Last week, during our adventures around town, N and I discovered the most charming animal portraits by Ryan Berkley. 

This handsome fellow went home with N...


While this little guy stole my heart!

(To be honest, I originally purchased a different print that was going to go in the master bedroom, however, when I got it home T was less than thrilled.  Luckily he went back to the shop with me and was just as enamored with these portraits.  It came down to a coin toss between Mr Cheetah, Mr Otter, and Mr Polar Bear - but the jaunty angle of the Otter's hat definitely tipped the scale in his direction!)

lots of fun & a confession!

Lost of fun:

On Thursday night I had the immense pleasure of picking up an old friend (someone who new T & I back when we were first crushing on each other) from the train station.  We proceeded to spend an amazing 36 hours together talking about everything under the sun (books, design, philosophy, hipsters, our secret fascination with housewife blogs (specifically the Mormon ones), hair, children, philanthropy,  architecture, movies, business ventures, travel, art, fertility, how much we love Anthropologie, and of course all the old camp memories.  We walked all over Portland and took tons of photos.

We ate delicious food:

 

 

Saw interesting art:

 

Spent a blissful couple of hours in Powell's:

And had the strangest afternoon of weather (seriously these photos were taken about 5 minutes apart!):

 

What an amazing weekend!!!

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Now on to the confession:

Before you read any further hop on over to one of my favorite blogs Design Gal and Her Handyman to read one of the most honest confessions ever.   What I especially love about this post is that her secret mess truly IS a mess.  (unlike some people's "befores" which are usually my "after")

One of the things I dislike about the blogging community is how much we sugarcoat/edit our lives - and I think the worst part is that I totally do it to.  Only it keeps me from actually blogging.  The reason why I have not shown you my master bedroom paint color yet is that I am afraid to take pictures of the mess of clean clothes sitting on top of my dresser.  (And don't even get me started on the dresser - I started painting it 3 years ago and never finished the very last bit, so I can't show you how cool it turned out!)  Or that my husbands bedside table is still pre-hacked.  (This is what I want it to look like.  This is what it actually looks like.)

Anyway - the whole point of this rambling is to share my own secret shame - except that because of the afore mentioned friend in town, my upstairs had to look good too! (overnight guests get a way cleaner house that dinner party guests!)  So whats a girl to do?

 Thats right - shove it ALL in the closet(s).  Click on the photos to enlarge - at your own risk!

Before and After

I am so very excited about sharing all the details of my upholstery class, but until I can figure out how to get all the words out, I will let the pictures do the talking!

a weekend recap

I have so many things to share (Like how I re-painted my master bedroom over christmas break.  Or how I just completed an amazing upholstery class where I did an entire chair(!).  Or how last November we had our in-laws come to stay and I totally re-decorated the guest bedroom.  Or how I have started making and selling things in a few local shops and they are selling well) and yet I feel as though getting them into writing is the hardest thing!

So maybe I will just start slow with a little weekend re-cap.  Many of my favorite blogs do this, and I always feel that it is such a sweet little personal moment.  Its like having a quick coffee break with a friend!

So here goes:

Saturday night we ventured across the river and had dinner with friends at a darling new (to us) restaurant called Decarli.  The best part about eating out with our group is how willing everyone is to try new things, and share - we ordered a bunch of yummy appetizers, and pretty much were in heaven!   Can I just say that polenta fries are a revelation!

After we were sufficently stuffed, we headed over to Sykart - and indoor go-kart track!  SO fun, and the accessories were definitely fun to model!

Today was a relaxing stay at home kind of day.  We made pancakes, talked on the phone with family in Boston and Florida,  and finished up some fun projects I have been working on. 

All in all it was a really fun weekend, and I feel so lucky that I have such great friends to have fun with!

I am SO proud of my big brother!

Made in Michigan - The Brinery: MyFoxDETROIT.com