happy 4th of july!

thank you so much for all of the kind comments, tweets, instagram and facebook notes yesterday!  our life’s celebrations are that much sweeter with all of your happiness for us. we’re on cloud ten!

here in the states we’re celebrating independence day and everything shuts down while people get focused on bbq’s, booze and any other fun summer activity that they can dream up.  lou and i are headed to pick up the keys to our new house and spend a day by the pool!  we’ll drink champagne, introduce the dogs to their new home, sleep on an air mattress and make our first day/night there the most fun and memorable one we can. i can’t wait to get a little buzz and float around in that pool!  

linda from the netherlands wrote yesterday that she’d love to do a house swap with us, and that’s something we’re really looking forward to doing once we get the house settled and decorated!  so if you would love to swap houses and come to palm springs sometime just send along an email with your airbnb listing and i’ll hang onto it and get in touch when the timing is right!  (we plan on doing lots of travel now that we can stop squirreling away so many pennies for this purchase).  have a great day all! 

photo by jose villa

a BIGGIE announcement!

lou and i have long dreamed of owning a home in palm springs.  it’s the sunny desert town where we first talked about getting married and fantasized about what our future might look like. it’s the place we run to when the city gets overwhelming. we have loved it long and hard (that’s what she said!) for it’s mid century modern architecture, endless warm nights, tall palm trees, surrounding mountains and ability to put us into a state of happy calm as soon as we drive around the mountain bend and see the town in the distance. we always talked about retiring there.  but i’ve always secretly wondered, why wait until you’re 65 to retire and do the things you know you want to do??

so, it’s with the hugest grin on my face that i type this…. we just bought a house in palm springs (well, technically we’re waiting on the final documents but the deal is as good as done!).  and that beaut right up there, that’s our new pool.  YES, THAT IS OUR NEW POOL, SOMEBODY PINCH ME!! it’s been almost 7 long weeks of what i consider earning our loan with the bank (more on that another day) but yesterday we drove out there and signed up for home ownership!  we’ll leave part of our hearts and a lot of friends in los angeles, which is why as soon as we can we’ll start hunting for a studio apartment in LA and will see if we can swing being bi-city. in the meantime we’ll be packing, moving, and  settling into a slower paced life that involves a lot of pool side mojitos.

this has been brewing since february but i didn’t want to jinx it (is that weird superstition?!) which is why so many of my posts lately have mysteriously eluded to big things happening.  i hate keeping secrets and you can’t imagine how happy i am to finally be able to tell you all! and now hopefully you’ll understand why my posting has been light/sporadic. i promise as soon as we’re settled i’ll get back to regular posting and fill you in on all the decorating details.  in the meantime i’ll do my best to keep you at least mildly entertained with whatever other randomness i can mix up!  three cheers to a new adventure!!

*first photo by ryan robinson from a series he photographed in florida called “snowbirds”. i love them all. 

moonrise kingdom

hey friends!  what do you have planned for your weekend?  lou and i will be taking care of business, lots of work and personal chores but sometime in the mix i’m insisting that we go see moonrise kingdom, wes anderson’s newest movie. don’t the stills have you so intrigued?!  or have you already seen it? (no spoilers please!) i haven’t been this excited to see a movie in quite a bit!

photos from IMBD

Be Your Best Anyway

i’ve been facing a moral dilemma this week and standing up for what i believe in has been hard. and i feel like a super-nerd for even writing this, but stumbling on quotes on pinterst is sometimes all i need to remind myself of whatever i need to be focusing on.  yeah, i’m pretty much a 14 year old girl trapped in a body more than twice that age.  i have certainly felt very emo lately, it’s kind of embarrassing.

also, i’m agnostic so for me the god that mother teresa is referring to i interpret to mean the universe. or myself.  and i entertain the possibility that they are one and the same.  wherever my beliefs lie at any given time i think there are beautiful things to be taken from all religions. and that is the most i’ll probably ever say about my religious/spiritual views on this here blog.  tomorrow back to food, style, decor and dogs. *shaking it off*

chelsea’s style 3

here she is again, for my final installment of “how i wish i could dress like chelsea does”.  (do you remember this debacle with pleather leggings?) and can we also talk about how she great her rings are? laslty: the girl drinks her coffee black on ice, which is just so badass. chelsea, you’re rad. thanks for playing.  more of chelsea’s style and her great home here and here.