Currently

doodling in a crisp, new sketchbook.

drinking a glass of rosemary and apple sangria - try it, it's delicious.

feeling thankful for a great job, a roof over my head, and some pretty amazing friends.

getting in the holiday spirit - cheesy as it is, I'm feeling pretty lucky this week.

jamming out to the City & Colour CD I found while cleaning my apartment.

learning about HTML and CSS for free, courtesy of the awesome firm I work for.

looking forward to seeing some of my nutso family and feasting Filipino-style.

loving that I have a solid four days off from work.

missing my friends who are doing spectacular things abroad.

purchasing a ticket to New York City for the new year to see some of my favorite people.

A Weekend According to my iPhone

1// Friday Fling on letterpress, paper making, and book binding.

2// Learning about letterpress at the Genessee Center for the Arts

3// Getting all inked up to print.

4// Amy making paper with purple paper pulp.

5// My weekly trip to the Rochester Public Market.

6// Made some tissue paper pom-poms to fill up some blank wall space.

7// Color-coded my bookshelves because I'm cool like that.

Insta Obsessions

midcenturymobler // based out of San Fransisco, this furniture shop runs an instagram full of beautiful furniture pieces from the 1950s and 1960s. All design and furniture geeks should follow, and drool.

cjharvey2 // an awesome account from an art student i'm lucky enough to have met. beautiful portraits, shots of nyc, and compositions of everyday objects. definitely one of my favorites.

luxuryspot // this insta features everything from latte art cats to lipstick and nail polish. for the girly-girl in us all.

neverforgetthosedays // rural and urban landscapes are some of my favorites from this instagram. it'll make you want to travel the world, trust me.

Currently

attempting to remember how to use SketchUp effectively on my mac...it's been a while.

drinking a tall glass of chocolate milk, Nesquik, to be precise.

fearing making my first few loan payments.

feeling content with the world in spite of this.

looking forward to a night of papermaking, letterpress, and wine with friends.

missing my go-to Syracuse friends and family.

planning on taking some online classes through lynda.com

singing along to the Nat King Cole album playing on my turntable.

thinking about my awesome Grandma, who is in Haiti volunteering at a clinic right now.

wishing I could get on the first flight to Italy in the morning.

A Weekend According to my iPhone

1// Checkin' out the street art near the Rochester Public Market.

2// Hanging with my grandma in ROC.

3// The Farmer's Daughter from The Owl House = absolutely DELICIOUS.

4// Me and dad and Van Gogh at brunch.

5// Finally perusing the aisles of Record Archive.

6// Fuller bookshelves thanks to my mom and Keary (sorry we didn't get a picture!)

7// Seen in the courtyard at Village Gate.

Insta Obsessions

palombaserafini // Run by Milan-based architecture and design studio Palomba Serafini Associati, this insta features tons of eye candy for designers of all disciplines. 

londonbrekkies // I love breakfast. I love London. This insta combines these two loves and makes me long for the mornings I spent studying abroad. Just don't look at it when you're hungry.

teresacfreitas // Ordinary things displayed in imaginative and fantastic ways. Everything seems like you're looking at it from down the rabbit hole. 

debbiealbrethsen // Debbie Albrethsen is a Utah-based residential interior designer. I regularly check her instagram for palette ideas and inspiration for my own place.

Starting today, I have a weekly collection of five things that I find interesting, exciting, or generally entertaining. This week's topic is simple: five things that made me happy this week.

1// Spending a night in Syracuse with a great friend, pretending to be the Log Lady.

2// The fact that it's mostly been raining instead of snowing - with a few small exceptions.

3// Salsa dancing into the early morning hours with friends from work, on a Thursday.

4// Being told I seemed like a more "seasoned" interior designer by a product rep.

5// Having ample time to catch up on my reading despite a crazy schedule.

Dream Home: Office Edition

Perhaps one of the biggest paradoxes of our time is that interior designers have fantastic (all too often expensive) and an income suited only to purchase home goods from Ikea. Okay - I'm exaggerating a little. Okay - a LOT, but ask most designers and you'll soon realize we're too poor to actually own anything we pick for our clients. Ignore the fact that I'm fresh out of school for now, because that certainly doesn't help at all. 

Anyway, I spend a lot of my time perusing materials and furnishings binders, samples, and catalogs. While my focus is much more commercial (I can't tell you how many times I've swooned over open office benching systems), I still daydream about the things I'd like to curate for my own home someday. After getting a new set of Restoration Hardware catalogs at work, I couldn't stop thinking about how desperately I'd love to have a home office. Here's what I'm daydreaming about this week:

1//2//3//4//5//6//7//8

1// Atkins Quad Shelving from Restoration Hardware

2// Geodisic Table Lamp from West Elm

3// Flatiron Desk from Restoration Hardware

4// Potted Succulents from Crate & Barrel

5// Shelby Rug from Pottery Barn

6// Curved Upholstery Chair from West Elm

7// Driftwood Side Table from Crate & Barrel

8// Overarching Floor Lamp from West Elm

Currently

attempting to create a general schedule of events for my evenings to avoid couch potato-ing.

buying '642 Things to Draw' for a little inspiration.

dreaming about owning my own coffee shop.

drinking a glass of Coppola Merlot.

fearing the impending doom that is my first student loan payment.

learning about LEED core concepts for the Green Associate exam.

listening to 'Zombie' by The Cranberries.

looking forward to seeing friends in Rochester & Syracuse this weekend.

making more time to read every night.

thinking about going back to school...eventually...after working for a few years.

A Weekend According to my iPhone

1. Trapped Piper in a cat circle.

2. Finally explored the water tower behind Comart.

3. Made my own cappuccino for the first time in months.

4. A quick stop downtown with one of my best good friends.

5. Went for a long walk on a beautiful day with a wonderful friend.

6. Checkin' out some graffiti.

7. Looking out over the hills south of Syracuse. Sometimes I really miss that place.

A Weekend According to my iPhone

1. Drinks at a local speakeasy with a friend from work.

2. Partaking in all things autumn.

3. Carving pumpkins with Moriah.

4. Actually having time to make myself a decent breakfast.

5. Lazing about with Piper baby.

6. The owls are not what they seem...the finished product.

7. Hanging out with toddlers at the pumpkin patch.

Currently

dreaming of packing my bags and exploring somewhere new.

drinking green tea with lemon. it's getting chilly out there, after all.

feeling inspired to organize my blogging efforts after 10K views.

hoping that my social life will stabilize sometime soon.

listening to 'Two Suns' by Bat for Lashes.

looking forward to grabbing a couple well-deserved drinks with a friend.

loving finally being able to speak at an audible volume after being sick.

reading 'Great House' by Nicole Krauss.

thinking about getting some new specs.

watching the kitty chase a piece of fuzz.

Insta Obsessions

curatedinterior // A visual delight for this interior designer. Each post features beautiful residential interiors to swoon over.

food52 // Food magazine-worthy images of everything from brussels sprouts to banoffee pie. Get ready to start drooling.

katieonthehill // If you love all things organized, you'll definitely want to check out this insta. Her balanced compositions of day-to-day life in the UK make me want to take the first plane across the pond.

coffeeshopcorners // A perfect mix of my two loves, interiors and coffee. I'll definitely be looking here for inspiration for my own cafe someday!

A Weekend According to my iPhone

1. Homecoming weekend at the alma mater.

2. Some losers at a sporting event. 

3. Hanging with this awesome chicka (and more).

4.  Finding a plethora of stolen phone selfies.

5. A long awaited reunion with crappy Dome nachos.

6. Getting my Cafe Kubal fix in.

7. Being a good alumna & attending my first football game in years.

September in Review

Just like that, another month has gone by. Here's a taste of what I did this month:

*Above image from http://adultingblog.com/ *

    This one's for all of my recent graduates out there...or you know, anyone who feels like they      

    really need to get there s#!t together. Kelly Williams Brown's tips on "adulting" are simple, useful, 

    and quite comical. 

   With autumn in full swing, I was in desperate need of an actual bed set with a comforter and lots 

   of fluffy, joyful things. Plus, being an interior designer the lack of color in my bedroom was 

   depressing me. 

*Above images are original album art, not mine*

   Songs on Repeat:

   Soon We'll Be Found by Sia: I can't stop listening right now, check out the awesome video here

   Songbird by Fleetwood Mac: One of my favorite songs, ever 

   About this Map by The Tragically Hip: My go-to driving song lately. Give it a listen

   Mouthful of Diamonds by Phantogram: A great song to get work done...calmly

*Still from Frances Ha...image does not belong to me*

    A friend and I watched this movie one Sunday evening this month. The entire movie is in black        & white but is set in modern NYC. Super quirky, super relatable, and super good.

   Spent the day with these really cool kids, picked some apples, ate some cider donuts, drank some     hard cider. Basically, we did autumn right.

    It  somehow took me two months of living here to get to this place, but I'm in love. I sincerely miss working at a coffee shop and this place makes me feel right at home. Plus, I made friends with one of the baristas. Yeah, I'm a cool girl now.

A Weekend According to my iPhone Sept. 28

Silver & Gold

A Weekend According to my iPhone Sept. 21

This Week's Flowers Sept. 18

Me, Myself & I

This Week's Flowers Sept. 9

On Being a "Real Person"

A Weekend According to my iPhone

1. First weekend in quite some time where I didn't travel or have visitors.

2. Got bored and painted my interior doors bright blue.

3. Proof that I finally washed my poor car like a good adult.

4. Saturday afternoon glamour shot sesh for Piper.

5. Getting my cappuccino fix at Pour Coffee Parlor <3 p="">

6. Girls' night with lovely ladies from the arch department.

7. Loving all of the tree-lined streets in my neighborhood this autumn.

Silver & Gold

For some reason, being suddenly and violently cast into adulthood has made everything from childhood way more awesome and cool than I thought even as an over-excited ten year old. Call it nostalgia or call it denial, but there's just something wonderful and familiar about getting home from work, throwing on your best 90s boy band playlist and creating a masterpiece in a jumbo Toy Story coloring book. Don't even try to act like you're above that - we all know better...

Anyway, a rather unfortunately large part of becoming a fully employed and productive member of society tends to involve letting go of things. Sleeping in becomes a thing of the past, having a massive network of locally centralized friends becomes harder to come by, and even binge watching entire seasons of Friends in a night can seem like a tall order when all you want to do after the 9 to 5 grind is have a glass of wine and go to bed.

You remember the song, Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold? Yeah, that's another one of those things I distinctly remember singing while wearing my totally 90s, kick ass, OshKosh B'Gosh purple corduroy overalls (I know, throwin' it way back). Well, that little blast from the past has been at the forefront of this whole keeping my cool in the big bad world thing.

If you've ever moved somewhere without knowing a soul, you certainly know that it can be frustratingly difficult to meet people. Sure, you have your work circles, but that doesn't always translate into much of a social life. However, if you're smart like I am you've planned ahead for this and got yourself a feline friend to hang with. Regardless, I've found that one of the easiest and most forgotten about ways to keep your sanity is to pick up the phone and call your friends - or email/Facebook message them...if you're into that type of thing. Chances are pretty good that hearing from a friend is exactly the type of thing that'll make their day too. Catching up over more than a few blips on a phone screen is fantastic, and just might be the reminder you're not completely on your own in the big bad world. (:

And with that in mind, here's a wonderful video that my not-cousin-Matt (as I like to call him..don't worry about it) directed and produced. It's called Call Someone You Love, and it's one of three great pieces you can see on his website here.

Call me!

A Weekend According to my iPhone

1. Maple apple pie from scratch

2. Spending the weekend with this cool kid

3. Lazy Sundays and eggocados

4. Exploring Durand Eastman Park

5. The finished product (see photo 1) 

6. Piper as a furniture model

7. Sunny skies in the ROC

Me, Myself and I

As I mentioned in last week's post, I recently moved to start a new job (yay!). What I neglected to mention is that I accepted a job offer, found an apartment, moved into said apartment and started my job all within the span of two weeks...phew. For obvious reasons, those two weeks were thrilling and extremely stressful all at once. With so much going on, there was very little time to sit down and really embrace what was going on. There were a million and a half things going on and reflecting on my current life stage was not one of them.

Once that initial phase had passed, I found myself totally and all at once overwhelmed but anything and everything - that stale new apartment odor, the hefty costs of uprooting my life, the fact that my cat will never fully understand me (erm...I meant what?). Most of all, I was overwhelmed by the fact that, for the first time in my life, I was actually going to be alone. 

I'm going to be honest here - I'm horrible at being alone. Or at least I was. If you're anything like me, you probably place higher value on relationships and being with others than giving yourself some quality one-on-one time. Because of this, making the transition from college to the "real world" became even more daunting. How do you go from such a concentrated and constant amount of interaction with friends and acquaintances, to a city where nobody knows your name? 

*Disclaimer: I have since made friends with a handful of wonderful people. So fortunately, my days do not solely consist of sitting at home with my cat while eating Annie's Mac & Cheese and binge-watching Netflix. Just FYI*

While the idea was (and truthfully still is) terrifying, it's something that almost any experienced adult will tell you is part of growing up and is only going to make you a better, more successful person. And you know what? So far, they're right. 

Just check out this fitting little video called How to Be Alone. It perfectly sums up all the reasons being alone can actually be wonderful.

Great right? Cheerful music and adorable illustrations aside - this video is chock full of encouraging thoughts and pro tips on how to be alone. From spending time in public where people tend to act in solitude, to picking back up on a new or old passion, there are countless ways to fill up your free time and learn a lot about yourself. My personal favorite bit of advice? Take the perspective you get from being one person in one head. And while I've had my rough days, I certainly can say that learning to be alone has been overall wonderful for me. You remember what they all said growing up? That in order to love others, you have to love yourself first...right? Well it's absolutely true. 

So remember - it's okay to be alone. Be patient, and embrace it.

Until next time,

This Week's Flowers

I spent the better part of an afternoon browsing through a few of my favorite blogs the other day. I just love reading about how people spend their days - what their reading, writing, tasting, doing...you get the idea. One particular blog I've always enjoyed is Elephantine - she always has the most beautiful photographs and pieces of writing. She also dedicates one post every week to photographs of flowers - how cute, right? Anyway, I've been buying myself a little bouquet every week or so I figured I'd take a page out of her book and do the same. Here's this week's...with an additional kitty bonus!