welcome djuna

this weekend, i finally got to meet andrew & daria's precious little babe, djuna lucia. she was born about six weeks premature late january, and she is teeny tiny! her parents are totally in love and i am so happy for them, almost as happy as i am that she has red hair!




i gifted a sweet ciuccio lovie made custom by jenny in a palette of pink and brown which turned out to be andrew & daria's decided color scheme for the baby. yeah, i'm pretty intuitive.


dressed in jeans, cowboy vest & hat, toting a plastic saw and pliers, this little man arrived ready for pretty much anything. with young femmes like djuna and her one year old cousin isobel dominating the party, the boys had some big cuteness competition.


i haven't seen muscari since valentine's day. hello old friend! daria's sister anuta was very generous in inviting oodles of friends and family to come to her house and eat all her food. out in beautiful, peaceful orinda, the sun was shining and i couldn't help but check out her mini garden. she even had my favorite succulent that looks like shrek ears!!


there was a recurring owl theme going on.


it has been a long time since i've been in a house on baby lockdown.

baby time

i didn't want to end the day without posting about the birth of stephan & april's son (nathans nephew) today! there had been some confidant guesses that it might be a girl, so i bought this adorable teeny sundress in anticipation. foiled!

fortunately, i will be attending a baby shower next weekend for daria & andrew's baby djuna. she was born just at the tail end of january, so the dress should fit her once summer rolls around.

warm and happy juju to the two sets of new parents!

little vienna

nathan judas and i had breakfast this morning with rick, my rff. when rick and i used to live together, we honored our austrian heritage by claiming that our apartment comprised san francisco's little vienna district.

when i was taking pictures of all the flowers for the previous post a little bit after breakfast, i rediscovered my little viennese souvenir house. oma gave it to me when i was eight years old and i've always cherished it. you can view images of different parts of wien through a peep hole in the back of the house; i was tickled by how dreamy stephansdom came out when i tried snapping it.

* here, i should note that tommy also attended our lovely meal this morning at the boulange (o.g. polk street) and that his company was very much enjoyed!

beaucoup bouquets

i brought a ton of wastage home this weekend and had a lovely time tucking little flower arrangements all over the shoebox.

more iceland poppies

my floral friends at rose and radish got the poppy bug, too!

beet poetry

last night, we dined on some delicious jewel toned beets using a recipe from my new cookbook the vegetable dishes i can't live without by mollie katzen. i am a recovering cookbookaholic (two-time member of the good cook cookbook club with every release from nigella lawson to prove it). i say recovering, but that isn't really true. you can't consider yourself recovering if you aren't making any attempts to hinder an activity you don't want to discontinue anyway, yes?

for those of you who are foodie inclined, go here to get the recipe for my new favorite side dish, roasted beets with tart grapefruit glaze. mollie's online recipe includes carrots which i'm sure are yummy, but just beets are pretty good, too. i had fun practicing my lady macbeth impression while i was peeling them.

clematis

i've only recently been introduced to clematis, so i was taken aback when we got in some potted clematis (i've just played with a few cut stems). they are big viney bushes of loveliness, aren't they? unfortunately in this photo, you can't make out the mini trellis they're attached to--- easily my favorite feature!

babies everywhere

jenny stopped by the store the other day with her twin charges, emily & grace, and i snapped these pics of them once they were unleashed. i never knew babies liked eating dust bunnies.

it was awfully nice catching up with the girls (they grow so fast!) and really exciting to see them crawling like champs. when they can't make it to the shop, i like to keep abreast by reading jenny's blog this humble abode. i made embroidered monogram buttons for the twins for when they were first born to help tell the little pink bebs apart, and i think jenny posted photos of them on her blog recently. she said the nurses at the hospital thought the buttons were the greatest thing since sliced bread.

lots of friends have been having babies lately!!

feats of strength

i just tore a phonebook in half. why? because i can!

please don't think less of this achievement just because it was the white pages. it was a remarkable stunt considering my frail hands.

iceland poppies

picked these up at the hardware store this morning, and one of the buds started to bloom on my walk back home.

food & friends

i finally got a nurse friend for my little doctor! took time earlier today to stop by my fave tchotch shop, polk a dot.

bright and early, i headed down to brenda's where i caught up on howard's end (for club book) and dined heartily on a shrimp + goat cheese omelette with grits and a biscuit.

sunday morning

truthfully, i'm not much of a sleeper inner when it comes to the weekend. got up at 7 or so this morning, this time in eager anticipation; the jovovich-hawk collection opened at target today, and as much as i've always laughed at all those people you see lined up outside the nike store late at night, i couldn't help but identify this time. as far as my personal style is concerned, milla jovovich is my spirit animal!

nathan judas and i arrived at the holiday inn to pick up our zipcar at 9am, and there was this beautiful view that bade us farewell on the top parking deck. goodbye san francisco, hello east bay. we got to target just before ten and already the jovovich-hawk racks were picked over. i grabbed a basket and promptly filled it up. whenever i read about women fighting over clothing at a sale or whatever, i am always disgusted-- especially when i feel like that kind of behavior is being encouraged by the author. but you should have seen me. i have no idea what size i am in target world, so i grabbed multiple sizes of the same piece, leaving few leftovers in my wake. once at the fitting room, i had to pick six items to try on at a time and was massively distrustful of whether the rest of my finds would be well guarded by the attendant.

i left target realizing that no matter how highly i might have thought of myself, i could no longer deny that i am a fashion junkie. i can say i can stop when i want to, it's just that i don't want to.

so i am now the proud owner of a mini jh collection of three dresses and two adorable blouses. the feeling of satisfaction has yet to wane, and i've already picked out which pieces i'll be wearing out tonight (back to the east bay for a warriors game). ever reluctant about the quality of target items from higher profile designers, i am pleased that jovovich-hawk seems to have turned out a decently constructed collection at a low price point and i have included detail shots of some of my scores below.


lots of sweet pleats and fine lace trim--- my fave detail are the dove shaped buttons!


nice floral pattern and the fabric doesn't feel like gross polyester.

p.s. auctions are already popping up on ebay, some for double the retail price!! all of this stuff is still available on target's website. i pity the fool....