happy birthday... to me

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pia's book

Pia Jane Bijkerk is one of my very favorite bloggers/stylists/photographers/writers/artists. From Australia to Paris to a little houseboat in Amsterdam she is truly an inspiration! Ahhh I'm such a cheesy fan girl but I'm not ashamed. She's amazing.

Oh yeah. Her book is now available for your purchasing pleasure at The Little Bookroom.

antoinette fleur

I am so in love with these drawings by Antoinette Fleur.

this has me smiling

You go little guy.

Source:Kevin Royden, found via Joanna

Someone must have slipped me a demon pill today. Because I am feeling mean, mean, mean.

Did I mention how nice the weather was yesterday? Warm, breezy, sunny and a just a little overcast. Perfect. It got windy later but it was mostly perfect. The temple grounds are so beautiful and I had lots of time to wander around snapping pictures. I also had time to call people and actually talk on the phone. I never call people anymore. I am no good at talking on the phone... even with people I really, really like. But if awkward converstations with lots of pauses and "well...s" are your thing then give me a call.

ripple

One of the beautiful fountains outside the Los Angeles Temple.


Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.

Reach out your hand if your cup
be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.

(Grateful Dead lyrics)

We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven.
-Henry David Thoreau



I finally, finally have a Saturday off work. This is a rare occurrence so I'm taking the opportunity to spend the day at one of my favorite places - the beautiful LA Temple.

Have a happy weekend!

don't these sound yummy?

Lavender Vanilla Bean Fleur de Sel Caramels


I'm not normally a fan of caramels.... but these lavender-y, vanilla-y, salt-y caramels sound too good to miss.

a beautiful bride

Katie Kirkpatrick, 21, held off cancer to
celebrate the happiest day of her life.
Katie had chased away the cancer once, only
to have it return- to clog her lungs and
grab hold of her heart.
Breathing was difficult now, she had to use
oxygen. The pain in her back was so
intense it broke through the morphine that
was supposed to act as a shield. Her
organs were shutting down but it would
not stop her from marrying
Nick Godwin, 23, who was in love with
Katie since 11th grade.
Five days later, Katie died.


This photo essay is by Romain Blanquart is as heartbreaking as it is beautiful.

(Thanks Joanna @ Cup of Jo)

is it friday?

For the last two weeks I've had Sunday and Wednesday off. While having a day in the middle of the week off is sort of nice and breaks things up - it tends to leave me very confused. Monday felt so much like Friday ... today feels awfully Friday-ish too.

But never fear! There is a website for everything it seems. Thankfully isitfriday.org has kept me on track. This morning it informed me "no, it's thursday." Getting closer at least!

Happy Earth Day!

Did you do anything special? I slept in this morning and then took a little nap this afternoon. That's conserving energy... right?


Good night Earth. Hope you had a good day.

Love, Vanessa

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cutest weather site

It looks like fair skies this morning for Los Angeles!


Dublin is looking a little cloudy.


Rainy in Toronto.


Get your forcast here! Sorry SLC, you haven't made the list yet!

(via fourty-sixth at grace)

the big green clean

This weekend was a cleaning weekend! I did other stuff of course but I had made a goal to do some serious cleaning.

(Method's Le Scrub and my favorite cleaning sponge... is it weird that I have a favorite sponge? Ummm... don't answer that.)

With my cleaning goals in mind I decided to try to make an effort at using products that are more "green". I am going to make a confession - I have my doubts about "green" products. With products like bleach, ammonia, Lysol, etc I know they are killing all the yucky stuff. The ingredients on the back and the killer smell while I'm using them tell me so. But I was am determined to get into the habit of using more planet-friendly products so after much searching I settled on a few from Mrs Meyers and Method.

I've used Method laundry detergent for a long time and I really like it. So I picked up Le Scrub (Mint & Eucalyptus) and the French Lavender cleaning spray. They both smell amaaaazing AND my bathroom is clean and shiny. Not only that but I could actually breathe while I was cleaning. What a nice change.

And I bought Mrs Meyers Lavender Oxygen Bleach , because well sometimes you just need bleach. It works just as well (if not better) than the Clorox kind AND is gentle on your clothes and again you are spared the bleach-y smell. I'm 100% satisfied.

The next hurdle... floors. Ugh. I hate cleaning floors. After using a friend's I went ahead and got the Shark Steam Mop. If you are going to buy it you should get it from Costco because it's cheaper and you can return it if you want - but I promise you won't want to. I've had it for a few months actually and I love it. No more regular mops or Swifters or buckets and brushes. The steam sanitizes without any chemicals at all.... great if you have babies or puppies.

There are also a lot of completely natural cleaning products you can use - like lemon mixed with a little salt to get rid of rust stains, and toothpaste to polish silver. There's a great article in Real Simple Magazine that gives you 66 natural cleaning solutions.

I'm feeling downright earthy!

Britain really DOES have talent

It even gets Simon off his feet!

this is happy too!

Sound of Music Train Station @ Yahoo! Video

On March 23, 2009 about 200 people begin dancing, taking over Antwerpen's Centraal Station in Belgium and doing a carefully choreographed dance to the "Do Re Mi" song from "Sound of Music".

Doesn't this make you smile? I just want to watch it over and over.

magnolias

"Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people in the whole world. I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid worlds. Not just one world, hundreds of them, maybe thousands”
Neil Gaiman



photo credit

list of happy

(i snagged the idea for this post from  You Are My Fave)

So... this week hasn't been my favorite. There have been no rainbows or shooting stars or dancing bunnies to say the least. I'm trying to keep it in perspective and I realize that even my bad week is probably better than a lot of other people's bad weeks. But still... if you were here I'd probably ask for a hug.

Instead of listing everything that went wrong I'm giving you a list of happy.

Watching Susan Boyle still makes me ridiculously happy.

This article from Design for Mankind on overcoming artist block. I so admire Pia and Jen and loved hearing what they had to say.

Putting Polaroids in the freezer as they are developing. The results are mostly awesome.

Japanese masking tape in lots of awesome colors like these. I finally got my hands on some and oh boy is it fun!

My favorite new work out song - Kung Fu Fighting. It really makes the tread mill so much more bearable.

Strawberries and watermelons and mangos. I love summer fruits!

There's a site called Do it in Paris that is helping me to plan my trip there... whenever that may be.

Twitter is my new time suck. If you want to know what I was doing at 11 pm last night it was signing into Twitter to watch Ashton Kutcher cream CNN in the race to 1 million followers. I'm not proud of this but I'm not ashamed either.

And this is one of my happiest songs ever. It was playing on Pandora just now and it definitely took things up a notch.

So, bad week aside, I'm happy.

Have a very happy weekend!





photo credit

500 Days of Summer

I want to see this movie.

allergies

My allergies have been so bad lately with all the wind we've had. Not fun. But a little Benydril and a hot shower later and I'm good to go.

Harlow and I just got back from the Vet's office and 3 minutes, 3 medications and many dollars later it turns out Harlow also suffers from allergies. She woke up Sunday morning with a bald patch under her neck which completely freaked me out. It wasn't red so I decided to give it a few days to see if it got better or worse. It got worse. I'll spare you the details because it's not cute.

We just home and after she enjoyed some drug-laced cottage cheese and had a little play with her monkey she's completely zonked out. I think it's time Harlow got a job. It's a good think I'm completely in love with her.

Here are a list of her puppy skills in case anyone want to rent her for the day:

1, Playing fetch.
2. Sleeping.
3. Eating.
4. Cuddling up on your lap.
5. Just being cute.
6. Making friends.
7. Not barking.
8,. Generally adoring you. (it doesn't matter who you are - she already adores you.)

.thoughts

"A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly.  You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely." -Dahl, The Twits 

"It was said of John Keats that his face was the face of one who had seen a vision.  So long had his inner eye been fixed upon beauty, so long had he loved that vision splendid, so long had he lived with it, that not only did his soul take on the loveliness of what he contemplated, but the very lines of the poet’s face were chiseled into beauty by those sculptors called thoughts and ideals." -Unknown

this completely made my night

This video will totally make you smile. I've watched it twice and I completely teared up both times.

(oops, make that three for three.)

Happy Easter

Where man sees but withered leaves,
God sees sweet flowers growing.
~Albert Laighton

shabby apple

I found THIS shop and I'm excited! Cute dresses with sleeves? Yes please!

The last two are my favorite.







And right now get 15% off by typing with this code: ShabbyApple15off. Good until 6/30/2009.

e r i n

My little one is all growed up. I told Mary the first night there, "She's gorgeous and very sweet but who is she?" It took us a few days to get to know each other again and I'm glad to say we are friends... again.


She's come a long way baby!

travel pictures

A Coke with lime. I realize this isn't exactly a "travel" picture but it was taken in London so it counts.

Now I need to find the rest of the Polaroids.

a few more Etsy faves

This beautiful apron made by my very own friend Elan. You should buy one.


This pretty vintage fabric from Once Again.


Lena's excursion by Oh Kirby. In honor of my trip to Paris... whenever that may be. It will be though.


Thinking print by Blancucha.

piccadilly and a plug

I love Piccadilly Circus in the West End. You walk up out of the tube station and you are immediately surrounded by a bazillion people and lights and billboards. I like getting off the tube here because there is so much in walking distance.


The second picture is totally random. We were walking around Carnaby Street, took a few side streets, turned around and there was a gigantic plug. Awesome.

Marielle

I've finally started scanning the Polaroids from my trip. I'll be honest I did not take nearly as many as I would have liked. The thing about Polaroids is that you have all of these precious photos to hang on to. I guess that is part of the appeal but it can be tricky if you are as um... loosely organized as I am. I have one stash that I've scanned and the other set is around here somewhere. They are not definitely, permanently lost but they are definitely not in my hands either. *sigh* They'll turn up. Until then I give you my friend Marielle.



Every time I bring up her name the person I'm talking to ineviteably ends up calling her Mariella. It's Marielle. Okay now that we have that out of the way you can look at her pretty, smiley face. She's so funny, always up for a laugh, never ever grumpy and super duper sweet. Pretty unbeatable combination I'd say.

Oh yeah, she even drove me to the Emergency Room in the middle of the night while I stayed with her. Did I mention she is also patient?

g r e y

I think the color grey gets a bad rap. I really don't think it's so bad. In fact, I think it is becoming my new favorite color which is kind of a big deal because brown has been in the lead for quite some time. Brown is my ultimate comfort color. But this particular shade of gray is very nice.


This tape is from this Etsy shop. Many thanks to Simple Song for the link!

I love these bowls from Anthro so much. The are the perfect ice cream bowls. I have some in other colors but I think these are a must. Especially since they are 1/2 off right now!

The Goyard GM St Louis bag. Isn't it beautiful? It's simple and has that retro glam feel. I din't know much about Goyard bags expect the hefty price tag. I learned through a friend's blog that they were never available on the west coast until fairly recently. (They have no online store) When they did make the the bags available in CA they added this color - white with beautiful light grey monograming. I'm generally not a fan of monograming but this is beautiful.

I am so in love with these shoes! They are also from Anthro and I am waiting for them to go on sale. I do love them.


This cardigan from American Apparel is super cozy. I bought it forever ago and it one of my favorites. I call it my Mr Rogers cardigan.


Apparently this French grey sea salt is becoming a "thing". It's wet salt and it's really pretty. It's salty too of course. I bought some awhile back to use on some carmel-y/chocolate-y treats I was making to keep them from being a complete sugar shock. I am going to have to think of some other uses for it.


And this lovely photo taken by Jen Gotch of a grey day driving back from Santa Barbara proves that grey can definitely be beautiful.