Saying Goodbye to Summer

    As I start this post, please know that I mean summer as lightly as possible... Today is November 13th, and it was 81 degrees in Los Angeles.  I hate to complain about the weather, but I am very much jonesing for some layering weather.
    This year I really tried to make the most of my summer... I just wanted to recap some of the highlights!

First trip of the summer was to Santa Barbara!!!

The Beach!

Bikes bikes bikes

    Andrea and I have been best friends for 15 years this fall and we decided to celebrate with a wine tour in the San Ynez valley. It was amazing.  I can't say enough about how much I needed this break after a VERY long season of my show this year.

    Wine Tasting in Barnsdall Park!

Delicious wine with beautiful architecture in the background!

Complimented by one of my favorite couples!

Epic sunset and view of LA

    Once a month in the summer, there are wine tastings at Barnsdall Park, on the lawn of the Hollyhock House, which was built by Frank Lloyd Wright, one of my favorite architects. The setting is epic, the wine is amazing, and I never get to go!!! Its always on a Friday night, and I am always working. This year, I actually made it to one, and it was spectacular. Surprisingly, it was one of the more family friendly events I had been to in a long time. Lots of cute chubby little toddlers waddling around to DJ's while their parents lounged on blankets and sipped wine. It was so nice. 

Wilco and Neil Young (!!) at the Hollywood Bowl

Wilco getting ready to start!

The gang before the show!

Epic seats and sounds for Neil Young

    Its no secret that I love the Hollywood Bowl. I post about it every year. This time the lineup wasn't as amazing as I would have liked, but I did see two pretty outstanding shows. Wilco and Neil Young were both everything I had hoped they would be. Neil Young played forever, and just jammed out. You can tell he still has a solid love of performing. It was incredible. 

San Francisco, well it was just outstanding... but I think I talked enough in the last post.

Beautiful sunset while we walked.

Tea Tasting!

Chinatown

   Thank you summer/hiatus of 2012 for being so much fun and quite an adventure. I expect next year to be just as good...once the vampires go back to ground.

xo

Nike Women's Half Marathon Pt. 2

    Well, I can honestly say I did it! I finished the Nike Women's Half Marathon! If you are a runner, you should absolutely get into the lottery for this race. Its pretty outstanding. The course is beautiful, the city is amazing. I had one of the best weekends I can remember.  In this post, I am going to try to give you some tips about the weekend to make yours run smoothly. In the weeks building up to the 2012, I scoured the internet trying to figure out some things, and I hope if you are here doing the same thing I can answer a few of those questions.

Andrea, please don't kill me for using this picture. 

    First and foremost, take the BART! I am not sure if the same procedure works from Oakland, but from SFO you should absolutely take the BART. You take it from terminal three at SFO so its incredibly convenient.  The best station to get to Union Square and all the hotels is Powell, and it is an $8.65 ride each way. SUPER CHEAP AND QUICK. The trains are fast and very clean. The only complaint I have is that the speaker system is pretty muffled, so you should keep your ears perked up. The Powell station is quite a few in, so you have time.  You have to pay for your ride ahead of time, and we had really lovely people who were making their way back into the airport give us their old passes with money left on them. If you have money left over on your pass when you leave, do it! It made us feel so welcome in a new city!!

    The second most important thing, GO EARLY.  I sadly flew in on Saturday morning.  By the time we got where we were staying, and got to the Expo, there was literally a line to get in that stretched ALL THE WAY AROUND UNION SQUARE!!! It was a fiasco. I was very lucky that I had had a feeling about this. My friend Tanis was going a day early and checked in for me. WHICH YOU CAN DO. You need to get  your friend a copy of your ID and your check in barcode.  So luckily, we didn't have to wait in that crazy check in line.  That being said, there are quite a few really fun photo booth, hair styling, etc booths in the expo that we really didn't get to enjoy because of the volume of people inside.  Also, as you know, the race starts super early on Sunday AM. Because of that you will probably be going to bed on the earlier side, which cuts down on your sightseeing time. Next year, I will absolutely be flying in at least a day early.


    Next, use Airbnb. Airbnb is a great site that I have used twice now for travel and both times it has gotten me goldmines.   This is a site where people can rent out their rental property or own apartment or home for the weekend or a longer stay. We ended up with a great great apartment in Nob Hill, which was a super short (uphill) walk from Union Square.

    This was the view from our GIANT picture window. These photos really do it no justice. Now comes the best part of this deal: our room was $100 a night!!!  All the hotels near us were charging $225 or higher for the same neighborhood.  And I booked this in late April. I can only imagine if I had waited until the month before.

Ok, Cable cars!! Cable cars are just as awesome as you imagine them to be!!! You can take one right out to Fisherman's Warf for $6!

    This ride was so much fun!  Don't feel overwhelmed by the super long line at Powell to get on... there is a trick!! Walk a few blocks up, maybe just past Union Square, and they will stop for you just like a cab! No line, no fuss, only fun!!! Also, talk to the drivers! They are jovial and interesting and have a ton of good stories!!

ON THE DAY!

    Dress warm!! All the gear you leave on the road gets donated to a women's shelter, which is awesome. I actually didn't ditch anything because it was so chilly. 

    Just like any race, you are probably going to walk through the starting line. It took us 35 minutes to get through. Make sure you clock how long it took you to go through, as there were issues with our times at the end and when they posted them.  

    They run out of all the goodies. They post that there will be free bras and all sorts of things like that. I was about the end of the middle of the pack and EVERYTHING was gone by the time I got there. Don't get discouraged! This race is awesome. The Kaiser Permanente people and Safeway people out cheering are amazing! There are all the hydration and fuel stations that you need, which is way more important.

   The hills are insane! They aren't cable car hills, but they aren't kiddy hills either. I basically sped walked all the hills and still felt confident about my finish time. 

   There are firemen with Tiffany's boxes wearing tuxedos waiting for you at the finish.  And it is Glorious.

    Absolutely wait in the line to take pictures with them!  My guy was so funny and sweet, and when my friend yelled pick her up, he laughed and easily lifted me as if I was a feather. It was such a funny moment; I am so happy to have it on film. 

   The rides back are a chaotic mess.  Its just a lot of people to wrangle. Just go into it with a positive attitude and know the line is moving faster than you think. 

    One last tip. Have a good cheering section. My best friend met me in San Fran and cheered me the whole way.  It was the best part of the weekend. I came around a corner and she was waiting with a big sign and a cowbell. I couldn't have laughed harder if I had tried.  BEST. EVER.

xo

Today's smoothie is brought to you by the letters O M G!

Delish! Here's today's tasty blended smoothie!

One bag (!) Trader Joe's organic power greens. It has baby kale, baby chard and baby spinach.

One cup blueberries

Three spears of pineapple

One cup mango

Three tablespoons chia seeds

One cup water

Blend and enjoy! It made two full mason jars for me...one for now, one for tomorrow!

Green Smoothie Heaven

My lovely friend Julia from Hollywood on a Leash turned me onto this great book "Green for Life" by Victoria Boutenko. It deals with our need for greens in our diet, etc.
I am always looking for new ways to improve my energy levels and to have more vitamins in my life so I am trying it out. Julia hasn't stopped raving about how good she feels, so why not.
I made one recipe, which yields about 2 quarts, to try it out. The smoothies stay good for about three days, so I bottled them in mason jars and put them in my fridge to grab and go. It's pretty tasty! I don't feel super energized yet...but it's only the second day. Here's the first recipe:
Hawaiian Dream
3 cups dandelion greens
1 cup sweet Hawaiian pineapple
1 banana
1 apple
2 cups water

Blend thoroughly.

Xo

CRAFT WEEKEND!!!!!

    Most of you in Los Angeles are aware that we are having an insane heat wave. Unbearable really. While you all were hitting the beach on friday and today, a couple friends and I were in my stuffy lil apartment crafting! Loralie from Ellenor Postmarked came over and we worked on the office closet doors and the backs of the Ikea shelves... I think you will all be impressed!

    Loralie went to the hardware store and got these particle boards just a little bit smaller than my Ikea shelves. We then rolled it out on to the boards and measured them with a little allowance on the sides to fold over. We then sprayed the boards with Super 77, a aerosol spray adhesive to attach the fabric. 

    

    The corners were folded over and then glued down with tacky glue. Which apparently I suck at. About this time my other friend Rose showed up to help and in the time I glued down one they cut and super 77ed the other two boards. I swear that glue requires hulk skills.

 While the glue was drying, we moved over to the larger task at hand... the office doors. 

    Now, In my mind, this was definitely going to be the easier part of the day. I was sadly mistaken. We  had planned to just roughly cut fabric close to the size of the squares, spray adhere them, and then exacto knife the edges to make the lines clean. So easy right? 

  We paper taped the borders and got all ready to go! I did two squares and as you can see, this photo is Rose, just about to do the first cut. This is when things went a little haywire. I didnt even think about the fact that we were using a really awesome fabric that had some of the properties of linen. The most important one being that it is many many tiny threads that can pull and snag very easily. Which is exactly what happened. It pulled off the corner, it frayed....

    This photo is about three minutes after I TORE the fabric square off the wall, threw it on the ground, stomped off the step stool and said angrily: "I'M HAVING A BEER!!!!" Such a patient girl, as always.

    Luckily for me, I was with two VERY patient and level headed girls that quickly put another plan into action.

    

    The plan was that we were just going to have to measure and cut each one very precisely and individually. Which meant both of my girls were going to give up a full afternoon (turned out working noon till 530, and then another two hours for Loralie and I on Sunday) to help. Awesome friends I have, awesome.

    As you can see here, soon it was assembly line central! Rose and I drilling the fabric covered boards to the back of the shelves, and Loralie cutting perfectly perfect sized fabric squares!

    It was so hot I talked Rose into having a beer with me...seriously bad ass with her beer and the drill. Art Department girls rock. 

    In the end, both projects turned out so amazingly stellar! I couldn't be happier with them. The Ikea shelves are now considerably more stable and insanly more chic. They even cover the cables so no more unsightly little wires peeking through! 

    I really really adore the office doors. I think it gives the illusion of having so much more depth. The girls were so exact with matching the patterns; if you look closely almost all of the lines match up! 

    I cant say enough how much of a fun process this has been. The living room is just about finished! Heres Loralie holding up the new light fixture that is going to be installed soon!

   These are the planned fabrics for the throw pillows! They are great tie-ins to all the other colors and patterns going on in the room! 

   Last, but certainly not least, I wanted to include a picture of my beautiful curtains made by my lovely and talented friend Laura Flett. If you remember, the original curtains were full panels of the chartreuse peacock feathers on the bottom. Loralie brought this great design to me about how to break up the pattern to keep if from being overwhelming. Laura Flett put the whole plan into action; and here they are: lovely, luxurious, elegant but very me drapes.

I love my apartment.

xo

Summerland Dog beach

Today I took a trip up the coast with Julia from Hollywood on a Leash to the Sunmerland Dog Beach!

Julia brought her pups and a few friends and we made quite the morning of it! The beach is about 88 miles north of Los Angeles on the 101 freeway just before Santa Barbara. It couldn't have been more perfect!

Aidan was actually a model citizen for once and got to be off leash...which is something I have never done with him. He was always a bit of a runner when he was little and would just take off, so he isn't really allowed to roam free. Today he was perfect!

It was so sunny, Aidan even had to wear sunscreen on his little pink skin!

The beach was super chill and and not packed at all, even for a Saturday morning when it was 112 back in town! I think we will for sure be making a habit of this!

DIY Vitamin C Cream!

     Ah August! I just love summer. LOVE. There is nothing better than a day in the grass with my pup and sunshine on my face...or is there?

    I recently went to my facialist Paula Mauter from Skin Studio LA who, by the way, is a total genius. She looked at my forehead and confirmed what I was dreading: SUN SPOTS! There is just a little bit of a darker patch forming from all those glorious days of sun worship!  DAMN IT!

    We talked about all the different procedures that can be done like bleaching,and retina, but since I am super against heavy chemicals she recommended a homemade remedy from her blog from just a few months ago!

    Heres the SUPER easy recipe:

Try 1/8 of a teaspoon to 2 oz of cream.
THATS IT! She says you can start there and add if you like.  It is normal for Vitamin C to sting a little, so don’t be alarmed. You have to use it within 2 weeks or earlier if it starts turning yellow. And by yellow, I mean oxidizing. So seriously, pay attention!!! She recommends dark amber bottles, but I just made it in the lotion jar to start with to see if I like it. 

I started with Boots Moisture Quench Night Cream  from Target.

I used Twin Lab Super C Vitamin C Concentrait. Be sure you read the back of the vitamin C powders well, as many contain a ton of other ingredients. Also, remember powder, not crystals.

I actually did 1/8 Teaspoon to 1.6 FL oz. I know, I know, its more than the recipe ...

    I have been using the cream for about a week, and so far I really like it. I'll have to wait and see if I think its healing the little brown patch. Moisture wise, I really like the thick consistency, and with the little sting from the vitamin C, it feels like its doing something.

xo