Mid-Fall Inspiration
I’m so excited to kick off this Friday with a little mid-fall inspiration.
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Mid-Fall Inspiration Read More »
I’m so excited to kick off this Friday with a little mid-fall inspiration.
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Mid-Fall Inspiration Read More »
Doors Open Milwaukee 2016 took place in mid-September, and it was amazing as always. We were blessed with beautiful weather both days, high 70s and sunny. I made it to 15 sites and took nearly 1,000 pictures. I shared a sneak peek in my September highlights post. I also shared a short narrative of the full two days with a few more pictures over at Niume. Over the next couple months, I’ll be sharing longer posts here with more pictures of a few of the sites.
Today I’m starting with Calvary Cemetery. I have driven by the cemetery dozens of times but had only stopped to take pictures once before, several years back. The only time I’ve ever seen the abandoned chapel on the property open to the public is during Doors Open Milwaukee. I was really sorry I missed it during the 2015 event and made it a priority to get there in 2016.
Not surprisingly, as the oldest existing Roman Catholic cemetery in Milwaukee, there is so much history packed into this modestly sized cemetery. The chapel dates all the way back to 1899. It would be amazing if more people got to experience it in full. However, I’m also glad that it’s so well preserved. If it were open to the public all the time, it would be covered in graffiti and would have suffered much more damage.
After touring the chapel, I spent nearly 45 minutes checking out the exterior and wandering through the rest of the cemetery.
I absolutely love the gate at Calvary Cemetery.
Finally, Calvary Cemetery offers my second favorite view of the Milwaukee skyline. (My favorite view, and undeniably one of the best views in the entire city, is from South Shore Park.)
For more information about Calvary Cemetery, visit Wikipedia, cemeteries.org, and the official Doors Open Milwaukee website. While the chapel is only open on very select days, the cemetery is open year round and definitely worth a visit.
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Doors Open Milwaukee Highlight: Calvary Cemetery Read More »
In other words, the most simple, perfect pumpkin muffins are known as “pumpkin muffins.”
…The Most Simple, Perfect Pumpkin Muffins Read More »
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Jason Peterson knows how to capture perspectives of iconic Chicago locations in a way that I’ve never seen them before. I have driven by this museum dozens of times and seen many images of it over the years, and his image is so different. Also, his recent shot of Michigan City completely blew my mind. Again, he has such a unique perspective on the area.
On the subject of Instagram, I can’t believe that I haven’t talked about Hank and Sully here yet. Hank and Sully are orange tabby brothers who were adopted the same month as Apollo and Ares. For nearly four years, they lived with an elderly kitty named Brawley whom Hank and Sully’s owners took in right after they got married. He crossed the rainbow bridge this summer. A few weeks later, they adopted a gray tabby, Luca, who bonded with Hank and Sully pretty much instantly. I couldn’t have made up a story that mirrors the story of my boys so closely.
Bigelow Raspberry Black Tea. I love ordering raspberry ice tea in restaurants and got inspired to start making it at home after reading a book in which the characters made ice tea all the time. I use two bags for two cups of water and serve it with lots of ice and a little sugar. A couple times I’ve switched it up and used one bag raspberry and one bag vanilla chai, which is also really good. With the chai flavor, you can even add a little milk.
Who else loved making friendship bracelets back in the day? This post makes me want to bust out my embroidery floss stash (yes, I own quite a bit of embroidery floss) and make a whole bunch of bracelets.
As always, Crate and Barrel continues to inspire me with their newest catalog. I absolutely love their new houndstooth prints and hope that they’ll use them for other products in the future.
Chef’s Table: France. I love Chef’s Table, especially the first season. But I think the third season, which is an all-French chef installment, is the best yet. The cinematography of Chef’s Table is unlike anything I’ve seen before, and I absolutely love how there is no set format for the show. So many TV shows are so formulaic. Chef’s Table really lets the chefs dictate each story. Eater has a great article about the second, third, and fourth seasons of the show.
I’ve been hearing so many good things about the new gel nail polish finishes. I picked up the Essie gel·setter a couple weeks back and have been really happy with it thus far. I get a solid 5-6 days with very minimal, if any, chipping. I would imagine the 2-step systems like Essie Gel Couture do last longer, but I love that I can use the regular gel setter with regular polishes. Until I use up more of my current polishes (which isn’t going to happen in the near future), it doesn’t make sense to invest in a whole new system.
I have wanted a Daniel Wellington watch and a pair of Tieks for over a year. I finally took the plunge last month and got the Winchester Classy 26mm in rose gold (plus another Classy strap for free, thanks to a September promotion) and the cardinal red Tieks. The watch is SO comfortable, like I forget I’m wearing a watch because it’s so comfortable. It’s designed to fit a wide range of wrist sizes so I was little worried about the proportions for my thin wrist, but it’s been great. I also love that you can switch out the straps because inevitably, I will eventually wear out the strap well before I wear out the watch. (Also, I just have to mention that I really wish this blue and orange strap is still available. Alas, it’s not.)
I’ll have a full review of the Tieks later this fall or early in the winter once I’ve had a chance to really put them through their paces (i.e. the upcoming New Orleans trip, a few full nights out in Milwaukee) and can talk about more than their pretty packaging and fabulous construction.
Also, on the subject of shoes, I bought these boots in brown in person. Then I found out they’re also available in black. The same $10 off promotion that I used to buy the first pair was still running…so I ordered them in black, too. I never do that, but I’ve wanted tall lace up boots forever. We haven’t even had a lot of cooler weather yet this fall (not complaining), and I’ve still been able to wear them several times already.
Finally, this photo. No words.
What have you been loving lately?
Feel free to leave links in the comments!
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Friday Favorites – 10/7/16 Read More »
Another month has flown by, as always. Today I’m sharing just a few highlights from September.
9/3: Silverwood Farm Fall Horse Trials. I have a family friend who trains show horses. In the 10+ years we’ve known her, we’d never seen her compete. So we made it a priority and got to the Silverwood fall trials. Many of you know that I’m a city girl. As such, I know next to nothing about horses and am way out of my comfort zone being around and photographing them, but it was so neat.
9/4: Wind Point Lighthouse tour. The lighthouse offers monthly climbs from June through October. It’s awesome to get a brand new perspective of a place you visit frequently. We learned a little bit of its history and admired the sweeping views of the grounds as well as Milwaukee, Racine, and Lake Michigan.
9/16: Lincoln Park. No, I wasn’t visiting Lincoln Park in Chicago, I was visiting the little Lincoln Park in Kenosha. I had to run a quick errand down that way and stopped over at the park for a bit. It’s home to a beautiful sunken garden. It’s also where Jake and I had our engagement pictures taken just over 10 years ago.
9/17-9/18: Doors Open Milwaukee. The long-awaited Doors Open was awesome. I hit 15 sites in all and would have made it to even more but I had another commitment on Sunday. We had absolutely perfect weather for it, high 70s and sunny both days. I took nearly 1,000 images and will still be sorting through them for quite a while. Over the next couple of months, I’ll have several longer posts with more pictures of select sites here on the blog.
9/18: Joey’s baptism. Our good friends Joe and Melitta had their little guy baptized the same weekend as Doors Open. He was the fourth generation to get baptized in that exact church. I was very honored to help create this image of all four generations.
9/24: Milwaukee County Zoo. Jake had a professional event in Milwaukee in the morning and then we were going to straight to PetFest (see below). So I went with him and among other things, went to the zoo for a while. It was cooler and not very crowded, and lots of the animals were really active.
9/24: Fromm PetFest. My littlest sister-in-law is one of the organizers for the Fromm PetFest so we wanted to stop by for a while. It was really neat. They had various events for the dogs (i.e. agility training, lure courses) and tons of vendor booths, and of course, there were dogs everywhere. My mother-in-law came up for it, too, and we went out for pizza afterward.
Finally, this month, I made it to four regular MSO concerts and two neighborhood MSO events. It’s the current director’s last season so they’re pulling out all the stops, and I’m going to as many of the concerts as I can.
What are you up to in October?
Any fun local events I should check out?
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September 2016 Highlights Read More »