houseboating

I'm on a houseboat! Have a great weekend!

bookshelf porn

Yup. An entire Tumblr site solely dedicated to bookshelves.

See more here. Via Tracey.

horace the pig

Not sure what I like more - the fact that this cutting board is in the shape of a pig, or that his name is Horace.
Yoostore chopping board via Design*Sponge.

knitting clock

Look! It's a clock that knits! Created by German industrial designer Siren Elise Wilhelmsen, the clock includes a circular knitting machine with 48 needles, a thread spool, a thread holder, and roll of yarn. It moves clockwise and after one year, creates a scarf two meters long.

Via Design Milk.

what i wore

Top and skirt: thrifted/ Belt: Rose Bowl flea market/ Shoes: Alameda flea market

recent thrift store treasures

Picked up a couple things at my local thrift store last week, including a kinda ethnic skirt (above) and beach cover up/extremely see thru dress:

T-shirt-y dress:

Very 80's acid wash skirt (I'm going cut off about half of it...will report back on the result):

And some other stuff that I saw, but resisted the urge to purchase:

tea towel

Lucky me just won this tea towel from Enormous Champion via Claudia Pearson's blog. Thanks Claudia, Jason and Jordon!

evergreen winner

Heather sent me a photo of herself in the shawl she won - looks great! (photo by Anna Hurley)

Oh - and there is a pretty funny interview with Isaiah Mustafa (aka the Old Spice Guy) on NPR. Click here to listen and here for a bevy of You Tube videos where he personally thanks individual fans. Hilarious!

elizabeth patterson

My mom and I took a trip to the Louis Stern gallery this weekend to see the work of artist Elizabeth Patterson. Her current work features views of the rain as seen through her car windshield, a detail that becomes more interesting when you realize that these are all drawings, not photographs. Pretty incredible, huh?

The show is up until August 28th. See more of Elizabeth Patterson's work here.

what i wore: 90º+

Dress: thrifted/ Belt: Rose Bowl flea market/ Sandals: Steve Madden/ Clutch: thrifted/ Necklaces: New Stone Age and Handmade Whimsy/ Sunglasses: Anthropologie

towel animals

If you've taken a gander at my Flickr stream, you may have noticed the bevy of towel animals. These were done by the housekeeping staff on the ship - a different animal every day!

Want to make your own? Click here for instructions!

everglades holiday park

After we debarked from the ship, we took an airboat tour of Everglades Holiday Park.

We made some new friends.

After the boat tour, we had a delicious Cuban lunch, followed by some beach time back in Ft. Lauderdale.

...and then it was back to LA!
More photos here.

panama canal

Our third and final port, as well as the impetus for our trip, was the Panama Canal. Before he retired, my grandfather was a civil engineer for the city of Los Angeles and had always wanted to see the canal in person. The trip began aboard a boat in Panama City and continued under the Bridge of the Americas.

We passed through two sets of locks, including the Miraflores (note the yacht on the other side).

After travelling through the second set of locks, we passed under the Centennial Bridge.

All in all, we saw a little under half the length of the canal, a trip that took about four hours.
See a lot more photos here.

limon, costa rica

Our second port was Limon, on the east coast of Costa Rica. We started our day with a trip down the Moin river, observing sloths, monkeys, egrets (above) and caimans along the way.

After the jungle cruise, we took a walk through the rain forest, happening on wild basil, lemongrass and one rather surprised tarantula...

...followed by a delicious lunch and some terrifying-looking zip lining. I graciously volunteered to be the official family photographer ;)

More photos here.

cozumel

In Cozumel we went snorkeling, ate lunch on the beach, and you know, enjoyed paradise.

 

More photos here.

from the boat

I spent the last week aboard a cruise ship with nearly three thousand people, nine of which were related to me. A cruise ship is an interesting phenomenon - you can gamble, eat massive amounts of food at any time of day, play mini-golf and see some seriously cheesy shows - or do nothing at all, which sounded just fine to me.