The House Comes Along

Ok, so I don't deny that I'm moving at a sloth's pace when it comes to getting the house in order. By "order" I mean, "Up to my fantastical standards of fabulousness," bien sur. But slowly, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. Thought I would share some of the happenings going on with getting our house ready for Housewarming next month. It's an uphill battle, for sure.

Here's a sort-of ghetto fabilis photo of our kitchen, thus far. Pretend you don't see the coffee press on the counter or the mac book air.

We decided to go with these pendant lights for over the kitchen island, three of them to be exact. They are by Roost, and were purchased at the Sundance Catalog. BTW, if you haven't gone to look at the home section at Sundance, you are missing out. They have some pretty terrific finds. Sundance calls these their Meridien pendant lamps, and Hubs installed them pretty quickly with some Edison bulbs to advantage of all that clear glass. They add such a great, clean touch to the room. Photos of course, to follow when the house is Dwell / Elle Decor ready.

Purchased a new console table from Hawaii store Pacific Home. Check it out, they carry great things and I love going in there to just glean ideas. I'm hoping that design ideas will just seep through my pores, osmosis-style, by my just being in their shop. They have a great, laid-back style that I'm trying to capture in my house. This piece is called the Parisian Console table by Carina Sherlock. It's supposed to be modern meets French Country, which is somehow working with my clean, beachside, Pacific vibe. Hubs had decided to install in-wall speakers, which has inadvertently made my Chinese plasma console unusable. Thanks. So now that bad boy is on Craigslist waiting for a new owner and I'm going to throw my TV on this baby. It seems random at first to put the TV on this table, but with baskets underneath in the living room, I think this is going to be a good fit.

Last random purchase while at Pacific Home last night, Roost's glass sea urchin vases. Peeps let me tell you they are so freaking adorable. At $12-$15 each they were an affordable indulgence and with candlelight in the background? Soooo pretty. One of my favorite purchases in a long time.

Alas, I have no J.Crew to share. It's a recurring theme of late. No fun fashion purchases. But hopefully you'll stay with me and be interested in the crazy things going on at the NoJcrewinJapan House!

Happy Chinese New Year and Year of the Rabbit to everyone and enjoy your February this week!

The GAW post on jobs and kids.

A dear friend, an old sage at heart, called today to give me some wise words of advice after seeing my last blog post on the idea of taking photographs as a job. She apparently wants me to keep my day job. I hope she doesn't kill me for blogging about this, but alas, peeps, I must. It's time we all had the GAW talk. For those unfamiliar, that's Grown A.. Woman, which we all know we have to be at some point.

First and foremost, we here at According to Moi are not chickens without heads, and put a lot of thought into the choices we make. & we are pretty left-brained here as well, which means no life-changing decisions - especially when one has children and a mortgage - can be made at the drop of a hat. Research will go into this possible career addition, and in no way would I walk away from the fortunate situation of stable employment - akin to jumping off a cliff with my baby and house in hand. GAW don't do things like that, though sometimes we fantasize about it aloud and in the blogosphere.

& you know, I'm a GAW and can handle criticism. Not everyone's going to like me. & I don't care. :0) I'm happy to do my thing, my way, when I want to. If that means fewer offers and more time in between jobs - great. I can spend it with my little guy and my hubby. & if it all doesn't pan out, I'll still take photos. Because I like it and I want to. & that's the beauty of not being motivated by money or empire-building - I get to do what I want because I like it. & that's a Grown A.. Woman talking.

Beach Wedding and a Budding Idea.

My sister-in-law, pictured here looking gorgeous, got married this past weekend at a secluded, Hawaiian North Shore beach house amidst a small gathering of close family and friends. My job? To follow the actual photographer around and take photos for my mother-in-law, aka The Mother of the Bride. I did this because because we all know that MOBs are hella busy on their daughter's wedding day, tending to the bride(zilla), and they need some family member to take tons of photos of their only daughter's special day. & also because we all know that MOBs are highly impatient and in no way capable of waiting for the actual wedding photog's edited photos to grace their in-boxes a ridiculous 2 weeks post-wedding. P'shaw! So here are my first attempts at photographing a wedding. [As a note, I'd love to share more with you, peeps, but I don't want to post the bride or her party all over the blogosphere. I'm sure she'd love to do something like that herself, so I'm posting just one of her and a couple shots of her flowers, which are all un-edited because I just don't want to edit for the blog right now... Terribly lazy of me, I know, but I know you all understand.]

Now an interesting thing has come of this. My own mother asked why I don't do this as a job. A job?! I am a serious analyst! I am busy defending a budget that is going to be hammered in the near future and besides, I'm not that good of a photographer. Hmmm. But I have to say the idea stuck with me this week. The other oddity, a co-worker saw my photos and asked what I charged, and if I could come out to the beach today to take photos of her family. I had no idea what to say, peeps, which is a rare thing for me. Ultimately I said yes, gave her a quote of my fees, and suddenly, I find myself a photographer. I'm heading out to a beach in front of Obama's vacation home in about an hour, and am playing with the thought of creating a portfolio to actually do this on a part time basis.

The thought of a job that allows me to the flexibility of a SAHM during the week, especially with a little one on the way, is tantalizing. Especially when this is something I would love to do for free. I know my weekends would be full, but I'm fortunate to have both my MIL and my mom just 20 minutes away if I needed someone to watch the babies.

I have a lot to learn, both about taking my work from casual, hausfrau photographs to professional, and about setting up a business. Any suggestions? Any thoughts on it? I'd love to hear from you all who have set up a business and what it took to get there. I've spent the week researching photography websites and the market here, which is ripe for a boutique-style company.

What do you think?

Wishing you all the best in 2011!

From our family, Happy New Year!!

Scenes from a lazy Christmas Day

Hopefully by now, Peeps, you've all cleaned up the torn wrapping paper, you've turned off TBS' marathon of A Christmas Story, and you've had your fill of fabulous Christmas goodies and foods. By now, I hope you've cozied up on the couch to watch a football game, with happy kids and their twenty-million gifts surrounding you in a fabulous, cluttered, turkey sandwich-induced coma. Ok, well that's my Day After Christmas Dream for you, anyway.

Thought I'd share some of our favorite images from our Christmas day here in Hawai'i Nei yesterday. I keep thinking last Christmas we were in Rome, this Christmas was in Hawaii... What does the next year hold? We'll just have to see!

A glass seahorse ornament on our tree. I *heart* this thing like you just don't know and I pity the fool who tries to take it down before New Year's Day.

An ornament we bought in Europe at a Christmas Market last year. It made its Christmas Tree Debut this year and couldn't be prettier...

Christmas morning cupcakes for my Little Guy.

Little Guy's masterpiece of a gingerbread village. It's a little rough, but still so sweet!

Conspicuous Consumption at its worse. Now you know where my J.Crack dollars went this year.

*Sigh* The life of an only child, though not for long!

Santa brought a Little Guy-sized surfboard this year. Now he can catch some waves with Daddy.

Happy Holidays to you all!

Kelly's Mad Science Birthday Party, the New House & some crazy news.

What a week, peeps. I need to sit down and have a drink just thinking about it -- but I won't, and more on that later. Well, first we moved into the new house and that has been hectic. We had two moving trucks show up with all our furniture and belongings from Japan, and then two days later were barraged with two more moving trucks filled with things we've had in storage for the past 4 years -- aka, everything that we had decided not to bring to Japan when we moved there. I am awash in boxes.

But despite that little setback, I spent the first week setting up the public spaces and the most important private ones. So I'm proudly here to say that my living, dining, kitchen and bedrooms were set up and ready for use. Above is a photo I took of our family room set up. While living in Japan, we (ironically) acquired tons of Chinese antiques, so we tried to mix them with our furniture from the pre-Japan days. I've thrown in a cowhide for flair. I've always had a flair for the dramatic.

Speaking of dramatic, after 7 days of mad unpacking skills, we threw the Little Guy a Mad Scientist birthday party. Here's a photo of his Candy Lab. We had a mad scientist come and enthrall the kids with great feats of chemistry, including making cotton candy and their own slime.

I had found some beakers online, and filled those and some plastic, kid-friendly test tubes up with jelly beans, m&ms and other fun goodies. The kids had a blast and the Candy Lab got wiped at the end of the day.

& if that's not enough to make you tired --- We found out we are expecting another little one! Peeps, our Little Guy is 7 now. Hubs and I were President, Secretary and Sergeant-at-Arms of our own One-&-Done Club. I'm sure it's like riding a bicycle and we'll get right back in the swing of baby things, right? We're excited to no end and really surprised, but we feel so blessed! We get to top off the year with exciting news and a growing family.

& if it's a girl, there's a Crewcuts wardrobe waiting for her. :0)

I Want to Get Off the J.Crack

Ladies, is J.Crack a "Gateway Drug?" & I mean this with all seriousness. This is something I've wanted to post about for awhile, but haven't had the time to really sit down to discuss with you all. As I sit here amongst a closet full of Tory Burch Reva ballet flats, Kate Spade suede wedges, and Gucci sunnies, I am pondering how I went down the path of $300 sunglasses without batting a Latisse-infused eyelash. It all makes sense, right? I mean, J.Crew is at the mall, it's not a "serious" fashion brand, it's a mall brand -- a catalog at that. But the Crew's prices are steep sometimes, and their Collection items can cost a pretty penny.

So when you buy a pair of J.Crew ballet flats, for instance, at $190 (just throwing a number out there for argument's sake) and a dress for just under $200, the numbers start to blur. Well, I know for a moment in time they blurred for me. & I thought nothing of doing this on a weekly basis. So when your shopping budget is in the arena of $500 - $1000 a month, you find yourself moving on to the next level --- Diane Von Furstenberg starts looking like a decent price. & you wonder why you haven't paid more attention to the sale rack at Neimans before. & then at some point, you move on from the sale rack and are moving on to bigger and better.
I've found myself here, peeps. I start to think I'm slumming it when I go to the Gap. Or when I land in Banana Republic! P'shaw!! They're dresses are $150 at Full Price!!

At some point soon, and I'm so ready you have no idea, I want to get back to reality. When I thought that $98 for a polka-dotted pencil skirt that wasn't lined was absolute highway robbery. Or when I thought that $68 for a hammered silk tank was just for suckers (do you even know how many hammered silk tanks lie in the dimly lit recesses of my closet?). I want to be a simple girl! I want to get off the J.Crack.