Friday Faves* - Memories of the Townhouse Edition

It's official.

I'm closing on my house next Wednesday and handing over the keys to Heather's brother, Jared. He got engaged while we were all at Disneyland, so he's going to move in now and spiff the place up a bit before his cute fiancée, Katrina, moves in post-wedding.

So, as a final farewell to the ol' townhouse I thought I would write down some of the best memories I've made there.

1) First, just moving into the place and making it mine. Mom and I painted SEVEN coats on the bottom half of my front room to get it to that perfect shade of deep red. The color chip I chose and the actual paint on the wall didn't match. We kept saying, "Well, maybe one more coat will make it look less fire engine-y".
After two coats of primer and three coats of the 1st red, I took the paint to Home Depot and stood there while the guy mixed, remixed, and remixed again until I was happy. So, now I have an awesome custom paint color 'recipe' in my filing cabinet.

2) Living with wonderful girls: Jessica, Camille, Happy. All great friends, all wonderful roomies. And all soooo different from one another. Wow.

3) Staying up until all hours laughing and talking with whoever was there. You know who you are (and most of you probably don't read my blog, so... whatever). (We can still be friends.)**

4) Having sleepovers with Taylor and Easton.

5) Being the HOA president (HA! Not. That was one of the main reasons I decided to move in the first place [pre-France]).

6) The LeChems (kindred spirits of fun and sassiness that I met in my ward). Two of the most brilliant and gorgeous women I know. If I didn't buy my townhouse, I never would have met them. That would have been a tragedy, indeed. They are wonderful.

7) Dinner parties with Ruth and all of her friends.

8) Putting together piece after piece of "some assembly required" furniture.

9) Painting things that weren't really meant to be painted. And liking the results.

10) Making myself a custom earring holder.

11) Creating some of my favorite paintings ever.

12) Learning so much about home ownership. That will come in handy later.

13) Going to plays with Jessica!

14) Finishing my last two classes via the internet and finally graduating from college.

15) Spending lazy Sunday afternoons on a blanket in the front yard just reading.

16) Crepe parties!!

17) Trying to do areobics in my front room, and mostly giving up. Moving all of the furniture to make room was a good enough workout, usually.


*It's been a while since I've done Friday Faves. Woops!
**Me: Hi, I'm Sarah. And I'm addicted to parentheses.
Group: Hi, Sarah.

Friday Faves - Restaurants (in Utah)

1. Bombay House - I love it despite the awkwardness of everyone there looking at me with these knowing looks (one of their servers asked me out once). Love their mango lassis and naan, and their chicken saag is perfection in a sliver dish. Oh, yum... I am craving it right now!

2. Pizzeria 712 - great little pizza, pasta and sandwich joint. More expensive than CPK, less variety, but better quality and vastly better atmosphere. They also serve hummus and pitas as a free appetizer. So good. Can't make a specific recommendation, because their menu varies by season and availability of local and sustainably farmed produce (which they use whenever possible). Oh, and GREAT service in my experience.

3. California Pizza Kitchen - I absolutely LOVE their Margherita Pizza, the California Club Pizza, and the Chicken Waldorf Salad (with Dijon Basalmic Vinaigrette). Really loud, though. They should make their booths higher so people can hear each other talking across the table.

4. Shoots - I have no idea if this is a chain restaurant, or if the one in the Provo Riverwoods is the only one/one of very few. De-li-cious Chinese food. (Not Panda Express-style, either. More P.F. Chang's.)

5.Bajio/Cafe Rio/Costa Azul/insert your favorite fresh Mex restaurant here - Love the Cafe Rio pork salad or burrito, big fan of the ensalata Bajio and queso dip from Bajio.

And BONUS
6. Maestro's - Not actually a restaurant. It's a gelateria, but it's soooo good I would eat there as a meal if I wasn't trying to shed a few. Very authentic gelato, European hot chocolate, and crepes made to order. Mmmmm.

Friday Faves - Movies

Favorite movies of all time in no particular order:

1) Shawshank Redemption (I’ve only ever seen this once, but I absolutely loved it)

2) The Holiday (I just think it’s brilliant and fun)

3) The Village (scary and thought-provoking)

4) Les Choristes (great French film – I own it w/English subtitles if anyone wants to see it…)

5) Wait Until Dark (that is about as scary as I go)

6) Pride and Prejudice (and I’m not ashamed)

7) What Happens in Vegas (SOOOO many funny one-liners in this movie!!)

8) Mansfield Park (possibly my favorite Austen movie)

9) Memoirs of a Geisha (the cinematography is truly masterful!)

10) Hairspray (literally could watch this again and again – I think I saw it 7 times in the theater, including the SIIIIING along time when Heather, Amy and I were three of 5 people in the theater rocking out to the movie). (Mom, were you there?)

11) Mona Lisa Smile (I love the message of this movie)

12) Sense and Sensibility (I’m a romantic at heart, which is the main reason I love this movie. But I have to admit Eleanor hyperventilating at the end is TOTALLY my favorite part.)

Friday Faves - Earrings

Several of you, though I'm guessing not all of you, know that I love earrings. REALLY love them.
You might call it an obsession, a fetish, or an accessory imbalance. But, call it what you will, I love earrings, and I thought I would share mine with you today.

I have amassed many pairs of earrings in my life. In total I think I've got between 85-90 pair of earrings. I counted a while ago but I don't remember the exact number. Almost all of the earrings I wore growing up are gone because they were mostly post earrings, and now I tend to wear drop earrings 99% of the time. I have zero tolerance for being stabbed in the neck by an earring post. Hooks are so much more gentle on the skin behind my ears.

Keeping track of all my earrings (specifically, rummaging through them all to find the ones I wanted to wear) had become a challenge in the last couple of years, so I finally devised a way to keep them all in one place. This was the resulting crafty project.

Ingredients: One unfinished glass-free frame from Robert's, several lengths of ribbon, staple gun, staples, white paint, clearcoat. Oh, and 3M hooks for the necklaces and rings at the bottom. LOVE those hooks.

There are some changes I would make to this having now gone through the process once. I would use eyelet screws on the inside of the frame where the glass would normally sit and I would either use thinner ribbon or wire. I kind of like the way the ribbons wrapped aroung the edges of the frame, but the earrings with the smaller hooks tend to slip off the ribbon because it is too wide and flexible.

Regardless of those little issues, I have loved having this earring holder. It keeps them all in front of me, and it turns my earrings into a sort of haphazard artwork.

A couple of years ago I decided that instead of spending money on random souvenirs on trips I take (which inevitably end up thrown away, lost, broken, or being picked up by me as I scratch my head and wonder where I got it), that I would purchase a pair of earrings for each vacation I go on (or multiple pairs, if I am visiting several locations in one trip).

It started in 2005 with a Thanksgiving trip to New York City and has continued up through mytrip to Alaska this summer.

I'm not going to lie--picking my favorite earrings was a challenge, because I wear so many of them frequently and love them for different reasons. But here are some of my favorites and where they came from.

These turquoise hoops are a recent purchase, custom made by her. (I love Etsy. Seriously.) They are to replace a pair of earrings I bought at the Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program rug auction and jewelry sale in 2005. I lost ONE of them just a few weeks later and have been looking for a replacement pair ever since.

This pair of red coral spheres I purchased at an outdoor market in Berlin right outside of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

I wear these earrings at least once a week. They were a Valentine's Day gift from a coworker who knows how much I love earrings. We were on a business trip together and she gave me these and a great card with a quote from Van Gogh about painting. (She obviously knows me really well and is an extremely thoughtful person.) Thanks, Gena!!

These earrings were also a recent purchase, because I didn't feel like I had any silver earrings that were really basic but still had some substance to them as far as their size. These are maybe one inch across, so not huge skanky hoops, but they don't disappear once I've got them on, either. From Target (as are most of my earrings).

This pair was a Christmas gift last year from my best friend Happy. I wasn't sure how I felt about them at first, because up to that point I almost never wore anything but silver and cool colors. Thanks Hap! (For the earrings and helping me branch out).

This pair is also from the Hapster. She got them from a woman who had a booth at the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days fair. Apparently this woman never makes the same pair of earrings twice. I love these earrings, and I get tons of compliments every time I wear them (which is pretty often because they're really versatile).

And to wrap it up (I'm sorry... who knew that anyone could write this much about earrings??), these earrings are coming my way soon. Again, these are replacing a pair of earrings (my favorite pair EVER, hands down--I wore them every day of my mission and then some) because I lost one while napping on my parents' couch. It disappeared into the depths of the cushions or elsewhere, never to be found again.

They are also from Etsy (this shop), and I am sooo excited to have found some that are so similar to the one I lost (I still have its partner in my car so I could periodically stop by Argento and ask if they were making them again).

Okay, I'm done. If you read this whole thing, you are a trooper. :)

Friday Faves : Favorite Cities I've Visited (and Stayed longer than 24 hours)

Woops! A bit behind schedule, but here it is...

Favorite Cities I have visited and stayed in for longer than 24 hours.

1. Paris (of course) - everything about it is wonderful

2. Florence - Art and architecture, the David

3. Berlin - the museums were amazing, and there is SO much significant (and RECENT) history

4. New York City - Broadway, the bustle of so many people in so few square miles, great international food

5.Rome - ummm... what's not to love? Gelato, architecture, the Vatican, creepy Italian men trying to kiss me (oh, wait... icky).

What are your favorite cities to visit? What makes them appealing to you?

Friday Faves - Museums

I'm starting an ongoing series of randomness on my blog. Each Friday I am going to post about my favorite things in a particular category. The categories are totally random. If you want to know about my favorite _________ (fill in whatever your heart desires), let me know and I'll put it on my list of 'Faves' to post about. I would also love to see comments below with your favorites on that day's topic.

The inaugural Friday Faves is all about my favorite museums. Definitely a difficult decision, but here are those that are, in my opinion, the crème de la crème.

1. The Musée d'Orsay in Paris. LOVE it. Impressionism, photography, furniture, sculpture... it's just amazing. It's converted from an old train station, so the building itself it really beautiful as well. Bonus: it's not so huge that you can't ever get through it. It's completely doable.

2. The Bode Museum in Berlin. I just remember it being so full of light, and the way they displayed their pieces was just breathtaking--the different works of art seemed to interact with each other in a way that doesn't happen in other museums. (This is actually one of the things they are known for, and was apparently quite the revolutionary way of displaying art when they did it.)

3. The Borghese Gallery and Museum in Rome. They had really beautiful works displayed and the grounds were really nice. However, there is a 2-hour time limit (not enough), and it isn't extremely large as far as buildings go, so it did feel a bit crowded when people stopped for too long to look at something (and touch it!!! I about slapped these teenagers that were looking at a statue at the same time as my family, and they just reached out and rubbed it like it was a good luck charm. Seriously, people. Have some respect--if not for the art itself, then for the fact that it's someone else's property.).

Runners-up:

The Pergamon in Berlin. I LOVE the Ishtar gate. What incredible color.

The Louvre in Paris. Enormous and exhausting, yes... but truly worth it (time and again). Maybe if I ever move there I'll get to see the entire thing once and for all.

The Egyptian Museum of Berlin. GREAT pieces here. I was just too exhausted to linger...

Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Wish we would have had more time there.

National Gallery in London. Probably rivals the Borghese for the number three spot, to be honest.