Keeping Fayetteville Funky

I've not made much of a secret of the fact that I absolutely love Fayetteville.  But with a busy week commuting to Lowell, raising an elementary schooler (sniff sniff), cooking, cleaning, exercising, grocery shopping, and just plain living, Ryan and I don't always take the time we should to truly see our city.  There are so many stores that we haven't even been to yet that we've heard about for years.

On this hot but wonderful Saturday with nothing to do but whatever we wanted, we decided to spend our day keeping Fayetteville funky - that's the name of the city office's campaign to get people to shop and eat locally, so I'm borrowing it.

First, we headed to the renowned Fayetteville Farmers Market.  Alli met some Razorback cheerleaders, which is always exciting even if you do get to hang out with them all football season long!

Then she and Ryan got popsicles from the PedalPops guy (they were really delicious and fresh with real fruit!).

We even stopped by the Fayetteville Town Center so she could push on the giant ball that's there.  She really enjoyed that.

After we perused the Farmers Market and bought some peaches, okra, soap, and flowers - we can't ever pass up good homemade soap and a gorgeous bouquet when we are there - we headed in to Riffraff, which is a cute little boutique on the Square with home items, gifts, and clothes.  After eyeing these tees for a few years, I finally bought one - love!

We also hit up the Mustache Store for Ryan, because I knew he'd love the offbeat general store feel and really appreciate the quirky stuff that's in there.  Once we wrapped up downtown, we ventured down College Avenue and popped in Vintage Violet and Maude.  Vintage Violet is an antique place with mostly clothes and some furniture, and Maude is the clothing store in front of it.  Then we headed to a new pet store in town to check it out.  We're such animal lovers, we can't pass up a pet store, especially when it advertises holistic, grain-free, very high end food (maybe one day I'll write about my obsession with animal nutrition...).

I picked the woman's brain about good alternative foods for Landry, who currently has some pretty weepy eyes and hot spots popping up all the time.  We got some samples and I have a feeling we'll be back in there to buy some Fromms Game Bird for him.  I just love dog food shopping.  Then we went to another new place for us, Walker Brothers.  I had long admired my co-worker's Curly Tail brand clothes (often red or white with a pig logo on them), and Ryan started mentioning it as well, so we headed in there.  Oh wow, did we have fun!!  Ryan scooped up a new polo and got the. perfect. tailgate. pants.  You'll just have to wait until football season to see them, but trust me.  Wow.  We also grabbed some great new collars for the dogs (spoiled).

Right next to Walker Brothers is Party House, which I've been in several times, and Tesori, which is a really precious store opened by one of my sorority sisters that I hadn't visited yet.  I had a great time browsing both - so many cute things!!

After that, we grabbed lunch at one of our favorite non-Hugo's burger places, Grub's.  When we walked in, guess what was on TV...

Dressage!!  Be still my heart!!

I have a confession:  this is the second time in my life (the first being last Friday) I've had a burger that I cut it in half and boxed that portion up for later.  Who am I?  I have to admit to you, you still get full on half a serving, and you're not stuffed and miserable.  It's actually nice.  I'm still ashamed.

Then we ran over to Target, our only non-local stop of the day, to grab some Scotch Guard for the dog collars, new welcome mats (I love replacing those regularly) and a new laundry basket for the laundry room.  My family can rejoice, we no longer have the falling apart wicker baskets from Big Lots - the new one is plastic, big, and teal.  After that stop, we went to a roadside antique place I'd been admiring in Springdale on our way to the pool all summer long.  Ryan's never actually been to an antique store, but he absolutely loves piles of junk so he really ended up having a great time.

Old patio furniture - I die

So now we're exhausted, home, and watching Olympic hand ball (Thanks, Ryan).  Here's hoping we get some beach volleyball or men's basketball (true life - I love Kobe Bryant, but don't tell anyone).  Happy weekend, friends!!