paced out.

It's the home stretch on this week and Ben's parents are coming to town tomorrow for a quick visit. We are taking them to Napa and Sonoma and I'm already looking forward to the warmer weather (90s!) and some good meals! And to help finish out the week, here are some links I thought might be of interest!

• The restaurateur behind Le Diplomate is opening a new restaurant by Union Market!

• This NPR piece from Radiotopia - The Procedure - about abortion is fascinating (hat-tip to Jordan!) - highly recommend the listen!

• Aren't these Barcelona vases from World Market great?

• Bread + Ice Cream - yes please!

• We got this bag for Ben's Mom for her birthday coming up as the perfect beach bag to carry towels, snacks, a book and more - we are going to fill it with beach essentials for her upcoming Maine trip! 

• Ben got us hooked to this show, This is Us, on NBC. Mandy Moore is back and it's like a big old romantic comedy wrapped into 18 episodes! You can get a month free of Hulu and plow through it like us. 

basket case.

I've had my eye out for some cool baskets, both for the top of our bookshelves but also as a catchall for blankets and throws. Right after we said goodbye to Emmy and Raffi in Santa Fe a couple weeks ago, we wandered by a random corner store and happened upon some baskets that I was loving and picked up this one - it was cheap and I love the color and it reminds me of Santa Fe - so win - win - win.

friday. friday.

Happy Friday! What is everyone doing this weekend? Last weekend, we hung out with Sarah and Dave who were in town for a visit and they brought us these awesome flowers...aren't they cool? Hope you have a great weekend and including some links below in case they are of interest....

• We are excited about this cool new cocktail bar that is going to open soon right by our apartment!

• We had a couple minutes to kill before the HRW event on Wednesday and we walked through the West Elm in Palo Alto. I was to report back that their outdoor pillow collection is killing it. I basically stood there and hugged the pillows for a couple minutes.  Example 1, Example 2, and Example 3. 

• When we have kids, I was to raise good people like this. 

• How gorgeous are these photos from down by LA and the super flower bloom that is on in CA? 

• Ben and I watched Dave Chappelle's new stand-up on Netflix a couple weeks ago and who knew Chappelle is so funny? Apparently, everyone. And turns out on top of being funny - he is smart AF and interesting. Ben sent me this NYTimes piece from yesterday, great read!

patio update.

Remember back in December when I mentioned that we were going to put some effort into our patio area? Here was the picture of our patio in December...

Yikes! Since then, we have made some inroads. While we haven't had time (and budget) to do as much as I would have liked, it is coming along and more to come. We added some succulents (all about that on this post) and they are coming along beautifully - we are going to add some more soon.

And we bought some lounge furniture for one corner of the patio. We did a good amount of searching and looking. I stalked Craigslist for a while (because god knows I love a good Craigslist find!) but finally settled on going over to Ikea one weekend to pick up a set of furniture I had bookmarked. When we got there, we swung by the super discount corner and there it was in all its glory. One whole set of patio furniture just sitting there - total stroke of luck. It was in perfect condition (missing a couple of pillows) - we promptly claimed, somehow fit it all in the car and brought her home! I threw some outdoor pillows on there (here, here and here), combined it with Ben's fire pit that he got in December and a rug from Home Depot that I threw in our cart randomly months ago when we were there picking up screws. It is slowly coming along. Here is what we are looking at as of today...

 

And here is the view from inside...on the weekends and in the early evening, it is lovely with the lights on and sky fading.

Next up is the dining area. You can see a sneak peak of chairs that we picked up a couple months ago, so hopefully another update coming soon, stay tuned...

week's end.

Oh man, I am really ready for the weekend. What are your plans? We don't have all that much scheduled. We are, of course, going to MK's spinning class tomorrow and a long training run on Sunday morning. And we'll be watching the Final Four games tomorrow night and going to dinner up at my brother's in-law's house in Orinda on Sunday night. A nice and casual spring weekend...hope that you have something good planned!

And, for your weekend reading, here are some links of interest...

• Loving this throw - especially the price point on it. 

• Hannah - my sister-in-law - started a new blog all about her reads and you'll love it!

• This NYTimes Magazine piece from a couple weeks ago about public schools. 

• San Francisco Date Spots according to Eater.

• I really want to buy this side table for our patio. Thoughts?!

• We are a strong PB&J house - this is a great NPR spot. 

• Bay Area real-estate is nuts. Nuts!

• Mike sent me this song this week - happy listening!

succulence.

One of these days soon, I am going to post an update about our outdoor patio. We moved in to our apartment over a year ago, and we have only just gotten around to doing something with the patio in the last couple of months. Ben finally bought himself a firepit which he has been talking about for years and we are slowly making it comfortable enough to enjoy once the rain finally stops.

We took one small step this afternoon and that involved succulents for the patio! I bought two planters a couple months ago from CB2- this one and this one - and they have been sitting empty just waiting for some action. So, today we went over to Bernal to the Succulence Life and Garden store - a fantastic little shop that we would highly recommend. The staff baby-stepped us through all things succulents and then helped us plant the planters with drainage, soil, succulents we picked out and some pebbles/rocks on the top. Here are some photos and we can't wait for it to stop raining so we can put these two gorgeous lookers out on the patio. More to come soon....

work it.

It is amazing how long it can take to feel settled and comfortable in a new place. We have now been in our apartment for just over a year and it is finally feeling pulled together and put together. For those who haven't seen it - our apartment is a loft in the mission. Ben absolutely loves it. I have taken more time to warm to it - I have joked that it feels like a shipping container and openly mused about missing doors and having a bed for guests to stay in. Nonetheless, it is great and we are so lucky to be in it - and who the hell knows when we will ever live in a loft again.

This little corner under our stairs has come a long way since we moved in. Here it is last spring...

It actually stayed like this for a long while, until I couldn't handle it any longer and forced Ben to go to Lowe's with me and pick up supplies so we could turn it into a functional space. We picked up some wood (I can't remember now exactly what it was), some white paint, pipe, flanges and screws and threw this together in a quick afternoon.

And after we cleared out the space, this is what we have basically been living with for the last 5ish months.

A significant improvement, but oh so plain. I am slowly adding to the corner and while we have a little bit more to do on it, I figured I needed to bring you up to speed. We have added the CB2 wall pockets (not currently available) and also these CB2 metal memo holders.

Slowly but surely, this corner is coming along - more to come soon....

hot mesh.

A while back in October I posted about getting some stools for our kitchen, and here is the update. We did indeed end up getting two of these Blu Dot Hot Mesh Stools and we love them.  Our report back is that they are super comfy, have a foot bar, and an easy back rest and they fit perfectly. Even Ben, who wasn't totally sold on the whole "we need stools" campaign that I launched last fall, likes them. So, there you have it and for what it is worth, I am a big fan of Blu Dot. Great customer service and great products....

pillow cased.

Oh hey hey. I can't remember how I happened upon this Etsy store - ZDkilimspillow - but just take a look at the pillows. I love them. Apparently, I especially love anything striped. They are beautiful and come in all colors, patterns, textures and sizes. I can't attest to the quality yet, but given the price point, worth taking a chance and looks like it is supporting a Turkish businesswoman....

project patio.

Hope the holidays have been wonderful! Ben and I just got back to SF last night after a fantastic couple of days in Palm Springs and Christmas celebration with my family in Denver. And now that we are back, I am ready to get started on 2017 and that includes doing something with our patio that we have severely underused for the past year. Updates to come, but to give an idea, here is what we are starting with....

Hapi. Hapi. Hapi.

Loving all the prints over on Hapi. 

I happened to spot one in an instagram post earlier this week and hunted it down to this site and really loving all the color, and apparently I am taken by stripes! Also, totally reasonable price-tags on these, in case you are still on the hunt for good holiday gifts and this hits the spot...here a couple of my favorites. 

stooled.

Oh stools. We have an awesome kitchen island that we designed and had made soon after we moved into our apartment out here. The plan all along was to add two stools to one side for some seating in the kitchen and because I love a good stool seat with a big island. But we have dragged our feet and been generally indecisive about what we want. But then last week, I happened upon this picture in a Domino Instagram post and I can't get enough of these Blue Dot Hot Mesh Stools...aren't they awesome?

take a seat.

This Leather Rhys Chair is a total looker.  I just love it and it comes in seven super rich colors.

mid-summer.

It has been two months since we did all that planting in the front yard (here is the post about it from May) and here is the mid-summer update - you won't believe the difference in just two months.

Here is the little garden area in the front yard by the tree...

MAY

JULY

Here are the azalea bushes right after we planted them, along with the iris bulbs...

MAY

JULY

 And here is the side of the house along our brick wall...

Oh yeah, and we added a DC flag to the front of the house and the flower boxes are in full bloom. All in, we have a lot of growth and color going on