Solage

As you know, we took our yearly pilgrimage to Napa to drink wine all day for the half marathon in July {here}. I'll share the full post with you soon but we spent an afternoon at a place so incredibly serene and heavenly that it deserves it's own post.

We were all in need of massages and couldn't get in at our hotel spa. I reached out to one of my favorite bloggers Melissa, who just so happens to live in the wine country. She recommended Solbar in Calistoga for lunch and mentioned that they have a spa there as well. We only had time for a quick lunch at Solbar before our spa appointments. The restaurant was so California~chic inside with never ending people watching and out of this world food!!
Our walk over to the spa.


The guys had massages and the girls had the special mud slide treatment.

*Step 1~Our personal mud mixture and essential oil was created
*Step 2~Lay in a heated mud lounge (aka:steam room) for 20 minutes covered in our mud mixture
*Step 3~ Soak in a geo-thermal mineral water bath for 15 minutes
*Step 4~ Float in a gravity defying chair with sound vibration for a 20 minute power nap.

You can see the mud bar on the right side of this picture.
The treatment rooms line this walkway and the private pool is straight ahead. Pure heaven, right?

Here are some fun images off the Solage site:

I don't know about you but I could really use a quick spa getaway after this week. Between the craziness at work right now and the hustle and bustle of back to school I'm wiped!!

Have a restful and re energizing weekend everyone.

xo~
Tricia

Visit Solage Calistoga here

While the cat was away...

...this mouse did play!

That is, if you consider this sort of thing 'playing'.

While hubby was away for the weekend I got a wild hair and started dumping. Once I plugged my ipod into the stereo system and started jamming some tunes, I really got into my groove and had a blast!

We have a pretty extensive book collection, ranging from some Shakespeare favorites, to quite a few by Kahlil Gibran, lots of political and economic books, books about wine and entertaining, interior design books, world travel, family heirlooms, and a wide range of religious and philosophical books. All of the travel, sports and finance books went upstairs, most of the rest stayed down here.

This is a very busy and cluttered 'before' shot of the bookshelves in our living room. Hubby actually set the original version up when we moved here over 3 years ago. I've spruced and edited here and there, but never had I pulled everything out and started all over, until this weekend.

'After'

Edited down about as far as I can take it.

{click on image to see both sides}

I pulled everything down, organized the books by theme, and separated all of the knick knacks on the coffee table with a favorite pile and a giveaway pile. Once I thoroughly dusted the shelves, I started putting only our favorite books and 'stuff' back onto the shelves.

It took some thinking, looking through saved images, and texting good friends, begging for pictures of their newly re-done shelves {thanks for the sneak peek Lins!}.

Magnums of wine up top and some neutral books and decor below. That plaster owl is a favorite as I have a thing for owls. They remind me of my father and since he passed away a few years ago I've had a few strange owl-encounters in my neighborhood.

This is such a focal area in our home and while I would love to have a matching collection of all antique vellum books, that would leave us nowhere else to house our collection of 'our' books. This unmatched collection is my favorite as these belonged to my father and were some of his favorites.

A picture of hubby proposing to me in our old backyard. A small group of close family and best friends were sitting around the table when he popped the question. When they brought the bottle of Dom outside during a casual Sunday evening get together I began suspecting that something was up. In this picture he's holding the ring in the silver box after giving me a sweet intro into why he wanted to marry me and that he'd already obtained my father's blessing while at lunch earlier that week. I'm looking at Ashley, saying 'did you know about this'? I think I asked her that before I actually said yes. ;)

He knew I'd say yes. Best friends, soul mates, travel companions~ and now parents to a little angel bug~ for life!

Ok, I digress....back to the shelves.

Books from a street vendor along La Seine in Paris under the cloche, dried lavender, gray pot and gray kooboo basket. I love the neutral and simple feel of these shelves.

The left side:
The right side.

On the fourth shelf down from the top you can see an owl canister with a top, on the left of the large stack of books. This canister belonged to my dad and he'd had it for years and years.

So there you have it, a bit less cluttered overall.

I've already edited and moved stuff around a bit since snapping these pics so I'm sure this will be an ever changing thing, but I'm glad the hard part is finally over. It only took me 3 plus years~ ha!!

xo~

Tricia

Whew...

...finding our classroom was a bit of challenge, but we were on time and organized AND there were no tears from either of us~ we did it! She had a hard time falling asleep last night, the back to school jitters~ part excited, part scared she said. ☺
With freshly pressed clothes (her cousin wore this top on her first day of 2nd grade so it was a must), coiffed hair (she likes to have me straighten her hair now), and some food in her tummy (eating a bagel while walking to school), the first day of grade 2 started out perfectly. I can't wait to see her this evening and hear all about it!

Dad was away this weekend so we had lots of girly bonding time. Just mommy and me at nail salon.

And some movie time with bestie. ♥

I snuck in some 'me' time as well~ ha!

I'll share my updated shelves with you later this week.

I hope you all had an easy morning. Here's to getting that first week of back to school under our belts!

xo~
Tricia

Feast your eyes....

...on this Houston charmer.

Not much in our local area has gotten me excited this summer. But this Southampton home made me remember what that excited, house stalking conquest feeling is like.

The neighborhood, the street, and the outside of the home had my interests peaked.

It's listed for under $1 mil and is only 2,800 sq feet. I prefer smaller, more intimate homes and they are a rarity in Houston.

Let's pop on in and take a tour.

The formal living room is precious with built in bookshelves and nice windows. After reading Joni's recent post {here} on coffee tables, I have a new appreciation for unusual tables such as this one.
Simple but pretty dining room. Fantastic kitchen in all white. Whenever I spot a dairy slab (see the 'pure butter' reproduction in the left corner?), I typically love the interior design elements of the home.
I love this built in breakfast nook!
The sweet and simple powder bath.
This is the sun room, complete with wet bar area. This would be a great place for family game nights and entertaining small groups.
The comfy den. Whew~ and I thought we had a lot of wine!!!

The master bedroom with seating area.


Clean and chic master bath.
This children's room is just precious done in all white.
The child's bath upstairs.
The back patio is underneath a wisteria covered pergola.
The side courtyard feels secluded by the front hedges. I can envision a pretty table set up here for intimate dinner parties with the French doors opened up to the sun room. I can also envision sitting on the front porch at dusk in the cooler fall and winter months here in Houston.
Such a lovely Houston home! I'd add a few pieces of great artwork and more dining room chairs, but other than that I could move in tomorrow.

xo~
T

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