ProfessorChic

This is my favorite professor blazer with elbow patches (!) I've posted about before. For our morning walk to Tartine this Saturday, I layered it with Eric's soft grey sweater and a scarf.

I even had my trusty red ear muffs tucked away in my purse. It probably seems like overkill to most, but I get earaches from the wind and cold fairly easily. I've been known to wear earmuffs in the summer, under my helmet, during bike rides! It's a hott look, I know, but safety first. :)

And The Page is our friendly neighborhood dive bar.  Maybe I'll have to go next Wednesday because I just noticed that they'll have an accordian player during happy hour.  They allow dogs inside, which is a bonus for me because I love cute animals. Come visit and I'll take you for a cocktail, while dog-watching!

Tartine lemon cream

Saturday morning we took a nice walk to the mouth-watering Tartine, a very popular bakery and cafe in the Mission. Being the weekend, the line was LONG, but worth the wait. Eric and I went a little crazy, sharing berry bread pudding and taking home a valrhona chocolate eclair and lemon tart!

All things lemon are the way to my heart and this lemon cream tart is hands down my favorite lemon treat. It's so pretty, too, but that does not inhibit my devouring abilities.

J Crew GrampaChic

I am loving the new fall styles from J Crew.

Tomboy + messy hair + natural, fresh make up + dash of femininity = perfection.

And CrewCuts, you're killing me!  I just need to look at these youngins, (especially that boy!) to figure out what to wear.    

A trip to Buffalo Exchange is in order so that I can continue to clear out my closet by selling the excess of sundresses and shorts I've accumulated after seven years of living in Austin!  Don't get me wrong.  I'm definitely keeping some, but does one really need 8+ pairs of booty shorts?   

NKTOB

Not sure who would wear this New Kids on the Block dress, but I am very happy it exists!

Hart Party

You do! (Print is from the craft fair this weekend.)

We're at the POD warehouse now. Today our furniture and other belongings arrive. I'm excited to finally begin unpacking and settling into our apartment. Goodbye air mattress!

Letterpress goodness

Here are the prettiest images that will ever grace my blog.  We got to visit my friend Hannah yesterday at the SF Renegade Craft Fair.  I scored some of her gorgeous cards and an adorable pencil pouch that I'm going to use as a make up bag in my purse.  Hannah makes everything on antique letterpresses and pretty much exudes radness.  Consider yourself lucky if you're invited over to her insanely pretty home.  The girl also cans a mean lemon curd and reads loads and loads.  I'm so looking forward to getting to hang out with her more again!  You can check out her designs at her Felt & Wire Shop.

Squirrel harts

Smiles.

Oh Jens

This is my handsome husband, washed out by the morning light at our breakfast table.

Our first dance at our wedding was to this sweetsweet song by one of our favorite musicians, Jens Lekman. Before we were dating, Eric and I ran into each other at the SXSW NPR day show in 2008. We were there primarily to see this Swedish crooner and he so did not disappoint! Lucky for us, he's touring this fall again and we just bought tickets to see him at The Fillmore in October. Our other friends Jason and Carol, who live in Oakland, are also going! While I miss Austin, things like this are helping me adjust to our new life out here.

And here's another fav Jens song + stop motion video just because.

Around the neighborhood

The other day I came across these koi painted on the sidewalk in two different places. I wonder if there are more concrete koi ponds around.

Last night, we tried a neighborhood hotspot Chile Pies. They have pot pies and dessert pies. Perfect comfort food for these 50 degree evenings! We tried the green chile chicken pot pie and green chile apple pie. It was delicious and there is good people and dog watching. I can't wait to try the lemon buttermilk next time.

Anchors away

Had to go to the Apple Store to fix a bug in my phone and popped into jcrew to try on this dress I've been waiting to go on sale. It went on sale online yesterday (oddly, still full price in store) and is significantly discounted. It's cute in person, but I need to get used to a different wardrobe out here! I'm so used to living in sun dresses, but that's not going to happen with July hanging on strong to low 60s. I don't think it would look quite right layered and with boots so I'll just post it here as my way of faux shopping. :)

George's rad film tattoos

Lucky for me, there is truly an Austin contingency in SF right now. Yesterday, our friend George arrived for one month to do some graphic design contract work for Eric and Rene's new job.

George is seriously one cool dude. He has this old ice cream truck that he turned into a coffee truck called Motor Oil Coffee in Austin. The truck is complete with dancing coffee cups painted on the side, like in those old concession stand trailers before the drive in movie. In fact, George was going to bring his coffee truck to our wedding to serve lattes as a test run for debuting at sxsw, but the brakes on the truck went out on the way to the venue! No harm done; he and the truck ended up safe somehow! Now I just tease that we'll have a rain check for an anniversary party. :)

Anyhow, he's a media production professor at St. Edwards University and check out his rad tatts! I love the subjects (Hitchcock and Truffaut) and colors, which are much vibrant in person.

He explained that Truffaut's right eye is a little off from a stick that poked him the arm and was sticking right out of the poor director's eye. That made me think of the epic eyeball splinter scene from 1970s Italian horror flick, Zombi (this movie also has a zombie wrestling a shark under the ocean--see it!).

Mad Men pajammy jammy jam

Ever since I saw that episode of Mad Men that featured Joan in her adorable, short-sleeve, grampachic (btw, I totally want to rename this blog GrampaChic!) pajamas, I've been on the lookout for a pair of my own. The short-sleeves add such a feminine touch and leave it JCrew to make my dreams come true! I'm thinking the navy set may be more practical, but the white so cute!

I may need to act now to ensure my size doesn't sell out, but can't totally justify spending $80 on pjs right now. How about you just get some and I can live vicariously through you? This will be one of those wants that if my size does eventually make it to sale prices, then I'll say it was meant to be.

Just like those super soft and comfy Anthropologie polka dot jeans. You can't quite make them out in the photo, but the ones I'm wearing in the middle are grey with white dots. I love the darker ones on my ladies, Aberdeen and Sasha, too. Go on sale already!

Safe and sound

After two and a half days on the road with three cats, we made it to our new home in San Francisco! We arrived late last night, went to a delicious breakfast this morning at Herbivore--3 blocks away, and made the obligatory trip to IKEA.

Our good friend and Eric's business partner, Rene, also recently moved out here from Austin. It's so nice to have him out here with us and sharing in this adventure. He came over to see our apartment this morning and went shopping with us. After seeing his place in Hayes Valley (just 1 mile from us!), we had burritos at El Castillito. EK and I shared a crazily huge "wet" carne asada burrito. Now I'm snuggling the cats on the air mattress (pod with all of our belongings arrives in 9 days) while Eric puts together furniture.

Now to make our new place resemble my "prettyhome" Pinterest board. How does one do that??

Until SF, Y'all

Goodbyes in our empty condo

The movers came at 5pm and left around 8:30pm. We had a last minute come over, help us drink wine, and give us hugs!! get-together. We hope to be on the road tomorrow, but it depends. Eric still needs to sell his car, we need to take cats to the vet for meds, must clean place, etc. Saying good-bye--no--see you soon! to people you love is hard.

I start to cry, so I make myself think about when I did this 7 years ago, leaving Berkeley to move to Austin. While l had heard great things about Austin (totally justified!), I was scared and sad to leave my amazing city and loving friends. Fast forward 7 years, I've met loads of insanely wonderful people here, have become extremely attached to all of the thousands of things that make Austin awesome, and have been able to keep in touch and connected with my bay area friends I had to leave, to who I'm now returning. It's so strange how things work out.

So now that I'm tearing up again at having to say good-bye to Austin folks, I'll think about things like our wedding in Austin this March, with so many bay area folks eating Kerby Lane pancakes and singing karaoke at the Highball! Remembering this helps replace sadness with thoughts of Austin folks sipping coffee from bowls at Tartine or taking in redwoods and the Pacific at Pt. Reyes with me.

Until then, we're camping our last night in the bedroom. I hope the kitties are ok, they seem a little frazzled from the empty house. I may be projecting, but they do seem a bit worried. I hope they come join us on our campsite!

We are moving to San Francisco!

Just before our honeymoon, Eric was offered and accepted a great tech job in San Francisco! I wasn't sure if I'd go with him right away or stay for the next school year at my job (teaching English to middle schoolers) because I love it so. It was a very difficult decision, but I've decided to go out sooner, rather than later with my sweet husband and forge ahead with our new life together in SF!

While I'm sad to be leaving Austin, my sweet friends here, and my beloved job, I am so excited to move back to the bay area and begin this new adventure in our lives. Luckily, SF is a place my friends at least say they'd like to visit, and I know we'll be looking forward to returning to Austin for trips. Also, I have such an amazing friend base in the bay area already, including a super good friend who crazily enough is just a few blocks away from our new place! Yes. Bittersweet to be leaving our home and lives here, but what awaits us in the cit-ay by the bay?!

I have so much more to write about this--so many mixed emotions, but am exhausted from preparing for the move. Hopefully I'll have a chance to share more later. Here's a peek at our new home and me just before we signed the lease, so happy to be able to put our apartment hunting folder to rest! I'm as tired Esme' in these pics. Honk shu, honk shu...

San Francisco-->Austin

Here are some highlights from today, including the adorable miniature person that kept staring at us during the flight!

San Francisco, The Mission

Here are a few quick pics from our busybusy trip in SF! We return to Austin this Monday, then... EEP!

Below is a pretty bed display from a cute furniture/homewares boutique and a delicious Moscow mule.