j'adore paris...

gosh, i love this new typeface by Moshik Nadav Typography.

put a burt on it...

My dear friend, Colette is a buyer for the store Essentials.  Essentials is fun, whimsical, and chock full of handpicked things from every price point.  You can get 10 gift tags for 95 cents or a custom couch for $4000. 

It's kind of a love or hate place, it seems.  I personally adore it.  I worked there for three years while going to school and figuring things out and still shop there.  But there are the haters.  People like to walk in and say "None of this stuff is 'essential!'" as if they're the first person in the 25 year history of the store to think that.  People who like to rag on the place seem to dislike the aesthetic, or prefer to think of themselves as too hip for it. 

Recently, Colette told me that two young women came in and joked... "This store is SO put a bird on it!" of course, referring to the genius Portlandia sketch.  Granted, there are a lot of items with birds on them in the store.  But who doesn't love a bird on something?  Also, who doesn't love Portlandia? 

disclaimer: 
I thought everything in this sketch looked better once a bird was applied

So much makes that sketch brilliantly funny, but most certainly because it's true.  People who tend to like to craft birds on otherwise banal items to achieve a particular look are rarely ever in close proximity to the birds they so often like to stencil or embroider on things. I personally blame (love) etsy.

Yesterday, I went in the store and behind the front counter on a memo board with notes and fun drawings by the staff were stickers with Burt Reynolds head:

Put a Burt on it.

It was kind of in response to obnoxious 20-somethings, kind of a poke at the store, and just funny.  All local stores should have great style and a sense of humor about them.  Makes spending money there so much more fun. 

bed, bed, i couldn't go to bed...

If Eliza Doolittle had a bed like these, she most certainly would have gotten over that 'orrible 'enry 'iggins so much more quickly and just gone the heck to bed
without all that prancing about.

Francois-Xavier Lalanne bed

Francois-Xavier Lalanne bed in Life Magazine

available on etsy

cloud bed by m&m kloker

good news...

So after eating better, cutting down on coffee, and taking better care of myself overall... the inflammation in my eyes has gotten better.  Seeing that, and how my body is reacting to chemotherapy, immune suppressants, and steroids; my doctor is taking me off of all of them.  This will be temporary, and the possibility of regular ocular steroid injections and anti-glaucoma drops are in my future... i'm absolutely thrilled.  The idea is to get my body strong and fit again.  

So right now, my diet is:

• As many veggies and fruits i can get into my body.  Summer makes that a joy.
• Lots of protein and whole grains... eating meat occasionally.
• Tons of water.
• Tea, not coffee (except on the weekends)
• A daily multi-vitamin, 2400 mg of folic acid and anti-inflammatory supplement Zyflamend

Once everything clears out of my system, I'm hoping to have  the energy to start working out and bike riding ASAP.  Here's to hoping it's all keeping the inflammation at bay.  I'll find out next week.  If not, nothing a little needle in the eye can't fix, right?  Anything besides chemo.

drink lots of water

kusmi tea makes coffee look cheap & undesirable

summer abundance

... and the perfect snack

for the love of the machine

shifting

Alexander McQueen hair shirt...
not quite a cilice, but much easier on the eye.

So, a couple of weeks ago i was taken off of the mild chemotherapy i had been on for over a year to start a new drug that's less aggressive on healthy tissue but just as aggressive on the chronic inflammation causing my blindness.  The good news?  No more traveling 2 hours to be hooked up to an IV for three hours for now.  The bad news?  The new drug is taken twice a day, on an empty stomach.  Did i mention i'm on steroids?  Others on steroids are well aware, it's hard to find a time of day when your stomach is empty.  Steroids are kind of like having a hungry, angry baby in your belly; and that baby wants you to eat all the time (preferably something containing milkfat).  If you don't, it will fill your veins with it's cranky baby quake.  God, i hate that baby. 

Things I have noticed since starting the new drug:

• I was loosing hair on chemo.  A lot of it.  One couldn't tell, because i have enough hair to make a hair shirt for each Catholic who thought about eating meat on Friday.  Now that i'm not on it anymore... it's like wearing a wool cap all the time. 
• I rarely have an empty stomach, so i have to set a timer to remind me when i do.  
• Grazing may be a problem.  Perhaps i need a hair shirt to remind me not to graze.
• I can easily be okay with most anything that's unsavory:  books not in alphabetical order, rainy days, taking handfuls of pills twice a day.  But, i have yet to be able to enjoy the chain of regimented times to do things.  Like, you can't do this if you've done this, this, and this.  Or, more specifically... I can't take my meds in the morning for another two hours because i accidentally licked my finger when making my daughter's peanut butter & strawberry toast.  (note: make hair shirt)
• Iced coffee is caffeinated just like real coffee.  Despite it's sweet, delicious, ice cream-like demeanor, it's a red hot devil with cubes at 6:30pm.
• Without my amazing friends and family... i would be even more of a hot mess than i am now. 

for those really stressful moments...

there's always two bulldogs in swings: