Jack and Till

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T19:51:00.000-08:00

Its the first day of 2012 and while it seems that 2013 is so far away I know that it will be here before I blink!

I am going to do a 2011 roundup of the year. It was such a wonderful year for me with such big surprises but until I get to it! Here's my first purchase of 2012. A new coffee table to replace my old ikea dining table that I sawed the legs down on. Hey! Sometimes you gotta make things work so you can spend your money else where.

I've been dreaming of one of those railroad cart coffee tables but Jack does a lot of drawing at our coffee table so it needs to be a smooth surface and the true vintage ones are running anywhere from $800+. So I settled for a knock off version from World Market that seems to fit the bill.

Winter Wearables

2011-11-21T08:24:00.001-08:00

I'm pretty excited to wear my new winter gear. Its been getting chilly in LA and I know it will be cold when I'm home for Christmas!

and a new instagram of us on our way to Target. Something about this weekend made me feel super grown up. I kinda liked it.

Pintrest

2011-11-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

So not that Pintrest is anything new but I've been using it lately and I'm seriously loving it. Its fun to spend 10 minutes a day going thru inspirational images and tagging them to your own boards! I also found it extremely helpful for designing my wedding inspiration board.

So if you're on it please add me!

Jack and Till Pintrest Boards

Below is a single image from each of my current boards

Things I like

Hot Men

Clothes

Wedding Inspiration

Dream Homes

Travel Dreams

Farmers Market Goodness

2011-11-07T08:26:00.000-08:00

This weekend I tried to see if we could shop exclusively at our farmers market and we came pretty darn close!

We're really lucky and at our farmers market we have meat, dairy and egg suppliers! The only thing I can tell we are missing is a grain farmer. We would have sucessfully been able to shop only at the farmers market except the meat/dairy farmer was out of butter which I needed for a plum cake I'm planning on making later in the week.

Have you been able to shop only at a farmers market? Any tips? Do you find you save money?

November!

2011-11-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

Wow November is here already! I've got an action packed month - bestie coming to visit next weekend, maybe another friend the following weekend and Thanksgiving! Pretty soon its going to be December! I can't wait!

Plus it feels like fall in LA with the cool nights and cool sunny days!

*photo via weheartit

Happy Halloween! Almost...

2011-10-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

Halloween falls on a Monday. Boo. So we celebrated all weekend by watching Halloween movies and for breakfast today I made Pumpkin Waffles.

Seriously, maybe the best waffles I have ever had. They're a little sweet once you get the whipped cream and syrup on top but that's why you make ham and eggs to balance out with some saltiness right?

I don't know what I'd do without my ipad! Its the best cookbook.

Everything's all mixed up, egg whites folded in and the waffle iron is hot!

If you're interested in making them here's the recipe with my additions in (parentheses).

Best Ever Pumpkin Waffles

INGREDIENTS
makes 4 round “Belgian” style pumpkin waffles or 8 small square waffles

• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 3 Tbsp. cornstarch
• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 tsp. ginger
• 1/4 tsp. cloves
• 1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg*
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk ( I subbed in Vanilla no sugar added almond milk)
• 1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin

(• 1 vanilla bean scraped in (add to the milk/egg/pumpkin mixture).........)

• 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and warm

*Grated and lightly packed into the spoon, use 1/2 tsp. Grated and loosely scooped, this is about 1 tsp. of nutmeg. If you have to use pre-grated, dried nutmeg, use 1/4 tsp.

DIRECTIONS

1. Lightly oil the waffle iron with vegetable oil, and set it to the desired temperature.

2. Combine brown sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl. Whisk together to break apart the cornstarch. Add the remaining dry ingredients, and whisk to blend.

3. Separate eggs: yolks go in a medium sized bowl and whites get set aside in a smaller bowl.

4. Add pumpkin and milk to the egg yolks. Whisk to blend and set aside.

5. Whip egg whites with a hand mixer on high until stiff peaks form – about 1 1/2 – 2 minutes. Set aside.

6. Pour melted butter into the yolk/milk/pumpkin mixture. As you pour, whisk to combine.

7. Add the pumpkin mixture to the dry ingredients, and mix them together until just combined. A little lumpiness is fine. That will smooth out when the egg whites are added.

8. Slide the whipped egg whites out of the bowl and onto the mixture you just prepared. Gently fold them in until no white bits are obvious.

9. Once the waffle iron is heated, you’re ready to pour the batter! I continued to cook them until they were a nice golden brown color and a little crispy. They are much more moist and do take a little bit longer.

Yum.

Wedding Venue

2011-10-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

We've finally picked our wedding venue! It took a lot of going back and forth but in our hearts we knew we'd only be happy having our wedding at the Marvimon in Downtown LA.

It is exactly what I have always envisioned for what my wedding would be!

Beautiful greenery and exposed brick walls but with lots of kitschy areas.

*all pictures borrowed from all over the web

Weekend Round Up

2011-10-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

I might have had the laziest weekends of weekends. I did manage to make it out of my house for Zumba, a manicure and the farmers market but that is about it. For some reason I needed to catch up on some major z's. It was actually really nice to relax at home for once!

This picture is the only proof I made it out! Taken in front of our favorite little french restaurant having an iced latte while waiting for a friend to hit the Mar Vista Farmers Market! I'm stoked to go to this farmers market! They have organic, sustainably farmed seafood, beef, poultry, goat, lamb, eggs and raw milk! Plus lots of organic/sustainable fruit and veggie farmers! It feels good to shop local and support my farmers.

Friday!

2011-09-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

Today is Friday and I can't wait for the weekend!

Also, a big Happy Birthday to my best friend in the world! I wish I could be celebrating your birthday with you in SF but I'll be sending lots of good wishes your way from LA!

Elderflower Soda

2011-09-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

Last week when we had out of town visitors we went to the Galco's the soda pop store. Its a store dedicated in its entirety to soda and old fashioned candy (and a little bit of boozey). I've been there a bunch of times but its always fun to go and pick up a few new flavors. I tried the Elderflower Soda because recently I've discovered I'm a huge fan of St. Germain which is made from the elderflower.

via. exp. realm:wurstkuche

Here's a great little music video that Greg Laswell filmed in Galco's. At the 1:10 mark you can see the owner walk by in his apron!

Last night I cracked open the Elderflower and thoroughly enjoyed it!

The Addam's Family

2011-09-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

With Halloween only a month or so away all fun things of fall are showing up again - pumpkin lattes, fall leaves, pumpkins, and fun movies such as the Addam's Family! Who doesn't love little Christina Ricci who was in that movie at 11!

I need to dig out my Halloween Movie collection today - Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands, The Addam's Family and I'm sure there're more! Any suggestions?

How fun is this fashion based off the Addam's family movies?

How sexy is Morticia! I love her eye makeup and long red nails.
*All photo's via weheartit.com

Vanilla, Pear and Fig Jam

2011-09-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

I had one last batch of fresh figs to use so I made another batch of jam. I walked around the grocery store with a bunch of different types of fruit but nothing caught my eye until I saw the crimson red pears and knew they were meant to be together.

My recipe was basically the same as the one for my rhubarb and fig jam except I had only 13 cups of fruit rather than the 16 cups I had before. I just followed the directions loosely again from pomona pectin and when the jam was almost done I added to big gluggs of vanilla to the pot and stirred. I tasted a couple of times to see what level of vanilla I wanted. Not to perfumey but enough to add another layer to the flavor.

My favorite way to eat this is over some vanilla bean ice cream. Yum.

Rhubarb and Fig Jam

2011-09-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

The saga of the never ending figs continues......I had another big batch to use and rather than make a cake that would disappear in a day I made jam that would disappear in a day! I realized how much I love to cook as I stirred the moltenous pot (see injury picture below)of fig and rhubarb until it was just a goey sticky lava. I then stretched my design skills and made pretty kraft paper labels to go on top of the jars.

I made 2 big jars of jam - one for us and one for my boss who has been supplying me with the figs.

There was something so satisfying as stacking up all my labeled jars and looking at them.

But it wasn't all glitz and glam. A blob of jam lept out of the pot and landed on my skin leaving me with a nasty jam burn that coincidentally looks like an exclamation mark!

My recipe was based off this website and I used this pectin (which is sold at my whole foods). I have another batch of figs and trying to decide what to do with those!

Laguiole Knives

2011-09-09T08:59:00.000-07:00

An oldie but a goodie! I'm crushing hard on these Laguiole knives. One of our favorite french restaurants has a giant stock in these knives. I've had everything from the pearl, stainless steel and neon. J'adore Laguiole!

Fig and Thyme Cake Recipe

2011-08-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was given a ton of figs and I've been eating them on my yogurt but we just couldn't eat them fast enough so I started looking up recipes for figs and I found a bunch of delicious ones but they were time consuming - whip egg whites, separate this, blah blah, and I'm making this at 8 p.m. after working a 10 hour day. I wasn't into complicated and I remembered my favorite cake recipe for a pear cardamom cake. I interchange the pears for figs and the cardamom for thyme. It is fantastic.

figs sitting in the brown sugar and butter mixture

Fig and Thyme Upside-Down Cake
Serves 8

1 1/2 cups flour (i used cake flour which required 3 more tablespoons)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 - 2 tablespoons of fresh thyme (this is to taste - I added almost 2 based off how the flour and thyme smelled together. I didn't want it to be overpowering but I wanted it to be noticeable)
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature, divided
3/4 cup packed golden brown sugar
10 small figs sliced into discs (I covered my entire cake with discs of figs so depending on the size you might need more or less)
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk, room temperature
black pepper (optional)

Whipping Cream (optional)
pint of heavy whipping cream
sugar -to taste

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter a 9-by-1 1/2-inch round cake pan.

2. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together. Stir in the thyme and set aside.

3. Melt one-fourth cup butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the brown sugar and stir for 2 to 3 minutes, until the sugar has melted and combined with the butter. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan, spreading it to reach the sides.

4. Cut the figs, cut into discs and discard the stems. Arrange the figs in a circle around the cake pan, starting at the center and working outwards. Sprinkle with a dash of pepper (optional). Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.

5. Beat the remaining one-half cup butter in the bowl of an electric mixer until soft and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl when needed. Alternately add the flour mixture and the milk, beating after each addition just until combined.

6. Gently spoon the cake batter on top of the figs, smoothing out to the edge of the pan and making sure the cake batter fills in around the pears.

7. Bake until the top is a deep golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Place the cake on a rack to cool for 5 minutes in the pan.

8. Run a small spatula or knife around the edge of the pan and invert onto a cake plate, leaving the pan on the cake for 10 minutes. Carefully remove the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature

9. Make whip cream, pour pint of heavy whipping cream into bowl and add sugar to taste (usually 1-2 tablespoons) and whip with either hand mixer or stand mixer until cream becomes thick and fluffy.

10. Serve, wait for everyone's mouth's to drool while you're plating up this sugary, figgy cake and service with a big dollop of homemade whipped cream.

The only slightly sad warning is this cake doesn't last if you don't eat it past the second day. It might have lasted longer in the fridge but its so moist that it will turn before you can eat it all!

Food Porn - Pan Fried Duck

2011-08-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

I love cooking and for me it is like a mental yoga. When the day has been bad or things aren't going the way I planned I can go to the kitchen and cook. Very rarely do things turn out bad. Somethings not as planned but not bad. Recently, Leslie, had posted about an asparagus salad that they had created the recipe via video. This led me to start reading Kinfolk Journal. Which is like the playboy of food journals. It's an amazing website and magazine that documents amazing food and the people that make it. I instantly knew that I need to make this recipe.

I took one measly little photo on my iphone. I was really too hungry to try and photograph it well and to be honest the video is amazing. Why try to recreate it!

Summer Corn Salad Recipe

2011-08-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago when I was in San Francisco, we stopped at an awesome pizza place in my girlfriends neighborhood; Delfina Pizza. To be honest, the pizza is good but their side entrees really stole the spotlight this past trip for me. We ordered sand dabs ( mini fish deep fried) and a summer corn salad. I've been thinking about making the corn salad ever since which I finally did this past weekend twice.

Summer Corn Salad
serves 2
1 large ear of corn - shave off the corn with either a knife or a cool corn tool
1-2 small kumato tomatoes (mine were fairly small maybe 2 inches across) - chopped
2 large handfuls of arugula - washed (or several websites call for basil
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon onion - finely chopped

-Shave the corn off the cob and place in a small mixing bowl.
-Finely chop the onion and add to the corn.
-Cut the tomatoes into smallish pieces (or if using cherry tomatoes I would halve or quarter if possible) and add to the corn/onion mixture
-Toss the corn/onion/tomatoes with a bit of good olive oil (I probably used 2 teaspoons)
-Season the corn/onion/tomatoes with salt and pepper to taste
-In the final step, make sure to mix the corn, tomato, and onion mixture well to blend the olive oil into the salad
Place the arugula on the plates and spoon the corn mixture over
*Another option would be to mix the arugula into the corn mixture if that is what you prefer I would add the arugula by sight. Using probably only 1 large handful vs the 2 handfuls.

There are tons of summer corn salad recipes online but a lot of them call for boiling the corn to remove the starch. I didn't and I loved the summery sweet taste of the raw corn. This recipe was sort of made up of what I liked from other people's recipes so feel free to modify! Let me know if you try something new and yummy!

SFO

2011-08-10T09:01:00.000-07:00

I'm SFO bound in a few days to spend a much needed Girls Weekend with my Best Friend.

via we heart it . com

I simply can't wait to spend the weekend with her! Its incredibly hard not living near each other but luckily she's just up the coast and not across the world!

Even though I've been there a handful of times we always find new exciting places to try! Please let me know if you have any must see spots!

P.S. Read about my past trips to SFO here

Diner en Blanc

2011-08-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

Say what? Diner en Blanc was a night in Paris where 10,000 people all dressed in white and brought their own picnic to the Louvre and Notre Dame.

via flickr

How amazing would this be? The most amazing part is it was all started by spreading word by word of mouth. Everyone was a friend of someone.

Raspberry Summer Cake

2011-08-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

I was reading someone's blog this weekend who linked to Smitten Kitchen's blog about how to make pancakes. Something I'm determined to master at some point in my life. Mine always turn out overcooked or raw in the middle. Ugh, after mentally memorizing how to make perfect pancakes I decided to catch up on some of her other postings. I came across Strawberry Summer Cake. It sounded easy and we might have gone a little crazy with the juicing and bought way to much. Maybe. I needed to use some raspberries up about 12 pints to be exact.

Raspberry Summer Cake

Adapted, unintentionally, from Smitten Kitchen

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for pie plate
1 1/2 cups (188 grams) all-purpose flour (I used cake flour and measured out 188 grams otherwise per cup you add 2 extra tablespoons, I believe)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 cup (200 grams) plus 2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup (118 ml) milk
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 pound (450 grams) raspberries (SK originally calls for strawberries, I only had raspberry on hand)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 10-inch cake pan.

Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl.

(This is where I messed up big time - I know only like 2 steps in. I wasn't paying attention and I mixed the sugar into the flour, baking powder and salt mixture. I continued to cream the butter by itself and add the egg/milk in and then gradually add in the flour. Not sure what the cake would taste like otherwise but mine is still delicious!)

In a larger bowl, beat butter and 1 cup sugar until pale and fluffy with an electric mixer, about 3 minutes. Mix in egg, milk and vanilla until just combined. Add dry mixture gradually, mixing until just smooth.

Pour into prepared cake pan. Arrange berries, on top of batter, as closely as possible in a single layer. Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over berries.

Bake cake for 10 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 325°F and bake cake until golden brown and a tester comes out free of wet batter, about 50 minutes to 60 minutes. Let cool in pan on a rack. Cut into wedges.

It was the perfect dessert with our grilled buffalo chicken tenders and margherita pizza made on the grill. This cake is summer.

Adele

2011-08-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

I love your sultry smooth voice and I envy your oh so cool 60's vibe with the behive, pointed nails, black eyeliner and big lashes.

Juicing

2011-08-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

I've boughten into the latest fad even though I hate to admit it. I recently watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead (which is on instant netflix currently!) and went out hours later and bought $150 worth of fresh fruits and veggies and an $80 juicer to start juicing immediately. Pictured below are the supplies - mangos, spinach, grapes, large cucumbers, red peppers, tomatoes, figs, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Also the juicer is behind the crate of mangos.

The results only 5 days later - I am down 2.3 pounds and feel fantastic. I have replaced my breakfast with a jar of fresh vegetable and fruit juice that I drink slowly most of the morning at work.

I might have bought into the hype but is it a really hype to get more fruits and veggies in my diet? No, I don't think so. I do have to admit I felt like a hoarder buying all these fruits and veggies but we bought 2 giant bags of spinach and we've gone through 1.5 bags in only 5 days.

If anyone has any questions about it feel free to send me a message! Not that I'm an expert but I can share with you about my own experience!

Travel Bug...

2011-08-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

Keeps on biting me...I am dreaming of places to go today

Perhaps a warm beautiful island

or beautiful Italy

or maybe Spain

or we could go back to Paris

Carmageddon

2011-07-12T08:28:00.000-07:00

Is what they're affectionately calling this weekend in LA. They're shutting down 10 miles of the 405 freeway. I've been told the point where the 405 and the 10 freeway meet is the busiest intersection in the world. I can believe it when I go to target and it takes me 45 minutes to go 3 miles. Grr.

via weheartit.com

Anyways, the city is advising everyone to stay out of their cars. I'm kind of anxious to see what the weekend will be like. Luckily we're on the right side of the freeway and close to the beach and the fun attractions. Might be a good time to pack a picnic, rent some library books and relax.

Cake Night!

2011-07-07T08:26:00.003-07:00

Tonight is our monthly girls cake night and I'm hosting but not making a cake!

I'm so excited to hang out with some of my favorite girls, drink wine and eat cake.

Aren't these cakes just gorgeous!

images via weheartit.com

Happy Wednesday!

2011-07-06T08:47:00.001-07:00

Life has gotten extremely dull for me so instead I will share a beautiful picture.

via we heart it . com

P.S. New friend Ashley, if you're reading this send me an email :)

The Fourth of July!

2011-07-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

I wish I had a great excuse for not blogging for nearly a month but I don't really...I finished working on Transformers 3 and took off a week to spend with family and a week to get stuff done at my house. Then after those two weeks, I went back to work on some new films and the weeks got by me!

We try to go away for the 4th of July every year. We've been successful the past few years and rent a cabin in Big Bear Lake, CA.

If you want to see pictures from last years trip click here! Our favorite location to stay is in the Moonridge area. Our cabin this year had an amazing view of the Big Dipper. We unfortunately, didnt' capture the big dipper but if you click on these pictures you will get a bigger size photo of some slow shutter speed night shots.

It is breath taking to see the stars like this. We viewed them from the decks of our cabin.

Got to have a cheesy picture of us to look back in 20 years!

We took a few photo's via instagram (add me if you like - jackandtill)

glamping breakfast - cinnamon rasin bread french toast, and coffee

almost to the base of the mountain

kitschy bear drawings by kids

We had to make sure we had enough libations for the weekend!

Beautiful yellow flowers that cover the mountain side

Bye Big Bear! Thanks for the memories.

Win a trip to Paris!

2011-06-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

This might be the best giveaway ever!

Try for a chance here!

P.S. - Don't forget to read about my trip here!

Apparently I like coffee....alot!

2011-05-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

I guess I drink a lot of coffee on the weekends. I took these few pictures just this past weekend.

Coffee at a crepe restaurant

Coffee at a cafe

Coffee at ANOTHER french restaurant

It's also fun if they make pretty designs or spell cool things in your coffee! Like FOOD does in there coffees!

New side table perhaps?

2011-05-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

We're slowly getting rid of the pieces in our life that we dislike and slowly adding pieces we do. I'm daydreaming about this awesome cabinet from the UK

Also, since shipping is flat rate. I might as well throw in this conversation piece of jewelry.

Check out this great online store - Pedlars UK

Happy Fourth Birthday Blog!

2011-05-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

It's so incredibly unbelievable that I started this blog four years ago today. Amazing how fast the time flies and how much I've grown since then.

Happy Fourth Birthday Confessions of a Makeup Addict!

Olive Green Purse Crush

2011-05-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

I've been dreaming about getting an olive green purse for the past couple of years ( along with a gray one which I got for Christmas this year!)

This one might be perfect!

What'dya think?

Wedding Flower Ideas

2011-05-13T16:30:00.001-07:00

Is it bad if I play my wedding date around which flowers are in season?

These lilacs are absolutely gorgeous!

Busy , busy, busy

2011-05-09T12:02:00.000-07:00

Work is getting really busy and that means less time for me to do general life necessities like laundry which means even less time to do blogging. Soooooooooo, instead here's a recap of my weekend via instagram (which I LUHUV).

We went to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles for dinner on Saturday. It was awesome as usual and if you're ever in LA a definite must!

Sunday, we rode our bikes to Thyme Cafe for Breakfast! We shared a frissee et lardon salad and a cornmeal waffle with lemon curd and fresh berries!

I love our Sunday mornings. They refresh me for what is inevitably too long a work week.

Jack took a picture of me via instagram that is now my favorite picture currently.

Later that night we grilled steaks and enjoyed our new patio lights.

We grilled a ribeye, roasted radishes, roasted tomatoes and an arugula salad with a simple dressing from my new Julia Child Cookbook. It was tres magnifique!

We also bought a yogurt machine. It makes seven 6 oz jars of homemade yogurt at a time. The consistency was very runny but the taste was great. I used an organic whole milk, a little bit of powdered milk, and a vanilla bean.

The weekend overall was amazing despite having to work unexpectedly on Saturday Morning.

P.S. Add me on instagram if you'd like - my user name is jackandtill

We're Engaged!

2011-04-19T07:50:00.001-07:00

We're engaged!

I am so grateful to have these two wonderful people in my life!

And of course a closer pic of the beautiful ring!

Seattle Trip - Part Three

2011-04-11T07:45:00.000-07:00

On our last day in Seattle we took the underground tour. It was super fascinating and fun to take. My only regret is that we didn't take the "Nightlife Underground Tour" which covers some of the "working women" and how they helped to shape Seattle but that tour is only in the evening and we were leaving Seattle that afternoon.

The underground tour starts in an old bar and you walk in and out of old abandoned buildings but Seattle literally has an underground. I'll probably do a horrible job at explaining but basically the government decided to re-grade Seattle so it wouldn't have as many problems with the tide flooding the area and in order to re-grade businesses would have to close for 10+ years so the business were allowed to stay open but as the city was regraded the business would end up being at basement level. and they couldn't build tunnels at intersections so if you got the end of a street there would be a ladder that would take you to the new ground level - which was anywhere from like 5 feet - 14 feet. Yowza! Needless to say - I'm glad I didn't live in Seattle in the 1800's!

Not only would it suck to climb down 14 feet to get to my grocery store but this was what the plumbing was like a wood pipe!

Loved this hotel sign for $.75 rooms!

Certain areas of the underground had skylight areas to help the shops not feel like they were underground. The city has kept a lot of them!

A beautiful archway that stands outside of where the underground tour starts

Apparently, in the late 50's-60's Seattle didn't see much use in the former shops and street alleys that used to be the underground of Seattle so people started dumping things there when they would remodel such as this piece of molding.

Now, there isn't much cool stuff because antique collectors have gone threw and salvaged what they could. Some of the "antiques" that are down there were donated.

After the underground tour we went to another old Art Deco building. You get to take an old fashioned elevator ride to the top floor.

The view from the top is amazing! From one side you could see straight to the Ocean.

The other side looked over the stadium

After the underground tour we did one last walk threw of the Pike Place Market and hit up the original Starbucks.

In the background you can see Starbucks. We were lucky and there wasn't a line to get in so we quick grabbed some warm drinks. Unforunately, we didn't really get any of the inside of the store but it wasn't like a regular starbucks. It was filled with Starbucks mugs in the shelves and it was pretty open inside to accommodate the large crowds that filter in.

One last picture in front of the famous sign

and I even got my picture taken holding my original Starbucks drink!

If you're planning a trip to Seattle in the future and want some great restaurant recommendations please let me know. I didn't cover a lot of the places we went because I didn't take pictures.

Seattle Trip - Part Two

2011-03-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

The Space Needle was constructed for one of the World's Fairs and is an amazing sculpture. I like to refer to it as the Seedle (Seattle) Needle. I think its catchier.

I highly recommend taking the time to check it out if you're in Seattle. We waited maybe 30 minutes to get to Observation deck and the majority of the wait is inside. We arrived at the needle just as the sun was setting. It really made for some stunning photos but some of the photo's turned out blurry. Le Sigh. I happen to love this one of me walking up to the ticket office.

Proud owner of two tickets to the observation deck!

Cool structures that are around the Needle

Same Structure but all lit up in the dark!

The view from the top was stunning! In one direction it was just the ocean and the coast

and the other direction was a lit up city. I love Seattle. It is so beautiful

A quick picture before the sun set. It was soo cold up there!

We had to get a picture of us both at the top too!

When we left the needle it was so dramatic against the very black night sky. Its really nice that the surround area isn't polluted with lights and businesses. It makes the Needle really stand out!

After we were all done in the gift shop we took the mono rail back to downtown which was only a few blocks away from our hotel!

More to come tomorrow!

Seattle Trip - Part One

2011-03-29T07:33:00.001-07:00

Last month, Jack and I flew up to Seattle for a mini weekend trip. We celebrated our ninth anniversary! A little bit over 2 years ago we had planned a trip to Seattle and the day that I bought plane tickets I was also laid off. Needless to say we cancelled our trip so Seattle has been on my hot list for years!

We booked our hotel thru Orbitz's priceline negotiator. We "negotiated" a deal of $80 a night for the downtown Seattle Westin. I'm kind of hooked on this negotiating deals thing. It's quite fun!

We were only a couple of blocks away from Pike's Place Market and we were in perfect walking distance for a lot of restaurants, bars and events. Plus our hotel was the double round towers so it made it easy to figure out where we were supposed to be headed too!

We arrived really late Friday night so we got up early on Saturday morning and hit Pike's Place Market. We were starving so we hit up a Piroshky Piroshky for a cup of borscht and a piroshky.

Borscht and piroshky were both phenomenal!

After getting breakfast we walked into the main building of the market and looked at all the goods that people were selling!

There are a few fish mongers in the market. I wish we had a kitchen while staying in Seattle. I would have loved to cook something up on my own!

These homemade pickles looked to die for!

I'm guessing February is off season in Seattle but the market was packed wall to wall on Saturday.

We took some corny tourist pictures in front of the iconic market sign!

We also tried some of the famous Beechers homemade cheese curds.

We're both from Wisconsin and so we naturally had to see if they lived up to what we both grew up with.

They did not but the mac and cheese was the best mac and cheese on the planet. Inside the Beechers store you can watch them make cheese curds in different stages which is rad.

Seattle is a very hilly city if you're heading down to the market. I would assimilate it to San Francisco's streets. Maybe not quite as bad! Jack would stop to take pictures of the little oddities on buildings like this rain gutter with plants growing out of it

and I would power through and wait for him at the top!

I'm not sure if everyone knows this but Seattle is apparently one of the biggest chocolate shop cities outside of Europe!

I think they have something like 50 different chocolate shops! So we tried a few when we happened on them! There is even a chocolate walking tour if you're up for that sort of thing. Yum.

The first shop which I can't remember the name we ordered a little sampler platter of chocolate.

Starting with the yellow and going right was : a mimosa truffle, dark chocolate raspberry, the plain chocolate was a balsamic strawberry truffle and a gray sea salt caramel truffle.

Another one of the advertised chocolate shops was selling chocolate stuffed figs. I definitely had to try that out!

The tiny truffle was an earl gray tea truffle and the big truffle was the chocolate stuffed fig. They basically hollow out a fig and shove it full of chocolate and then dip it in chocolate to seal the goodness in. The more see thru the chocolate inside is the less fig filling there is. We had more fig/less chocolate combo.

I think tomorrow I'll continue up with another portion of our trip!

Wellies!

2011-03-25T08:09:00.001-07:00

LA has been getting an insane amount of rain. In the five years that I have lived here I have gone a year or longer without seeing any rain. So naturally, I am a huge fan of these days of rain that we have been getting. Everything is so lush, green and clean. That's one of the things that they don't tell you about LA. It's really dusty and dirty. If I spend a day out in Silverlake I feel dirty and dusty when I leave. So I bought these Wellie's a couple of years ago from Target and I finally get to break them out and use them quite a lot in these days full of spring showers!

I love the rain!

P.S. In case you're wondering what's with the new blog look - Its a reminder. I want to change my blog and so I changed it to a blog front that I really don't like in hopes of motivating me to change it!!

Hello Spring!

2011-03-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

Spring is officially here and I love it! Spring is one of my two favorite seasons. Partially, because my birthday is in April. I love that feeling of renewal and brand new things! Pretty little flowers blooming, rain washing away the dirt and bright green grass poking up from its Winter slumber. I love Spring.

A few images from we heart it that are quintessential Spring to me!

Like a monster puddle to splash in!

Beautiful blooming blossoms

Fun and kitchy nails

Delicate and fluffy whipped sugar

Beautiful pinks, beiges, greens and blues to highlight the natural color popping up around.

I love Spring.

101 in 1001 days -- 2/3 recap

2011-03-08T07:31:00.000-08:00

It's been about 667 days since I first put out there what I wanted to accomplish in 1001 days. I've been pretty proud of myself. Everything in red is a completed goal! I am about half done! So I have a long ways to go in a short amount of time. Wish me luck! I'd also to love to read about your 101 in 1001 days!

Travel

Go somewhere that requires a passport (preferably somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean)
Visit Seattle
Re-visit Portland
Visit Canada
Take a road trip in the Corvette
Go to the East Coast
Stay at an Ace Hotel Property
Take a girls only trip every year
Take 1 pleasure trip a year with Jack
Visit Momma Lee in Mississippi
Go camping, not Glamping
Spend New Years somewhere fun

Career

Obtain a job in production work
Have my name published on a movie
Continue to increase Jack and Till
Fully commit to putting 5 hrs a week into Jack and Till
Create 1 new item a month for Jack and Till
Send out at least 1 resume a week until I land my dream job
Don't settle for a job that will leave my unhappy
Go to handmade craft fairs for inspiration
Get a booth at said handmade craft fairs - renegade, felt club xl etc..
Look into creating a business with a friend who would help to inspire and push me to do more with Jack and Till
Go to local businesses about selling my products in their store

Life

Plan our wedding
Try to buy as much local and organic foods as possible
Support my local businesses instead of buying from chains (excluding Whole Foods)
Organize the garage
Stay on top of laundry
Stay on top of keeping the house clean
Think before arguing
Do 1 nice thing for Jack a week
Make popovers 1x a month
Drink more mimosas aka enjoy life more!
Work on letting go of people who aren't important to my well being
Go to yoga 2x a month
Try to only say nice things about people
Go see a concert at the Hollywood Bowl before the summer is over
Get a game night started 1x a month and rotate people's houses
Have a summer party at the new place

Financial

Pay off my car
Pay off the vette
Look into buying a house (even as a rental property in another state)
Save at least 10% of our salary ( that stays in the account for a rainy day)
Spend less on clothes
Stop buying frivolous junk
Donate to charities
Eat out less, cook in more
See more movies at home and less in the theaters
Use our Entertainment Book more often to save money when we do go out
Stop being frivolous!!!
Cash in our coins and do something fun with the money
Pay all of our bills on time
Put an extra $5 on every bill that has a revolving balance
Stop using credit cards completely unless its an emergency
Get rid of one item when a new item comes in the house

Personal Goals

Learn En Pointe
Go to the gym 1x a week minimum
Go to 1 ballet class a week minimum
Ride my bike more places and take the car less
Try surfing 1x
Take more pictures of places and things I do
Call my grandma 1x a month
Send grandma a letter 1x a month
Call my mom more often/ or take her calls when she calls me
Organize photo's and get rid of blurry ones
Get rid of multiples ( old laptops, old desktops, old monitors, old chords, etc..)
Use the Laundry basket instead of the floor
Get rid of junk mail right away
Do the dishes everyday
Make a new friend
Complete my 101 goals by 4/1/2012

Blog

Write a new blog 2x a week, preferably more but at a minimum
Take pictures for my blog
Expand my reader base
Comment more on other blogs I read
Start back up Jack and Till's blog
Meet a fellow blogger - maybe AEIP
Support my fellow bloggers in my own blog
Twitter more often- it has its good points
Encourage 1 person to create a blog
Encourage 1 person to continue to blog when they've fallen by the wayside
Don't let this post slip into the abyss of blogging!

Vehicles

Get Hussy's window fixed
Get Hussy's SRS button fixed
Take Hussy and Sassy in for regular checkups
Get oil changes on a regular basis not every 7,00 miles...whoops
Keep the interior of the cars clean and wash them

Misc

I believe I'm about 15 short of my goal so I'm going to leave this open for goals that I come up with on this journey. After all completing all of these goals will be a big journey.

watch more documentaries
visit the library and take advantage of the free books!
participate in a cake night 1x a month
try to be nicer to people
brush the dogs every other day
pay off credit card debt
start saving for a house!
lose weight and eat healthier
commit to using my food tracker again
plan a trip overseas again!
stick to my weekly budget
take pictures with my holga more
try to look for the good in everyone
get as close to my 101 goals as possible in a little bit over 1 year!

and here we are again....

2011-03-07T07:50:00.000-08:00

Mister Monday and me. The weekend went by way to fast. Jack worked on Saturday and on Sunday we spent driving around LA looking for houses that are in our general price range. We fell in love with one house but the area was not to fall in love with.

I'm going to start looking forward to Friday!

France and Belgium - Part Nine

2011-03-03T07:40:00.000-08:00

Arc De Triomphe- is an amazing structure situated in the middle of a round about in Paris.

It's right off the Champs Elysee and you have to take an underground tunnel to get to the center so you don't die from the chaos of the cars traveling around it!

As a word of advice - Do not go to the Catacombs and the Arc the same day. They both have an insane amount of stairs that you must climb.

Its Europe so they don't have elevators in national monuments like they do here but it doesn't matter even elderly people still climb up and down. It was one of the aspects that I loved about Europe! I would see very elderly people taking the metro, walking around, climbing monuments!

The Arc is so beautiful. I'm not quite sure what is built out of but it is covered with beautiful carved stone such as this arched ceiling.

There are lots of beautiful sculptures around the base of the arc.

I was particularly fond of this man with such a concerned look.

In my mind he's saying something similar to " What! You ran out of Ham and Cheese crepes?!"

If you make it alive to the top the view is astounding. What's even more remarkable is that the top of the arc is maybe 1/3 the height of the view from the Eiffel Tower.

The arc since it sits on a roundabout offers views of Paris from all sides.

Its beautiful to see the symmetry in the roof lines such as all these clay chimney's.

We spent a good amount of time up at the top and enjoying the views of the city. We never made it over to the area that is oddly very new looking.

We took lots of pictures and video's at the top! Even managed to pose with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

101 in 1001 days!

2011-03-02T08:10:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try and do a big recap on 3/8/11 to fill in how well I'm doing on my 101 in 1001 days. By that time it will nearly be 2/3 completed. Its amazing to see how much my goals have changed since 2009. EEK! How some of my goals we completed naturally without thinking much about the main goal.

Well if you missed it around the first time, here is list of goals.

Original 101 in 1001 Days

1/3 of the way there - 101 in 1001 Days

I'll need to do some more highlighting and hopefully fill in the remaining blank goals that I have left. Yipee!

France and Belgium - Part Eight

2011-02-28T07:43:00.000-08:00

The food was to die for in Paris. Though when we left I was really craving vegetables. I ate a lot of ham, cheese, butter and carbs but they were delicious.

My favorite part of Paris was that no matter what time of the day ( except I'm guessing very late at night/early morning) there was always somewhere open to get something to eat. I was particularly fond of getting a dessert crepe on our way home from somewhere usually an apricot and sugar crepe. Yum.

Everything was always portable. Like a waffle!

or some of these delicious looking tarts
I was a huge fan of Mich Sandwiches in the background. We stopped there most mornings to order a ham, cheese and egg crepe for me and usually some type of sandwich for Jack.

See the yummy sandwich below. Everything was always made fresh and only a couple of euros for each sandwich.

Sometimes you needed something sweeter like an espresso and a rasin au pain.

Sometimes you forget what you ordered because you aren't that great at french!

Most lunches we ordered consisted of this - 8 euros a person and you got a sandwich, a bottle of water and a sweet.

These sweets were not included but so delicious. The best figs I've ever tasted and that says a lot coming from California where we have great fresh fruit year round!

I do wish we had gone to a fancy restaurant but I was nervous about not speaking very fluent french and I didn't want to go somewhere touristy that they would speak English. I am impressed with how amazing all the food was. We never had anything we didn't like. I highly recommend bringing a pocket full of euro's or small bills and trying a lot of the street food. It's an amazing experience and integral part of traveling to Paris.

Wedding inspired by Big Fish

2011-02-25T07:47:00.000-08:00

I love the movie Big Fish. I even teared up a little while watching the trailer.

It's one of my top ten movies so naturally when I saw this board for a wedding inspired by Big Fish I was sold!

Via Green Wedding Shoes

I love love love this idea! Wouldn't mind if Ewan McGregor was my suitor either. Rawr.

Back from Seattle

2011-02-22T08:01:00.000-08:00

and I am exhausted. We spent the few days we were there walking everywhere and eating some amazing local food. I am in love with Seattle and will add it to my list of potential places to live!

More pictures and stories later when I'm awake!

One more day!

2011-02-17T08:21:00.001-08:00

Till we fly out to Seattle. I absolutely can't wait! EEP!

on my list :

1. Coffee from THE Starbucks
2. Pike's Place Market
3. Delancey Pizza
4. Shopping!

Happy Belated Valentines Day

2011-02-15T07:21:00.000-08:00

I kind of love Valentines Day but its usually a little anti climatic for me.

Our anniversary is exactly a week later so we always end up celebrating one or the other and it always makes me sad that both are kind of not equally special. Yes, Yes, I know that Valentines Day is a "Hallmark holiday" but I still love it. I love the little cards, candy word hearts and reminding Jack that I love him.

We played it pretty low key, both of had to work but he delivered red roses and a hand drawn card to me at work. It was really sweet and the first time I've ever gotten roses at work. After work we decided to go to a BBQ place for some ribs and beers. It was actually a really fun dinner. I've done the nice expensive dinners and I really enjoyed not being over crowded and getting to talk to my love. I think its when you're comfortable enough in you relationship to go anywhere and its still special that you know you're in a great relationship!

Just a few images off of we heart it.com to celebrate Valentine's Day!

BHLDN is here!

2011-02-14T07:44:00.000-08:00

Finally, I've been literally waiting years for BHLDN. Before Anthropologie even knew I wanted it. I love everything!

I love this lingerie piece

Dreamy dresses

Cute accessories

I need to figure out how I can wear these

Amazingly beautiful shoes

I'm smitten over these options! Check out some other blogs who were able to attend the opening show of the BHLDN -- here and here

San Diego!

2011-02-12T10:35:00.000-08:00

One of my good friends from Chicago is in San Diego!

So we decided last minute to drive down from LA and spend the night and hang out with her. Secretly, I'm really going just for Benecotto! Just kidding Maria we're going to see you but its a super bonus that we get to go to one of our favorite restaurants! Can't wait to be there! We're going to take the corvette on its first road trip ever!

*stole the image off of google but this is exactly the same as our car

Read about our last trip to San Diego here!
P.S. I hope when I say here everyone knows to click the word here because its linked to a past blog!
P.P.S. Sorry if you already knew that

Feather Tattoo's

2011-02-11T08:09:00.000-08:00

I love em. Don't worry Mom. I probably won't get a tattoo, yet...... I first saw this one on we heart it's main page this morning.

Which inspired me to search for some more tattoo pictures.

Soo gorgeous! Read about my tattoo fantasy here and here.

*images via weheartit.com

France and Belgium - Part Seven

2011-02-10T07:35:00.001-08:00

Le Eiffel Tower - is absolutely stunning.

My background is interior design and architecture and while the Eiffel Tower might be one of the most talked about tourist sites I understand why. It is beautiful. The sheer amount of beams and architecture that went into create it is amazing.

I kinda fell in love with the tower. I was told that the top used to be Gustav's personal apartment. How rad is that?

The night we went to the Eiffel Tower it was extremely foggy but I think that it made the tower even more beautiful. The top was hidden in a beautiful layer of fog.

We bought our tickets and rode to the top which takes about 20-30 minutes depending on the line. It was pretty short that evening due to the fog. The bummer part was that you couldn't see out because of the fog. It was also freezing and very windy. We took a few pictures but didn't stay too long. We bought a few souveniors; yes we bought a small Eiffel Tower to take home.

A neat thing to keep you busy when you're waiting inside to ride down is that they have mapped how far every major city is from the Eiffel Tower! We found Los Angeles

This is a picture at the first level of the tower if you're heading up.

Beautiful view of Paris!

Another view of the city

After getting down from the tower we walked over to the little park that is opposite of the tower to get some more pictures from further away. I like to take pictures of Jack taking pictures.
Little did I know that he wasn't looking to swap out lens but he was looking for a ring. I walked over to see what he was doing that was taking so long (hahaha). See this suspicious face. I deffinetly caught him doing something!

In his right hand is the box but I didn't know until he stayed on his knees and asked me to marry him someday. I made it very clear that I didn't want to get engaged at the Eiffel Tower so he was asking me to marry him soon. He gave me a beautiful vintage Tiffany's wedding band that has a tiny diamond in the center.

It was a little big so I wear it on my middle finger right hand. I absolutely love it and wear it everyday.

Needless to say lots of kisses were shared with the Eiffel Tower. Its a beautiful magical place to me.

I will never forget that beautiful night in Paris.

Edward Little Hands

2011-02-09T07:44:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite movies is Edward Scissorhands such an amazing film! Jack found this cute little boy over on we heart it.

He's so fricken cute! Happy Wednesday

France and Belgium - Part Five

2011-02-03T07:55:00.001-08:00

Les Catacombes - are a network of underground tunnels that span a majority of Paris. Only a few hundred feet are actually open to the public. They are situated in a very unpresuming area of the town and you wait for at least an hour to get in! Make sure to arrive with enough time otherwise thirty minutes before closing they cut the line off and you won't be able to get in. Ask me how I know? I waited for over an hour on Halloween and we were about 30 people away from the front when they turned us away. Le sigh. We came back the next day!

Les Catacombes are a bit chilly so bring a long something warm and I would recommend wearing jeans and closed toe shoes. There is water that drips from the ceiling and creates mud puddles which we all know its not dead body juice but I was convinced it might be dead body juice splashing up.

You will have to take a steep incline down and walk for about twenty minutes before you see the actual tombs or bone structures. Notice the black on the ceilings, they painted lines so you could tell where you were going.

Its quite beautiful and they have areas that are organized in a formation. The amazing part is that the bones have been there since the late 1700's and there are many famous people buried there but nothing is marked so you would have no way of knowing who's bones are down there.

There are beautiful carvings down inside Les Catacombes that were created by the people who spent hours down there. Kind of wierd but beautiful!

Another more elaborate carving.

We've finally arrived to the area that houses all the bones.

Just around the corner is hundreds of thousands of just leg, arm and skull bones.

What needs to be remembered when visiting Les Catacombes is that this is a final resting place for many people.

So just as you would be respectful in a cemetery you need to be respectful in Les Catacombes. Apparently, in 2009, people were stealing bones (?!) and graffiting the walls and the exhibit was going to be permanently closed. Thankfully, they did reopen it!

This is one of the many areas to stop and remember your loved ones at. Some areas had benches and beautiful carved plaques.

I also, believe, I remember reading that the tunnels have been used in multiple wars for protection. The entrance we came in was a little un presuming entrance next to a church. Inside the tunnel they have marked areas that have been expanded with dated plaques like this one.

There is also a natural bell that was caused. Usually in a mine when a bell shape like this is caused it means that the cave will cave in but luckily they were able to concrete in the bell an keep the tunnel open and safe.

Last but not least, a video from inside Les Catacombes. Jack thought it'd be really funny to whisper Les Morte in my ear while I was recording. Needless to say, I was a little spooked out with all the bones and DID not find it very funny. Boys are such jerks sometimes!

Up tommorow, Arc De Triomphe!

France and Belgium - Part Six

2011-02-03T07:53:00.000-08:00

Reims - is situated a little bit over an hour southeast of Paris by train. It is the champagne region of France. Only in the Champagne region are you able to get true champagne otherwise it is legally just sparkling wine.

So we took a day train out to Reims and wandered around the city.

The champagne houses are pretty far spread out so you'd either need a car or be able to walk a lot. Also, one important detail to note. Champagne tasting is by appointment only. You MUST make an appointment otherwise you'll be SOL. We didn't make an appointment and the only place who had an extra opening was G.H. Mumm. It also could have been because we were in an off season (Late October/Early November). Apparently, G.H. Mumm would also be switching to their winter hours shortly and be only open a few days a week. So just call ahead or make reservations online. All the advice I heard was Vueve Cliquot was very touristy.

The train was quite nice and we occupied our time by taking lots of pictures of ourselves.

G.H. Mumm is one of the older champagne houses in Reims and its very beautiful inside and out.

These are the barrels they used to hold the liquid from the grapes before they switched to the metal barrels.

This was how each city that provided a certain grape was separated. That way when making different champagnes they would use the correct grape.

I loved the cellars and their musty smell. It was quite cool naturally in the cellars and had a beautiful mold pattern that grew on the walls. On the right of the image is the special champagne bottles that need to be turned by hand every day. I can't remember how many it was but it was A LOT. Like 15,000 bottles a day.

This diagram explains how they turn the bottles.

Another view of the cellars

This is the Grand Master's Private Cellar. It houses a limited collection of a couple bottles of champagne from each time they have created a new blend. I think the oldest bottle was from 1877. The grand master is the only person who has a key. Now I was thinking how does the champagne preserve for all these years? Its not red wine! Champagne can be kept in its bottle if it has not reached the 3rd fermenation process. In the third process they add sugar and do the final capping which creates the bubbles in the champagne. So all of the bottles in the Grand Master's Cellar would need to go thru the 3rd fermentation process before he could taste them.

After the one hour tour of the cellars, we went upstairs and had a champagne tasting. We did the highest level which was three glasses of champagne

and we paid for an additional tasting of a special champagne that the name escapes me. It was delicious.

After the champagne tasting we had a bit of time to kill before the train came so we walked to a little bakery and ordered our first Croque Monsieur!. It was delicious.

This was a structure leftover from the 1300's. Amazing to see it still standing.

The town of Reims is small and quaint but charming especially with all of the champagne cellars!

France and Belgium - Part Four Continued

2011-02-02T07:44:00.000-08:00

Back to beautiful Versailles Palace - More areas that the famous "LP" is being signified. I'm sure that it was a lot more places than I realized. A lot of it was unintentional in my photographs that I noticed later too!

I fell in love with the black and white stone checkerboard floors. They were so worn and beautiful.

I also was fascinated with this staircase area. It reminded me a lot of an M.C. Escher photo.

In the courtyard were beautiful gilded areas like this. Needless to say Louis XIV gilded the lilly; quite a bit....

Beautiful sculptures mixed with gold accents

Honestly, if you are on a tight budget. I would just go and walk around the grounds of Versailles. I'm pretty sure its free to wander the gardens and the outside. I'ts so beautiful.

Quintessential Parisian to me -- the roof that is faded and the heavily decorated windows.

I loved these busts that were all over the palace. Imagine how amazing it would be to see your great great grandfathers face somewhere in Versailles.

The outside of Versaille was was more impressive to me. I wish we had dressed warmer. The entire time we were in Paris we only needed a jacket when we went out one evening. Otherwise, it was beautiful weather for just a sweater and jeans. We wore the same to Versailles, during the day, which must have been 10-20 degrees colder. We were freezing and couldn't enjoy the outside grounds as much as we would have otherwise.

One of the wings of Versailles. This is what faces the beautiful gardens.

It was so cold I wrapped my scarf around my head to try and keep warmer!

We traded photo's with a group of young Japanese women. I love this picture of us even though my hair is in my face.

As we were leaving we said our goodbyes to the beautiful Versailles Palace.

I love this fountain so much!

Next up, Les Catacombes of Paris

France and Belgium - Part Four

2011-02-01T07:50:00.000-08:00

Versailles - While I wasn't a huge fan of Versailles its one of the places that when visiting France and if you have the time you should go. The disappointment came to me that it was not very well decorated. They have basically stripped all of the furniture out of the palace except for his master sleeping chambers and Marie Antoinette's room. Otherwise, most of the rooms are filled with paintings. So you spend hours looking at paintings which might have been more interesting if I hadn't spent the day before at the Louvre....C'est La Vie.

Versaille is just a short hour ride out of the city which you can take by train. Its about a mile away from the train station and pretty much everyone walks from the train to the palace.

You're greeted with a copper statue of Louis XIV

and a giant gold fence

The museum pass also got us into Versailles for free ( or rather included in the original cost). I believe it was about 35euros entrance fee.

I love this face.

The multiple wings of Versailles. I'm pretty sure we covered them all!

There were lots of statues flanking the hallways

and of course the hall of mirrors was gorgeous!

The amount of gold and crystal in the hall of mirrors was stunning. I'm really glad that it wasn't closed for renovations when we went. The hall made the trip!

Close up of one of the crystal chandeliers

Prime opportunity to take a pic of us!

Lots of beautiful artwork

I was a huge fan of the ceilings and all of the ornate detailing like LP everywhere! ( refer to the ovals in the 4 corners they all say LP)

Even beautiful stone carved ceilings

Its amazing the sheer amount of gold paint that must have been needed to cover the entire palace.

Beautiful long hallways of gigantic paintings!

More tomorrow on Versailles! It is a huge palace that can't be covered in just one day!

A bit side railed

2011-01-31T08:04:00.000-08:00

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...I woke up really late today and do not have time to put together a post for my brussels france trip. So I'm going to leave you with a teaser from Versailles. I hopefully will be back tommorow with some more photo's and an explanation of the trip!

Thinking about moving this blog....

2011-01-29T15:59:00.000-08:00

to another user name! Will ya'll follow? Speak up now otherwise I think we will be moving this dog and pony show!

Anthropologie Wedding Line

2011-01-27T15:25:00.000-08:00

Incase you hadn't already heard Anthropologie is rolling out a wedding line starting February 14th. The teaser site is up. :gush: I'm in heaven. Now I can officially get married!

BHLDN

By the way, super curious what the name stands for......Any ideas?

P.S. I kind of am that crazy that I would hold off my wedding till Anthropologie Wedding dresses came out. I really am curious for the price point too...

Super busy! Be back tomorrow!

2011-01-26T15:15:00.000-08:00

France and Belgium - Part Three Continued

2011-01-25T07:41:00.000-08:00

Apologies for not blogging yesterday, I was laid up most of the weekend and took off from work yesterday to sleep and rest. I feel about 65% today. We will see how work goes.

More pictures from inside Le Louvre! There was a section considered "Island Art." I was able to see my first Easter Island Head there. It wasn't exactly giant, maybe about 8' tall but it was cool to see!

I really fancied this guy. I believe he was from Hawaii. I loved how googly he looked.

Some other cool tribal statues.

Lots more classical statues! I loved the architecture inside it is very beautiful.

They had lots of heads from statues.

The main area of Le Louvre is beautiful. The giant cylinder on the right that is inside of the staircase is actually an elevator.

A view from the second floor of the Louvre looking out of the pyramid.

From the main entrance there is a little park and a main street for cars to drive through. I loved that you could see the Eiffel Tower from the park.

A view of the Louvre from the park. So beautiful at night when lit up!

France and Belgium - Part Three

2011-01-21T07:44:00.000-08:00

Le Louvre - We went twice, the first time was in the evening and we were so tired we could barely keep our eyes open. So we ventured out again and came back in the day when we had much more energy. It was nice to not have to pay twice! The museum pass was accepted here so we didn't feel rushed and like we had to get everything in this one visit! Plus, where we stayed we were only a short walk to the Louvre so it was really nice.Personally, while the Louvre is impressive I really enjoy the British Museum in London. It was still fun to go see different exhibits here though. The Louvre is massive and has a nice sized shopping center attached to it. We probably spent three to four hours there on our second trip. I did love the architecture of the Louvre though.

One of the wings.

The latest architectural edition. It's very beautiful at night during the day well its very structural looking.

Addicted to bejeweled. I was playing it while he was snapping lots of pictures.

Another view of a wing. This architecture is all over the place in Paris. It makes for such a beautiful skyline.

Now inside of the museum there were many beautiful sculptures and paintings.

One of the main reasons for visiting this museum was to see the "Winged Victory."

The statue is very beautiful and the amount of people who crowd around her is amazing.

Luckily its not the same amount that surround the Mona Lisa.

This to me was the biggest disappointment. The painting is surrounded by guards and you can maybe stand as close as twenty feet away. Everyone is pushing and snapping photographs and its not a very pleasant experience but we had to see her. What's amazing is there is a giant, and I mean an enormous painting directly opposite of the Mona Lisa.

Hardly anyone pays any attention to it. What a way to be upstaged.

I'll have to continue tomorrow with more of the sculptures. We took LOTS of pictures in the Louvre.
Happy Friday!

Paris and Belgium - Part One Continued

2011-01-19T08:04:00.000-08:00

Wandering the Pont Du Neuf - We stayed in a cute little apartment on the left side of the Pont Du Neuf in the fifth arrondisment. The apartment was tiny and the shower couldn't be turned on full strenght or the tub would overfill but it was charming and it was in Paris! So after we freshened up a little from the hours of travelling we decided to take a quick walk through our little neighborhood and see what we could find! We walked across the Pont and in the middle of it is the island that holds Notre Dame. Its truly beautiful. I could spend the rest of my life there, no like seriously I could and would.

On the pont there are several street vendors selling hot roasted chestnuts for 3-5 euro's. They come folded up in a newspaper cone and are sweet and nutty and sooo good. This was my first food since landing in Paris.Enjoying hot chestnuts and the river!

Woof. He's so cute sometimes!

We wandered around some more and had dinner at a little small cafe. We both kind of fell asleep at the table, literally. The owner was a little offended and she kept on asking if the food was alright and finally I explained that we had flown in from Los Angeles that day and she immediately understood. We made the trek back to out little apartment and crossed over the Pont once more for that day. It is beautiful at night!

Up tomorrow, Notre Dame!

Paris and Belgium - Part Two

2011-01-19T07:25:00.000-08:00

Notre Dame - Notre Dame was only a short ten minute walk from our beautiful little apartment while staying in Paris. The first day and having not really planned out anything we decided we were going to go to Notre Dame. The really awesome part of Europe is that they sell museum passes. You choose your denomination and you can buy anything from two-six day passes. We choose the six day pass and probably should have planned better and choose the four day pass but oh well! So basically Notre Dame is free but the tower costs extra and you can use the museum pass to go to the Tower. Which we didn't; the line was excruciatingly long that day so we decided we'd come back and we never did. Regret #1.

The Notre Dame is so beautiful.

The inside of Notre Dame is just as beautiful!

Forgive me but some of the photo's are blurry. We didn't bring a tripod and flash is prohibited. I love this beautiful enormous rose window. Its amazing!

Beautiful memorial candles that are all throughout the church.

A famous sculpture of the headless saint, Saint Denis, that is depicted on the left side of the main entrance of Notre Dame.

One of my favorite pictures from the trip of us!

Notre Dame is simply stunning from all sides. I loved the park behind Notre Dame. It was beautiful! We spent a long time here talking and planning our trip.

Its even more stunning at night! Since Notre Dame is on an island we walked down to the lower areas of the island and there is a walk way that runs the entire span of the river.

After spending some time in the park we walked around to find some really great Parisian food treats.

Like a hot waffle with powdered sugar

or

eating this amazing fresh fig tartlette. It was amazing and so fresh tasting. The food tasted better in Paris in my opinion!

More tomorrow! This is only the second day of our eleven day trip.

France and Belgium - Part One

2011-01-18T07:55:00.000-08:00

I've been putting off putting up pictures of my trip because of this blogger. She's one of my daily readers and about the same time that I went on my trip she took a hiking trip to Mt. Everest Base Camp. Upon returning she did a daily recap of her days hiking. I suddenly got very envious of her graphic designed blog recap of her trip. This morning it hit me, I'm not a graphic designer. Why am I holding back sharing my trip? Don't get me wrong! Her trip recap was fantastic but it was done in a style that is her own. So why should I try to come up with something like hers. Anyways, I'm not going to but if you have a few free moments please check out her trip here.

Leaving LA - We took a red eye out on Wednesday 27th. Let me tell you that packing for two weeks in a place you've never been is really hard. All the advice I was told is bring everything! Paris is really unpredictable and it can be gorgeous and sunny and cold rainy all within the same day! So we brought coats, lots of sweaters, jeans, a few different pairs of shoes and lots of jewelry. In the rush of getting to the airport and getting everything there we forgot to eat so we ponied up to some awful Mexican restaurant in the international terminal and had nacho's, margaritas and coronas. What a way to leave LA!

Nothing like a good old fashioned margarita before leaving!

or some trashy awful airport nachos!

We boarded Air France on time and to my surprise they had shifted our tickets and we were in the last row and in a four seat side vs the two seat side I had booked over seven months ago. I was pissed and in the future will NEVER book my tickets through travelocity. I'm convinced we got bumped because of that. AirFrance/Delta has classes A-U and U is the last class ( probably meaning you can get bumped at any time or for any reason). We were in U class which is also the last to board. Ugh.It wouldn't have been so bad but we bought our tickets in February to make sure we had good seats and good connections. Anyways, the trip was about 8 hours until we landed in Paris at Charles De Gaulle Airport. I remember being a little bit panicked when we arrived and all the signs were in French. Even the arrows faced different directions. It hit me. We were here and needed to make the best of it! I kinda of kicked myself for not brushing up more on my french before leaving.

I read a bunch of articles on how to get to/from the airport which is situated about 30 minutes outside of Paris. Some people claimed the metro was easy some claimed the taxi's were better. We felt unsure about if we had enough money so we opted for the train.

Proud ticket holder here! We've made it finally!

From the airport to Paris Central is about 15 euro's a person. We had to get off at Gare De L'est and change trains to take us into Paris. It probably took us an hour and half to actually get to the right stop but we finally made it to Paris!!

L.A. can be lonely.

2011-01-17T07:48:00.000-08:00

This New Years marked the fifth anniversary of moving to LA. It's been a hard five years between LA and I. We've had our good time and our bad times. I pretty much hated everything about LA for the first 2 years. Suddenly when presented a choice of do we want to leave or stay? I choose to stay. We moved to a better house, we got our two puppies, I started working, I made more friends everything just sort of fell into place once I stopped fighting it.

The downside of LA is that in living here I've made lots of friends and four of my good friends have moved away. Two of them went to San Francisco, one to London and now my fourth friend is moving to Nashville. I guess its what's to be expected when most of the people living in LA aren't natives. So they have no real reason to stay or return.

via-wehearit.com

It's hard to have your best friends at opposite ends of the coast or the world or even the opposite end of your VERY long state but the good thing about LA is if you're looking there are always new people to meet and bond a friendship with. I've personally never had so many friends until living here. So to my friends living far and near I love you all and thank you for being in my life.

Friday!

2011-01-14T07:58:00.001-08:00

Excited for the long weekend, hoping the boyfriend doesn't have to work; again. Work can be very stressful and I've found that I need to have a way to release some of the stress. Yesterday, was a pretty chaotic day from 11 a.m. till 6 p.m. and eating lunch while working through the chaotic day didn't help. So I managed to leave early enough and show up late to a ballet class. For me, ballet is complete body and mind focus. 45 minutes later I left feeling refreshed, recharged and relaxed. It was definitely much needed. Just found some gorgeous ballet photo's on weheartit.com

Simply gorgeous.

Is that a Chanel carpeting?

By the way, if you haven't checked out Black Swan yet, do it!

Travel Bug

2011-01-13T07:52:00.001-08:00

I've got it again! I can't help it but maybe I can. I guess I don't need to make my homepage Budget Travel where they put these amazing photo's from all over the world as the first thing I see when I get up every morning.

I think this is in China. Not 100% positive.

Some beautiful place in Madrid.

I'd love to go to Russia!
*all images from budget travel

Not sure if 2011 holds a lot of international travel for us. We want to focus on saving and paying off unnecessary debt and while we did save and budget for our trip last year it left our savings account a little barren. I think this year we might plan a trip back home to Wisconsin and road trip it back! How much fun would that be? We've got several stops in the U.S. that we could do and it'd be nice to spend a few days just together driving. I also need to put together some posts about our trip to France and Belgium. It was amazing and even last night I was desperately missing France. Big city America isn't the same as big city Europe. oh well, C'est La Vie.

Christmas 2010 -- all wrapped up

2011-01-12T07:38:00.000-08:00

A bit delayed but some photo's from our Christmas. First we had a party the weekend before Christmas at our house. We invited about 40 people and about 20 showed. Our little house was packed nice and tight but it was fun to have all of our friends over. They made fun of my insane little elf collection. I wore a really cute sparkly top that I snagged at F21 and wore some fake lashes.

A picture of our Christmas tree before we ripped open all of our gifts.

I guess I'm pretty lucky. Opening presents is about my second most favorite thing in the world and now at Christmas I have 3 separate Christmas sessions. One in our home in California and one in each of our parents home (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day). It makes this present happy girl very happy!
A somewhat blurry picture of what we got each other.

From Left - Grey Michael Kors Purse, Talk Dirty French Phrase book, Mini Diana, Kitson grey collared sweatshirt, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's vinyl, 2 screen printed t-shirts from Mr. Fuzzy Ink, a Burberry scarf, A grey cap, a passport holder and a "This is Paris" book.

We flew out on a red eye to Wisconsin and it was pretty darn cold but it didn't snow to much for us the entire time we were there. Major bummer. If you're gonna freeze it might as well be beautiful out!

We had a nice dinner at grandma's house.

and drank Tom and Jerry's

and played with Max. Max is our puppies uncle.

Afterward, we ripped into a giant stack of presents!

P.S. the tv wasn't a gift. Its the same one I had in my bedroom growing up and it has a clicky turndial for a remote.

Afterwards, we went back to my mom's house and proceeded to take some pictures. Here's one I absolutely love of us. I made him laugh really hard and we happened to catch it on camera.

The next moring was Christmas and we headed to his parents for some popovers. Its a tradition in my family and his and we've decided it makes the best breakfast on Christmas day. So for about the past 6 years that is what we've done and I love it!

The time change is really killing me! I'm proudly holding this years' batch of popovers. You eat them with honey and butter or preserves. I'm also wearing my new gray sweatshirt I got from his Mom from Anthro. Its too die for french terry and sooo comfy!

Later on in the week before we left we met up with my grandma again and took a few pictures outside.

I was naughty and stole his burberry scarf to keep me warm!
We stopped by a farm by my grandma's and took pictures of their sheep and the barn.

We had sushi with my brother and sister in law. Definitely, something I'd miss leaving southern California is the cheap sushi. While it was good it was expensive!

We shared a love boat of sushi.

After dinner, even though it was maybe 20 degrees we went and had frozen custard. We're crazy in Wisconsin! It's never too cold for frozen custard.

We also went with friends to see Black Swan. Which is too die for in my opinion. I don't think I breathed the entire time. The dancing was amazing and beautiful. Big props to Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman for doing their own dancing!

We had somewhat of a nightmare flight back to Los Angeles but was happy to be home before New Years and have some ramen from Asian Ya! All in all it was a great Christmas!

Gush.

2011-01-11T07:41:00.000-08:00

How to die for is this wedding engagment video. Absolutely love it.

Lex & Loren - Engagement/Save the date! from Loren Brinton Films on Vimeo.

Dinner with Friends

2011-01-10T08:02:00.000-08:00

Last night, we dressed up and drove to downtown LA to go to Cirque Bezerk, a twisted circus. A pretty long winded story but basically I had a coupon for 50% off 4 tickets and when we got to the box office they refused to take it. The box office was owned by Club Nokia and opperated by Ticketmaster. I thought it was BS and I requested to speak to a manager from the show and we got frustrated and decided to go to dinner instead (which was what we were going to do after getting tickets anyways!).

So we walked for about 10 minutes to this little wine bar, CorkBar.

view of the bar

The girls got a bottle of wine and the boys got a bottle and we shared a three cheese's and three charcuterie's plate. As well as these little cheese puffs that were something like "cheddar gogugeres". I referred to them as cheddar boogers. Not because they tasted like booger but because I couldn't pronounce the fancy french gogugeres.

cheddar boogers

Then we all had our own main entree. I did a rootbeer braised beef short ribs over polenta, Jack had pan seared scallops over bacon spinach and turnip puree, and the other couple had hangar steak over risotto.

We didn't have the top picture which I believe is the pork tenderloin. Left is the scallops and right is the hangar steak.

Then to complete it off we had a chocolate board with about six small truffles and a brioche cupcake with caramel and bacon.

cinnamon brioche cupcake with bacon and caramel

It was pure gluttony but man was the food amazing. It's also really nice when you like to go to nice restaurants and you find another couple who's compatible and get down with that. Also, downtown LA is turning around and becoming quite the night spot with lots of fun restaurants and bars. Wish we had a metro that we could take its a little too far for a cab and driving after drinking is never a real good idea.

*all of the pictures are from a random google search of corkbar

soooo busy!

2011-01-06T08:19:00.000-08:00

oy vay

Mini Diana

2011-01-04T08:05:00.001-08:00

For Christmas this year, I got lots of great gifts and one of them was a mini diana!

Its a mini film camera that shoots either rectangular photos or square and can read more details about it here. I'm super excited and already processed a couple of film rolls ( still need to scan those into the computer). The big draw of the diana is that you can get multi exposed pictures

which leads to some funny pictures and even really dramatic cool photographs. I'm looking forward to shooting more film for 2011 but its so expensive to develop and I think takes about a week to get back ( no 1hr photo's anymore near me!) Maybe, I should take a bunch of rolls and wait until the end of the year to develop them?

Reality Check

2011-01-03T07:30:00.001-08:00

I love my job but I also love not working. I miss my carefree unemployed days but missed having a paycheck and stability back then too! Plus job hunting and interviewing isn't all that fun to do for an extended period of time - like when you don't get the job it all of the sudden takes you back to 6th grade! Am I not cool enough? Is my hair stupid? Even if there are 300+ other people trying to interview for the same job (not a joke).

After being on vacation for 12 days over the holiday I'm a little hesitant to go back to work. The millions of emails to catch up on, the lists for stuff at home to do but we didn't but hey, its 2011 and time for a fresh start. I really love the New Year and having a New beginning. A lot changed for me in 2010 and I look forward to what 2011 brings.

via weheartit.com

Happy Monday!

P.S. Read what was happening a year ago here

New Blog Face in 2011

2011-01-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! In honor of the New Year and quite frankly, something I've been itching to do for a while. I am going to revamp this old blog. In May, the blog will turn 4 years old and quite frankly I was very different person at that time and now I need something new and fresh to start out 2011 with.

I had one of the best New Years ever to date as a couple! We've been together for 8 New Years and most have been bummers - (I've been sick a bunch of times, we weren't old enough to drink, last year we had a small gathering at home). Nothing to fancy but this year we decided to do something special. We've been dying to try Valentino's in Santa Monica. We both did a chef's tasting with wine pairings. We did a super late dinner and almost missed the New Years but we managed to fly out the door by 11:45 p.m. to get home and watch the ball drop and share a kiss and hug (for the fur babies) for 2011. It was by far one of the best New Years Eve's I've ever had!

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T19:16:00.000-08:00

I hope wherever you are in the world that you are sharing a toast with the people you love.
Happy New Year and Hello 2011.
Cheers-
Raechel

Parlours - I Dream of Chicago

2010-12-01T07:56:00.000-08:00

While doing some facebooking I found this band on a friends page and decided I'm now in love with this band. I love the ethereal dreamy look of the video and the song is really beautiful too!

Parlours
I hope you love them as much as I do because I have a feeling I will be humming this song all day.

Ornament Swap 2010 - Assigned

2010-11-29T19:05:00.000-08:00

Hi All-

You should all have your ornament swap info by now! If you don't please let me know and I will get you signed up with someone right away. I apologize again for it being so delayed but I was laid up all weekend recouping from the evil cold/flu that is going around my work! So I'll leave you with this pretty Louis Vuitton for Portugese Elle photo

Via we heart it

Last Chance for the Ornament Swap!!

2010-11-24T16:19:00.000-08:00

Please make sure to email me your info for the ornament swap if you'd like to join! Today is our cut off!!

Deets are here but otherwise just send me the following at jackandtill@gmail.com

Your Name
Your Address
Your holiday scheme if you choose otherwise I'll let your swapee to choose something special!!

Cheers-

Raechel

Roasted Pepper Macaroni

2010-11-23T08:02:00.000-08:00

Ever since I started working again I have felt really adverse to cooking. I always think about making wonderful yummy recipes but when it comes down to it I'm too tired and lack much extra time. This weekend, we spent all day home on Saturday and I got a cooking bug. We had the cinnamon apple cornmeal waffles from here for breakfast and for a late lunch we had roasted pepper macaroni and seafood sausages. Man oh man do I love macaroni and cheese but its really unhealthy for you! I wish I could take credit for this recipe but a friend made it for me and I've been hooked ever since! I don't have a specific recipe but I follow a loose guidelines of this:

Roasted Pepper Macaroni

2 peppers ( yellow, red, orange) cut into slices
3-4 cloves of big garlic cut in half or quarters
Olive Oil
Walnuts/Pecans (1/4-1/2 cup)
Parmesan Cheese (1/4 cup)
2-3 cups of Farfalle / Rotini

On a baking sheet covered in foil place the peppers and garlic cloves and drizzle with olive oil.
Peppers waiting to be roasted!
Roast at 350 for 10-20 minutes. This part is tricky as I'm not a fan of the roasted aka burnt peppers so I roast mine until they are soft and light brown but you can go the whole way and dark roast them. Take out of the oven and let cool a bit, otherwise I seem to have problems with my chopper not sealing but if you don't go ahead and go to the next step. I reserve the oil from the baking and put into my chopper in the next step but you can throw it away but why!? its Roasted pepper and garlic olive oil yum.

Place the peppers and garlic in a blender, chopper, etc... with a handful of nuts (from whichever you have chosen), drizzle a bit more olive oil and Parmesan cheese.

Blended pepper concotion
Blend until smooth ( usually a few minutes) and voila you have roasted pepper sauce. While the peppers are roasting I will start the pasta and they usually end up being done at the same time. I combine the sauce with the pasta. I had enough for 2-3 cups of pasta and than I saved about 1 cup of sauce for pizza/dipping.

L-R and starting at noon - roasted pepper mac, steamed snap peas with salt, pan fried seafood sausages from Trader Joes ( shrimp, crab, red peppers, cilantro yumminess!!)

Also, don't forget to get your names and addresses if you're interested in doing the ornament swap! Deets here

Cinnamon Apple Cornmeal Waffles

2010-11-20T14:05:00.000-08:00

This morning we made breakfast at home. Sometimes we go out but we're trying to continue to save and work towards a healthier spending vs saving ratio. We went out last night for sushi so breakfast in it was. While laying in bed and discussing what to make I suddenly got a craving for cinnamon apple waffles. One of my favorite quick tricks is to use a box of Jiffy Corn bread mix for waffles. It gives you a crispy but slightly salty sweet dough. Its the only way I really like waffles now. First, I chopped up two small apples. I chopped 1/2 of one of the apples into small pieces and mixed those in with the batter.

The rest I put in a small saute pan with some butter and olive oil ( for some reason this is a good combo for sauteing/browning fruit) along with some cinnamon and brown sugar.
They smell fantastic while cooking and tasted equally as good! The only advice I'd offer is that the apples make the batter a little bit wetter. To remedy this you could cut back on the liquid a bit or leave the apples out of the batter. We cooked a few eggs to go with the waffles. I like sunny side up with the runny yokes and surprisingly a little bit of yoke with the waffles was really good combination.
We put on a Regina Spektor and Ray LaMontagne record while eating breakfast and sipped on giant mugs of hot coffee.

Today, I wish....

2010-11-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

I was at a street cafe in Paris having an espresso and a pain au raisin. Even the fast food restaurants have excellent pastries.

Incase you haven't already! Please sign up for the Ornament swap 2010!! Read about the details here or you can email me if you have questions at jackandtill@gmail.com.

Ornament Swap 2010

2010-11-11T12:16:00.000-08:00

I was going through my emails and I found one from Anthroplogie and they were taunting me with all of the fun ornaments for the upcoming holidays and I thought " hey why don't I host an ornament swap?"

So I'm hoping to get this going! The cut off for sign up will be Wednesday, November 24th at midnight. We will randomly assign people and lets send out the ornaments by December 3rd to allow for ample shipping time. The price limit is $15 but the ornament can be handmade/crafted.

Please email me jackandtill@gmail.com with the following:

Your Name
Your Address
If you have a specific theme going - (ie..my tree is gold, bronze, and glittery) or if you want someone to pick something on a whim!

Only 43 more days to go till Santa Claus brings us lots of goodies!

We're back!

2010-11-09T12:10:00.000-08:00

After traveling for almost 24 hrs! (15 hours of flight plus layovers and time changes!) We are finally back in Sunny LA. The trip was simply amazing. I fell deeply in love with Paris. Je T'aime Paris!!

We had such a great time and once I go through all my photo's I will blog some more but here's a few for now!

Jack and I in front of Notre Dame. It's breathtaking once you realize thousands of people have walked thru this amazing church. Its very beautiful inside. The amazing rose windows, the flying butresses that hold up the large stone ceiling. Simply breathtaking.Eating a crepe on the last day we were in Paris. I loved ordering Un Jambon et fromage crepe. I had this maybe 5 out of the 8 days we were in Paris. Otherwise, I'd order Un crepe avec abricots. Paris has amazingly delicious food and pretty inexpensive ( 3.50euro) for a meat/cheese crepe.

Well lots of unpacking and sorting to do now!

Au Revoir-

Raechel

Could it be?

2010-10-26T14:45:00.000-07:00

That is already been a month since I last blogged ( almost) and will probably be another month?! We leave tomorrow for our trip to Europe. Despite the riots, the protests and the ever increasing euro rate it will be amazing, I hope.

You can read more about our planning here! I promise once we're back and sifted through the photography there will be many blogs and postings about our trip!

Cheers-

Raechel

I wish I wasn't working today

2010-09-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

I would go to movie theaters

and eat candy

and watch a girly movie like "going the distance"

Fall Snuggly Clothes

2010-09-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

Even though the temp yesterday hit 101 degrees ( by the Ocean!!) I'm still dreaming of cool crisp weather. This weekend I did a short stop at Anthropologie and found a few sweaters in the clearance section that I absolutely "needed". I am considering just wearing layers in Europe. I think a shirt and maybe a warm wool sweater and a scarf might be warm enough during the day that I won't need to lug around a jacket. I hate jackets. Growing up in Wisconsin you'd think that I understand the necessities of having a jacket but I don't. I really really hate them even if they're super cute.

This cute little orange top to put under the sweaters. It reminds me of pumpkin pie!
This oatmeal wool sweater with the asymetrical details on the front.
This wrap wool sweater. I actually bought a dark green version and I might switch out the belt with a big thick other color belt.

Come on fall!! I'm ready for you!

XoXo
Raechel

30 Days Exactly.

2010-09-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

Till we leave. I'm dreaming of Eiffel Towers, Crossiants, Chanel and Cafes.
via weheartit.com

P.S. If you have any suggestions of things to do ( besides the obvious - tower, louvre, etc..) Please feel free to leave me a comment!

xoxo
Raechel

The Dog Days of Fall?

2010-09-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

Holy bejebus. I came here the other day to write a long post about how wonderfully cool and crisp and fallish it has been here in socal and bam. Its 90 degrees with no breeze what so ever. Its the summer days everyone has been hoping for all summer but instead get them in September. Personally, I think its gross. I tried to combat it by trying on wool sweaters at Anthropologie today. In my mind its sweater, jeans and boot weather.

A few pics from the weekend
I love this one of us.
Thought this one was hilarious. I was just about to sneeze when he snapped the pic
Myspace style photo
Pure nerd.

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend.

xoxo

Snuggly Sunday Nights

2010-09-12T20:02:00.001-07:00

via weheartit.com

The air has gotten cooler and crisper here in Southern California. I'm hoping its for keeps but one can never be sure! It is only the end of September and occasionally we have scorching hot falls. Today, we slow cooked a big old chunk of beef with potatos, carrots, turnips, rutabaga, onion, celery and garlic. Poured on a black currant and cabaret marinade and thoroughly enjoyed it tonight. I enjoyed it so much I forgot to take a picture before I ate it. Oops.

I hope everyone is enjoying a snuggly sunday like we are!

Cheers-

Raechel

Hi There

2010-08-30T07:56:00.000-07:00

Apparently August slipped away with me barely even popping in to say hi! I spent my August working long hour with few days off in between so I apologize for not stopping in more often.

The bright side of working lots is that we were able to completely save to the high end of our savings goal for our Fall Trip. Yippeeee!! You might remember these posts . We leave in less than 2 months for our trip and I'm extremely excited.

I can't believe its less than 2 months till we will be there! Are you looking forward to any big trips in the near future?

Cheers-

Raechel

Puppy Whistle

2010-08-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

I long for these days when my pups were this big!

So precious little warm fuzzballs that just wine and wag their tails.

These are circa 2007. I'm not sure which pup out of the litter this is but man oh man I am smitten when it comes to little puppies. If I am this crazy over puppies I can't image how I will feel when I have a baby.

Shut your mouth and Hold the Phone

2010-08-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

This "Notebook" inspired engagement photo session is too die for. It doesn't hurt that the bride to be and groom to be look similar to Rachel and Ryan. Oh my goodness these are ahhhmazing. I'm a huge fan of the movie and have watched it tons of time. The very first time I saw it was in Ireland and have been smitten ever since! I remeber walking back to our hotel room from the movies and crying its such a heartbreaking beautiful story. This movie is one my favorites of all time. I die for this photo shoot.

via green wedding shoes

See more pics here!

Sunday Traditions

2010-08-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

I keep on finding myself on Sunday nights drinking wine and eating cheese. Its a pretty fantastic Sunday ritual if you ask me! This weekend we tried a new to us tapa's restaurant, Manchego, which is also one of my favorite cheeses. The place was BYOB with no corkcage fee....Get out town! We stopped at the liquor store next door and brought in a bottle of spanish wine and ordered a cured meat and cheese sampler. It was amazing.

Not my picture but this is similar to what ours looked like - dry ham, prosciutto, salami, pepperoni, 3 different hard Spanish cheeses, gazpacho, membrillo paste and spicy olives. Yum Yum. Afterward, we ordered hot teas and drove down to the beach and watched the sunset. It was breathtaking and a much needed ounce of tranquility in what is going to be two very busy weeks for me.

Love my new body wash

2010-08-05T09:12:00.000-07:00

I was bored with my usual body wash and this Dove one looked fresh and smelled good. The scent is grapefruit and lemongrass. Its amazing and smells so good.

I also like supporting Dove and their campaign for real beauty. It's nice to see a company that tries to embrace real women. A link to their website. They've got some fantastic video's on how the beauty/fashion industry changes women.

MUTANT STRAWBERRIES ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD...

2010-08-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

or just my cereal bowl. This weekend strawberries were on sale and Jack pointed out that we got a mutant strawberry in our box. I of course declared that it would be mine ( yeah I've got a case of the youngest child persona). This morning I got the mutant strawberry in my cereal bowl. We figured that it probably would have been at least 3-4 normal strawberries if it hadn't mutated. It was pretty delicious in all its mutated glory.
narm narm narm

Got to see this movie

2010-07-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

about Serge Gainsbourg. Looks amazing.

Speaking of amazing french things. I leave in less than 3 months for my trip to France and Belgium! Eeek!

It's kind of nice

2010-07-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

to wake up a bit early and go for a bike ride. This is my bike and I love it.

Its not very good for going up hills being that it is only 1 speed but its amazing on flat even ground. I've written a few posts about it here. I've been vying to get my hands on some bike accessories from Bobbin Bicycles in the UK but sadly they don't ship to the US. Boo. How rad are some of these accessories they sell? How abouta giant picnic basket booboo? ( imagine that said in a yoggi bear voice)

or these amazing yellow leather fingerless gloves
or this rad herringbone bike helmet/hat.
Such cool accessories. Its almost tempting enough to make a detour on our fall trip to London to pick up some cool gear.