(Lyrics by Edward Sharpe, design by me, but I'm not sure of the photo source so please only copy if it's for personal use. Thanks!)
Happy almost Thanksgiving! Dinner prep is in full swing and my mouth is already watering thinking about all of the delicious food we'll get to consume on Thursday. And the time I'll get to spend with my family while eating said delicious food. That's pretty nice, too. :)
Here are some Thanksgiving-ish tunes to get your groove on to while you're cooking up a storm this week...
No Wear + Share today because Emma and I are boarding a very early flight to Michigan to visit my BFF for a couple of days. Would you believe she hasn't met Emma yet? Craziness. So I'm beyond excited for this weekend. We're going to do nothing but play with our kiddos, not shower, and eat lots of cheese... and I can't wait. I hope your weekend is as great as I know mine will be! :)
I never in a million years thought I would be a play space in the living room kind of parent, but here we are... and you know what? It works for us. Well it was working for us. After a few months with this setup, it became clear that our little galley play space needed to be re-thought. And last weekend I finally got around to it...
Before the redesign we had everything lined up against the wall, and Emma would inevitably get bored and start digging all of her toys out of the bottom of those mesh bins. It made for very unfocused and messy play. We also had a lot of toys from when she was younger that we needed to weed out.
Now Emma's toys are all within view, and mostly organized by type of activity. I know what you're thinking - there's no way it still looks like this. Well, I'm happy to report that it does! It's surprisingly much easier to clean up than before. Maybe because everything has its own place and the shelves aren't overflowing with toys.
What I love most about our shared living/play space is that you can't really see it when you first walk into the living room. And I finally found a place to display my beloved Penguin Classics collection of books...
I still have a couple of To Dos for the space, including some art in between the windows and a little upholstered chair to replace this pillow in Emma's reading nook:
What are your thoughts on having a play space in the living room? Major faux pas or an inevitable fact of life with kids?
(PS... try to ignore all the beige-overload. Oh how I can't wait to be a homeowner again.) :)
Welcome to another new feature on the blog: Desert Island Discs! In the spirit of the long-running BBC program, I'll be asking my friends and fellow bloggers to send me the 8 tracks they couldn't live without. I thought I'd start things off by sharing my own...
1) Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen... This might be my favorite song of all time. It's everything I want in a song and I'm never NOT in the mood to hear it. "Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold, but with you forever I'll stay." <---- Kills me. Every. Single. Time.
2) Bring It On Home To Me by Sam Cooke... Is there a better Sam Cooke song than this? Not if you ask me. From the first notes of the piano my head is swaying and I get lost in Sam's soulful voice. His girl can do him all kinds of wrong and he still wants her back. We've all been there, Sam. (PS. Betty Harris has a shoulder for you...)
3) Cry to Me performed by Betty Harris... As far as I'm concerned, the female soul singer buck stops with Betty Harris. Excuse my language, but she sings the absolute shit out of this song. If I could sing one song well, this would be it. (I can't, for the record. But I sure do try.)
4) Don't Think Twice it's All Right (demo version) by Bob Dylan... There are about a million versions of this song, and I'm pretty sure I've heard them all. But this (THIS!) is the best version. I promise. It's so raw and simple and just perfect. "I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind / You could have done better but I don’t mind / You just kinda wasted my precious time / But don’t think twice, it’s all right." Perhaps the most poetic FU of all time.
5) Feelin' Good performed by Nina Simone... Please tell me I'm not the only one who spent many a morning in her 20s singing this in front of the bathroom mirror. It's the ultimate pick me upper, which might come in handy if I really was stuck on an island forever.
6) Let It Be by The Beatles... I prayed a lot when I was a wee lass, like a good Catholic school girl should, but found I didn't quite relate to God or Jesus, so I would ask them to "put Mary on" (ha!) and she and I would chat about stuff. So when I was old enough to understand the lyrics of this song I was like, "Mother Mary comes to me, too!" It became my anthem for coping with my parents' divorce, and it still makes me feel better when I find myself in times of trouble.
8) Tonight Will Be Fine performed by Teddy Thompson... I love Leonard Cohen, but I have to be a bad music snob and admit that I like other people's versions of his songs better than I like the originals. No song is that more true for than this version of Tonight Will Be Fine. It's such a genius song, and Teddy Thompson covers it so beautifully. The last verse is probably the best verse in all of music and it gives me chills every time I hear it... "Sometimes I see her undressing for me / She's the soft naked lady love meant her to be / She's moving her body so brave and so free / If I've got to remember that's a fine memory."
(PS... The Spotify tracks don't show up in the RSS feed, so if you're viewing this in a feed reader click on the link so you can hear the tunes!)
Happy Friday! There are many things to be excited about this weekend... Not only am I celebrating my birthday with my whole family, but today is my 3 year blogging anniversary! There have been a few times over the years that I thought about giving up, but I'm so so glad I've stuck with it. And I'm even more glad that you've stuck with me! Anywho, here's what I'd love to wear to my birthday dinner tomorrow night...
Have you seen the new brand from Williams Sonoma? Pretty much Christmas gift central. A necklace with Emma's name? Yes please. There are also lots of gifts for others if you're into that sort of thing.
Proof once again that Louis CK is the best guy in show business. Period.
Happy Election Day! In addition to being very excited about the things I have the opportunity to vote on this year, I'm nearly just as excited about finally being able to unsubscribe from all of the political emails I've been getting. (I'm passionate about politics, not so much about being bombarded for cash multiple times a day.) What are you most excited about knowing that today is the last day of election?
I decided a while back that I needed to bring more music into the blog since it's such a big part of my life, so what better day than today? Here are some songs to get you into the voting mood. Which you should definitely do, no matter who you're voting for. Seriously. Except maybe that last part. ;)
I mentioned yesterday that I'd be doing something a little different today, and here it is! The revamped Link Love: WEAR + SHARE...
Happy Friday, everyone! After a crazy busy October, Jared and I are welcoming in November with a date night. We're finally going to Volt, which I've been looking forward to trying since before we even moved here. Here's what I'm dreaming of wearing Saturday night...
Speaking of Kimmel, my beloved Avett Brothers put on the most beautiful performance of "I and Love and You" last night, backed by the Brooklyn Philharmonic
Well that's it! I hope you guys like the new format, and that you have a most fantastic weekend.
Yep, that's a reference to MTV's Diary, and it's exactly how I feel about blogshop. It was two jam-packed days filled with all the stuff I never knew I didn't know about Photoshop. And how to do all that stuff super fast. I have to be honest, my expectations were pretty high for this class, and it surpassed all of them. I was also super nervous and intimidated, but Bri and Angela were fantastic teachers in addition to being super sweet and adorable.
I thought I knew my way around Photoshop, but it was clear after the first hour that I didn't have a clue. And that things I thought I knew how to do, I was doing completely wrong. Thankfully, Bri and Angela showed me the light.
I learned how to do this...
And this...
And I made this from scratch in under 10 minutes (something that prior to blogshop would have taken me a good 2 hours)...
And that's really just a fraction of what we learned. Masking, liquify, templates, retouching, gradients, levels, I could go on and on. If you ever have the opportunity to attend blogshop, I highly recommend it. In addition to all of the Photoshop content, we got great little goody bags, BKR glass water bottles (which I'm now obsessed with), delicious food, and mimosas. (C'mon, at what other class would you get a mimosa?!) It was such an amazing and inspiring weekend and I left feeling tired but so excited to apply what I learned. Look for some new features on the blog very soon. Maybe even tomorrow! Okay, definitely tomorrow.
Happy Halloween! Well, first I hope everyone is safe, sound, with power, cell service, etc. Second, Happy Halloween! I'm so glad the kids around here will still get to go trick or treating tonight. Emma's still a little young for that, but I made her a costume anyway because we all know I just couldn't help myself.
I used Simplicity 1774, red fleece for the cape, and blue gingham for the dress. The pattern could not have been easier, especially with fleece because that meant I didn't have to line the cape. I did add some topstitching to give it a more finished look. And I used buttons to fasten the shoulder straps instead of hook and loop tape. Mostly because I forgot to buy hook and loop tape.
We were late getting out the door this morning, so this was the best I could get. (Note to self, learn how to use my Speedlight. That grain is killing me!) What you can't see here are the adorable new white chucks I got her to go with her costume, which of course are her favorite part.
Have a happy, safe, and sugar-filled Halloween, everyone!
Jen Burgess Thompson was a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a photographer. She was 37 years old and last Friday she lost her battle with ovarian cancer. I did not know her personally, but I found myself so profoundly moved by her story... and brought to tears at the thought of her husband and two young boys. Jen's message to all of us moms was simple - get in front of the camera with your kids. Too many of us, whether we have a fancy camera or not, are so busy taking photos of all the milestones, all the funny faces, that we forget to get in the frame.
So, Jen... this is for you. It's not perfect, but I love it. And I hope that one day Emma can look back on this photo, and the many more I plan to take with her, and see how much I loved her. Thank you.
