chill

Last night we went to Spruce for supper, I've heard from almost every person I know in the city how amazing it is, and how I can't order anything but the burger, and apparently we weren't the only ones. As we were being seated I checked around to see what other people were ordering and every. single. person in that restaurant was eating a burger.

It was super delicious, the fries tasted just like potato chips, and they gave us a giant oatmeal cookie for being first time customers. I would definitely recommend it, it was even worth the food coma I was in this morning that made it impossible for me to get out of bed. I skipped my work out/ hour of staring at Don Draper and I also missed my bus to work.

I am so ready for this weekend, it's my first weekend home in over a month and our pool just opened so I am literally not moving from my lounge chair all weekend. Except to get my hair done. And I'm taking a sewing class. And I have a birthday party. But other than that, I'll be poolside with Inferno, the new Dan Brown novel.

It's Friday afternoon, it's a beautiful day, and we live in a world where this is a thing, so life is pretty good.

peplum

I always thought peplums were a very strange idea, until I tried one on. Now three of my favourite shirts are peplums, including this white one from Forever 21.

It might be because I am shaped like one of those little lego men, I don't really have much of a waist, but I can pretend I do by adding a little frill. Sneaky.

Top: Forever 21/ Jeans: A'Gaci/ Earrings: So Good Jewellery

the conversation

The Conversation is an interview series with host Amanda de Cadanet. She sits down with famous women, celebrities, activists, designers, business women, etc, and interviews them. It's very informal, and she asks really great questions.

The end result is a really honest, revealing and candid talk about relationships, career, business, family, body image, money, jealousy, race, religion and any number of other topics that all women deal with, regardless of nationality, or fame and fortune.

One of my favourite interviews on The Conversation is with fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg. She seems so interesting, she is so gracious and confident and seems very wise. During her interview, when asked about what aspects of her life had been part of a plan she replied "I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I always knew what kind of woman I wanted to be."

Amanda de Cadanet interviewed actress Ashley Madekwe from  Revenge, who is also one of my favourite bloggers, about why she decided to start her fashion blog. Ashley said that she had always loved fashion, and had all of these nice clothes but that she felt she really couldn't wear them unless she was going to a fancy dinner because she feels that other women, especially, judge women for wearing heels, or being too dressed up during the day.

Starting her blog gave her a reason to wear the clothes she wanted, and not care what people think about it. That kind of resonated with me, because there are definitely a few outfits I have in my closet that I really love, but every time I put them on, I end up changing because I think other people will think I shouldn't be wearing it.

This blog has definitely helped me with that. Not that I'm really a fashion blogger but I do post outfits sometimes, and it does take a certain amount of confidence and disregard for other people's opinions to put up pictures of yourself and say "I think this is a cute outfit, and I look good in it." You are basically offering yourself up to be judged and criticized, but it has made me more confident and I'm much more likely to wear something now because I like it, even if I think that somebody else might not.

Other interviewees on The Conversation include Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Silverman, Melissa McCarthy, and Chelsea Handler.

endless summer

Some more pictures of our wonderful Hawaii trip. Derek graduated, we kayaked out to the Mokulua islands, went to Sandy's, did the booze cruise, and stayed at a cabin on Bellows for 3 days. We ate at all of our favourite restaurants, and just relaxed.

It was heaven. Excuse the gratuitous beach porn shots, it was soooo beautiful I took like 500 pictures of nothing but sand, sky and water.

the view from our cabin

so proud of him

representttt

love him

bellows

hula grill om nom nom

The accidental GIF. I had no idea how it happened, but I love it

sisters at the mokulua islands

brownie slut

I'm pretty sure everyone has heard about slutty brownies by now. Cookie dough on the bottom, a layer of Oreos, covered by moist chocolatey brownie mix and baked in the oven. For some reason I'd never tried to make them before, and I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about.

I decided not to do the Oreos, as it seemed like it would be a bit overkill, and also would have left me with half a package of Oreos laying around which I would have inevitably devoured, and since it was practically a guarantee that I would be eating most of the cookie dough before it ever made it's way into the bars, it seemed like a good move.

So my brownies were more promiscuous than slutty. But they were still delicious. They literally took 5 minutes to throw together (20 if you add in the time to eat cookie dough until you are feeling ill, before you proceed with the baking) and then 45 minutes of bake time.

If you are feeling super ambitious you could make your own cookie dough and brownie mix and then combine them, but I used store bought. It is definitely a lazy man's dessert, but it's a bit more special than just making cookies, or just brownies to a potluck, and they are really delicious.

Derek was calling me brownie slut the whole night after I made them, but you can't have everything in life.

It came like that, I swear

I don't know why I always want to bake when I'm wearing white

I burnt my mouth trying it right when it came out of the oven, but worth it

Yum

how to buy happiness

I haven't actually unpacked from my trip to Hawaii yet (it's been a very lazy week) and I'm off to Las Vegas tomorrow. I am so excited to see my older sister, we haven't seen each other since Thanksgiving, so even in the unlikely event that we spend the whole weekend trapped in an elevator at the Wynn, it will be a great weekend.

I was feeling a bit guilty about our whirlwind month of travel, so far in May we've spent a weekend in L.A, and then 10 days in Hawaii, but I'm really only going to Vegas to see my sister, so I think it's definitely worth it.

I just read this article about how to buy happiness in the LA Times, and it's making me feel better. Thirty years from now, I won't remember the Memorial Day weekend that I stayed at home and relaxed, but I will definitely remember my first solo (besides our husbands) trip with my big sister.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

loveliness

A little Thursday inspiration:

compliments

We were lucky enough to get front row seats Amy Schumer's Comedy Central special being shot at the Fillmore last year. She is seriously hilarious, and I saw this clip from her new show the other day and had to share.

tri-harder

I've wanted to do a triathlon for as long as I can remember. And by wanted to do, I guess I thought about it abstractly in the same way you would think "I'd like to have the power of flight" or "I'd like to be able to wear 6" heels all day and not want to die". Things that are nice in theory, but basically impossible.

I even had triathlon down on the list of life goals I made when I was 13, but I really never thought I would do it. Luckily I had a really good partner to do it with. We didn't train anywhere nearly as much as we should have, but we did eat a lot of carbs the day before, and we bought oreos to bribe ourselves with when things got tough during the race.

The swim was by far the worst part, my goggles were leaking, I got kicked a few times and I swallowed so much salt water that I had a sore throat the next day, but we actually did the swim almost twice as fast as we had planned. The transitions were a bit shaky, when I got off the bike to start the run I felt like a newborn baby giraffe, wobbling around, but after the first few kilometers it was not bad.

I'm so glad we decided to do it, we were definitely nervous going into it, but as soon as the gun went off and we started going, that stuff kind of fell away. You forget about the other people (when they aren't kicking you in the knee) and just concentrate on yourself and getting through that next section.

All in all, it was a great experience, and it was actually pretty fun. If you had asked me the day after I ran the Marathon if I would ever do another one, I would have punched you in the face. But honestly, I would definitely do another triathlon, and I'm excited to start looking around for my next challenge.

Before...

Setting up at 4 am

Our trusty steads

"It looks like I'm wearing a condom on my head"

1364 representtt

Sweaty and tired, but finished

sexy

hollywood forever

While we were in L.A. last weekend, I finally made it to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. I've wanted to go there for years, becuase they show old movies there at night and it just seemed like a really cool and unique place.

They only show movies a few times a month, and so far we haven't been there on a weekend when it was happening, but hopefully one day. It was probably weird of me to take pictures of a graveyard, but it was so beautiful and peaceful there, and it's really a historical landmark, this beautiful, sprawling old cemetery in the middle of Hollywood.

You can learn more about it, here.