Taco flavored kisses...

First, Congrats to my sister-in-law and her boyfriend who just got engaged this weekend! Very exciting that we will have another official addition to the family and another party for all the cousins to dance, sing and partake of many, many tequila shots.

Friday we found a great new Mexican restaurant El Paisano where we celebrated Leslie's birthday, complete with a personal mariachi serenade.




It was followed by bowling and an impromptu modeling session with Wendy's sweet hat.

Check out my new specs!!!

Saturday was my dear, sweet Australian friend Sonya's baby shower. Baby expected early April.



Sunday was tea with Leigh, my other dear, sweet friend who is expecting, at The London Tea Room. I love this place!

Weekends go too fast....

Children are not Decor

[photo via NYT]

Andrew started getting the New York Times sent to the house a few weeks ago. I came home one day and saw this story Parent Shock: Children are not Decor. I found it to be a very humorous article because as many of you know...I am a bit of a design whore. This has become more apparent to me as all of my friends have had babies in the last two years and those babies are starting to come over to my house and climb on my vintage Lane coffee table; throw their food on my Interface Tile carpet and drool on my Intaglia couch. (I love you friends and babies!!)

My point is that times are changing and I need to adapt...which is exactly what this article was about. How do grown ups like me....who love design, adapt to having kids around. If Andrew and I want to keep our friends it is obvious that we are going to have to either baby proof our house or get used to the idea that our design fancy things are going to get some good old use from kids. I think it might be a combo of both. Stay tuned.

Stainless Steel

So there was a bunch of stuff on my Christmas list that didn't make it under my tree last year, so I decided that I needed to get it for myself. The first item on my list was this Timolino vacuum infuser bottle. I got it from Amazon but first heard about it from Oh Joy. There were a couple reasons this bottle caught my attention.

1. I like to drink tea and this bottle has a built in infuser so you can put loose tea leaves in it but still drink out of it without having to remove the leaves.
2. It's made out of stainless steel. I'm not sure when this scare started...but it was sometime last fall when I started reading everywhere about the dangers of hard plastics (such as the plastic that Nalgene bottles are made out of). Something about bad things leaching out of the plastic and the more time that passed, the more articles I read in the design and magazine world about people switching to stainless steel options like Sigg and Klean Kanteen.

What really sold me was one of the Amazon reviews from a solider who took his Timolino to Iraq. You really can't beat that kind of endorsement.

I have to say that I am a satisfied customer. The bottle has a great design - sleek, clean and light. It is made of double walled stainless steel but has a coating on the outside that keeps it super cool to the touch. I have gotten several compliments and questions about it at work. Best of all it works really well. It keeps your beverage SUPER HOT... for a LONG TIME! If I make tea in the morning it will still be hot 3-4 hours later. Also, the lid really is leak proof.

Since all of my friends have been having babies lately, the next two products caught my eye.

• One is a baby bottle that claims to be free of BPA (the bad stuff that they claim comes out of hard plastics).

They also have a stainless steel bottle design for adults. I like the design of this one...I might get it to use for water.

• The other product is a stainless steel sippy cup.

I guess I just wanted to put this info out there to educate my friends and family about the possible risks of BPA and to educate my friends and family about their options. While the risk is still disputed...why not err on the side of caution and use a safer alternative.

Here are some articles about BPA. I hope some of you find this helpful.

Renovating

Well as you can clearly see I've been doing some renovating around here.... Blogger has come a long way in the last few years and it's about time that I took advantage of it...plus I'm hoping that it will inspire me to start posting again on a regular basis.




January was full of cosmetic changes...in the house and to myself. We moved our TV to the living room and changed the use of our room off the kitchen into a mudroom/breakfast area. We have big plans for this room...but it won't be for awhile. (still paying for that great wedding...)

Speaking of the wedding...if you live in Missouri or Kansas, check out your newstands around the first week of June. Andrew and I will be in The Knot magazine. If you don't live in the midwest we are also supposed to be on the website. Obviously I'll post more details in June.

Back to cosmetic changes.... I colored my hair (although it's faded a bunch already); and I got new specs! This was a birthday gift from A. since I have been dying for a new pair for 2 years. It was the only thing I really, really wanted. I will try and post a picture asap.

VOTE!

Yes We Can!

Vote for Change!

Don't forget to vote tomorrow!

Obama 08'

Feb. 3, 2008

Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
Lao Tzu [via ali edwards]