Dishin' It Out

I love mismatched dishes! Whether they are in stacks on shelves, hanging on walls or displayed on buffets...I just love them! Here are two new ways that I have used my plates.
~before~ our house has lovely archways
~now~

I found this idea on someone's blog (forgive me if it is you)! I tried and tried to retrace steps to find the source and picture, but could not. It is common to hang plates on walls, but uncommon to huddle them all up together. This is definately not for those who like things uncluttered!

The best thing about it is that it is a work in progress and you can add to it. As you see, I have plenty of archways to adorn!

At the beginning of each summer I love to try a small kitchen garden with a few veggies and some herbs. Usually I am unsuccessful and I hope it is because I have done them in pots. This year I hope to have found a good spot in the ground. So I planted rosemary, basil, parsley and cherry tomatoes. But I needed some way to keep Jupiter out of it, since I stole his favorite digging spot.

A dish border was in order!

Once again you can just begin and add to it. If you do not have tons of dishes hanging around, Homegoods and Marshall's is a great source...And keep your chipped ones too! You can either use a specific color scheme or just mix any different colors and patterns, which is what I chose to do.

This is the view from my kitchen nook.

Little D gets envious how much I post about E. While I was "planting" the dishes he made this penguin out of pickets. I thought it was a rocket...

Inspiration at the GYM?

It has been awhile since I have really worked out. I have to say...it felt really good. I needed motivation and found it here.



But that wasn't even the inspiring part! I always have really high paced music pumping through my ipod, but you can't help but glance at the zillion tvs glaring you in the face! (They usually are very disctracting to me, anyone else?) Okay, okay onto the fun part! This show came on and featured Bestey Johnson's cottage. Oh me, oh my...it was so ME! I loved it so much that I came home and tried to find any pictures of what I saw on the show. Here is what I learned:

1. There are virtually zero pictures of this particular cottage online, and the ones I did get are blury and small.
   
2. She has/had an apartment in NYC that is all pink. She is either selling it or has sold it.
   
3. I am now obsessing about aqua wallpaper with pink roses...I NEED it!



extremely small photo courtesy of Myspace

extremely blury photo courtesy of HGTV

Asian Inspiration

I promise to stop boring you and this will be my last post from our trip! If you notice the time that this is posted, 5:20 AM, I am still suffering from jet lag. Not the kind of jet lag where you sleep all day, but I've been up since 2:30. Church should be fun in just a few hours.

Anyhow, below are some pictures of things that caught my attention and quite often took my breath away. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

This was a ceiling at the Shinto shrine is Asakusa

Okay...I know it is cheesy...but I loved this window at Disneyland, I loved the shape of the sign too.
At DisneySea they were having a Spring Carnival, with gardens throughout. I loved this topiary scene. I am kicking myself for not picking up the miniature Christmas ornament version.
The most beautiful Begonias I have EVER seen.
This crystal and feather chandelier was above each table in the restaurant in our Hong Kong hotel.

This was just a poster on the wall of a train station. The colors, and of course the roses drew me right in.

It is your run of the mill hotel flower arrangement, but I threw this picture in to remember the intoxicating scent that lingered throughout. Delicious!

These tiles were on the 7th floor of a rickety, old building. The elevator door opened and the walls adorned these beauties. Couldn't you just see them in a bathroom?

As you may remember, we were on the trip for Mother's Day. These baskets full of flowers and fruit were so charming. I had this OR a Tiffany bracelet on my list...I got neither!

Flower markets always make me stop in my tracks. I think it is the abundant colors, mixed with the galvanized buckets. Markets like these line the train stations. No excuse for a man to bring his gal fresh flowers! (hint hint)

So...it pleases me to know that IF we move to Japan, there will be plenty of inspiration popping up everywhere. As a matter of fact I went into a small drugstore-like shop in Yokohama and they carried an entire line of Cath Kidston items! Yay!

More Japan Highlights

Famous rice fields

Famous bullet trains

The Tokyo Tower
A Kabuki Theater
The Tsukiji Fish Market

Hong Kong Highlights

I was really surprised at how much I loved Hong Kong. There are many, many old buildings with GIANT new state-of-the-art skyscrapers right next to eachother.

Below is a typical street on Hong Kong island.Hong Kong park. It was very hot and humid so we did not pass up this opportunity to cool off.
The unbelievable view from The Peak
One of the many shopping areas
The south side of the island where it is calm and beautiful

There is a lot of British influence in Hong Kong!

Many, many stalls of children's clothes at Stanley Market

We could not get enough of the beautiful rain forest and mountains that surrounded Disneyland.

Japan Highlights

As I have said a few times before...Japan has mastered more than a few things...

BY FAR my favorite thing about Japan are the toilets! I know it is normally not polite to speak of such things, but I want to spread the word so that these masterpieces can make there way here!
These toilets are not only heated...but just look at the amenities here! You can spray two different ways and control the temp of the water and pressure.

They have also perfected bathing (no wonder hubby prefers baths). These are so ergonomically friendly that your hands lay perfectly above the water line = no pruny hands!
I can't figure out why the US has not looked to other countries to perfect the public transportation!
A tale of two bloggers!

Asakusa
The LDS temple in Tokyo
Tokyo Disnyland Mainstreet

The back view of the Tokyo Disneyland castle
Tokyo DisneySea

Yokohama- our hotel is the "apple slice" shape building on the left
The view from our Yokohama hotel room- breathtaking!