road trip!

marty turned the big 2-6 this weekend so we decided to hit the road and drive to memphis for one night and st. louis the next. marty had never been to memphis (but i have! see photos here and here), and meanwhile his sister nora has been living in st. louis for almost 4 years and we had never visited her, so the birthday road trip was born.

of course the trip started at 7am with a trip to the maple st. patisserie for some delicious pastries and coffee. i swear they put crack in their baked goods, they are so addicting! the ham and cheese croissant is the biggest breakfast indulgence but its totally worth it.

oh, hilarious roadside landmarks!

i spent the second half of our leg to memphis searching for a great place to eat lunch on my yelp app and found gus's world famous hot & spicy chicken and O.M.G. is all i can say. mind you, the photos are blurry not because my camera isn't awesome - because it is - they are blurry because we were both too excited about eating what turned out to be the best fried chicken both of us had ever had to hold the camera straight.

the book nook

since my work friends and i started a book club, the little reading nook becky and i created by our big bright window in our all-purpose room has totally come in handy. from it you can see our huge magnolia tree and the neighbors' bright blue pool surrounded by palm trees. you feel like you're on vacation! thanks to our book nook, i finished the irresistible henry house in a flash (probably because it was amazing and so fun to read) - although nothing, not even a full pot of coffee and the sun streaming in could make freedom bearable (sorry, new york times and the millions of people who got duped into liking this book). during book club downtime i've finished water for elephants (i realize i am three years late in hopping on that bandwagon but i was blown away - the circus is so fascinating!) and now i'm reading the help, which made driving through jackson, mississippi this weekend interesting since the book takes place there in the 1960s (more on the birthday roadtrip later!). next on the book club's agenda is the next thing on my list! since i got to pick henry house, it won't be my turn for quite a while, but does anyone have any book recommendations? i've got a book nook and i need to use it!

art nook

b's head nearly exploded from joy when i told her i had an easel at my disposal. it was the first thing standing in our apartment and continues to be one of the only things we own with legs (fyi - this is a poorly shielded cheap shot at the fact that we still do not own a table and i do not foresee us owning one in the immediate future). my old work bench (formally seen here) serves as a great base for the vintage trunk we use to store art supplies.

cocktail nook

i've been a terrible blogger and haven't bragged with pictures of my adorable new orleans apartment (well, except for here). so, over the next couple of days, i'll share some of the "nooks" becky and i have carved out of our little place. our apartment being as little as it is naturally lends itself to the creation of nooks, since there isn't enough space to really create separate areas; that, and we don't have enough furniture for that sort of thing. after i saw this post on a cup of jo, i knew we would need to have a fully stocked, old school bar (um, hello?). becky came up with the idea of mad men-inspired crystal decanters (which we have yet to fill with booze), and i obliged by seeking them out not surprisingly in my parents' basement. my parents also had this amazing bar cart, which happens to have been one of their first purchases in the united states. how cool!? from chicago in the 1980s to new orleans today, it is now adorned with some select libations and a traditional albeit slightly scary-looking mask.

jolie & elizabeth

roomie's been modeling for new orleans designers jolie & elizabeth for a few months now (check them out here and here). a few weeks ago we decided to join forces and play around town with my camera and photograph some new, mardi gras-inspired designs. this past weekend the sun came out and the weather was relatively agreeable so we got to finally collaborate and have some fun. we ended up shooting some photos by the new orleans school of ballet, the milan lounge, and on marty's roof and front porch (of all places!). i don't know what it is that made jolie think i was qualified to take pictures of her beautiful designs, but here we are. not bad for my first time, right?

bee-fense!

i got to go to my very first hornets game last night! marty got me a $10 ticket (we're talking nosebleeds, people. the air was so thin up there that we needed oxygen tanks) and it was a ball (no pun intended)! the game was super exciting and the hornets ended up winning at the last second, 91-89. my favorite part of the whole thing was the fact that instead of chanting "defense," the entire arena chanted "bee-fense." hilarious! thanks for the night out, martian :)

welcome to 2011 - with baby fever!

it feels to me like 2011 has greeted the universe with a baby boom. several friends of friends' (so, in polish, my "cousins") have had some adorable little bambinos in the last week. all of my hollywood besties - namely, natalie portman, alicia silverstone, victoria beckham and marion cotillard (swoon!) - are with child. two of my favorite bloggers (this cutie and this lil bee) are expecting as well. and to top things off, my ADORABLE friend evelyn is having a little boy in a few short weeks!

i do take issue with evelyn, of course, because we took the bar together and it took me until thanksgiving to realize she was in her first trimester during bar study. mind you, this was the girl waking up at the buttcrack of dawn to go to a 6am hot yoga class before bar review and then lapping me at the library every single day (if and when i showed up, that is). here i already thought evelyn was undoubtedly the most put-together person i'd ever met, only to find out she was with child the entire time. needless to say, i'm really glad i passed too because otherwise i would have felt like a real idiot next to her.

evelyn of course made it up to me by inviting me to her baby shower! all is forgiven, as it was my first ever baby shower (marty's, too... thank god for co-ed everything these days!). i take great pride in the gifts we (right - "we") chose - a short stack of golden books (talk about blast from the past!) and some adorable onesies from storyville, a great local screenprint shop with the funniest shirts ever! the shower was so sweet. i can't wait to meet little michael!

ornaments

i've been collecting blown-glass ornaments for ages, but this is the first christmas that i've actually used them all at once. so it'd been quite a while since i saw most of them, buried as they were in layers of years of collecting. each one is more unique than the last, so i took pictures of my [new] old favorites to share :)

i got this little louisiana crab when marty and i visited new orleans for the first time ever in june 2008. and yes, you can buy ornaments year-round here. why do you think i moved?

oh, christmas tree

this being my first christmas in new orleans, i decided to go with a non-traditional tree to compliment my collection of blown-glass ornaments. and by tree, i mean trees. given that there is no snow, few leaves on the ground (after all, palm trees don't go bare for the winter) and temperatures holding pretty steadily in the 60s, i figured that the only way to properly get into the christmas spirit would be to turn my apartment into the north pole. so, i bought two trees, the largest, longest strands of lights i could find, and a rustic wreath that becky covered in glittery cupcakes. we settled into our north faces (this continues to excite becky, the floridian), brewed some tea and caramel hot chocolate, and blasted n'sync's christmas album while we decorated our little home.