albarino again and again

we had this albarino wine in asheville about a year ago. i couldn't find the particular one that we had when we got back to rome. a good friend and neighbor read my blog about it and left her favorite on my porch. it was soooooo good. long story short, still haven't even been able to find her albarino in rome. pb came home with one on friday night. i thought the label looked familiar. we opened it tonight and it is my friend's favorite. finally! in rome.

we recommend.

hh finds

we have been looking for something different to rest our t.v. on since last july.

we found this at the antique mall yesterday.

the piece adds some weight to the corner of the room, is a color we love, is chipped and beat up in all the right ways, and was a steal. a nice weekend find.
(and i love the way the other electronic boxes are camouflaged in the stack of books beside it...but i'm not the one that gets the credit for that design trick.)

let the games begin

our weekend is revolving slightly around the opening of this.

em went home with a bunch of her friends after school yesterday to begin the activities. they decorated t-shirts to wear to the movie tonight. they feasted on food from all 12 districts for dinner. and they played in the woods and got really muddy...i was most excited about this. no phones, no texting, no computers, just playing in the woods.

we have an exciting day ahead of us...

happy vernal equinox

a few finds during spring break:

do you have one of these?

my best friend in the atl recommended that i get one. i have wanted one for some time. she found this one. i found mine at t.j. maxx. it is a highly recommended purchase. enjoyed it several nights after dinner last week.

do you have a camellia bush in your yard?

we picked these on the friday afternoon that spring break began. enjoyed them all week. one of my favorite flowers.

found this new cheek color here.

i love it. it is creamy but turns to powder for a natural flush when applied. i need to go buy the rest of them before they are gone!

have you seen this movie?

it was our "spring break movie night movie" last tuesday. a good dessert movie after our trip to nyc.

another new favorite.

got it here, my crush of a wine store. bring in your empty wine bottle of choice and beautifully, french perrine will have it made into a candle for you. bring it back for refills once you are finished burning it. a great gift idea. this one was from a bottle of prosecco we bought at her shop on new year's eve. scented and sentimental :)

we love polaroids. especially a wall of them. always trying to figure out a way to incorporate one in our home somewhere.

saw this one in a very cool outdoors stop in historic roswell square.

have you read this series?

i read them over spring break...so i would know what em was so excited about. addicted. the soundtrack came out today. we listened to it tonight and it has triggered a new playlist for us to work on for spring. the soundtrack is bluegrass, appalachian, folksy, indie combined. if you love the decemberists, the civil wars, taylor swift...you will enjoy.

and a few of my favorite photos from our long weekend in n.c. over spring break.

happy first day of spring to everyone.

no sleep til brooklyn

ok, so here is the final wrap-up of our nyc trip. this time 2 weeks ago, we were standing in line here. a few photos.

if you haven't walked along the east river at sunset and then stood in line for an hour for grimaldi's pizza under the brooklyn bridge, well....

the day started with a super session at my conference. we heard artist, chuck close, and writer and art critic, irving sandler. it was inspiring (though chuck close commented that inspiration is "overrated" if you are wasting time waiting on it to produce art) and truly amazing. i could not take notes fast enough. after the talk, i met pb for lunch at the 53rd street deli. then after more art acitivities, and a much needed 20 minute nap, we hopped on the f train to the york street station in brooklyn, around 4:00. we walked along the east river, between the manhattan and brooklyn bridges and took photos. if this is not on your bucket list, it should be.
here are my photos before dinner.

this was dinner. i'm a pizza-holic. this was worth the wait in line. and what else would i rather be doing but waiting in line on a saturday, in brooklyn???

after dinner we walked across the brooklyn bridge. a truly magnificent thing to do as you view the lights of manhattan and the cars whizzing underneath. i took some photos.

and so did pb. check out more of them here.

5 days, 4 nights. an amazing trip for us. cannot wait to go back.

swirling clouds in violet haze

moma was the main attraction for me on friday morning. i had been waiting to go and it was just one block from our hotel. we concentrated on the 3-5th floors. once again, words cannot do justice for what i viewed. here are a few of my favorites:

picasso

cezanne

seurat

edvard munch

paul klee...we did these cats in art when em was in the 4th grade.

one of my favorite matisse paintings.

dali...the persistance of memory. so much smaller than i ever imagined.

cy twombly...we are about to study him in art class. he attended darlington school in the 1940's. his death this past July 5th was a big loss for the art world...love his work.

frida kahlo...again, much smaller than i imagined. a beautiful frame around it.

warhol.

rothko...for liz. we both love his work.

giacometti. we just finished making our version of "walking man" sculptures in my 4th grade art classes. cool to see one of his paintings.

another favorite of mine. jasper johns.

and pollack. my kids at school love "action jackson". this was incredible.

and the scale of monet's water lilies triptych only added to my amazement and awe.

and another favorite....mondrian.

on a scale from 1 to 10 on feeling like a dork...i was probably a 26. i got so excited every time we rounded a corner and saw another painting. and then we saw this.

it made me cry. how do you explain when a piece of art and history moves you like that? pb got a photo of it.

so that was a lengthy yet truly abbreviated glimpse of moma through my eyes. i could have gone back again the next day. we also saw this favorite that afternoon. robert indiana's love sculpture on 6th avenue.

and this display at anthropologie by rockefeller center. an artist was in the window, painting while we watched. her work was being auctioned later that day to benefit the childrens' art programs in the nyc public schools. this project interested me on many levels...

later in the afternoon after i was finished with all of my art activities, pb and i ventured down to the lower east side for a late lunch at his favorite pizza place. nostalgic for him. we took em here in december and she made quite an impression on sal, the owner.

after pizza, we walked to soho and tribeca. look what pb bought.

i can't decide which i love the most. the west village, soho, or tribeca? we ducked into the broomstreet bar around 6:30 for a glass of wine and a beer. we could have sat there for hours just people watching. this was the hangout for artists, writers, and muscians back the day.

we had dinner reservations at anejo tequileria for 9:00 that evening. so we took the subway back to the hotel to get ready. (i will say, it was so great having someone with me that knew the subway. i was impressed, pb.) we walked to hell's kitchen to find our restaurant. i had read about this place but we had no idea how incredible it would turn out to be.
(here is pb, posing in his new jeans on our way to dinner.)

we arrived at anejo teuileria about 8:00 and waited at the bar to be seated. when i say this might have been one of the best meals i have ever had...

this is all that was left of the anejo guacamole, the shrimp tacos, and the mushroom tamales. delicioso! this restaurant and supper are on our "keeper" list.

we left there to find ourselves in the rain again so pb ran across the street to purchase our 3rd umbrella of the trip. we walked back to the hotel but not before stopping for some live music here.

then back in the rain before collapsing after a great day.