this thanksgiving.

I loved Thanksgiving this year. We fit 10 people in our little apartment and had quite the feast together. No one at our gathering was from San Francisco, so we were all away from our families and normal traditions. Spending the day in each other's company was wonderful and fun, plus I thoroughly enjoy throwing a little party. Everyone pitched in and brought awesome food. During dinner, people were spread about our apartment - some at the table, some on the sofa, and a few troopers even ate in camping chairs. The meal was superb and after we ate, everyone sat around the living room and talked for hours. Thankfully, the wonderful Carly Mask took some beautiful photos of the evening. Have a look if you'd like!

Cool Things About Our Thanksgiving:

1. My cousin Nick, who I've spent pretty much every Thanksgiving with for my whole life, actually moved to SF this year too. He joined our festivities and while our families ate together back in NC, we spent the day together 3,000 miles away. Life is funny.
2. These friends can cook. Oh my goodness the food was insanely good.
3. A few of our guests were Belgian and this marked their first Thanksgiving ever! Describing the historical conception of Thanksgiving and how it relates to our modern traditions is kind of hard. They had a good time nonetheless. Of all the new foods, they liked the green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole best. 

4. I am so thankful that we have friends to spend a Thanksgiving with. Hallelujah.

. . .

a tree, a tree!

Pertinent background information: we don't really have a tree this year. We have a small apartment, no car, and all of our christmas ornaments and decorations are back in NC. So we decided to forego a normal tree for this year and I created a makeshift 2D one, which is basically a paper tree on the wall with some decorations taped on. It's actually pretty pitiful. I'll share pictures of that one later. 

So last night, when Al and Carly came for dinner and brought us a real little tree, I was very excited. I literally hugged it. We decorated it with a single strand of lights and exactly 4 ornaments, all hung with paper clips. They brought us a pretty mistletoe arrangement too, which that sweet Carly put together herself. Their Christmas additions to our apartment have made it feel so much more cheery. I'm really thankful for those two.

I love my little tree so much that I've been moving it from room to room based on wherever I'm hanging out. The perks of having a teeny tree!

. . .

this week.

( A little mix of photos from my week )

1. Found this little elephant finger puppet mixed in with my craft stuff. What a cutie!
2. I really want to buy these handsome man boots for Finn.

3. Twinkle lights are up.
4. And pumpkins are out. Everything feels cozy.
5. This pretty jar was a gift from Nicole. Finn & I began using it to collect small and funny memories we might otherwise forget. For example "today our drunken neighbor was stuck in the elevator and was yelling "let me out, let me out". And when his wife let him out, he told her she had a big mouth". Some are funny, some are nice, and we'll read them at New Years. I like to watch it fill up.
6. Anniversary sweetness from our friend Fe. There were two cupcakes but, well, you know.
7. We are a mirror writing family.
8. Best of all, my husband is home.

Have a great weekend everybody! 

. . .

holland drive.

We loved our apartment in Chapel Hill. It was a great place for us - quiet, tucked away in a patch of forest, and close in proximity to both friends and a great big pasture. Our back porch overlooked some woods, which were especially magnificent around this time last year. That apartment has been on our minds a good bit this week, but for reasons back-porch-view unrelated. 

Our recent nostalgia has been brought on by the unfortunate paring of this week's weather (blazing hot) and our 100 year-old building's AC situation, which is that there's no AC. So I truly do miss the porch and trees, but sometimes I just miss my old friends, dishwasher and central cooling. Those guys were the best. 

. . .

our window.

We sleep with our bedroom window open every night in this apartment. The outside temperature normally gets down in the 40s or 50s, so an open window makes a big difference. I love lying in there and feeling a little brisk air on an exposed shoulder or foot. It's reminiscent of sleeping in the mountains for me and makes our room feel so cozy. I had the realization upon returning from time in North Carolina that it's one small detail I really love about our apartment and living here. High five little window, I like you.

. . .

a recent read: divining women.

My view, reading on the fire escape outside our bedroom window on a nice day.

This week I started and finished Divining Women, written by Kaye Gibbons. It's essentially this incredibly crafted story of the female experience in 1918 America and, as one critic with words better than mine put it, "a harrowing and explicit declaration of the power of a woman wronged". I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and finished much quicker than I anticipated, chiefly due to Gibbons' brilliant writing that swept me up. I hope to check out more of her books from the library this weekend. I love what she writes about below: 

"She believed that a woman had to be bright enough to choose correctly and distinguish between abiding trust and transient infatuation. She believed...that a woman's intelligence, which she called "the ability and desire to spend as much time in the world of serious ideas as in the shoe shop," should be swirled in with her other attributes. She spoke of intelligence as heightening the impact a woman could make, the way a cook might scare vanilla batter with just enough nutmeg to make the cake memorable".

. . .

3 months.

We moved into our apartment 3 months ago today. I remember driving into the city that morning, all anxious with tangled fingers wondering aloud about the logistics of street parking and moving up to the 5th floor. Finn, who is blessedly relaxed by nature, kept telling me we'd just figure it out. I did not like that answer but he was right. It all worked out fine and thanks to the help of Davy, Fedra, and some high/toothless guys off craigslist, we pulled it off in about 2 hours sans parking citations. Since then, we have had 7 visitors, made some really nice friends, learned (begrudgingly) how to live without a car, become closer companions with one another, and found our "flower-guy", along with a church we really love. It's been a good few months.

Then:

And now:

And him.

Goals for the next 3 months: find a chaise lounge, hang up artwork, not kill our basil, camp in Yosemite, go sailing, visit home, and convince our landlord to allow animals in the building, specifically pygmy goats.

. . .

our apartment: nautical things.

Recently, a friend requested I share some of the nautical-esque things in our home as a post. When she asked, I tried to visualize such items in our apartment, wondering "how many things like that do we have?" As it turns out, the answer is quite a bit and I feel I ought to explain why, in case you might be curious....

The sea holds a dear place in both of our hearts & it has been a part of our relationship and story. Finn worked on sail boats & a yacht in our dating years. Many of the books we read in synchronicity while apart were sea-adventures. I remember our shared love for water being the topic of some of our earliest conversations (along with the distinguished topic of Ninja Turtles).

For me personally, the appreciation lies in the sensory experience: the visual beauty, the feeling of freedom swimming beneath the waves, the smells that whip through the salty wind. I love it all. Many of my best childhood memories took place at the beach. For Finn, the sea stands for adventure, romanticism, and old-time masculinity, all ideals important in his living. He was a scuba-diving instructor and has a love for sailing. This man has even studied celestial navigation as a hobby (he's my ultra-crush). On top of all of this ocean-love, whales happen to be my favorite in all of the animal kingdom (humpback to be specific). I could go into great length about my appreciation for them, which is why I'll save my inevitable essay-length explanation for another day. From an emotionally unattached, design standpoint, I think nautical items are typically a nice balance of masculinity and beauty, a balance we aim to have in our home. Hopefully all that sheds light on our apparent purchasing patterns. Here's another little peek into our apartment:

1. Whale Print: An original watercolor and recent birthday gift from one of my best friends. I have wanted this very print for some time. 

2. Salt & Pepper Shakers: Jonathan Adler-designed, gifted to us at our wedding by our extremely design-savvy friend Cody Pate. They're the only ones I use! 

3. Little Ship Print: came free in an Etsy order.

4. Votives: I made these for our wedding. The papers are from old books that belonged to my grandfather. 

5. Pillow: Ikea find. 

6 & 7. Fisherman's Friend Tin: I bought this old thing at a flea market in Barcelona. I keep treasures inside like sea glass, rings, pendants, and foreign coins. 

8. Tom Crean Poster: Tom Crean, a famously modest & pipe-smoking explorer/sailor from the early 1900s. Finn admires him very much. This was a birthday gift to him last year.

9. Topography Napkins: From Anthropologie a few seasons back. I'm so glad to have a set. I like using cloth napkins - they waste less & are pretty too.

10. Tall Ship: Already shared in this post, but I just had to include it again. 

11. Leather Compass: After walking by it every day on the way to & from class, I finally bought this at the end of my semester in Italy from Cuoieria Fiorentina.  It hangs in our bathroom.

12. Shark Tattoos: I love these booklets of temporary tattoos. My best friends and I always had some on hand in college. I already found a toy store in SF that has them. The shark ones might be my favorite yet.

. . .

flower money.

As a gift for my birthday, my mom and sister gave me "flower-money", money intended only for the purchase of beautiful flowers (what a brilliant gift!). Not groceries, not prescriptions, just flowers. For 3 weeks I've been searching for a good downtown stand, and finally stumbled upon one yesterday after taking Finn lunch. Located at Geary & Stockton, this stand has the best selection and prices I've seen yet. 

My selection included a few sunflowers, blue & purple delphiniums, and a bunch of irises (which I carried at our wedding - I'll love them always). I felt instantly more glamorous cradling that brown paper parcel and was beaming the whole way home, proud to carry such a colorful bunch of flowers under my arm. I split up the portion into two messy bouquets, which now grace our living & dining rooms.

In my opinion, fresh flowers brighten a room like nothing else. See evidence below.

Before:

After: 

What a transformation!

Having the experience of freely picking out lovely flowers without my nagging conscious whispering "should you really be spending money on flowers?" was a special treat. And I have some money left over, so I'll get to enjoy the experience again sometime soon. What a great gift! Also, it turns out that taping faces on furniture is shockingly fun. There I was, alone in my apartment, laughing at the sudden cuteness of our sideboard.

Hooray for flowers!

sidenote: the metal plates on the ground are for earthquake protection. aren't they fetching?

. . .

our neighborhood.

I love the area of town where we live. It's safe, relatively quiet, and very close to:

1) the Financial District, where Finn works.
2) a main BART/MUNI station, which means we can get anywhere in the city pretty easily.
3) lots of great stores & restaurants.
4) the Cable Car line! We are just 1 block from a trolley ride. 

I thought I'd share a few glimpses of our neighborhood, the sights we see every day. 

1 & 2. Our street & our block. I took the second photo outside of Bush Market, which I visit on occasion when I need some produce, milk, or a chaco taco. It's good for quick runs.

3. The Powell Cable Car line: it's so fun to live right by one of San Francisco's most iconic qualities. Mostly tourists use the line and I often shoot them a kind & knowing smile that says "isn't it fun??".

4. Viney Wall: I walk by this wall daily. I love it because it feels like a 10-second nature oasis in the middle of the city. I appreciate all the green I can get these days.

5. Burritt St.: I think this sign says "burrito" literally every time I pass it. 

6. Hill. We live on one. This super steep one pictured runs perpendicular to our street. If you climb to the top, you can see the ocean as well as lots of out-of-breath people.

7. Our building. Davy took this picture our first week here. The buzzer is a facade. I wish it worked so I could be like Jerry Seinfeld when my friends visited.

. . .

p.s. - Today is my wonderfully kind & loving mother-in-law's birthday. 

Happy Birthday Carrie! I wish we could bring you dinner & flowers tonight. Miss you lots.