One Day in Rio: Jardim Botânico

We had one full day in Rio (Wednesday) and it was... (surprise!) grey. So we lay on the beach for 20 minutes with the wind blustering about and the wild waves hurling flecks of saltwater our way and decided to make our way to the Botanical Gardens. Which, it turns out, are pretty cool. See below.








Thursday dawned bright and sunny, but unfortunately we had a lunch to make and then a

Travel Diaries: Paraty

As you may or may not have heard, we spent two days in Paraty and the first of those sitting in the hostel looking wistfully out at the rain, fingers crossed for a rainless tomorrow. To our great delight, tomorrow was mostly rainless, if one of the wettest (yet paradoxically dryest - the whole town awoke to find itself without running water (!) apparently due to rain (?)) rainless days

Thankful Thoughts

COAT J.Crew | SWEATER Gap | SCARF J.Crew | SKIRT Charlotte Russe | TIGHTS Danskin | BOOTS André



Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 



The leaves are falling here in the 16th arrondissement. Knowing that we'd be busy cooking today, the Irishman and I marched up the avenue last Saturday to take some pictures by the Arc de Triomphe. 



Coincidentally, we also live just across the

Goodbye fall...I will miss you.

Hi and happy Tuesday! Hard to believe Thanksgiving is just two short days away! The most delicious day of the year is near...... I will be on a little hiatus for Thanksgiving....headed to my sisters beach house for  Thanksgiving by the beach. It will be a first and I am looking forward, the stretchy pants are at the ready....

With the chaos of Hurricane Sandy, somehow this post got lost in the shuffle. I cannot in good consciousness usher out fall without a proper goodbye (it is after all my favorite season). In case you missed my post on a perfect fall day yesterday, click here to have a look!  I started having fun taking pictures of the fall foliage at its peak or near peak both around here and in my travels. They were too pretty to not share and while I know that the last gloriously colored leaf has fallen, I want to say goodbye to fall with a tribute post to fall and all its glory. A short post (for me) but a pretty one especially if like me, you love fall! Enjoy.......


 Around my neck of the woods fall fabulosity was on full display.......

 A gorgeous lake near my home....so serene and tranquil

 Our entrance........

 Driving out from our driveway....

A beautiful arboretum nearby.....

How gorgeous is this!

 On way to Boston....

 Amherst, Mass.....

I enjoyed watching my sons game as much as I did taking in the foliage around  me.....

Fall and quaint northeastern towns go together like Oreos and milk, cheese and crusty bread, caramel and chocolate..you get the idea!

This tree was astounding in that it literally is like a crayon box with all of falls magnificent colors

The mountains from a distance looked like they were ablaze with their fiery orange colored trees.......

So goodbye fall. Thank you as always for inspiring me with your magnificence. Hey,  any season that means no having to bare upper arms is a season I will continue to champion:) Wishing you a wonderful day as you are all busy busy busy getting ready for "the big feast"!

Weekend joy !

 

Curling up with a good book having a cup of tea, gathering around the fireplace with friends, preparing a good meal for your family,… enjoy whatever you do this weekend!

 

Source A Perfect Gray

 

Source Inspired Design

 

Source Providence Ltd. Design via FB

 

Source Belgian Magazine Classic Najaar 2012 Photo credit Jonah Samyn

 

I wish everyone of you a relaxing weekend!

xx

Greet

Weekend joy !

  Curling up with a good book having a cup of tea, gathering around the fireplace with friends, preparing a good meal for your family,… enjoy whatever you do this weekend!   Source A Perfect Gray   Source Inspired Design   Source Providence Ltd. Design via FB   Source Belgian Magazine Classic Najaar 2012 Photo credit Jonah Samyn   I wish everyone of you a relaxing weekend! xx Greet

Off to the Races

On him:  SUIT Marco Belli | SHIRT Steven Bee | TIE Virtuose | 
On her: BLAZER Zara | DRESS Comptoir des Cotonniers | NECKLACE similar available here |
  SHOES Nine West | SUNGLASSES Italian market

I'm in a bit of a sweater slump this week, so here are some pictures of the Irishman and me at the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe horse races in October!

The girls were out and proud in my

OUTING TO ORLÉANS

So, in France, everybody gets the day off for Toussaint, All Saints' Day, which is, of course, awesome when you're nursing a Halloween hangover. It's a little bit frustrating though when you think about how hung up the country is on being laïc (one of those French words without a good English equivalent, basically means religion-free). But I digress. The suave prince charming I live with

Autos and Automne (Happy Halloween!)

Some nights, when we can't get "Suits" to stream properly on the sub-par Parisian Internet or when we feel overfed or just for the hell of it, the talented engineer (who now moonlights as a photographer) and I take walks. Or, on nights where we have to get a blog post up pronto and he really wants to take pics at the Mercedes-Benz showroom, we take the métro and then walk.

Sneak Peek of our 2012 Thanksgiving Download Collection

I had hoped to have our 2012 Thanksgiving Download Collection available tonight. I finally got everything photographed but still don't have it all sized and uploaded yet because I've had a sick little one so I'm a wee bit behind. I am hoping to get it finished up here late tonight and have it available tomorrow. In the meantime though I thought I would show you a tiny sneak peek.

I hope you all are having a wonderful Monday!

A Desk Makeover and Autumn Chalkboard

Here are the last two projects from New Hampshire.  The original plan was to place the table that we showed you last week on this wall here in the kitchen. It looked great here but poked out just a bit further than was ideal so while I was home we hunted through some of their old pieces in the basement to see if there was anything that might work in this space. At first it didn't seem like there was anything that would work but then I noticed an old desk that my mom had bought years ago for either $25 or $35 at a consignment shop. It was in great shape but not so appealing to look at. After having the boys lug it upstairs to see how it looked we realized that not only was it the perfect size, it was also functional. My parents had a similar desk in their last kitchen and it's so nice having a place to store pens, mail, stamps and all those little things that want to be handy but don't want cluttering up your counters.

So, after a quick coat of Kingsport Gray which they had leftover from another project, some distressing, a little bit of dark wax and a hardware change it was perfect for the spot! And we used knobs left over from their kitchen cabinets so they were free too! Eventually I'd like to replace the knobs on the two pull out drawers with cup pulls but I couldn't find the right ones while I was up there this last trip. And when we do find them we'll line them up evenly instead of how they are different right now. I didn't want to waste the time filling holes and drilling new ones until we had the cup pulls so I just put the new knobs in the same holes from the previous ones.

I love a free project! And even though my dad rolls his eyes every time we start a project (especially seeing how we had a wee bit of a paint spill during this project) I know he was secretly happy with this one seeing how he started filling it with things about ten minutes after it was in place. =)

My mom had found this chalkboard a couple of weeks before I was up there and I had fun writing a fall quote on it.

Ignore the color in these last couple of shots. I had bumped accidentally messed with my white balance somehow and of course didn't look down to check on any of the pictures so didn't realize it until I put them on my computer after I was back here in VA so it was too late to retake them. Ugh! The colors in the photos above show the wall color much better.

In this picture you can see how the newly painted desk looks with the fall vignette in the dining room.

We also are excited to be offering our Silent Night/Holy Night sets in Cranberry for the first time this year!

And these ticking stripe stockings! 

I hope you all had a beautiful weekend!