The answer is 4 glasses of champagne equals the calories in 1 margarita and my questions is who chooses a margarita over any amount of champagne? Champagne > margaritas. All day, everyday.
Link Love
Thanks to Ryan Gosling, I have chosen the perfect shade of gray for our office/second bedroom.
Important news for Chicagoans: Trader Joe’s now delivers!
I am loving everything about this Temperley London collection.
This guy knows how to throw a housewarming party– the bathtub ice bucket of Vueve is genius.
A cool alternative to a monogrammed necklace.
Staycations & Bliss
4 hours here most certainly equals bliss- I’m feeling like a brand new person (or at least a person who didn’t spend the last week lifting boxes). Spa days and staycations go together like, well, anything that is absolutely perfect together.
100 Days
I just realized that for the first time in 4 years, I am going to be able to get a live Christmas tree. And with 12 foot ceilings, you better believe it’s going to be massive.
Coincidence that this realization falls on 100 days until Christmas? I think not.
Sunday Celebration
If there’s a better way to spend a Sunday morning than celebrating your favorite two year old with coffee, donuts, balloons and people you love to be around, I just can’t believe it. What a great celebration of our little buddy Jackson who is the absolute sweetest (and speediest!) boy around.
And let’s be honest- awesome kids get made and raised by awesome parents and our dear friends Brad and Kate are top notch. Role models in marriage, role models in parenting…we are beyond blessed to have these two in our lives!
Work Hard/Play Hard
In the last week, I have found a wedding dress, signed a wedding photographer, packed, moved, unpacked, carried every piece of the new porch furniture individually up 3 flights of stairs because the delivery guys refused, Ryan got staffed on a project that requires late nights and early mornings (aka he’s only been home to sleep) and I got a promotion at work.
Whew.
All of this means that 5pm on Friday did not signal the end of work and beginning of my week vacation. But to be honest, I have never been happier to crack open my laptop on a Saturday morning to crank through some necessary business. There’s a lot to be said about work hard/play hard and I find that the harder I work, the deeper my sleep, the more present I am at home, the less I worry and the more I enjoy pretty much everything. So, this morning, it’s a copious amount of coffee at my new local Starbucks but tonight, it’s most certainly going to be all of the wine, camped out on my back porch with my man.
Happy Weekend, friends!
Home
It feels like it may take a decade to unpack but…we’re here. And it feels like home already.
Packing Woes
It’s at the point where I’d rather throw out everything I own rather than pack another box. I’m not one to wish away time but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish it were tomorrow night.
Wedding Dress Shopping and Terrible Analogies
This weekend was for wedding dress shopping. On Friday, my friend Kate and I did a test run appointment because I was sort of nervous and on Saturday, my mom came into town to do the whole shebang. We did traditional appointments, we went to a super fun off-the-rack couture gown place, did a spin through shoe stores on Oak St, had bubbly and lunch outside at Gibson’s and, in the end, returned to the place Kate and I went on Friday for the dress. It was a blast.
Someone told me a few weeks ago that finding a wedding dress is like dating- you know when you find The One and the whole process mirrors what it’s like to date.
No. No, it does not.
There was not a single time during my dating life where I felt bad identifying that there was no way in hell that a particular guy was right for me. I didn’t go “Oh but if I wanted to be with someone who has a serious drinking problem, this would be the guy for me!” or “Awww, this guy would go so well if I had a desire to live in a rural area” or “Shoot! My self respect is just going to rule this guy out.” Not once. Not for a minute. But that’s exactly how dress shopping was. Even if I didn’t love a dress or a certain dress wasn’t what I was looking for, I felt guilty for saying so and wanted to express all of the great qualities if the dress. I mean, I was trying on beautiful white dresses and I had to insult the pretty things just because one wasn’t my jam? It felt so wrong!
Instead, there was a lot of “If I were getting married on a Southern plantation, this dress would be perfect!” and “Please show this to your next client with a beach wedding” and “This dress is going to find a perfect home, I know it!”. So the moral of the story is that wedding dress shopping is not at all like dating but it is like being at the animal shelter. Only the right pet will do but you totally want the other puppies to find good homes too.
So either I was really bad at dating (likely) or really good at dress shopping or (most likely) really bad at analogies. But I won’t be naked while marrying the man I do know is right for me and I think that trumps everything.
The Internet Wins Today
There’s a lot of negative we can say about this age of immediate information, immediate communication, the now-now-now that we live in due to technology. And I agree with it a lot of the time. But not today. No, not today.
This is a picture of my friend Rosemary and her husband Mark at our apartment when they came over for coffee last December. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who likes Rosemary- people LOVE Rosemary. In fact, to say that I love her is about as original as saying the sky is blue or donuts are delicious- loving Rosemary is simply a matter of fact. She is kind, an exceedingly generous listener and time with her is like one big hug that reminds you that the world is good and good people are in it. She is the good people.
Rosemary created a blog several months after being diagnosed with ALS this winter to share her experience in this new path but also to share the love stories of her life- her husband, her children and her friends. This blog is art. It’s real and raw and honest in a way words can only be when they come directly from the heart with no filter, no ego, no edits. Just a drive to share her love and her stories.
Yesterday, a family friend who is building a Chairiot so that Rosemary can enjoy the hiking trails she loves when she is no longer able to walk started a Fundrazr page to raise money to cover labor and materials for this special project. When I donated 4 hours after the page was launched, nearly 50% of the goal had been reached. Now, only 24 hours later, double the goal has been raised. As I said before, people love this incredible woman and through the power of the interwebs and ability to immediately know what could be done to support, her community was able to put their love into action. 24 hours and people quite literally from all over the world sent hugs and love to this amazing woman. Rosemary will have her Chairiot and, more than likely, an army of people wanting to share a hike (and wine and cheese) with her.
I guess that’s the thing: when you love life as much as Rosemary does, life has a way of loving you back. Which it did. Today. Fiercely. In the form of an idea, a website and a whole lot of beautiful people.