a very merry easter weekend to you and you and you!

{photo from j'adore}

Happy Easter Weekend!! here is a little mix of some of my favorite music which I think is fitting for this particular holiday. it's mostly sufjan stevens, a bit of sigur ros, and a couple other things.

a word about sufjan's song "woman at the well"...
this song brings back great memories for me. when i was a freshman in college, one of my good friends john ringhofer {who is half-handed cloud} came home from signing a record deal with asthmatic kitty and told us all about this guy who also signed a record deal on the same day. yup, it was sufjan and the song john brought back to us was woman at the well. that song was never actually supposed to be released to the public, but we spread the song around our little group of friends like wildfire. years later that song brings back all the happy memories of being a hippy christian college kid, playing in the grass barefoot, and celebrating with john over his new professional musical endeavors. john often tours with sufjan as his trombonist and does lots of his own shows, especially in the bay area. i highly recommend seeing him in concert - it's like nothing you've ever experienced!{john: center; sufjan: in the star suit}

****

i hope you all have an amazing easter weekend full of sunshine and laughter and edible goodies and love!

{adorable easter photo found on weheartit}

easter?... ! and other holidays today

how did it escape me that this weekend was easter until today?! oops! so i don't have anything planned for this weekend yet {yet!}, but i will have a little something special for you tomorrow in honor of easter.

also, happy april fool's day!
i briefly considered playing a horrible/hilarious april fool's joke on all of you on my blog, but i just didn't have the brain power to think up something good {yet another example of what grad school does to a person}. but i hope you all play some pretty awesome pranks and avoid utter embarrassment today.
good luck out there!


and happy birthday to one of my best friends ever - devon!

he's that handsome fellow next to me on the piano {and yes, i do play the shofar}. the last time i got to see him was two summers ago when dannon and i backpacked through the southwest national parks.

which brings me to what i like to call "good idea/bad idea: the southwest national parks edition."
good idea: hiking the cool-watered narrows at zion nat'l park in the dead heat of august. bad idea: getting out of the car for any reason whatsoever at death valley nat'l park in the dead heat of august. i'm pretty sure i felt my brain liquefy.

anyway, it's been far too long since i got to hang out with devon, where we could tell each other in person "you're fired" and "you're a dirty whore" and other wonderful things like that. he's an amazing organist and rock-climber extraordinaire, oh and the quickest "your mom" joke teller in the west!
happy birthday friend!

have any awesome april fool's day stories?
i would love to hear them!

miss kimbirdy's neighborhood!

now that i've decided to move, i've begun to get nostalgic about the littlest things around me. i've lived in san francisco for the past 5 years and this place has felt more like home than any other place i've lived. i'm going to miss it so much!
Bah!

so i thought i would share some of the little things i've been noticing in my neighborhood:

pretty trees!
old-timey cars.
a pretty garage near haight street.

my local library....unfortunately closed for repairs, but still the cutest in the city.

i see these guys all over. it's such a clever business idea.

the pretty panhandle, a mere 2 blocks from my front door.

brahma kumaris meditation center.

a giant teepee in a neighbor's yard {view through a hole in the fence}.

my neighbors recently repainted their window to look like a piet mondrian painting.

when i first moved into my apartment this was a bar-stool store and a giant parrot lived in the garage. then plant it earth took over and commissioned a gorgeous mural. i watched the hipster artist paint that over the course of months and it was so exciting to watch the process as it developed.

okay, that's all for now.
thanks everyone for humoring me as i go through the bittersweet process that is moving! now i'm going to sip some tea and remind myself of all the wonderful things
i'll love in my new neighborhood {whatever that ends up being}.

what do you love about your neighborhood?

j'adore!

one of my favorite bloggers ever, the lovely erin from pughs' news, has started her own beautiful tumblr page, j'adore!

it's full of so many amazingly dreamy photos.
see?:

instant happiness for all occasions!

***

thanks to everyone for your well-wishes yesterday! i really took it easy.
here's how i did on my get healthy to-do list:
drink gallons of water? check.
take those vitamins and airborne? check.
pee every 15 min? for sure check.
sleep for 13 hours? check, and please don't hate me.
laugh till i fall out of my chair watching old SNL episodes on netflix making me overwhelmingly happy and all those icky germs annihilated? check and check!


and a bunch of you asked where I got the blue dress from my last post. it's actually a dress i ordered from lulu's, one of my favorite stores. i've spent a dangerous amount of time on that website, so be careful! : )

the good and the bad

well, this was me at the beginning of the weekend, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed:

and this was me at the end of my weekend, sicky mcsickerton:

the bad part of this weekend was getting sick, not being able to hang out more with dannon on a beautiful day, and repeatedly falling asleep while trying to do homework in bed. the good part of my weekend was going to an open house for a space that dannon designed, getting to eat spicy thai food {my favorite type of comfort food}, and going to a birthday party for a dear friend of mine.

lucky for me, the san francisco unified school district {where i work} is having spring break this week, so i can take a bit of time and catch up on my health. it'll be sleeping in for me to my heart's content! oh so glorious!

i hope you all had amazingly lovely weekends with absolutely no germs or illnesses of any kind!

fill in the blank friday

these little features by lauren at the little things we do... have been all over blogland the past few weeks and the questions always look so fun that i decided to play along this week.

1. The best piece of advice I was ever given was that nothing worth having is easy.


2. If I had a million dollars to give to one charity I would give it to the girl effect.


3. If I got to choose my "last meal" it would be a kiwi, tortellini in a white/pesto sauce, a chai tea latte, pineapple pizza, tangerines, natural cheetos, cookie dough ice cream, and a reeses peanut-butter cup {that's all considered a meal right?}.


4. My hair is HUGE!!! it's big and thick and curly and out of control and sometimes looks more like a mane than a person's hair... but i love every strange kinked-out curl!


5. If at first you don't succeed swear really loud, jump and down, pound your fists into something hard enough to break it, and kick and scream. Then, wait for your skin to turn from green back to its normal color and the muscles to shrink down, smooth out that dress, smile and sweetly ask, "now who would like to help me with this?"


6. I have always been very easily distracted. i mean, i get really interested in things for a short time, but then i can go from talking about something and flower earrings cookies what was that noise? or ticket stubs and sea shells with little plastic key chains... wait, what?...

7. Oh....and by the way.... i opened my fridge last night after class to find a bag of chips, a pen, and a magazine all sitting inside next to the yogurt. i'm pretty sure the full time work/full time grad school is getting to me.

{from weheartit}

i hope everyone has an AWESOME weekend!
you all deserve it. ; )

Awards from Blogposts Past

here's my other award that i am completely late in sharing. the very lovely krysten from After 'I Do' gave me this little award back in january and i think it's such a fun one.

the rules are to list 10 things that make me happy.
JUST 10?! okay, i'll try...

Happiness to me is:

1. when really old-school songs come on the radio taking me WAY back {thank you Run D.M.C.!}

2. catching the green flash at sunset over the ocean

3. the very end of saturday night live, during the credits, when everyone hugs and high-fives and celebrates with each other

4. new magazine day

5. a perfectly clean house

6. getting to wear sundresses and flip flops outside in the sunshine

7. daffodils! daffodils! daffodils!

8. Katie, the most creative girl in blogland
9. waking up really early and realizing i can sleep for two more hours before i need to get up

10. the fact that even though dannon is much taller than me, our arms are the perfect lengths for hand-holding


i feel happier just thinking about those happy things!
here are a few of the blogs that make me happy:
dori the giant
triumphs and blunders of a kooky gal
little reminders of love
tinypaperheart
smiles from mel
pughs' news
hannah and hunter's blog
make sure you check them out!


what makes you happy?

she & him

that's right, the new she & him album {volume two} came out yesterday and it's so good! npr is streaming the whole thing, if you haven't heard it yet. dannon and i will be going to their concert at the fox theatre in oakland when they come in may. i can't wait!!!

there's also this adorable music video from the new album. zooey knows how to do the whole school girl thing the cute and classy way {that's right britney, i'm talking to you}.

Enjoy!

los angeles

l.a. was such a blast! we roamed around to a handful of neighborhoods we wanted to check out - echo park, silverlake, los feliz, santa monica and venice. we ruled out los feliz and santa monica. both of these places were way too commercialized for our liking. although, los feliz was pretty cool and we'd probably hang out there if we lived in silverlake or echo park.

the thing is, after living in san francisco, we really hate living in places with chain stores/restaurants, or where we'd have to drive everywhere, or where there are no corner coffee shops, lounges, etc. so we were really attracted to echo park, silverlake, and venice, all of which have a unique, artsy, small neighborhood feel. exactly what we're looking for!!!

my absolute favorite was venice. oh how i LOVE venice! it felt so much like san francisco, we just felt at home. everyone rode bikes, there were adorable cottages, awesome restaurants, funky shops, and amazing coffee shops {intelligentsia is the l.a. version of ritual, for all you san franciscans}! there was a pleasant mixture of hipsters and hippies {it felt like a combination of hayes valley, haight street and valencia street}. and venice is where i brushed elbows {literally... we passed on a skinny sidewalk} with danny pudi, the guy who plays abed on 'community.' that was our only celebrity sighting for the weekend, although we did pass 3 movie shoots.

we also explored various other neighborhoods, hung out with my cousin, and spent time with two of our best friends ever {can't wait to live near them again!}.

and now, some pictures!


silverlake

los feliz

west hollywood

malibu
{giant celebrity homes}
santa monica

venice beach

venice canals

kusc
{where my best friend brian is the programming producer}

eagle rock

i'm still pretty sad about leaving san francisco {it will always have my heart!}, but after this weekend i'm so excited about the possibilities for a new home.
... even if that means i have to drive again {scary death!!!}.