Happy spring! It’s still very chilly here in Seattle and I’ve delayed starting my garden, but the birds are singing, the light is returning and I just finished a big spring clean-out at home…
While I wait for my Piet Oudolf inspired perennial backyard to make its return I’ve been paging through Piet’s new book which is full of inspiration…
Speaking of inspiration, my friend Jessie introduced me to Amy Smilovic’s amazing book The Creative Pragmatist. It’s the most favorite thing I’ve purchased for myself in a long time...
Continuing on the topic of fashion, I just bought these superwide-leg jeans from Madewell that I love and feel great in…
And I wore these new Adidas Always Original pants to the studio this week and four clients asked me for a link so they too could get them. You can’t tell in the photo but the stripes are sheer. They do have a très bizarre “whale tale” insert (why?!) that you can see in the photos, but I just took a pair of scissors and cut it out and now they are a normal but très cool pair of pants…
My husband needed a new speaker for his studio and selected this compact but mighty (and beautiful!) Marshall bluetooth speaker…
For a long time I used to make my own almond milk which isn’t difficult but it is time consuming. I just discovered this almond milk concentrate from JOI (it’s made with just almonds so it’s essentially a blanched almond butter) and it is so good and so easy I will never go back. Available directly from JOI or Amazon…
Over the last several months I have been learning French. We have an upcoming trip to Paris later this year which gave me the nudge to start, but I am continuing with such devotion motivated purely by my own enjoyment of practicing and seeing it slowly come together. It makes me so happy to practice and it has been such a treat to learn something completely new at 40+ that is not related to my work. There are so many great resources out there if you want to learn a language. Here are a few of my favorites:
Fluent Forever is great for ear training and pronunciation.
Super Duolingo (the paid version) is incredibly fun.
Duolingo French podcast has really improved my listening and they also provide full transcripts.
Short Stories in French - there is an audiobook component available as well.
Alliance Française to practice with real people!
**Bonus tip for my devoted readers: how to reliably get rid of hiccups!
“Momentum goes both ways.
Don’t move, feel sluggish. Start moving, feel like moving a little more.
Don’t talk, feel timid. Start chatting, conversation gets a little easier.
Don’t ship, feel stuck. Start creating, ideas begin to flow.”