12.22.2014

want | need | wear | read : ME



want:  I've been in the market for some new ink for a while now and I'm hoping I can "scratch the itch" soon.  If I promise to get a big portrait of you, Santa, would you pretty please foot the bill?  (LAST MINUTE TIP:  make a cute homemade gift card and include some moolah for someone in your life who is wanting a new tat of her own.  This is a super easy last minute gift!) 

need:  I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  my eyes suck and I need to get more serious about seeing things clearly.  One of the main reasons I don't wear my glasses as often as I should is because I hate having to switch between prescription glasses and non-prescription sunnies.  For anyone who wears glasses, you know how weird it feels to go from "good vision" to "bad vision" in a swoop of an eyeglass frame.  I'm hoping this might be the Christmas that I can finally say, "Why yes, I can read that speed limit sign, officer!"  (LAST MINUTE TIP:  hack into your friend's computer and figure out when they have an opening on their schedule coming up and make them an appointment with an eye doctor.  Then after they get their new prescription, foot the bill for the new prescription sunglasses.  This is an easy-peasy 2-in-1, folks!) 

wear:  As a woman who is still nursing and still a long way off from feeling like putting on a super slim fitting sweater, this winter I'm all about my clothes fitting looser than…well…you can insert your own ending here.  This swingy sweatshirt is comfy enough for lounging around the house, easy enough for NC to access the goods, yet put together enough to wear out with jeans and boots.  (LAST MINUTE TIP:  brave the crowds and scoop up something pretty for your girl!  It's almost impossible to go wrong at H&M--find a store near you here!.)

read:  Everyone's raving, and I want to join in the fun.  As if 'Girls' wasn't reason enough, watching her hilarious short video series, 'Ask Lena', just sealed the deal.  (LAST MINUTE TIP:  buy the Kindle edition for her to read on one of her many techy devices!) 

This marks the end of our 2014 gift giving guide!  We hope you have an amazing holiday season filled with love, laughter, food, family, friends, and mistletoe.  See you in 2015.

xoxo
-mel

12.18.2014

want | need | wear | read : BABY



Today's WNWR-er is another sweet friend from college, Anna, who makes some of the most precious baby gear for her Etsy shop, Moshi Moshi. (Yeah, I dug into the Rhodes College alumni files for this series.  They should pay me for making it look like everyone who goes to Rhodes is as cool as we are.  That's right.  Humility.)  In addition to making other babies look adorable, she does a pretty good job of keeping her own little baby Lucy looking enviably precious too.  That's why her list of gifts for baby are so spot on.  So without further ado, I'll let her her take it away! 

want:  Lucy already has several things that she loves to ride on, but none are quite big or sturdy enough for future trips to the park.  We live up a steep drive (just steep, not fancy) so the park will be where we learn to bike ride.  I will be keeping an eye out for one of these bad boys at yard sales and consignment stores.  I read somewhere that kiddies outgrow these kind of quickly so a cheaper option is the way to go for me!
 
need:  We are taking a trip to Japan this winter to celebrate my grandmother’s 100th birthday!  What?!  And her birthday is also New Year’s in Japan!  One of the country’s biggest celebrations.  Double what?!  Japan is a country of people that love and aren't afraid of walking and even though it will be chilly chilly cold, we will probably do a good bit of it.  So Lucy is going to need some good warm boots.  I’ll readily admit that there are probably cuter, more Instagram-worthy boots out there, but I trust Stride Rite and their shoes have been good to Lucy’s feet so far. Practical choices here we come.

wear:  Lucy started snoozing in the infant version of this sleep sack at about six months after another mom recommended it to me.  This particular brand has a hefty price for basically a wearable blanket, but it goes from age 0-2 so it lasts a good while.  Lucy has just about grown too long for hers at 18 months but she’s a tall one.  That’s why this toddler size one (ages 2-4) is on our wear list! The arm holes have a snap to adjust for smaller babes, there is a place to put the car seat buckle (the crotch one..what is that actually called?) so that you can transfer peacefully sleeping kiddos from crib to car and vice versa (Yeah right, snort snort. Oh, your kid can do that? Not mine.)  It’s all season, all weather, and all around awesome.  It is a critical part of our nap and bedtime routine…Lucy sees the sleep sack coming and knows I’m not playing around. It’s time to sleep, baby.

read:  My dad read these books to me when I was younger and I loved them.  Loved reading them to myself even as I got older.  Loved them in college and still love them.  Love the movies as they come out too (but I have a problem with people who love the movies but haven’t read the books –give the books a chance!).  I had a box set growing up (I use the past tense because I might have misplaced one of them freshman year while trying to show how cultured and “CS Lewis in the know” I was –sorry, Dad.) and I would love for Lucy to have her own.  She doesn’t have the attention span to get past a page full of words being read to her, but like most things in babydom I’m learning, change happens quickly.  So I want to be armed and ready with these books for when her book-attention-span develops into something longer than my rap version of 'Itsy Bitsy Spider'.  

Thanks so much, Anna!  Can I just also note that I would pay to have a recorded version of your rap version of 'Itsy Bitsy Spider'?!?  It's pretty much NC's favorite song and I think she would become your biggest fan pretty quickly.

I've got one more WNWR list for you on Monday, compiled by yours truly.  If you have any last minute gifts you still need to get for someone special in your life, all of my picks are procrastinator-friendly.

xoxo-
mel

12.11.2014

want | need | wear | read : HIM


This dude really needs no introduction so I'll keep it short:  my Mr. is the jam.  And so is his gift guide.  All of his ideas will translate perfectly to that special dude in your life, whether it's buying him a piece of gear to assist him with his latest hobby or taking advantage of the opportunity to pick out the perfect slim-fit trouser for him to replace his baggy pleated khakis.  So, without further ado...

want:  If you've ever seen A River Runs Through It, you probably understand the allure of fly fishing.  Standing thigh deep in a beautiful and powerful river amongst stunning scenery, the ultimate focus on the current moment, studying the dance of the water over the features below to interpret where the fish are hiding--all reasons I want to learn this art.  For Colorado, this rod will get you everywhere you want to go from delicately presenting a dry fly on a small mountain stream to nymphing a high alpine lake.  Also, you don't have to sell your car to buy it, which is nice.

  need:  As a gentleman of "uncommon proportions" (to put it kindly), dress clothes that don't make me look like I'm playing dress up in daddy's work shirts are hard to come by.  J.Crew has lots of love for the skinny, tall man and the quality is worth the price.

 wear:  I've been on a search for a simple, low-profile shoe that I can wear both casually and to work over the last few years.  TOMS Cordones came close, but disintegrated in a little under two years without much abuse.  I'm hoping these Vans will be the answer.  

read:  With dreams of DIY renovations in our future, we gotta start figuring out what the hell we're doing.

The next WNWR is all about baby!  All the adorable (and seasonally appropriate!) gifts to get for the little humans in your life, curated by the genius behind Moshi Moshi.

12.08.2014

want | need | wear | read : HER


I asked a good ole' friend of mine to contribute for today's WNWR gift guide and she really hit the nail on the head.  Lauren Kennedy is one of the most stylish and graceful human beings I've ever known, plus she's super talented and wicked smart to boot.  By day she works for Ballet Memphis (which brought her to be included in the Memphis Flyer's 2014 edition of 20<30), and by, well, the rest of her life, she plays a leading role in the blossoming art scene in Memphis and beyond.  She runs and curates a gallery out of her own living room, Southfork (which has gotten amazing wonderful beautiful reviews recently, by the way), and recently co-curated Pandora's Children, a three-part feminist exhibition featuring regional and national artists, at the Clough Hanson Gallery at Rhodes College (Lauren's & my beloved alma mater).  For as long as I've known her (going on 10 years now, Lauren, can you believe it??), she has been passionate about lending her unique point of view to bring art to the masses.

Naturally, Lauren's WNWR list focuses on objects of beauty which are perfect for any woman in your life.  You can easily adjust Lauren's gift ideas to suit any special lady of your own, whether it be a great piece of art, a beautiful piece of jewelry, a classic piece of clothing she will wear forever, or a book to bring her inspiration for years to come. 

want:  Alex Paulus is a friend of mine and an artist whose work I enjoy a lot.  He was in a great show I put together at Southfork, and I've been wanting to keep one of his weirdo paintings for a while.  They're irreverent and smart in a dumb kind of way, and I love the colors and textures.  Plus, art has to make the best gift ever.

need:  I haven't bought a new coat in years and it is high time.  I love Zara in general because their pieces are always nice but still ultimately affordable.  I have been trying for years to retrain myself to save up a little and buy one nice thing instead of several crappy things, and Zara is usually a place where I can do that.  Figuring out something that somebody needs but hasn't been able to spend good money on themselves for whatever reason is always a great gift.  Plus, I just can't get enough of this color green.  I want it on everything.

wear:  I love this jewelry designer based out of my hometown of Dallas, F is for Frank.  I have one of their stingray rings and it is a piece that I wear all the time, and constantly get compliments on.  I have been looking at this necklace for months and am sure that I would wear it a lot.  All of their stuff is great.

read:  I have always been enamored with Louise Bourgeois, but have been thinking about her even more lately after seeing some of her work in DC this summer and being asked to be a part of this feminist show at Rhodes.  I would love to have a big, beautiful book of her work and writings to spend some time with.

Come back for our next WNWR gift guide, comin' atchya from a pretty fly guy & equally rad dad, my one and only Mr. 

12.01.2014

want | need | wear | read: HOLIDAY 2014


Finally!  The time has come when all of us who are afflicted with closet Christmas-mania all year long are finally allowed to be honest about our addiction and live out in the open with all of our holiday-inspired obsessions on display.  No more secretly watching Christmas movies when the Mr. is working the night shift.  No more listening to Christmas music in the car and making sure to change the CD before I get out just in case the Mr. gets in and sees what I was listening to.  No more huffing the pine scented candles in the closet.  Now I can burn that candle in the wide open and sniff sniff sniff to my heart's content.  Take that, Scrooges of the world!  Christmas time is here, bitches.

Ahem.

Since this will be the first year that our daughter might actually have some grasp on what is going on with all the gift giving and receiving, we really want to make sure that we start to instill a sense of humility and gratitude in her right away.  We also want to make sure that the joy and excitement of the gift giving season isn't drowned by quantity, but instead highlighted by a few select things that will be gifts to remember.

So, the Mr. and I decided to follow the lead of one of my favorite bloggers, James from Bleubird, and follow a prescribed formula for gift giving:  

1- Something you want.
2- Something you need.
3- Something to wear.
4- Something to read.

In the coming weeks, I'll be posting a few different gift guides that ascribe to the above gift giving rules.  As the Mr. and I have been putting together our own lists, we've found that the rules really help us appreciate everything that we have and see how little we actually need.  We've realized that Christmas is not a season for who's spending the most money, or who has the biggest pile under the tree.  This year, we're keeping it small, and we invite you to do the same.

Start your list-making!  (Supporting Noonday Collection would be a great place to start!)  Make sure to come back in a couple days for our first gift guide geared toward the special women in your lives.

Happy Holidays!
--mel 


(image via here)

11.28.2014

Noonday Collection {GIVEAWAY CLOSED}

I recently learned about an organization called Noonday Collection and got immediately excited about it.  Their mission is  
"to create economic opportunity for the vulnerable" by partnering with artisans around the world and creating a marketplace for their goods.  Noonday empowers their artisans by offering no interest loans to help get their businesses off the ground, making advance payments on orders, and of course paying fair living wages.  In addition to creating a sustainable marketplace for underprivileged artisans, Noonday donates a portion of sales to help place orphans with forever families.
  
Beadwork from Guatemala 

With the spirit of Thanksgiving still ringing in our ears, I thought now would be the perfect time to encourage you to "purchase with purpose" this gift giving season!  Supporting organizations, like Noonday Collection, that make a greater impact in the global marketplace and in the lives of everyday people in a real tangible way is something I try my best to support whenever I can.  I encourage you to go into this shopping season with a similar goal in mind.


Artillery beads from Ethiopia

To help you get in the gift giving spirit, Noonday is kindly giving away one $50 gift certificate to shop this holiday season!  All you have to do to enter is visit their website, and leave a comment below telling me what you would buy for yourself and one thing you'd gift to someone special (I'm eyeing this bangle, this scarf, and this leather tote.)   I will randomly draw a winner on Friday, December 5.


Embroidery from Peru

If you are in the Denver area and are interested in learning more about Noonday Collection (while eating, drinking, and shopping their winter collection, maybe with your new gift certificate!), I will be hosting a Holiday Trunk Show on Sunday, December 7.  Let me know in your comment below if you are interested in attending and I will send you more details!

If you are not in the area, no worries!  Just visit Noonday's website and fill up your shopping cart, then when you check out choose 'Dawn Post' as your ambassador, and type 'Megan Lombardo' in for the trunk show you are supporting.

Thanks in advance for supporting artisans from developing countries around the world this holiday season!  Now, get to shopping!

-mel






**Congratulations Eirin!**

11.24.2014

Happy Thanksgiving


Lately there's been a meme floating around the internet that says something along the lines of "Only in America will people trample each other to buy new stuff the day after celebrating everything they already have."  When I first came across this image, my initial reaction was, "God, this is so on point.  {laugh laugh laugh giggle giggle giggle snort snort}."  But then my next immediate thought was, "God, this is so on point.  {waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh.  i'm such a piece of shit.}"  

Every year I think about how the holiday season brings out the best, and often times the worst, in people.  And it's hard for me to understand it all because Thanksgiving and Christmas have always been my favorite times of the year.  What does that mean about me?  Am I just like that meme?  Do I sit at the table one day and give thanks and the next go buy a bunch of stuff I absolutely don't need?  Do I give gifts only because I expect to receive them?  If I was really thankful for what I have, wouldn't I opt out of celebrating a holiday that has become almost single handedly about flaunting our wealth and finding reasons that we justify to ourselves why we "need" that new TV or "need" another pair of shoes?

I'm not going to bore you with my mental ramblings about the "reason for the season" here because goodness it will turn into an avalanche pretty quick.  The only real thing I know is that most of the time, I feel so thankful and so happy and so blessed and so filled up with love and appreciation and excitement about life that it literally hurts.  Like I can actually feel my insides start to tense up and I start to squirm because I can feel myself about to burst into tears because I've never felt as much gratitude for life as I do in this very moment.  No, this is not a typical hyperbole moment that so many of you have come to expect from me.  This is literally how I feel a lot of the time.  But do I show it? 

This year, I want to focus more on trying to ensure that others feel the same sort of gratitude that I feel so much of the time.  I want to try and direct my energy toward trying to give others a reason to feel grateful or a reason to feel needed, wanted, loved.  I suppose this year, as I sit around a table filled with more than I could ever want and need, I want to take a moment to prepare for the continuation of the season of giving by vowing to take my thankfulness and pay it forward.  I want to take more time to expand the celebration of thankfulness to include the rest of the year, not just the end of November.

My hope for each of you is that you feel thankful this holiday season.  That you have something in your life that you feel so happy about that you could literally burst at the seams.  Because I think that thankfulness is perhaps the best gift that we can give to others and to ourselves.  That feeling is incomparable, and worth more than any gift that will be under your tree in a few weeks.

This year, instead of focusing on the Christmas season, let's make the season of Thanksgiving last through to the last gift under the tree and to when we are welcoming in a new year.  Through it all, let us give and receive the gift of gratitude.   

xoxo-
mel 

(Gratitude image from here.)

11.20.2014

Tiny Prints + SPECIAL DISCOUNT!

Do you send out holiday cards?  I grew up in a family with the best of intentions that just could never get it together enough to send them out.  However, we always had a fridge full of cards from friends and family around the country who were so much more organized than us.

Anyway, the Mr. & I have been sending them out almost every year since we moved in together and definitely more militantly since welcoming our daughter to the family.  I think we are especially good about it now because it is still somewhat of a novelty this whole "being an adult with a family" thing.  Christmas cards kind of feel like that one last thing you need to make it official:  you're a grown up.

This year we used Tiny Prints to design our holiday cards and the process could not have been simpler.  It was definitely a hard choice (we ended up using this design) because there are a million great options for card designs.  Here are some of my other favorites:





If you haven't ordered your holiday cards yet, now is the time.  Bonus: get 10 FREE CARDS when you order from Tiny Prints!  Hurry, this offer ends December 3.

Tis' the season to buy more magnets for your fridge!  

--mel

(card designs, top to bottom:  1 / 2 / 3 / 4)

11.03.2014

Podcasts: A Beginner's Guide



The other day I read an article on Hello Giggles that described their "beginner's guide to amazing podcasts".   Their list included 5 addicting, interesting, easily accessible podcasts, including This American Life and Radiolab, two of my all time favorites.  Of course, being the complete public radio addict that I am, I immediately felt the need to add a few of my personal favorites to the list as well.

If you are not already a consumer of podcasts, now's the time to jump on the bandwagon.  There are countless different types and genres of podcasts to choose from and therefore truly something for everyone.  I tend to ascribe to the more heady, academic, story-telling types. Some may refer to this as "nerdy"; I call it "awesome".

So if you tend to swim in my pond of over-analyzing, emotional, random fish, I think you will love this round up of podcasts as well.  Like I said above, my list would never be complete without This American Life and Radiolab--as far as I'm concerned, they set the bar for podcasts.  But in the spirit of collaboration, here are a few that were not included on the Hello Giggles list:

image via
1- Serial.

Here's a brief synopsis, from Serial's website:  "On January 13, 1999, a girl named Hae Min Lee, a senior at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County, Maryland, disappeared.  A month later, her body turned up in a city park.  She'd been strangled.  Her 17-year-old ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was arrested for the crime, and within a year, he was convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.  The case against him was largely based on the story of one witness, Adnan's friend Jay, who testified that he helped Adnan bury Hae's body.  But Adnan has always maintained he had nothing to do with Hae's death.  Some people believe he's telling the truth.  Many others don't."

While I think the overview of this crime is enough to get anyone hooked, the style of storytelling only adds to it's appeal.  Every week a new chapter of this story is released.  Host and Executive Director Sarah Koenig is researching the story and discovering and unearthing mounds of information and details about the case almost at the same time that you are listening to the chapter.  She still isn't sure exactly how the season will end, which makes it all the more addictive.

You can get caught up on all the episodes thus far on their website, or subscribe to have the podcast delivered to you directly every week.

image via
2- Meet The Composer.

Let me stop you right there before you scroll past this one because you're not a musician and therefore think it does not apply to you.  This is a podcast for non-musicians and musicians alike.  Host Nadia Sirota introduces the listener to a new composer every week and leads engaging and intriguing discussions with the composers that make you feel like you're getting a backstage pass to the music.  Even if you have no experience with or interest in classical music, I bet you will leave feeling engaged and mesmerized by what you hear.

Start with the first episode on John Luther Adams and his beautiful, haunting, vivid impressionist compositions that evoke the simplest of birdsongs to the unbelievably terrifying landscapes of the Alaskan wilderness.  Trust me:  If you have ever fallen asleep and dreamed, you will be able to appreciate this music.

Catch up on all of the episodes thus far, subscribe directly to the podcast, and check out special "bonus tracks" from the featured composers on their website.

image via
3- Death, Sex, & Money.

There was an episode of This American Life that included a version of a story about Death, Sex, & Money host Anna Sale and her totally unconventional love-and-relationship gurus, former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson and his wife, Ann.  I listened to it, and immediately subscribed.  I was hooked.

This podcast discusses, as Anna describes at the beginning of every episode, "the things we think about a lot, and need to talk about more".  Every episode explores one or all of the title topics with wonderfully relatable and totally relevant people from all walks of life.  Like I said, I started with "This Senator Saved My Life" about Anna and her now-fiancé's quirky relationship with Al & Ann Simpson.  But I think my very favorite episode to date is "How to be a Man with Bill Withers", probably because I already thought that Bill Withers was a total badass, but this episode just totally confirmed that assumption.

You can catch up on all the episodes on their website, or subscribe on iTunes.

Tell me, my dear internet cosmos, what podcasts did I miss?

Happy listening!
--mel

10.27.2014

Ludwig Bemelmans

Ludwig Bemelmans is best known for his creation of the legendary children's book character, Madeline.  That typical little Parisian school girl has graced the bookshelves of countless children around the world for years, including mine.  I recently stumbled across a drawing of Bemelmans' that captured my adult interest just as his Madeline once captured my childhood imagination.  I'm no artist and don't pretend to know much of anything about visual art.  Nevertheless, Bemelmans' drawings seem almost to be "stream of consciousness" to me--lines that seem to never end, looping and turning and dancing across the page, creating some of the most elegantly idiosyncratic little scenes I've ever seen.











10.21.2014

white + black + wood

I've recently acquired the "need to redecorate" itch.  I don't know who gave it to me, but I'm actively calling all my recent partners to try and narrow it down.

Bah-dum-ching.

Anyway, I'm really loving the mix of classic black and white with raw rustic woods.  I think the combination of materials keeps things fresh and clean but without turning contemporary and too modern.  Here are some of my recent favorites:








1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

10.06.2014

blabla

NC has a favorite doll from Blabla (Clochette the fairy!) that she has been sleeping with pretty much every night since she was just a couple months old.  We used to not know exactly if she liked her doll or not because of the frequency of which she would chuck said doll out of her crib while laughing maniacally.  We thought for a while she might have had it out for her.

Luckily, over the past month or so, she has started to snuggle up to her doll when we lay her in her crib and when we go in after she has woken up, she is sitting there holding up her doll, so excited to show us her sweet friend.  (Thank god she outgrew the 'doll-murderer' phase.)

I'm so glad she has taken to her Blabla doll because I think it is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen.  Blabla dolls are so soft and whimsical and they wear really well too (just don't put it in the dryer!).  So I was so very pleasantly surprised to find out that Blabla also has a precious line of bedding, play mats, rattles, and other fun accessories, all just as adorable as their knitted dolls.









Would you judge me if I bought one of their sweet knitted dolls for myself??  Yeah, good idea, let's just ignore that.

xoxo
--mel

9.29.2014

SHOP THE SHADES: purple & gold

After writing last week about the arrival of some pretty magnificent shades of purple and gold that are taking over the landscapes around here, I couldn't help but start to notice these colors popping up in everyone's wardrobes!  It seemed that everywhere I turned, the colors I had seen on the mountainsides were also on people at the grocery store, in the downtown shop window, playing at the park.  So I decided to put together my own shoppable and wearable version of last week's fall inspiration:   


9.22.2014

Shades Of: Purple & Gold

With the onset of fall happening right now, I'm really drawn to the combinations of varying shades of purple and gold that are happening all around us.  The aspen trees are bursting into flames and the hues of gold are leaning toward almost flourescent, while other trees are tending to go out a bit quieter, their green leaves turning darker and then over into the side of purple and eventually to brown and away, gone, into winter.  And every once in a while, you see a rose losing some of it's pigment, changing a once rich shade of wine into a lighter blush.  The combinations of these varying shades--the bright metallic golds with the rich deep indigos or light muted comfortable purples--are helping me to find inspiration in the now, instead of dwelling on the cold winter to come.     



(clockwise from top left) 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14