A Vegan Food Swap

Hey there! I hope everyone has had a fantastic weekend as we head into fall. First of all, everyone needs to go see the movie Looper. The less you know the better, so if you have no idea what I'm talking about, go to Fandango, look up when Looper is playing, buy tickets and go. Pretty sure your mind will be blown. And Joseph Gordon Levitt just keeps getting better.

On another weekend note, I received a very exciting package in the mail on Saturday, and it was all food. But not just any food; I recently participated in a Vegan Food Swap that I was convinced to try after reading about it in one of my favorite healthy living blogs, Pickles & Honey. While I do not follow a vegan diet (although I have dabbled in it), I thought it would be a great way to connect with other bloggers and try some foods that aren't usually in my kitchen.

I received a box of goodies from Kelly of Kolhrabi and Quince and was so excited to find that not only does everything look absolutely mouthwatering, but she home jarred the tomatoes herself! I am stoked! Here is what I received: 100% Organic Raw Pecan Butter, All-Natural Maple Almond Butter, Organic Raw Dried Mango (I've already eaten 2 and it's the way better version of a fruit roll-up), Fig-Balsamic Jam, and home-canned tomatoes. Could I have scored any better? I don't think so!

The package I sent to my match included Portland-area / Oregon foods (with an emphasis on unrefined sugars): Cheezy Kale chips, Coconut Chocolate Peanut Butter, Organic Blueberry Fruit Spread and ketchup from the Portland Ketchup Company.

If you are interested in taking a peek at what other participants received, head on over to The Verdant Life and scroll to the bottom. :) You can sign up for next month's swap there too.

Have you ever participated in any kind of "food swap" or "swap" in general? 

I hope everyone has a fantastic beginning to the week. I will have some exciting news to share in several days (the reason I have been SO absent from this blog...) and can't wait until then!

I like old things

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that I'm a little bit crazy for old things (antique, retro, that dusty stuff in your grandparents' garage) and like decorating my apartment with the eclectic "treasures" I've snagged at flea markets and antique fairs. I am unable to go home next month for my favorite thing in the whole entire world because of work commitments, so I convinced my mom to make a trip out to Oregon (two weeks ago) for the next best thing: the Coburg Antique Fair. The shopkeeper at one of my favorite Portland antique shops, Madison Park, insisted that we sign up for the early bird opening to scavenge for steals with the big dogs before the fair officially started. But this would have involved leaving the house at 3 am and wearing headlights to sort through piles of stuff in the dark so my mom and I decided to leave that amount of hardcorocity to the pros.

We did, however, drive two hours from Portland to Coburg and then walked for seven straight hours from antique booth to antique booth looking at everything from old Civil War rifles to Victorian hat pins to Roseville pottery. Twice we called it a day and went back to the car, started driving away and then decided to pull over and shop a little more. The apple does not fall far from the tree. In the end, I came away with a pretty set of silver plated serving utensils, an antique card table, some colorful vintage table cloths and a 1950s baby pink Sunbeam mixer.

Overall it was an incredible day and I'm so glad my mom was there to enjoy it as well. The pictures below were taken at a variety of booths at the fair, and although I've enjoyed fawning over them every night since I took them like a schoolgirl in love, I totally understand how to some people it just looks like old junk. I get it, I get it and I don't judge - it just means more for me! The last picture, however,  is the Sunbeam mixer I came home with and I think everyone can agree it's pretty dang cute.

Thanks for checking out my photos! 
What interests do you share with your mom or close family member?

He's Heeeeeere!

Jonathan. Adler. Has. Come. To. Portland!!!!!!!

He had me at "minimalism is a bummer." So when I was driving with my mom through Portland's Pearl District last Thursday, I almost crashed my car when I saw the kids from The Real World the glowing blue words "Jonathan Adler" at the corner of NW 12th and Everett. Whimsical humor, playful color and thoughtful details are my favorite kind of heaven and this store brings it by the derriere loads. I totally melted. But instead of going on and on about how amazing this place is (my mom heard enough for everyone), I'll let the photos I obsessively snapped speak for themselves. Here is a look inside the brand-new Jonathan Adler store in Portland, Oregon...

Are you a Jonathan Adler fan? Do you have one of his delightful stores in your neck of the woods?

Classy in California

Happy Tuesday! This post is going to be on the shorter side because I wasted my whole evening watching random Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana videos on Youtube  I'm trying to get to bed early after spending the past two nights in a tent on the hard-as-rock ground, freezing my butt off while camping in the Oregon wilderness. (I forgot socks, silly me.) How was your weekend? :)

Cutting to the chase, last week I took a peek at the latest APT with LSD and have been looking forward to sharing the photos ever since. While I don't know much about this particular homeowner (except that she comes across as super cool and someone I'd like to be friends with), I'm really glad they featured her home because it shows a great balance of quirk and class; I'm most obsessed with the bold look going on in her dining room. So without further ado, taken straight from the pages of Vogue, here is the fabulous home of actress/writer/director Lake Bell...

Do you love? And how was your weekend?