Kir Impérial

If, like me, you plan to stay home of Valentine’s Day, but still want to feel festive, there’s nothing better than a Kir Impérial. There’s just something about adding a dash of color to your favorite Champagne that makes it just that much more special. Since this drink is all about being over the top, pull out the fancy Champagne flutes that you never use, and make a toast to your health. Santé!

Kir Impérial Recipe

Prep time: 10 minutes // Cook time: 2 minutes // Total time: 12 minutes

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1/2 oz. Chambord

1 Bottle Champagne

Instructions: 

Chill Champagne flutes and Champagne. Once chilled, fill each flute with 1/4 oz. Chambord. Top with Champagne. Enjoy!

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Pop of Color

 

 

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Paz Collective Scarf// Ann Taylor Funnel Neck Coat //  Franchi Clutch (similar here and here) // World Market Earrings (similar here) // Frame Denim Jeans // Joe’s Jeans Heels // Loft Tee

While dressing for winter can be quite pricey, it’s also relatively simple. You really only need a great coat and great accessories that you mix, match and wear on repeat. That being said simple is not always easy, as I can attest. It takes some time to find a great coat. I had thought I wanted a camel wrap coat, but considering the one I want is WAY out of my budget, I started looking at alternate options. I found this great grey coat quite randomly at Ann Taylor. I love the silhouette, color, and collar, which can be worn several different ways. However, when I bought it, I realized I didn’t really have a scarf to wear with it. I think a beautiful scarf adds just the pop of color you need near your face when you’re wearing a neutral ensemble. I found this one by Paz Colllective at the Menil Collection in Houston. Museum gift shops are always my favorite as you can find really unique things that you can’t find anywhere else. I really love all the different colors in this one and the fact that the base is grey and there’s a little black means I can wear it with just about anything.

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On Chasing Antelope

Let’s face it. We’re humans and we’re flawed. We can set goals, ideas, and values for ourselves, but if you’re anything like me you regularly fall short of those things you would like to accomplish, do, and be. And when you do fall short, your first instinct is probably to beat yourself up, to wonder why you fell short of your ideals. As far as I know, we are the only animals that do this. I don’t think the lions on the savannah beat themselves up when they fail to take down the antelope. They just try as hard as they can, and if they don’t get the antelope, they try again next time. The beauty in the lion’s mentality is that it lives in the moment. It tries as hard as it can today to be the best lion it can be, and then it goes home and takes a nap. Either way getting the antelope or not getting, the lion unbeknownst to itself is becoming a better lion everyday. 

Take meditation. When I started meditating for the first time, I thought it was all about clearing my mind of thoughts. Yet the more I sat with my body and my mind, I was able to slowly, slowly come to an understanding that the mind was a thought generating machine. I really had no choice in whether there were thoughts in my head or what the content of those thoughts might be, but the ability I did have was to recognize those thoughts and then choose how much attention I wanted to pay to them. Yet oftentimes, even when you know this basic fact, you find yourself deep down a rabbit hole of thoughts without realizing how you got there. Here in lies the opportunity to ask yourself is this the direction I want to go or would I prefer to watch my breath in the belly or the nose or pay attention to my left foot.

Often times, we are lured into thinking that life is about getting the antelope or having a calm mind. And unlike the lion, at the end of the day, we come home and beat ourselves up for not having gotten the antelope today of for getting lost in our thoughts too many times. However, I wonder if it wouldn’t be better if we had a little less focus on outcomes coupled with a little more compassion. Rather than thinking, I’ll be happy when (insert outcome here) occurs, and I’ll be upset until it does we can rejoice daily in the fact that we chased the antelope or we watched our thoughts.

Perhaps then life is not so much about getting the antelope, but the practice of trying to catch the antelope. Getting the antelope is merely an occasional happy by-product of putting in the effort to chase the antelope.

Inside Fallingwater

When I walked inside the main living space at Fallingwater, I immediately felt at ease. I felt sometimes like I do in a wonderfully designed hotel room. Where you can tell someone has thought about exactly what you need to feel comfortable. You felt like you had everything you needed, and nothing you didn’t. There were plenty of areas to lounge and read a book or come together with others and socialize. While it functioned perfectly, it was also quite stylish. Yet not over the top where you felt uncomfortable, just enough to feel special without feeling precious. It was what we can only hope to achieve in an interior space.

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White Space

As an art history major, I theoretically understand the importance of white space. Almost every work of art has it, and it’s almost always essential to making a beautiful piece. Yet understanding it theoretically is very different from understanding it practically. Practicality is really the realm of the artist. It is the artist that is skilled at saying this painting would be better if I didn’t put something in that space.

The problem with my theoretical understanding is that on some level I’m also an artist. I, like you, have many blank canvases in my life to paint. These include my time, my home, and my wardrobe among other things. I often find that these areas of my life are filled with too many things that I don’t love. One of my favorite authors, Leo Babauta, touched on how to remedy this problem in his article, “Too Much to Do, Not Enough Time.” He writes: “You have too many things to fit into your container, and you’ve decided to only put the important and beautiful things into the container. That means a bunch of things you think you “should” do are not going to fit.” What Leo is essentially instructing each of us to do is to become the artists of our own lives. When you boil it down, essentially the work of an artist is to choose – to choose to only depict what is most relevant and beautiful to the subject matter. And in order to emphasize the subject matter, the artist left out a lot of things he might have felt he “should” incorporate. For instance, think about the painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Picasso. What makes this painting truly beautiful and meaningful is really what Picasso chose to leave out. Rather than depicting the women as they actually were (as he probably “should” have done as a highly trained visual artist), he chose to depict only their most basic forms, and it is what he left out that makes this painting a modern masterpiece.

As you think about those blank canvases in your life today, and your hope that they be a little more beautiful and meaningful, I invite you to ask yourself, “what can I leave out?” You might just find that this white space is just the thing your life needs to truly come alive.

The Mildly Frustrating Wardrobe

If you’re like me you’re mildly frustrated by your wardrobe. You have pieces you like, but there are just days that it seems like you have absolutely nothing to wear. And this usually happens after a work trip when you haven’t had time to do laundry and before a big meeting when you really need to look sharp or right before you plan to go to an event and you end up blowing your money on things that aren’t really you.

I’m kind of tired of that. I hate to say it, but it kind of comes down to planning. I’ve never, ever sat down and evaluated what I want out of my closet, what I have that I like, and what I would need to get to a place that was less frustrating. For a long time, I put this process off because I felt like I needed to have the “perfect” wardrobe. You know one of those minimalist wardrobes you see all over Pinterest that allow you to be dressed for life with only 3 things? And so I put it off.

But I’ve come back to the idea with a different, looser, more realistic mindset. First off, I’ve accepted that the perfect wardrobe doesn’t exist. There will be events that come up that I never imagined, and suddenly I’ll need or want something I never expected. Second, Fashion is always changing, and if you want to be stylish you will always be trying new things with your wardrobe. Third, I might not be able to get rid of all my frustrations with my closet, but I can be more intentional about my wardrobe.

So what do I want out of my wardrobe?

I want to be stylish, well-dressed, and comfortable with minimal stress for the activities I do on a normal basis.

What are some goals I would like to achieve?

I would like to have two weeks worth of outfits that I like wearing and that are appropriate to the activities I do on a normal basis. One of the problems I run into is that I have a few outfits I really like, but often times when I want to wear them the outfit is dirty or at the dry cleaners or I’ve already worn it once that week. So two weeks worth of outfits seems like a reasonable, but not over the top thing to have.

Basically I want to build a wardrobe foundation. These items might not be all that I own, but they will be key pieces that enable me to not be as frazzled in the morning, know I have stylish and professional things to wear, not have to do laundry every week, and feel appropriately dressed for the normal activities of my life.

I’ll keep you updated on my journey from mildly frustrated to (hopefully) mostly satisfied.

Victorian Architecture

Having grown up in Texas, I wasn’t exposed to much Victorian Architecture as a child. For that reason, I was entranced by the Victorian Architecture in Cape May when we visited this summer. I roamed the streets for hours one morning trying to capture the best of what Cape May had to offer. Cape May is designated the Cape May Historic District, a National Historic Landmark, for it’s high concentration of Victorian buildings so there was plenty to capture.

What architecture did you grow up around? How did that influence what you like now?

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The Importance of Style & Intelligence

I took a tour of McCormick Observatory a few months ago, and came across this old picture of an astronomer at the University of Virginia. I really got a chuckle out of the fact that he was wearing a full suit and tie to stare at the stars. It also reminded me of the famous Oscar Wilde quote “you can never be overdressed or overeducated” because this picture is such a perfect visual depiction of that idea.

As someone who’s interested in both fashion and learning, I’ve always loved this quote because it marries two areas that often seem quite opposed. I think we more commonly think that highly intelligent people do not have fashion sense, and that stylish people are not well-educated. However, I, like Wilde, do not find the realms mutually exclusive.

In fact, by linking these two ideas together, Wilde insists on the importance of both, and that each is dependent on the other. You are not truly well-dressed if you have not educated yourself, and you are not fully educated if you cannot dress properly. While they are distinct arts, they both indicate a level of respect for oneself and one’s world. You are in effect saying I care enough about myself to take care of my appearance, and I care enough about the world I live in to learn about it. Both show gratitude for the gifts you’ve been given and are important areas to cultivate in our lives. 

Miami Art Deco District

I went to Miami Beach recently for the first time in fifteen years, and one of the highlights of the trip was the Art Deco Walking Tour. One of the most interesting things that we learned is that there are only two places in the world with a high concentration of Art Deco architecture. One is Miami Beach and the other is Napier, New Zealand. Both were devastated by natural disasters around the same time causing them to have to rebuild in the 1930s when the Art Deco style was prominent. Art Deco became popular around the world after the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. Miami Beach’s Art Deco District was the first 20th century neighborhood to be recognized by the National Register of Historic Places and is the largest collection of Art Deco architecture in the world. Much of the preservation is the work of one woman, Barbara Baer Capitman, who had the realization in the late ’70s that these buildings were worth saving and devoted her life to the cause.

A few details to note on the buildings themselves. The buildings that are completely white are actually more historically correct. When the architects designed these structures they were after a streamlined aesthetic and loved the use of white. They were particularly interested in the play of light on the buildings and the shadows created by the “eyebrows” or overhangs over windows and other sculptural elements such as the ziggurat or stepped rooflines and decorative sculptural panels seen on many of the buildings. Other common themes include symmetry, repeated elements in groups of three, curved edges and corners, and the use of neon lighting.

 

 

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Dinner Chez Claire

My friend and neighbor, Claire, is starting a dinner series. She has a vision of curating fabulous dinners in unusual places be that a bank, a boutique, or a wildflower field. Last weekend, I joined her for the first iteration at her apartment and snapped a few pictures of the evening. As guests arrived they were greeted by Sangria, passed hors d’oeuvres, and an inviting tablescape on a terrace overlooking downtown Charlottesville. I fell in love with the turquoise plates, which set the stage for a beautiful meal. The three-course dinner prepared by a local chef featured a colorful summer salad, delicious paella, and to top off the meal, a trio of desserts. Not only does Claire have a knack for creating a visual feast, but she always makes sure to include the most interesting people in order to create a night to remember. I’m already looking forward to dinner number two!

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