Poh-KEH-toe

I'd like to get into sharing favorite shopping websites -and eventually other sites- that I love and get really excited about.  I think these will be posts that show my energy and, because its shopping, may likely spark interest. 
So, I found a really great shop site that I've been >swooning< over all morning.  Poketo! Their mission statement is 'art for your everyday', which means it has a lot of the uniquely interesting/artsy/functional lifestyle products that I love.  And its somewhat affordable, which I wouldn't bother loving if it wasn't.
Some of my favorite finds:

 Polka dots and stripes! Navy and white! Shark-bite hem!

 Great colors in a unique shape... Haven't tried the dolman or batwing style shape, but I'm think it would go along well with my new 'I'm a mom now' aesthetic.

 This is one of those belts that could make its way up from cotton braided skinny belt = 'fun accessory' to 'necessary basic', which would then justify its purchase possibly be aquired.  This belt was shown with the top above as a waist-cincher, with the tail of the belt tucked and hanging down -so cute.

 This dress is just cute. And colorful. And fun. Ok, yes I would wear it!

 These are those summer scarves that are so light and pretty done perfectly and affordably.  They have a couple different styles.  I would love to do this with a white tank and simple, dressy shorts or jean shorts with flat sandals.

 This bag is what first clinched this site as 'awesome'.  Perfect size and pocket details for functionality: cell phone & keys in the front, a book inside (which for me means a large book -and not just one- plus whatever other crap I feel a need to carry around), a crossbody strap and cute colors and stitching details make it adorable and cool.  The coral is great, but I think I want the blue one. Guaranteed I'll be lusting after this bag for weeks.

Guatamalan, 'ethically'(?) handmade 'Chi Chi' necklaces in red, orange and blue.  They come in hued strands of three and I definitely want the blue one.  I would so rock this.

Thanks Poketo!

These type of stores make me think that maybe I could have a shop, probably an online shop (but wouldn't it be great to have a real shop somewhere like Smithville?!) where I could 'curate' a range of different products that I love and want to endorse. Hmm... ways to shake my moneymaker.

Sunglasses

I give a lot of credit to these bloggers who do a lot of beautiful, sensible, easy to follow and fun to look at product collages, because they are not easy.

Getting a good pair of sunglasses has been on my mind lately, and for a while I sure I would pull the trigger on a pair of pricey, 'real deal' Ray Bans, after I finally decided on tortiose (1) rather than classic black (2).  But as I continue to put away savings for that epic day when I will sign for a better home for KB, I have decided that the cute $10 jobbies I found at Marshall's will more than do. 
But I can look right? Just a little torture of shopping lust will keep me motivated right?
I love the shape of the new wayfarer, and this (3) faded blue style with faded lenses even is just. Awesome.
Which brings me to the 'clubhouse' style which, if I win the lottery and classic basics are accounted for, these funky white ones (4) from anthropologie are adorable.
Here's (5) an inexpensive stand-in from kohls for my tortoise-shell fetish, and these pink floral guys (6) I saw and tried on, and even though I thought they were adorable and they were on sale for $10, I didn't get them.  I remember thinking, I have my basic, that's all I need, I would rather be $10 richer. Only I haven't stopped thinking about them.

Daytrip Shades - Anthropologie.com, $28
Sunglasses, $17
Sunglasses, $12
Ray-Ban ray ban shades, $170
Amazon.com: Ray-Ban RB2132 New Wayfarer Sunglasses: Shoes, $90
Amazon.com: Ray-Ban RB2132 New Wayfarer Sunglasses: Shoes, $90

Beginner's Sun Salutation Pictorial

Kurt's out of percocets.  The bottle in his car is empty and I didn't see any anywhere else.
...so what happens now?  I plan on studying his withdrawal.  And staying calm, remembering that he has an illness and it is not my responsibility to get him to stop eating pills (or to stop being a pothead). As I said in the email to my brother (who I really should call) "It Is What It Is." 

That being said, I'm putting together my favorite 'beginner's sun salutation guide' from MBV, my homegirl.

 Right now, I'm doing what I think must be the ultimate beginner's version, which is: go straight from plank to your belly on an exhale, then to modified cobra with the next inhale.

I truly love yoga, and I'm so grateful to have taken that beginner's class last year and to have the chance to do the classes that I can now.  'Develop a Home Practice' is high on the list of things to do.  A lot of the other things I would like to do/accomplish hinge on the sense of self and calm that yoga helps me with.

images via Chi blog, and 'Chi blog favorite' goes to Margaret Burns Vap (aka my homegirl)

I hear a MBV blog post calling from the distance... {hello!..}. {{hello!}}

Little Table

I followed a link from A Cup of Jo and landed in another land -filled with inspiring pictures and unintelligible language.  I am fascinated by this little tablespace, and my question is: what goes on here?  Being the inhabitor of tiny spaces while trying to raise a family, this photo is saturated with a believable-ness that I love.  An oddly tiny table with three seats around it, showing a breakfast set-up?! I would love to have an informal loungey breakfast here with someone and I can picture Karabear and myself here hunched over homework or maybe some sort of craft project.
And my second question is: what language is this? I'm going to guess dutch... and moving 'learn another language' up on my to-do list. 

Familiens samtalekøkken

er knap 10 m², men Rie Elise Larsen insisterer trods dets beskedne størrelse på at kalde det et samtalekøkken. Det er nemlig altid her, gæsterne står, når parret laver mad, og det er også tit her, hele familien ender med at sidde til måltiderne. En Ikea-taburet er malet knaldorange, mens den blå taburet med pude er fra Grønlykke. Tehætte og papirlampeskærm er fra Rie Elise Larsens egen kollektion.

Wishlist: Marais shoes

Shoes | Marais USA (clipped to Polyvore.com)
I have no idea how this picutre got here, I just meant to clip this picture to the website, but I'm not unhappy that it is.  Wow, I have a lot to learn. Thank goodness for practice.  I've been eyeing these up for a while, ever since somebody -can't remember who right now, but probably one of my trifecta favorites- had Marais espadrilles -also jonesing for- on her blog a couple months ago.  Love these: the bows, the cap toe, the perfect go-with-everything neutral combo, the mary-jane buckle, the dressy flatness.  I'm wondering how they fit and look on and how difficult returns are in case of an unfortunate disaster, i.e. they don't look nearly as cute as they do in pictures.

K and I took the day off yesterday to go with Kara's daycare to Storybook Land.  Worth it I believe, hanging out with her friends outside of daycare is big with Kara, and she had a lot of fun, running around hand in hand with her 'bestie' Ana, seeing a lot of her other friends (spent most of the day with Ana and Sydney, but we also hung out with Joey and saw Rory and Jack, Sarai, and Addie, showing off her idependence -these are the kind of childhood memories I want to help create.  And K and I had fun seeing Kara so happy, spending extra quality time with her and meeting and hanging out with Ana's parents.  K -little social butterfly that he is- actually got Vitali's, Ana's father, number and talked about having a dinner date together.  Which makes me nervous, especially since I do really like them.  K seems like a nice interesting fellow at first, but when you get the full-K experience you find he is riddled with negativity.  Something I don't want to inflict on other people, especially people we don't know and especially good, intelligent, family minded people.  But I'll go along with this -in the interest of developing positive experiences if not more 'evidence' that we need to separate because of him-, my knuckles white from gripping the seat.
Btw, I have more percocet pictures that I'm not sure how to put up.  Mr. Wonderful has quite a collection of pill bottles and doesn't seem very interested in hiding them. I guess they'll just go here.  For safekeeping.
Speaking of wild rides, I went on the 'Twirling Turtle' rides -Ana's idea- and felt nauseous the rest of the day. I like that I can push through things like that for the greater good.

These I found Monday morning:

 

Blog Love and Sisters and Cousins

Rounding up my blog favorites, which are almost always found by linking from a blog I love and visit everyday.  The current and original trifecta is:
Stephmodo where, ahem, practical meets pretty.  Cannot remember how I found this lovely woman, but probably looking for recipes.  She has a way of presenting practical (no really!) necessary information in a sweet, excitable friendly way.  I don't feel as 'guilty' checking in here.
Simple Lovely Found through a link on Steph's blog (ha! like I know her or something!).  This one is not as practical minded (not that any of them really are for me) but I love the pictures, the voice and personal feel and I especially admire her 'Operation Simplicity' resolution.

This picture is from her most recent blog (today) and here is the 'perfect sunny day hat' (or possibly a nicer, more expensive version of the hat) that I saw in Target weeks ago for $15 that I wish I had now.  I actually saved this image as 'tagethatthatgotaway'.  Hmph.
A Cup of Jo I recently realized that Oh Happy Day is the same woman, so.  This was found from a link on Simple Lovley and I was wondering why Jordan was not on Steph's blog.  And why does Steph seem not to be on anyone else's blog?  Then I realized that Oh Happy Day was on Steph's blog.  I gossip nuttily within myself.  I just want in the popularity ring. 
Continuing the weirdo vein, I plan on researching these people's resumes and other projects. I believe I have only glimpsed at the possibilities of success to be had in the realm of blogging/writing. These women are giddily inspiring.

Goals for the Week

I've been caught up all morning in the 'internets', pinteresting, catching up on my favorite blogs, blog surfing, online window shopping.  My shoulders are a little achy and I'm a little skittery about all the things I haven't done yet today and all the things I want to blog about (i.e. getting organized as a blog topic and it's tough to blog without being organized.) and get my mind clear about what needs to be done.

Really like Woody Allen movies.  After seeing this pic on one of my favorite Jordan Ferney blogs, I realized that Uncle Dave, who I decided a while ago deserves a Dad's day card from now on, has quite a bit of Woody Allen in him.  On the to-do list goes, planning out Father's Day.  I like to let people know they're appreciated, specifically Steve and Uncle Dave -enter built in national holiday- and I don't want to let anyone down, specifically Kurt and my Dad, but that's really about them being the two over-sensitive types on the Dad's day list.  My Dad has been helpful monetarily the last two family get-together's we've had, including helping pay a great portion of the restaurant bill for the going-away party for Lisa that I masterminded, which I really appreciated since I know he's not exactly job-stable lately and I know things are hard for him in that way -but when I thanked him he did make a point to say, "Well. Don't forget it." So. Dad will get a nice card and his dinner paid for.  Kurt already hinted at needing new work boots and hair trimmers. So. Yeah. And, Kurt and I had a conversation this weekend where he tried to say he didn't want to spend his father's day out with my family.  Similar to how I didn't particularly want to spend my mother's day out with his friends at a bar, or with his mom at his sister's in the morning, or even with my family at mexican restaurant.  But. I did. So.  He will, and hopefully I won't hear anything else(unwarranted bitching and complaining) about it.

Speaking of Woody Allen, there's a line in Sliding Doors (one of my favorite movies, oddly enough) where gp says to her insecure-lying-jerk-moron-in-a-panic boyfriend, "Allright! There's no need to get all Woody Allen about it!' On the list, undone from last week's list is: watch a movie at work.  (Piecemeal if need be.)

Next on the to-do list is purging and putting in some time towards organizing my picture files, especially here at work.  Things need to be easier to find and browse through if I'm ever going to get to that 'real blog'.

And speaking of  'real blog' I need to learn how to credit images.  Should be simple enough and needs to be done.  I have my own ideas about what needs to be -known- before blogging, but a general look-up would be helpful in giving me confidence to just take the plunge.

Next on the list, reappearing weekly to no avail, is to POST TO CRAIGSLIST. sheesh.

Last for now is to quickly get K's percocet bottle collection off my phone.  Scary.

Have lunch, talk with Steve. ( The email.)