The invitation tins with our fancy letterpress coasters.
And the chipotle flake salt inside the tins - perfect for the rim of a margarita glass!
The invitations all tied up and ready to go. The dining room was wedding central for a few days. A few of the invitations got an orange ribbon just to mix it up!

The invitations had little tags courtesy of MooCards with the wedding details and website URL printed on them. There is a variety of images - all photos we took during our San Miguel trip!

Val and Tony came over with some yummy spinach pies (and some non-vegetarian items) that everyone enjoyed. Jackie brought her new man, Matt - who hit it off with Thom immediately. Hannah, Tung and Kalisha rounded out the group.

We had a great time hanging out in the backyard with a not-quite-necessary fire. And we're looking forward to many fires out there in the coming weeks. (Thom took that last photo being sneaky on the deck.)

We got up early Saturday morning to run errands and prepare for our little dinner party. I made use of our basil bush for some fresh pesto (which became white bean pesto bruschetta) and made the mushroom lasagna that lures Jackie to Brooklyn every time.

Thom sliced all those mushrooms himself.

Today we visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for the Chile Pepper Fiesta. Perhaps not the most sane move after a night of drinking. But it was one of those special New York days with crisp, clean air and the Botanic Garden was the perfect place to be.

While there we picked up a "Christmas Chile" pepper plant of our own. We'll see how it does in our house.

i couldn't agree more

with every word that comes out of this woman's fingertips. In fact, the major highlight of my holiday season last year was Thom bringing home a set of their hand soaps. He loves me.

finally

Susan Kniffin Davidson has more work up in her Etsy store.

We're still a bit away from our next tile project (the kitchen and downstairs bathroom) but if only I could sneak one of these suckers in... Probably not good for resale. And I'm lucky Thom let's me keep Susan's baby head cup in the house at all.

But Susan did let me know that she will have more cups in her store around Xmas time. And our baby needs a friend.

if we weren't crazy and going to mexico...

I have a short list of things that I wish we could do in Mexico for the wedding. But we just can't. Well, technically we could if we had money just burning a hole in our pockets. Unfortunately it's more like we're collecting piles of change and hoping that when we cash it in right before the wedding it will cover our non-existent honeymoon.

But, if we were getting married in New York... We'd definitely have a cake display like this:


Although perhaps I could settle for a setup like this at the shower. Ahem.

From Jordan Ferney's wedding via Brooklyn Bride

too bad this doesn't come in Thom-size. And, of course, he serves as current tech support. Actually, nevermind. He definitely wouldn't find this humorous at all.

via swiss miss

if we can't be in germany - this is second best

This Saturday we're taking advantage of the still warm (ok, friggin' muggy) weather to have a dinner party in the backyard. My mouth is watering just thinking of the menu...

So if you're in Brooklyn this Saturday stop by.

and they're out!

We woke up at the crack of dawn last Saturday and trooped out to the post office. And thank goodness we did because I got first dibs at the self-service machine and then hogged it for an hour and a half to individually weigh each invitation. That's right people - in addition to the serious love it took to put together each invitation they were manually processed by me!

Mark that down as another backup job opportunity - postal worker.

Everyone should have received their invitations by now. So far only two people didn't realize there was salt in the container. Hee hee.

A week ago - right before I got sick (feeling better now) - I was drinking butterscotch martinis while Tony was feeding the chiminea with found table legs.

I'm going to paint everything white - and you can't stop me!

it's been hectic around here lately. plus i'm sick. and i'm the worst kind of sick person around.

but still i worry about not posting to the blog regularly. which i don't know why considering 2 people read it.

so i thought i'd share a picture of our first crisp, fall saturday lunch of the year - a mutt o' maya tofu dog from willie's dawgs. and while the food was so-so (blame it on the tofu!) the place does love dogs. jasper even got his own "day-old dog."

adopt the sky

why didn't i think of it first? so simple.

via swissmiss

one of my favorite people in the world happens to have a dog that rivals Jasper in cuteness -




and he is particularly well dressed so I wasn't surprised that he was part of this cool new clothing line. I'll be getting one of these:




because i do. live that life. can't you tell?

toiling away

This weekend I painstakingly put together all the wedding invitations. I was going to put up some pictures of the process - with my bruised fingers - but you'll just have to wait until you get yours!

Lots of other exciting wedding preparations are also underway too. I really can't wait!

Correction - I forgot to mention that Mr. Jon Kartt was an dutiful helper when putting together the invitations. Thanks, Jon :)

malcolm gladwell approves? i'm there.

the coolest thing i've seen in a while. and it's true - joe lies when he cries.

via mighty goods

Wedding invitations nearly ready to go out. What? A little early you say? If we didn't send out our invitations a full 7 months before the wedding it just wouldn't be me, now would it?

Usually a rare commodity in our house - which thankfully isn't that difficult for me to hoarde thanks to Thom not really liking them - we've enjoyed piles of blackberries this summer!

This weekend was the infamous West Indian Parade in Crown Heights. Our whole neighborhood goes insane with music, food and fabulous outfits. The main parade is on Eastern Parkway on Monday. These pictures are actually of the junior parade that took place on our street Saturday morning.

sigh

Just visiting the chair at Room & Board.

lucy liu

We had a lovely brunch today with our friends Chris and Frances and their new baby boy, Michael. To make our Labor Day Weekend Sunday even better - Lucy Liu and her chocolate labs were there too! That's her in the back of the picture a little fuzzy. And she spoke to us. Well...to the baby. But still.

one last summer friday