Life Lately: a List

1. Tyler and I have been working on decorating the apartment, buying furniture, making furniture, and working on increasing the overall coziness of the place. Among other things we now have a couch and a Christmas tree!
2. We've made about 7 trips to Ikea.
3. I've spent approximately 432 hours following Tyler around Home Depot complaining about how much my feet hurt or how hungry I am sometimes while simultaneously skipping, spinning in circles and/or singing to Gloria Estefan.  Anyone else notice that HD plays notsomanly 80s music?  It's very similar to what happens when I make Tyler accompany me into Forever21.
4.  UCLA friends Zach and Elizabeth came over for Thanksgiving brunch and we ate breakfast foods, watched Disney movies, and drank mimosas in the middle of the afternoon.  Kinda perfect right?
5. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with our California family and it was such a treat to see Aly & Leo from Berkeley.  Leo is one-and-a-half and he is running!
6. I am beside myself with excitement that our dear friends from Chicago, Pei and Greg, are going to be spending New Years with us.  One more month until they're here!!!
7. Our landlady rang our doorbell and Tyler opened the door.  She said Merry Christmas and handed him a bag of fried chicken (true story).
8. Speaking of surprises, my amazingly sneaky parents surprised me with a new sewing machine!  I had been using my mom's circa 1980 Kenmore which looked alot like this.  It was solid metal, super heavy, and worked great.  I even sewed parts of this on that trusty machine.  It was also pretty big so it didn't make the trip to California with us.    

Can't wait to take this baby for a test drive.  This girl's got curtains to sew!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  One of the things that I'm thankful for is this scene, my dad carving the turkey and Grandma hurrying around the kitchen.  One of my favorite things!  This is my first Thanksgiving away from home, and I like knowing that nothing will change in Ohio.  Dad is probably taking the turkey out of the oven right about now and the family will be loading up the car (turkey, side dishes, and warm coats!) and heading over to G&Gs house.  We have this same photo of my dad from almost every year (this is last year's turkey pic) and he's alllllways wearing plaid.  My plaid dad!

To our family and friends back in Ohio and around the world (shoutout to Katy in Spain) hugs and a Happy Thanksgiving to you all!    

Hooray, a Giveaway (closed)

I'm so happy to host a jewelry giveaway from Shabby Apple, a vintage inspired boutique featuring some fabulously cute dresses and sweet accessories.  One lucky reader will win this lovely black and white duchess cameo necklace and look as pretty as a picture!   
      

How to Enter: Like Shabby Apple on Facebook and then visit the boutique.  Leave a comment here telling me which Shabby Apple item you would wear with your cameo.  Wouldn't it look gorgeous with a bold patterned blouse and a classic pencil skirt? 

 Check out their blog and follow Shabby Apple on twitter for info and updates.   

One winner will be chosen at random on Monday, November 28th at 9am PST US residents only  Congrats to the winner Nicole E.!  I'll email you more info.  Thanks for entering!

Family & Food

Only two more days until Thanksgiving!  Christmas and Thanksgiving are without question my very favorite holidays (sorry Halloween).  My dad gets up early to prepare the turkey, the rest of us get to wake up to the smell of good things a'cookin, my sister and I watch the Macy's parade, then everyone heads over to Grandma & Grandpa Rickard's house to eat a big family meal and annihilate some pies.  This year Tyler and I will be having a California Thanksgiving with our west coast family and this little guy, I can't wait!  I'm going to bake these beautiful pumpkin spice cookies for the feast.

Annnnnd since it is Thanksgiving there will be a lovely jewelry giveaway here tomorrow!  Stay tuned!

Photo and cookie recipe by Hannah at Honey & Jam via Pinterest

The Area Code Project

Something to add to my Christmas list!  I love this print from the Area Code Project featuring the three numbers that have preceded my phone number for the past twenty-three years.  I sorta love that I still have my 330 area code and Ohio license plates in LA!

What do those numbers represent? After Word War II ended, area codes were added to help expedite long distance phone service. Big cities were given area codes lower on the rotary dial (think 310 or 212). Lower numbers were faster to dial. People in big cities were thought to deserve an easier dial. So, rural America had higher numbers (915). Currently, 269 area codes divide our nation. Today, our identities and our communities, our stories, live within the (parenthetical) of the area code.

Image and info via the Area Code Project

Things about Tyler that crack me up:

He's always leaving things in the microwave.  Sometimes it's a cup of coffee that he warmed up a few hours ago then forgot about.  Sometimes I'll find a bowl of oatmeal that's been there for two days.  It's funny every time. 

The Golden State

The Drive from Arizona to California felt like the longest haul of the trip.  At that point we had been in the car for six days and we were so ready to get off the road, unpack our suitcases, and never eat fast food again.  It was also, in my opinion, the least interesting drive as far as looking out the window goes.  Nothing much changed landscape wise, it just got hotter.  The Grand Canyon is a tough act to follow.  And we were eager to reach Los Angeles!  There were a few neat things we encountered: some trains, the Google street view car at a gas station, and a giant golf ball thingy next to a smaller golf ball.

The vehicle below, that's what our car felt like.  We packed up our whole lives and paraded our belongings across the country like the Joads or the Beverly Hillbillies.  Except our version was a Ford Fusion with a roofbag.  But that's sure what it felt like.  I totally sympathize with these folks and their wicker furniture.   

We made it!

We managed to arrive in LA precisely at rush hour.  HA the traffic was a wake up call after spending the past few days driving through the desert with no other cars around.  Since our visit in January I had forgotten just how fast LA traffic moves!  Or sometimes how sloooow it moves.  Or doesn't move at all.  We had stopped for ice cream about two hours before but at this point we were so hungry.  SO hungry that there was serious talk of hijacking that taco-burrito truck.  

We arrived at Aunt Chris & Uncle Dom's house that evening and they took us out for fantastic sushi.  They were so kind to let us stay with them while we went apartment hunting! (apartment pictures coming soon)  What a crazy week of traveling.  I'd always wanted to drive across the country and see what there is to see... and we actually did it!

Coronas + Route 66

We left the Grand Canyon around dinnertime and made a dinner pit-stop at the Yippee-Ei-O! Steakhouse in Tusayan, AZ.  It was a treat since we had been eating at McDonalds and Wendys quite a bit.  We had some amazing steak, shrimp, potatoes, corn, prickly pear jelly, rattlesnake, biscuits,  just kidding no rattlesnake.  Our hotel was about an hour away in Williams, AZ which made for a beautiful evening drive while the sun was setting.     

I didn't realize when I booked the hotel room that it would be on Route 66 in the most picturesque little town ever.  When you think of Route 66 with the neon signs and the diners and 50s music faintly playing in the background, that's Williams, AZ!  We stayed at the Downtowner Motel, a renovated vintage motel (with the nicest most helpful staff ever, we loved them!)   It was such a pleasant surprise to have ended up in a lovely little retro place like Williams, especially after the scary night before in Utah. 

That evening we walked around town, stopped in all the gift shops which had an had an impressive array of kitschy-touristy-imusthavethis trinkets, we bought a Route 66 coffee mug (which I'm using as I write this!), we turned our sink into a giant ice bucket (classy I know), Tyler fixed the drain stopper on the sink, and we kicked back and watched American Pickers.         

The icing on the cake of our perfect coyotes + Grand Canyon + steak dinner + Route 66 day was when I realized that our room was directly next to espresso, wi-fi, and mini donuts.  No more driving for two hours to find coffee for this girl!

Coffee + Coyotes + The Big Ditch

We got up bright and early on Tuesday and said good riddance to our sketchy hotel room in Blanding.  Without breakfast or coffee we jumped in the car and started driving towards Arizona, thinking surely we would come across another town in no time, maybe even a town with a Starbucks.  HA.  Two hours later we had passed a few tiny houses and many lovely rock formations, but no coffee.
    

Finally we reached the town of Mexican Hat which (hallelujah!) had a gas station.  So we drank Mexican Hat gas station coffee and ate granola bars and couldn't have been happier. 

While I was leaning out the window taking pictures of cattle crossing signs Tyler said Look!  There's two coyotes eating a dead cow!  Sure enough.     

Driving through Arizona, the eighth state of the road trip, we passed lots of interesting little roadside stands and tables selling crafts, pottery, and southwestern jewelry.  I wanted to stop and shop but we were getting close to the Grand Canyon!  So I resisted the urge to jump out of the car and buy knick knacks.  I thought Ric Mele would appreciate the sign below.  Your son has the ability to spot beef jerky in the middle of nowhere.  If Tyler was a superhero that would be his superpower.     

By the time we arrived at the Grand Canyon, or the Big Ditch as Grandpa Rickard calls it, it had been a loooong day of sitting in the car and we were so happy to get out and stretch our legs.  The first glimpse of the canyon, above, was like watching the clock all night long waiting for it to be Christmas morning then finally being given the go ahead to start opening presents...so exciting!  We went up in the observation tower which is also the GC gift shop and fought all the other tourists for the best spot to stand and take pictures.  I bought a panoramic refrigerator magnet.  We took hundreds of pictures and it was difficult for me to choose just a few to include in this post.  Like the Rocky Mountains the pictures don't do any kind of justice for the real thing.
     

It was alot to take in.  Tyler and I were joking that it was really just one big background matte painting, kinda like in the Truman Show.  It was completely 100% worth adding an extra day onto the trip so that we could see the Grand Canyon.  I'm so happy that we did.  It's a magnificent thing to cross off the bucket list and we couldn't have been there on a more beautiful day.