August

Do you ever feel that the beginning of August brings with it the beginning of fall? It's no wonder with the Target aisles full of dorm room swag, Mead 5 Subject notebooks and pencils. As a kid of educators and a lover of school myself, August quickly ramps up with back to school festivities and then the fresh start of school itself.

This year I don't want to rush into fall, because there a great few weeks of summer still ahead of me. TWO vacations! a birthday! a wedding! another boating weekend! delicious bbq & racing pigs! in seasons foods! it's all gonna be so good and I want to enjoy it all. I want to continue to work on my summer list. Look, we have yet to walk to get ice cream! There's lots yet to do.

vacation with matt to the upper peninsula
buy a bicycle and ride it. 
camp
pick blueberries
have a cookout for friends
picnic in the park
purge and organize the craft room and main floor closet and library
rock boat weekend
mini vacation with momma
do a picture a day
spend most of a day floating on a lake, at least once
fireworks
celebrate birthdays with love and fun and we still have matt's coming up
fresh, local, simple foods and dinners, hello lover august
grow our own stuff
wrap a light string around the apple tree
chicago in the midst of it
get out of the house once a day
walk to get ice cream
visit as many great lakes as possible
make a list like this
make a book to record it all

I'm not the only one trying to hold on to the last bits of summer. Sheenas' beautiful canola background calendar is now gracing my desktop.

Wanderlust is something I'm enjoying a few little bits of this summer. I enjoyed Port Huron and views of the Blue Water Bridge with my momma two weekends ago. Cheboygan last weekend was fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun on the boat, boa-!

heading to hack-ma-tack via the cheboygan river.

Next week I'm off to visit my bestest in ChicagoOak Park. We have grand plans of a real girl's weekend with wine and cheese on the porch, junk food and movies, wandering her town and two full days to catch up!

Then it will be Matt's turn. Five uninterrupted days of vacation in the Upper Peninsula, visiting family soaking ourselves in the lake, a trip to a waterfall or a mine may be in store, definitely some beers and really good food. Much needed relaxation, for reals. Then we'll be home to celebrate his birthday the next weekend. Plans are brewing.

Matt's birthd-eve 2011

I really want to enjoy every bit of it and make the most of the 23 days we'll both be home throughout the month. Make it my goals to enjoy the house, cook fresh food, open the windows and work in the yard a bit, sit outside and enjoy the last few weeks of summer. I think it can be done.

goodness, i love that font. found on elise' blog

her august list.

lovey pins

hi.

this post was supposed to go up eight days ago, but then my grandma was in the hospital and priorities changed. priorities. i haven't been much of a blogger these past couple of months and i'm okay that. i'm loving reading my old favorite blogs and my newest favorite. i've been pinning more and that's fun. it's not even as dangerous as i thought it'd be. my love and i went on vacation. it was warm. my mum and i went skiing. life has happened, and it's been mostly really, very good.

click here to see the full board. 

oh and there was a treasury too. 

this is how i feel about tomato juice.

The Oatmeal

it's appropriate to post this today, as we just took a plane home from Florida. photos soon!

Traverse City // Mission Peninsula // November 5 & 6

Traverse City // Mission Peninsula // November 5 & 6


You know it's going to be a good weekend when your waiter says, "I don't normally say this, but you know you guys are ordering a lot of food, right?" Oh, we knew it and it was and it was so totally worth it.

This weekend was total decadence. As much as we loved the food there's no photographic evidence, but here it is in drinks and scenery.

2 lads winery

the views at 2 lads

A walk. The colors were STUNNING. 

Thankful for micro-climates!

We're adorbs. per ushe. ;)

The Jolly Pumpkin

Right Brain Brewery

Bowers Harbor

Finally, the view from our room at the Tesoro Inn a beautiful, contemporary bed and breakfast!

Matt

This is Matt's standard, "Really a picture?! Ok."

I think it's adorable.

We're off soaking up some Great Lakes!

Happy Tuesday.

miniVACA

Piggybacking off our amazing family trip, Matt and are spending Monday and Tuesday up in the Mackinaw area. Our goal is to find a hotel with a balcony and a view of the bridge.

We'll be computer free. I'm so looking forward to it. I think sometimes my brain starts to buzz from the electronics. 

Every Summer

 Sometimes it's gray and chilly.

Sometimes it's hot and sunny.

 There are always some sick dance moves.

 And some awesome hair.

(but no Josh, after a solid 15 years the kid's decided to opt out. weird. :)

Today is our annual, amazing boat trip on the Cheboygan Chain of Lakes (you can get almost all the way across the tip of the mit.

I can't wait.

Paris Fashions

Five years ago to celebrate my graduation from Delta my mum and I took a wonderful trip to Paris. I was so nervous about to wear I worried about for months beforehand.

This was my birthday outfit, twentyONE baby.

Jordan of Oh, Happy Day recently posted about a look for Paris, and it looks like I was on on the right track. (It's Paris, classic fashions probably don't change too much.)

linking up with Pleated Poppy.

ps. I love Gemma's sweet French cat.

Chicago!

The last time I was in Chicago, I was in the midst of a fog that settled on me about a year ago this time that was lifting during that trip to Chicago to visit my bestie.

hi Kayleigh!

It was September and we hit Renegade.

And I came home with this wonderful la-lelaphant from SkunkBoy! Oh her new site, is SO pretty!!!

Here's Katie & Elsie wonderful booth. I was too shy to say "hi, i read your blog daily." But we did loiter for a quite awhile before I committed. They're all so sweet. 

Look there I am on the side trying to use Elsie's iPhone to pay with PayPal for my la-lelie.

Well I'm headed back this weekend & So looking forward to it!!! I wonder how Matt will feel if I fall in love 87 times like on my last visit. 

it's FRIDAY!!!

It's been a weird week. I'm really disliking this winter. I always feel like I'm always on the brink of sickness and I'm tired and I want it to be summer. so there.

Thank goodness, we're going away for the weekend, me and six of my favorite people!!! Do you think I need it?? ZoodeSKI, Boyne Highlands here I come!

That also means it's time for Fill in the Blank Friday!!!!!

 this feels like spring.

can i live in that image for the next thee months?

can i take matt?

1.   My favorite quote is "Always look on the bright side. Be eccentric. Be inspired. Follow your heart and be your funny self." It's from a beautiful shop in Paris, Karine Dupont.

2.  A bad habit I have is well, can lack of motivation be a bad habit? Because that's definitely my biggest fault right now and inconsistency, same boat.

3.  The first time I felt like a "grown up" was I think that first night I was at Ferris all by myself, I had a private dorm, definitely felt grown up, breaking up the ex was pretty grown up (almost six years ago), moving to New York to be on my own, with no connections was but I can't really pinpoint an exact moment.

4.  Weekends are FANTASTIC, full of possibility but we usually end up in the same state, cuddled up on the couch reading/sports/lazing. Definitely not complaining.

5.  When I was a child I wished my name was Abby. That's an easy one!

6.  I wish for so much. Today I'm wishing for inspiring meetings that will build a fire of excitement in me about training for the tri and give me oodles of motivation for Monday.

7.  A secret I have is I'm scared I'll never figure it out.

vacation!

hullo from las vegas! i'm officially on VACATION for the next week! so of course i've made a little to do list! i'm seriously just OWNING that my blog is really just a place to post these. (and over use the word just) ;)

yep, gratuitous photobooth pic.

1 . take pictures everyday! (ftw!)

2 . don't watch tv first thing in the morning. (pick up a book loser!)

3 . breathe. relax. see. focus.

4 . keep journalling. (because then you can post gems like this!)

5 . moderation. (at least consider it.)

6 . sleep. (it's a vacation!)

7 . adventure! (it's a vacation!)

(ooh and eek! and thank you, thank you for the comments on my last post!)

travel & cats

i uploaded some photos of my adorable kitties and fantastic florida trip.

 i am in love with these trees.

how cute is that?!

love, kate

this week

Let me take a look back over the last week, my first full week on being laid off.

Well, maybe I should start with lovely little jaunt to DC. It was an enjoyable trip other than the obnoxiously bright bus back to NY. Seriously, 1 in the morning and they have these green lights on, bright enough to hinder sleeping but to dim to read by. How rude! Anyway, back to DC I spent a lovely day and half just wandering the Smithsonian museums, the mall, and enjoying delicious Sushi. It was a good little trip. I'd like to go back for a day trip to the zoo but it might not work out.


My previous blog about my new obsession with Twitter has become an absolute beast. I still have 100's of Firefox tabs open from my first day of Twittering a job. I didn't have a Twitter following to begin with so it's definitely been a process to find people in media and their followers. Then there has been the process of finding the job opportunities that are available and posted on company websites or just sending cold emails. I'm proud to report that over this week I've applied for 27 jobs, 15 of which were just yesterday. That's no where near my goal of 50 for yesterday, possibly unrealistic. With just 27 jobs applied for I obviously didn't spend every waking moment submitting my cover letter and resume. Almost a whole day was spent on the aforementioned Twittering, which I will get a handle on in the coming days, there must be a work flow to it! In my defense, at job 15 I realized the job posting was an attempt at fraud so I spent the rest of the evening reporting the websites that had listed it and turning it in to the IC3.

I've also taken a little time for myself, on Thursday I took the afternoon off. I went down to the TKTS booth in Times Square and bought myself a ticket to see Speed the Plow, a David Mamet play with William H. Macy. It was very good and stimulating, it made me want to read more by Mamet. Since I was in midtown and had time to kill, I didn't feel like coming all the home for just 45 minutes, I went to see Taken which I'd also been wanting to see for a while. It was alright, there were some serious holes in the story but I did enjoy it, just on a completely different level than Speed the Plow.

I hope to post more next week, just tokeep my brain stimulated by a different activity that rehashing my cover letter every 10 minutes.