bottega louie

my friends and i went there last night for a spontaneous dinner

and it was worth it

we had salad and pizza and the best cosmos i've ever had (deeelish)

and of course, we had to buy:

presentation!

ooooh

aaaaahhhhh

Purl

one of the gifts my a got me was a gift certificate to the sewing lounge in burbank for some sewing lessons!

of course, i think its a good idea to check out a fabric store on our holiday!

here is some of the fabric i bought.

it's from purl soho in nyc.

my good friend k was kind enough to take hubby to an art gallery while i shopped. a good deal later, here was some of the stuff i ran away with!

i love the honeycomb with the bee. it's a heavy canvas fabric.

birds, butterflies and owls.

and the full stash.

so amazing! wheeeee!

i also dragged my dear to the lion brand yarn studio. it's beautiful inside. stunning. i was so good not to buy anything (yarn diet) and had already spent a good month's worth of allowance on the fabric above anyway. but sooo tempting

sadly it was time to go. we had to get back to nj for dinner with friends

and after being dragged around nyc from fabric store to yarn store, holding a large bag of very heavy fabric all day, i think hubby was done.

love makes you do crazy things.

happy new years eve!!

Anniversaries got me thinking....

first               paper

second          cotton

third              leather (really??)

fourth            fruit and flowers (awwww)

fifth               wood

sixth              sugar/iron

seventh         wool

eighth            bronze

ninth              copper/pottery

tenth              tin

eleventh        steel

twelfth           silk and linen

thirteenth      lace

fourteenth     ivory

fifteenth        crystal

twentieth      china

twenty-fifth  silver

thirtieth        pearl

thirty-fifth    coral

fortieth         ruby

forty-fifth     sapphire

fiftieth          gold

fifty-fifth      emerald

sixtieth        diamond (sweet)

gardening update

want to first wish my hubby a happy first wedding anniversary! one year ago today we had an all day/all night party. a classy elegant outdoor garden ceremony, a beautiful reception, perfect weather, men in kilts, a bagpipe, scottish dancing, loved ones... it was amazing. thanks to all that shared with us in that day and thanks to my hubby who pushes me to be a better person every day.

for three weeks, my parents in law came to visit. and let it be said, they are serious gardeners.

there is new grass growing on the front lawn.

there is a more defined grass line in the back.

there are plants that are being trained to hug the fence and cover wires, fence and give us privacy.

and last weekend, alistair and i were fortunate enough to get a patio furniture set for our one year anniversary as a gift. and we can't just have a patio set with little look at, so we also bought some plants/trees, beautiful living things to plant around the garden.

here is one of the plants dad cooper and hubby planted ... beautiful

we bought this gorgeous tree called a hong kong orchid tree. it has the most beautiful leaves (looks like butterfly wings) and the flowers are supposed to be lovely as well.

when we were ready to plant it, this is what we found in the area:

a fun tree stump! 

the best laid plans....

here is a photo of the orchid tree

this is a japanese blueberry bush/tree. i loved the leaves and the dark green colors. when the leaves fall off, they are a brilliant red.

in other news

the lemon tree has not lost all of its leaves after being planted, thanks to my father in law. it's doing well and there is still a lemon growing on it. hopefully we'll get some fruit next season!

and the orange tree has grown it's leaves again! hooray! 

we suspect that the nursery thought we were over watering it when we were underwatering it. but it's doing well now. Go little orange tree Go!

and herb garden is going strong.