It’s no secret that Iron & Wine is my favorite band on the planet, and that if given the chance, I would run away into the sunset with Sam Beam and have like, 10,000 of his babies. But, sigh, I am not up for the challenge of being a home-wrecker. I am not an Iron & Wine purist either. I love Sam’s first albums where it was just him and a few instruments as much as I love the huge pop leaning sound of the newest albums. I like that the sound has evolved into something very different, yet still holds that same core beauty. The new album, Kiss Each Other Clean, is just downright beautiful. The first time I listened to it, I felt such an excitement. Below are my two favorite songs.

A weekend of playing catch-up and taking it easy, since our previous weekends have been so jam packed with doing/going/seeing. At first I was bummed we didn’t plan any elaborate adventures, but it felt so good doing things like working on my taxes (after the fact, of course), spending some time at the library choosing good books, and making delicious homemade granola thanks to your suggestions (so many good ones! click on the granola pictures for more about what I used). Sunday it was gloomy and rainy, and everyone in the neighborhood seemed so sad about this but us. It was all anyone could talk about anywhere we went. Guys, 3/4 of a day of rain out of a whole month of sunshine? I thought rain on the beach looked rather nice, and when it finally stopped and the sun came out, everything was glistening beautifully, good as new.

It’s been a relatively uneventful week. We started running again, which is great. When you can stare at the ocean’s waves and the sun still straggling up above the palm trees pink and orange while you run, it’s definitely a plus. We grilled lamb kabobs on the communal grill in our front patio (yum!). I discovered a new route to work that winds me up a pretty hill and past a sprawling park. People are obsessed with finding the best route to work here, I’ve noticed. They’ll go to great lengths to avoid a major road, even if it means taking 30 different turns through residential neighborhoods. It cracks me up, but I admit that I love finding new ways because breaking up a monotonous routine is key to my happiness (have you noticed how much I enjoy rearranging furniture? Same concept). In fact, driving to work has become my favorite part of the day. I can crank my music up and sing at the top of my lungs, and I’m never stuck in hair-pulling traffic. The ride home is a little hairier, but at least I have my eye on the prize at that point: coming home to that wonderful boyfriend of mine. Who, by the way, agrees that life is good good good right now, but oh for the love of god, would like to find a job soon.

Anyway, I’m rambling! Onto the goods.

1. NPR reminded me I really want to make my own granola now that we eat it every morning. I like their recipes, but do you have a favorite? I want something healthy, but I’m more into crisp, sweet granola than savory.
2. Beautiful, beautiful Oregon fog.
3. Behind the scenes with how certain tricky parts of Black Swan were done. Fascinating. (UPDATE: Looks like it was already taken down on youtube, but you can watch it here now!)
4. Two blogs this week that I regularly read mentioned my favorite movie when I was a pre-teen, Now and Then. A sign? Yes.
5. Pretty underthings from Gypsy, even prettier photos. What a beautiful photoshoot by Daeja Fallas.
6. Stunning cuff by Fortune Favors The Brave, from their debut line, on Butter + Brass (a new favorite blog).
7. One of the many reasons I need a cast iron skillet: David Eyre’s Pancake recipe. Look at that thing! I don’t even need to taste it to know how good it is. via Sara.
8. BackGarage on Etsy has so many nice vintage stone/pottery pieces that tempt me so.
9. Tiny Bites by Tara, who always brings the beautiful food bar up a notch. I had something similar at The Eveleigh the other night (have you been? so good), where the lovely Joy took me (there are so many great people in LA to meet!), but I bet you a million bucks it wasn’t as good as Tara’s.

Have a great weekend! The highs here will be below 70 this weekend, what ever will I do?? I kid, I kid.

There’s a really great old school hip hop station here in LA that’s been bringing the two of us back to our childhoods lately. The golden days of hip hop in the mid-90s (I know that’s an arguable time period for rap, but it’s my golden days), when I’d go to my neighbor’s house to listen to Snoop Dogg (KUBE 93.3 baby!) because despite how lax my parents were with rules, the one thing my mother hated more than anything on this earth was rap. I really want to make a great nostalgic mid-90s rap mix one of these days.

click on the photos for possibly more info on flickr

A weekend that started with showing Will’s parents a great couple days in LA. We took them to Joe’s on Abbot Kinney, where we had the best meal of our lives; another great brunch at Cora’s; the Getty, where our minds were blown by the view, the architecture, the garden (!), and barely looked at art the rest was so great; then ended the day with sushi and a walk on the beach to gawk at the freaks. They didn’t seem too excited to leave the 70+ degree weather for the 9 degrees that waited for them back in Ohio. Sunday we caught up with our errands, which included more! plants! so that our plant shelf is a bit intense now. Precisely my goal. We went shopping in Santa Monica and had Umami burgers and Mexican coke, where yet again our minds were blown by deliciousness. A really great weekend to mark one month of living here. I think LA is helping our stress levels go down and serotonin levels go up. Despite the crazy, crazy people shrieking outside our window as I type this…

Since starting Friday Bits, I’ve been annoyed with the series’ aesthetic structure. The graphic designer in me is driven crazy by photos of different sizes going down the page, but I’m usually too busy to do anything about it. But with me only posting three times a week (if that), I decided to tidy up this series and make it more visually interested with a grid. Sometimes I may use less, sometimes more, but I set up a grid template that will hopefully make things easy to ready for Fridays.

So, onward!

1. Brown Butter Spice Cake will be made very, very soon.
2. Straw Into Gold. Stephanie always says it best when it comes to thoughts on blogging. I so struggle with the idea of creating a false world here on my blog, so her words are timely.
3. Have a professed my love for Lily’s new life in India yet?
4. The Perfect Pear sounds so worth the work.
5. Tomboy Style. Best blog ever. Made the rounds on twitter yesterday.
6. A beautiful necklace by Lucy Hutchings.
7. Charms.
8. Marian Kihogo’s style and beauty floors me.
9. Here comes the sun. See, sunshine is healing.

Have a wonderful weekend, be it full of sunshine or snow. Maybe both?

A mix for driving with your windows down, which I’ve been doing a lot lately. If you are somewhere cold, I hope this mix transports you to a warmer place in your mind. Since moving here and driving often, mixes are very necessary. It’s my favorite place to listen to music, by far.

ps. I’m breaking my blogger code by using a photo that I do not know the source of, forgive me. But it was too good to pass up.

click on the photos for possibly more info on flickr

A three-day weekend of falling more in love with LA (and Venice, more specifically), eating ourselves silly (had beef tongue for the first time!), ridiculously amazing weather, reading on the beach, hiking in Griffith Park, meeting lovely ladies, becoming plant hoarders, getting a taste of just how crazy the boardwalk is when it’s warm out (nervous about that – living on the beach has its serious drawbacks!), growing the map of this city in my mind.

Despite living a stone’s throw away from the beach, I’ve only set foot on the sand twice in the three weeks we’ve lived in Venice. It’s dark and deserted by the time I get home, and Will’s stories of his job searching breaks spent reading on the beach made me jealous, so this morning I decided getting up right after the sun rose to take a stroll out there would be nice. It was. I kept thinking, we live here?

Things are a little nuts right now. If I’ve ignored your email or comment lately, forgive me. I know I said I’d start back up with submissions and projects in the new year, but damn, Gina, I am exhausted. Ev-er-y-thing is different now, and LA has been good to us so far, but it’s also a wee bit stressful adjusting. Will’s trying hard to find a job, while I’m trying hard to adjust to a totally different office that’s much more corporate and for now, lacks a window to see to the outside world most of the day. Not to mention driving every day, phew! But man oh man, this 70 degree (it’s 80 today!) weather week we’re having is helping immensely. The sunshine is SO healing and energizing. As my dad said to me recently, “no more winter blues”. ‘Tis true pops, ’tis true.

I have a three-day weekend ahead of me, so Bits Of My Weekend will come Tuesday.

looking forward to:

a picnic on the beach
the observatory
lunch with blogger ladies
burgers on the grill
checking out bikes (to rent or buy)
more exploringexploringexploring

have a wonderful weekend, friends

click on the photos to view possibly more info on flickr!

Food trucks, doughnuts, making better friends with acquaintances, sunny new lamps, a happy-making package arrival, incredible brunch in Santa Monica, the Fairfax flea market, LACMA (to make up for not getting to Culver City for openings Saturday), a visit to my favorite Abbot Kinney store for a birthday present, a pre-planned walk Will scoped out to show me the most ridiculous/amazing houses in Venice (can walk talk about how the abundant use of Neutra house numbers here makes me weak in the knees?), wine and an “everything is good” feeling during the sunset, an amazing meal at home. I like it here, I do.