The weekend, briefly

{sister tea}

{baking}

{weekend meals}

{double birthday}

{belated birthday cake}

:: weekend notes ::

We had a really busy Saturday (not pictured) followed by a very lazy Sunday. My sister and I are just four days (+ four years) apart, so in lieu of exchanging gifts we spent a belated birthday weekend together, drinking tea and baking cookies and eating cake and re-watching the entire season of Veep.

We picked up olives and dips from the farmer's market and grazed for nearly every meal that wasn't dessert.

We've always loved each other fiercely, but growing up we fought with equal intensity. It's pretty wonderful to finally be getting old enough that we can really be friends. I love you, R.


I did not make that cake, by the way, it's the vanilla-lemon berry from Vanilla Bakeshop. D and I realized it was the same one we cut at our wedding, but neither of us could remember how it tasted. Turns out it's pretty good.

Reading, lately

Gobbled this up in one day, had to resist making D listen to me read the funniest bits out loud nonstop.

{Mindy Kaling - Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)}

I had to include the back cover, of course.

It isn't a biography, more like little essays, anecdotes and funny bits. It goes quickly and yes, it is light. In a good way.

One of my favorite quotes:

A note about me: I do not think stress is a legitimate topic of conversation, in public anyway. No one wants to hear how stressed out anyone else is, because most of the time everyone is stressed out. Going on and on in detail about how stressed out I am isn't conversation. It'll never lead anywhere. No one is going to say "Wow, Mindy, you really have it especially bad. I have heard some stories of stress, but this just takes the cake."

And this one:

I don't think it should be socially acceptable for people to say they are "bad with names." No one is bad with names. That is not a real thing. Not knowing people's names isn't a neurological condition; it's a choice. You choose not to make learning people's names a priority. It's like saying, "Hey, a disclaimer about me: I'm rude." 

Dustin has been telling me that for years, but this was much more convincing for some reason.

Purchases - apparel

I am majorly regretting the purchase tracking already. I'm generally not a big clothing shopper, so I figured this would be no big deal. Last year I basically bought a handful of tee shirts + three pairs of $11 jeans. This year, I feel like I have a pretty clear idea of how I want my wardrobe to grow. The good news is that I'm comfortable with the purchases and I feel like I'm making smart choices. But it's still embarrassing to cop to every single thing I buy, particularly when those things are expensive. I'm sticking with it because apparently I'm a masochist.

Here goes ...

1. Hunters, in navy. I have never owned a pair of rain boots. Never. Which means for the last five years that I've been taking the bus daily there are rare (it doesn't rain very often here) but incredibly annoying times where I spend all day with soaking wet feet. A sweet reader alerted me to a Gilt flash sale on Hunters, so I went for it. I'm hoping this means I don't have to think about rain boots for several decades.

2. I'm normally pretty wary of trends, but I gave into temptation and got these totally ridiculously bright blue jeans from F21. Thoroughly enjoying them, although they aren't as great a fit as my usual ones, which I am happy to report are still the best jeans I've ever purchased, more than a year of hard wear later.

Annnnnd ... the more indulgent ones. I went completely nuts at the Shopbop sale a few weeks ago. It was only 20% off, so this really wasn't justified but after wearing everything for a while I have no regrets. I guess I'm going for really cheap pants paired with really pricey tops?

3. This one is so amazing that I am going to watch and see if it goes on sale and buy another. It's very loose but cut really well and it feels like the best kind of casual luxury. Fully worth the price. Really tempted to buy one just to wear to bed.

4. And this one is a little more conservative, but also beautifully cut and transitions nicely for work meetings if necessary.

5. This one is definitely more casual and I contemplated returning it because it's a little long for me, but then realized that I love it tucked in (seriously cannot remember the last time I voluntarily tucked a shirt into pants).

6. This dress is crazy bright but I love the cut and it will be the dress I wear for all weddings this summer.

7. Plus these sandals. I allow myself one or two new pairs of sandals each summer and then I wear them into the ground.

The weekend, briefly

May is birthday month around here and we kicked off the first round this weekend.

{90th birthday lunch}

{bow tie!}

{essie's fifth avenue + coziest new sweater from D}

{new (old) cake stand}

{sunday browsing}

{birthday evening}

:: Weekend notes ::

We celebrated my grandmother's 90th birthday at lunch on Saturday and then drove straight back up to LA to attend a birthday party for one of D's clients (which was catered by Son of a Gun - so good).

With a double booked party day on Saturday I treated myself to an early morning manicure and a blow out. So worth it. I have yet to learn how to do anything with my hair and it felt good to know it looked good all day. Essie's fifth avenue was the perfect red-orange.

I have a new addition to my cake stand collection - this gorgeous hobnailed, ruffled piece. My mom found it in an antique shop back in January and managed to keep it under wraps til now. 

I spent my actual birthday lying in bed most of the day, which I've decided is the best celebration ever. I've never been very fussy about birthdays and I've gotten less so with every year. I'm not sure if this means I'm getting old or if I've just finally accepted my true nature. Napping + reading for the win.

I did wake up to drink in the late afternoon light and D picked up some dessert from Tavern. Pretty perfect.

We'll start the second round next weekend ...

Friday flowers

I had a bit of filler left from the arrangements so I made myself a simple one.

{leftovers}

I have no idea what these flowers are called. They're purple, if that helps.

{leftovers}

We have a packed weekend coming up - May always seems to be kind of crazy. 

Flags, for lots of things (template provided)

I wanted little tags for our mother's day flower arrangements because each one was created with a particular mother in mind. Of course, I didn't think about this until 15 minutes before we had to leave and I had to scramble.

{mother's day flowers}

{flowers}

{flower flag}

Look familiar at all? I re-purposed the file that we used for our wedding dessert buffet flags. Then I printed them out on cardstock and quickly glued them around some bamboo skewers* and popped them in the vases.

I love having a file on hand that I can pull out in a pinch. I always work in Illustrator, but I know that not everyone has it, so I modified the file to make a fillable PDF template. You can use it anytime you need quick tags - weddings, flowers, cheese parties (I'm not sure why that popped into my mind as an example, but I would gladly attend a cheese party, if you happen to throw one).

You can download my template right here. You must download the file to work with it on your computer - if you open it in Google docs you won't be able to use the fillable form function. I've embedded the font that we used in all our wedding designs (Tw Cent MT) and I think it looks best in all caps, but you can play around with it. There are several different sizes, for all your flagging needs.


* My bamboo skewers weren't tall enough to stick out over the flowers so I used two, overlapped them slightly in the middle and them taped them together with packing tape. The ugly part was hidden by the flowers, so it all worked out fine.

The weekend, briefly

{arranging}

{seascape strawberries}

{aftermath}

{flowers, waiting}

{girls' dinner}

{mother's day}

{of course}

{the rattler}

{impromptu}

:: weekend notes ::

We hit up the farmer's market early to get the best pick of mother's day flowers and came home with paper wrapped bundles, the most expensive strawberries I've ever had and a bag of very good dates.

I had a rock climbing, mexican food, dive bar session with my girls from high school, celebrating the upcoming wedding of one of our ladies.

Our families celebrated mother's day together again with a big brunch. Waffles with piles of fresh berries, mimosas and rattlers.

We had out of town friends over Sunday evening and I scrounged up some appetizers from our understocked fridge. Luckily we always have some cheese (I can't say the same for crackers - we just got lucky this time), nuts and dried fruit. Then we headed out for burgers at the newish Plan Check (ridiculously good) and came home to a cuban pastry and a cookie the size of my head. I woke up Monday morning with a food hangover.