Aren’t Thursdays the BEST?! If you aren’t taking part in Things I Love Thursdays, it’s time to start. You don’t even need to be a blogger, or know how to use the internet for that matter. All you have to do is just make a quick list of things you love and are thankful for. It can be in a journal, a post-it, a tweet, a status update, even just a declaration to the person sitting next to you. You’d be surprised how positive-thinking can alter your mood for the better.
Here’s a list of things that are doing it for me this week. BTW – this is my 18th TiLT, which is amazing because 18 is my all-time favorite number. Hip Hip, Hooray!
Amusement park engagement shoot photos from 100 Layer Cake
The fruit leather fairy that visits the SocialVibe snack cabinets every night (aka Tam) ; my brother and his fiance Nadja visiting us in LA ; apple dumpling therapy (make these, and you will have a small glimpse of heaven) ; being a tourist in my own city – the planetarium at the griffith park observatory is awesome! ; board games like balderdash, which i need much more of in my life ; starting new books (On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition, by William Zissler) ; starting new chapters ; new beds that make my life approximately 143x better than it was before ; waking up sandwiched between two cats, everyday ; a rocking social calendar that includes dinner with Tracy and Matt tonight, lunch with Jacqueline on Saturday and Kara’s birthday party on Sunday ; oh and Clay and Molly hang-time somewhere in between all that ; putting all seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm on Netflix because Julian’s never seen a SINGLE episode!
the weather turning cold again so i can use my fireplace – DELICIOUS ; organizing my mini-office area ; free gift certificates in the mail ; errand-running boyfriends/fiances ; lunch with Micah who was in town from boulder ; extra-long naps on Sunday afternoons ; taunting Scout with the laser pointer ; bare fruits cinnamon apple chips – tasty AND the only ingredients are “organic apples, organic cinnamon.” Yes! ; wearing Julian’s clothes ; dental offices (esp. ones with 20 yr old wooden TV sets) ; watching Bula and Benny play-dogfight ; switching back to TweetDeck so I can actually SEE everyone’s tweets ; finishing a work project that has been plaguing me for months – FEELS SO GOOD ; holding hands ; buying little dresses for Julian’s CUTE new niece Eden ; gummy cola bottles ; Vampire Weekend’s new album, Contra ;
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
- Mohandas Gandhi
- Gummy Worm Chromosomes – if learning about DNA was this delicious, I might have taken a more passionate interest in biology in middle school. Imagine me as a biologist. Solving medical mysteries. Mixing things in a lab. Not wearing makeup. All jokes aside, I did briefly consider a career as a veterinarian – until I realized it’s harder to get into vet school than it is to get into med school. And that my heart would break everyday watching animals suffer.
- Top 10 Books Perfect For The iPad. Haha…. this one is for Julian, who thought he was doing me a favor by suggesting I get an iPad instead of a laptop. PLEASE.
- The wedding invitation of our friends Kayla and Tyler, who are getting married just a couple months after Julian and I. It’s the sweetest and most creative wedding invite I’ve ever seen – plus I got to watch Julian and Tyler making it while they were in LA!
- Kitchen of the Year. I’d say! That place is making me salivate, it’s so gorgeous.
- ChatRoulette is all the rage these days. Even Ashton Kutcher is on it, and one math student in Calgary took a screenshot of the convo he was having with Mr. Aplusk. I can see the appeal of the site, that randomly connects you via videochat to people around the world, but I don’t see why I would use it. It would have provided hours of fun in college, though.
- Butch Cupcakes – this bakery in NY designs cupcakes with men in mind, because everyone deserves to enjoy a nice cupcake, but how masculine is it to eat a pink cupcake with heart sprinkles? Camo or wood-grain patterns are so much more macho.
- Study shows cat owners are more educated than dog owners. I’m feeling a bit of justice to all women who have unfairly been called “cat ladies” now. By the way, I love dogs too. Just not as much as kitties.
- Another new study about how awesome Boulder, CO is. This particular one states it is the happiest city in all the US. Apparently Boulder knows how intellectual, healthy, bicycle-friendly and clean their city is, because I found a hefty list of credentials on their website. Proud, maybe. But I’d still move there in a heartbeat.
- Speaking of awesome places to live, check out this little house on a cliff in Iceland. Talk about breathtaking!
- Depths of the Ocean, Scaled to Human Size – this is both crazy and terrifying, especially for people like me who get the heebie jeebies about deep, dark water. What’s DOWN there?!
Lauren, who is in Hawaii this week, requested we play this loudly in our office on repeat. For the record, this is on the wall of our office:
I thought this video of two koalas bickering was super cute at first, until one of them provokes the other and it breaks out into a nasty fight. My maternal/animal-lover instinct kicked in and I wanted to scoop up the babies to protect and calm them down. Then I realized, they’re just like kids… fighting and picking on the other for no good reason.
My Little Ponies performing musicals – LIVE! MLP hold a special place in my heart, even if this is extremely strange.
A couple months ago, I decided it would be cute to add a little section to the sidebar of my blog that shares the books I’m currently reading. If I were honest, that list would be longer than the entire sidebar, but I’m trying to keep this site (and my mind) clutter-free. You see, I’ve got this bad habit of starting [several] books and not finishing them. I’ve always been an avid reader, but these days, I’m so busy it’s hard to discipline myself enough to finish a solitary book. Plus, I read the most at night before bed, so reading always makes me fall asleep. I also tend to buy educational books, which can be a snore if you’re not in the right frame of mind. It’s quite the sad story.
Adorable home library loft.
In reality, my “Currently Reading” list looks like this:
Quite the eclectic mix, right? And this is only off the top of my head – I’m positive there are more. Many of those I’ve given up hope on months or years ago, but the truth is the truth.
I’ve also got quite an extensive collection of unopened books that I’ve either purchased or borrowed from friends. It would be great to start making a real dent in that collection. I’m not going to go as far to say that I’ll start a book club or even review books on my blog (how boring is that), but I would like to draw your attention to the sidebar and let you know that I’ve added the feature.
My list of books that I want to read grows tremendously by the day, so cross your fingers I can stay focused on reading more books, less blogs.
Ew! I almost let another Thursday slip past me without documenting my list of glorious things that I appreciate and looooove this week. All in all, I’ve had my mind and body busy with other shtuff so I haven’t been able to blog all week. Sad face. I know you’ll forgive me, because, not only is it the right thing to do but – well, you ain’t got no choice! Muah!
Above all else – the weather in LA lately! Think “the perfect week in Spring.” It’s so fantastic, I open my bedroom windows every morning and cherish the fact that I live in a place where you can wear tank tops in February. It could be a little warmer, but all in all, I’m stoked. It’s got me closing my eyes and trying to will Springtime to get here FASTER! Speaking of, I think I found my swimsuit for this year. Behold:
Some other stuff that is pretty incredible:
unexpected phone calls (a lot this week, actually); being able to spontaneously spend a night chatting and hanging out with my Step Mom who was in town on her way to Vegas for a wedding; getting super inspired; trying three new recipes this week and LOVING each and every one of them (Julian, too!); surprise love letters and boxes of Valentine’s Day chocolates; watching so many movies; real, Southern fried chicken (Honey Kettle in Culver City – I DIE); cute white puppies at work that look like stuffed animals; being inspired by Sara Janssen’s Simplify Saturday post and filling three trash bags with clothes I don’t wear, need or want; rearranging my bedroom (rearranging a room can make ANYTHING better!! Top 100 favorite things to do, easy.); finding out my brother and his fiance will be spending the weekend with me in LA (first time for him meeting Julian, eee!);
making the decision to step outside my comfort zone, challenge myself and trust in my abilities; the French windows in my apartment; Bath & Body Works room sprays; getting our invitations all designed & ordered (thank you, Danny!!!); window shopping for clothes online; when work orders groceries, and Wednesday lunch; boyfriends who do the dishes for you everyday; quick pump-me-up phone calls with my girlfriends; heightened excitement and anticipation over my friend Julia’s upcoming baby; seeing Julian after his first ever professional deep tissue massage – CUTE, and hilarious; this raincoat; perfecting the art of pancake-making (wipe the pan with an oil-soaked paper towel); a garage full of firewood for fires in my fireplace (it might be warm during the day, but it’s still cold at night! This is the desert, after all!); not caring about NY Fashion Week and being totally o.k. with that; helping a homeless man buy a large coffee instead of a small (I realize how trivial this sounds, but it still made me feel good);
This oldie-but-goodie music video from Julian’s BFF and Best Man, Marc Scibilia. This man is going to be famous. This song was from the Ron Paul Presidential campaign tour, which Marc played on. Video directed of course, by Julian. And yes – all those people playing instruments are Marc!
The Internet in 1969. Might be a fake, but if not, too funny!
Stuck on what to get your Valentine at the last minute? I’ve got a solution that will not only save your butt, but it doesn’t require waiting in any lines, spending an exorbitant amount of money on flowers, and it will give someone in a developing country clean water for TWENTY years. Each major holiday, charity: water releases a set of witty and adorable e-cards that you can send your loved one for the low price of $20. Sure, you can get one at Hallmark for $3.99, but that card won’t give someone clean water for two decades.
In case you’ve missed the memo, a billion people worldwide (that’s 1 in don’t have access to clean water for drinking, cooking, cleaning or bathing. Lack of clean water for basic sanitation results in 80% of all sickness and disease worldwide and each year, kills more people than all forms of violence combined, INCLUDING WAR. Women in developing nations have to walk more than three hours a day to fetch water that is probably just going to make them and their children sick. Little ones are particularly at risk for waterborne illnesses, of the 42,000 deaths a week from unsafe water, 90% of them are children under the age of 5.
Now that I’ve convinced you to cough up $20 that will save someone’s life (quite literally), check out these cute cards and pick your favorite. Then send it to your boyfriend, girlfriend, mother, brother, coworker, neighbor, heck, send it to yourself. 100% of your donation goes to freshwater projects in developing countries.
If only five of us commit to sending one of these cards, we’ll have provided a whole family with clean water for 20 years. I’m in! Are you in?
This evening, I’m having a realization. And that realization is that I cannot watch my fiance’s live web casts without getting super distracted by his super chatty fans. I’m not sure what it is that is so interesting to me, but the fact that hundreds of people come to watch him and hear him take calls and talk about the weather and filmmaking is super entertaining to me. That being said, I am cutting myself off from watching his current web cast and focusing on writing this little diddy we like to call Things I Love Thursday. Because there are plenty of things to love about this week so far!
Among the greatness….
meeting Kristin Davis. And having her post our photo on her Fan page. I am fully willing to admit my geeky fandom!; frozen candy bars (why did I ever stop eating you? Anyone else remember frozen Snickers?!); finalizing our wedding guest list and rehearsal date/time (HALLELUJAH AGAIN!); baby mooses playing in a sprinkler. I die!! How could you ever kill one of these? They’re like puppies!; really, really hot showers on really, really cold mornings; maple & brown sugar oatmeal; the way Pepper sleeps on the pillow above my head like my guardian angel; speaking of bed, really crisp, clean sheets – I have a thing about bedding. I’m working on it.; “Look! A solar-powered garden!”; discovering my neighbor has a bunny hutch and feeding those cute buns carrots last night; my pink planner that Julian’s aunt Susan got me for Christmas, without it, I would be totally lost; strawberry soft-serve ice cream sundaes; weekends full of DVD marathons (Glee!); rainbows; friends who don’t make me feel like a Queeny bride, even if I kind of am acting like one; being really productive even when the internet goes down at work; starting the week off with an early morning teeth cleaning, having the dentist tell me my teeth are “picture perfect”; good talks with my guy; making lists of rules for a healthy marriage; driving an hour to get donuts only to go get cheese fries instead; apple-scented lotion my Momma made me at Thanksgiving, which makes my whole office smell like Candyland; neighbors who bring up fresh baked brownies, just for the heck of it; the way Julian makes coffee for me (perfect); turning lemons into lemonade; thinking about all the fun stuff my friends and family and I will get to do while we’re in Nashville for my wedding (Grand Ole Opry!); having a clean house (which is rare); finding out that the purple & gold rug I fell in love with months ago is still available in the store; listening to girls hyperventilating and crying while calling into Julian’s live web show (I’m evil); updating my Netflix queue to include all the Best Picture nominees; dreaming about chocolate frosted donuts, which for some reason I cannot stop thinking about lately!
And last but not least – this picture of a black squirrel chowing on a humongous pizza crust. I sent this to Julian and said “who does this remind you of?” Immediately he knew who I was talking about – Pepper, my black cat. She has the fluffiest tail and I always call her a black squirrel, despite having never seen one. So the fact that this exists makes me very excited. She even has the same MC Hammer/genie pants that Pepper has. I love this! Thank you, FB!
Three cheers for it being almost Friday! Here’s to an awesome weekend ahead of us!
Ready for some super awesome and mind-blowing random stuff that will send you down a rabbit hole of internet clicking? Hold onto your keyboards ladies & gentlemen, it’s time for Bits ‘n Pieces! Man, there is always so much I could put in this thing – I could do one every single day. But then when would I have time to work, and cook, and sleep, and brush my hair?
- How AMAZING do these Pie Pops look?! I want one in every flavor, but especially cherry!
- IGotNoTV – Ever since I gave up evil cable TV, I’ve been reliant on Netflix and Hulu for entertainment. It’s not half bad. Aside from not getting to watch the Grammy’s, but I’m sure I could have streamed that online if I had cared to even look. IGotNoTV is an alternative to Hulu and streams classic and new shows for free, online. Why preach about giving up cable if you’re just going to watch TV online, you ask? To that i say, shut up and watch the entire first season of Beverly Hills: 90210 with me.
– Bill Gates Foundation Donates $10 Billion in Vaccinations. This just goes to show you how long I’ve been trying to get this Bits ‘n Pieces up – this news is pretty old. But giving BILLIONS of dollars to help obliterate some of the world’s most deadly diseases will be worth talking about for years to come! This is almost as cool as when good old Gates released a jarful of mosquitoes on a room of TED attendees. He was illustrating the urgency in finding a cure for malaria, btw.
- Ever feel like you’re the only one working while everyone else gets to take a load off? Me too.
- I think I could really get into these Argentinian espadrilles by MYMU this Spring. Why are South American girls so undeniably chic?
- Here’s one way to cut costs on your wedding – DIY fabric flowers. Way presh, but I think I’ll stick with the good old fashioned kind this May. Could be super cute around the house, though!
-So they’re making another Free Willy movie, only this time, Steve Irwin’s daughter, Bindi, is the star. Apparently this time there are Pirates involved. File this one under “ENORMOUS WASTE OF MONEY.” My only question is – based on the DVD artwork – WTH kind of pirate wears Teva sandals?
- It’s funny how you never realize how badly you need something in your life until all of the sudden one day it magically appears and you wonder how you ever lived without it. That’s kind of how I feel about black glossy doors.
- A reality show about hipsters in Silver Lake? Oh brother. This is going to be ridiculous. I love that the ad for cast members specifically calls out rich 20-somethings who dress like they are homeless. There are a LOT of these in LA, take my word for it!
- I love fashion, but I rarely follow Fashion Week or new collections from designers. Who has the time? I did manage to catch a glimpse of Chanel’s SS10 collection, and all I have to say is, I wouldn’t turn ANY of these clothes away from my closet.
- Still trying to figure out why Julian didn’t give me the Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond for an engagement ring. It’s touted as the most expensive diamond in the world and all 31.06 glorious carats are on display next to the hope diamond in the Smithsonian for the next eight months or so. First public appearance in 50 years! Just like JD Salinger! (ok, bad joke, bad joke)
- Business Advice in Three Words – my man Neil Patel brings it again. Reading his blog makes me understand how he became such a rich and successful VC by his early 20s. Even if he is super annoying at parties and tries to (physically) pick me up too much (creepy).
- The Bike Book Caddy – Quite possibly the worst idea ever. Whatever happened to “staying alert” when you’re riding a bike alongside much-more-powerful cars driven by much-less-aware people? SAFETY FIRST! ENTERTAINMENT SECOND!
- The Dirty Dozen – a list of fruits and vegetables that you should ALWAYS buy organic. Everyone knows that things like bananas and avocados have thick enough skin that you can get away with buying conventionally… but things with thin skin, like tomatoes and LEAFY GREENS should always be organic. Unless you don’t mind ingesting pesticides.
- The Bible of Fashion according to Cornell’s Pi Phi Sorority - This is hilarious but terribly true, I’m afraid. They make some good points – “No satin dresses. No one looks good in satin dresses unless they are from Betsey Johnson or Dolce & Gabbana, you weigh less than 130 pounds, have spanks [Ed: I think she means "Spanx" the brand] and it’s New Years Eve.” Also, no “Muffintop” and “No Sleeveless, unless you have really great arms.” Great find, FB!
- New Alice In Wonderland stills. I can’t decide if I’m getting more or less excited about this movie. One thing is for sure, the “unofficial official” soundtrack Almost Alice is kind of disappointing. Really? Avril Lavigne? These stills, however, are darling… especially this one.
- Cupcake knit hat. Cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Spotted on a little boy at Griffith Park a couple weekends ago and made J get all paparazzo so I could show my cupcake-loving-former-roomie-who-also-happens-to-be-incredibly-cute-and-sweet, Jacqueline.
Sometimes, you just have crappy days. Despite your best efforts to get enough sleep, dress nice, look pretty, eat well, channel productivity, be kind to others and make your day pleasant, things still don’t go your way. That’s kind of how I felt about today. Unexpected rain storms, thinking about bills, getting bad news, dealing with bad moods and just an overall irritated feeling sucked the joy right out of my day. Not even thinking about going home and zonking on my bed made me feel better.
And then, right when things felt super craptastic, there was a glimmer of hope. Literally. A rainbow.
Lauren called me to the window in our office kitchen to see the most brilliant, bright, thick and vibrant rainbow I have ever seen in my entire life. Almost instantly, my spirits were lifted and my jaw dropped in awe.
It was a full rainbow too, the kind that stretched clear across the sky beyond where the eye can see. The most amazing part, however, was the base, which appeared so close you could reach out and touch it, but was miles and miles away. This was not your average watercolor-esque rainbow, oh no, it looked like a cartoon – it was that bright. I half-expected Rainbow Brite or the Care Bears to come sliding down at any moment.
It’s times like these I wish I had a camera that actually zoomed, not my amateur-status iPhone. Really, these pictures do it no justice.
I ran down the stairs and into the drizzling rain (and nearly broke my neck in my yellow heels) to get a better shot of it, and immediately, it started fading away. By the time I took these photos below, the clouds had already smeared away the top of the rainbow. When I got back inside, the extraordinary colors we are oohing and ahhing over were already starting to bleed back into the dull gray sky.
The rainbow only lasted a couple of minutes, but that’s all we needed. I think we were all meant to see it. There is an important, poetic lesson in here somewhere, but I think for me, it just means to quit griping about all the garbage you think sucks in your life, because life is damn beautiful, just as it is, and even in the worst of situations, there is always something fantastically amazing just waiting for you around the corner.
This morning, I woke up and thought about staying home. You see, I felt sick last night and I had an 8am teeth cleaning appointment 45 minutes away, so the thought of staying in bed was extremely inviting. However, I peeled myself up, got ready and was off. And boy am I glad I did, because little did I know that today was the day I would meet Kristin Davis from Sex and The City! You know, Charlotte!
Our trusty coworker Doug (who actually has a daughter named Charlotte) spotted Kristin taking photos outside of our office (we later found out it was for her Facebook page), and promptly informed us. We immediately lost any sense of decency and self-control and ran down to ask her for a picture. And here I thought I was numb to living in LA and seeing stars. I’ve never done this before, for the record.
This might not seem like a big deal to many of you, but this is very exciting for me. Besides the fact that she is one of my favorite characters of all-time (can’t really say actresses because I haven’t seen much else she was in) in my favorite television show of all-time, I JUST made Julian watch the pilot episode of SATC last night as part of his pilot research for a show he is developing. (BTW- I made sure to show him an episode from a later season so he could see the STARK contrast in filming style and well, just style in general.) I told Kristin this and she gave me some advice to pass onto Julian, saying that you should never make a pilot TOO good, or the show itself will be bad. She was telling me how Jerry Seinfeld has framed bad reviews of the pilot episode of Seinfeld hanging up in his office.
That’s great and all, but I really just wanted to go sit at a coffee shop with her and talk about boys and fashion and how hard it is to be a classy lady in Hollywood these days.
Had I known this would happen today, I probably would have put on makeup and dressed in something other than my super-awesome Garfield sweater, but I was feeling ballsy this morning. She said it looked cute. She also thought Lauren and I were 22. And said we were “fresh-faced.” Just want to throw that out there.
As my celebrity-high began to deflate, I started thinking about how ridiculous it was, and about which stars would cause me so much excitement that I’d feel the need to run up like a fan and ask for a photo. I’m sure this list is longer than I’d like to admit, but it definitely includes Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Rachel McAdams, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Taylor Swift, Jen Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Tina Fey and Sarah Jessica Parker (duh).
And the winner of my favorite Super Bowl ad is…. GOOGLE! You know, the company that doesn’t need any advertising. Their Parisian Love commercial was just the cutest thing I have ever seen.
Maybe it’s because I’m going to Paris in about 90 days and have an infinite love for all things French. Or maybe it’s because I’m in the midst of planning my wedding to a man that I quickly and unexpectedly fell in love with. Or maybe it’s because of the huge role the internet played in our relationship. Whatever it may be, this is “très mignonne.”
Wonderful, you found my blog! I'm Sarah, a writer, runner, RVT student, believer, lover of pretty things (and cats.) I'm also a newlywed, which I'm finding quite enjoyable. To learn more about me, just click here. I hope my blog brings you a little bit (or a lotta bit) of happiness today.
don’t have access to clean water for drinking, cooking, cleaning or bathing. Lack of clean water for basic sanitation results in 80% of all sickness and disease worldwide and each year, kills more people than all forms of violence combined, INCLUDING WAR. Women in developing nations have to walk more than three hours a day to fetch water that is probably just going to make them and their children sick. Little ones are particularly at risk for waterborne illnesses, of the 42,000 deaths a week from unsafe water, 90% of them are children under the age of 5. 
