Artful: Grand Tour Posters by Chungkong

My husband is a bicycle fiend.  Given his love for the cycling world, I’ve become much more attuned to anything bicycle related (whether it’s spotting new bike stores, coming across interesting cycling related articles, bike related clothing etc.).  When I discovered these absolutely amazing posters of the three Grand Tours designed by Vincent Vermeij aka Chungkong, I thought it was a perfect marriage of my love of graphic design (which my husband shares) and my husband’s love of bicycles.

I love the minimalist nature of the designs, and I think it’s so clever that the background color of each poster is the color of the leader’s jersey in the respective races.  These are stunning, and I would love to own them all (you can purchase them here).

I’ll wrap up this post with a few pictures of our bicycles.  I keep thinking about printing these photos to create our own, personal bike art.

Images: Joy Moody Photography (L), my photography(R)

Wish List: Living Space

Living in New York City has its many perks, but one thing that most of us just have to give up while living here is space.  It’s been over a year since our move to New York, and I still occasionally get hit with pangs of nostalgia for our old condo in Philly.  It was so perfect for us.  A few of my favorite photos of our place are featured below. You can check out an entire blog post on our old place here, and see our before and after over at The Eagle’s Nest (words don’t do it justice, but we’re talking a transformation from electric greens and pinks).

All condo photos by Joy Moody Photography

Suffice it to say, I spend a fair amount of time dreaming about what kind of home we will live in some day.  The specifics vary from day to day, but windows, light, and open space always seem to be a common theme for me.  Below are some current “house envy/inspiration” favorites.

Image sources: (1) Marcus Beach House by Bark, (2) San Diego House by Sebastian Mariscal Studio, (3 & 4) Portland Mid-century Modern House by Jessica Helgerson Interior Design, (5) East Village duplex loft by Pulltab Design

Snaps: Delray Beach, Florida

Here are some additional non-beach (the beach photos are here) highlights from our brief trip to Delray Beach, Florida. 

Eats (L to R): “s’mores” in a jar at Dada, interior at Burgerfi, NY style hot dog & burger at Burgerfi

Delray (L to R): shadowed sidewalk, on the grounds at Sundy House

Fauna on the Sundy House grounds (L to R)

Perfect Evening at Inwood Hill Park

We spent a really gorgeous Saturday evening walking around Inwood Hill Park with some good friends.  The park is incredibly beautiful, and can serve as a welcome escape from the crush of the city.  I loved these two pictures that Stephen took (using his iPhone) of our friends and me.  We couldn’t decide which one we liked better… the very dramatic silhouettes?  Or the one where more details are visible?

Floral Stylings: Scabiosa Stellata (aka Starflower Pincushions)

I was revisiting some of my Philly flower photos, and came across this bouquet, which is still one of my absolute favorites.  I purchased these at Seasons Flowers (211 Arch Street, Philadelphia), which was just around the corner from our place.  Dangerous for me, as the store was always stocked with beautiful cut flowers.

Sadly, I can’t remember the names of all of the components in the bouquet.  The one I can clearly recall is Scabiosa Stellata (this name stayed with me because I thought Scabiosa sounded so ugly).  I was intrigued by the prickly, spherical symmetry of these flowers.

I absolutely love the variegated leaves, and really wish I could remember what they are called (Does anyone know? For some reason I think the name has the word “snow” in it, or something wintry in feel.).  I actually remember choosing these leaves first because I thought they were so lovely.  And finally, I think that the white flowers are a variety of freesia (I'd love confirmation or correction on these too!).

Wish List: Runway Fashion via Pinterest

I admit to being a bit of a Pinterest junkie.  I love being able to collect my favorite images from around the web and have them in one place for my own enjoyment and inspiration.  So when I heard that Oscar de la Renta was going to "live Pin" their 2013 Bridal Collection, I thought that it was a cool and creative use of the Pinterest platform.  You can peruse all of the exquisitely crafted dresses and fun behind the scenes moments here.

Lovely lace (L & R) at Oscar de la Renta.

I realize it's been awhile since Fall 2012 Fashion Week here in New York and elsewhere, but I started thinking about which shows I would have enjoyed following via live Pins.  Tough to choose, but a couple favorites are showcased below.  These collections are out in the stratosphere for me, but still, it's fun to look and dream a bit...

Clockwise from top:

Theyskens' Theory: I loved Olivier Theyskens's work while he was at Rochas; pair him with Theory (which I also love) and it's close to dream fashion perfection for me.

Alice + Olivia: My sister introduced me to Alice + Olivia, and I've become a fan.  Their clothes are fun and vibrant.

See by Chloe: I've been liking this line more and more recently.  This red dress caught my eye with its relaxed, flowing, and yet clean shape. 

Ralph Lauren: Classic.  I think there's at least one piece from every one of his collections that makes my jaw drop.  From Fall 2012 RTW, I was drawn to this art deco feeling top.

Mercurial Delray Beach

We were recently in Delray Beach, Florida for our good friends’ wedding, and I have quite a few photos (iPhone and digital SLR) from the trip I will eventually post, but I couldn’t wait to share a few of my favorites from Delray Beach.   Luckily (or more accurately, thanks to the bride’s recommendation), our hotel was right by the beach, so we were able to spend some time there both before and after the wedding.  Whether the sea is perfectly flat and serenely calm, or roiling with powerful waves (just take a look at the difference in the photos in this post), the open water of the ocean never fails to be awe-inspiring.

On the second day we were at the beach, the dramatic contrast of the rolling surf and the amazing clouds in the sky was something to behold.  I ended up choosing more artistic filters for the Instagram photos from this day because they seemed to better fit the mood on the beach.  By contrast, the first set of Instagram photos (at the very beginning of the post) has no additional filters applied to them.  For some reason, the unprocessed images alone felt more “right” to me.

I’m amazed by the quality of the photos I can take with my iPhone 4S camera.  When the light is good, the phone can be a source of some stunning images.  The three below are my favorite iPhone only (no Instagram, no additional processing) photos from our walks on the beach.  The scale of the clouds in the first photo just takes my breath away.

Spring on Roosevelt Island

These photos are the Roosevelt Island counterparts to the Manhattan pictures I posted on Monday. Last year, we had just moved to Roosevelt Island in mid-March, and between adjusting to a new home and a new job, I feel as though I didn’t notice spring on the Island at all.  I'm happy to have taken more notice of it this time around.

The set of photos below happened to be a lovely accident. I was trying to capture the small bundle of flowers at the end of the branch, but the very windy day had other ideas. I have to say that I love the blurred images; they take me back to the exact moment I was trying (unsuccessfully) to work with the wind.

Just a shift in the branch positions here (also due to the wind), but there's something about the subtle changes in the shapes formed by the branch in the foreground and tree in the background that I really like, so I decided to post both images.

Ephemeral Spring

The same tree on E 68th St, one week apart.

So much of spring beauty is ephemeral, but somehow, the fleeting nature of this season seems exacerbated in New York.  I wonder if I feel this way because the abundance of delicate flowers is so at odds with the hard lines, skyscrapers, and concrete that dominate the city.  This year I felt as though all of the trees blossomed overnight, and I promised myself that I would get at least a few photos of New York City in full spring with my digital SLR.  So a few weekends ago, I took my camera around Manhattan and Roosevelt Island.  The photos here are a sampling of the images I captured on Manhattan Island.  I can't get over the amazing canopy created by the flowering trees in the last photo - perfection.

Microsoft Word is not a Blogger's Friend

My father-in-law brought to my attention that he noticed problems with the formatting of Dogear Press posts in Google Reader.  Although the posts would look normal if you were reading them directly from the blog, in Reader (and other RSS feeds, and also for e-mail subscribers) there would frequently be spaces missing between words so that random bits of text would be displayed "withnospace" rather than "with no space."

Thanks to some troubleshooting with my husband, we figured out the issue, which appears to be some incompatibility with Microsoft Word and the Blogger template.  I think I've fixed the problem, so hopefully those of you who use Google Reader or receive the posts by e-mail will no longer have to deal with this issue.  And if you notice any other issues with the blog, please let me know!  I appreciate the heads up.

Reading Weekend

From top: End of a lovely brunch at Ze Cafe, a snapshot of my "to read" list, some recent New Yorkers.

Ah, the weekend.  I’m excited because (A) I don’t have to stop by work on either day, and (B) we don’t have any set plans.  After a long, intense workweek there’s just something about the prospect of a stretch of 48 unplanned hours that is incredibly appealing.  Of course the reality is that a fair chunk of the weekend will be (or at least should be…) spent on cleaning the apartment and doing laundry, but right now I’m thinking about long, leisurely brunches, digging into one of the many unread books sitting on my bookshelf, or chipping away at my growing pile of New Yorkers.

The books shown here are:

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (a gift to myself)

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (A gift from a wonderful book loving friend; she also gave me Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which I truly enjoyed.)

The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard (another gift to myself)

On a fun note, I picked up The Fates Will Find Their Way when I attended a book reading at the wonderful BookCourt in Brooklyn.  The most exciting part was that I was there listening to my dear and very talented friend Keija Parssinen read from her debut novel, The Ruins of Us (which I highly recommend).

Furry (or in our household, “Flurby”) Friends

When we lived in Philadelphia, we were just down the street from an outpost of the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society, or PAWS  (As an aside, PAWS is an amazing organization, and if you’re in Philly and considering getting a pet, I highly recommend checking them out!).  I could never make the walk from the subway stop to our place without stopping to window shop at PAWS, and one fateful day we actually went in to visit with some of the many cats waiting to be adopted into a loving home.   

Believe it or not, at first we weren’t thinking about the two adorable furries that are in the pictures here.  Instead, a perfectly charming orange tabby by the name of Reggie enchanted us.  The impulsive part of me wanted to adopt him on the spot, but Stephen suggested that we give it 24 hours.  I was skeptical (Reggie was so friendly that I was sure he’d be snapped up soon), but agreed to wait.  The next day, we were back at PAWS, and Reggie had indeed been adopted, but I couldn’t be too sad about it, because it was on this second visit that we found our Riley and Ella.  Ella (the one with the dark grey patch across her face) was a little skittish back then, and wouldn’t sleep unless she was right next to Riley, and the staff at PAWS was hoping that the two would be adopted together.  The rest, as they say, is history.  So there you have it, we decided to be “responsible” and seriously consider whether we could be good owners to one cat, and then ended up adopting two instead.

Ella and Riley have been an endless source of amusement for us, and in many ways it’s difficult to remember life without them (although we do long for the days when cat hair was not a permanent part of our existence).  Both Stephen and I have taken a ridiculous number of photos of the “furry besties” (our iPhone photo libraries are quite telling), and the images here are some favorites taken with my digital SLR.

 

Snaps: Weekend in Washington DC

This past weekend we were down in the DC area for a good friend’s baby shower.  The shower itself was just lovely, and perfectly planned by the mom-to-be’s best friend.  It was wonderful to catch up with old friends, and the weekend served as a reminder for me to be better about keeping in touch with, and making time for, the people who are important to me.

Some highlights from the weekend: 

Traveling (L to R): my view in NYC before leaving for DC, arriving at Union Station, riding up one of the DC metro’s very long escalators. 

The stay with our gracious host (L to R): freshly baked bread for breakfast, a beautiful plant-filled nook in the apartment, cutie with a favorite toy.

Baby Shower (L to R): delicious cupcakes and lovely bookmark party favors, gorgeous yellow tulips, paper poms.