a day in Memphis with my friend

 Happy Wednesday, friends! I'm slacking in the blog world this week. I've gotten up to read some of my favorite blogs each morning and I'm so disappointed that many of them are on hiatus until after the New Year. I don't really intend to do that, though the posting may not be quite as frequent. 

I thought I'd share about what I did with my friend on Monday! We'd planned a day out together that kept on getting pushed back, thanks to me. ;) I'm glad she's flexible and that she had just moved. She was fine with pushing the dates back so that she could use those Mondays off work to unpack their new home. I picked her up at ten thirty and took a tour of her adorable new home. We left and headed to a bookstore my stepmom has been telling me about for ages, one located in a beautiful old church called The Bookmark.

The church is pictured above. We enjoyed walking around and seeing some beautiful details inside, like this area below. 

I loved this entry way with tile flooring and brick walls. I'm sure this was part of the exterior at one point and was closed in as they added to the building. This church is huge! There is a school located here, as well. 

Look at the sanctuary! I love a beautiful church. After we were finished with our walking tour inside, we took it outdoors. 

This is definitely one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen. There's all these courtyards and entrances into the building, so the fact that it was decked out for Christmas made it all the more special. We tried a couple doors to see inside of, but they were locked. I'd love to see their chapel! It's surrounded by old windows and juts out from the building. It was probably the original sanctuary at one point. 

My dad and stepmom Sandy love to come here each year at Christmas for their musical program early in December. So this day was completely inspired by Sandy and their bookstore was phenomenal! Way better than I expected. I'll be going back here, especially when I purchase my next Bible. I miss Lifeway! I'm sort of a snob about a good Christian bookstore and some I love, while a lot I don't. I think there needs to be a good mixture of books with other things and the store needs to look a certain way to draw people inside. So, if you're local to me and need a good bookstore like this, I highly recommend this one!  They've been open for a little over 20 years now and lots of people call them a well kept secret. They had a sign out front for years, but the city made them pay a fee to them for it, so they chose to remove it. It's called The Bookmark and it's located within 2nd Presbyterian Church on Poplar Avenue in Memphis. 

After all our walking and exploring, we had lunch at Panera. It was a fun day! We ended it after lunch because of other obligations we both had, but it was just right. 

Such a fun time we always have! I love this friend. Thanks for reading my blog! Love to all. ❤