for mother's day i promised my mom a shopping trip and pedicures. saturday was the day.

we popped into nordstrom rack and i tried on a zillion dresses. i liked this milly dress, but my mom thought it was too short.

now i want it. i've looked all over the internets and can't find it anywhere. of course.

we need house numbers. currently we have something really old and hard to see on the street. people have a hard enough time finding us -- numbers would help.


i was excited to see that heath has them.



available here, june 1.

ombre

i'm thinking about trying this.

i went to melissa joy manning's shop on 5th in berkeley on sunday. the store is gorgeous and full of things to covet. the woman working in the store was incredibly kind and friendly.

i pretty much wanted one of each.

this caught my eye:



so did this:


available here.

doot doot doot dooo

i took today off with o, because his school is closed for the remainder of the week. we spent our morning at habitot.

after his three and a half hour nap (oh yes!) we went to target to buy underwear. it's time to begin potty training.

we also got new dinosaur cups. here he is, playing it.

ici, i love your ice cream and your ginger snap cookies.
love,
me

i am in love with instagram. to the point that i even emailed people inviting them to join. (only a handful, but still, very out of character.)

anna, from door sixteen, wrote about instagram here.


i was excited to see her mention this. here's the link to my pics.

this was on gilt groupe on wednesday. i can't remember who it is, but i love it.

wearing a tissue paper crown and a cape, which was a tribute to the cat in the hat. and his kermit the frog shirt, of course.

random:


when i have things to do, i procrastinate. my nails are now painted and i'm caught up on my laundry. i'm trying to fight the urge to clean out my pantry. and, look, i'm blogging.


i wish louis ck would come west.

i pack heavy. these posts are inspiring.

a little ollie update, too:


hold you --sort of whimpered, means he wants me or gabe to hold him


sumic -- continues to be music


gabwielle -- gabrielle


mom -- he's trying mom out. i'm still mama when he's tired/scared/sad.


drum song --arcade fire's sprawl 2


bell song -- pj harvey's the last living rose


tiana -- his teacher, diana


pine cones -- "they look like raisins. but i can't eat them"


his friend triece is trice and his friend edie is eddie

living in sf means

i love living in sf means, from the bold italic

could this be dressy enough for the wedding?

remember, i'm not much of a skirt girl. does this work?

this top:

with these pants:

and, there's always this dress:

all items from zara.

nerdy

love these pillows so much. they'd be perfect on a chair in our bedroom, under the window. (if we had a chair in our bedroom.)

found shop here, who posted about their excellent maps, as well.

buy it here.

i keep meaning to ask gabe if he likes this. i do.

available here.

well that didn't work out so well did it? so much for daily posts.

my best girl from brooklyn was in town from tuesday-sunday last week. it was such a treat to hang out with her. of course, if you asked ollie she's his best girl and she was here primarily to see him.

we had a very fun and busy weekend, with way too much food and drink. yesterday i was pretty assed out.

we did dinner at nizza la bella on friday night. i'm in love with their old fashioned and their french fries with aioli.

then saturday we had folks for brunch at our house. it was sort of last minute. i threw together a couple quiche (quiches?), a green salad, a fruit salad, and set out some bread and cheese. and of course, there was lots to drink, including coffee, mimosas and beer.

the quiche were simple, i roughly based them on the joy of cooking's quiche recipe, 'cept i cheated and used premade crusts. i filled one with onion, cheese and broccoli and the other with onion, cheese and bacon. brunch is my favorite meal to host and quiche is so easy.

the fruit salad was this one, from oven lovin' girl's blog, except i modified it slightly since i decided to make it while at the store and i was working from memory when purchasing the ingredients.

Fruit Salad Macedonia

3 lbs strawberries, quartered

2 pints blueberries

2 pints raspberries

1 pint pomegranate seeds

Juice of 1 lemon

Juice of 2 oranges

2 tablespoons sugar

Handful of mint, chopped

Chop the strawberries and add to a large bowl with berries. Add OJ, lemon juice, sugar and mint. Cover and let sit in the fridge for at least a couple of hours.

Recipe via Oven Lovin' Girl from Debi Mazar and Gabriele Corcos, Extra Virgin.

i bought butter lettuce, purple cabbage, carrots and avocado for the salad. i dressed it with jacques pepin's quick cream dressing, which calls for heavy cream, which i just happened to have because of the quiche. and, jacques says this dressing contains less than half the calories of the oil needed in a conventional dressing. i can get with that jacques.

Quick Cream Dressing

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

Just before serving, put the cream, salt and pepper in a salad bowl and whip with a whisk for about 15 seconds, or until frothy. Stir in vinegar. Add lettuce and serve immediately.

Recipe from Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way.

we're hosting another brunch this coming sunday. i need ideas. i'm pretty quiched out.

ollie at iris' birthday party. it was a bubble-themed party with a taco truck. awesome.

blogger was down almost all day yesterday, which means i couldn't post. hoping to resume as planned starting tomorrow.

when my youngest brother was born, my parents named him robert joseph smith*.

then they found out that there were two other robert joseph smiths in the same city we lived in.

and our neighbor kept calling him bobby joe. (picture adam sandler saying this, to the tune ofsloppy joe. that's kind of how it sounded. bobby joe, bob-bobay jooooooooe. for two weeks, straight.)

my mom wasn't fond of the nickname bobby joe, nor was she happy that there were two other bobby joe smiths in the phone book.

so, when he was two weeks old, she took him to the hospital and had his name changed. (to protect my brother's privacy, though he likely wouldn't care, i'm leaving his name out of this.)

i was pissed because she changed his name to the same name as two boys in my class. these two boys were both always in trouble. to the second grade me, who was never in trouble, this was not good.

i happen to love ollie's name, though sometimes i worry he's not going to love it when he's older. a girlfriend linked to this article on facebook tonight and, after reading it, i don't feel quite as bad about ollie's name...

*name changed to protect the innocent.

filler post

bridesmaids

i love kristen wiig and maya rudolph. i can't wait to see this movie.

related: see why bridesmaids is important.

each week when gabe does a grocery shop, he buys me a pint of sorbet. i alway eat 1/2 the first night and 1/2 the second night. then i have to wait 5 days 'til i get more.

i just started in on my sorbet. after i fired up the old heater so i could eat my sorbet in comfort.

BROOKE!

saying hello to my friend and coworker, brooke, who reads every day.

hi brookie.

To the three people who read this blog on the regular:

Do you read e-books? Is that even what they’re called?

Today I tried reading a book on the iPad for the first time.

The book is Tina Fey’s new one, Bossypants – Gabe had downloaded a preview. It’s very funny and I can’t wait to read it.

Also, I now know I am a book person. I like to hold a book, look at the cover, thumb through the pages, and revisit certain pages again.

At 10:12 tonight, I’m torn: do I buy the book and read it on the iPad? Or wait to buy the actual book??

happy mother's day to all the mamas.

the dress hunt continues

here.

here.

here.

dress needed

we have a wedding coming up and i need a dress. join me in my search. know that i am not a dress type girl. i much prefer pants, even for weddings, but, since the wedding is in the thick of summer, in napa, it seems like a dress makes more sense.

here.

here.

here.

please note that my budget is under 200, which rules out (all? i can't recall) of the dresses above. also, in addition to not being a dress girl, i'm also not a strapless dress girl.

recently we moved out of our office in the east bay into an office in san francisco. my team works out of our individual home offices for the most part. we're required to be in the office once a week, for four hours. yesterday was an office day.

each tuesday i type up a recap of the prior week. i send it to 30+ people. yesterday i was writing this up, while sitting in a conference room with two other coworkers. one is a woman who used to have an office accross from mine. we had some catching up to do. meaning we were chatting it up. distractedly, i signed the email love, tracey.

thankfully i caught it and fixed it before sending it.

i guess i've been a bit out of it. today i sent an email to someone requesting ingredients, but instead of ingredients, i wrote notes. will you please send me the notes for that item.

focus tracey, focus.

on a completely other note, i cannot stand the pbs show caillou. he drives me crazy. ollie's watching him now. i need earplugs.

happy cinco de mayo.

tom's food slang

from here

i'm going to try to post something every single day during the month of may. tuesday is on deck.

2011 white house correspondents' dinner

i kind of have a crush on seth meyers.

i like his dimples and his brain.

this is LONG, but definitely worth a watch.

confession:

ollie woke up in the middle of the night friday morning. i was wide awake (for a few hours) so naturally i checked facebook. a friend from high school was a bar at 3 in the morning, watching the wedding. i have to admit, that sounded like fun. once i caught up on facebook, i started looking at wedding pictures. and now i'm kind of...interested. i've been looking at pictures and reading everything i can get my hands on. i wish i had a do-over. if things don't work out with william and kate, and he marries again, i'll so watch the wedding from a bar in the middle of the night.