This Lovely...Healdsburg Life

Greetings from the oh-so-lovely California Wine Country! This is absolutely one of my favorite places on earth for the natural beauty, the food & wine culture & most of all because it's home. It is a well documented fact that I love Austin, Texas & for this time in my life, it's a great place to be. But I will always feel a pull to the rolling golden hills of Northern California.

This time, we are in town to celebrate the milestone birthday of a dear friend. We are staying at the stylish (clean lines, gorgeous light, Public Bikes) Hotel Healdsburg. I can highly recommend both the hotel & the town of Healdsburg.

For eats, we hit Campo Fina, Oakville Grocery, Dry Creek Kitchen & Barndiva. The standout wineries were Jordan & Lambert Bridge. My favorite moments were riding bikes on the plaza, the picnic lunch at Lambert Bridge & the big tray of breakfast delivered to me in bed by sweet Scott each morning.

Thank you for breakfast in bed, honey!

Don't mind if I do ;)

Jordan Winery. I'm pretty sure I need to move in

Our wheels for the weekend

Grocery Shopping in Austin

I love grocery shopping. It is my favorite ever errand & much too enjoyable to even call an errand unless, rather than a solo outing, one or both of my children have managed to stow away & join me. Even shopping with the kids in tow is actually getting really fun these days. E is a champion cart pusher & Lila, like her mama, likes to read labels.

Austin is a great grocery town. I am working on a Whole Foods/Central Market comparative analysis (bar graphs! Venn diagrams!) Plus, my beloved Trader Joes is opening in Rollingwood in a hot minute. Of course there are farmers markets everywhere & even HEB beats the average grocery store in my former hometown.

Check out this story from Thrillist about the new Mueller HEB. It looks awesome enough to warrant a drive across town to check it out.

How about you? Do you enjoy grocery shopping? To me, a cart full of fresh, healthy foods is a cart full of inspiration & promise.

Beautiful cherries at a market in Paris

A Lovely Birthday

Happy Friday!  Today the kids & I are swimming with friends & tonight we got a group heading out to Benji's Cantina for dinner & then on to the Plain White T's  at The Belmont. I'm sure to be a cheap date after the juice cleanse :)

And since it's my birthday, I might reread this memoir about growing older.

Have a lovely weekend!

Juiceland Cleanse

I picked up a few key phrases in France. Je voudrais une baguette, Je voudrais un verre de vouvray, Je voudrais un petit dessert. Loosely translated: I want, I want, I want...delicious things.

It's one of the best parts of vacation, discovering that joie de vie, relaxing the standards we set for ourselves in real life. It's lovely. And when we come home, it feels good to get back to our healthy habits. This part,this readjusting to real life, has been a bit challenging for me this time around & it's time to clean things up a bit. So...

It's time for a Juiceland Cleanse. Austin has it's share of great places for juice. I love Juiceland (www.juicelandaustin.com) because of this amazing concoction called the Ninja Bachelor Party. I crave it. Seriously Amazing. Sadly, the Ninja Bachelor Party is not a part of the "Level Two" cleanse, but I am looking forward to trying some new juices. Since I'm doing 3 days this time, the cleanse will be all wrapped up in time for my birthday on Friday. Cheers!

Chenonceau

I'm three posts in to an Austin-centric blog & here I am posting about...France. I can't help myself. Our family is just back from two lovely weeks in France & the trip was just as lovely as can be.

On the design front, the big winner of the trip was the chateau  Chenonceau. There was such a beautiful simplicity to it's design, especially when compared to other more ornate, castle-like chateaus. Chenonceau is known for being one of the first chateaus designed with pleasing aesthetics in mind, instead of protection. It was built for  Diane de Poitiers the king's mistress, who was later booted out by the king's wife, Catherine de Medici. The feminine influence is apparent here, this is no hunting lodge. The gallery, pictured below was so lovely & has inspired some ideas for my someday dining room re-do (stay tuned.)

My Deep Eddy Summer

I would love to say that my Deep Eddy summer is all about being active with the family & cooling off in the lovely Deep Eddy swimming pool. If you can carve out some time to do that this summer, I highly recommend it. If you are like me, though, & traveling/working/parenting, you might only have that luxury a time or two this summer. If that's case, you can still call this your Deep Eddy Summer by indulging in the out-of-this- world Deep Eddy Grapefruit Vodka. Lots of ice, your favorite tonic (make mine Fever Tree!) a squeeze of lime & there you have it. Your Deep Eddy Summer.

*this post was not brought to you by Deep Eddy Vodka, but if you're reading, D.E.V. I would joyfully accept your sponsorship :)

The Lovely Josephine House

 

Josephine House Restaurant is the little Clarksville cottage of my dreams. I particularly love the white horizontal paneling, white marble, great lightning (will need to see if I can find out their source) & navy-ish exterior. I've almost never met a french door I didn't love & the fresh flowers were elegant yet undone enough to feel at home in Austin. While I (obviously) love the aesthetic, what I loved the most was my server's response to my beverage indecisiveness. When I asked, "Is it too early for a Paloma?" he responded "Noon?! On a Thursday?! No way!" 

I met my client & new friend, Lisa, for lunch & catching up time. She has only just moved to Austin & our family is just back from a blissful two weeks in France (more on that later), so we had lots to talk about. Josephine House is a great place for that type of lunch.

So nevermind that it was 11:40am on a Wednesday, that Paloma was delicious.