Mother's Day

Lotion, scarf, chocolate covered nuts, earrings, flats, perfume

So... Mother's Day is on Sunday. Did it sneak up on you like it did for me? I don't know about you, but my mom spends all her time and money taking care of everyone else but feels guilty buying decent hand lotion for herself. I always like to give my mom something indulgent, something she wouldn't buy herself (and usually I give it to her about two months late, just to keep her on her toes...).

Besides flowers, wine, and fancy coffee, here are my last minute gift ideas to help celebrate the one you brought you into this world. I'm sure she wouldn't mind a nice framed picture of you two either. My dad and sister are taking my mom for a beach picnic. I wish I could be there to join them!

Also, my all-time favorite Mother's Day video ever and some snarky cards.

A Wedding Post

Happy two year anniversary to the most handsome man I know!

When we were planning our wedding we got lots and lots of unsolicited advice on what we should do, serve, wear, how we should talk, who should be invited, you name it someone told us their opinion. At first it was fun to share in the excitement but then it was so overwhelming that I just wanted to do whatever the heck was good for me. No tanning or princess dress for instance.

So here is my unsolicited advice to all you brides to be. Pick three things that are really important to you and let everything else go. Gman and I choose three each and there was some overlap: good food, good music, free booze for the guests, and I was obsessed, and still am, with my flowers.

The planning process is stressful, and the day of even more so (for me anyways) but remember why you are getting married and keep your eye on the prize, which is hopefully your husband to be.

All photos in this post were taken by Mike Buoy for Mike & Ann Visual Storytellers (except the dessert bar; that was taken by one of my lovely bridesmaids). They were a pleasure to work with and two of the most dedicated and hard-working people I know. You can find more of their photographs on their blog here and if you like their work (how could you not!?) follow them on facebook here.

Here are the rest of our vendors. They all created a perfectly seamless experience for me and my guests and I couldn’t be more pleased with their services. 

Flowers: Flowers by Jenny. She's seriously the best ever.
Ceremony site: Palm Harbor White Chapel. I liked the white washed walls and stained glass windows. It also had the shortest aisle in town.
Reception site: Bon Appetit Restaurant and Inn. Carmen took care of everything for us, making the wedding day run perfectly. Almost all of the guests stayed at the hotel too and it made for a fun weekend get-a-way.

UPDATE: I forgot to tell you who I'm wearing :) Dress is Douglas Hannant, shoes Manolo Blahnik, and  cage veil Tigerlilly Jewelry.

We also had a second chef make the cakes but unfortunately I can not remember who it was! I will do some digging and add an update when I can.

Weekend Recap: a visit from the 'rents

My parents came to visit this weekend and we ate and drank our way through DC and the Chesapeake Bay area. We spend so much time relaxing and a few days without worries was just what the doctor ordered. Saturday we rented a boat and cruised around Chesapeake Bay (more on that for tomorrow's Destination!) and Sunday we finished working on the back garden. 

It's rare that these types of projects work out to our greatest expectations, especially when a tight budget is concerned, but I couldn't be more happy with the way our garden turned out. I wish I had some before pictures because it was seriously a mess back there (turns out all previous pictures taken were creative enough to hide the scary bits.) The trees were overgrown and half-dead shrubs encroached on the entertaining space. We took out all the dead plants, cleaned out the underbrush, replanted fresh flowers, and even put down some grass! We have grass in the city! I feel like we've really made it in the world. And who cares that our patch of grass is only 9 x 4 ft. There is even a dove who liked our garden so much she decided it would be the perfect place to raise her soon-to-hatch babies.

These pictures are just a preview, there will be more to come!

Shoe Love: Happy Hour

I've been insanely busy lately and last Friday I was beginning to tweak. I had plans for happy hour (my favorite hour) but they were pushed back so I had a few minutes to kill. I walk by Nine West everyday and never go in. But I impulsively decided to go in there (retail therapy anyone?) and check out their new spring shoes. I wasn't the only one either. The staff was not prepared for the amount of women who impulsively buy shoes on their way to happy hour. It was like the party already started! Besides having to wait my turn to get the shoes I wanted, it was fun to try them on with complete strangers, showering each other with compliments in the process, "Those are so cute on you!" "Those make your legs look so long!" "Sexy!" and finally "Please tell me you bought the pink ones?!" Yes fellow weary lady workers, I bought the pink ones.

Exploring Wine: A Rosé Story

This Exploring Wine post won't be a review but in honor of the warming weather, a little story about that pink wine.

During the hot summer days in Georgia my grandmother used to drink sweet rosé wine over ice. She loved it almost as much as sweet tea and sprite, her go-tos. She isn't a big alcohol drinker and her taste in wine was whatever was sweet and cheap. As a young adult I remember looking down on her choice as less than sophisticated. I always associated rosé with tacky old-fashioned furniture and matching shorts outfits that older ladies in Florida just love to wear. As I became a wine drinker, I teased her behind her back about her beloved  rosé with ice.

Then I moved to Paris in the summer of  2006 to study abroad. I became a francophile and fell in love with all things Parisian. It was hot, I mean real hot, and there was little air conditioning to be had. We even bought hand fans to cool ourselves and spent little time in our apartments or classrooms. Parisians congregated in the street cafes in hopes of a breeze and at least some interesting people watching. My girlfriends and I followed suit. I looked around to see what everyone was ordering and was horrified to see chic French men and women drinking  rosé with ice. Just one ice cube floating there in the middle of the pink liquid. Then I did the unthinkable and ordered one (let's be honest, I ordered a bottle). The first sip was smooth, light, slightly sweet, and coolly refreshing.

Grandma, in fact, knew what she was doing. She knew what would take the edge off of summer heat. I gained a new respect for her that summer. Now she's no longer able to enjoy her  rosé with ice. So each year when spring finally gives in to the heat of summer, I buy a bottle in her honor and toast to the miserable heat to come.

Tips to Travel By: Make Reservations

Whenever I'm starving I cannot decide where to eat. I don't just want anything but I don't have a craving for something either. Furthermore, I don't like wasting calories or a precious meal on something less than amazing. This is hugely problematic when I'm traveling because usually I don't know where I'm going, I don't know which restaurants are actually good, and sometimes there's a language barrier to boot.

What I do to avoid a meltdown is research the food scene of my destination ahead of time then make reservations. I'm flexible enough for some spontaneity but overall the trip goes smoother if I know we are going to have fresh Italian pasta at 7pm or steak frites at 8. Not only does it give me something to look forward to but I know I will be avoiding being lost and hungry.

Discovering Art and Art History: Dealing with Space

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, my photos from the evening suffered from major technical difficulties; the pictures here are all from my stop at Water Street.

“Really explore the studio space this time... I mean, really... explore the space.” – Christopher Walken as Bruce Dickinson, SNL

I went to three art exhibitions in one night last Thursday. It was partly because I over commit myself. I must like the challenge of being insanely busy. I do sleep sometimes. On the weekends. As I reflected on my evening I kept thinking about how different the three exhibitions were and how each of the artists responded to the space. The exhibition space sets the tone for the pieces being presented and in general the artist is working with spacial limitations in mind.

Historically, a painting would need to fit on the wall of the patron’s house or the size of a sculpture might be affected by the size of the courtyard it would sit in. Today, although the variety of media an artist could work in spans the amount of materials available on earth, spacial constraints are still considered. Where will the art live and for how long? Let’s consider the three shows I went to as an example.

The first was a quiet opening for one of the Corcoran College of Art + Design's photography classes. A young photography class presented their latest project for critique by their professor and peers. The critique space is a long wide hallway between some of the classroom/studio spaces. All of the artwork had to be carried by the student and hung with relative ease on simple hangers or nails. The show was very temporary with another class coming in days later. So the photographs were small in scale. On a side note: I’m impressed by the quality of work the Corcoran’s students are producing. Keep it up!

The second exhibition was the opening for Desks as Portraits: An Inside Look at the DC Art World by E. Brady Robinson at FotoSpace in Adam’s Morgan. The show was photographs of various desks of people who work in the D.C. art scene. A few were people from my office and it was fun to see their desk presented as a portrait of their working life and habits. Some were unsettlingly accurate in their description.

Fotospace is a small gallery. There is some wall space but not enough for the amount of images Robinson created for this show.  So what to do? Hang them on top of each other? She chose to present her photographs as a projection on the wall and on a monitor. The images were shown on a loop, one by one. I didn’t like it at first as I am used to seeing photography printed and hung on the walls. However, as I considered it more, I really appreciated her thoughtfulness in choosing to present the work in a way that was relevant to the subjects being presented – desks displayed on a PowerPoint Presentation. Once I realized that, I laughed about it to myself for longer than I should have. 

 
To end the night, I headed over to the Water Street Project in Georgetown. This show was a pop-up gallery in a raw warehouse space with brick walls, concrete floors, the whole deal. The space was open for a week and presented new work by emerging artists which would be surrounded by live music and performances. The artists included several graffitists, like Kelly Towles, who painted directly onto the walls and floors while installation sculptures played off of the rough unrefined space. Maggie O’Neill’s colorful paintings of President Lincoln and the Capitol Building responded to D.C. at large while Drew Storm Graham’s tattoo inspired sculptures appealed to the alternative crowds browsing the artwork. All of the pieces responded to the raw and ephemeral nature of the temporary show. 

It was neat to see how the artists at all three exhibitions dealt with the space of their temporary exhibitions. Next time you are out looking at art think about how the artist considered their surroundings when creating it and how the gallery or museum thought about the art in the space as well (such as how historical paintings are hung). It might lead to insight into the meaning of the work or lead you to appreciate it in a new way.