Crazy good yoga deal!

This morning's Groupon was the best. $175 for a FULL YEAR of unlimited yoga at a studio several miles away from our house! The Yoga World studio had great reviews on Yelp, and seriously, how often can you get a full year of go whenever you want yoga at a nice studio for only $175?? It's a savings of $775 and a crazy good deal. I love Groupon. They even have a prenatal yoga class! And it'll be awesome for toning back up after the baby ruins my body in five months. If you live in Long Beach and like yoga, you're crazy stupid if you don't jump on this before the deal expires in two days. Buy it here!

It's spring! Wait, was it ever winter?

These trees in front of our house make me so happy. All of these blooms literally sprung up just this week. So pretty!

More blog love

Just a little note that I added some new blogs to the list on the right of blogs I follow obsessively and read and pull inspiration from. In case y'all are bored with your readers and need some new material. :)

18 weeks, 4 days

My worst fears are coming true. This baby is going to be HUGE. This next month is supposed to be a big growth spurt for the baby and my midsection, and it seems to already be happening. Either that or empire waist dresses make you look WAY pregnant. And here I was thinking black was slimming... 

And yes, those are the Swedish Hasbeens clogs on my feet. I couldn't resist!! They were 50% off!! I don't regret them one bit. They are so dang comfortable and I love them and they make me happy. Thank you eBay...

Happy 100th President Reagan.

Jeff's latest painting for a collector that is commissioning a bunch of artists to paint portraits of historical icons. Pretty cool, although I'm fairly sure President Reagan did not own a tie like that...

St. Germain deliciousness

I wouldn't say that I'm missing or craving adult beverages now that I'm cut off thanks to Baby, but maybe just a little bit when I come across gems like this. St. Germain is hands-down my favorite liqueur (made from freshly handpicked elderflower blossoms) and goes so well with so many mixers, alcohols, and foods.

The classic of course is the St. Germain Cocktail which this carafe helps you to make. Markers are inscribed in the glass to show how much St. Germain, champagne, and sparkling water to put in (a rose wine is better than water IMHO). It makes 5 cocktails per batch, or one large one if you're feeling sassy. I like bar paraphernalia, and this carafe and these spoon straws are awesome.

Makes me want to have a party, so I can just stare longingly at my guests enjoying their bubbly treats... I guess that'd be creepy though.

I SUGGEST you go see this show before it's taken down.

Last night's Suggestivism show was SO good. Everything about it was a great art show, not one of those where you walk around the gallery in 20 minutes, see everything, and then want to leave because you don't know anyone and no one is talking about anything but art. We stayed until the bitter end of this one because it was a blast. A lot of our friends came out, new friends were made, there were flowing free drinks (Hansen's Natural soda for Karen and me!), free artisan chocolates, and SO much to look at in the two gallery rooms and the store. Take a gander:

I didn't get great shots of the Mockingbird piano because the room was pretty crowded and they had a ton of professional photographers shooting everything so I'll just grab those pictures later. It was my first time seeing the piano in person too so I was doing a lot of gawking. It's really beautiful.

This piece below was another favorite, done by our friend Greg Simkins. Chunky Bunny soup does not sound appealing, but the painting was awesome.

I'm so happy we got to see Alex and his wife Akiko before they left, we just caught them on their way out. Alex did the piece below (and fun fact, Jeff, as his underpainter, painted the curtains and floor in this painting!) and it's hard to tell from the pictures, but it's gigantic. Like 5x7' or 6x8'. He goes big.

GelaSkins did new iPad and iPhone covers of Jeff's Mockingbird close-up! They were for sale at the show in the Grand Central Store. It was a surprise to all of us, Jeff didn't even know they were making them, and now of course we all want them. Luckily Jeff has got the hook-ups. Don't worry Mom and Dad, one of each will be coming your way to decorate your technology. 

This was another impressive friend piece. Brendan Monroe (whom we stayed with when we were in Stockholm last year) did this gigantic painting. Everyone had to get up close to check it out, as Jan is demonstrating here, because he used gloppy paper towels with paint covering them to build texture in the painting. It was creepy, but impressive.

Eesh... I forgot who did this one. Gorilla in a pink bunny suit though. Pretty great.

This is Nathan (not casual Jesus), the curator of this amazing show, being interviewed in front of his painting. The only thing more impressive than Nathan's beard-growing ability is how this man paints. I've seen a bunch of his paintings but this was the first original in front of me live, and it was so dreamy. I mean just that, it sucks you in and puts you in a floaty dream state as you're staring at it. Or him. He's easy on the eyes too.

We made a new friend last night, Joe Vaux (pronounced Vox- screw the French!). He's hilarious and great and told us stories of his 8 month old baby. He's an artist and has a great piece in the show, but Joe is also a storyboard/revisionist and assistant director on The Family Guy. AWESOME!! That's our favorite show that Jeff and I watch together. When I can make it to 11:00 on weeknights, I join him in his nightly hour-long Family Guy treat. Here is the list of Family Guy shows Joe has worked on. So cool.

And in case you were wondering if Jeff and Joe are wearing one-piece sweatsuits, yes. Yes they are. Planet Illogica sponsored the show and made these One-Z's for all the artists to wear. Jeff tore into his and jumped right in. They don't have back trap doors but they zip up from the crotch for easy access.

Also on the cool fashion front- Jan's wingtips and pegged pants showing off his argyle socks. Might look clownish from this angle, but trust me, it worked with the rest of his look.

Jeff, Tonny (Sorensen, owner of Planet Illogica), and Joe posing in their superhero peejays.

And a lovely little party favor. An edible chocolate box filled with more chocolates from Charles Chocolates! Best... show... EVER.

Suggestivism, tomorrow at Grand Central Art!

Come one, come all! This show is going to be AHHmazing. So many good artists, hubbie included. Jeff's Mockingbird piano will be out on display so that's exciting. Here's the flier and description, hope you all can make it! We'll be eating at Memphis or the Gypsy Den next door around 7ish if you want to do dinner with us first. Come find us!


Main Art Gallery Suggestivism features over fifty contemporary artists whose work is inherently ambiguous, and organic in process. Curator Nathan Spoor believes they follow the ideals of "Suggestivism." The term Suggestivism in art was first used in the late nineteenth century describing the organic process of making art, the loose mark-making, and the ambiguous narrative. Early modern art can be seen as examples of Suggestivism. However, Spoor's contemporary examples begin with the organic process and follow through with ambiguous narratives, but the artwork is tightly rendered, and illustrative.

Conceptually speaking, the term suggestivism refers to the ability of an individual to pursue their purpose with an amplified understanding and sensitivity. The artists involved represent precisely this - a wave of purpose, working within the more fluid aspects of narrative or figurative arenas. Through the mere power of suggestion, the magic is transferred from one to another, engaging the world at large from the most vivid and evocative of visual realms. - Nathan Spoor, Curator


Featured Artists: Esao Andrews, Carrie Ann Baade, Sandow Birk, Michael Brown, Nicoletta Ceccoli, Dave Cooper, Bob Dob, Thomas Doyle, Ron English, Alex Gross, Robert Hardgrave, Naoto Hattori, Femke Hiemstra, Gregory Jacobsen, Audrey Kawasaki, Andy Kehoe, Kris Kuksi, Darren LeGallo, Kris Lewis, Francesco LoCastro, Jason Maloney, Mars-1/Mario Martinez. Chris Mars, Dalek James Marshall, Dan May, Elizabeth McGrath, Jeff McMillan, Tara McPherson, Mia, David Molesky, Brendan Monroe, Scott Musgrove, Nathan Ota, Michael Page, Kevin Peterson, James Roper, Chris Ryniak, Bob Schneider, Todd Schorr, Greg Simkins, Skinner, Jeff Soto, Nathan Spoor, CR Stecyk III, Heidi Taillefer, Joe Vaux, Nicola Verlato, Oliver Vernon, Eric White, Robin Williams, Martin Wittfooth, Chandler Wood, Chet Zar


CSUF Crand Central Art Center
125 N Broadway
Santa Ana, CA 92701

17 weeks 5 days

Bump! This is me trying to stand up straight and not push out my belly to prove I'm pregnant, I swear. I went in for a doctor's appointment yesterday and they did another ultrasound which showed the baby doing the double dream hands dance. Totally my baby. I felt her move around for the first time on Saturday during savasana at the end of yoga which was so weird! Karen was there to properly freak out with me. I've been feeling her off and on this week and it's fun to think of her wiggling around in there. Pretty exciting. :)

LBMA Art Auction XIV- Where Imagination Takes Flight

Here is Jeff's work in progress for the Long Beach Museum of Art's Annual Fundraising Art Auction. This year it will be held on May 22nd, and Jeff's piece is a doozy. He's still tweaking it but says it's about 95% done. It's really gorgeous up close, so many little details! They're also using it for the auction's promotional materials (see the starting sketches in the banner below?) and I think they're going to make greeting card sets from it too. I want it to sell for a million dollars, but I'd also love for it not to sell so we could keep it...

New Farrow & Ball

The new Farrow & Ball paint colors are gorgeous. And I love how they painted these rooms with the ceiling and a foot of the wall painted a different color. I don't know how this would look in a room with normal height ceilings and not these amazing 12 foot tall rooms, but I'm a swoonin'. This color combination would be so awesome for the nursery, I loves it:

And this one is a little moody for a baby's room but the wall color is so perfect. Too bad these beauties are $85-100 a gallon!

New camera!

FedEx brought us a fun little package today... a new camera! A wonderful little surprise gift from my parents. My dad was upgrading his own point-and-shoot and found an awesome deal at Costco on the Casio Exilim EX-S200 and decided to pick us up one too! It's about twice as cool as my Canon p&s, with 14.1 megapixels and a 4 GB memory card which is double what I'm used to. There is also a "makeup mode" that will smooth out all of Jeff's acne (just kidding, I don't think I've ever seen him with a zit. Jerk.) and a YouTube capture mode for making videos with ideal upload settings, so expect a whole bunch more Lily Mae puking videos. Or not.

Here are some test shots of my favorite furry model:

The one above was with no flash, and no iPhoto enhancements. The one below is with the "soft flash" feature and no iPhoto enhancements other than blacking out the devil eyes flashes give LM.

These chairs are her new favorite spot in the house. Until this week, I've never seen her on these chairs that we've had for years. Now she won't get off of them. Even at bedtime! Such a weirdo. Thank God they're wipeable.

This blanket is the only thing that pulls her away from the dining chairs. The waterproof puke cover comes off the couch and the soft white blanket comes out and she's on it like puke on hardwood. Or white on rice. Whatever.

I can't wait to play around more with all these new features and see if my photography skills improve. I'm going to have a pretty important subject to capture in five months so I'm going to need to get my practice on! Thanks again Dad and Mom!!

Want.

I keep going back to these Kate Spade beauties to see if they've been magically discounted 75%. Aren't they gorgeous? The color, the heel, the lace... With bright red nail polish on the little piggies, just perfection. I didn't end up getting those Swedish Hasbeens either, because it feels crazy to spend money on shoes I don't need (note the italics, need is a relative word in my vocabulary) and with a garage renovation and baby being the major money sucks right now. It's nice to post them though, and pretend I'm buying them.

A little garden progress...

We replanted our raised bed with rainbow lights swiss chard, red cabbage, asian cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and garlic at the beginning of the month and everything is looking strong and healthy, thanks to this amazing SoCal winter weather we've been having. The rainstorms filled up our rain barrel and we've been watering this bed with that and the plants are thriving in the sunshine and cold mornings. Here's the before, right after the sad little Home Depot seedlings went in:

And the shot from a few days ago, opposite direction (don't mind the one-eyed gorilla):

Looks like we're going to have a bountiful harvest... Another addition we made to the garden is a second compost bin. The large one is just about done (our scraps made beautiful compost!) but of course we're constantly generating more scraps to put in it, so we bought a smaller matching tub ($7 from Target, deal city considering how much real "composters" cost at garden centers), drilled holes in the top and bottom, threw in some of the done compost, added our scraps from the kitchen compost bin, and voila! 2nd composter. Now I can amend my soil freely when things are looking low. 

And look at our succulents! We snagged a couple little succulent roses from Grammie's garden when we were up north and planted them here to see if they'd propagate, and boy did they. Tons! These will get replanted in the front yard so we can keep the little succulent factory going.

Next up on my outdoor list is to fertilize our orange tree and Linus the lemon tree, plant my craespedia seeds (aka billy balls!), and plant the porcelain vines Mandy gave me as a birthday gift! The porcelain vines are super invasive apparently but oh so beautiful, so I'm going to plant them in our window boxes where they can be managed appropriately. Fingers crossed for this:

(Image From Saipua)

How is crib bedding more expensive than MY bedding??

Crib bedding is ridiculously expensive. And unnecessary! Aren't crib bumpers and blankets supposed to be SIDS risks?? So... don't you just need fitted sheets and a sleep sack? I'm confused about all these crazy expensive bedding sets for mini people. I shun them. I want cute organic sheets so I think I'll just make them. I looked up some patterns online and they seem easy enough. And I can use my stash of pretty vintage fabrics! This one from Etsy seller RoosterLegs is super adorable though, I love the patchwork!

I was thinking about changing tables too... we're keeping and refinishing Jeff's old dresser (his childhood one) for the baby's room and I was thinking we could just put a changing pad on top of that but it would be at my chest level which seems like it might be awkward to change a baby on. Yes? No? Maybe I'll practice with a stunt baby to see if it'll work. If not, I think the Edland 3-drawer dresser from IKEA would be pretty sweet:

The color matches the crib and the legs and pulls are a little girly but not too precious. And more storage for all those cloth diapers and wipies and baby butt supplies is always helpful! We shall see. 

Sweet relief...

The headache is finally going away. Yesterday and today were pretty good and it seems to get better by the hour. I went for a massage yesterday after work and it made all the difference. My upper back was killing me so I decided to cash in my Groupon (only $35 for a full body hour long massage!) and git 'er done. It would have been bad the night before because my head was still throbbing (and face down in that head cradle would NOT have been comfortable) but last night was just right. I floated out of there.

It was the perfect storm of a cold, pregnancy hormones, conference stress, and being tired that just murdered my head. I'm going to need to start watching how I feel a little closer and to take more breaks when those warning signs appear. Or just go get a weekly massage. :)

Thanks everyone for all the worrying and phone calls and sweet comments wishing me to get better!

I hope this doesn't go to her head...

Lily Mae was featured on the Desire To Inspire blog this morning in their "Monday Pets on Furniture" series! The Apartment Therapy photographer, Bethany Nauert, submitted these shots (similar to the AT ones but different pictures) to the blog series and they were up live this morning. Poor thing looks terrified in the first picture, but honestly, she kind of looks like that most of the time. It's just her face.

Do you think we should get her an agent? I always thought she would be a good model, staring intently always, and her whole bulimia thing...

Nothing else to do but online shop!

Sooo... headache is still here. :( The Excedrin helps a lot but only lasts about 4 hours max and I can only take it once a day so there are still a lot of unhappy hours. Sigh.

So what else is there to do while lying still on the couch? I shopped around for clothes, baby goodies, read my reader, and bookmarked a lot of stuff. Virtual window shopping though because the credit card was in my wallet in the other room and I couldn't get up. It's better though. No impulse buying when sick!

Like these, don't need at all but want:

Retro Industrial Storage Units. I love the color, the wood tops, and the latched storage boxes. Sadly, nowhere to put these...

Kusaki Puff towels. The pigments come from plants and they're made from super absorbent and soft organic cotton. Love those little puff dots. Maybe we do need these... the baby will need towels!

Both from Viva Terra...

15 weeks 5 days

The baby was doing a little downward facing dog for us today at the ultrasound, which made it a bit tricky to get good pictures but it was still fun to see. Annnnnd... the doctor is 90% sure that the peanut is a girl! Fun!! She's growing well and our triple screen results came back in the normal range so we're very happy, and can't wait for the anatomy ultrasound in 4 more weeks.

Not as smooth is this migraine I've had for the past three days. And yes, it has to be a migraine because I threw up twice last night (right after typing that I hadn't barfed yet, jinxing myself). But thanks to Nikki and Mandy's advice (thanks guys!) and my wonderful husband doting on me, I'm starting to feel better. Oh, and also maybe from the Excedrin Migraine I'm now allowed to take with blessings from my OB. Like magic. It still hurts when I get up to walk around or move my eyes to the far left or right, but at least the constant throbbing is gone. The humidifier is great (no more snot!) and my furry little purring hot water bottle is also making the bed rest more comfy. 

Here's to hoping Friday brings a full day of sweet relief...

Un-fun.

This is not good times. I'm going on hour 42 of the worst headache of my life. Is this what a migraine feels like? I asked Jeff to hang up dark towels over our bedroom windows to make the room cave-like and tolerable because when I get out of bed or see bright light, my frontal and temporal lobes pulse and I hate life. I'm not getting the aura thing though, and not at all nauseous (I made a giant fruit smoothie for breakfast and had Jeff pick me up double decker bean tacos for lunch and wolfed it all down), but this headache is impervious to Tylenol and my allowed one cup of coffee today. Thankfully the Tylenol worked yesterday morning for me as we wrapped up our annual Imaging Genetics conference that I coordinate for work. This was somewhat good, and probably expected, timing for a cold and headache to come on since I usually take a day or two off after the conference to wind down, but still is unwelcome.

I don't know if it's a congestion headache (I got a cold over the weekend and yesterday was bad on my sinuses but I'm much clearer today) or related to the pregnancy, but it SUCKS. Any recommendations are very welcome and appreciated because I rarely get headaches and don't know what else to do besides curl up and whimper underneath my lavender and flax eye pillow.

My brief respite from the throbbing today came during my shower which I was dreading. It was hard to get up and make it over to the bathroom but the second I stepped into the steamy water, the headache was gone. I would have stayed there all day if we weren't in a drought. Maybe I need a humidifier? Do those help headaches? This one is cute. This one though is available at my local Target and I'm all about safety first. I'll send Jeff.

The other great part about my shower was my new Yes to Carrots body wash. It smells sooo good. I have the Yes to Cucumbers shampoo and conditioner and those are fantastic too. Paraben free and with lots of natural ingredients, not to mention pretty and witty packaging which I'm a sucker for. I'm all over their baby products too as soon as the peanut arrives. I like the nose gunk wipes especially.

Back to sleep...