Photo a Day - 365 Project

emember this year I was going to the "photo a day" 365 photos project?

Life got a little crazy when I intended to start right after the holidays and so project 365 sort of took a back seat. But I'm ready to start again.

I took a few photos in anticipation of the project, but mostly, I'll just need to start from here. But to get me started here is one of the first ones that I took. I'm going to do a photo a day but I don't know if I'll post them here EVERY day - maybe I will update every few days or once a week and you can let me know which ones you like best.

So, without further ado: Photo of the DAY

Think Pink

n honor of valentines this week I'll be posting some pink, and red, and maybe even lavender rooms.

I swear, if I ever get sick of the red or the green rooms in my house, my next step is going to be pink. It's bold and crazy sometimes, but why not? Life is short. Might as well try to have some fun.

My life has been in a little bit of a funk lately. So let's think pink shall we?



Pink kitchens are awesome...seriously, don't they always sort of remind you of an ice cream parlor or something? I mean, who doesn't want a kitchen that reminds you of an ice cream parlor?



What I liked about this was that the pink was bordering on some kind of great coral - I almost wondered if there is an undercoat so that there are really two colors showing through here - but I love it, it has a very "india" quality to it.




again, not sure how they've done these walls, but they look almost venetian or like some kind of wash, and I just love the effect. Also, I love the tidy little displays on the wall. I just think there's a way to make a pink like this so elegant and workable.


Hot pink chaise lounge? Oh YES please!



Okay if this were my bedroom, I would never, never leave. Seriously. I just absolutely love this with every fiber of my being.


I don't know that I totally love this, but I am thinking that if you have a weird room with a weird feature like this - you might as well paint it hot pink rather than trying to disregard it right?


Don't you love the sheer nerve of this color in this room? To die for.

Is this pink too over the top? Yeah probably, but in like a teens room or something, I think it would be awesome.



Okay so the majority of this room is green...and frankly, kind of boring. But how much do you love those two hot pink ottoman's?



I think I just really like this because I really, really like hot pink and hot orange together.



Hollywood glammy and yummy
Love the pink with the mirror and the lavender with all the white. That mirror is awesome sauce.



Sigh....don't you love this? Doesn't the red with the hot pink look so fab?



If you lived in this bedroom wouldn't you feel like Doris Day in Pillow Talk or something? And wouldn't that be fantastic?



I know that I have no ability to successfully edit a room to this degree - there's no way I wouldn't be putting a bunch of art on the walls or adding furniture or otherwise punching it up somehow...I would forever feel like it was missing something. But I appreciate the restful quality of it. If only I could constrain myself....



This pink definitely borders on being an orange or a coral...but I love it with the green accents.


Dining rooms can look so great in pink - here I might actually also be responding to the Peonies. I think Peonies have become my favorite flowers.


This might be my fave...to die for...I love how it all seems like it wouldn't or shouldn't work together but it just DOES.

I'm pretty sure this is the other side of the same room. What an fantabulous room!



Granted, they've gone a little crazy here. But sometimes crazy is good.


Part of a whole outdoor patio area that I just loved, I really liked all the pink tenting.


I was thinking if I ever repaint my kids bathroom I should go with this kind of pink. They have pink tile in their shower and I'm always trying to figure out how to get around it - ignore it? Incorporate it? Right now I have a yellow in there with the pink and I don't hate it, but I'm not in love either. But I started thinking going really really pink like this might be the way to go.
Another super awesome bathroom.


I think I really love it when they pull these black and white zebra prints with the pink - I noticed I save these types of rooms a lot.

Freaking love this kitchen. The ghost chairs paired with the bare wood and the painted cupboard with the contemporary art? Genius.
Another thoughtful way to use pink in a bedroom without it seeming too girly.


These colored claw foot tubs suck me in every time.
How hard do you think it would be to do this ceiling? I would love to do something like this but I'm so impatient with project of this magnitude - they never turn out right.


Doesn't this sort of remind you somehow of the barbie kitchen set you had when you were a kid? What a cheery place to bake a cake.


I'm not super sold on these chairs...but I do like the yellow with the pink and black and white and I happen to think that hue of pink is just about the perfect pink for a room like this.
I LOVE this, especially the funny girl poster. Such a great little girls room, pink without being over - the - top.

Try to have a pink and cheery day!

Missing Everybody

his week has been a kind of melancholy one - so I guess if my favorite author had to chose a week to take his exit from this earth, this week was fitting.

No other author has ever touched my heart more than Mr. J.D Salinger. Holden Caulfield will forever and for always be my all time favorite fictional character. (which is why I have a child name Holden) At times I have tried to put my finger on what about this book felt like it saved my life. After all, the main character is sort of depressed, and he's sort of on a semi-self-destructive journey that lands him in a mental facility. Sounds cheery right?

But this book cheered my soul during a time in my life when I just didn't know who I really was or what I really wanted and I thought I was the only person in the world who felt that way. And then, along came Holden Caulfield, and I didn't feel so alone anymore.

A lot of people read this book in high school. My high school was probably way too conservative for this book. We read "Les Miserables" and "The Scarlet Letter" (and that AWFUL "Wuthering Heights"....talk about depressing!)

I've talked about Sam Jones on my blog before - but Sam was just this super awesome kid I met at college. Here are some photos of Sam and his band "Second Thoughts" from college, and one of he and I on temple square (he's doing the hand stand - probably the only person to ever do a hand stand on temple square) and now of course, he does super awesome stuff like this: and anyway, one day when I was particularly depressed and sitting on the roof of my apartment building (sounds odd - but we had dormer windows in the attic of an old house that had been compartmentalized into apts and I could easily climb out onto the roof, which I frequently did at night), Sam climbed out the window and sat and talked to me for a while. Sam was always so sunny and cheery and it was hard to be in a bad mood when Sam was around. And Sam said to me "You're all messed up with no where to go!" And that sounded so right. I always felt a little bit like I was "All messed up with no where to go" but no one had ever quite articulated it for me quite that way. And that's when Sam told me. "You've GOTTA read Catcher in the Rye, it'll change your life I swear". So he brought me his copy of it. And from the opening lines, I couldn't put it down:

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

who isn't going to love a book that starts off like that? I just adore it. I can still read it over and over again. Some of my favorite quotes:

It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.

People always think something's all true

What really knocks me out is a book, when you're all done reading it, you wished the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.
I'm always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.

I'm sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don't care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoyed the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth. They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while He was alive, they were about as much use to Him as a hole in the head. All they did was keep letting Him down. I like almost anybody in the Bible better than the Disciples. If you want to know the truth, the guy I like best in the Bible, next to Jesus, was that lunatic and all, that lived in the tombs and kept cutting himself with stones. I like him ten times as much as the Disciples, that poor bastard.

Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.

Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.

Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

In a weird way that book has sort of saved me life. It gave voice to a lot of feelings I had at that time in my life and made me feel not quite so alone. Plus the written voice of Holden is just such a unique gem in literature. There's nothing quite like it.

Salinger wrote a few other great books - I love "Franny and Zooey", "Raise High the roof Beam" has it's moments of greatness. But I really want to read all his short stories in "9 Stories" there are some really lovely writing moments there.

Cranky old J.D. Salinger holed up in his Connecticut cabin for years and years and never published anything since the 1960s. Which broke all our hearts. It would be nice if there were manuscripts sitting around up in that cabin somewhere. But who knows. Maybe he felt like Holden Caulfield really said all there was to say about the human experience and what more could he add? I always like to think of Salinger as the grown up Holden. In "Catcher in the Rye" he keeps saying he wants to run off with Sally Hayes to a cabin in the woods and live there forever. And he can't get Sally to agree to it. I like to think Salinger thought of himself as Holden, living out his days the way that Holden would have wanted.

We miss you already Mr. Salinger.

Rainy Day Black & Gray

ost people know I am not a big fan of the rain.

Usually I am also not a big fan of Black or Gray rooms. But a rainy day seems like a good time to post exceptions to my usual dislike of such things.

Black & Gray rooms I actually like:
what I like here is that this gray looks like it almost borders on turning into a blue or a lilac, but it's still truly gray. I love that little delicate light fixture - I think it makes the space poetic.


modern drama in black & white - loads of black, but enough white to balance everything. Don't you love that table and chairs?


There's something I just really like about this bedroom. When I first saw it I tried to picture the walls a different color and that's when I realized that the gray really WORKS here. It feels like a lovely space to retreat.


I kind of love this. I especially think that lime chaise totally makes it. But how great are the striped walls? With the cow hide? The chandelier and the shiny black doors? Delicious.


Another really nice gray, especially with the pop of red and yellow. And on another note, isn't that wood beam in the window especially great?


This is just sweet. It's so light gray it's almost white. Very restful.


Drama, Drama, Drama - but if you're going to start messing around with zebra skins and heavy olive sofas and candelabra lamps, you might as well go black while you're at it.

How much do you heart this? I want to live in that room.


I LOVE that yellow tufted headboard against the black!


Everyone does these kooky antlers for the past two or three years. I'm tired of them. But here, I kind of like it for some reason.


This is kind of over-done and crazy. But it looks like a good place to grow old and senile and maybe be a rich old lady with lunatic fringe ideas. Which appeals to me sometimes.


If there's one thing I can say about black, it's that it always looks great in a study or a library setting.

Again, with the books, the black provides a really nice contrast. This room would be kind of boring if it were any other color.


This is from a kids room. How GREAT is it? Gosh...I love it. Look at the yellow and white striped ceiling!



What is that weird 70s retro-ish color? It's not quite avocado and it's not quite harvest gold - it's some weird mix of the two. I just really dig this.


I must super love this because I had it saved on my computer twice. I just adore that little yellow tufted chair SO MUCH. I love a nice long hot bath so this looks absolutely enticing.



I love that modern tub. This room would probably look good if the walls were red or blue or any number of other colors too - but it does look really peaceful with the black and white.


Black subway tile? Awesome.



How great is that red couch with the black wall?

See? I told you, again with the studies.





And again...



How great is the shower fixture and the light. Would you ever dare use this without a shower curtain though? especially with those raised wood floors?

How much are you admiring their taste in carpet and desks? I know, right?

Best Movies of 2009 (according to me)

F or what it's worth...

My Top 10 Movie picks for 2009 in order:


1.

loved every single thing about this...saw it multiple times, don't mind watching it a million times more.

2.
captivating, fascinating, loved it!

3. smart, funny, current, AND with a happy ending that didn't seem like pure treacle.

4.
if this story were fiction it would be totally unbelievable and obnoxiously 'do-gooder', but since it is true, and since the real story is actually even MORE amazing...LOVED it, restores your faith in humanity.

5.
this was just very good, and unexpected...a kids movie would not normally make my top 10. The love story is so sweet, it may be one of the best love stories ever written.


6. okay the violence is nauseatingly awful but gosh darn it if I didn't love this movie anyway.

7.
hilarious and unbelievable, awesome movie.

8.
I've seen this a couple of times and it strikes me a little different each time...nuanced acting and an interesting story line we haven't seen a million times before.


9.


cute and irresistible.

10.




saw this after it was out of the theatres and was pleasantly surprised that I liked it very much. Sometimes Adam Sandler can really act.

honorable mentions* Taken, Star Trek & The Hangover

The January Blues

've never been a big fan of January. Frankly I think it's kind of a bad month most of the time. The holidays are over. Holiday trips are over. It's one of the coldest months of the year with short days and long nights. To me, January has always been kind of a blue month. So in honor of that, here are some inspiring Blue rooms I've been admiring lately. Blue is a pretty big trend in decorating this year. And I'm loving some of these shades:

Starting the New Year in London

We surprised the kids with a trip to London the day after Christmas! This was a crazy idea that Kirk and I only planned the week before Christmas, making it even crazier. Trying to get a hotel room to accommodate four people that last minute was super tricky, and I was really worried about how it was going to work out even after I did book a room that would 'supposedly' accommodate four. I had no idea the entire nation of France goes to London that week. Everything was booked solid. But somehow, everything just kept working out and falling into place so that we were able to go.

Jordan totally freaked out when she found out, she was so excited. Brennan was excited too but not at the screaming level of Jordan's excitement.

Every single flight on the way there and on the way home was delayed. The flight out from Phoenix was delayed because the stewardess for our flight slept in. You may wonder if such a thing is possible, that an entire flight crew and plane and hundreds of people will have to wait at the airport when you sleep in and show up late for work and the answer is yes, that's exactly what happens. A huge airline like US Air can only offer you the small comfort that "we're in touch with her via cell and she is on her way". When she shows up in full makeup with her hair curled you might consider doing her bodily harm as I did by that point. It's already a 15 hour flight, waiting around for her to show at the airport seemed like an ominous start to the trip to me. But it wasn't, it was really the only thing that went wrong.

We were able to visit all the major sites via bus the first day. Our idea was to combat the jet lag and yet take it easy that day doing one of those hop on hop off tours, but mostly just staying on while making a plan to come back on a subsequent day to any of the sites we wanted. It was a good idea, except I failed to calculate the jet lag in combination with a warm bus on a cold day. My kids fell asleep almost immediately. The hotel was perfect. It was big and spacious and super close to two tube stations with a comfy bed and two showers.

The second day the kids and Kirk went ice skating in the moat at the Tower of London! We saw the crown jewels and did the tour of the Tower. We took a quick trip to Harrods and saw ridiculous items like a $800,000 watch!

We visited several museums while we were there (Art museums) - we spent an entire day at The British National Gallery, and then another day at both the Tate and the Tate Modern. We saw some amazing things! Too bad they won't let you take pictures inside so we can't really share. Kirk tried to take a photo of the wall inside looking out and he was reprimanded. We also hung around Trafalgar Square, walked through Piccadilly, Went on the London Eye, tramped around the Oxford high street shopping area, explored around Parliament and Westminster, took two boat rides on the Thames and generally crammed more stuff into our 9 days than one might imagine we could stuff in!

We took a trip out of town and toured Windsor Castle, Stone Henge and Bath, where the ancient roman baths are located. It was super cool because we planned on staying in London the entire time, so this trip was kind of a spontaneous trip within a trip!

On New Years it just all got ridiculously awesome. A guy Kirk knew on his mission set us up at the best seats to the best fireworks show in the world. We were on the Thames, right across from Big Ben (on the 150th anniversary of Big Ben as well!) standing almost right underneath the London Eye while crazy fireworks (millions of dollars of fireworks) were being shot off left and right all around us. It was almost insane that they let anyone stand there at all. It felt like standing in the middle of a fairy tale. It was just awesome! There were seriously only about 100 people who had the view that we did amongst the thousands and thousands of people down there cramming the bridges trying to get a view. Taking the tube that night was interesting. I've never seen so much public drunkenness in my life. Nor had to side step so much vomit.

We took the tube everywhere - one day we took it to Camden Lock, shopped around in the little stalls and on the streets and then Kirk went looking for a Banksy and found one. That was a highlight of the trip for us all!

One day we spent going to both Wicked and Les Miserable and eating in London's China Town.

We also spent some time eating street food, at a chip shop, pubs and managed to even catch some rides at a London Street Carnival.

We could not have had a better trip if we had planned it all out in advance!