It’s true that most days we get junk and bills in the mail, but in the few day before our trip, we received a bounty of happy packages. My friend Tami, designer/owner at Ismodern, was generous as usual with her package of samples for the girls, including the elephant print dress that Claudine was wearing on day 2 of our trip which I love love love. But the best news of all? Tami is packing up her life in LA and relocating her family to NYC this summer, yay! I get asked many times what I dress the girls in. People! Head over to the Ismodern site now where Tami always has past seasons on sale and help her lighten her load for her cross-country move.

The other question I get asked a lot (actually the number 1 question) is about the camera that I use. I recently bought my first DSLR - a Canon t1i, which I’m still learning how to use. I debated for a long time between Canon and Nikon, but the decision to go with Canon suddenly became clear when I realized that an overwhelming number of photographers that I admire all used Canons. The answer then became quite easy. But as any photo enthusiast and professional can tell you, it’s all about the lenses and I knew I wanted the 50mm EF 1.4, which arrived and is pictured below. The danger of buying lenses, however, is that you want more and more. Not so easy when they are so expensive.

Two more packages - a Mark Jacobs dress marked way down on clearance. Not so sure about the loose cut and shape, but love the print. And we don’t buy other sweets very often because we are around it so much, but I WILL buy artisan, handmade chocolate bars from our friend Nina’s company BonBonBar. These were for Mark for Father’s Day. We are savoring and sharing 1 bar a day till they’re gone.

I think it’s some kind of rite of passage when a kid gets their first pair of converse sneakers. Saw these at the mall over the weekend and couldn’t pass them up. First, the gray M&M’s and then these super bright orange/pink stitching Converse with black laces. So freaking cool. Mia wasn’t too excited about them at the store as she was so distracted by the Crocs (what is with Crocs and kids??), but as soon as she put them on for school the next day, she jumped around the apartment when she saw how colorful they were on her feet.

Very rainy Friday today, but hopefully it will clear for the weekend. Got some fun plans tomorrow, stay tuned…

I’ve written about my love of Ismodern, the children’s clothing line designed by my friend Tami Nguyen Rael, and her enormous generosity (Mia’s flower girl dress was also an Ismodern design). Well, I just received another surprise of samples last night after placing an order for some dresses currently on sale to include in the girls’ Christmas presents (Ismodern has the best sales!). I adore the 2008 fall/winter line and once again, Tami has tucked in shirts, skirts and pants from her current season that will fit both girls. Thank you Tami, for helping to make the girls so fashionable (Mia was sooooo excited).

I am sorry. I’ve had computer troubles all week and have been to the Apple store and Tekserve more times than I would have liked the last few days (while having work deadlines, of course - what a freakin’ stressful week). Finally, I surrendered my computer (with a possibility that it will come back wiped clean) to have it serviced. I am especially calling out to the reader who emailed me recently who just opened her online store. I don’t have your email. Please email me back.

This little package arrived in the mail the other day - a numbers stamp set from etsy seller Karaku. I must confess that I’ve bought very little from other etsy sellers (not from want, but from budget), but I couldn’t resist this little boxed stamp set. It’s the last frivolous thing that I will probably buy for awhile - I am finally scared enough to put a lockdown on the spending, but don’t worry. We’re doing our part to stimulate the economy by buying supplies for the business, which still can put me into sticker shock some days.

Well, I didn’t expect such a crazy week when I wrote my post on Monday, freaking out about the economy in earnest for the first time. So where do we go from here? Just take it day to day, I suppose. I feel like everyone is walking on eggshells and waiting. And no. No, I will not peek at our piddly retirement and the kids’ college accounts. I will not.

I went shopping. It was a rare day spent looking at pretty things with a friend on a gorgeous, late summer day. We hit the Barneys Warehouse sale where I managed to escape with only $52 from my wallet (additional 40% off now), and as hard as I tried to find something really special, I came away with 2 basic shirts, one black and one brown. It’s both a relief and a disappointment since it’s almost like a missed opportunity to buy something you normally wouldn’t at a decent price (I’m looking at you Shii Ann and your tinman dress you bought today), but anything remotely interesting either didn’t come in my size or fit right (there’s some downright fugly designer clothes out there). My friend, however, did really well at the sale. I haven’t had such a good find since I found a Mayle dress there a few years ago, but on the other hand, I’ll probably wear these 2 shirts a lot more often than a fancy dress.

We next hit up the Intermix sample sale which started today and was a complete zoo. It felt like you were shopping at a club and the dressing area was just a mess of disorganized piles and piles discarded from previous try-ons. There is a tactic, when going to sample sales, where one can stand in the dressing area and pick up clothes that others have tried on and rejected. You find good stuff that way and we did do that for a while, but about half an hour in we got really hungry and I was getting tired of being in a dressing room full of other half naked woman so we left to go have lunch. On the way home, I made one more stop and bought a couple of shirts and sweaters for Mia (these are hers in the photo - got sucked into the whole “back to school” thing I guess). All in all, a nice way to spend the day. I hadn’t gone shopping with a girlfriend in ages and for a few hours, I almost remembered what life was like, pre-kids, when you had money to burn and all the time in the world to care about fashion.

We have a new chair in the house today. And the upholstery choice was a bit of a surprise to me. I mean it’s velvet, blue velvet. I never imagined that I’d bring a blue velvet chair into the apartment, but well, something about it spoke to me when I saw it at the store. I knew that I loved the shape of the chair, and I knew that it was time to replace our Nurseryworks Storytime Rocker with a new one. While we certainly have some good memories in that chair, the kids started treating it like a swing and an amusement park ride. Mia was especially upset to see it go, but hopefully the couple who bought it from us will enjoy it as much as we did. This new chair can only seat 1, unlike the rocker which sat 1 adult and 1 kid comfortably, but I don’t mind that only 1 person can sit in the chair at a time (meaning, why do the kids have to feel like they need to cling and climb on me all the time?).

So here it is in our living room. I’m not convinced that it goes all that well with the rest of our stuff and I thought I recalled it being darker and not so blue, or the legs not being such a reddish brown, but this might just be a case of needing some time to grow accustomed to the piece, as it was with almost every new piece of furniture in the house. I do, however, like that it’s dark and hopefully won’t be such a dirt magnet that our old rocker was (”Mia, noooooooo! Step away from the chair! Not before you wash that tomato sauce off your haaaaaands!). But guess what? I forgot that velvet can be a lint attractor (ugh!), so ask me in a week if I still like the chair.

… but this time I have given in. There are just too many good mid-summer sales right now! It’s dangerous to see just how easy it is to spend some cash once you start, after having been good about it for so long. I picked up these Matt Bernson sandals the other day at 40% off and I’m glad to have some options other than flip flops to wear, which is what’s usually on my feet during the summer (don’t look at my toes, I’m finally using my Mother’s Day Pedicure gift certificate tomorrow - my first pedicure in 5 years). I also picked up a few other good deals and suddenly, I feel like my wardrobe’s refreshed. Never mind that I’ve been rationalizing my happy purchases with the usual “oh, you’ve been working so hard, you deserve it” crap. I think I’ll just shove those thoughts under the bed.

Speaking of shopping, I recently discovered a shop that I immediately fell in love with called Utowa. I happened to stumble upon it on one of my days wandering around the city looking for flowers for the wedding cake (the store housed a eclectic trio of fashion, makeup and flowers). It’s not like it was off the beaten path - on the contrary, the shop was on 18th between 5th and 6th, a few doors down from City Bakery, but I had never noticed it before. I happened to be walking on the same street the other day and noticed that the store had a huge “Closing Sale” sign. So sad. What a short-lived newly found discovery.

We took the girls to the Chelsea Market today and bought a bounty of vegetables for real cheap. These beets were just 50 cents a pound. Since we’ve been eating so poorly, we decided to make a simple, healthy vegetable soup for dinner with some Rosemary bread we picked up at the little Farmer’s Market a block from our place. Not sure what we’ll do with the beets, but they were hard to pass up at that price…and look how beautiful they are - the colors!

Claudine and Mia loved running around the place and I hadn’t been back to the Market since I freelanced in-house at a firm in that building when I was 7 months pregnant with C. Some shops seemed to have changed hands, but we stopped by my favorite spot, the fish store and had sushi and lobster bisque. Mark and I can’t seem to catch our breath on all the work and orders that are coming in daily, so we’ve made it a point to take some time each day to spend together, all 4 of us. Can’t say that these moments are relaxing - the pair of them have become a terror together!