San Diego

It feels as though an age has passed since I last made a post.

Life has been a blur. Busy work weeks sliding into one another, the rush of a schedule-packed day colliding with the quietly blissful weekends. 

Winter has come and gone along the west coast, with just a few weeks of 40 to 50 degree mornings. Now the days are brilliantly sunny and warm, the few deciduous trees are in bloom, and bare legs are back in style.

It may be February in California but the gods of summer have not relinquished their hold on this sunshine state. 

To celebrate a brief reprieve in a few very busy, sickness suffering, and lonely weeks Justin and I took a day trip to San Diego. We are about and hour and a half from this lovely city and I thought I would share the fabulous and brief taste we got to experience.

I feel like I have transported across continents. It used to be Justin and I took day trips from Louisville to Nashville or Cincinnati to get a taste of something different. Now our day trips take us from the endless hustle and traffic of Los Angeles to the gorgeously lush and characterful streets of San Diego.

We started our day in Little Italy, where we lunched at the chic and funky restaurant Ironside. 

We had fully anticipated dining on authentic Italian flavor, but the facade of Ironside was too appealing to pass it by. The exterior is distressed wood with succulents draped from rustic planters. Inside, scenes from the Great Gatsby flick through your mind as the mint and marble bar, mirrored tables, art deco lamps, and brass mermaids wave at you from across the room. It was fabulous. Craft cocktails, buttery lobster rolls, and the bright fresh flavors of seviche offered a schmorgesborg of flavor to the tastebuds. It was so delicious Justin and I briefly debated if we would return there for dinner as well. 

After lunch, already feeling as though the trip had delivered, we walked the steep hills of the city to Balboa Park. 

Balboa Park is an oasis of flora, architectural delights, culture, and history in southern California. It is more than 1400 acres of greenery housing 15 museums, gardens, and the world-famous San Diego Zoo. Just walking through the Spanish-Renaissance inspired archways made me feel as though I stepped into a different era. Justin and I ambled past hundreds of rose bushes, giant tree-like cacti, and into the cool interior of the botanical gardens. Jazz musicians and street artists alike entertained and serenaded pedestrians and tourists.

Justin and I arrived too late in the day to do justice a trip to the San Diego Zoo, but we did visit the San Diego Museum of Art. It has been entirely too long since I visited an art museum. Walking through the expertly lit and pristine hallways sent me back to memories of Musee D'Orsay and the Louvre. I studied studio art in undergrad and have a deep abiding love affair with a variety of French, Dutch, and Italian painters.

With our eyes and hearts full, Justin I wandered through the urban landscape down to waterfront park to watch the sun begin to set into the harbor. We watched little children chase kites through the green lawns and a couple pose in wedding attire by sparking fountains. 

We did have the flavor of Italy for dinner, sipping wine over pasta dishes and sipping foamy cappuccinos before gearing up for the drive back to LA. LA doesn't quite feel like home; it is too chaotic and wild a beast to be familiar so soon. But it was nice to roll onto our street and see the little blue house and all my flowers waving cheerily upon our return. 

Today I planted my very first vegetable garden. I have been eagerly anticipating this day since we first moved into our house. It is tiny but I hope to grow a variety of herbs, peppers, jalapeños, tomatoes, squash, onions, and zucchini. I will keep you posted on the progress!

In other news, I have been a sewing machine. I am thinking about doing a blog post that features like 8 dresses in quick succession. Stay tuned folks.

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Solvang, CA

Rain, rain.

You cannot finish the rhyme and say "Go away" because at long last California is getting some much needed hydration. This past week has been unusually gloomy, cloudy, and brisk. 

It is like fall has hit Southern California. 

The few deciduous trees have lost their orange and gold leaves to the wind and rain and now lie scattered along the wet pavement. When you gaze down the street from my house, the mountains to the north gleam white with snow. 

California, you are so damn pretty. 

During the past few weeks Justin has been flying quite a bit. I must admit I am tired of 5-day trips. In the mornings I wake up to the cold and quiet floors, the gentle burble of the coffee-maker the only sound permeating the quiet solitude. Fog drapes around the orange trees in the backyard, muffling the sounds from the street.

When Justin got home from his latest trip, he came home with a plan. When I got off work that evening, we would hop in the car and drive two hours north to the tiny Dutch settlement of Solvang. Just past Santa Barbara and the Los Padres Forest, Solvang sits among virgin blue skies and slopping hills hung with the orderly rows of vineyards.

The literal meaning of Solvang is "sunny fields." It is a wine-maker's paradise and the town offers a wide variety of local vineyards for sampling, an abundance of food, and charming architectural delights. We arrived well after dark to our hotel which hosted a roaring fire and got to experience the hushed town glittering in twinkle lights.

The following morning we breakfasted on hardboiled eggs, English muffins, sausage, and hot coffee before wandering around the town. What had appeared so tiny and quiet to us the night before hummed with energy as the locals hurried about tossing open the cottage doors of their shops. We couldn't help ourselves, we had to stop in for a second breakfast at Mortensen's Bakery: a danish inspired bakery run by two sisters that has sat in that spot for 40 years. 

You just cannot say no to raspberry cream danishes and foamy cappuccinos. 

Solvang is the sort of place that doesn't need an agenda or schedule. It is quiet hamlet, made for strolling along brick-laid streets, snapping pics of windmills, and gazing dreamily at the profusion of flowers and trailing ivy. We indulged ourselves, popping in and out of eclectic shops hosting items from Native American art and rugs, clogs, coo coo clocks, Turkish bowls, jewelry, and, of course, wine. 

Around noon Justin and I dropped by Sevtap, a local winery's shop, for a wine tasting. I have never been to such a wonderful wine tasting. The owner's amazing wife, Tamara, poured delicious portions of their various wines and chatted with us for well over an hour. I felt like I was meeting a character from a Nora Robert's novel. Beautiful and engaging, she regaled us with the tale of how her Turkish husband went from deep sea driving in the Gulf to working in New Orleans restaurants where he discovered a love of food and wine. From there he moved to California and drove Jeep tours of wineries so that he could meet and learn from all the local vintners and viticulturists. She laughed as she told us how his journey of careers led him to the making of wine and to her. Sigh.

Along the edge of town sits Old Mission Santa Ines. Renown for their rose gardens, it is a restful place to explore and partake of the local history. It makes an interesting dichotomy, this Spanish-influenced parish abutting the buildings from Danish folklore.

Justin was sweet enough to capture a few pics of me in my yellow rose maxi dress. While he was away I kept busy with projects, painting a nightstand for our bedroom and sewing away at this sucker. It is made of floaty polyester with a light sheen and dotted with a tiny floral print. It has pin tucking along the front and back bodice, three gathered layers on the shirt, buttons from chest to mid-thigh, and a stretchy elastic waist-band. I love it. When I walk it billows around my legs, the front slit teasing up to my knees. 

We completed our day by driving into Santa Barbara on the way back to Los Angeles. You really cannot get more epic than America's Riviera. Justin and I watched the sun set from Stearn's Harbor, turning the white-washed buildings and mountains a stunning pink before dying into the water. We listened to street musicians and dined on pasta while being snubbed by locals at Ca' Dario. 

We loved the pretty restful vibes of Santa Barbara and bemoaned the fact that you couldn't rent a house for less than $3,500 a month. We enjoy Los Angeles but it is bit of a mad house. Justin said last night the city is ridden hard and hung up wet. He's not wrong. 

Right now, though, it is where we call home.

Striped Skater Dress

Pygmy palms.

As I write this I am gazing out my front window at the delicate waving fronds of my latest horticultural adoption. I have spent the last few days outdoors exercising my green thumb on the front and back flowerbeds.

I feel a bit like Mary Lennox from The Secret Garden; tugging at the weeds clustered around my various flower bushes to let them breathe. I know next to nothing about gardening and can only hope that the little sprouts I am pulling are actual weeds. Justin and I are caretakers to a little blue California bungalow whose land houses deep purple bougainvillea, roses, cacti, flowering trees, and apple, orange, lime, and grapefruit trees. It should feel like a tiny oasis but for the hideous drought. Residents can water outside only twice a week and lots of home owners are trading in the lush tropical landscapes for drought-resistent plant life.

Regardless, I am determined to nest.

Therefore, I found myself this past Sunday, topknot askew, digging feverishly in the front flowerbed to make room for new cacti and my beloved pygmy palm. My lovely neighbor, who has kindly been educating me on floral care, has given me bulbs to grow Aztec lilies and pink amaryllis. I have even attempted to propagate the giant cactus I brought with me from Kentucky.

This is all a lead-in to say that despite the early December date, the never-ending summer in California has not given up. The evenings may be dipping into temperatures in the high forties but the days remain sunny and 75.

In the mountains outside LA, there is a different story brewing. Justin and I drove to the San Gabriel mountains a few weeks ago and the air was crisp with the bite of winter. Clouds of mist appeared each time you drew a breath and the ground was hard with the promise of frost. In fact, shortly after driving back to sea-level we checked the weather and found it has snowed in the area we had just visited.

Combined, this made my dress of choice a bit unwise.

I made this skater dress out of cheap navy and white striped jersey cotton. It has a slight turtleneck, 3/4 length sleeves and enough stretch to be forgiving. It was a simple, 3-hour project and I absolutely love it. 

Yeah, yeah, the dress is cute, but, dude, that landscape! Its hella gorgeous in the mountains. All barren rock, succulents, and withered trees. I can't wait till it really snows and I get to see all that majesty covered in glittering white. 

I love this simple dress and plan to pair it with chunky sweaters or a denim jacket as the weather gets cooler. I have lots of other fabulous projects waiting to be photographed, and many that are just in the dreaming stages. I can only hope my gardening is as prolific as my sewing. I will keep you posted.

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