My Nightly Reading Selections

I've always been a big reader. Back in the day The Nancy Drew Files and The Babysitters Club filled my shelves and I would spend hours pacing through the house reading. Lately my interests have changed - now baby and parenting books seem to be my number one choice, but I also love travel, European history, eco-friendly lifestyle and I guess what you could call "self-improvement." I also love a good fiction novel, but sadly there are none in sight at the moment. I slightly exaggerated my collection for the photo, but these are truly all in my queue and I am in the middle of reading about half of them. Italy is taking center stage for now though with our trip just a little over 2 weeks away, yikes! I've got a general plan for our time there, but still a lot of transportation details to plan and more specifics on day-by-day sightseeing and restaurants. A new batch of books arrived today which is always pretty exciting for me. I'm going to start browsing through the Italian cities, but the rest will have to wait until we return. So many books, so little time!

The new recruits - added them to the pile!

Signs of Spring

We spent quite a few weekends the past two months in the garden - you wouldn't have guessed that the little we accomplished took hours and hours of work and resulted in such aching bones and blistered hands! We still have quite a bit of progress to make - and it may not all happen this year - but I'm proud of what we did accomplish! I wouldn't mind paying someone to finish the job either though ;)

We added five green pittosporums (the darker green plant) in an effort to start a hedge line against the front of the house and planted two "tree-shape" plants on either corner - these are the plants that caused most of the blister because we had to dig such deep holes!

The purple hearts are doing great, they have grown taller already. I would like to add more since these seem to be pretty easy to maintain. Peter had planted the little green plants with purple buds the first week of our planting adventure and I'm not sure what they are, but they are all still alive!

And now for some retail signs of Spring - found these sweet little Ella Moss flats on our NYC trip. Love all the fun colors, have already gotten a lot of wears out of these!

Went in search of bluebonnets at Mayfield Nature Preserve - found these instead, but Conley was not a very cooperative subject.

Finally found some bluebonnets at the Wildflower Center - not sure about this smile, but will have to do!

And now back to our yard - we planted four of the larger purple plants in back and unfortunately one is already starting to die - my only theory so far is that maybe it was too close to the tree and had to compete? I would like to get a few more, but maybe not since we already lost one - not sure what these are called either.

A little sleepy

Originally written on April 9...didn't notice there was a glitch with the upload until tonight!
So another first for Conley tonight - he fell asleep at the table (or rather the kitchen island). He had been happily (and quietly) chowing down on a dinner of tamales, cheese, apples with peanut butter and bread when all of a sudden we noticed his little eyelashes fluttering. He nodded off a few times and kept startling himself awake and would jump as we took pictures. It was the cutest thing - guess we aren't that entertaining of dinner company!

Wanderlust

I love planning trips almost as much as I love taking them. Especially to Europe. In my pre-Conley days I would spend months reading different travel books and combing through online resources and blogs and write out detailed plans for every day of our trips - my school and/or work spiral would have multiple versions of proposed itineraries. I oftentimes would dream of having a career in travel - leading tours, planning vacations for people, or writing for guidebooks. For domestic trips I would plan out all the must-visit restaurants, dessert spots, and boutiques - sometimes even making a neighborhood-by-neighborhood plan. Those days of uber-planning are over but I still get pretty excited about any trip we take. We've got two big ones planned for the summer - 12 nights in Italy and then a week in London. The trip planner in me is definitely excited and I have been doing a little almost every night - albeit scaled back a bit from the old days. Rick Steves is now my guidebook of choice, but I've also been perusing some blogs as well - Italy has been my main focus as that trip is first, just a month away now! Cities are finalized, hotels are booked - so now it's on to the important details: what to see and where to eat! Ciao Italy!

Love this visual - perfectly reflects the excitement I get when planning a trip - found it while perusing one of my recent go-to sources for travel advice, Fathom. This links to their top 24 travel blogs and websites - now I've got even more reading to do!

I Heart Pinterest!

I really do. Gone are the days where I would keep lists of things I had seen in random places - as an ongoing email draft, by marking email messages "unread" (never to be returned to), or as a slew of hand-written lists (which I still kind of do). I love the visual effect of all of these beautiful images in one spot and going back and looking at them always has a way of getting me excited about a room to decorate, a cute piece of clothing or jewelry, a recipe to try, or something fun for Conley. And many will just remain as images to inspire me. So I'm planning a sort of Pinterest Greatest Hits over the next few weeks. This will also serve as a perfect time to clean up my boards as well - maybe get rid of some images I don't really love anymore and do some re-organizing as I've added new boards along the way. As they say...Happy pinning!

Hunting for Eggs

Last weekend we had a nice relaxing Easter in Wimberley with Peter's family. This trip has been somewhat of a tradition (with a 2 year hiatus) for the past few years, but this year we stayed somewhere new - a beautiful home that literally had a babbling brook in the backyard. Conley participated in his first Easter egg hunt (which consisted of him playing with two eggs we gave him while stumbling around the backyard), Heather led us in yoga by the river and we took a long walk by the adjacent farms and met some cute animals along the way. Lots of good food, wine and playing with cousins made for an enjoyable Easter weekend!

Fun in the water with Dad

Yoga class with Heather - what a perfect setting and nice, cool weather

A walk with the cousins

Hanging out with Ella

Our second Easter - such a serious little face!

Attempted cousin picture

My little Easter Imp

Conley and his 2 eggs

Conley and his new Easter Bunny!

Another Easter Imp picture - what a face!

Fun with Easter grass!

Conley's 2nd Easter

Flashback to Conley's 1st Easter

What a happy little guy, wringing his hands like Grandpa Pat :)
And his Easter outfit was way too big!

Our 1st Easter

Take a Seat...outside

So the outdoor office is still a work in progress - imagine that! I finally bought a print for one of the walls (see the NYC print from an earlier post this year) but have yet to find a frame for it. All in good time. A couple weeks ago we had an outdoor play set installed for Conley and did some quick improvements to the backyard landscaping while we were at it - a stone path to the back office, pulling out the dead grass and putting in limestone-bordered river rock in front of the office and planting a line of red tips along the back fence line which will hopefully one day be a line of shrubs (assuming that we don't kill them first or Oliver doesn't dig them up!) The nice, cleaned-up look to the backyard has re-motivated me to get to work on the outdoor office decor, especially the front porch. In my mind, I had pictured 2 kelly green metal chairs and either some side tables or perhaps some colorful planters. I've found a few colorful chair options and so now I just need to make a decision and get on with it!

An old find on my Pinterest board - don't know who makes them and the
link no longer works...but so bright and fun!

Love this collage of bright options - a few styles I repeat
below
merrimentstyle.com

The colors look a little off in this image, but have been eyeing the kelly
green rocking chair version of this chair for awhile now
Torran Bellaire 1950s Metal Lawn Chair 

Another oldie from the Pinterest vaults
Anthropologie chairs
by the style files

This is more the green I was thinking and leaning more towards this
style lately
Pinned from an Apartment Therapy post

Fun take on the folding chair
Argen Positano Folding Chairs

Acapulco Chairs - love the aqua one!
Another Pinterest post - source unknown

CB2 Ixtapa Yellow/Aqua Lounge Chair

Not a huge fan of yellow, but cute style
West Elm Bend Bistro

Love these - another Pinterest DIY find

Rainbow of chairs found on Pinterest