Book Review: Inspiring Biographies*

As I stated on Monday, I have been meaning to blog about all the books I've read this summer for ages. Today I am going to tackle a topic that I don't read too often: Non-Fiction Biographies.

This summer I read three great biographies (I use the word biography loosely) that have quite the range, but I'd HIGHLY recommend all of them:

Up first, the oldest (aka 2 years ago), the saddest and the most inspiring: The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.

You may have seen the YouTube Last Lecture on this guy, and the book is his follow up legacy to his kids. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, this Man had such an AMAZING outlook on life and really did live a great life. I'll admit- this one made me cry on the bus- yes, I am that hormonal pregnant women crying on the City Bus- but it's a quick fast inspiring read.

Up next, Katie Couric's The Best Advice I Ever Got.

This is a collection of stories from famous people, with chapter updates by Ms. Couric herself. Why I love it- well, I love all the different perspectives from successful people in a variety of fields (although, there are more media folks than any other field). I also love Katie Couric, and how she honestly states that being a female anchor in an all male world was/is hard. She admits mistakes, recognizes luck, and talks about a lot of hard work. (NYTimes Article)

Anyone who needs a little career inspiration should read this book.

Finally, the laugh out loud funny- Bossypants by Tina Fey.

Dude, she rocks, and this book is hilarious. Super fun and easy read. I heart Tina Fey. She's hilarious and yet down to earth all at the same time. And seriously, how can you NOT love her as Sarah Palin. (NY Times Review)

By the way, I got all three of these from my local library. Library's ROCK. Just sayin.

Have you been to your local library lately?

Have you been inspired lately?

*Yikes, I suck at spelling- thank you to the Nicest reader ever who corrected my spelling of biographies.

Yes, yes, we love it!!

I've decided that this week is going to be dedicated to posts that I always want to write, but never do. I am trying to get things off my check list before Baby Berry comes and I disappear into parenthood.

Last year, I posted about two pretty major purchases that we made, but I never followed up on them to let you know how/if we liked them.

I can honestly say- yes, yes, we LOVE Them.

First up, last April we made the life changing (yes, life changing) purchase of a foam Buongiorno Magniflex Mattress.

This was a bit of a splurge, but SO freakin worth it. We used to toss and turn, and were often hot at night, but now, Mr. Spice is asleep in minutes (I've always been a quick sleeper but now he is faster than me) and we rarely have a too hot for the covers nights.

We love having a foam mattress and constantly talk about how much we love our bed. I kinda, sort of wish we would have splurged on a King mattress, but then we would have had to get a whole new bed and sheets, etc. The Queen really is just fine for us, but now that the dog is super clingy and demands to sleep in the bed; I am getting larger; and I also demand to sleep with a body pillow- it feels smaller, but surprisingly, we all still fit.

I 100% support a purchase of any Magniflex.

Next up, let's talk about our Minnow that I wrote about in April 2010. AKA our Subaru Impreza 2.5i Wagon.

We traded both our cars, which both had over 100,000 miles on them, for this brand new beauty. So this little car had a long list of wants and needs:

1. Small enough to fit in City parking spaces, but big enough to hold purchases from an Ikea run.

2. Better gas mileage than our old cars, and surprisingly really good for an AWD car- about 28 mpg combined City and HWY miles. (Although the new Subaru's get even better gas mileage, and a Prius gets even better).

Check out our impressive 63mpg we got as we flew down the Grapevine on our way home from LA (no, this is not standard and only lasted about 15 miles):

3. AWD: after a bad winter and getting in a snow storm while getting out of LA (yes, I said snow storm and LA in the same sentence), I love knowing that we have AWD. I was also in a spin out 6 years ago in my non-AWD, mini-SUV and still remember the terror from that accident, and the $1,000 I spent to get my bummer fixed.

4. We upgraded and got a Nav system- which has saved our marriage.

5. Our new Nav system also has a great stereo that hooks up to our ipod and we can stream pandora for long road trips.

6. Big enough to hold two car seats- And yes, even though I find the back seat kinda small, our 2.5yo nephew and his car seat fit in perfectly:

7. I do wish we could have gotten leather, But when we bought it, we had the car professionally cleaned and scotchgarded, and we currently have no stains on the seats. Despite Huck's best attempts after a fun day at the beach:

Seriously, look at how happy that dog is??

In conclusion, we love our Minnow. We bought new because of the super low interest rates and we knew we'd be piling on the miles (Mr. Spice drives 90 miles per day). And yes, we park our NEW car on the streets of SF, which I am totally fine with because I think someone would most likely break into the new BMWs and Lexus' that are also parked on the street before breaking into our Subaru. I also told Mr. Spice that we can save the $300/month for a parking space and just get new bumpers when we move out of the City.

Only twice in the last year and a half have we ever needed two cars at once- so yes, we are a VERY successfully a one car family. I am a bit worried that I won't have access to a car during my maternity leave, but we have access to a zip car across the street, and it's faster to walk to our hospital than drive and park.

So in conclusion, as Mr. Spice likes to say, "We are now Subaru for life people." Seriously, they are great cars, at a great price. I already have my eye on the new style Forester to be my "carpool-car" in a few years.

What purchases have you made in the last year that you can say, 'yes yes, we love it!"

Six Word Memoir

I've been following a lovely blog by four sisters called, Notes She Wrote. Each day one of the sister's writes a post. It feels like a family message board that we all get to read.

Yesterday, the youngest posted about her most recent English Class Assignment:

Write a Six Word Memoir.

I love this idea. I guess mine is less of a memoir and more of where I am at in life.

Here goes:

Blessed, loved, and growing a family.

When deciding between blessed and lucky, I googled the definition of blessed, here's what caught my eye: 4. blissfully happy or contented.

Sure I want a house, more money, a different job, yada, yada, yada, but really--

Thanks to this guy:

I am blissfully happy and content.

Ahhhhh, Happy Friday.

I challenge you to do a six word memoir. Go...

Hanging Around

How is it already Thursday!!? Yay, the weekend is almost here, and boo, so much work to do and so little time.

Basically, I am still dreaming over here, and checking out the Viva Terra Sale isn't helping. Check out these awesome hanging lights...

Well, at least I think they are pretty awesome, and since they are all on sale- totally doable:

If only I had a house to hang them in....

I am not usually a Moroccan style girl, but who can resist this collection from $149 to $419.

I really like the open bottom one, maybe go crazy and do copper for $169:

This one might be even better, as it is made from recycled glass and only $159:

This is totally industrial/schoolhouse/farmhouse chic and only $169:

Don't the bulbs remind you of beakers from science class? This look might just be DIY-able.

And check it out in action:

I'll take the chairs too.

This lovely is so pretty and the small is only $279.

Some day.....

How's your Thursday hanging?

Planning Moving Forward

I love planning for things.

I love turning wishes, dreams, hopes, and desires into reality.

This year is a big year for all those hopes and dreams.

We have a baby girl coming.

But remember back in January- another wish and dream of mine- owning a house.

Well, that day hasn't come, yet. But the planning stage to buy a house is moving forward.

We even spent part of our labor day weekend looking at houses with a Realtor. Since Harvest is coming up, and I will lose Mr. Spice for a couple months to grapes, crush, and weather emergencies, I took advantage of our free weekend and we spent it dreaming.

Of course, I now can't stop thinking about one house in particular. It backs up to a huge park that Huck and Baby Berry would love- for years and years.

It needs some work- aka all three bathrooms need remodels. But the kitchen has good bones to become my dream farmhouse kitchen.

In fact, I've been thinking about how our new dining chairs would work with the 'farmhouse' style kitchen. And of course, Apartment Therapy just posted this:

It's our new kitchen chairs with the perfect farmhouse dining table that would totally be perfect.

It fits right in with my wishes, dreams, and hopes of our first house that backs up to a huge park that our baby girl would love...

As you can tell, my head is in the clouds, but our planning is moving forward!! Sorry, had to share.

Did you do any dreaming this weekend?

Dining Madness

Finally, it's time to show off our dining nook. It's such a small space, but for some reason it has taken me forever to get it all squared away.

Here's what I started with 2 years ago- I think this might have been taken on move in day. A $40 hand me down table and chairs:

And after the great purge of Spring 2011, I sold that table and chairs and moved our desk into the nook:

But for months, we had no chairs. Except for the chair in the back corner- which will make an appearance later.

For our anniversary, Mr. Spice bought me an eco-friendly eucalyptus bench at Cost Plus (romantic, no??). Yet, I couldn't bring myself to spend $40 on one of their cheap feeling seat cushions, so I bought some foam ($20 with a Joann's discount code- foam is expensive, yo) and some fabric at Ikea (which I also used for our couch pillows).

Here she is:

The small pillow is a previous project, I have no idea where I got the fabric or why for that matter. And just so you know, the curtain is also Ikea and from our previous house.

Next, I took some birthday money and splurged ($269) on two recycled metal chairs from Viva Terra (looks like they aren't really on sale any more).

Love these practical metal beauties.

You've already seen this sidewalk beauty revamp:

And to cap it off, I spent another $4 on spray paint and went to town on the one chair we had hiding in the corner. This was my very sad desk chair that I bought in 2003 for Grad School, and what I like to call now- my Color Splash!

I will say that I did not primer this chair, so I/Mr. Spice used an entire can of spray paint on this one chair and it still needs a bit more in some areas.

And before I show off the entire space, here's a look at my 'wedding montage' that I finished a few years ago. If you don't remember (I don't know why you would), I bought and used this frame for our wedding to display the name cards:

Now on display in our kitchen from top to bottom, and left to right: our engagement invite, an engagement pic, our welcome note cards, our RSVP, Wedding Invite, and Save the Date, the ribbon from my wedding bouquet, our signs on our chocolate treats (Save the earth- it's the only planet with chocolate), our rehearsal dinner invite, and a list of all the cupcakes we tasted from Miette).

I love that this one frame holds so many memories.

Ok, without further ado, the whole 6-foot by 4-foot dining nook:

Seating for 6. And yes, we have sat 6 in this small area. I hope to whip up a table runner soon, but really all I am whipping up these days is a baby, so we'll see when that happens.

Overall, we spent just over $400 on all the seating, which isn't so bad, and all of the chairs can (and will be used) in the future when we have a real dining area. Hopefully, we can one day upgrade the table from a desk when we actually have a dining room.

Oh, and since the desk is on wheels, we can easily slide it all in the corner when we aren't using the area:

Until then, do you have a dining nook? Dining room? Eat in Kitchen?

Sidewalk Chair Revamp

Before I show you all the fantastic details of our dining nook, I decided that my Sidewalk Chair Revamp needed an individual post.

In an effort to free up some room for Baby Berry in the bedroom, I needed to find a new place for this side-walk beauty to live (yes, I found this on the streets of SF 5 years ago and love it):

So I moved it into the dining area, but it needed an update. I broke out my no-VOC primer and white paint and went to work.

After a coat of primer and two coats of paint- I just couldn't get the paint brush in the nooks and crannys- and it looked really uneven. So, I went and bought some Rustoleum spray paint (a la Young House Love and Bower Power); made Mr. Spice bring me home a mask from work; and went back to work.

Actually, the smell was pretty bad even with the mask, so I supervised from a distance while Mr. Spice sprayed. I think it was his first official DIY project!

I also went through all my old fabrics looking for something that would go with our green-ish kitchen colors, as seen here. Luckily, I had the perfect thing.

Without further ado, here she is:

Total project cost, $4 for the spray paint. Pretty awesome. No?

Have you ever picked up something off the street?