BACK TO BASICS // black tee one

The last few months have turned me into a lazy bones in terms of putting on clothes.  Since I spend a lot of time at home I lost the feeling of wanting to get dressed, instead opting for throwing on a pair of leggings crumpled up next to the bed and spending the day working on the computer never to see the general public.  Now that I feel spring coming, I sort of want to shift gears and get back into the habit of putting on outfits and maybe even leaving the house.  I thought I'd force myself into this by starting a series.  I love being forced to be creative, like with my remixology posts, so for this month long challenge I'm going to try to work with just the basics.  Five outfits styled around a basic black tee, five around skinny jeans, five around a black dress, and for the last week I want you guys to let me know what basic wardrobe item you'd like to see styled into 5 outfits!
I've never been good at "basics."  I've always gone straight for the wacky stuff, or the more bold items.  I'm sure basics mean different things to different people, too.  For someone who works in an office, maybe slacks, a dress shirt, and a pencil skirt are great basics.  For a student, jeans, a floral dress, and fun tee might be staples.  This is partly why I couldn't decide on a fourth basic item to style.  I thought maybe a floral dress, maybe a chambray button down shirt, maybe a neutral sweater?  But I figured I'd throw it out to you guys, since I also want this series to be something that is interesting and helpful for you guys!
For this first black tee outfit, I fancied things up a bit by adding a cute floral blazer and statement necklace.  I'm not an expert on work-wear, especially in an office setting, but this outfit reminded me of a business-casual type of look for creative work environments.  I haven't worn this blazer in over a year, but after wearing it once I'm starting to get a few ideas for future outfits!  I love how something can sit in my closet for a while, unworn, and then catch my eye and become inspiring again.
  tee (similar)/thrifted :: blazer (similar + similar) + jeans/courtesy of modcloth boots/lulu e bebe :: necklace/courtesy of noonday collection :: photos by Dan

diy yoga mat cleaner

I've been wanting to make my own yoga mat cleaner for quite a while, but even more so lately as my mat has been showing a little wear and I figured it needed some love.  The mat cleaner at my yoga studio doesn't smell very good, so I wanted my own which had a pleasant aroma instead of smelling like chemicals.  I looked around at a few yoga mat cleaner recipes and I liked that some had witch hazel instead of white vinegar.  Vinegar is great, but I am not a fan of the smell.  Witch hazel actually is pretty nostalgic for me because I used to use it when cleaning my horse's legs, so I went with witch hazel (though you can definitely use vinegar if you have that on hand and don't want to bother going to the store!).

The cool thing about this recipe is that it uses essential oils!  In doing research for figuring out what recipe I wanted to make, I saw that many included essential oils, which got me instantly excited.  I'm continually blown away by how many uses they have.  When picking essential oils for this recipe, I'd definitely recommend choosing ones that have antibacterial effects, as they'll help keep the nasties off your mat.  Of course, you'll also want oils that smell good so figure out what kind of blend works well for you.  I decided to go with one of Young Living's blends specifically designed to fight bacteria and eliminate yucky odors: Purification.  It's also one of my favorite smelling oils.  I feel like it smells like delicious ginger and citrus, despite having neither ginger or citrus essential oils in it at all!  It has Citronella, lemongrass, rosemary, melaleuca alternifolia (tea tree oil), lavandin, and myrtle.  A perfect mix for using in yoga mat cleaner!

Another use that I've found for this spray is helping with my stinky climbing shoes!  Climbing shoes are notoriously smelly, and I haven't found that lysol type sprays help too much.  Purification is supposed to be a great essential oil blend to help remove icky smells, so I've been using this spray in my climbing shoes after climbing sessions as well.  Multi-use, anti stink, bacteria fighting spray?  Boom.

(recipe inspired by free people + made + remade)
Ingredients:

Essential Oils

Witch Hazel (or white vinegar)

Water

Spray Bottle (I wanted my spray bottle to be glass, since some essential oils, especially citrus ones, can start to degrade plastic if left for too long.  I found mine at a local health food store.)

1. Fill bottle 3/4 full with water. If you want a stronger cleaner use a bit less water and a bit more witch hazel

2. Fill remaining 1/4 with witch hazel (you're only putting a few drops of essential oil in, so just make sure you leave room for a couple drops)

3. Add essential oils. I'd start with two drops and then go up from there. You can always add more, but it's a bit harder to dilute them once you've already filled your bottle! If you're using a few different ones play around with which scents you really like mixed together!

Spritz liberally on one side, wipe it down well, flip and repeat! Hang your mat to dry for like 10 

minutes and you're done!

OUR HOME // living room progress

Back in July I painted half the living room white.  I was tired of the beige and wanted something fresh and crisp.  At the time, though I knew I wanted to paint my big wall something fun, so instead of taking the time to paint it white, I left it beige and proceeded to ruminate on what color I should paint it for months... and months.  I knew that I wanted something that would compliment the chartreuse in the kitchen because you see that wall through the doorway, so I didn't want a clashy color.  After some thought I ended up just going for another chalkboard wall.  After I painted that wall I realized that the majority of the walls in our house are black.  The exterior is black, living room wall, kitchen wall, most of the bedroom, and the wall in the bathroom is off-black.  I guess I just really like black walls.  I'm really in love with it though.  We also rearranged the living room a smidge.  I think I like

the other layout better

, but it's nice to switch things around and this is the layout we picked when we moved things around to fit our Christmas tree in the corner (where the black cabinet is now).  I'll probably move things around again in a couple months.

I took down the bunting that had been up for about a year.  I'd put it up for our housewarming party and just never took it down.  I loved it but I wanted to see what it looked like without it and I like it just fine.  It was fun, but I think it makes the room feel a bit taller without it.

One of my other favorite changes is the turquoise door.  When I painted the wall white, the door kind of just disappeared and it felt very stark and plain.  The other side of the door is orange, so I figured it needed an alter ego equally as bold.  We have quite a few turquoise elements in the room, and I love the color in general, so it was the perfect choice.  The nice thing about painting a door is that it's a super minimal investment (all you need is one or two coats, and you'll only need one of those tiny sample sizes from home depot, which is like 3 bucks I think), and it gives you a big impact.  

The wall next to the door always felt really empty to me, but it was an awkward place to hang any art, and when I found

these little diamond wall hangings

at Modcloth I knew they'd be just the thing to fill the space and add interest, while still keeping things light.  The cool thing about them is that you can snap them together to make them into full diamonds that you can hang or put on a table as a little sculpture piece.  I put up three halves on the wall and snapped one together to put on the table by the hanging plants.

Another favorite improvement is the plant life.  We used to have a palm in the corner where the hanging plants are now and I killed it.  I killed it dead.  When I found the macrame hangers at the thrift store I knew exactly where I wanted them to go, but I also knew it would involve keeping living plants alive.  So far so good!  I love how they fill up that corner and add height and dimension.  

I'm currently in the process of building a rolling island for our kitchen and it's going where this black cabinet used to be.  I figured moving the bar to the living room made plenty of sense and I love it against the black wall (though it was against a chalkboard wall in the kitchen too).

I tried to link to most everything, especially new elements, below, but I probably missed some stuff, so let me know if I didn't mention something and you want to know where it's from.  A lot of stuff is old or thrifted or handmade.

couch + pillows + side tables/ikea :: lamps + bar cabinet/target ::

phrenology container

+

diamond sculpture

-wall hangings/courtesy of

modcloth

:: coffee table/

diy

:: macrame plant hangers + chairs + globes + booze caddy/thrifted

we laugh at danger and break all the rules

Dan and I headed up to Seattle last night to go to the Against Me! show at the Neptune theater and I brought my camera along with my 90mm lens to sneak a few shots of the band before I hopped in the pit to scream my lungs out.  Against Me! is definitely the best live band I've ever seen, but I think I might be getting too old to rock out in the mosh pit, though, I woke up with pretty much every muscle in my body aching.   We got there a few minutes early and grabbed a couple drinks at the bar across the street.  I surprised Dan with VIP tickets that got us premier seating and special access to the bar, which ended up being super nice.  We sat next to some guys who were also from Tacoma, so it was fun chatting with them during the opening bands.   After the show we were wiped out and starving so we drove to Dicks and got two burgers, two fries, and a strawberry shake to revive ourselves for the drive home.  There's nothing like scarfing down fast food and unwinding after an awesome rock show.

the last great race

Growing up in Anchorage, the Iditarod was a big event every year.  We'd go downtown and watch the ceremonial start on 4th Ave, packed behind the fences cheering on mushers.  One year my dad's coworker mushed in the race and my Dad was a dog handler for his team so we got to hang out behind the scenes and went out to Willow for the restart.  When I was seven, my Dad and I had a hair-brained idea to serve the mushers espresso on the trail.  My parents had gotten into espresso in the mid-90s and bought an espresso machine to make coffee at home, and somehow we thought it would be fun to serve fancy espresso out on the most rugged of arctic races.  We picked Finger Lake as the checkpoint where we'd set up.  As the race progresses the mushers get more spread out, so picking a checkpoint early in the race meant that we'd get to offer all the mushers our services without having to be there for a week.  We had to have a clever "business" name (though we weren't charging any money to the mushers, and any tourists who wanted coffee paid on a donation basis), so we decided to call ourselves "Airborne Espresso" which was a riff of the air cargo airline, Airborne Express.  We thought it was pretty damn clever, but Airborne Express did not and forced us to change our name after the first year, so the subsequent years we went by "Idita-espresso."  Not quite as clever, but it did the job.

We flew out there to set up the day before mushers started arriving, pitched our tent, pulled all the espresso equipment and generator out of the plane, put up the table where we'd be slinging 'spro, and settled in for the night.  It'd frequently dip well below zero, so my dad had built an insulated box to surround the espresso machine so it could keep the water hot enough in the tank.  We lit up the kerosene stove in the tent and heated ourselves some beanie-weenies for dinner before settling in to sleep.  Depending on how fast the mushers were running some would get in to the checkpoint in the wee hours of the morning, so my Dad tracked the front runners and woke up early to catch the first mushers in.  I, on the other hand, have always been a night owl and a sleeper-in, so I usually missed the first few and dragged myself out of my sleeping bag much later.

After our first year, we learned that most mushers preferred hot chocolate, but were pretty flabbergasted at our offer of a vanilla latte or mocha.  Tourists, on the other hand, were huge fans of our fancy coffee, which was still a relatively new thing as the Starbucks craze hadn't quite taken hold just yet.  We were interviewed by the Anchorage Daily News and were on a few news stations.  Apparently a dad and daughter selling fancy espresso in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness wasn't too common.

We did this for a few years and it's still one of my favorite memories from childhood.  I was hoping to get out to Finger Lake again when I was up in Alaska for the Iditarod this year, but I wasn't able to swing it.  Maybe Dad and I can bring back Airborne Espresso now that Airborne Express doesn't exist anymore.  It sure would be fun to do it again, and there are still some mushers running that ran 20 years ago when we first started our crazy idita-espresso scheme.  And hey!  Now I can totally barista.  Back in the day I was on coffee delivery duty and my dad was the barista.  Maybe someday.






So many memories flashed back to me while shooting the teams whooshing past, through the trees.  I sat next to kids with dog booties clutched close, sacred treasures, watching teams go by and cheering on their favorite mushers.  They'd yell, "booties!" and the musher would toss a few booties their way, like candy from a parade float.  I realized that I still have my dog bootie treasures from when I was a kid, and I found them, squirreled away in storage, later that week.  Precious Iditarod memories forever preserved.  It was so special to see a whole new generation of kids experiencing the thrill of watching dog teams whizz by, a thousand miles to go.  Maybe someday I'll get to bring my kids to the Iditarod and they can start their own collection of dog booties.