"If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we'd be millionaires."
-Abigail VanBuren

Barrel Tasting

Just got back from a lovely afternoon in Healdsburg, where we barrel tasted at Francis Ford Coppola. It was a perfect blend of warm and sunny, and all the rain we've been having has left the hillsides green and gorgeous. We strolled through the vineyards on the grounds and found a hidden picnic area to lounge around in the sun and sip our Reserve Cabernet. After Coppola we decided to try (at their suggestion) their neighbors, Trentadue, and then went into downtown Healdsburg for a quick sip from Rosenblum, a beer at Bear Republic, and a gelato in the square.
Simply a perfect afternoon.

Even my baseboards sparkle

The tenacity with which I cleaned yesterday has left me with four things:

1. Three new shelves and a wonderfully functional desk/vanity
2. A clean, well-organized apartment
3. Two happy roommates
4. A back so stiff I can hardly move

It's like sometime in the middle of the night last night, I became 50, and am wishing I lived in a world that had easy and free access to muscle relaxers and pain-killer cocktails. Instead I am laying in bed with my heating pad on my back and an actual cocktail. Icy to dull the pain, hot to melt it away?

Shake Shake Shake Sonora

Had an amazing weekend building new friendships and relaxing in Sonora this weekend. What a rejuvination of my soul.

We booked it out of the City Friday night, and met up with two other couples for dinner and piled into one big car for the drive out, and arrived at our gracious host's a few hours later, ready for the weekend to come. Saturday morning we drove up the hill to Yosemite, down into the valley floor and up to Badger Pass, where we spent a not so lazy afternoon cross-country skiing, before hot chocolates at the posh Awanee hotel, not without waterfalls, a very wolf-looking coyote, and all of the splendor of the Yosemite Valley. Spent a fanastic night back in Sonora, with wine for the not pregnant, pizza and conversation for all. Family style church Sunday morning, and then boys and girls did boy and girl things (like burning the yard waste pile & riding motorcyles and reading & chatting under blankets), before heading back to our seperate lives in seperate places.

cross country

I don't know if I ever brought this about from our last little day adventure in winter; we're headed off to another, this time for a weekend, and with four others. Yosemite bound, to passively enjoy nature [and friends], and have some cocoa after we dry out from all the snow that's supposed to fall on us.

Donner Lake Nat'l Park, January 2010

Fashion Week

Alberta Ferretti Autumn/Winter 2010 -- I love this dusted pink, so feminine and elegant.
via {this is glamorous}

Resurrected: Ten Things That Make Me Happy

1. Buying and sending other people's handmade cards, especially those from Letter Press Delicacies and Humunuku Shoppe
2. Finally: the perfect peach polish color I've been searching for is a mixed combo of a single layer of Chanel Allegoria with a single layer of Essie Mademoiselle on top.
3. OPI Over the Taupe. A lovely nail color to complement all the layers of mixed neutrals on the rest of your body this season (and next it seems from Fashion Week.)
4. Layers of neutrals, and especially those done by Christopher Bailey in this season's Burberry, and next season in Alberta Ferretti.
5. A bouquet of daffodils and their lovely note that came to me at work today, delivered by the champion of all men, a gold medalist in dating
6. Winter Olympic downhill skiing, and curling, especially when watched on TV under a blanket with a chalice of cold Leffe
7. Fabulously hip restaurants that are just run of the mill here, with gorgeous design, tastey micro-brew or all-too-missed imports, and crazy delicious food.
8. Longer days as the sun stays up later and later.
9. Dreaming of Summer Sundays in sundresses and swimming in the river after getting out of town.
10. Cozy shops with candles lit and great music playing that make perusing the racks and tables worth every penny spent on a new dress.


Happy Spring everyone!

Spreading the word

Thanks to my dear, dear friend at See Jane Advocate, I'm going to help spread the word by "donating someone else's money."

I recently got an e-mail from an Australian based company called Hotels Combined letting me know about their new marketing initiative. They decided that instead of spending their advertising budget the way they normally would, they would donate their money to different non-profit organizations in exchange for word of mouth advertising by us. When you blog about them, tweet about them or become a fan of theirs on facebook they will donate money to the approved charity of your choice (they let you choose from three: World Vision, Make a Wish and WWF).

So today, I'm donating an extra $20 to World Vision thanks to HotelsCombined.com and asking you to check out them and their website, and hopefully do the same (learn about it here).

I recommend HotelsCombined.com and sent $20 to World Vision!

You can shout and help too.

Ps. --I also love World Vision, and would love you to love them too. Sponsor a child here.

Thanks again HotelsCombined.com, great plan.
And in case you missed the plug at the top, please check out See Jane Advocate to learn how you too can easily help fight for social justice.

Let Her Dance

In the past three weeks I have seen three of the best movies made last year. Fantastic. See them all. See them all and improve your life.

I immediately bought the soundtrack, and might just call this my new favorite Wes Anderson film, but that's likely because I LOVED this Roald Dahl book as a kid. (Though I was disappointed that Mr. Bean's hearing problem was not explained in any detail, as stuck with me from the book so long ago.)

OF COURSE it's amazing, who DIDN'T know it would be? and it is. Wonderfully exciting, a perfect follow-up to Helvetica.

This ain't no place, for the weary kind

I was NOT prepared for the movie experience that was Sundance Kabuki Theatre and HECK YES I will be going back for incredible films, Stone Brewing 22's at my 21 and over balcony seat with a side-table. Whoa.

I am in love with this movie. In. Love. Jeff Bridges is incredible in it, incredible. Break my [crazy] heart.
I tell you, I've seen some incredible films in the past year (2009 included Scarface and all three Godfathers for the first time) and this, THIS has got to be the best.

Red soles and a party dress

Taking in glass after glass of champagne last night along with the sweeping veiws of this gorgeous city, means Bloody Mary's all afternoon today. Loved the party, almost as much as the company.

“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

hot chip and peter gabriel: yes please

Ready Go (round two)

five things about me RIGHT NOW:

1. I just drank a glass of 100% grapefruit juice.
2. I really LOVE my romantic little life and am very happy, possibly happier than I have ever been.
3. I need to repaint my nails, my red polish is chipping.
4. While I, too, am saddened by the state of Haiti, I am annoyed by an email I received from my boss assuring us that they were finding out ways for us to help instead of telling us how we can help Teresa from housekeeping who's house burnt down almost two weeks ago. I'd rather raise money to help Teresa pay the deductible on her homeowner's insurance (assuming she has) and get her kids some new school clothes than to raise money for the Red Cross to pay it's "administrative costs."
5. I have plenty of books to read, but only WANT to read Devil In a White City, which I still DON'T have, and have refused to buy because I know I can borrow it from someone --except that proves be to be harder than I think it should be.

Mix it Up

A girl with MANY skills, there are few things I truely excell at. However, one thing I do extremely well is making playlists, mixtapes if you will. (The other is knowing people are into each other long before it's announced.)
The soundtrack to our litte trip down the 1 this weekend included "[We Layed About in Our]" disk one of the Summer Skin two part series, Riding in Cars With Boys, Listed [as it is written], and Bringing it Home Safely.
If you give me [read: take me on] an adventure, I'll create a soundtrack for it. Really, even just a situation, or an event. Likely, it will be one of the best you've ever heard, and you might just find yourself saying, "ooohhh, good song," and "I LOVE this song!" Surely followed by "this is such a great [playlist/cd]!"

Inspiration

"Fashion is so often presented in culture as a thing of froth, which, of course it partly is; but the bubbles are blown with care and a sense of values."
-Anna Wintour

Oh Discipline, you old Dear.

I have a fabulous time of spa treatments booked for tomorrow, and so as to make the most of my relaxed and revitalized state, I'm cleaning and doing all my chores now.

Dogs on a Train

 

How perfect is this dog on my train to my sister's for Christmas??!!



The answer is SO PERFECT!!! He's even a pirate!!
Oh lovely train: ton's of leg-room, a bloody mary for dinner whipped up by the gentleman in the dining car, and all the romance of travel when travel was glamorous. Where else shall we go?

Merry Christmas!

Ten Things That Make Me Happy

1. Christian Louboutain's "Claudia" stilettos in smokin' hot pink.
2. Running my first Half Marathon [and beating my goal timae by 8 minutes]!
3. Finally hemming a pair of jeans after wearing them turned under for over a year.
4. Nordstrom At Home towels --so soft and fluffy, the mornings they are in the wash are not nearly as nice as mornings one waits for me outside my tub.
5. Big ladylike gems and baubles
6. Liberty prints
7. Mustard yellow --will I ever get tired of this perfect color? I almost fear the day.
8. The cities of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and
9. Princeton, New Jersey!
10. Fun! (Well done Nate, delightful as usual, thank you very much.) Here, have a listen and see for yourself.

this time we gnew where we were headed.

Gnomes for Halloween. Last time was not for Halloween, and this time we were traveling gnomes, with pictures of our family, and Andy's pet fox.