Roy's

Remember my massive sushi craving? Totally satisfied last night! After a desperately needed night out to celebrate our anniversary, we feel like a couple again and have added Roy's to our list of fabulous restaurants we would frequent more often if we were rich. I'm still dreaming about the Golden Lobster Potstickers.

Anniversary

After 9 years, I love you more than I have ever figured out how to say.

Simply Perfect

I saw this and gasped. Love it. Want it! Via Black Eiffel.

Curtains by Nienke Sybrandy

I loooove these curtains! They so realistically capture the look of a tree's silhouette that it's rather surprising to find what the "shadow" is made of: ASCII code! Read more about it and Dutch designer Nienke Sybrandy via this Apartment Therapy post.

Art Cube

This is actually a zinc oxide cube planter, but with a little chalk and imagination on the part of Matthew Mead, it becomes an art cube for your desk! Love it.

Fancy Shmancy

I just discovered Fancy Shmancy, and was reading through the archives. Here are a few things that tickled my fancy: 

Make your own toy soldier table! Perfect for a boy's room. Or anyone with a quirky sense of humor.

Icy cold straws! Perfect for a summertime drink. I'm going to try it with the kids.

City Wall Decor

Today, I spied this collection of city wall decor via Black Eiffel. Designed by Granada Design, they would be easy to replicate and are simply captivating. 

Tulip Twist

Arrangement by Michael George, on the cover of The Art of Floral Arranging

There is a great how-to on Apartment Therapy today. It illustrates how to put a twist to tulip stems. I would love to duplicate the above arrangement for my son's baby blessing, but I know it would probably set me back at least $60. It's a lovely statement piece, nonetheless. 

Bunny Towel

While I love spring, Easter decorations can be a tad too cutsy for me. Enter this hand printed dish towel from artgoodies. Very Peter Rabbit, and not a pastel color to be seen. Now that's my kind of Easter!

Nicknames

Now that Project Runway 4 is over, I'm left with only one night of television. :( Tonight is a new episode of Lost; To get in the proper spirit, click here to find out what the abrasive Sawyer might nickname you if you happened to be on flight 815. Appropriately enough, mine would be "Picasso" 

Mod Monthly Photos

Check out this great idea from Ohdeedoh! I would love to be doing this with my baby, but like a fool, I tried to buy a Stendig Calendar in January. I'm now on the waiting list for the 2009 Calendar, but by then it will be too late. :(

My Poor Boy

Yesterday while at the YMCA, my little guy jumped (or maybe fell) off of a chair and onto the concrete floor. He split the back of his head open, so we bandaged him up and took him to Urgent Care for stitches. He thought all of this was pretty cool- at least until they had to numb the area. Then it became very traumatic. I had to have two people help me hold him still, and by the end of that he was so hysterical that they made me let go of him and stand across the room so they could bring in three guys to wrap him in a blanket and hold him down while the Dr stitched him up. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, pleading for me to come hold him, to make them let him go, to take him home. It was horrible and heartbreaking. At least I got to hold my little girl, who was pretty scared and crying. I was able to let her know that he wasn't in pain, just very upset. Still, it was not a day I care to go through again. It made me all too aware of how un-grown-up I am and how I can't protect my kids from everything. I wish I had six arms so I could hold them all at once.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

This morning I woke up to my daughter yelling from her bed, "It's St Patrick's Day! Patrick is going to come today and chase away all the snakes!" :) For me, it means wearing green, reminiscing about our trip to Ireland (before we had kids) and watching Waking Ned Devine while eating bangers and mash. For stories of rowdier celebrations, click here and here. 

Baileys

I really, really like this black globe from Baileys. It proves that even very cool things (like globes and maps) benefit from an infusion of black and white. I'm also lusting after these newspaper pencils. 

Pi Day

Pi art in downtown Seattle. Image via Intmath

Happy Pi Day everyone! Pi=3.14, so naturally, March 14 (3/14) is Pi Day. I learned all about it while listening to Science Friday on the way home from the gym. Admittedly, Math isn't one of my strong points, but that isn't enough to stop the barely concealed geek in me from really loving the fact that there is a Pi Day. To celebrate, I'll be playing Pi games and reading Pi-Ku here. Then maybe I'll make some Pie, because you know I don't need much of an excuse to do that. :)

Dressing for Spring

Easter is approaching far too quickly, so I've been scrambling to find something to wear. I like this dress and this skirt, maybe with some colorful accessories to make them more spring-like. 

 

Table

I think this conference table by John Beck Paper & Steel is pretty cool. Anything with old print shop letters in it is pretty cool. :) Via Design Milk.

Laundry

With 3 small children, I find myself doing a lot of wash. Luckily, I really like my laundry room. Especially the shelf above my mismatched washer and dryer. The wall color is fresh looking too- it's called Beach Glass.

Happy Birthday, Jared!

Little things I love about you:

• You come kiss me after you've shaved, so I can feel your smooth skin.
• When you read to the kids at night, you use that really terrible English/Irish/Scottish accent.
• You believe $30 is too much to spend on a pair of jeans. You would rather wear the old ones and spend the money on a Vespa part.
• You are wonderfully social, but will still be content to stay at home and watch old movies every night.
• You can identify a song within the first 3 notes. You act surprised that I can't.
• You are artistic, independent, and sweetly unaware of how talented you are.
• You like to get stopped at railroad crossings. That way you have an excuse to watch the train go by.
• You look sexy in hats. 
• You get hungry when you hear Mexican music.
• You like to road trip. You enjoy abandoned mining towns, Rout 66, and taking the Mini on winding roads.
• You have great taste in art.
• You're 6 years older than I am, so no matter how old we get, I'll always feel like your young trophy wife. :)

I'm a Liar

That's right. While normally I strive to be an honest person, yesterday I was blatantly deceptive. Being stuck in the house with three little kids was driving me batty, so I loaded them all into the car, drove to the YMCA, and with a perfectly composed face, told the childcare workers, "Liam is 6 weeks old". He's not. He's barely 4 weeks. But 6 is the youngest they take into childcare, and I desperately needed an hour to work out and listen to my Ipod on full blast. It was wonderful, and I fully intend to continue lying for the next 2 weeks. Who says crime doesn't pay?

Sleep

Painting by Becky Gleason

For three days and nights, the baby has had a particularly hard time with reflux. On the worst night, I had about 1 hour of sleep, and that was taken in 20 minute chunks. Last night was better. My husband was able to help out and the baby was in less pain. It was heavenly. I only woke up three times! Why then, am I still so tired? I feel more tired now than I did before I slept! It's as if I reminded my body of what it was missing, and now it can't get enough. If I could, I would spend the entire weekend curled under the blanket. "Wake me for meals," I'd say.  "But only if it includes chocolate." 

Satsuma

Spring planting season has arrived, so I've been looking up gardening websites and trying to figure out what to put in the garden. In addition to a vegetable and herb garden, I'd like to plant two shade trees and buy a satsuma tree for indoors. Having my own citrus would be wonderful!

Baroque

Even though I know this pattern is so 2007, I can't help but continue to like it. I bought the apron after discovering the Home Chic Home line last year.

I'm also captivated by this scale (another gem via black.white.bliss), although I love myself too much to do something evil and cruel, like buy a bathroom scale. 

Pebbles

I love this pebbles doormat. It makes me want to take off my shoes and imagine standing on a riverbank. 

Weekend

Saturday: my husband managed to be busy all day, and even though I think he believed he was helping (he took the other two kids with him while he went to paint a Vespa and run other errands) I was left feeling very alone and stuck in the house. When I'm tired, everything seems worse than it is, so I told myself not to take it personally. But I still ate every single black jelly bean out of our jelly bean mix. It didn't help.

Sunday was better. I was able to take a long walk, and while I strolled in the sunshine, looking at the horses and alfalfa fields, I listened to This American Life. I download and listen to their podcast every week- it has got to be the best thing on the radio, almost as enriching as reading a good book. More importantly, there are only a few things that have managed to make me laugh out loud when I'm really depressed, and TAL is one of them. For that, I will be in love with Ira Glass' strange, nasally voice until the day I die. Weekend saved. :)

3 Weeks

Liam is three weeks old now. I love to hold him after he's had a bath, so I can nuzzle into his soft-as-down baby hair.

Another Happy Coat

Even though I'm only half-way back to my normal size, I find myself dreaming of real clothes again. Spring is here and I'm absolutely salivating over this outfit from Ann Taylor Loft. So Parisian, yet the palm trees in the background prove I could pull it off in Arizona. 

B&W Mugs

Why am I always attracted to things I don't use? I don't actually drink out of mugs- I use a glass. Maybe these could hold some brightly colored pencils on my desk instead.