Trader Joe's top 10 finds

Easily my favorite grocery store; land of $0.99 birthday cards, superior almond milk, prettiest AND cheapest orchids (that make for a perfect hostess gift) and much cheaper but equally delicious to (snap, crackle + pop) crisped rice cereal.

While I love so many foods from there, here is my completely biased, top ten, go-to favorites...

this is an INSANELY delicious 

dairy meets puff pastry gem. I would not recommend looking at the nutritional facts. we are big fans of most of their puff pasty greek-influenced frozen items, but this one steals the show

these are so tasty! they are a little thicker than your average pita chip, so they don't flake apart, but still light and airy. we have these with sweet goat cheese + fig jam or savory guacamole. 

no brainer. already made. enjoy!

these just might be my all-time favorite cookie. I'm maple-obsessed and everything  about this cookie is maple; cookies, frosting center and obvi the cute little maple leaf shape. they are big, hearty cookies. two, with a cup of tea in autumn is such a dreamy pairing. 

super decadent + rich. all 5 of us are fans of this one. super rich, very chocolatey, and never lasts long. 

while i try to make my own, this is cheap and obviously cant be easier. i fry it up with eggs for breakfast, make a crust for pizza, or my favorite thing to do is whip up a healthy fried rice. soooooo good!

ok, to be honest, these aren't my favorite. but my kids and husband love them so much, i thought they deserved a spot on here. having a true british husband who grew up on proper crumpets, he makes a good judge. in fact, he declared these to be better than ones from the mother country. 

have you ever tried mochi? sooooo good. it's like a little edible mystery parcel with ice cream hidden inside. they carry so many flavors. kids love them. just a really cool dessert experience. 

this is pretty on trader joe's shelves, but becoming a quick cult favorite. i put it in fried rice, on eggs, on avocado toast pr toss with sautéed greens. experiment away!

creamy, sweet (but not too sweet) and vegan! i was vegan for about a hot 5 minutes and this, along with copious amounts of guacamole, was what i lived on. pro-tip: use it as a creamer for iced coffee. aaaahhhhmazing!

* image is of NYC Trader Joe's. I can hardly believe my now suburbia self used to wait in those lines every week just to get in there! 

how to tell if it's real love?

                           

I've read so many good bits lately on love and I find each one of them so sweet, true and a good test...

I completely forget where I read it, but it was a few weeks ago; along the lines of "you love someone when you can re-tell their stories that you aren't part of"

It took me a second to think if I could do it, but once I thought about it, I found myself thinking of all sorts of Stuart's fun childhood stories, teenage love stories, family stories and traveling stories I've learned about him over the past 13 years. 

We soaked in a cozy bubble bath that night and retold each others stories to one another. He remembered so many of mine! And it was so interesting to see how the focus of the story shifted with some else retelling it. 

                                     

And another piece on the love subject, on cupofjo I read this question "what is the name of your first love's first love?"

Do you have any sweet, little tests or challenges on true love?

here's hoping the kids morning soccer is called off in honor of Pippa's wedding so I can stay home instead, drool over pictures, not get dressed and drink excessive amounts of coffee

The kids soccer practice and games weren't called off after all, but that certainly didn't stop me from drooling over pictures...

arriving with her dad, so sweet! 

these hats at British weddings are the real deal. I've been to many a British wedding and everyone still rocks the party hat. I love it! Chic, fancy and fun

more hat flair

I love everything about this picture; kate (obvi), the little pager boys and flower girls, the hushing and the thick rose garland makes me swoon. 

stunning! (and can we talk about my arm envy and her teeny waist?!)

my favorite! 

My grandmother in-law in Wales knows I love the royal family, so I'm half expecting British gossip mag in the mail with great, oversized, glossy photos or at least a Pippa + Kate calendar ;)

pink bathroom: part 2

first things first, let's get back to that pink bathroom, shall we?

while Stuart wasn't a fan of the flamingos nearly as much as I was, we settled on chic country roses to stay with the look and character of the house, but still needed something to make this 50's pink tile shine.

Also, by this point we knew we were thinking of moving soon, so wanted something less crazy and not so catered to our taste.

We knew we wanted a big print, rather than small roses buds. I loved the idea of a black background, but thought that might not attract or appeal to too many people. It had to be within the fine parameters of chic and pretty, but not old lady-ish/dated/boring.

Here are some of the options...

(all of these we found on wayfair.com. they have a really big selection)

Here's the work in progress. I obviously hired to two cutest wallpapers in town and paid them in sandwiches and cookies ;)

and VOILA! the final product...

This was a good sized bathroom with really fantastic light. While it was only a half bath, you could easily have put in a shower or a bath with just a little reconfiguration. We just didn't have the time, money or energy. 

A few other things we did to give this room a facelift was a new floor and freshen up the white trim. A clean coat of white and retouching trim is the easiest way to boost a room back to life. 

And well, if you've been following for long, this room got a floor in the first place. This bathroom, since we moved in, had no floor, just old, smelly,  sub-flooring, which I'm sure wasn't up to code nor was it attractive. 

We chose a simple, clean, light color laminate floor. Home Depot and cost under $100 for the entire room. It was those easy stick tiles (I say easy because Stuart did it, not me;)

We wanted a light color, since its a fairly small room, but the whole new look makes it look bigger and much brighter. 

We also brought in a plant, got rid of the dark medicine cabinet and put up a chic, shabby cut glass mirror. We left the sink, since it was small and sweet and there was already plenty of storage in the built-in cabinets. And we put in a new, inexpensive, white toilet. 

We were pretty pleased with how it came out and our only regret was not doing it sooner so we could have enjoyed it. Live and learn. 

I'M BACK! after a 2 year hiatus, I'm back. And I am so sorry it's been so long.

so much has obviously happened since our last post; another baby, a 10 year wedding celebration, and a move. big, grown up things. crazy!

while we've moved into a new, 19805 contemporary house in the woods, I still have two share with you so many little projects we did in our previous, gorgeous victorian.

baby Bowie



wedding



moving


*this is the VERY last picture of all five of us at our old home. so bittersweet.

pink tile bathroom

back from hiatus (once again) and bathroom projects on the brain.

i'm not even sure if I've ever mentioned our downstairs bathroom. it's huge, has great light and we have big plans for it....oh, and it's hilariously hideous!

but after we had to unexpectedly give our upstairs bathroom a facelift/makeover not quite a year ago, and therefor spending a chunk of money we didn't have, we have to put our grand downstairs bathroom plans on hold.

this is our bathroom now (like, right now. i JUST took these pictures about 2 minutes ago)

while it's slowly grown on me and i find it really funny and charming in its own way, stuart hates the pink tile. but we're not about to go and paint tile or do anything that takes too much time, money or effort, especially as the grand plans we're hoping we can do within the next 3+ years.

i had this brilliant idea last night and thought we should totally embrace the wildly dated pink + black combo and actually make that our theme and just run with it. FLAMINGOS!

so this morning i've been knee deep in "research" and found these awesome flamingo print wallpapers. 

the print needs to be fun and not too serious. can flamingos be serious?

I'm thinking it also ideally needs to have a bit of black in it to pull the colored tile in. 

this one is my favorite of the bunch, but i have no doubts will be stuarts least favorite. i also need to see how big the scale is.

shockingly, stuart is (somewhat) on board and once we order the paper, we could get the whole project done in a weekend. 

i'll keep you posted on progress. 

rose dishes

remember me vaguely mentioning my growing collection of rose dishes? well, i found two more this past weekend while antique shopping with my mom.

how fabulous are these?!

while the smaller plate is a little too small for my incomplete dinner set, who doesn't want a fancy lunch plate? and the platter is the perfect size.

the platter was a mere $3 and the plate was $1. both 15% off, so i spent less that $4 on both. serious shopping usually yields seriously awesome. 

thrifting treasures

as i mentioned in my last post, it is the season for finding great treasures. this past weekend i found tons of great stuff!

i bought two pretty rose plates and a fabulous vintage mirror for only $10 the first day of an estate sale in town. the rose plates I've been collecting for the past 8 years in lieu of us having any formal china, so i was happy to add those to my growing collection. and the mirror i have big plans for when we finally get around to doing our downstairs bathroom.

so my mom and i decided to scout out the estate sale on it's last day to see if there were any bargains (amidst ballet recital weekend)

sure enough we got to fill a box for only $1. AWESOME

here's what i came home with...




this sweet little tea/espresso cup. it's in such a vibrant yellow and the handle painting resembles some sort of bird. i love it! it will be perfect to serve some mustard or jam or honey in.

i found two of these little rose bowls. the pattern was pretty and i always love the gold rim. great to serve a side of olives or lemon wedges or something.

and here's a picture of the china loot. 

i love that i can layer some of them too. they all kind of coordinated. 

i also found a vintage mint green zipper for who knows what project, but hey, it was in the $1 box. and...

these beautiful gold-tipped needles. 

and this old calendar page from May 1982. i just really loved the moon images.