If My Grandma Had Used Instagram

With the loss of my paternal Grandma in 2011, I officially became grandparentless :( Which sucks! What's better than a grandparent!? I miss them all dearly and wish so much that I had more time with them as an adult to pick their brains and soak in as much family history as I can. But since I can't do that anymore (tear), I often look to images of the past to try and decipher who they were long before me. I was looking at images of my dad's mom recently and wondered how these all would have come into play if she was posting them live on her iPhone. Here's a little guess using her own images and some modern technology ...

^That is my dad on the right. Not gonna lie: Pretty bummed I didn't get his legs. #dafaq

Well, that was fun for me - perhaps I'll do another post with my maternal Nana down the road.

Have a fabulous Monday/last day of November!

/////Cold Weather Wants\\\\\

/////Autumn Cheese Plates | Image VIA Christina Lane///// 

/////Cold Weather Cabins | Image VIA Urban Beardsman, taken by Chris Burkard///// 

/////This hair. This landscape. This dress.| Image VIA Rock N Roll Bride///// 

/////Birch Trees. Always.| Image VIA Chad Galloway - Flickr//// 

/////Coziness + Snow| Image VIA Tumblr//// 

The office yesterday was a cave of silence. With each passing hour there was less clicking of keyboards and the audible sounds of tapping pens grew weaker as people began to slip out and finish the workweek remotely. Additionally and right on cue, San Francisco had a grey, cold day after saturating us with sun the last couple of weeks. The Bay Bridge, which majestically stands just outside my office window, was even fading into the depths of the fog. It really felt a lot like November all of a sudden and escalated my desire for all things cold weather. Minus the pink-haired bride in the middle there- but she's my new muse and I'd like to look like her from head to toe any time of year.

Happiest Tuesday masquerading as a Thursday! 

A Veuve Clicquot Cheers

We are simple folk who love simple pleasures in life. Jay and I enjoy good wine, great food and time with our friends and we like to spend money on those things. It's a large stealer of our discretionary income and that's okay with us. Everyone gets to choose how they use their play fund.

However, when it comes to champagne, we are definitely full-throttle in the scrimping territory. I'll put it this way: Everytime I've purchased champagne in the store, I am bending over in order to do so. Bottom shelf Cook's it is. And without caring about my bubbly palette, that has suited us just fine. Except there is one day a year when we loosen the purse strings a bit more. And that's because we've agreed to always toast the day we got engaged with the same effervescent bubbles that we did on that wonderful night in 2013, Veuve Clicquot.

/////2013 | NYC ///// 2014 | Portland ///// 2015 | San Francisco /////

And you best believe that I loved coming home after a busy AF work week last Thursday to that annual recreation...

I'm no denier of the fact that relationships require a ton of work and are often difficult. It can be hard to expect another being to understand everything about you and meet all of your physical and emotional needs. There's disagreements, humility, disappointments and a whole lot of compromise. On the other hand, they serve as mechanisms for personal and communal growth and create a framework of delight around all other aspects of your life. A good relationship brings peace, joy, security, convulsive laughing, cherished dumb jokes, compassion and true jubilation. A good relationship can be everything.

I'm happy to always toast to the day we decided to commit to the good and bad together. And I'm happiest even to forever use this champagne as a little nod to the very beginning, a very good place to start.

Happy Monday of this short week!

2nd Engagaversary

Outside of birthdays, my little household celebrates three anniversary dates. 1) March 22nd | Our Chandler Adoption Day 2) September 6th | Our Wedding Day andddd 3) November 19th | Our Engagaversary (is that a word? Don't answer that.).

Anyway, I guess this blog post today is kinda like your standard "Leftovers for dinner" night as I've spoken on this topic before and feel no need to recreate the wheel.

If you want to read our NYC engagement story (or just look at the pics since I was quite wordy) you can click here ...

 [Nail polish explained in the engagement post ]

OR 

If you want to read how I felt the night before I got engaged (when I knew it was coming the next day), you can read that here. 

^Last Single Girl Night Post

I actually am glad that I took the time to write that post above. Blogging land is full of married ladies and far fewer single girls. Not that there's anything remotely wrong with being married but it does create an undertone in the blogosphere that relies heavily on getting that ring. Idk, the whole idea of ring chasing is kinda weird to me and I didn't want to get married at like 24 or anything like that. I'm glad I saw the value in toasting my single self on November 18th, 2013. I knew the following day would be all about "us" but I had a little bit of a farewell to me before I embarked on that married life. 

Interestingly enough, Jay is in NYC again for work right this moment and just like we did on November 18th, 2013, he spent last night at Dream Nightclub with his coworkers. The only difference is that last time I got to be there. WAHH, now I just want to be back in NYC.

Anyway, tonight we will be toasting in our traditional way and I will thank my lucky stars for this cute husband of mine. And as I plan to follow back up on that next week ... I'll sign off for now so I have something to say when I write that post.

Have a good Thursday, yo! It is somehow one effing week until Thanksgiving!

Santa Barbara Dark Wedding

So ... California is a sunny place. Though I knew that before moving here, I have to continually remind myself that it's mid-November as I am drenched in sun every morning when I leave my house for work at 7 AM. I'm used to this in the late Fall. San Francisco has increasingly gotten a littttttllleee bit chillier but it definitely looks a heck of a lot like June to me. And this fun tidbit I forgot as I packed to head to Santa Barbara two weekends ago for a wedding. Yes, to a city even more SOUTHERER (eyes bleeding? That was a joke) and I still forgot to pack like I wasn't Morticia Addams. Oh well, it's my first "Fall" & "Winter" (really CA? If you say so ...) in this beautiful state and I'm allowed to make a couple mistakes! 

But let's start with Santa Barbara itself. I had never been and it was just as crazy pretty as I could have imagined. Long corridors of beach pathways, towering palm trees and corner cafes on every ... um, corner. It was a beautiful place to spend a weekend away. We arrived late in the evening on Friday night and quickly shuttled over to the rehearsal dinner after party for a couple drinks before heading right back to bed for the big wedding day mañana.

We arose that morning to a completely blue sky and a blazing hot sun. Beautiful wedding day indeed ...

^Our cute Airbnb in Santa Barbara. However, when we left the door it was like Beetlejuice where I was all of a sudden in a scalding desert.

^Morning brunch in Santa Barbara

^How awesome to see the groom before his ceremony. Love it. I'm not even gonna say how cool it would be to see a bride because ain't no bride got time for meals with the commoners on her big day. Also, the middle pic is so Jay as he is a summer boy through and through (hence my ongoing Chicago battle and my vain efforts to lobby him TOWARDS the snow - mark my words: One day I will win that war.).

Then it was time to get on ready. And that's where Morticia comes back in. See I didn't realize when I packed for a November wedding that it was gonna be 7,500 degrees outside. Which is why I wore basically this:

Gothic Wedding by candyflosspersie featuring 14 karat gold earrings

^And that was also after I thankfully dropped the black tights and closed-toe shoes I brought.

But no matter, it was what it was at that point and I was excited to just partake in wedding events, even if I was arriving as an Army of Darkness, party of 1.

^Left: Jay & his long time best friend toasting at our airbnb before departure, I somehow didn't get one of his gorgeous gf as we prefunked, dangit! Right: Toasting with champagne as we waited for the Uber.

And before we knew it, it was wedding time. Um ... I love weddings. I especially love how you get to hear so much about the couple and I adore witnessing all of the emotional contributions of their nearest and dearest. They always make me cry and I feel content walking away knowing a bit more about the union.

^So gorgeous!

The ceremony was followed swiftly by cheese platters, meat trays and bread baskets as we all tried to soak in some good pictures before we lost the light and while we all still appeared sweat-free which was sure to change after the dance floor was opened:

^Childhood best friends reunited

^Up: The four of us here sat and took in this beautiful view shown below

^Santa Barbara be purty

And just like it always does, the sun going to bed meant one thing, best stated by George Banks: "And now, as my son said, it was time to party".:

^I believe life is about relationships. And I love witnessing heaping amounts of long-term ones.

So, Morticia Addams would officially give Santa Barbara 5 Stars on Yelp!. And she'd give 10 stars to the fact that she can just drive to SoCal now. And 20 stars to the fact that weddings rock in every way. And just in case you're wondering: There's no pics from the drive home as I can quickly go from Morticia to Jack Sparrow with a flip of a switch. And Jack doesn't like having his pic taken, like duh.

Happy Wednesday!