Love

This one might be the best one....So you should watch it. 

Because it's been too long

And you can never, ever have too much John Lennon in your life. You should definitely take a few minutes to watch this video. His style! Amazing!!! I can't even begin to express how happy I would be if I got to play with elephants in Central Park with John Lennon. I mean...look at all of the wonderful things happening in that sentence. John Lennon. Elephants. Central Park. All AMAZING things. 

Happy Friday!

PS. You should watch this one too because John and Yoko are the best.

Let the Good Times Roll

Last weekend I decided to throw a little birthday bash for myself and celebrate another year on this beautiful earth with a few friends. I haven't thrown a party in a long while, but I certainly enjoy doing so! I tend to go a little overboard, and the perfectionist in me comes out. 

I am surrounded by all kinds of awesome creative inspiration at work every day and it gets my mind racing with ideas! We have festive tissue pom poms hanging in one of our windows, and I decided I had to learn how to do them and make some for the party. Then I found an awesome kraft paper flag that I decorated with muted pink and green paper and some sparkly alphabet stickers. The obsessive side of me even wrapped the wine bottles in matching paper. 

Oh, but it couldn't stop there. I had to coordinate the dishes, the cocktail napkins, and even the iced tea. I'm not a huge fan of cake (don't get me wrong, it's good stuff, just not my favorite) so I prefer pie on my birthday. My favorite recipe as of late is a peach and nectarine combo. Mmm! 

A few more photos:

And you better believe the night ended like this:

Book Club

When my sister and I were little girls my mom used to tell us that taking us to a book store was like taking any other kid to a candy store. We have always loved to read and we each have a pretty eclectic taste when it comes to genres.

I just finished The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. Much like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo the story took a while to take off, but once it did I couldn't put it down. I faced major anxiety one day when I forget it at home and had to suffer through my lunch break without it. I started The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and I am excited that it picks up right where the last one left off and so far, it is not a slow start. In fact it's quite thrilling!

I have a long list of books I want to read waiting patiently for me on my bookshelf, including: Bossypants by Tina Fey, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, and Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.

Some of my favorites include: The Harry Potter series (of course!), The Pilgrimage and By the River Piedra I Sat and Wept by Paulo Coelho, Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, Velvet Elvis and Sex God by Rob Bell, and more that will be shared later!

What are some of your favorite reads?

Photo via Amazon.

Plants

I've always thought it would be so lovely to have a home with a big beautiful garden full of fresh fruits and veggies, beautiful flowers (I love hydrangeas and peonies), and perhaps even some fresh lavender. The only problem is that I am terrible at keeping plants alive! My green thumb is more of a black thumb of death. I've tried growing herbs in little pots (I think I attempted basil, rosemary, and thyme) and failed miserably. The poor little guys never stood a chance. When I lived in Los Angeles I even tried to keep a cactus or two. And failed. I couldn't even take care of a desert plant.

But I won't give up that easily. Being the brave pair that we are- we're considering planting a few herbs and some flowers in pots for our balcony. It would definitely liven it up out there but I told Mr. Butter he's going to have to be in charge of their care. I will help, but I will need his supervision.

Little did I know that an alternative existed. When I was out on one of my afternoon walks last week I saw these "plants" made out of fabric at Anthropologie and thought -"gasp! These are meant for me!" I think they might just be for display though. Only the big planter had a price tag. Oh well, it could be a great opportunity for a fun DIY project! Think of all of the possibilities! I still want some edible plants though...fresh tomatoes and herbs are just so delightful!

These would be so cute on our kitchen windowsill or on a side table for the balcony. Hmmm....better start brainstorming on a how-to!

Let's Go For A Walk

Portland had been rather generous with it's weather lately, and I actually fell for it. I thought the sunshine and clear skies were here to stay for the summer, and oh how I was wrong! Portland decided to go back to it's old ways this week and bring forth misty rain and gray shadows. But miraculously the clouds lifted and the rain departed for a few hours this afternoon. I wouldn't dream wasting such a lovely moment so I went for a walk! It was a bit windy so I popped into a few of my favorite stores as well. Here's some photos from this pretty afternoon:

Above: Fun colorful watches at Anthropologie, Giant oil paint sticks and playful papers at the art store, and vintage dresses on the street. 

Beautiful display inside Anthropologie.

I always love the window displays at Anthro. It would be SO much fun to make these.

I love how these turned out. They are so funky. 

I hope you had a pretty afternoon too!

...

Television

Before Tim and I got married I lived without cable. Yes, it's true. No television for this girl. I was living on such a small budget I simply couldn't justify spending any money on television. I didn't even have the internet for a while (gasp!). But I did have a tv and dvd player so I watched lots of shows on dvd. Some of my old favorites include Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Frasier, Gossip Girl (yes, I admit it!), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (so good).

Now that I'm a married woman with a husband who needs his ESPN like fish need water, we have cable. We even have HBO. And oh boy, it's addictive. I have new favorite shows now, and pretty much all of them are on HBO.

We orginally got sucked in with Boardwalk Empire. Oh, Nucky- you are so good, yet so so bad. If you haven't seen this yet, you must! Steve Buscemi is fabulous in it, as is the rest of the cast. The costumes and set design are amazing as well!

After that, we started trying out other HBO shows. And along with the rest of the world we got completely obsessed with Game of Thrones. Do yourself a favor and go buy Season 1 and just start watching it RIGHT NOW. But make sure you don't have anything important to take care of first because you won't want to stop. You will become a sleep deprived zombie just to watch 1 more episode...and then  1 more...and then, you get the picture.

Now we're branching out even more. Tim has started to watch Veep, which I was hesitant towards at first but now share in the hilarity of it. And I'm still testing out Girls, which is about four women in their twenties living in NYC. It's often compared to Sex and the City but it is far, far less glamorous.

HBO was like a gateway drug to other "premium channel" shows. We decided to try out Showtime's Homeland. Yeah, that was a good/bad idea because all of a sudden I couldn't get enough of that either! Oh how we love On Demand programming!

We still love our old shows, and spend many nights cuddled up in bed watching Frasier. I mean, how can you not love Niles? And I will never get tired of Eddie and his adorable antics! My sister told me that her first year graduate students born in the 1990s (let's not even get started on that) had never seen an episode of Friends. Can you even imagine?! I have seen every episode probably twenty times. We must right this wrong in the world!!!

What are your favorite shows? Which ones can you watch over and over again and never get tired of? I'd love to hear!

Photo Credits: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

A Day for Mothers

Mother's Day is almost here and I hope everyone has something sweet and lovely planned for the moms in your lives. I celebrated Mother's Day early with my mom in NYC and we are looking forward to celebrating with Tim's mom this weekend. Here's some gift ideas I am loving for the mamas:

1. Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook: This book is amazing! I first discovered it way back when I was working in retail. Alas, it was not until this past Christmas that it became a member of my book family. It really does have everything you would ever want to know and more regarding the care of your home. And Martha is the queen of all things home related so you know it's going to be good. I recommend it to all! You can find it here.

2. A Mani/Pedi Date: When I was in high school my mom and I would have monthly "Mommy-Manda" days where we would spend the day together - just the two of us! - doing something girly and fun. Many times this resulted in getting a lovely manicure and pedicure at our favorite nail salon near the Beverly Center in LA. You can chat and catch up with each other while you are getting pampered and you will leave feeling all relaxed and happy!

3. Bath Goodies: Obviously I am a big fan of bubble baths and all bath related treats. But I am also a big fan of any product that is good for you and makes you feel good. It's such a simple way to add something special to your daily routine. The Lavender Apple Body Scrub from Sabon is my absolute favorite special treat. I took my mom to Sabon in NY and we had such a good time picking out all kinds of goodies together. She is a fan of the Lemon Basil Shower Oil and we both love these fun soap flakes. They even have a sweet Mother/Baby line for the new moms out there!

4. A Magazine Subscription: I love the idea of a magazine subscription as a gift for someone. A few Christmases ago my sister got me and my mom a subscription to Martha Stewart Living (of course!) and we both loved it. I get so excited when the new issue arrives in my mailbox each month! There are so many options to choose from when it comes to finding the perfect magazine for your mom- perhaps she loves cooking (Bon Appetite and The Food Network Magazine are both great choices!), or health and fitness (I like Whole Living and Women's Health), or interior design (Architectural Digest is beautiful), or perhaps fashion floats her boat (hello, Vogue!). 

Have fun!

xo!

Photo credits: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Blue and Orange and Red, Oh my!

We passed these lovely colorful appliances when we were out walking in NY last weekend. Aren' they lovely? Oh how I would adore having a colorful kitchen (just none of that avocado green, ok?). Do you see that pink refrigerator in the back? Too much? The red is pretty amazing too...

That's all.

Happy Lazy Saturday!

Today I took part in what I have named "The Lazy Saturday." I got out of bed at a reasonable hour, but shortly after kissing Mr. Butter good-bye as he headed off to work I decided to simply relocate to the sofa and eat a bowl of cereal and watch some TV. After that exhausting endeavor I debated whether or not it was too early to take a nap and decided that yes, indeed it was. However, it was not too early to take a bubble bath, eat macaroons, and watch my favorite guilty pleasure show. So I drew myself up a oh so delightful bath, got out the last of my macaroons, and put on Gossip Girl to watch while I lounged around in my warm tub. It-was-great! 

Post-bath I decided it was time to repaint my nails and went for a bold gesture with half hot pink, half black. I thought it was fun and unexpected but when Mr. Butter came home he proceeded to ask me "What's on the tip of your nails?". I took that to mean they were not approved. What do you think?

After the nail update I came to the conclusion that it was now an appropriate time to take a nap and snoozed for a bit on the couch under our cozy faux fur blanket. Ah, but the laziness had to end. I finally rose from my slumber, did a load of laundry, made the bed, and walked over to the grocery store to pick up some treats for today, the fifth of May. I made us a feast of chips and guacamole, vegetarian tacos with all the fixins and some "cold beer" per the husband's request. 

I picked out a mixture of beers because I wanted to try a few kinds and we don't really have a favorite. I got one called "Lucky Buddah" (despite being told by the grocery store worker that "it was awful") because let's be honest here, the bottle is awesome. And it was cheap. So even if the beer was awful the bottle rocked my world and it would be worth it. By the way, it kind of just tastes like Coors Light. 

That husband of mine had to run back up to work after dinner so now I am finishing up my Buddah beer and waiting for him to return home to me. I don't know how on earth it is possible but I am ready for another nap. 

:)

Chocolate and The Meadow

Salt. Chocolate. Fresh Flowers. Perfection .

Although my trips may be infrequent, I really enjoy The Meadow on NE Mississippi in Portland. They have an entire wall dedicated to every type of salt one could imagine, and another wall dedicate to artisan chocolates. Right in the middle of it all you can find a wide variety of gorgeous fresh flowers. 

I love all three of these things so it's no surprise that I adore The Meadow. I highly recommend a little trip over to the NE to walk up and down Mississippi. There are so many unique and fun stores to visit, including an ice cream shop that makes a honey lavender flavor that is to die for!

Speaking of chocolate, I will forever be grateful to my good friend Susan for introducing me to Dagoba Organic Chocoalte. More specifically, their Lavender Blueberry Dark Chocolate bar. I was skeptical at first, but it's so good! I recently picked up two new flavors to try: Roseberry and Beaucoup Berries. I picked these up at the New Seasons Market. They carry a large variety of Dagoba flavors I have not yet tried and they have them in individual bite size pieces too...! What's a girl to do?! 

I like trying unique flavors when it comes to sweets. Do you have any favorites? I know Bacon Chocolate is the hot item right now, but I'm just not ready for that quite yet.

...

Happy Friday!

At last, it has come! Friday sweet Friday. In celebration of this happy day I am going to share a few things that bring a smile to my face.

MACARONS: These sweet little treats are gorgeous AND delicious. I shied away from them for many years since I usually don't go for non-chocolate sweet treats. But their seductive beauty lured me in and now I am hooked! I love trying new flavors (lavender, olive oil, sea salt and caramel!) and can't wait to visit Lauderee on our upcoming trip to NYC! 

SUMMER SANDALS: I have been obsessing over cute summer sandals lately, which is unfortunate for me because it has remained gray and rainy here in the NW with the sun rarely coming out to say hello. You can find these here. I love the red and yellow versions!

VOLUSPA CANDLES: I first encountered these at Anthropologie. If you haven't discovered these for  yourself yet, let me tell you- they smell amazing!!! I am partial to the Santiago Huckleberry but really, they are all fantastic. 

BUBBLEROONS: It's no secret now that I love macaroons, so of course I LOVE these Bubbleroons from Lush! They are bubble bars with a coconut oil "icing" in the middle. Simply crumble these little wonders under running water and enjoy the best bubble bath you've ever had. Each 'roon is made for two baths. I am still testing out all of the different scents, but so far my favorite is the Rose Jam. 

....

Macaron photo via Gigabiting; Sandals via BC Footwear; Voluspa candle via Amazon; Bubbleroons via Lush.