Hello! Andrea here. I’m excited to contribute to weekly goods today while Kate is in Seattle. Lucky for me, I got to hang with her and Will yesterday!

1. To get me through this gray winter: a bright red Clare Vivier Clutch. – 2.  An updated houndstooth scarf for the perfect touch of pattern – 3. Is it too early to be thinking about sandals? – 4. Insanely Detailed typographic paintings of  MAPS by Paula Scher. – 5. A lovely but functional salt and pepper cellar; I dig those tiny spoons.

I recently had the pleasure of doing a little photo shoot for the wonderful new Echo Park boutique, Myrtle. The owner, Whitney, has an amazing eye and put together some great looks for the shoot that we shot in the store with two lovely models, Lauren and Taylor. The bright LA sunlight threatened to ruin a good time (constant slapstick-like running around to avoid the sunbeams and dark shadows) but we totally made it work thanks to great team work. If you live in LA or will be here in the future, definitely stop by the shop – Whitney has curated an amazing selection in a wide range of prices. Not just clothing and accessories, either! Cute books, soap, stationery and other fun things – all made by talented ladies.

Credits
Photography: Kate Miss
Styling/direction: Whitney Bickers
Models: Lauren Rothery & Taylor Curtin
Designers (top to bottom, left to right) all styles sold at Myrtle:
Blouse by Gretchen Jones, skirt by Shabd | Tank by This Shirt Helps, Skirt by Gretchen Jones
Dress by Filly
Dresses by Alexandra Grecco | Dresses by Study New York
Dress by Filly, locket by Bonbi Forest | Blouse & skirt by Kelly Bergin

Please feel free to re-post any of these photos without asking permission as long as you include proper credit! That means you too, Tumblrs and Pinterest-ers! Credit, credit, credit.

Hi all, Jessica here! Kate was kind enough to invite me on board to contribute some bits from my weekend while she’s away enjoying a real winter outside of sunny Los Angeles. I was a little nervous about having enough interesting things to share with you, but this weekend ended up being pretty action-packed (and particularly art-filled). It started off with a memorable breakfast at Square One that I didn’t capture, but Kate did (see + drool over the previously posted banana french toast), followed by an evening out and an opportunity to get some use out of this vibrant red dress I recently thrifted. Saturday was spent perusing the Art Los Angeles Contemporary show at the Barker Hanger and a trip to a moped shop, the latter of which was surprisingly more fun than I would’ve imagined. Sunday began by purchasing one too many artisanal goods at an underground pop-up market in Venice (read: jalapeño jam, tandoori marinated olives + homemade lemon curd), followed a trip downtown to the LA Art Show and ended with a delightfully slow pre-fixe dinner at Church & State. All-in-all, a lot of fun despite a lot of running around. But sometimes weekends are for adventures, wouldn’t you say?

Earlier this week I thought, “It’s a crazy week, but I can handle blogging as well! No big deal!” And then Wednesday rolled around and I thought, “Who am I kidding? I’ll have to skip Weekly Goods! But I’ll have time to read blogs tomorrow so I can do Friday Bits, no big deal!” And then today rolled around and I was like, “OK, screw it. When my favorite bloggers don’t post for a few days I don’t even notice and I find apologies for absences more annoying than absences.” But this isn’t an apology, I just wanted to make you jealous of the french toast* I rewarded myself with after a batshit week and also say au revoir (excuse my French, it’s the toast talking) as we head to Seattle tomorrow for a few days. I have some sweet guest bloggers for two of those days so that I don’t feel compelled to write an obnoxious apology post next week. This trip is exciting/weird/nervous-making as Will’s dad is flying out to meet us and finally meet my family. We decided that after nearly five years of dating perhaps it was time. No big deal. My family won’t embarrass me at all just as Will’s dad won’t embarrass him. Right, Bill?

It’s quite possible that I owe you an email, and for that I will actually apologize for, but I need a week off big time. TGIF, y’all! Have a great weekend.

*Square One, the only good thing – and I mean good – about the crappy five-block radius around my apartment. Thank you Jessica and Lisa for rescuing me from my apartment!

Weekly Goods is so not happening this week as I have bigger fish to fry, but Weekly Music I can handle. I love this beautiful song “Weights” from Nat Baldwin (of Dirty Projectors). The video, just released yesterday, is pretty awesome. From Western Vinyl:

The video follows a horse that holds an estate sale to offload the belongings of his best friend, Nat Baldwin, who he believes to be deceased. As he looks wistfully upon Nat’s possessions, he is plunged into memories of their life together. Shot on digital video and Super 8, “Weights” sets Nat’s music to a poignant tale of interspecies friendship.

Mostly a working weekend as we’re going to Seattle next weekend and I have to cram in my to-do list in before then. Freelancing doesn’t mean you get to take a vacation whenever you want to without pulling some serious extra weight to make that happen! But, there were tiki drinks and Mexican food with Lisa and a matinee at the Vista (so beautiful) to see The Artist (really great, give that dog an Oscar!). Also, not sure if you knew this but I’m officially 50% cat lady, 50% plant lady these days, so Wendy and the plants fight for Bits attention. They are all my babies. Sometimes Will catches me squatting down by the plants, inspecting them with a q-tip, and just laughs at me.

It’s been such a crazy week with work stuff that this is a slim Friday Bits, but first Will and I wanted to thank you all for the comments on his post! You guys are amazing. We’re excited to get back to our lives.

Some internet goodness this week:

1. Rachel’s homemade habanero tequila given out at Christmas gifts, complete with a custom bottle label. Her homemaking/hostess/craft skills and attention to awesome detail astounds me sometimes. Damn, girl.

2. I don’t care if it’s going to be blogged about so many times this week you claw your eyes out or the fact that maybe it’s a little played out to be obsessed with Wes Anderson these days, his films fill me top to bottom with happiness and light (and a little darkness, but the good kind) and his new film Moonrise Kingdom looks absolutely terrific.

3. I think birds are beautiful, but have never been one to want to own one, but Anja’s ridiculously adorable and beautiful parrotlet is killing me. What a sweet little face!

4. Dream: learning about food and photography in a class with Nikole in Italy at Squam. “we’ll be adventuring around the nearby town and countryside and stopping in at markets and bakeries along the way. and then coming back to the villa and baking/cooking with what we find. plus, we’ll be styling and photographing it too!” Yep.

Alright, have a great weekend!

I thought we’d go with a theme with today’s posts, OK?

A while back I mentioned on twitter that I was going to be an expert care package giver going forward due to all of the amazing care packages that we were sent to us over the course of Will’s treatment. A few people asked that I share some ideas in the form of a blog post, and I attempted to start one over a month ago. It grew completely out of hand and had no structure, I felt like I could go on and on for ages. Then over the weekend I realized that Weekly Goods was the perfect place for this – a themed goods post on the subject of care packages (more themed Weekly Goods posts will definitely be coming in the future). Limiting it to five categories was tough, but this is just a basic guide. Also, because I’m feeling self conscious and some readers really keep me on my toes about stuff like this, 1. We weren’t given all of these things, I added to the categories, this is not a bragging list. And 2. I can’t stress enough that this is not meant to make anyone feel guilty for not sending us a care package. Any support – phone calls and emails and the like are just as good. This is purely a guide about care packages as I was so inspired by them. Alright, onwards!

1. LOCAL STUFF: If you’re sending a care package to someone who is not in your city, it’s fun to send them things from where you are that they can’t get, or at least are not readily available. It doesn’t have to be food, but this is a typical local-type thing that was a reoccurring theme in our care packages.
Early Bird Granola (Brooklyn), whimsy&spice hazelnut whiskey cookies (Brooklyn), MarketSpice tea (Seattle – tea is always great for people feeling under the weather, too! If you could also send a teapot, that would be awesome as well), Te Aro Burnout Coffee Beans (Toronto)

2. SWEETS: If you’re sending something to a cancer patient, check to make sure they’re eating sugar as it’s a common healing diet to refrain from it, but the cancer center is filled with jars of candy and mints because they help with nausea, and if you’re sending a care package to someone who just needs cheering up, sweets never hurt. Plus finding fun candy is, well, fun!
Jila round mints, Vosges Black Salt Caramel Chocolate bar, papabubble mixed hard candies, Fruit Flavoured Gums (some of these fall under the category of local as well! Hard to categorize.)

3. TREAT YO SELF: Ok, not yourself, but someone else. But you get it. Nice things to treat someone to as just because feeling crummy is all the more reason that you need wonderful smelling body or shaving soap, hand cream or fragrance. Will joked about the soap in his post earlier, but we really have been loving all of it! We never spring for the good stuff on our own.
The Soap & Paper Factory Verbena Hand Cream, Saipua Soap, Sea Salt Soap (great for shaving, super awesome package design), OLO Valens fragrance

4. HANDMADE: Dessert! A mix CD! Art! Jewelry! Put your possible creative talent to use, it’s so sweet to get something handmade. Amazing mix CDs got me through the last few months. If you live near someone, make them dinner and drop it by (don’t invite yourself over to make something unless you’re totally sure they’re ok with that, personally our apartment was quarantined for 3 months.) This isn’t exactly handmade, but one of the best things ever is that our friends who live down the street from us went to Whole Foods and bought us a week’s worth of groceries, delivered to our doorstep. I cried at the sight of it all it was so perfect.

5. BOOKS: You don’t even need to buy new books, my grandma sent us a huge box of her old books, which was so sweet. Anyone under the weather – either in a hospital or not – probably has a lot of time on their hands in bed and books come to the rescue. A magazine subscription would be great, too. Also, I didn’t want to make this category too expansive but all forms of entertainment are great – games and movies and such.
The Marriage Plot (my favorite book this year), Fashion Cats, 3191 Quarterly, 1Q84 (Will’s favorite book this year)

I could go into intense detail on other ways to support people when they need it outside of physical care packages, but that isn’t the point of this post and it would make this so long your eyes would roll back into your head.

Now go forth and make someone’s day who needs it!

I know I said I’d be less personal on this blog, but we have some unfinished business, right? There are so many ways I want to say thank you to you guys that I don’t even know where to start. So I thought I’d have Will start, because it’s a funny thing to spend a few months writing about the health of someone that most of you barely know, and have never heard his side of the story. I asked him to write a guest post for me because I know how much he is appreciative of you guys – he talks about it to everyone all the time, especially about the fundraiser that truly saved us from a dark place. And I thought that you guys would love to hear it straight from him, along with some good news and test results.

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Hi guys, Will here. I am a little nervous, Kate letting me post on her blog and all. Hopefully she likes what I write and I can do it again sometime, maybe even guest blog in the future.

But seriously, I am writing this post because I feel like recently I got to know a little bit about so many of you readers. Either from Kate telling me little stories, or from the tons of nice comments left after you all heard about my recent health issues. Some of you even bought a piece of my work during the fundraiser, or mailed a card or care package to brighten my spirits. (I was mailed a lot of soap; I hope that was not a sign that I should shower more :) Going through this experience of being really sick, and seeing how this blog and its community of readers was not only supportive of me, but of Kate, was awe-inspiring. Not only is the power of the Internet inspiring, but also the power of total strangers doing completely wonderful acts for one another – that was really amazing to see.

I went to my doctor on Monday, I heard good news but not exactly the news I wanted to report back. I wanted to shake hands with my doctor and hear that I had beat cancer, end of story, but frankly that is not how cancer works. Everything looks great on my tests and it seems to be gone, but I must be kept under constant scrutiny thought CT scans and blood analysis for the next few years. But we don’t have to go back to the hospital again for three months! I did amazingly well on the chemo – it was an absolutely horrible experience, but with Kate’s help I was able to keep my spirits high and stay healthy, no fevers or infections. I actually did so well my doctor asked if I would like to volunteer as part of a new counseling program, helping new patients go through the same process.

So for now the coast is clear. Kate and I can go back to some sense of normality and back to our routine. Thank you all for everything, from a prayer or good thought to a surprise care package (with soap in it). I literally could not have done this without Kate, and I don’t think she could have done this without all of you.

Editors note: we both really, really like the soap you sent.

Oof. Will and I caught that awful cough that is going around LA like wildfire (seriously, everywhere I go I hear it.) I guess cold season gets to you even if it’s 70 degrees. So the weekend was cozy, barely leaving our our apartment, working and making lots of healthy food. It’s funny, when I’m sick I switch into super healthy mode, and when Will gets sick he just wants take out and comfort food. Too bad for him I make all the meals around here! He turned his nose up to the almond milk I made on Friday, but by Sunday I’d convinced him it wasn’t disgusting, but delicious. Other things happened like watching an entire season of Bored to Death in two sittings (tear, I will miss you), figuring out how to make my new haircut work (didn’t go as well the second attempt) and marveling at how gigantic and bright the moon was last night. A small, good moments kind of weekend.