the target habit ...

ok, so this one's more like a full-blown addiction than a habit ... Target is truly one of my all-time favorite stores. Who wouldn't love a place where you can buy all of your basic grocery and drugstore needs and also accessorize your entire home and wardrobe?! Their business model is pure genius as they provide super affordable knock-offs from literally every designer I love! They have knock-offs under their own label that mimic the designs of Pottery Barn Kids, Mini-Boden, and Gap Kids ... and then there are the alliances they make with designers like Isaac Mizrahi, Liz Lange maternity, Proenza Schouler, Thomas O'Brien, Paul Frank, Shabby Chic, and Thomasville furniture - to name a handful!

Well, I just about passed out last Sunday when I was flipping through my March issue of Elle Decor and came across a small blurb that mentioned that Target's next partnership will be with Liberty of London (be still my beating heart!). This photo was provided as the tease ...

Uh, hello?!?! A Liberty of London BICYCLE?! My heart beats ever faster ... how cute is that bike?! The complete Liberty of London line will be released in stores on March 14, so I set out yesterday to look for some sneak peeks online but couldn't find a thing ... until ... I was checking in at a friend's blog late last night and found an entire post dedicated to the subject - with photos!! Thank god for you, Marisa!! Marisa's longtime blog is called Stylebeat and the link to the Liberty post is right here. Hope you enjoy the sneak peek as much as I did - look out, Target, on March 14 it's gonna be like the running of the brides at the Filene's wedding gown sale ... and I plan to be right there in the mix fighting for my Liberty goodies! Wahooooo!

the camera habit ...

One of my long-time interests has been photography. It may have started back in high school when I took a 4-week mini course - that was back in the dark room days when we printed our own photos in sinks full of chemicals and hung them to dry, hard to imagine nowadays. By college, I had a beloved Nikon 35 mm film camera with a 17x200 mm zoom lens - it was never more than an arm's length away from me and for years I took pictures of everything around me: kids, animals, architectural details, nature, you name it. But somewhere around my mid 20's, life got busy and that beloved Nikon was in it's case more than it was out - and by the time I was 30, the photography world had shifted to digital and I felt like my hobby had passed me by. Fast forward a decade and momma's back in action ...

Throughout my 30's, all I ever did with our nice camera was a once/year portrait session of our kids to be used for our Christmas card. Each year I'd play with the settings or use a different lens ... and sure enough my old camera mojo came back: I started getting great results and our Christmas card photo was getting better each year. It got to the point where this past Fall I decided to get an SLR camera of my very own - no more joint custody! It's a Canon Rebel xsi and it was love at first sight ... by Christmas I was asking Santa for extra lenses and the Rebel's been attached to my eye ever since. I guess old habits really do die hard. Look out world ...

sunday!

I love Sunday mornings - it's my one morning each week to sleep a little later, make pancakes in my pj's, and when I'm really lucky on a cold winter Sunday like today I get to catch up on my favorite indulgences! In the wintertime, this involves spending a lazy morning reading through my favorite design mags ...



... and watching tivo-ed design shows like HGTV's Sarah's House or Bravo's Flipping Out and TLC's Moving Up. Of course, my beloved Domino magazine folded about a year ago (*sniff, RIP), so it was right around that time that I started to trade the magazines for the laptop, expanding my list of favorite blogs to fill the Domino void (see aforementioned potato chip reference!) ... so all in all, Sunday mornings are a real treat for me - from the pancake and syrup combo to the tivo and laptop combo, I love 'em!

how wii spent our saturday ...

Being in New England, there are many many families in our town who live a second life all winter long ... life on the ski slopes.

(illustration courtesy of Paula Becker)

From where I stand, a Florida native who knows precious little about skiing, it seems exhausting ... they pack up the roof racks and tailgates and head up north to Maine or NH every Friday after school lets out. Instead of sleeping in on Saturdays, most of these families start just as early as if it were a school morning - in a way I suppose it is a school morning because their kids are committed to season-long ski schools every Saturday. I have to say ... I just don't get it! The planning, the gear (my god the gear!), the commute, the physical demands of skiing, I'd be a wreck if this were my routine!

Conveniently, we're more of the once-a-year philosophy. We just want for the kids to be able to ski with a reasonable amount of confidence - we are in New England after all. That way, as they're growing up, they'll be able to participate if and when an opportunity might arise. We've just recently returned from our annual ski trip - a 3-day, 3-night 'refresher weekend' just a few hours north in Maine. If nothing else, it's a great chance for us to be away from the daily grind and enjoy board games and hot chocolate by the fire after a long day of casual runs with each other on the slopes ... our littlest led the charge ...

It was a really great trip this year, we're feeling lucky as can be to have had the opportunity. But from now on, it's back to reality ... no more slopeside condos, steaming swimming pools, or freshly groomed snow. From now on, this is what skiing will look like for us ...

Wii love to ski this way - no schlepping required! Knock yourselves out, cutie pies!

frrrrrrozen ...

so this is what my front yard looks like in february ...


... and what better way to spend a freezing day then to have some frozen hot chocolate from my one of my favorite stops in NYC, Serendipity. They post a picture of their "real" frozen hot chocolate on their website - it's their signature treat, served in a giant glass bowl with many straws ... it's an absolute must whenever I'm in New York! But for when you don't have that luxury, they sell packages of their frozen hot chocolate mix ... basically just powder, milk, and ice in a blender and voila:

Yum, it soooooo did not disappoint ... enjoy!

so ... why start blogging?

So it turns out that reading blogs can be addictive! It all started when I got to know Erin Gates and her fabulous blog Elements of Style. She and I did some volunteer work together in 08/09 for our former high school in Connecticut. Being eleven years younger, Erin was a fun breath of fresh air - I enjoyed getting to know her and checking her design blog quickly became my daily treat in the Fall of '08 ... she has great style and her posts are very personable, like hearing stories from an old girlfriend. Our birthdays are one day after the other (well, ok, 11 years and a day) and her post about turning 30 last August is a great example of her relate-ability ... addictive indeed.

But, like potato chips, I soon realized that you couldn't have just one blog ... within a few months I found Erika at Urban Grace and of course within an hour I found her twin sister Darby's blog Fly Through Our Window and by last summer I was hooked on Simply Seleta too. Once I started juggling four blogs as my daily treat, my bookmarks grew exponentially because then I started to get to know the "family" of people who check in and comment at these blogs and they all seemed to have blogs of their own ... great blogs that dish about all my favorite interests: home renovations and decor, photography, life with kids, the list goes on. Over this winter, I even stumbled across a couple of wonderful design blogs from folks who are literally right in my backyard: Shelter and Katy Elliott. And talk about close to home ... imagine my surprise when I came across the design blog of a friend and neighbor (and designer extraordinaire) Molly Frey who lives just a few doors down the street! Soon after that, I stumbled upon another local friend's blog, Gabi of Tickled Pink Design. Gabi's adorable son and my daughter have been classmates throughout elementary school - she's one of those super creative moms who juggles it all so of course her blog got bookmarked right away too. By the New Year, I was up to about 8 daily blogs and checking in with at least 15 more on the weekends - talk about a guilty pleasure, these blogs feed all of my interests in one sitting - how delicious! I've been able to find answers about everything from paint colors to recipes- from wide angle lenses to crafts with the kids ... and everything in between. Who knew?!

So that's the loooong answer as to what led me here ... it's been a slippery slope since that first blog (thank you, Erin!) - stay tuned ...
xoxo

what will it become ...

more or less what i envision for this blog is simply a way to vent and share - from the mundane to the exciting, it will be a fun way track my crazy life ... mostly as a mother, but also as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend, as a wife, as a teacher, the list goes on. since i am all of these things and more, i haven't quite found the right clever words to summarize who i am in just a couple of crafty sentences (that daunting space in the right column marked "about me"). i'll get to that that later ... for now, the task at hand: what will it become? i'm excited by the idea that this blog will become my cyber-footprint ... a virtual scrapbook ... the ultimate narrative ... a legacy really. very cool ...