family is:

I don't know about you, but our holiday included brothers, moms, great food, apple pie, sightseeing, and naps at Ram's Gate winery. Hope yours was good, too.

Happy thanksgiving.

a cabin in the woods

Sometimes you need a cabin in the woods, changing leaves, and mini fried chicken sandwiches. We rented a cabin just outside of Healdsburg in the Russian River Valley, made a few stops at our favorite vineyards and had a family lunch at the Fremont Diner. Those nice people at the Fremont love dogs. They even have water bowls, that's how much they love dogs.

{notice how Mater's eyes are closed in this picture? what a goof.}

In preparation for Thanksgiving, we roughed it like our forefathers with only a fireplace for heat (and a seventy-five pound dog). It was what they call rustic. No city luxuries to be found. And it was nice.

anatomy of a wall grouping

We've been living in our new apartment for three months now but just finally hung things on the walls. It's nice to live in a place for awhile, get used to everything, before hanging pictures. Nails are a big commitment. I'd always wanted a wall grouping of various interesting things ever since I saw great examples in Domino and ReadyMade, but it's hard to pull off in real life. I think ours turned out well and I like how it tells a story about us.

Clockwise from the top right: black and white photo of tree branches taken by my brother Josh; a hand screen-printed bird that my brother-in-law Stu made us for our wedding; a painted Peruvian Mary that I picked up during a trip to Peru; one of my favorite photos from our wedding of Jason and I dancing; an old drawing of Jason's grandfather, Dave; and a painting of flowers that my sister Lindsay gave to me.

Little pieces of really great people on that wall.

 -MM