I’m currently on a pretty intense shopping ban, but I recently did a trade with Julia for this bag (she was kind enough to include a pouch!) and got reimbursed for something I bought for work that I forgot about (they seriously take ages sometimes) that I decided to treat myself to a camera with. The bag is ah-may-zing, exactly what I’ve been looking for forever, and the camera terrifies me (it’s SO HEAVY!). A Mamiya 23 Press with a 6×7 back* – does anyone else have one? It didn’t come with a darkslide but the ebay seller assures me it works without it, which seems crazy to me. I’m going to give it a try anyway. I’ll share the results, if any, ha…

*the lens cap says leica, but it is certainly not a leica lens! that would be magical.

How beautiful is Bon Iver’s cover of Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me”? His falsetto gives me chills. This song always stops me in my tracks as I have a sad memory of it as a kid when my parents got divorced. I think if I had to name the most beautiful sad song, it might be this.

And for good measure, the original, because Bonnie is my girl. Her very first album is one of the best things on earth if you haven’t heard it.

Today’s guest blogger and I go waaay back. I can’t remember exactly when Kristen and I met online, but it was definitely late highschool/early college, back in the glory days of livejournal. Oh good lord, the things this girl knows about me just from having access to my private livejournal. Embarrassing. Luckily we both grew older on the internet together and managed to stay in touch due to our mutual love of photography. Kristen takes incredible photos that have a beautiful Eggleston-like quality to them that are such a lovely look into her life with her husband and son in Portland, OR. I have one of her prints she sent me ages ago I can’t wait to hang in our new place. Thanks for sharing all this dreamy-ness with us, Kristen.

From Kristen: This was the first weekend of summer in Portland. This was the last weekend of my 31st year. In between naps and washing diapers, we visited my parents and visiting-sister downtown, and with little cousins, making sure they didn’t poke the baby too hard or that Calvin didn’t injure his already-broken arm to which he seemed oblivious. Greg fiddled with our vegetable garden while Dax carefully disassembled the last of the peonies. We watched a b-o-r-i-n-g (spelled out for little ears, shhh) episode of Yo Gabba Gabba, and an equally boring episode of Star Wars (a prequel, blah), children enthralled, adults with wine and homemade pizza in hand. Clella declared that she was 35 and called me by the wrong aunt’s name when necessary. At home, this was the very weekend that Dax mastered climbing on and off our bed (mattress on the floor), and to celebrate we went to bed before the sun went down (as usual).

I think I can safely say with only a slight hint of drama queen that this has been a pretty terrible week. Getting my wisdom teeth removed has resulted in the worst pain I have ever felt and an experience I would like to put behind me already, but the pain is still here to stay and I’m just ticking off missed days at work and weekend hours I should have been spending on freelance projects. But I finally decided to deal with the pain and take advil instead of vicodin as that was resulting in me literally losing my mind and lots of weight, and today I feel much more positive and ready to be on the upswing!

But despite barely leaving my bed for 5 days, somehow I pulled my shit together and put a scarf over my puffy face (Penelope style) and we got ourselves a new apartment in East Hollywood. Kind of the sweetest deal ever: we can move in whenever we want even though we won’t pay til the 15th, it’s the biggest apartment I’ve ever had, cheaper than our rent now, a beautiful old historic building with TONS of awesome character (french windows! checkered tile! a vanity in the bathroom!), two walk-in closets, and this cool huge fire escape that’s more like a deck that we can grow stuff on. We wanted to try for Silverlake or Los Feliz, but all the places we saw were too expensive for our budget and nothing was as cool as this place. Plus we are technically only a couple blocks away from Los Feliz, and less than a mile away from the Silverlake junction (that’s what bikes are for!), so it’s a fair trade to me. Also, look who are neighbors are in that last photo! I know, don’t be too jealous. I’m well on my way to being besties with Tom and Katie.

Anyway, excitement over the new apartment is really keeping me going and I hope to be a semi-normal human again soon! Stay tuned tomorrow as I have a weekend guest blogger! Someone who had a real weekend, too. Ha. Thanks for all the well wishes, friends.

Thank you for all of your well wishes for my wisdom teeth ordeal! I’m still recovering, if not feeling worse, but a lot of you have told me that day three is the turning point. Hoping to be better by tomorrow as it’s the first day Will and I have had off together in a while!

1. Julia’s amazing new Rennes collection is out now, and I this amazing bag is coming my way. So excited. I redesigned her website, so check it out, along with the incredible photos of the collection!
2. La Sardina 35 mm wide angle lomography camera. Looks awesome, takes awesome photos. via DesignWorkLife.
3. I think this dip-dye (or more like dip-bleach) sweatshirt would make the most awesome DIY project. via pennyweight (Elise is like my Pinterest hero, as you can tell from Friday Bits. Guilty as charged!)
4. Fantastic lettering by Simon Walker on grain edit. via susan.
5. The Shot That Nearly Killed Me. (Warning: not for the faint of heart, but riveting.) via Vic.
6. The most well designed pencil sharpener in all the land. Want.

I had my wisdom teeth removed this morning, and I’m just now coming around to feeling slightly human. Therefore I must blog, right? I was an idiot and ate breakfast when I woke up, because I misunderstood the nurse when she told me to not eat for 8 hours and I thought she said an hour. Therefore they couldn’t put me under all the way, but supplied me lots of glorious laughing gas a some very light sedation (I’ve never experienced either, whoa, amazing). I was somewhat lucid during the procedure, but remember hardly anything. Except having this song stuck in my head. Which I find pretty much hilarious. It’s also my dream karaoke song, fyi.

Ok, back to having Nurse William take care of me/laugh at my swollen face/enjoy me not being able to talk, eat some Vicodin, and watch Desperately Seeking Susan. Then I will have a dinner of ice cream and mashed potatoes. Not too shabby.

click the photos to see the answers to probably most of your questions on flickr!

I had a ton of freelance work to do this weekend, and Will had to work both days, but we still managed to squeeze in a good time. Our block had a massive party on Saturday, raging til the cops shut it down and I was too full of burgers and beer to keep my eyes open anymore. Sunday I took a break for a nice bike ride alone, which felt really good to feel so confident in my riding. Then Afton and her husband came to town on their road trip for some Chinese food with us, and they were pretty much just as awesome as you would expect. Not a lot of down time, but good times were still had and lots of project ass was kicked. June Gloom even let up a bit to make it feel almost summery.

1. Banjo Belts made by South African leather accessory designer Chloe Townsend of Missibaba at Deep Dark Africa. via Elizabeth
2. At Home At Home is my new  (to me) favorite LA blog. Laure takes amazing photos and is a reminder of all the creative people here that inspire me.
3. A little colorful dream of a studio in a garage by Von Tundra. (photo by Darryl James)
4. Neat set of retro pens. Hopefully back in stock soon because I need them for no apparent reason. via PourPorter.
5. Jennifer is so good at finding rooms I want to crawl into.
6. Is anyone else going to go to the LA Pinterest meet-up next week? It’s so close to my apartment I do believe I must attend and actually be social for once this month.

Have a wonderful weekend, friends.

I’ve been a lame blogger this week, so in exchange, I give you pizza. No one can deny the power of pizza. No one.

If you want a lesson in patience, making homemade pizza crust is certainly a good place to start. We make a lot of homemade pizza, but I somewhat shamelessly admit that I use pretty gross store bought crust. I’ve always wanted to make it from scratch, but the planning ahead it requires is not in line with the few precious hours I have from the time I get home from work and go to bed. But the other night I made a super simple dinner and then got to work on the dough – which actually takes no time at all. Stick it in the fridge and then pull it out the next night to shape it out. You’re even supposed to pull it out 2 hours prior to baking it and I was like, are you kidding me? I’m not eating dinner at 10pm, dude. So I warmed it up in the oven for a hot minute and then got to work. And it was delicious – pizza life changing.

I used this recipe from 101 cookbooks, using half whole wheat, half white flour. Mine doesn’t look anything like Heidi’s, but she has a pizza stone and what I’d assume is the ability to actually follow directions correctly and do that fancy pizza tossing thing. Whatever, still delicious. We made one with red sauce, Canadian bacon, pineapple, and fresh mozzarella. The other was pear, walnut, and Gorgonzola (I rub olive oil and balsamic vinegar on the crust first). Tips: I burnt the HELL out of my arm because you have to heat the oven as hot as it will get and put the pan on the floor of the oven, a treacherous feat for clumsy people*. Be careful! Also, watch that baby because it goes from not done to burnt in like, 1 minute.

* I knew I kept an aloe plant around for reasons other than them being the easiest plants on earth to take care of!

I’m having a crummy week so far and Andrea sent me a Raphael Saadiq video to cheer me up because she’s good like that. I started to go into all the ways that I am an idiot for never having heard of him before, but I’ll just refrain from making a fool out of myself. Amazing music and the styling of the videos is fantastic.