Have a Warm & Cozy Thanksgiving

We hope you have a wonderful holiday! We’re going to be signing off for a few days to enjoy some family and friends time (and work on a few campaigns), but we look forward to catching up next week. It’s shaping up to be the busiest year we’ve ever had, so the next few weeks are going to be crazy town around here. We’ve said it before, we’re just happy to be busy, especially this time of year.

And we’re off! Have a good one, y’all, and happy holidays!!

New Sweatshirt & Logo Designs Are Here!

Finally! After months of messages and requests to restock our online apparel shop, we’ve added some new designs and sweatshirts to PJandThomas.com!

We decided to offer two main designs this time around. We brought back the original logo that PJ designed on a napkin a little over a year ago. If you’ve been following us for a long time, you’ll remember this was the design the print shop misspelled as “univerisity” and we didn’t catch it until about three weeks after we had gotten them back and were in the process of listing them for sale. We were mortified that they printed it spelled wrong and even more upset with ourselves that we didn't catch it beforehand. But in a weird turn of events, they actually sold out pretty quickly, and many of y’all said you actually wanted them in favor of the correctly spelled ones. Sometimes happy accidents happen, don’t they?

We also reached out to our logo designer, Ryan, who designed our most recognizable logo for Property of Y’all University Apparel at the end of last year and asked him if he would be interested in coming up with a new design for us. He luckily said yes, and it’s now officially for sale! It’s a nod to Yale University’s olive branch crest, while still honoring our original design. We added a new maroon color with the Heather Grey and it may just be our favorite color combination yet. How perfect is it for fall?!

We offer it in Navy as well:

And the original logo designs we mentioned also come in Heather Grey and Navy:

Besides the new sweatshirts, we added a brand new product to our online shop: CBD oil! Thomas’ brother, Taylor, and his partner Mariah, started a CBD oil company a few months ago called Chattanooga Hemp, and we’re so excited to now offer it on our website! It’s a passion project for them, and they’ve researched and worked so hard to partner with local companies to offer the best products possible. PJ has been taking CBD oil for his anxiety for almost a year now (and has been taking Chattanooga Help CBD oil for the last few months and loves it!) and the results have been undeniable. We fully believe in the power of CBD oil and we hope you enjoy the new products as much as we do.

We hope you love the new additions, and we can’t wait to take this even further next year with some fun new ideas we’re working on. Stay tuned!

Y’all Have a Relaxing Weekend

Any fun plans this weekend? It was Thomas’ brother’s birthday this week and we’re all going to our favorite restaurant tonight to celebrate! We also have a few campaigns to shoot this weekend, so it looks like it’s going to be as busy as our week was, but we’re okay with that. This time of the year is always the busiest for us and we’re grateful for the work.

We started Limetown on Facebook Watch this week. Have you seen it? Jessica Biel plays an investigative journalist who runs a successful podcast called “Limetown” all about the disappearance of several hundred people back in 2004 who lived in the small town (set in Tennessee!) of the same name. The episodes are short, only about 30 mins or so, and so thrilling. We love a good mystery/drama and this one was so, so good.

Also, we want to thank y’all for taking the time to read the articles we’ve written the last two weeks about us working with USA for UNHCR to help refugees around the world. We feel so passionately about this and are excited to continue helping and spreading the word however we can, and we so greatly appreciate your time and support.

Hope you have a relaxing weekend, friend! xoxo

PS: the secret to actually enjoying a long, dark winter.

We Gave Our Website a Small Refresh for the New Year!

Emphasis on the small! Blink and you might just miss it ;).

Much like how switching out curtains or getting new pillows can change the overall feel of a room, that’s more or less the equivalent of what happened here on the blog. We were going to wait until the new year to unveil the subtle changes, but we decided to go ahead and go live with the new logo and headline font. We’re going to be rolling out some new designs/colors on our sweatshirts and possibly new products (!) next year, so it seemed fitting to update our website to a design we both feel fits us better overall. You can see what the old font and logo looked like below:

There’s something about the new year that gives you permission to start fresh on whatever you want. It feels like a new start almost, even though you were the exact same person 24 hrs before. Do you know what we mean? It’s like with New Year’s resolutions. They’re kind of silly in theory, but we make them every year and only half stick to them, and you better believe we’ll be making them again in a few weeks.

Happy Monday, friends! Let’s make it a good one!

Y’all Have a Warm & Cozy Weekend

Have any fun plans this weekend? After a busy week filled with a new school, appointments, conference calls, and car sickness (he handled it like a champ, though!), we’re looking forward to a relaxing weekend with nice, sunny weather. We have a couple of campaigns to shoot, but other than that, it’s going to be a pretty chill weekend.

We started watching The Morning Show on Apple TV+ and we can honestly say it’s one of the most addicting, bingeable shows out there right now. Have you seen it? It’s not getting the best reviews but it’s entertaining as hell to watch. And Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Anniston absolutely KILL it in their rolls. Highly recommend checking it out if you’re looking for a new show to watch this fall.

Two last things: we want to thank everyone who has read and supported our articles regarding the refugee crisis! It’s something that means a lot to us and we can’t thank you enough. And lastly, we are dropping off new sweatshirt orders today at our local print shop and should be live on our website in a few weeks, so stay tuned!!!

Hope you have a good one, friends!

A Crisis Bigger Than All of Us

This topic is something we’ve felt passionate about for a while now, but we weren’t sure what to do or how to talk about it. We’re not experts by any means, but we want to do what we feel is right and spread the word however we can. We aren’t sure what we can do, but we know we have to do something, so just writing something, anything, feels like the right place to start.

We’re talking about the crisis of people being forcibly displaced around the world. If this seems like it's coming out of nowhere for us, we get it. We’ve never talked about this on social media before, but it’s been on our minds and on our hearts for the last few months. What triggered it for us was when we started fostering the three kiddos. Suddenly, our lives were bigger than just the two of us and we had actual human beings we were responsible for who needed love, attention, and a safe roof over their heads. It opened our eyes and our minds and made us realize there are SO many people around the world who need help and that it should be everyone’s responsibility, who is able, to help others out. It was like a light went off and it just made sense that this is what we have to devote time to now.

More and more stories started coming out about children being separated from their parents at the border (many of whom are asylum seekers fleeing their country out of danger and fear), which, again, after starting foster care, hit us hard and broke our hearts. We had to do something. We have to do something. What that is we’re not entirely sure, but again, just starting the conversation feels like a step in the right direction.

After months of feeling helpless, we decided to reached out to USA for UNHCR, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which was founded 30 years ago as the U.S. national partner of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Their mission is to protect refugees and empower them with hope and opportunity, and they do that by raising awareness and funds for refugees around the world. The majority of funds raised by USA for UNHCR go directly to the UN Refugee Agency for programmatic use. Additional grants are also given to support U.S.-based nonprofit organizations that help refugees, such as KIND (Kids in Need of Defense), Kiva, Refugee Congress and Hello Neighbor.

We’re going to be sharing more information about refugees, who they are, where they are, what you can do to help, and what causes someone to become displaced, as well as sharing their stories (including members of the LGBTQ+ community who have become displaced) and so much more. We’re excited, hopeful, overwhelmed, and all-around eager to start helping however we can. The numbers are staggering, and people around the world need more help than ever before. Together, we can all make a difference. It’s just a matter of starting.

(photos provided by USA for UNCHR)

Y’all Have a Fun Weekend

Any plans for the weekend? We think this is going to be the weekend that we……might….put up….CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. We know y’all have opinions about how early we decorate for Christmas because we hear them every year, haha. We just really love this entire season and only decorating and celebrating it for one month isn’t enough for us. When do YOU decorate for Christmas?

The forecast is calling for snow (!) on Tuesday next week which we would welcome with big, shivering arms. We rarely get snow in this part of the country and when we do it’s usually not until January or February. How crazy would it be if we got snow in November?! Plus we’d love to see what the kiddos thought of the snow. :)

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, friends! Stay warm!

Hope You Have a Great Weekend

Happy Friday! Do you have any fun plans this weekend? This is the first weekend in so long that we have zero plans (besides maybe working on the cottage) and right now that feels so good to us.

We want to thank you for all of your sweet comments on yesterday’s post. Somehow, like always, you know exactly what to say to ease our minds and hearts just a little bit, and we would never be able to adequately express how much it means to have you here with us. The fact that so many of you are interested in foster care and ask questions to educate yourself and others gives us hope that together, we can all make a positive change for the better.

On the home front, we may try to squeeze in some time to watch the new horror film on Netflix, Eli. Have you seen it? How creepy/good is the trailer? It seems like the perfect movie to curl up on the couch with some wine and watch the week before Halloween.

We hope you have a gorgeous weekend, friend.

PS: wanting to make these cookies this weekend!