week before and the days that came after play on a loop in my head. Originally, I had a totally different way about how I wanted this letter to go, but I’ve never wanted these to be too snappy. You wouldn’t have liked that anyways. I miss you a lot, even if some people don’t think I do. I think of you whenever I watch basketball, and I often wonder what you’d think of my knowledge about it and the four professional teams I watch on a daily basis. I think you’d be like dad and hate on the Lakers because of LeBron. I don’t blame you. I don’t care for him being on the team either. I wonder if you’d like the Rockets though since they’re the ones I seem to watch and root for the most of course! I understand why you didn’t like it because of how many attempts a player will take to shoot the ball and the whole scoring process, I’m still not understanding that part yet, but I’m slowly getting there.

On the day I wrote this letter, I went looking for a picture for the banner. I was going to attempt to find one of “Alex” with your old Butler shirt but then I found an album that nana made for us in the family to share memories and old photos, and I found one dedicated to you. I had array of pictures to choose from, but once I saw this one, I knew I had to use it. You’re wearing a Butler shirt and if you’ve been watching them from heaven, you know they’re in a desperate need of a miracle, getting through the Big East tournament and March Madness, which will all probably be over with by the time this post goes out, but you know!

I always thought it was funny how Rick would continue to buy you a Butler shirt for your birthday or Christmas and you’d wear it once maybe and then stuff it back in the closet. You were pretty consistent with your fashion in your old age. We all thought you looked adorable in anything you wore, even if you had food spills down your shirt and pants, we didn’t care. We laughed at you, and apparently you’ve been getting back at us for doing so, because we all tend to spill our food on our shirts a lot more than we usually do.

We are all in agreement that you visit little Nolan. Em posted a video of him reaching up to an invisible spirit; it gave me goosebumps! He is so smart! He actually reminds me of you in the fact that you wouldn’t really flaunt your smarts, sorry, I couldn’t think of a better word there! I think you would have loved him dearly. Now, if you can talk ChiChi into letting him pet her easier, that would be nice. He is so curious about his surroundings, and ChiChi is the only animal that is afraid of him. Honestly, if you saw him in his walker or “car” as we call it, you’d be terrified too! The best way to compare the experience is a four year old me racing around the house in my wheelchair!

Hope you are enjoying yourself wherever you are, and watch over all of us down here too, not just the youngsters. We’re still a quirky bunch but we all need an angel at our side sometimes. Although, I feel like you’d be like a bit of a jokester still, so be good too. You don’t want to get on God’s bad side! So no pranks with some of your friends up there. You told me way too many stories of you growing up with them to know that you all can get into some mischief. Anyways, I love you.

Your granddaughter,
Meg-han.