House Beautiful

Tag Archive for 'thanksgiving'

Thanksgiving Goodness.

Happy Thanksgiving!!  Hope you’re posted up somewhere cozy like this today… sipping your morning coffee (or afternoon toddy)…

Inhaling something that smells like this…

Sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner at a table like this…

And wearing something like this…

As for me & Karrie (!)  …Let’s be honest.  It’ll be more along these lines:

Cramming as much turkey & cream-of-everything as we can in our little pot bellies… Probably watching this later…


And eating these Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Walnut cookies I just made:

…the batter bowl of which I just licked for breakfast – and washed down with half a can of French fried onions.  I so wish I were kidding.  I also wish My Fitness Pal app would stop asking me to log my breakfast.  It’s like the bastards know.

In any case… God, who doesn’t love Thanksgiving???  Can I rap a short list real quick about what I’m grateful for?

1.  Parents who kick ass. My sweet dad – aka Stevie B – who is like a cross between Elvis and a cowboy and a warm, fuzzy grizzly bear.  And my mom, who just sent me leaves and acorns and some other interesting treats in a care package, because she knows Fall is my favorite time of year at home.  The best part?  A “ps” in the card that said something like: “Helpful Hint!!  You can surround these cinnamon candles with the Fall foliage as a neat Thanksgiving centerpiece (!)”  Bahahah – Jayne.  God love er.

2.  Having had the gift of Grandparents…  the last of which, Bud, we just lost this Spring.  I was so lucky to have 3 of them I was close to for a very, very long time – well into my 30’s.  I don’t know many kids who are as lucky in that regard as I have been.  I feel like they taught me so many of the things I know – whether they meant to or not – about how to sew, how to bake Christmas cookies, how to build things… about what’s really important and how to be a good person to the people around you.  Now when I think back on my childhood and on the time they were all here, it almost feels like magic.  I miss sweet Bud, Ruth and Nanny Jam all the time, but I also kinda always feel like they’re still here.  And I’m so grateful for that, too.  Those are sweet Bud’s tooties under the Thanksgiving Day table at our house in Columbus 2 years ago.

3. OMG – GUS (!&$#^!!!) So grateful for the most insane, sweet pup full of unbounding joy who ever lived.  Did I tell you he’s flying home for Christmas with me?  Yep.  Pass the tranquilizers.

4.  Friends who are family. I’m lucky enough to have innumerable ones… including but not limited to that gaggle of hookers, my Burris K-12-ers, and my volleyball family.  I’m also grateful for my bestie and co-blogger, Karrie, whose fam I’m spending Thanksgiving with today.  This is what a lot of our snort-worthy convos look like:

5.  Living in this gorgeous place and finally having bitten the bullet and gotten out of my own way so I could start doing what I love this year.

Hope you guys have a GREAT holiday weekend with family & friends!!  Cheers to lots of naps, Scrabble and Christmas movies on TNT…  and decorating tomorrow.  OMG it makes me so happy I could pee.

Much love to you!

iPhone Stream (of Consciousness)

I was just flipping back through my iPhoto; ye know how when you hook your phone up to your computer, it dumps everything in there, and then you forget about it?  I just took a trip back through mine and found a few gems to share with you guys…

Did y’all know Ali Larter has a blog?  She’s a domestic goddess of sorts.  I screen shot the above from her site because (le sigh) it reminds me of Fall – which I am currently yearning for.  And it gave me some Thanksgiving dinner table inspiration for this year, and made me wanna haul off to a few antique stores + Anthro and pull something all deep jewel-and-earth-toned-with-tarnished-silver together.

Can I be weird for a sec?  I’ve hosted Thanksgiving the past 2 years in my – er, what was our – sweet little house in Columbus.  There are a slew of reasons I miss that house, and hosting a gaggle of family and friends for holidays was one of em.  But having a blank canvas of my own place to decorate as I please was another.  Moving along…

At least the things I love most made it out here with me, into this itty bitty 10 x 10 joint (?) #silverlining

One thing I love about Cali?  The Corepower Yoga down the street, and the Hot Power Fusion class every weekday at 7:30am.  It’s 105+ degrees, 1 hour long, and I sweat my ever-living BALLS off.  But it’s been incredible for my beat-to-h*ll-from-college-volleyball joints.  It’s the only class I take.

Any calories I burn in yoga, I replace with Twizzlers.  This is what my desk looks like. Every day.  Oosie.

Rapid subject change: never have I ever seen a floral wedding dress, and I wish I remember where I saw this…  and I might love the bouquet more than anything else in this picture, but I give her props for branching out from the white strapless uniform.

How fun is this malachite screen I saw at an antique shop in San Francisco over Labor Day?

I posted up at a little French restaurant when I first got there – and it was a chilly, breezy Fall-ish day, and I had this.  Salmon-à-la-something-something, but it was heaven.

Cafe de la Presse was good for Sunday brunch – all bustly and charming, with a wall of newspapers and magazines to grab from.

Stumbled on some new John Robshaw bedding at a little boutique in San Fran…  I’ll be checking the local John Robshaw Mothership – Bixby & Ball (Solana Beach) for that soon.  So pretty.

We made wine tasting rezzies at this place – Del Dotto… which I was super pumped about, because I thought I was going to be transported to the French countryside for 2 hours whilst I sipped Pinot Noirs.  But careful if you’re in Sonoma/Napa – this shot is of the Del Dotto location in ST. HELENA, not in Napa.  So, we ended up wine tasting in a cave.  Which was also lovely.  But not as lovely as the pretend France I was hoping for.

They did have some gorgeous Fortuny light fixtures though, so I’ll forgive them for the bait & switch.

Roses I bought at the market while fiddle-faddling a few Sundays back.

Had to add this to my “Nostalgia” playlist on Spotify.  Because the late 80’s / early 90’s are the soundtrack to my adolescence.  That playlist also has Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany’s on it, which makes me think of my Grandparents, which makes my heart ache – and smile – so much I can hardly stand it.

Went sailing with this big hooker in San Diego a few weeks back.  I’m REAL lucky I have her as a friend.  She is one of the sweetest, most hilarious, most real people you will ever meet.  If anybody needs a good b*tch slap in the face, or for someone to show up when you need them, Karrie’s your girl.

She sent me this care package last week.  Sniff sniff.

This is what she looked like as a kid.  Just kidding.  But not really.

My new Ted Baker cami I can’t stop wearing…  It goes with EVERYTHING – I wore it with jeans and heels to dinner the other night.  With that ballet pink pencil skirt to work last week.  It’s a gem.  I strolled into the Ted Baker store at Fashion Valley after seeing this chick’s get-up.

That pic before shows how amazing my black roots look with my blonde hair.  The jig is up.  I’m wondering if it’s not time to just go au naturel…  à la Julia Hengel.  But, my face doesn’t quite look like that, so I dunno… it might be about as smart as the time I wanted cut my hair into a Meg Ryan-esque pixie cut after I saw You’ve Got Mail, and forgot for a second that I have an afro.

Kristin and I saw this a few weeks ago at Bedrosians.  If you’ve spent a sniff of time on Pinterest, or ever wanted to renovate a kitchen or bathroom, then you’ve either seen or heard about Carrara Marble.  It’s the pretty white marble with grey veining popular the world over, and it’s in every French bistro and all-white kitchen from here to Kingdom Come.  It’s classic and it’s stunning – but it’s also supes expensive. The pic above is a gigantic porcelain panel engineered to look like Carrara… porcelain = much more forgiving/resilient than marble, and also much less expensive.  This isn’t the right application for a countertop because the edge profile would be jacked, but if you wanted to – say – panel your shower walls in Carrara marble, this would save you some serious moo.

Kristin – aka my boss lady – aka the Tile Yoda – just put this Skyline Polished 1-1/4″x6″ mosaic from Marble Systems in one of our clients’ kitchens as the backsplash, and it’s stunning.

I also helped her install a few things in a client’s home the other day and snapped this ditty.  Isn’t it pretty?

Beach shacks in Malibu I passed on a 7-mile trek down the beach (where I also passed Courtney Cox and Gabby Reece – neither are ugly in person).

Michael Kors score from TJ Maxx.

Helmut Lang mini sweater-skirt I tried on at Bloomies, which I would totally wear the Michael Kors kicks with.

Look at my sweet, jolly Poppa, Stevie B, playing with Gus (his favorite thing) while he was in town to help me pack up my C-bus house earlier this year.  This pic makes me so happy.  I miss home…  can you tell?

Hilarious texts – 2 of many – that I got almost immediately after the news broke that Ryan Gosling had knocked up Eva Mendes.

Subtle stunner of a rug on the right – or rugs, I should say – at the Kravet Showroom in San Diego.

Some REAL wise words…

The best white shirt I’ve ever owned (Vince from Nordstrom Rack) – I love it best paired with an itty bitty mini.  PS.  Again with the roots.  Fer *$#&’s sake.

I made Karrie’s BBQ meatballs last week, but instead of the cheesy-corn-quinoa, just made cauliflower rice (you grate a head of cauliflower with the grater, then sauté it in a pan…  I baked mine, though, with some butter, cilantro and cumin.  It was heaven.)

The prettiest little lace jumpsuit, ever, as seen on A Cup of Jo.  Joanna knows a good thing when she sees one.

Calligraphy I die over.  Why can’t this be a font on my computer?

Sunset in Del Mar last Friday.

Gus at that same beach during the day… (look at that majestical creature!)

Gus after.  Spent.  Don’t you just wanna spoon him?

xoxo!