Meet Pepito Mossimo Mora

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Hello my friends!  I thought I’d pop in and cure any Monday blues out there with a dose of Pepito Mora, our new baby bunny!  I’ve had a lot of down time this year while I rest and work on healing, so I’ve decided to take up a new hobby (see more here).  While researching I stumbled upon these bunnies, and, well the rest is clearly history!!!!  Pepito joined our family last Wednesday and I’ve been like a kid on Christmas ever since.  He’s hilarious and the softest, sweetest little guy I’ve ever laid my hands upon.  We’re head over tails for him!  I keep burying my face in his little belly and practically purring.  I can’t even cope with how much I adore him.  And yes, since I know the questions are coming- we’re working with the dogs to make the adjustment as smooth as possible and integrate him into the pack!  They’re doing great, Nugget even climbed into his cage with him the other day.  I’m hopeful that one day he’ll be litter trained and lounging around the house with the pups.  At which point I may very well just fall over dead from the sweetness.  Since I can barely contain myself and certainly can’t resist taking a bazillion photos, I started an Instagram dedicate to him to share.  {Insert toothy emoji smile}   There’s nothing quite like our little mustached love bunny to make your day brighter, right?!

In other news, I want to give you a little health update since I know some of you are praying for me (thank you!!) and thinking of me (thank you!!) and wishing me well from near and far (thank you!!!!!).  And finally, I have some really incredible news!  I’m feeling better!!!!!!!  I spent half of yesterday at the beach body surfing, swimming, playing frisbee and floating in the ocean with happy salty tears streaming down my face.  If you saw the season finale of the latest season of Orange is the New Black you’ll have an idea of how joyful I was.  I feel like I have a new lease on life!!!!  I’ll share the specifics on what’s changed another day, but in the meantime please know that I’m feeling great and shining with happiness from the inside out!  Wishing all of you the very best and so, so incredibly grateful for your support!  xx- Sarah

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MOVING DAY!

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The day has come, we’re leaving our Palm Springs dream home today!  Bean and Nugget’s faces say it all- we’re apprehensive of what’s to come.  We’ll miss this place and we’ll be a little displaced for the next couple of weeks while we sort out our living situation.  BUT, what Bean and Nugget’s faces do not say is that we’re SO excited to join our friends in San Diego, to keep house hunting until we find our gem, to see what the future brings!!  Wish us luck!  I’ll be  back on Friday with links for your weekend!  xx- Sarah

PARTY DOG, AND A THANK YOU!

hi everyone!  hope you had a great weekend!  as i mentioned before, lou and i celebrated our five year dating anniversary friday.  do you do that?  it’s so fun to re-live the day we first started our love affair, i can’t give it up just because we have a more official wedding anniversary!  we usually start talking about it a couple days before (we go over all the little details- our first kiss, what we did that day, how we both felt- it’s kind of disgustingly cute). to celebrate on friday we went out to brunch, to knott’s soak city  (i do not recommend), watched movies in bed, had dinner at one of our palm springs favorites (workshop), and exchanged sentimental cards that made me cry.  it was perfect!

so i guess i jumped the gun a little when i wrote that we’re halfway through the year, it’s not really half way through the year until july 1st.  i get excited for fresh starts, what can i say?! mondays, new months, new years, halfway points, they all give me a little thrill.  so i suppose i probably carry on pretending that we’re halfway through until it hits july, then start over!  

thanks so much to all of you who responded to my little survey (and it’s still open if you want to chime in here)! your answers are helpful, encouraging, kind and so great to read.  they’ve also inspired me!  the overwhelming consensus was MORE of EVERYTHING!  i get it and i agree, more is always more!  so, i’m going to add in a few things to the weekly rotation…and try to increase the amount of posting i do.  here’s what i’ve got planned….  {more after the jump}

one thing that i’d like to add into my friday links is a “reader of the week” to share your sites with each other! so, if you will, please leave your blog / website in the comments on the friday links posts if you’d like to be included and i’ll choose a favorite to share the following week!  i hope that will help build even more of a community around here.

per a few requests i’m also going to try to include more budget friendly options in my style/ask sarah series (starting after today’s style post that is very not wallet friendly).  here’s my disclaimer though- i always think it’s best to buy the highest quality that you can afford, and invest in clothing that will last.  i’d rather have a smaller selection of high quality items than a million things from Forever 21 and H&M.  i think H&M and Forever 21 are great, but I shop there on VERY limited occasions because the quality isn’t there and i’ve found that my purchases rarely last more than 6 months in my closet.  and i can’t stand that kind of waste!  so in the past when i’ve been on a more restrictive budget i’ve scoured sales racks like a maniac (nordstrom rack, off 5th and tj maxx!) to buy high quality pieces at a huge discount.  that being said, we all gotta do what we gotta do to get dressed every morning!  i’ll try to find some less expensive, high quality items to include more often, pinky swear. 

i’m also going to start a series that’s just general musings on life.  don’t worry, i don’t think i’m a guru or even close to having HALF of it figured out, but i have learned some things in my years adventuring around and would love to have more discussions about how to live a better, happier life!  i so look forward to that (and know that i read ALL of your comments, and am always amazed and inspired by your words on these kinds of posts!)  

have a great monday everyone!  i’ll be posting a style post that might be my favorite so far in just a couple hours to kick off this “fresh start”!  xx- sarah

* more photos 0f ruca bean yates mora here

Dog Monday

hi friends!  i hope you had a great weekend, a happy cinco de mayo, a relaxing sleepy sunday and all the goodness that a couple of days off can bring!  it’s been way too long since i shared a little snap of ruca bean yates-mora with you (i’ve been mostly sharing our dog styling antics on my instagram).  but here she is, she’s bringing in monday with her normal charm and sass.  and in 4 short days we’ll be celebrating her 7th birthday!  i swear when she runs around our yard or spazzes out when a friend comes over you wouldn’t think she’s a day over two.  i love her extra for that. 

in other news, i’ll be back later this afternoon with a recipe post  to help you detox from an over-indulgent weekend!  and i’ll also be sharing a few of the bean outtakes on my facebook this afternoon as well.  i really, really don’t think you want to miss them, so be sure to check in!  xx- sarah

FANCY PAWS, A WILD SUCCESS!

we did it my friends, we styled and photographed over 20 pups who stole our hearts and raised over $2000 for NKLA!  if amazingly adorable dogs in finery is your thing, head over here and here to see more! thank you from the bottom of our hearts to those of you that came out to support, and for those of you that missed it, don’t worry- there’s more to come,  fancy paws is just getting started.  thank you also to forge studios for sponsoring, to birds of a feather for the amazing photos and to sarah at smitten studios for her help with the dog styling!  we couldn’t have done it without her.  and head over to notcot to see some great behind the scenes photos! i’ll be back later in the day with some links from the interweb to keep you entertained over the weekend! xx- sarah

* if you have photos you’d like to share from the day on instagram or twitter, please use the hashtag #fancypawsevent so that everyone can see!  

FANCY PAWS: It’s your time to shine, PUPS!

you wouldn’t believe how excited i am to announce this today- birds of a feather and our amazing friend sarah of smitten studio have teamed up to put together a {well-styled} dog photoshoot to raise money for NKLA!  NKLA is a coalition of animal welfare organizations dedicated to ending the killing of healthy and treatable pets in LA shelters. YES!!!

we love what they’re doing and are so excited to raise money to help those pups who are less fortunate. we’ll be styling and photographing YOUR pups in our fundraising efforts.  imagine your pup putting his/her best paw forward to help those in need…  amazing, right?!  we think so!

all of the details are below.  i hope you can make it, and please help spread the word to all the los angeles dog lovers you know!  xx-sarah

 

WHO: your beloved canine

WHAT: a 15 minute styled photo session of your pup (photographed by “birds of a feather” and styled by Sarah of “A House in the Hills” & Sarah of “Smitten Studio“),
5  high resolution digital files from the shoot available for download,
$125 donation

WHERE: The Forge studio, 2636 Huron St. Los Angeles, 90065

WHEN: Sunday, March 10, 2013, 9 am- 5pm  first come, first serve!

WHY: to raise money for NKLA, a coalition of animal welfare organizations dedicated to ending the killing of healthy and treatable pets in LA shelters.

HUGE GIANT THANK YOU TO THE AWESOME FOLKS AT THE FORGE FOR SPONSORING THIS EVENT!!!