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    breaking bad “walteritas”

    if you watch breaking bad – then you know it’s coming back on sunday. what better way to watch the premiere than with celebratory themed drinks!?

    hank loves making margaritas and walt jr. vomited from drinking tequila so it seemed like the natural choice.

    margarita … walter … WALTERita?! yes. it’s stupid in a good way right?

    BREAKING BAD “WALTERITA”
    adapted from chow.com’s perfect margarita

    + INGREDIENTS

    1 1/2 ounces blanco 100% agave tequila
    1/2 ounce cointreau
    1 ounce freshly squeeze lime juice
    kosher salt for rimming glasses
    blue food coloring
    blue rock candy for garnish (you can find for $1 at any candy store)

    + DIRECTIONS

    01. first make and freeze the blue crystal meth ice. fill a small baking sheet with water and stir in a few drops of your food coloring. leave in freezer for a couple of hours.

    02. dye the salt by putting two drops of the food coloring into a spoon and mixing it around in your shallow bowl full of salt until you’re happy with the color.

    03. using a lime or a damp paper towel, wet the rims of the glasses and dip into the salt.

    04. when the ice is fully frozen, take a knife and smash it up into pieces.

    05. with the glass full of ice, pour tequila, lime juice, and cointreau; and stir a few times until chilled. add more ice after pouring for the full crystal meth effect. i did NOT food color the drink, the second it was stirred it turned this blue.

    06. garnish with rock candy.  i also happened to have blue straws that i cut down to fit. serve with chicken or funyons.

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    tarpon springs, florida

    we had a really fun week in florida.

    it’s SUPER HOT THERE. and i am now covered in bug bites. i mean covered. i read online that if you press a hot spoon onto the bug bite, it relieves the itch, so i spent the week pressing spoons onto my legs.

    we went to the beach for about 30 minutes on our first day, until we were kicked off the beach because of thunderstorms. the ocean was HOT and shallow.

    we took a ride on my uncles boat.

    and of course, visited my lovely grandmother who has finally stopped dying her hair.

    my grandma lives in a nursing home down there. fortunately they do a good job of keeping them active and entertained. they had an elvis impersonator during one of our visits, which was… fun for those of us who knew what was going on.

    i wasn’t familiar with tarpon springs (my aunt lives there), but it’s like a little greek island because it has the highest greek population in the country. they came from greece and started a sponge diving industry so there are countless greek restaurants and shops and bakeries. it turned out to be really cool there … honestly, wasn’t expecting that but i highly recommend if you’re nearby stopping in for a day or two.

    + IN TARPON SPRINGS
    we had dinner at rusty bellies, with this amazing view of the sunset and had oysters as big as my hand and super yummy hush puppies and po’ boys.
    hella’s bakery had tons of delicious greek desserts
    gyros and spanakopita for lunch at dimitri’s on the water 
    there were also a ton of good antique and gift shops full of sponges

    we then headed to orlando for the last two days. on our way there, we went to an airboat tour around the swamps to see gators. it was amazing.

    we ended up going to universal studios instead of disneyworld. they had simpsons land. we had to go see.

    we drank beers and had krusty burgers at moe’s tavern. it was so peak. but spending a day at a crowded theme park standing in ridiculous lines in orlando is a little hot. like A LOT HOT. we cooled off in the steam for a while.

    we also hit up a cheapo amusement park called the fun spot with zero lines. it was super fun as the name and carousel says.

  • almost makes mixtape ⋅ vol. 2

    we just got back from florida and are finally done traveling for the summer – pretty happy to settle back into the day to day. i’ll post photos tomorrow of our trip, but for now listen to the last summer mix … september is coming fast, right?

  • payday wishlist

    wood, enamelware and stripes. pretty much the perfect kitchen combo in my mind.

    we saw the pepper grinder at a little kitchen store in france, and gideons been complaining about ours, so i bought it for his birthday online. and it’s gorgeous and wonderful.

    pepper grinder | measuring spoons | cutting board | dutch oven | dish towel | serving board

  • h&m home is online!

    i didn’t realize it was happening so soon – but H&M home in the US is online now! and they have online shopping for clothing finally. oh man, i am about to go crazy.

  • going to florida

    boy it seems like i’ve been traveling a lot this summer – i’m on hiatus from work for a month so we decided to go visit my grandma in florida. today i’m heading to tampa to visit her with my sister, dad and boyfriend and then we’re hitting up disney world before we leave!!

    + i really like disneyland. REALLY LIKE IT. i can’t wait for the world version.

    backpack / lip balm / sunglasses / sneakers / sunblock (my fave) / hair elastic

  • our birthday week. yes i said week.

    gideon and i share a birthday week, so while i dread the constant celebrating prior to it happening, the entire week of birthday is actually pretty fun. i’m on hiatus from work right now so we had nothing to do but party.

    on my birthday, we went to my favorite spot figaro bistrot where most of the food is just … fine, but i’ve been going since i was a kid and love it. we had croissants (which are the closest to french ones in my opinion) and huge cafes.

    we then spent the day finishing orange is the new black. if you haven’t watched it yet – it’s amazing. watch it right now! then we went to the movies to see the conjuring (meh) and had oysters and dinner at another favorite, the hungry cat. we tried something new there – the lamb and clams. omg good.

    next we celebrated with my family at my moms house for dinner and had a great cake from lark bakery.

    any cat lady would be ecstatic to have their cats being in the spotlight, a friend of a friend is starting up a cat photography business so he came over to shoot ours. i was loving it.

    oh bodhi. his face makes me so happy.

    for gideon’s birthday we went to dave and busters and drank beer and played a ton of games.

    we then cooked for our weekend picnic. i made pasta salad and he made cole slaw.

    unfortunately – i was way too busy having a blast during our picnic to remember to take photos. there was a TON of food. i wish you could see it.

    we played wiffle ball and charades and ate and drank and didn’t go home until 830pm. we didn’t even pack up until the sprinklers went off and everyone had to run.

    oh – and we went to a wedding at the la arboretum and saw a million peacocks up close.

    + BTW thank you for the birthday comments last week. i had a really hard time responding to them because they were so thoughtful. they really meant a lot to me.

  • pinning pink

    i just noticed that i’ve been pinning a whole LOT of pink lately. is this a summer thing?

    [ all images are on my pinterest ]

  • pinning pink

    i just noticed that i’ve been pinning a whole LOT of pink lately. is this a summer thing?

    [ all images are on my pinterest ]

  • diy washi taped decorative doors

    buzzfeed asked me to contribute a DIY using washi tape last week – and coming up with something that hasn’t been done before was a little challenging. we have three huge white closet doors in our bedroom that are just … there. so i decided to tape up a decorative border on the doors to jazz ’em up.

    the regal hotel look is not really my style, so i’m back and forth on whether or not i want to keep the tape up, but they really did add a lot to the closet doors and were super easy to do.

    DIY WASHI TAPED DECORATIVE DOORS 

    + SUPPLIES

    two rolls of washi tape
    an xacto with a sharp blade
    measuring tape or yardstick
    scissors

    STEP ONE measure the first door you’ll be taping. if you have three doors like me, do the middle first so that you can base the other doors designs off of it. using painters tape or a pencil, figure out where you want the design on the door. we went with about 3.5″ from the edge.

    STEP TWO start taping! because our floors aren’t even, exact measurements look wrong, so these were done by essentially eyeballing them. do your long lines first, step back and see if they look straight, then tape the corners off and step back. the washi tape was perfect for this because i was able to un-tape the lines multiple times and they kept sticking just fine. just make sure not to press down your tape hard onto the door until you’re happy with each line.

    STEP THREE overlap your corner pieces, i personally liked the look of the corners overlapping in the finished project, so if you want to keep those, gently trace around the edges using the xacto blade and carefully peel off the remaining tape. if you don’t want to overlap the edges, just cut the edge above the other side.

    STEP FOUR once the edges are done and you’ve triple checked that the lines look straight enough, rub all the tape down with your hand to get it really stuck to the door.

    STEP FIVE do the other doors, stepping back often to make sure they’re lined up with the middle.

    i can’t tell – does it look like our bedroom is a hotel now?

    + GO SEE THE DIY ON BUZZFEED