Tag Archives: homelife

weekend

20 Jul

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The summer seems to be flying by at an incredible speed. It’s July 20th already? Le sigh. There are a million things I still want to accomplish this summer- a mix of work projects (I swear, I used to write on a regular basis!), personal goals (I’ve actually been doing pretty good at accomplishing these) & house projects (the list is long my friends. Top of my list is painting the walls grey and hanging art). Not to mention I would really like to make it to the beach a few more times before summer comes to a close. Although, I guess when you live in LA summer never really comes to a firm close, does it?

This weekend I…

Had the night to myself on Friday night. Brian was out for the evening with a few friends drinking beer and playing cards. Initially, I had plans to meet a few girlfriends for dinner but when those plans got pushed until next weekend I opted to stay in. I am a fan of staying in by myself. I’m a fan of doing a lot of things by myself actually. I can be such a loner! It had been a long week and I was feeling void of energy. Nothing sounded better than cozying up on the couch with Frank. So I stopped at the market on the way home from work to pick up the essentials for my party of one…a fresh bouquet of white peonies, sushi, pellegrino, trashy magazines & haagen dazs vanilla frozen yogurt. The makings of a perfect evening in my mind.

Saturday morning I had plans to meet my girlfriend Crystal for a morning hike but some very strange weather rolled into LA this weekend and it derailed that plan. I awoke Saturday morning to rain. It was such a foreign sound this time of year…well, and in general in LA lately that with all the bedroom curtains drawn I couldn’t figure out what it was at first. I was convinced it was Frank’s tiny toenails tapping on the hard wood floor until I got up to investigate and was shocked by the storm outside. The air was thick and muggy. Again, so strange. It ended up being a storm that lasted most of the day and brought with it heavy downpour, thunder and lightning. It was crazy! After abandoning the morning hike, I met some family that was in town from Kansas City (they thought our reaction to the rain was pretty funny. I had to explain that we don’t get weather around these parts often) for lunch at M Street (where I bought the massive bacon chocolate chip cookie pictured below) and then stopped for a manicure and pedicure. When I got home around four the rain was coming down really hard so Brian and I decided it was the perfect excuse to binge watch the last season of “Homeland” which we had yet to see. We literally watched the whole damn season on Saturday afternoon until the early morning hours of Sunday. Breaking only to pick up Greek take-out food for dinner. What a phenomenal season! Fucking intense. Hands down one of the best shows on television in my opinion.

On Sunday I spent the day working on a few projects- I finally redid my media kit (with my brilliant husbands help of course. Thanks, Bri!) I can’t tell you how long this has been on my to do list. An embarrassingly long time. But now it’s done and I can finally start working on putting together our fall road trip from LA to Seattle. We originally planned on taking the road trip this past spring but life got in the way so it had to be pushed to October. Which I actually think will be a pretty epic time to make the drive up the coast. Getting very excited about this trip. We wrapped up the weekend with a movie- we saw “Trainwreck” with my mom and brother. I laughed my ass off for two hours straight. That Amy Schumer is a comic genius. Not to mention she wrote the screenplay as well. I have a new crush.

 

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Friday Frankie

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watching “real housewives of new york” with mom

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the storm rolling in…

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cookie of my dreams

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big yawn

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my favorite sweatpants to lounge the afternoon away in

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done

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white / lavender

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waiting patiently for greek food handouts

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new media kit- check!

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see it!

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saging

8 Jun

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Grateful for my recent jolt of positive new energy, I decided to ensure that it sticks around by cleansing our home (and me, for that matter) of any negative energy. Enter in… saging. As hippy dippy as I can be sometimes… I’ve never saged (also referred to as smudging) before. Gasp! But, the word on the street is, it’s a great way to rid yourself and your space of any lingering negative energy, in turn, making room for new energy and intentions.

Sign me up, universe.

Considering I live in LA, it was easy to find a store that sold sage for smudging. I walked over to Mystic Journey Bookstore on Abbott Kinney in Venice, marched straight past the display of crystals and the shelves of self-help books and over to the basket of sage. I picked through it for a bit, trying to decide which one I wanted. Each one was wrapped in a different color ribbon and varying in size – so many choices. I ended up settling on a medium-sized bundle wrapped in a pink ribbon. It just felt like the right one for the job.

My initial plan was to sage the house by myself while Brian was at work, but then I thought it all the way through and realized that it might be best to have Brian involved in this particular activity. Not only because it happens to be his space as well, but also because I’ve been known to accidentally light things on fire.

So I waited.

I wasn’t quite sure what Brian would think of my plan. Luckily, he was game for some saging and it turned out to be an unexpectedly fun husband/wife activity. The only member of the family who wasn’t into it was Frank. He made it very clear early one that he is not a fan of smoking plants….I don’t think he will be saging his dog bed anytime soon.

Brian and I went from room to room with our smoking sticks of sage, sometimes together but mostly we moved separately. We had a common affirmation/intention for each room though. I found the experience incredibly grounding. Maybe it’s due to the ceremony of it, but I immediately felt lighter when we were done.

If you haven’t tried it, I would most definitely recommend it.

How to sage your space-

* things you need…sage…a bowl to hold the smoking stick over and a cup of water to extinguish it in after.
– open every door and window in your house
– light the stick, and when it catches fire, blow it out and allow the embers to start to smoke (like you would light incense).
– set your intention for each room.
– walk around the room, waving the sage stick so its smoke drifts into corners, along walls, around windows, and along ceiling lines. As you do, imagine the smoke absorbing negativity, problems from those who were in the space before you, toxicity, and anything else you want to go away. See the smoke dissipating and floating out the windows, and imagine that bad energy flowing out of your space, making room for positive, fresh energy.
– extinguish the stick in the cup of water

and viola! Hello, new energy!

 

hitting the road…

5 Jun

 

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Brian and I are hitting the road this morning en route for one of my favorite places…Sedona, AZ. We go to Sedona at least twice a year (Brian’s parents have a house there) but this will be a weekend of firsts for us…we are staying there a little longer than we usually do (a weekend always seems to go by too quick), driving instead of flying (we decided that we were both in need of a little adventure) and going alone (we usually bring a group of friends with us but this time around we wanted a mellow trip). I’m looking forward to doing a whole lotta nothing for five days.

Below is my Friday happy list- making a list of the little things that bring me joy each week helps me stay present.

20 things that have been making me happy recently…

pink peonies

watching Bloodline on Netflix

my new laptop- it’s love

planning out our summer calendar (so many weddings!)

wandering the streets of Venice on my morning walks with Frankie

lunches with Crystal

lazy Sundays at home with my family and a stack of magazines

the little dragon pandora station

haagen dazs vanilla ice cream

sipping coffee in bed with a view of our blooming garden

saging our home (more on that next week)

beach weather, pool weather & bikini weather is on the horizon

we’re going to Sedona for five days!

this quote…

ego says: once everything falls into place, I will find peace

spirit says: find peace and everything will fall into place 

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What’s been making you guys happy recently?