Later Dudes

Two quick things before I head to San Marcos/Austin for a low-key birthday weekend...

1. Saw a little bit of the Scripps National Spelling Bee during my lunch break today. Oh my gosh.. I wish I had known about this show earlier. I would have TiVo'd the whole thing. These kids are ridiculously nervous and dorky. Love it.
How do you explain to a French person that this is not a game show, it's serious?

PLEASE take the time to watch this video. This kid has no tact.



2.On my way back to work saw a car with the licence plate HI IQ. Are you kidding me? Lame.

yummies in the mail

Today I was browsing Etsy's Houston vendors and found busy baker, a cookie store with a large variety of organic goodness. Unfortunately, it's nothing like Tiff's Treats in Austin, which is like ordering pizza. busy baker takes about three days, so it's a great alternative if you don't have time to bake for your Honey or you want to surprise your Pops while your out of town. Shoot, I don't know. I'm sure a three day cookie lead will come in handy sometime.Not.

French Food

This morning I woke up from a serious food coma. I had to skip breakfast because I was still full from the night before.

Jon and Arthur (his friend visiting from France) made the most delicious meal last night, a recipe from Arthur's Father. I enjoyed watching them teach each other cooking vocabulary from their respective languages and while I randomly interjected incorrect Spanish.

They made the entire meal from scratch-- creamy shallot and scallop chowder over a pastry shell, chicken with maple syrup dressing and fried potatoes with creamy chive dressing.For dessert, warm crepes filled with bananas, vanilla ice cream and dark chocolate. Oh yeah, I had five different kinds of stinky cheese before we started eating. Thanks, Whole Foods.

I asked Arthur if he ate like that every night in France and why he wasn't a fat lump. He informed me that he does eat like that often, but the French do not go home after work, take their pants off and watch TV.

Give me a break, It's effin' hot outside in Texas, how can you not come home and take your pants off?

Shangri La Gardens

Yesterday we got up early and went to the Shangri La Gardens in Orange, Texas. Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center is the first project in Texas and the 50th project in the world to earn the U.S. Green Building Council's Platinum Certification for LEED®-NC, which verifies that the design and construction of Shangri La reached the highest green building and performance measures.

Orange is a small town that hasn't seen much growth over the past 25 years, so it was cool to see such a beautiful, new garden with modern Green facilities. All of the buildings were so attractive.

I couldn't possibly post all the pictures I took.. with my cameraphone. I swear, I'm getting a decent camera soon. Anyway, these are just a few of the pictures. All the pictures of orchids and other flowers I took didn't do the plants justice so they're getting left out all together.

Pitcher plant-- holds water and catches bugs.

Everything about the garden is green.. it recycles rainwater, uses wood and brick from Hurricaine Rita, uses solar energy, etc. I asked one nice, old man who worked there what he did if he saw snakes and he said he won't kill them because there's "too many tree-huggers 'round here."

We spent about three hours walking around the 252-acre tract and admiring the plants, birds, flowers and butterflies. Sunshine and Lemon pie!



These bottle trees were cool, something I might try when it's house time.

From wikipedia:

Glass "bottle trees" orginated in Northern Africa during a period when superstitious people believed that a genii or imp could be captured in a glass bottle. Legend had it that empty glass bottles placed outside the home could "capture" roving (usually evil) spirits at night, and the spirit would be destroyed the next day in the sunshine. This practice was taken to Europe and North America by African slaves. While Europeans adapted them into hollow glass spheres known as "witch balls" the practice of hanging bottles in trees became widespread in the Southern states of North America, where they continue to be used today as colorful garden ornaments.

Long Weekend...

I know it's typical fashion to head to water on this hot hot weekend.. so please, cover up. Protect your skin or you'll look/feel like a lizard. Also, safe travels.

I'm headed toward an East Texas lake and will make an appearance at a casino or two over in Louisiana. Wish me luck!

Putting Names with Faces

The dressing room walls at Barney's Co-op in the Houston Galleria are adorably unique. Hand-painted, vintage silhouettes with different captions penciled-in are a fun read while trying on summer pieces that you wish you could afford.

A few examples:
Ryan won't play a single instrument.
Vicki has no dreams.
Dottie married her cousin.
Dorothy is always down.
Charlotte hates her nose.

Pigment-Injected Showers Bring Rainbow Flowers

How awesome, yeah? I found this at a random blog, JustinSpace, which might be my new favorite thing. Justin says the pigment-injected roses were ordered them from a shop in L.A. at $6 a stem.

I'm thinking it wouldn't be too hard to recreate this with a little experimenting, especially if you can nab a needle from a diabetic friend or Amy Winehouse. I love them so much.

Damn, Girl!

Last week I literally saw these Burberry shoes and was like, "ew, stripper! slore!" Now I want them. I would never have anywhere to where them except for the 2-3 times a year I go out dressed-up all fancy schmancy... which means they would cost me about $300 per wear. I suppose I'll wait for some knock-offs.

Fried

We ended up going to Corpus Christi over the weekend. The weather was perfect, the food was great. Here's my fried avacado-- the first meal of the vacation-- which ended up setting the tone for how my skin would feel upon leaving. All I want to do now is wrap my body is aloe-soaked gauze and cry a little bit.

05/21 Edit: After some research, it seems like drinking water is the only thing you can do to ease the pain. Aloe will offer some pain relief and lotions will actually prevent healing. Buh-Bye Vaseline Intensive Care!

Splittin' Sheets

Came across this gem while looking for my own business card inspiration.

Faux Headboard

Saw this at Apartment Therapy today. It might be the solution I'm looking for in respect to a headboard. I thought about making an upholstered headboard, but I know that when I move in a year I'll really want to change things up. And I'm lazy.

Corporate-Cute

Man, Shell's career site has a really cute flash of adoreable workers bouncing around. It's a lot of fun, but who are they trying to attract here? 12-year old Asian girls?

Such a Travel-sty!

Last week I set aside some vacation time for next week. I've been so excited to go on a spontanious vacay. This morning, when the specials were released, I realized how much they SUCKED. I'm effing ready to get some stamps in my passport, yeah?

Did find this cute cover on Etsy from stiksl. This shop has tons of cool graphic passport covers that will make all the patent-leather-passport-cover-carrying fools envious. If I don't go anywhere this weekend, I'll sit at home and make my own.

Okay, that's a little grumpy. There's still a chance we're headed somewhere...it could be to see Radiohead?! ha!

Darkness & Dancing

This weekend was a lot of fun due Jon and Elyse being in town. On Saturday we went to the Houston Dynamo game (they won, hooray!) and then we went out to a swanky club called The Drake. I totally judged the place by the crowd-- lots of over-bleached, over-tanned ladies with their equally bleached/spiked male coutnerparts being all desperate to get inside. But seriously, it was soo much fun, we danced our rumps off.


The interior was very dark and glam with low-lighting chandeliers and tufted furniture everywhere. The club owners took a cue from The Osbourne's personal decorator by keeping it nice and gothic. The Barcelona Chair from Design Within Reach and these curtains from Urban Outfitters will let you channel your own prince/princess darkness.

Happy Birthday Amy!

Want to send lots of love to Ms. Amy Young who is turning 22-years-old today. She just moved to New York City about two seconds ago for a new, fabulous job. I'm so proud of her and miss her dearly and cannot wait to visit.

What we already knew: Berings is Fabulous.

I stopped in Berings today to kill some time during my lunch break and was pleased to find these address numbers. Very retro without the cheese factor. They remind me of the address on the exterior of The San Jose hotel in Austin. Berings is an amazing store in Houston & San Antonio. It has everything you could possibly want to find at a hardware store, plus gourmet cooking utensils(think: Williams-Sanoma), fine china, stationary, etc. These numbers make me want my own house like, right now.

Mother's Cont'd.

Here's the bag that I made for my Mom yesterday. Hopefully it will come in handy this summer. I like it so much better than the one I made in my sewing class. (I told you Amy Butler fabrics were adoreable!-- I'm already ordering more).

We're having our early-Mother's Day-Celebration at Las Rosas.. I don't even remember if the food is good, I'm just excited for some much-needed Mexican food in my life.

Inspi'ad

I found this image (left) of an art installation, saved it yesterday, but for the life me cannot remember where I stole it from or who did it. So, obviously there is some artist out there who deserves some cred for being the inspiration for my Mother's Day card.

My mom is going to Minnesota this Mother's Day and she'll be away from her kiddies for the first time, so we're doing celebrating the holiday tomorrow. Sidestory: I started sewing her a little tote, but I cleverly (ahem..accidently) sewed the handles between the lining and the outside of the bag. So, today I'll start all over, hopefully with better results.

P.S. It's a vase of flowers, not golf clubs!

Caturday

So, Last weekend I went to San Marcos and it was freakin' fabulous. Jon and I planned to meet up with some friends at the river and the weather was gorgeous and the water, amazing. I cannot wait to go back and swim in that water again.

Before we went to the river, Jaime's rescue cat had five kittens! I was so excited because I grew up an animal hater (sorry!) and never got to see fresh kittens/puppies/elephants, etc. I arrived when there were four kittens (born hours before) and shortly after I left the mom had another. Kudos to Jaime and her boyfriend Daniel for running an animal shelter-- they're now housing two dogs and six cats. I'm kinda kinda considering adopting one of the babies myself. It's hard to see the four kittens in this picture, but they're all there. The fifth was in the womb at this point.

Sale at Frock

Frock Boutique is having a huge sale tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. They're located at 2609 Greenbriar (off Westheimer between Kirby & Shepherd). All sale Merchandise is 40-90% off and their regular-priced merchandise is 20% off.

Frock is notorious for its unique clothing that you won't find at any other boutques. Owner Marianne Mayuex scouts Europe for obscure brands that are effortlessly chic.

It's My Bag, Baby

Grooaaann to the Austin Powers reference!

I'll totally admit that I wanted to learn how to sew after watching Project Runway. I began taking sewing classes five weeks ago in Pearland, Texas. Those were the only classes available, so for four weeks I drove 30 miles to take 2 1/2 hour classes. The first two classes were pure instruction- I felt like I was back in school. The second two classes we worked on our project, a tote complete with interfacing and a sturdy bottom insert.

I enjoyed the class and I can't wait to make more totes (with fabric of my own choice this time..) So anyone who has a birthday in the next 4-5 months will more than likely receive a variation of this bag, but definitly with fabulous fabric from Amy Butler. If you haven't seen her fabric, you must. So Cute.