Momcation 2012: The Ace Hotel Palm Springs

Recently I got to take a trip to Palm Springs.My friend was getting married, then he wasn't. And he didn't.  It's a long story. But my girlfriend and I already had our flight arrangements and, well, it just couldn't be prevented. Oh, darn. Must take trip to lovely city and stay at amazing hotel (puts back of hand to forehead and swoons). While we were there, we talked about our friend and his unfortunate marriage outcome, and yes, we mourned for him. How better to mourn than in the massive jacuzzi, right? I kid. It sucked to keep thinking about how my friend must have been feeling.

Here's the cuteness that is the Ace hotel

And here's where we played a Scrabble game we picked up at the Angel View Thrift Store till the wee hours of the evening (for us moms that's 10 p.m.)

We ate virtually every meal here at the Kings Highway, because, um, the food ROCKED! It was a-ma-zing. And the vegetarian options were plentiful.

We didn't ride these complementary bikes, but our excuse was that it was 100 degrees the whole time we were there. We did make it to the complementary yoga session, though.

Did I mention the food? Mmmm chilaquiles and coffee. Yes, please.

If you're headed to Palm Springs, you must check out the Ace. When I have a minute, I'll also be posting more about the cutest little Palm Springs road trip, Idyllwild.

Now, where to go on our next momcation?

Saying goodbye to summer

I've been in denial. It can't really be the end of summer, can it? It seems like it just started. I only went to 43 garage sales. I only went swimming 3 times (!!!). I only took the kids to one amusement park. Only went mini golfing twice. It can't possibly be over. Oh, but it is. Luckily, I do love fall, cuz here it comes.

The icy water of Lake Michigan

 

Flip flop tan

Digging it

Looking for shells

Our "fort"

Happy end of summer everyone!

Save the world: at the thrift store

Last night I got sucked in to the documentary about No Impact Man, the guy from New York who tried to live for one year making the smallest environmental impact he and his family possibly could. At the time, a lot of people basically poked fun at how he and his family could go with out essentials like toilet paper. One of the components of his "experiment" was to not buy anything new. As I watched, I thought about how shopping at the thrift store (or garage sale, estate sale, etc.) instead of the "regular" store can help us all make a smaller environmental impact.

Here are my ideas for how an average person make a smaller environmental impact without having to go without toilet paper:

Buy cloth napkins and stop buying paper ones

These ones I found on Esty are cute. We only use paper for parties, so we have about 20 - 30 cloth napkins for our family of 4 (so we don't have to do laundry all the time).

Get some great kids toys that are washable and have lots of life left

These building blocks are a great example. They are cleanable, cute, and at least with my little ones are sure to get years of play.

Dishes

When I worked at the thrift store in high school (name is opposite of Badwill), dishes that didn't get purchased after a certain amount of time ended up in the trash. Broken, filling up landfills. It's really hearbreaking to see all those dishes get trashed when I know people go out every day and buy brand new stuff at Crate and Barrel or wherever. Why? The thrifty stuff has character, is cheaper, and works just as well.

Books, books, and more books

Okay, so you probably won't (although you may) find the latest bestseller at the thrift store, you can find tons of great books -- cookbooks, fiction, kid's books, gardening, etc. -- at the thrift store for cheap. The library is great, too, but if you find books at the thrift store you can always see if your library wants them (or your friends/coworkers) when you're done. Or, donate them to an organization who needs them.

Clothes, duh

I buy almost all of my clothes secondhand. I can't tell you how many expensive brand-name items I've picked up this way. Banana Republic, Dansko, J Crew, you name it. I also find great kid's clothes with fancy brand names like Hannah Anderson, too. If you can't get out and about, I was just introduced to ThredUp.com, which is an online kid's consignment store. Kids often outgrow stuff before they wear it out, so this is a genius way to trade your kid's old stuff for some "new" stuff that fits. There is an adult version (or lots of them) called SwapStyle.com, but it is truly a swap (rather than a buy/sell deal) so for me I would rather just hit the thrift store than deal with it.

What else could you get from a thrift store, and thus avoid buying new? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Our shop is overflowing!

And it's about to get even fuller. We've been picking up some great stuff this summer but have been too busy to list a lot of it. I'm telling you, LOTS of cool stuff is coming up. We have stockpiles of Christmas holiday vintage goodies that we haven't even sorted through yet. So as fall gets into full swing, expect lots of new stuff arriving daily at the vintage stuff shop.

Hope you had a wonderful summer and a great Labor Day weekend!

Collecting from the natural world

In case it isn't readily apparent, I'm a near-hoarder. A collector. One foot in the "that's neat" world and one foot in the "she might have a borderline illness" world. No disrespect to those who actually suffer from this affliction -- I think I'm safely within my boundaries as I can still shower, find clean clothes to wear, and I know where both children and dogs are at most times.

However, I do pick things up. On the side of the road (awesome kid's play kitchen), out of a ditch (toy plane), out of someone's dumpster (okay, that was my husband and that was good stuff he found), and out in nature.

Kids love to collect stuff. I got each of my kids a flat, plastic bait box from Cabella's with the little compartments. We pick up shells, acorns, feathers, pretty much whatever neat little doo-dads we find. I also ran across this image from the Australian website HomeLife.com and loved the idea of collecting pictures or creating a scrapbook with drawings and pictures of nature.


Photo from HomeLife

Do you and your kids collect anything? Have you done any fun "nature projects" with the wee ones?

Collecting Garfield Stuff

Oh, how I loved Garfield as a kid. He was just the right amount of smarmy and sarcastic and I loved how he treated that dopey dog, Odie. Like most cartoons, I loved the holiday specials the most. The one I remember most was the Garfield Halloween show. Enjoy!


When we recently bumped in to someone's insane Garfield collection at a thrift store, we had to pick up a few things to resell in our Etsy shop. But it got us thinking: are there Garfield collectors still out there. Yes. What do they collect? Everything. Are certain things more desirable? Yes. As with most things, the more rare it is, the more valuable. For example, a quick search on Ebay found that the Garfield arcade kiddie ride and the standing Garfield with the serving tray (3 feet tall!) got the top bids recently.

If you're interested in collecting Garfield, here are a couple more things I found:

Summer fun at the Fenelon Park Elevator

I had the extreme pleasure of visiting the Fenelon Place Elevator in Dubuque last weekend. I have to admit, once I got in this tiny little box and was what felt like a ridiculous distance from the street below, I kind of wanted to jump out. But, I put on the brave mama face. See? Here's me pulling the cord to let the operator know we're ready to go up.

So we went up up up and here we are mid-hill.

And here's what it looks like when you are at the tippy top, looking over the beautiful city of Dubuque.

When you're ready to head back down the incline, here's where you go out.

Just kidding.

The Fenelon Place elevator website says that this is the shortest, steepest scenic railway and it opened in 1882. Yes, you read that right 1882. It has burned down a few times and been rebuilt, but this is a little piece of history in the most unsuspecting place. I highly recommend it. When you've survived it (ahem) you can hit the cute little candy shop at the bottom, or better yet, head to Monk's for a stiff drink.