Music Love

Happy Monday everyone!  Hope you all had a fabulous weekend.

As Valentine's week came and went last week, I couldn't help but keep thinking about one of the things that really bugs me about this once-a-year holiday.  How is it that so many people take just this one day of the year to dedicate to the loves of their lives?  I mean, if you truly loved someone so much, wouldn't you celebrate them every day?  And as I discussed last week, if Valentine's Day is truly just a day to celebrate the one you love, it sure does leave a lot of people out.

So I'm continuing this week with more love themed posts, not about people specifically, but about the many things that I fall in love with every day.

Anyone who knows me knows that music is my oldest true love.  I fell in love with making music when I was 6 years old and I dedicated my life to it not long after it feels like.

To celebrate my love of music, I'm bringing back the Weekly Shuffle today!  This one is a tad bit different than some of my others in the past as it has a little theme to it, and a hint to another true love in my life.

Can't figure it out?  I'll be back later this week to explain.  Until then, what's going down on your shuffle today?

XOXO
--MEL

Weekly Shuffle #9 from lombardo.megan on 8tracks Radio.

Food Love

I think all of us can unanimously agree that there has been a point in our lives when we fell madly in love with something edible.  Single, dating, married, hopeful, bitter--we all have a true food love.  For me, it's cheese.  Preferably when mixed with an assortment of carbs and starches and fats.  But of course there's also chocolate, the food that does not satiate hunger but obsession.  For my Mr. it's things like tofu and carrots, mainly because I think his life's work is to be the most perfect specimen of human being ever.  Ugh.

Anyway, I think it's safe to sing the praises of the food and drink lovers in your lives, regardless of your romantic inclination.  Here are a few of my favorite recipes to accompany this lovely week:

Roasted Fig, Blue Cheese, and Honey Tartines.  Strong soft cheese, smokey floral figs, sweet sticky honey--all adjectives that can otherwise be used to describe other feats of pleasure.  Plus, I hear that figs are supposed to be a fertility boosting food so if you're headed in that direction this evening...

Blissful Eats

901 Smoked Peach Cocktail.   I had this cocktail at Williams & Graham in Denver and fell hard (I only had one drink so I didn't actually "fall hard"--just theoretically speaking.  But too many of these suckers will send you flying so drink responsibly.)  Spicy silver tequila meets smokey Mezcal.  Garnished with a slice of Colorado-grown Palisades peaches and you're in heaven.

A History of Drinking

Salted Caramel Chocolate Fudge Cake.  Rich dark chocolate cake, divided by layers of salted caramel buttercream, slathered with fudge icing.  I think the combination of salty and sweet brings out a bit of dualism in us--naughty and nice, one piece or two, fat or somewhat-less-fat.  Anyway, you get the picture.

Sweetapolita

And if all goes well, you're gonna need a morning-after meal.  Biscuit Cinammon Rolls, at your service.

Joy the Baker

Hope you have a delectable gluttonous Valentines Day--
MEL

  

Puppy Love

Well, it's Valentine's week.  For some of you, this means you will be spending the week frantically searching for a last minute gift for your honey or fighting for the last reservations at your favorite restaurant.  For others of you, this means you will be drinking heavily and trying to avoid all the love-sick couples that have seemed to received the memo that you are boycotting happiness.  And for some of you, this means that you will be baking a extra huge chocolate cake because it's Valentine's day and that's reason enough to eat an entire cake by yourself.

I think I'm mostly in the first of the aforementioned categories, however baking myself a chocolate cake does sound like a pretty good plan as well.

Anyway, I figured that no matter what category you are in this year, I'm sure that there are still plenty of kinds of love for you to celebrate this week.  So I figured I'd try and dedicate all my posts this week to a different kind of love to be especially excited about.  And don't worry, I'll try not to be particularly vomit inducing.

First up:  Puppy Love.




Do you read Desire to Inspire?  It is a lovely design blog that features drool-worthy homes from around the world.  It is dangerously addictive.  As if it were even possible to make the blog more awesome, every week they dedicate an entire post to pictures of pets on furniture.  That's right.  Just cute animals on awesome furniture.  Could it get any better?

Here are some of my favorite pets on furniture as of late.  It's true that I tend to favor the canine variety mostly due to my own four-legged furry smelly children.  But seriously, is there really anything better than a nuzzle from your favorite pup?  I think not.

(Yes, I realize the last pic is not a dog.  But I have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with bunnies and have been begging my Mr. for one for years and I just can't help but include one here for your viewing pleasure.)

Start following this lovely blog if for no other reason than to get a dose of precious animal love every week.

Wishing you lots of love from your favorite animals this week,
MEL

(Images, in order from top to bottom, from here, here, here, here, and here.)

Olive Us

Happy Friday my dear internet cosmos!  Hope you had a fabulous week.  My Mr. just started a new rotation which means he's working part of the weekend (blech) but hopefully we'll find some time to have a little fun.

I've been in love with Ben & Gabrielle Blair's (yes, of Design Mom fame) video project, Olive Us, for quite some time now.  The series follows their six beautiful children through their everyday adventures and captures the magic of childhood to a tee.  The beautiful video production team, Tiger in a Jar, makes every video seem right out of a dream.

Their most recent episode, "Betty in Paris", is probably my favorite yet.  Is there anything more magical than seeing the world's most romantic city through the rose-colored eyes of a child?  I think not.

And make sure to check out the other episodes of Olive Us here.

I hope you all have a wondrous and awe-inspiring weekend,
MEL


Betty In Paris from Olive Us on Vimeo.

Lullabies for a Cause

Danielle DeCosmo

Hello my dear internet cosmos!  Today I want to share with you a beautiful project created by one of my dear friends and all-around brilliant musician, Danielle DeCosmo.

Danielle and I worked together in FL teaching music and soon started playing music together.  I have learned so many things from her and I am always in awe of her beautiful music and loving spirit.

In addition to writing, recording, and performing her own music (you can download her first album, All Good Things, here.  Seriously do it.  It's amazing.), she has been performing for patients at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida with the Arts in Medicine program.  Recently, she recorded this beautiful collection of lullabies, Little Dreamers:  Lullabies, as a gift to mothers in the neo-natal intensive care unit and as a way to raise money for the Arts in Medicine program.

I encourage you to go purchase this lovely album of lullabies at her Bandcamp page.  You can set your own purchase price and all of it goes directly to support the Arts in Medicine program at Shands.

I will certainly be downloading multiple copies for the special new mothers in my life.  I hope that you will do the same and by doing so, help give the gift of music to new mommas and their precious babies everywhere.

Enjoy!
--MEL

El Cosmico

So, I know I'll probably catch some flack for this, especially since all I've been doing since I moved here has been bragging about the perfect weather and how CO can do absolutely no wrong.  But it seems, every paradise has it's rough edges and CO is no exception.  Here's my issue:

I'M COLD.

Yes, I said it.  I'm freaking cold.  We'll have a week of temps that never get above 20 degrees and then we'll have a glorious reprieve of a few days in the 40's and 50's.  Which in CO is damn right balmy.  Right now is one of the wonderful sunny weeks in the low 50's which really is perfect, but I know next week we'll get another snow storm and another freeze and the cycle will start again.

I never thought I'd say it, but I think I'm ready for a winter getaway.

I've been dreaming of El Cosmico in Marfa, TX for a long time now and it's looking more and more necessary every day.  This dreamy lodging location boasts completely restored trailers (think streamlined, chrome, shiny bullets), safari tents, teepees, and camping, all in the meditative desert of west Texas.  They also have really fun events from time to time, like this upcoming culinary weekend featuring renowned west Texas chef, Lou Lambert.

I never thought I'd ever want to go back to TX to vacation.  But if any place can do it, El Cosmico is definitely that place.

(All images from here.)

  

New year, new you, new world.

Pinterest

Hello my dear internet cosmos!  I hope you all had a fabulous holiday season, filled with laughter, family, and gluttony.

Mine certainly abided by all of those guidelines and more.  Obviously, because I haven't been around here in way too long.

As the new year has come and gone and is now becoming a mere glimpse of a memory, it's easy to forget all the resolutions and fresh starts and promises that we make to have a better 2013, make a better us, have a better relationship, build a better life.  Honestly, I think forgetting all of those unattainable resolutions isn't all half bad.  Besides, you know you made a resolution or two that you never really thought you'd keep, but did so anyway just to feel a little more successful.  I know I did.

But as we slice our 14th piece of chocolate cake and try to erase the first 13, as we run a half mile less today than we had planned and tack it on to be made up later, as our butts find their favorite spaces on the couch again and settle in for another year, let's just be grateful.  Be grateful that you can make a resolution and not keep it.  Be grateful that you have more than you need, so much more that we make promises to rid ourselves of our excess.  Be grateful that you have holidays to celebrate your crazy families and your healthy waistlines.

Instead of resolving to change ourselves in 2013, let's resolve to try and change the world we live in.  I bet we'll get a lot more done if we resolve to give to others instead of just take away from ourselves.  Smile more.  Hold open a door a little longer for a stranger.  Get outside.  Cook good food and invite everyone you know to enjoy it with you.  Tell others about something beautiful you experienced.  Try something new and invite a friend.  Volunteer doing something that excites you.  And after you give of yourself, take time to give to yourself.  Eat another piece of cake.

Share the wealth of your bounty, and I bet 2013 will be a much fuller year than the last.

XOXO
--MEL