embroidery + pom poms

 [via Melissa Guedes]

weekend

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Ours was pretty great. I stopped by the big Erica Tanov sale on Saturday morning and scored a pair of gorgeous Chie Mihara heels (above) on super sale (I'll be wearing them to a wedding in Mexico City in a few weeks). We ate tacos at Tacubaya. Went to a bbq at my parents house in Orinda and went for a swim in the pool. Wandered around the Temescal farmers' market where we picked up some goodies for the week and ran into Celia and Stella's friend Cheech, and Jamie. As a prefect end to the weekend we had our new friends Devon and Simon and their son Ari over for an early dinner (grilled salmon with mango, peach, cucumber salsa + roasted veggies with a sour cream cilantro sauce + quinoa, spinach, feta, olive salad + an ah-mazing peach tarte with buttermilk ice cream by Devon) last night.

adrian tomine's new york

I'm super excited about Adrian Tomine's New York Drawings, being released this October by Drawn & Quarterly.

And check out his new "Highline" print over at Desert Island.

purity ring

[via my girl Aralena of dents de lait]

golden gate

 
I met up with a great new friend and her son at the Marin Discovery Museum today. The museum itself was amazing for our little explorers and this was the view. Gorgeous, right?

a round of applause for boston

 

[via bits by pieces]

oelwein :: atelier parisien

There's so much cuteness in the oelwein etsy shop!

on repeat: passion pit

Jason Nocito/Courtesy of the artist

Gossamer, the new album from Passion Pit, is streaming right now on NPR. It's all summery fun-time road-trip awesomeness.

Gossamer vacillates like a torrid romance: Every moment is touch and go, on and off, quiet as a whisper and then loud as a yell. Angelakos' lyrics suggest a love life filled with ups and downs. "Cry Like a Ghost," for example, finds him remembering a relationship trapped in a vicious cycle: "Sylvia / Right back where you came from you're a pendulum / Heartbroken and numb." But he doesn't wallow in the sadness: Gossamer is pure catharsis. It's all about strength, moving forward, forgetting — and giving life to the party even as it doles out condolences to the lonely. -- Austin Cooper

making friends

 

There was a time in my life after grad school when felt the lack of good close friends acutely. I had lost my closest girlfriends to distance, misunderstandings, and best friend break-ups. I felt their absence everyday and was at a loss as to how to make new friends. And not just new friends, but good friends. I feel so lucky that I have all of those ladies back in my life now. Most of them live far away, but there is no lack of love in the distance between us. And I feel doubly lucky that I have a cadre of amazing friends whom I see, if not every day, every week.

This article by Alex Williams, Joanna Goddard's husband, about the difficulties of making friends as we get older struck a cord.

As people approach midlife, the days of youthful exploration, when life felt like one big blind date, are fading. Schedules compress, priorities change and people often become pickier in what they want in their friends.

No matter how many friends you make, a sense of fatalism can creep in: the period for making B.F.F.’s, the way you did in your teens or early 20s, is pretty much over. It’s time to resign yourself to situational friends: K.O.F.’s (kind of friends) — for now.

What do you think?

[image: Sailor Girls]

beautiful dc

DC is beautiful. I didn't realize! The brick buildings, the tree-lined avenues...It really is a lovely city. We loved our visit with Mary and Ben. Some highlights: amazing dinner at Birch & Barley, our evening stroll around the monuments, refreshing juice from Yola, dinner at Hanks, brunch at Mintwood, book browsing at Kramers, visiting the Spy Museum and the Natural History Museum, morning coffee at Filter, pizza at 2Amys, a short trip to Charlottesville to visit friends Chad & Brooks (+ kids), and a quick tour around Monticello before heading home. A great, great trip.

 

hotel chevalier

[via Caroline Duke]

all truths wait in all things

Check out these literary illustrations by Evan Robertson (husband of Nichole of Little Brown Pen). I'm particularly taken with the Walt Whitman poster...

coney island in color

Aren't these old hand-painted postcards of Coney Island great?

From The New Yorker:

For the current issue, Lisa Kereszi photographed Luna Park, the new amusement park at Coney Island that opened over Memorial Day weekend. Luna Park takes its name from a historic Coney Island park that had opened in 1903 and was destroyed in an electrical fire in 1944. While working on this shoot, I became curious about the Luna Park and Coney Island of years past. I spent a little time looking at hand-painted postcards that seemed somehow to be imbued with both the weirdness and the splendor of Coney Island’s history. 

stella at 19 months

This morning when Stella was putting on her shoes she paused and said, very matter-of-factly, "I like shoes." In case there was any doubt, she is my girl for sure.

We checked out this book at the library last week and it spawned a whole slew of "I like" phrases, the first being "I like books." Others include "I like Kaikai," "I like pools," "I like Dada," "I like parks," I like cars," and "I like mac'cheese." Stella can mimic most sounds now so teaching her new words is an everyday affair. I love it. I love it when she surprises me with a word I didn't know she knew. As is evident above, she is also putting words together: "our car," "Pap-pap's chair," "Dada's clothes," "cracker please," "shoes off," "bye bye Dada," etc.

Stella is also her Dad's girl. She loves homemade mac-cheese, cheese toast, broccoli with cheese sauce, pizza from here and here, and cheese sticks. If it has cheese on it, she usually likes it. That's not to say she doesn't like to eat other things. She also eats grilled fish, cherries, strawberries, guacamole, dried mango, bean burritos, and rosemary crackers with gusto. Blueberries and grapes are more of a game to her; she attempts to stick as many as she can in her mouth and then holds them there until it becomes necessary to spit them out. She also likes to drop them off the side of her highchair (when she actually agrees to sit in her highchair) and watch them roll.

Stella still sleeps in bed with us which we love (aside from the occasional foot in the face). And still wakes up between 2-4 times most nights wanting to be soothed back to sleep. Which I don't love. It's not a habit I'm proud is still lurking around, but I am flummoxed as to how to make it stop and get her to sleep through the night. I'm not a big fan of crying and tears, so crying-it-out isn't an option. At this point. I just started reading this book in hopes that in the not-too-distant future I will have my first full night's sleep in over two years. Crazy, right? I'm pretty ready for it.

In other news, our girl has perfected the most amazing squeal. It combines over-the-top excitement and the thrill of hearing her own voice. The highlight of my day is hearing Stells squeal "Rubeeeee" at the top of her vocal range as soon as her friend comes into sight or "Kaikaiiiiiieeee" when she finds out we're going to Orinda to see my parents' dog. Sometimes when we are walking up our front steps she points to our neighbor's yard to where she's seen their cat lolling around and screams "kitttaaycatttt" as if she's at once calling it by name and calling attention to the fact that she remembers a cat lives there. I relish that unfettered joy. The world is such a wondrous place in the eyes of a toddler.

summer dresses

I randomly went on Zappos yesterday looking for affordable summer dresses to wear in the scorching DC heat and I found three new faves. They arrived this afternoon (doesn't Zappos have the best customer service?) and I'm loving them (despite the fact that they're O'Neill...). Do you have a favorite summer dress?

Chantal dress in Cobalt-Hello, flamingos!

Sunshine dress in Cream

Sunshine dress in Seaport

 
FYI they look way cuter on than they do in these pictures...

tara donovan's drawing (pins)

Check out these gorgeous new pieces by artist Tara Donovan. 

From DesignBoom:

pace gallery showcased the work of new york artist tara donovan entitled 'drawing (pins)', exhibited at art basel 2012. the pieces are made up of tens of thousands of nickel-headed thumbtacks embedded in Gatorboard® in varying degrees, generating detailed texture and movement. the collection is an archetypal example of donovan's signature style, where she is known for using a multitude of a single item to create often large-scale installations.

images © designboom