Hazel Mae is here!

Our daughter Hazel Mae came into the world Monday evening, hungry and full of things to say. She's pretty perfect, and we've never been more in love.

We brought her home in the dress I was brought home from the hospital wearing... how perfect is that? My mom took care of it all these years. My sister and niece wore it, too, so Hazel's carrying forward an important tradition.

I'll be back with more details soon, but for now, we're going to keep getting to know each other. Yawning, stretching, snoozing... all that good stuff.

In the meantime, here's the last photo taken of us as a couple, before parenthood. It's from our DC "UnShower," which my friend Nole highlighted online here and here. She and Sara knocked out some amazing details for the party, and we had such a good time celebrating Baby H with friends before she came into the world.

Now that our girl is here, life feels so, so good. Be back soon... I'm off to soak in more of this goodness.

xoxo

Friday I'm in Love

Oh, Olympic fatigue. For two weeks, you ruin us with your late nights and your heart-stopping moments and your tears. Yet I wouldn't have it any other way. (GABBBBBBBBBY!!!!!!!) So while I'm bidding adieu to swimming and waving hello to track this weekend, I hope to also recharge my energy tank and maintain a happy-sleepy vibe all weekend long. No big plans, no big projects, just my guy and my cats, on the couch and in our neighborhood. Sounds perfectly mellow right about now. On to my picks for the week!

Dieter Braun Olympic Print

So much yes on this beauty. And wouldn't you know it'd look perfect in my upstairs hallway?

Sombrilla Sun Shade

Having just returned from a beach weekend myself, I'm loving the idea of these Sombrilla Sun Shades (hat tip to Remodelista), especially for families with kiddos in tow. Beach umbrellas are so bulky, and beach tents are such a pain to set up on a windy beach (my sister and I embarked on that comedy of errors last year, only to have poor Liam scraped by a blowing pole). These lovely sun shades, though, are simple, gorgeous, portable, and practical... what more do you need?

Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

I recently enjoyed the hell out of this book, and if you like abusdist comedic premises, you might, too. Christopher Moore has a bit of Tom Robbins to him, for those of you looking for a comparable author. He brings art legends (Renoir, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet, so many more) to life and ties them together in the most improbable of ways. Part mystery, part thriller, part romance, part science fiction, part historical fiction... this book has everything except for a satisfying ending. (Although I think I might be alone on that note? Read it so we can discuss the ending. And cast the fantasy movie.) Ready yourself for awkward laughing-out-loud moments on trains and such. (Or from underneath your Sombrilla sun shade?) Note to DCers - this one's available in the library.

Friday I'm in Love

This week was emotional on a lot of levels. We have loved ones going through breakups, tragedy striking people around us, and horrors like the shooting in Colorado last night making us realize even more than usual to stop and appreciate each moment. And so that's what I want to do this weekend - turn my brain off, breathe, and just be. On that note, here are three items that embody appreciating the small stuff:

Oh, my heart!

This pig melts my heart. Found here.

Summer Sippin'

These summer cocktails that Cyd featured are perfect for sipping in the shade with someone who makes you giggle. Mmmm, watermelon.

Rob Ryan, Always and Forever

He gets me every time.

Friday I'm in Love

I'm looking forward to a weekend in DC where we shall slooooooooooow down. My plans include tinkering around the house, garden, and neighborhood, hanging out with friends, and booing the Yankees. Sounds pretty perfect to me right now. I hope your weekends are filled with slow goodness, too. Here's three little links from me to wrap up the week. See you on the flip side!

'Grow Your Own' Calendar

 I'm obsessed with this gorgeous planting guide print, available here and discovered here. I'd love it if they would expand their reach and include planting seasons for places other than England. Perhaps my Grandma Jessie Mae can be the planting expert for the Eastern NC calendar... But would I choose that one, or the Mid-Atlantic guide? Hypothetical decisions abound! Regardless, this piece would be perfect hanging in any kitchen or back porch, don't you think?

Bedroom Upgrades

 I recently received a much-deserved (if I do say so myself) promotion and raise, and to celebrate, I ordered a piece of furniture I've been ogling for ages. Actually, I ordered two! These gorgeous Bedford Chests will serve as beefed-up nightstands for us, filling out a wall where we have space for more substantial furniture in what is otherwise wasted by only using small nightstands. I'm so.flipping.pumped that we're about to have more storage in our bedroom. We are ever so slowly getting a vision for what that room can become (only a year and a half after moving in... why does the bedroom always get shortchanged in my world?). I think I might even do some painting this weekend... it's been too long since these hands wielded a brush! The dressers are delivered Saturday... color me excited.

More Belle Boggs

 I know I recommended a Belle Boggs article last week, too, but this one was just too beautiful to go without mention. It was sent to me by my friend Cate (join me in wishing she was blogging again, why don't you?), and with good reason. In this piece (Yearning for Conception: The Art of Waiting), Boggs reminds me of Barbara Kingsolver in my annual spring/summer read Prodigal Summer. There's infertility, sure, but it's woven into the fabric of the NC Zoo, biology, and nature. Gorgeous stuff.

First Lady Letterpress

I'm briefly checking in from the settling of dust around here to give a huge shout-out to this amazing letterpress poster series from Two Paper Dolls featuring America's First Ladies. How ME is this??

You can go check them out yourself in Philadelphia next month, but until then, feast your eyes upon these beauties (which are... ahem... available for sale soon):

Yes please!

Happy is as Happy does

More and more, I find myself in step with this gorgeous print below. No one's life is perfect... but it's how we handle what we've been given that makes us who we are, and makes others someone I'd like to spend time with. What's your life philosophy when it comes to contentment?

Print: Mary Kate McDevitt

I think this one's going to go up on our bedroom wall, by the way. I've started collecting great prints with pops of blue for our bedroom. The caveat, of course, is that I'm not allowed to do any fun decorating in that room until I tackle our overwhelming need for clothing storage/organization. Now that we've settled down from our travels a bit, doing so is finally a real possibility. And that feels pretty great.

9.10.11

Oops. I completely meant to blog before I skipped town for my brother Lane's wedding. But it was one of those fun/crazy weekends (in between nearly killing my paper cutter as I finished making all the wedding programs, that is). And then I ended up leaving a day earlier than planned. And then I left in my usual mad rush of To Do's and Did I Forgets.

But now that I'm in the family rental house, there's nothing to do but relax.

HA!

Weddings in this family are madness. We laugh more than most and enjoy each other to the fullest, but that's despite our labor camp pace and the exhaustion that comes with artfully completing a million tasks that together produce an effortlessly crafted look. If you were reading me back in my own wedding planning days, that will sound familiar. If you weren't, see this.

I wish I were exaggerating, but take a peek. This is the staging area not for the wedding, mind you, but for the rehearsal dinner. My mom could open a party supply store.

Today I achieved many things. These did not include enjoying our pier on the Intercoastal Waterway, or hitting the beach, or finding earrings for tomorrow night's bachelorette, but they did include dicing 30 jalapeno peppers, painting directional signs, making and bottling rum punch, putting an entire wagon full of chicken parts into bags of jerk marinade, testing a beans and rice recipe for Friday night, squeezing what felt like 400 limes, and more. So we're busy. But we're smiling. How could we not with these two in the mix?

The official wedding events begin tomorrow with Nicole's bachelorette party. Then Friday, a reggae-themed cookout to kick things off (yes really). And a wedding on Saturday that's sure to be gorgeous, mostly because my mom was involved, but for me personally because I get to walk down the aisle with my groom again.

There's so much more I wanted to write about my brother and my soon to be sister-in-law. How she found her shoes because they were profiled in the issue of Brides that featured my wedding. How great she is, and they are, and their daughter is. How happy everyone is to be here, for them.

I'll take pictures, and I'll report back. But until then, I'll be b-u-s-y. Very, very happy. But busy. And maybe also sipping quite a bit of our patented "Love Potion # 9.10.11" toasting punch for Friday. (Please tell me you get the pun. I keep telling my mom... everyone will get it, really.)

Cheers, everyone!

Friday I'm in Love: LOL Letterpress Edition

Last night, while I should have been packing for the weekend (oops!), I instead got lost in the wonderful world of pretty paper on Etsy. Given my love for cheeky paper, these three pieces earned gold stars. Letterpress that makes me laugh out loud? Paper perfection in my book. 

Beautiful/Easy

Seriously? This is genius. Art from Dear Colleen.

 

Maddow Love

"If elected, she WILL run" is so my kind of humor. Big props to Big Wheel Press for egging on my perennial Rachel Maddow crush.

Buffalo Pride

The thing is, I actually adore Buffalo. My pal Tracy (waaaaay overdue at bringing her little girl Brenna into the world right now, by the way!) is a Buffalo native, and I'd never been there until her wedding a few years ago. The city flat-out rocks, just the kind of place I like to nerd out to. The architecture and history alone are enough to make me swoon. Add in great bars, old industry giving way to new ideas, and a fantastic sense of realness, and well... I was hooked. At any rate... everyone gives Buffalo a hard time, which is part of why I was so happy to genuinely love the city. This piece, then, speaks perfectly to my faux Buffalo native pride. Thank you, Western New York Book Arts Collaborative!

That's it from me this Friday. I'm off to Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania for a few days, for fun with my in-laws and a little work, too. Have a fun weekend, everyone!

Butterfly maps

Ahhh, weekend! So many friends packed into a few short days, from our dear friend who married us, to this adorable blogging duo, to a slew of T's high school friends who are busy doing great things. Add in some naps, a great movie, and some 17-year-old whiskey, and you have quite the weekend!

Things kicked off nicely on Friday with the delivery of five-sixths of our map collection from Bug Under Glass. I'm thrilled with how they turned out.

Bug Under Glass sells lots of gorgeous insect-related items, but this mapfiend had to have a set of their vintage maps framed with native butterflies.

On the top row, we have North Carolina, New York City, and Connecticut. On the bottom row, Boston, New Mexico, and a placeholder for Dallas. Kevin from Bug Under Glass didn't have a good Dallas map on hand, but I asked him to go ahead and send me the rest of these babies anyway. I love seeing our geographic history up on the wall... and the finished look with Dallas will bring us full circle.

Where's DC, you might ask? We're on the hunt for a DC-themed vertical art piece to hang beside this collection, currently represented by a sheet of newspaper. I'm the queen of mockups, what can I say?

All in the name of balance with our lovely radiator, of course!

I recently discovered that some people are skeeved out about framing butterflies (see comments), but never fear, Bug Under Glass is a humane harvester. (Here's some pretty fake butterfly framing if you're still skeeved.) Personally, I think these little beauties are just gorgeous, especially paired with the maps.

What do you say to framed butterflies? Yay or nea?

It's Friday, Friday, Friday!

I blame my cousins for getting this stuck in my head (hey, at least it's the "Glee" version). At any rate, I'm thrilled that it's Friday. We have a fun weekend ahead filled with friends old and new, and in between all that laughing and catching up, I hope to do more than my share of relaxing.

Here are a few things that caught my eye this week, while I was busy counting down to this (gloriously mild-weathered) weekend:

Backyard Scrabble

Ahhhh! I must have this. Also, I just broke down and traded in my broken-down, double-letter-typoing Droid 2 for an iPhone. Which means... SCRABBLE ON MY PHONE! Not as cool as life-size scrabble on the back patio, but it's something. Via stephmodo.

Welcome New Neighbors cards

I'm pretty sure if any of our neighbors had given us these when we moved in, I'd be eternally charmed. Such a fantastic idea, and easily DIY-able if you wanted to design your own. Via the kitchn.

Google Before You Tweet

This is probably my biggest pet peeve with Twitter. Seriously, you're tweeting a question you could answer for yourself quicker if you just typed the exact same thing into a search engine? Sigh... Letterpress (natch) via i love typography.

Speaking of letterpress... a big hug goes to my friend Nole this week, both for her smarts in taking a week off to welcome her awesome husband back from Iraq properly, and for letting me play on her blog while they reunited. Today's last guest post, by the way, is all about gardening, with lots of pretty stuff to ogle.

Oh So Beautiful Paper: Gardening Paper Love

 Urban Gardening letterpress print from Starshaped Press

Food, on tables and paper

Last night we had my sister-in-law and her (dare I say it... what the heck, she doesn't read this...) boyfriend over for dinner, and we had the best time laughing around our new table. I had a couple of issues of Food and Wine sitting around unopened, and upon finally reading them found myself incredibly inspired by the August issue, which focuses quite a bit on local produce and regional food customs. Here's what we ate (and nope, I was having way too much fun to get out the camera):

• Grilled Swordfish Steaks with Basil-Caper Butter. I was going to make the August issue's lima bean version of this dish, but couldn't find any fresh beans, so this basil-caper preparation subbed in wonderfully. It truly was delicious, and I'm so thankful I now have a huge mound of this butter sitting in my freezer. Fair warning: if you're coming over to dinner any time soon, chances are good you'll be eating this fish.
• Braised Cucumbers with Dill. I'd never served warm cucumbers before, but you can bet I'm on board now. (It also helps that we're dill freaks over here.)
• Israeli Couscous with Arugula Pesto. I went less heavy on the tomatoes to suit T's taste buds and added in some roasted red peppers. Sooo happy that I have leftovers waiting for me for lunch today!
• Grilled Corn with Smoked Salt and Black Pepper. How much do I love smoked salt? Let me count the ways...
• Strawberry and Peach Crisp. My sister-in-law's favorite.

I picked up most of the ingredients for dinner over at Eastern Market, my very-favorite thing about my neighborhood. Speaking of Eastern Market, it serves as the inspiration for today's guest-post over at Oh So Beautiful Paper. I have market and food prints from Seattle, California, Knoxville, and more, so come on over and check them out!

Oh So Beautiful Paper: Local Food Paper Love

Produce notecards from Yee Haw Industries

"Transit," and paper

Today on Oh So Beautiful Paper I'm highlighting all things "transit," from my beloved streetcars to, you know, hot air balloons. Hey, I couldn't resist this nod at one of Albuquerque's premier events!

Oh So Beautiful Paper: Neighborhood Transit Paper Love

But speaking of transit, there's good work news on my end. A new role and some meaty things to tackle. Positive change, all of it.

Simple summer pleasures

I'm keeping things simple this week, breathing in summer. Here's what I'm loving:

Juicy nectarines...

 iced tea made with mint from the garden...

a blooming gardenia bush...

this light-as-air robe from Plum Pretty Sugar...

simple pesto spaghetti with a heap of golden cherry tomatoes...

...and the promise of even more from my basil plant out back.

What are you loving this August?

PS: Today on Oh So Beautiful Paper I'm highlighting gorgeous place-based art, which includes revealing what those weird little paper cut-out squares are all about.

DC here and there

There is no landscaping plan to report to you. We had too much fun with my parents to move beyond brainstorming. And that's perfectly fine. We strolled the 'hood and ate at one of our local faves. We slept in and made the Clinton St. Baking Company's Spanish Scramble for breakfast. We oohed and aahed at the Library of Congress. We sniffed and smiled at the US Botanical Garden. We walked and walked and walked. We stuffed ourselves silly at Art & Soul, where I ate the most perfect flounder in my personal history of eating lots of flounder. We laughed ourselves silly at Who's Your Baghdaddy? Or How I Started the Iraq War, the second time this month I've been entertained over at the Wooly Mammoth (the first was at F#@king Up Everything, a hipster musical with a heart of gold). We visited our friend Mr. Jefferson (there is always time to visit Mr. Jefferson). And life was good. And is.

The Library of Congress is, you know,
just a little bit jaw-droppingly beautiful inside.

While I catch up on some life and work stuff today, you might go and visit my pal Nole's blog, where I'm guest-blogging all week while she and her husband reunite after the close of Andy's six-month deployment. I'm talking paper over there all week long, as seen through the lens of my nerdy interests and consumer confessions. It'll be a fun week.

First up: DC Paper Love, or "How many letterpressed items featuring DC's map and flag can one woman possibly own?"

It's a fitting first post after this city showed my parents such a lovely time this weekend, don't you think?

Why yes, I do own this letterpress DC flag print made up of DC neighborhood names. Go visit the post to learn more!

Friday I'm in Love

I'm quite happy to put this week to bed... and quite happy to jump-start my foodie getaway! Here are my three spotlights for the week:

Seven Deadly Sin Plates

Am I cool enough to hang this collection in my home? Probably not... but oh how I'd love for one of you cooler folks to do it. Just brilliant. Can you image the laughter of your dinner guests when they take a moment to study the decorative plate collection hanging above the table? Made by Trixie Delicious, blogged by re-nest.

Surprise 3D Announcements

 I look at a lot of pretty letterpress every week, but this number over at For Print Only literally made my jaw drop. Just amazing, every thing about it. This gorgeous little package was the brainchild of The Mandate Press - worth remembering if you have any big surprises to announce in your own lives.

Courtney Martin's TED Talk

We're having quite a TED Talk week over here, and for good reason... I'm addicted to listening to these talks on slow afternoons when I'm trying to ignore my coffee craving and I'm tired of NPR. Courtney Martin is an editor for one of my favorite blogs Feministing. Her TED Talk ranges from her feminist parents, her own process of defining what feminism means to her, and women's activism, then and now. Completely inspiring, and funny, too.

Have a delicious weekend, everyone!

Dreams, deferments, and detours

So we didn't get the Pretty House. We found out on New Year's Eve, in the early evening. It took a while after we got the news for me to put on my party face and ring in the New Year. But I did. And then we celebrated.

Not toasting another year would have been a crime. 2010 has been intense, and we survived it. In the first half of the year, the world was our oyster: we moved to the city we'd been trying to move to for years. We set up a cozy apartment. We hung out in Europe. In the second half, though, we closed our circle in a bit, holding tight to family while saying goodbye to loved ones who left this world too soon. The second half of 2010 changed me. But now that it's 2011, I know that brighter times are ahead.

Which brings us back to the hunt for new digs. Our lease is up in less than two months, so the clock is ticking. Maybe we'll rent again, but we'd like to buy if we can find the right place at the right price in our very short timeline. The funny thing about house-hunting, I've discovered, is that it is exactly like everyone says it is:  highly emotional and completely stressful. I wrote about my concerns regarding the Pretty House here, but with each passing day, I was more and more sure that it was "the one." I had visions of renovations and a family and a life, all in that spot. Brains and hearts can so easily play tricks on us when there's a capital-h Home involved, can't they?

Since New Year's, we're not exactly back to Square One. There are a couple of interesting possibilities out there. One is purple (eek!). One is a renovation project (gulp-yay-dependingonmood). Maybe we'll see a slew of new listings in the coming weeks. Maybe not. Maybe I just want to make a decision so that we can move on with life. Maybe, as long as we're together, it really doesn't matter at all.

May your 2011 be filled with wonder, laughter, and joy.

Gorgeous papercuts and screenprints courtesy of Rob Ryan, my brightest-burning paper love.