In Bloom

I love Christmas and the weeks leading up to it--the ornament making, cooking baking, tree decorating, shopping, wrapping, Christmas music, seeing family and friends, food, food and more food--I love it all. But I'm equally over it almost as soon as 25 December passes! I'm ready to put all the decorations away, clean out closets and cabinets and think of things I want to accomplish in the new year. I don't make resolutions as such, but I often make a list of things I want to get done around the house and goals I'd like to achieve. This year some of those include ordering many photo books and yes, I've made a long list of them. Lois is now 7 and I've only been meaning to to that for all of those 7 years! (Only just today I uploaded her 5th birthday photos to an album online.) I want to organize and clear off the 2,000+ photos on my phone and about a bazillion on my computer, which I have a hard time keeping up with regularly. I want to keep challenging myself with new sewing patterns. Though I still haven't knocked out the quart coat it's next on the sewing table, yay! Ah, there are really so many things on my list! I'm sure it would be a bit boring to hear me rattle on about too many more of them, but one crafty thing I'd also like to learn is how to make beautiful paper flowers, and I think it would be a fun activity to do with the girls as well. I've made some basic paper flowers in the past but never detailed, intricate or particularly life-like flowers.

Lake District Road Trip

We bought a car, woohoo! Though I realize the photo above is of a sailboat not a car... getting to that. It's a pretty big deal since we've not had a car for almost 6 years, and with two children, I'm amazed we made it that long without one. Granted our neighborhood has just about everything we need on our doorstep: butcher, baker, candlestick maker (not really that last one but I couldn't resist adding it because I'm a goof), fishmonger, wine shop, school, doctor, playgrounds, parks, all of these things within a 15 minute walk and a few of them a one minute walk, just around the corner really. We order our bulky groceries online (laundry soap, paper towels--you know, the boring stuff) and the rest we get locally, so that part of life without a car is pretty easy for us. Sometimes, though, it's been a royal pain! I have been reduced to tears on more than one occasion, standing at a bus stop in the freezing rain with two equally wet, freezing children and thought, this is nuts! We'll still take the bus to many places, but I'm really happy we finally decided to buy a car. It will make some short trips in the neighborhood easier, like picking up a very tired Lois from playdates after school rather than having to practically drag her home walking. And it means more road trips! We usually rent a car when we want to take a road trip, but that gets really expensive and is a bit of a hassle. Gotta go get the car, do the paperwork, pay the deposit, hear the sales pitch about insurance and whatnot, install the carseats each time, etc. I'm still not completely comfortable driving on the other side of the car and road, but I'm getting there. So, for our first road trip, we decided to go to the Lake District.

Summer Days

Ah, I wouldn't mind having that view again today! Beautiful blue water, warm breeze, sunshine, sand... all with family. We're back in London and have been for almost two weeks now. Alas, it seems like so long ago that we were in the US at the beach! We had a great time though, and I'm grateful we get to go home every summer for a few weeks and see our families and try to make the most of our time. We went to Cape San Blas in Florida, which was perfect. It's a bit remote compared to other summer beach cities in Florida, so it wasn't packed with people, which made being there all the more relaxing. Our girls had a great time with their cousins--lots of time body boarding in the ocean, swimming in the pool, games on the beach. We also drove to North Carolina to go to Asheville, a city we like a lot, and then up to Baltimore to see more family.

Beautiful Things

I've been in a bit of a funk lately. More of a slump than a funk, but something that went from relieved to be finished with my book to sad that it is officially finished. It's not often that I have such a big project in my lap at once. It seemed to go from full speed to stop in one day. I'm still very happy it's finished and am looking forward to another big project. In the meantime, I've been up to the usual stuff... sewing, housework (seriously, how is there always so much laundry to do? We need less stuff!), reading.... And I'm looking forward to going to the US next week to visit family and go to the beach, yay! I'm also daydreaming of having our own house one day and what it would look like (just a tad pricey to buy a house in our current neighborhood, so we're not sure when that will happen or where it will be). I've been eyeing my pinterest for inspiration, which I haven't looked at much in months. Some of my favorite images are of colorful interiors.

ACE Camp Days

I had a great time with my friend and chef Alison Bell hosting an ACE Camp London culinary tour. The group was great and we ate and ate and ate! We went to soooo many good places: St John, NOPI, Borough Market, Maltby Street Market, Marylebone farmer's market, Neal's Yard Dairy, lots of exploring in Shoreditch, Soho--where we had a great tour by Jenny Linford--and Everyone had plenty of time to explore and venture out during free time. Lots of campers went to the V&A, Selfridges, and plenty of other shops and restaurants that weren't on the itinerary specifically. One highlight was going to Alastair Hendy's home, where he has an amazing kitchen (the whole place is amazing, but the kitchen in particular is dramatic because you can look down into it from the upper floor where his living room is). Above is my delicious lunch at his house. He gave a talk about his food styling and photography work and then he cooked us an amazing lunch, which he let us all style. So much fun! Now I want to take an ACE Camp. I'm looking forward to seeing what camps Angela Ritchie has planned for the rest of the year and 2016. Here's a look at our London culinary tour.

Pastel Pretties

Whew, that was a fun weekend! Selina Lake's Pretty Pastel Style book signing and fair was wonderful as was the Selvedge fair, but first Selina's day! I had never been to Kingston Upon Thames, which is quite a distance from our neighborhood, but one bus and two train rides with baby in tow were worth it. When your toes are almost numb and your skin feels like a tight rubber band from freezing wind whipping it, nothing's better than being greeted with a room full of tea and cake that's coated in soft, sweet colors, filled with flowers, draped in cheerful bunting, and packed with pretty handmade gifts of all sorts. And of course it was great to meet Selina and get a signed copy of her new book! The book is so pretty and filled with inspiring ideas. Here's a peek into my pretty pastel visit...

Seeing in Color: Fall

The leaves are turn, turn, turning here, and it looks very beautiful outside lately. Lois and I collected leaves for her first homework assignment. How cute is that? Her first homework assignment! I received an email from her art teacher titled "homework" and thought, what could it be?!! Leaves. Easy homework. Beats calculus. I always like to look at fall leaves closely. They are soooo pretty. The photo above is with my iPhone, using Instagram. And the chill in the air makes me want to cozy up.

Some Recent iPhone Favorites

It's been a while since I unloaded the photos from my phone, but I got around to doing it over the weekend. Instagram is still my favorite photo app lately, and I really like that they've added tiltshift as an option. Here are a few favorite instagram photos over the past month or so. 

I'm also experimenting with larger photos. I wish there was something between the blogger "large" and "xlarge" settings. They do look huge! What do you think? Do you like so see larger photos or is this too big? (Update: they just looked too big in xlarge to me! So I went back to large for now.)