Between living in the desert and breast feeding, I pretty much feel like I can never stay on top of drinking enough water. And that bothers me, because I am a huge believer in the restorative powers of hydration. I was recently thinking of ways to increase my water intake, and wishing there was some easy way to drink water on the go without having to fish my water bottle out of my bag. I thought of getting some sort of camel back, but I don’t like to drink out of plastic- especially here in Joshua Tree, where temps get so hot it can cause all kinds of stuff to leach into the water. I’d been thinking and thinking about what to do, when the answer serendipitously dropped into my lap (isn’t it funny how it always seems to happen this way?). My friend introduced me to the kickstarter campaign for Closca Bottle + App and it is all my water bottle dreams come true. It is made of borosilicate glass (one of the strongest and toughest glasses available fyi, for clumsy folks like me) with a silicone sleeve that hooks to your backpack (or stroller, or bike, or purse, or whatever) for easy on the go access!  They kindly sent me a bottle to try out. I have been using it about two weeks now, and it’s truly the answer to all my #hydrationproblems. So I am super excited to be partnering with Closca to help spread the word.

Continue reading “Cool New Product Alert: Closca Bottle + App” →

When we bought our home, a big part of what appealed to us about it was the charm factor. It’s a 1958 brick homestead cabin (with an addition that makes it a 2.5 bedroom) and it came with two 50 year saguaros in the front yard! There’s lots of other vintage charm too, like beautiful exposed beam high ceilings. But unfortunately, although it was very recently renovated- the contractors that worked on it had much different taste then we do and they essentially turned this unique little gem into a boring Home Depot showroom.

Because of our (extremely) limited budget we’ve decided to focus attention first on the living room & I wanted to give you guys a progress peek! I’m calling it a “facelift” versus a “renovation” because there’s so much I’d love to do, like knock down walls and install windows, but for now (due to that darn budget) we are keeping things more surface level.

My lovely friend and super talented photographer Merrill was over recently shooting a story about me for Noble Carriage and I asked if she would take some shots of the living room too, and lovely human that she is – she obliged! Thank you Merrill!

Okay so here’s the current state of the living room! So mad at myself for not remembering to take many before pictures, but this should give you an idea:

Continue reading “my living room facelift!” →

I once read that motherhood is a process of slowly letting go. You transition from those infant days where your baby is totally dependent you and you control every aspect of their environment, to toddlerhood where they gain a measure of independence and start making some choices on their own, on to childhood, and teenager-hood (is that even a word??) and eventually adulthood.  Basically as a mom I think the goal is just prepare them to fly the from nest the best you can and hope they make it into adulthood healthily and happily.

I am currently in the bittersweet stage where my own little baby transitions from babyhood to toddlerhood (she just turned two). I really truly loved every second of Prairie’s babyhood, but one thing I am enjoying about toddlerhood is that I am starting to care more about myself again. For me, this mental leap started about when she turned one. Honestly, for the first year of her life I was just wrapped in lack of sleep, hormones, & love and I didn’t give much thought to anything else. (Clearly, everybody is different so I am only speaking to my own experience here.) Anyhow, when I eventually came down off of that newborn emotional roller coaster I was ready to start caring about myself again, and part of that was caring about my style. (Of course, caring for yourself and your interests outside of motherhood extends way beyond your style choices, but in this post that is the aspect I am focusing on).

Continue reading “achieving excellent mom style in 5 easy steps” →

One of my favorite things about my foray into instagramming and blogging has been the opportunity to support women who are doing cool things. So needless to say, I am beyond excited about this project I just did with 3 of my favorite bloggers- Paige (@paigechristensen), Erin (@calivintage), and Melissa (@melissasonico), styling looks from the Pre-Fall collection by one of my favorite (woman owned, made in the US brands) – Esby Apparel.

We all wore different color combos of the Rose Top (mine is Tomato) and Lucia Seamed Ankle Pants (mine are Camel) from Esby.

Continue reading “1 look 4 ways” →

As I complained about mentioned in my last post, Andy isn’t really the type to buy me flowers. So when the nice folks at Markett  marketing agency reach out and offered to send me the bouquet of my choice from Bouqs you better believe I jumped at the chance. (Oh, and I *might* have initially told Andy that I wasn’t sure who sent the bouquet lolololol.)

Continue reading “decorating with fresh flowers (coupon in post)” →