look what i got!

it's always nice to come home to your own place after a long trip, especially after a red eye flight. and especially when it's cold and rainy outside and you just want to cuddle up inside with your kitties.  and especially when you have to go straight from the airport to take your brother to the hospital. not cool.

anyway, imagine my excitement when i came home to two packages filled with goodies for my living room! huzzah!

first, i opened this lovely darling.  this is the first thing i have ever bought straight off of pinterest, but it was super affordable and with free shipping from nordstrom, how could you not?

polka dot pouf ottoman, $78

after my new ottoman was all set up, i ripped open the package containing these delights.  i needed some new pillow covers to breathe life into my living room where i have been dying for some color - and these affordable covers can be found in just about every color or pattern under the sun, thanks to pillow makeover via etsy.  they slipped over some pillows that i'd had laying around in drab browns and earth tones and instantly made me feel happy.

elephant pillow cover, $15

red chevron pillow cover, set of 2 for $30, orange ikat dots pillow cover $13

green chevron priced with red chevron [above], right pillow cover from a salvaged home

living room today!

loving all the color and how the room is coming together... all i need now are a few colorful throws and i'll be totally in love.

that couch is going to come in handy with all this rain - i am planning on hiding under the blankets and catching up on the mindy project and new girl :)

happy wednesday!

til next time - xo

home is where you make it.

home print found on pinterest, buy it on etsy here!

PI + i have a problem.  whenever we go somewhere - anywhere, really - i'll tug on his hand, or he'll wrap his arm around my shoulders and hold me close, and one of us will say, 'we should live here.' 

it's true.  when we lived in denver, we would fantasize about living in boston.  when we lived in boston [the first time] we fantasized about living in brooklyn.  and once we were in brooklyn, we reminisced about living in denver and decided to move back.  and now that we are back in boston again?  well, we have been tempted by the sunshine, ocean breeze, perpetual spring weather [and of course our nephew ryder's kisses don't hurt either] of california. 

no, we aren't moving.  but we are learning to love our wanderlust instincts, moving around from place to place, not totally being tied down to any one city.  it's freeing, really.  as hard as it was for me to leave our beautiful home in denver, the longer we are away from it, the easier it becomes.  yes, it was our home.  but now, my home is a lovely 150+ year old loft in the south end of america's oldest city.  it doesn't feel so foreign anymore, like we are living in a hotel room or someone else's house with our stuff in it.  we are becoming more versatile, and i am starting to feel just as home in our loft as i did in our house. 

there is something liberating knowing that we can move at the end of the year if we want to.  that doesn't mean we will, or that we even will want to - maybe we will fall so deeply in love with boston that we won't ever want to go anywhere else.  but may we will be ready for a new adventure, and we are so lucky that PI's new job will let that happen for us. 

something interesting about PI + i is that we have family everywhere.  so we always miss people, no matter where we live, we won't be near all our family.  which means we have to kind of pick and choose, decide who we can live near and how it will allow us to travel to the other members of our family.  but with all the changes we have gone through, i am loving the idea of MORE.  i hate the packing and moving part of moving, but love the exploring new cities, making new friends, and enjoying my new home with my husband every time. 

who knows where our home will be together a year from today.  it might be somewhere new, and i can't wait to find out. 

on that note, we are headed back to boston today on the red eye... excited to sleep in my own bed and be bombarded with snow once more [ok, not so excited about that second one, but it's happening whether i am excited about it or not]. 

til next time...!

on being cute.

you know what, it's tough to be a girl, to be a woman sometimes.  i was thinking about this a few weeks ago, flipping through the february issue of glamour, featuring zooey deschanel.  she had this little gem to say:

'i'm just for being myself.  there is not an ounce of me that believes any of the crap that they say. we cant be feminine and be feminists and be successful?  i want to be a fucking feminist and wear a fucking peter pan collar.  so fucking what?'

i read this quote from ms. deschanel over a month ago, and i've been thinking a lot about it ever since.  it wasn't until i watched the oscars last night that i really felt motivated to write about this topic yet again: body image.

her quote, to me, epitomizes a struggle i have felt for a long time.  i have always had my own style that i like and that i feel secure in.  but the one time i had a very hard time looking like myself was when i was shopping for a wedding dress.  see, i had decided years before what dress i would wear.  i was maybe in high school or early in my college years, and i was flipping through lucky magazine, and i just saw it.  i wasn't even dating at the time, but i tore the page out and kept it.  so as soon as philip + i set a date for the wedding, the first thing my mom and i did was try on my melissa sweet wedding gown.  when i put it on, i felt like myself.  i looked like myself - not like someone trying to play dress up.  i instantly knew it was the dress.

my dress!

but i struggled for months before finally deciding to buy it.  why?  because everyone told me that i looked so 'cute' or 'adorable' or 'sweet' when i put it on.  i was never beautiful, or glamorous, or sexy.  i wanted, just for one day, to look beautiful.  but the truth was, that just wasn't me.  over time, i accepted that and bought the dress i wanted.  and on my wedding day, i felt like i looked like myself, and my dress fit my personality and our wedding just perfectly.

me in the dress.

however, the issue of cute v. sexy is something i still come back to quite a bit.  i am 28 now, and i am not beautiful, i'm cute.  and you know what?  i'm finally, 100% ok with that.  in fact, i LOVE it.  but in our society, in our american culture, you still have to have the perfect figure to be called beautiful.  remember that lovely girl zooey i was quoting above?  well, a certain word has been coined to describe her - adorkable.  which i absolutely detest, more than anything.  when she walks the red carpet, why isn't she described as gorgeous?  can't a woman be sexy or beautiful even if she isn't willing to be slutty?  no.  she buttons it up and puts on glasses for time to time - which earns her some weird hybrid word between dork and adorable.  pathetic.  and mind you, she's a tiny thing.  but she's secure with who she is, and i love that about her.

work that buttoned up collar, girl!

the truth is, to me, i wish most other celebrities could be more like her or these beautiful ladies below.  i wish everyone could be secure enough to just be themselves and stop trying so hard.  trying so hard to fit into this box that has been created for women, and stop cutting down other women who don't fit inside that box.  it's unhealthy. 

so, on that note, i'd like to share a few other of my girl heroes, besides the fab ms. deschanel.  

adele

'i don't like going to the gym.  i like eating fine foods and drinking nice wine.  even if i had a really good figure, i don't think i'd get my tits and ass out for no one.  i've seen people where it rules their lives, you know, who want to be thinner or have bigger boobs, and how it wears them down.  and i just don't want that in my life.' 

'i like looking nice, but i always put comfort over fashion.  i don't find thin girls attractive; be happy and healthy.  i've never had a problem with the way i look.  i'd rather have lunch with my friends than go to a gym.' 

'no matter what you look like, i think the key is to be happy with yourself.' 

queen latifah

'i had to grow to love my body.  i did not have a good self-image at first. finally it occurred to me, i'm either going to love me or hate me. and i chose to love myself. then everything kind of sprung from there. things that i thought weren't attractive became sexy.  confidence makes you sexy.' 

maya rudolph

'for me, i feel beautiful when i'm just resting.  i think that's when you really get a chance to sink into your own skin.'   

'i don't look my best when i wake up.  but, i do feel beautiful when i'm tired and happy and i've had a good laugh and a glass of champagne.'

gabourey sidibe

'people always ask me, ‘you have so much confidence. where did that come from?’ it came from me. one day i decided that i was beautiful, and so i carried out my life as if i was a beautiful girl … it doesn’t have anything to do with how the world perceives you. what matters is what you see. your body is your temple, it’s your home, and you must decorate it.'

amy poehler

'when you feel really  crappy about your body or how you look, sometimes a good way to help yourself out of it is to have some gratitude.  if you can go around your body and kind of thank it for what it gives you and thank yourself for your great eyesight, or your think hair, or your nice legs, or your strong teeth or whatever it is that you have that you were given.'

tina fey

'now every girl is expected to have caucasian blue eyes, full spanish lips., a classic vutton nose, hairless asian skin with a california tan, a jamaican dance hall ass, long swedish legs, small japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of michelle obama, and doll tits.' 

'don't worry about trying to change  opinions.  do your think and don't care if they like it.'

mindy kaling

'since i'm not model-skinny, but also not super-fat and fabulously owning my hugeness, i fall into that nebulous 'normal american woman size' that legions of fashion stylists detest.  for the record, i'm a size 8 (this week, anyway).  many stylists hate that size because , i think, to them, i lack the self-discipline to be an aesthetic, or the sassy, confidence to be a total fatty hedonist.  they're like 'pick a lane.'

[stepping off of soap box].  on that note, i want to say that yes, some women are naturally slender or like being fit, which is wonderful.  i think everyone should be at a healthy place, inside and out.  to me, it's about being happy and healthy however you look. 

hope this is a good way to start your monday long with looking at the best red-carpet looks from last night [which i will also be doing too].

i guess the sun of california really is doing me some good :)

til next time!