The Saturday Sunset: Like Pink & Blue Cotton Candy

A warm day in Los Angeles today gave way to this beautiful sunset. Hope you're having a lovely weekend...

Party Season in LA

Happy Friday everyone! What are you doing this weekend?

The Golden Globe are still a week away, but the parties are already starting. I love this time of year in Los Angeles. There's so much excitement during awards season. I'm going to a very interesting party on Sunday and will give you a full report on Monday!

xoxo

Achromatics

Such a dreamy photo by Lauren Treece (via her site, Achromatics.) I love that big yellow cat.

Black & White: The graphic designs of Anne Higgie

Off-kilter yet carefully symmetric, I love these illustrations by Anne Higgie...

They're like mysteries penned on art paper.  Especially this one:

Why do you suppose she's crying?

Winter Brightener: Marie Claire Maison Color

Which room do you like the best?

In the Pink

More iPhone photos. I should just build a shrine to Steve Jobs. Have you heard about the new Apple Tablet? It's like the Kindle, but a million times better, with wifi and color pictures. I'll never go shoe shopping again. I'll just spend all my money on Mac gadgets!

Happily Home...

Have you recovered from the madness of the holidays? I'm glad they're over. Now if only I could muster the motivation to take down the xmas tree...This morning, I finished reading Madame de Staël, by Francine du Plessix Gray. It was a wonderful little book about one of France's most charismatic Revolutionary figures, Germaine de Staël. Napoleon tried to exile her. But she always managed to slip back into Paris where she found new ways to torment the emperor, usually by writing books and pamphlets that mocked him. She hosted one of the most exclusive salons around, where intellectuals and artists met to discuss politics and culture. Think Arianna Huffington, but with petticoats.

Now I want to read every book I can find about her!  Hope you're having a lovely day! I'm suddenly on deadline on a story..will be back shortly. Xmas tree will have to wait till tomorrow...xoxo

The Road Ahead

Hello my dears, I'm just returning from a long weekend with family outside Sacramento! I hope you had a lovely New Years. I'll resume blogging tomorrow, once I get my act together. xoxo

Goodbye 2009, damn hard year

Well there's no sense in recapping all the rotten things that happened in 2009. I'm just glad to be looking at 2010...Thank you for reading my blog. You kept me going this year. Here's to a better year for everyone!!

PS: This lovely photo is by Persisting Stars.

The shoes I'd wear to the party...

Gold ballerina flats with gold grosgrain ribbons. (The rest of the outfit is over here!)  
Happy New Year!!

PS:  The photo above was taken with an iPhone and then polarized with the free desktop application,  Polardroid! Can you tell the difference??!

iPhone photos: Buttons & Beads

The sorts of things I collect and can never part with no matter how useless they are.

Where I am this week...

My dears, I wanted to tell you that I'm guest blogging this week at Daydream Lily! Please come visit. I just posted a really sweet Vimeo film featuring Peppermint magazine covergirl Rhiannon of Liebemarlene Vintage (that's her in the photo above).

Let me know what you think of the film!

This weekend I'm so....

....blissed from holiday loveliness.  Like this:

A camellia, plucked on a Christmas walk.

Finding a wonderful new blog, the Little Deer, featuring this beautiful photo of a girl in sunlit hallway filled with paintings, drawings and photographs...And this charm to fight the blues:

Saying goodbye to my friend Liss at Daydream Lily. I will miss her during the several weeks that she's traveling...

But I will think of her visiting this exotic and beautiful place.

I love holidays for the simple pleasure of listening to gorgeous music, like the harp masterpieces played by Catrin Finch...

A sample:  Aria Mit 30 Veränderungen ...

The perfect music to accompany an afternoon of reading. Yesterday, I re-read a few of my favorite stories in this book, Interesting Women...

Andrea Lee writes so beautifully: "We pause alongside the back garden wall, where the stone urns are full of yellowing geraniums. From here, on those rare clear blue days that sometimes descend on Turin without warning, one can see green slopes sweeping down to the city; streets and buildings and factories as if in a diorama; and beyond the Po, rising into the sunlight, the snowcapped wall of the Alps."

Love.

PS: I'm very proud to tell you that I took the top photo of the camellia with my iphone camera!

Xmas in LA

I went out searching today for an open coffee shop to get my afternoon latte. I happened upon this little alley garden. A few snapshots:

The camellias are already blooming, along with the last roses of the season...Hope you had a lovely holiday...

Happy Christmas!

Sending you warm holiday wishes! Thank you so much for visiting my blog this year. I started English Muse in November 2008, but I didn't really start blogging on it until Christmas week last year. So, I guess it's my blog's first birthday, as well. I'm sending you all virtual hugs for helping me through one of the hardest years of my life. May 2010 be a year of wonderful new beginnings! luv u.

Photo above from the Cherry Blossom Girl's Christmas in Paris set.