a happy saturday

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

-mr. kerouac

the wish tree

Not too recently, we went to dinner at a cool little restaurant in los angeles, daikokuya. walking through Little Tokyo, we stumbled upon a tree covered in little ribbons. in sort of the same vein as the Pont des Arts in Paris, the small tree had ribbons tied on almost every branch and each ribbon had a different wish written on it. we had to stop and read a few, because it was so interesting and charming. i don't know what i would write on mine though...

it would probably be some combination of the bottom two. flying and more books? sign me up! 

what would you write on yours?

-katie

paris in the springtime.

because i save absolutely everything, i have quite the collection of souvenirs from trips i've taken. i've made it a recent goal to start putting them to use. since Paris is my favorite city in the entire world, (so far!) i decided to start putting those souvenirs to use first.

I've made a huge shadow box for my living room that now houses some of my favorite memories of my time Paris. one of my favorite nights of my life took place in the art district, montmartre, and started with drinking wine from baby bottles at the refuge des fondues and ended with watching the sparkly eiffel tower and singing songs from moulin rouge outside the historic Le Chat Noir.

You can see because i'm kind of a hoarder, i was able to include my boarding pass from paris to london, subway tickets, tickets for the louvre and eiffel tower tour, a card from our hotel, even my notes with our  travel itinerary and plane hangman games.

i'm glad my pack rat tendencies have come in useful, and made such a great showcase and reminder of my awesome april in paris. 

 -katie

wednesday inspiration

i'm ready for spring break. lately i've found myself drooling over pictures on pinterest and daydreaming about my upcoming journey back to the caribbean. anyone else need a vacation? I figured we could all use a bit of random inspiration on this gratuitous leap day. as the saying goes, real life is for march.

-katie

"so give me your hand and let's jump out the window." 

-the shins

{images via pinterest}

saint valentines day!

i don't know if i could pick a favorite holiday but st. valentine's day is definitely top 3! i really enjoyed making and handing out valentines day cards when i was in elementary school and even though i'm 25 years old now i still enjoy the tradition. tonight, we celebrated "Gal-entines Day" (see Parks & Recreation) and i had an arts and crafts session to make my valentines for this year!  hopefully my recipients enjoy them as much as i do! :) 

-katie

a noisy but tasty valentine treat

kappa dessert

one of my favorite christmas presents this year was my very own ice cream maker! perusing one of the best stores ever, Williams-Sonoma, i found a mint chocolate chip ice cream starter kit and decided i needed to make kappa dessert! it basically turned out to be the best things i've ever made. it's really simple and awesome and now kappa dessert is readily available without the inconvenience of having the kappa chef move into my apartment with me.

-katie

a pink ice cream maker! 

Kappa Dessert

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Crumbled Oreos mixed in the ice cream and on top

to the sea

"for whatever we lose [like a you or a me]

it's always ourselves we find in the sea"

-ee cummings, 95 poems

Heading to the beach today, and i thought this was a fitting line. i think this photo I took with Diana of Libby and Ashley accompanies it quite nicely. if you'd like, you can see some of my other shots here. 

i hope you have a nice little sunday!

-katie