wishing your life away

I've had so many things to look forward to these past few weeks: my bridal shower, friends weddings, our wedding in two days, our honeymoon...and many things unrelated to weddings too.

I find myself saying, "I can't wait 'til it's the weekend." Or "I can't wait 'til our honeymoon." 

Like, I just wish it would get here faster.

Whenever a phase like that goes through my head, I hear my mom say, 

"Don't wish your life away, Lauren." 

I don't think I really understood what that meant when she first started saying that to me.

But I do now.  

Today is my first day off work for our wedding this weekend.  My mom and I are having mani / pedi's together, picking out the flowers for the bouquets, and making candy as thank you gifts for the vendors that we're working with on Saturday. And that is all I'm going to think about.

Today, I am wishing that it is today.

LMF 

image via

Cabo da Roca, Portugal

I had a weird day yesterday.  

January 2007 - Cabo da Roca, Portugal - the most western point in Europe, next stop U.S. of A!

It was one of those days when you realize nothing will ever again be as it once was. 

And for a minute it made me just a bit sad.

For some reason it's so much easier to look back and idealize the past.  

We've been there, we've done that, we know what to expect.

I took a moment yesterday to wander back through the photos of my past, 

beautiful, gorgeous amazing places I've been with absolutely amazing people; 

people who've help make me who I am today. 

People and places and trips that I am so grateful for.  

And photos that make the memories come rushing back.

And then I stopped.  

And I turned my attention to girls night with pizza and champagne 

watching Vampire Diaries (don't judge).

Life is good.

LMF

2012 year in review

2012 has been a great year for me.  I started this blog with a post on my resolutions for the year.  One of them was to have more fun.

2011 had been such a grown-up year for me, after moving back from London, changing jobs and buying a house, I wanted to make sure and relax and actually enjoy life and all its blessings.

For Christmas I made Dan a photo album of our year and maxed out the number of pages that iPhoto would allow, without even getting everything in!  So I think we managed to pack the fun in.

Here are some highlights from 2012:

January

I started this blog! (ok technically December)

We celebrated New Years in Tahoe.

We headed to Arizona to see Dan's Dad play with the Chicago Cubs (Fantasy Camp)

February

We celebrated a 30th birthday wine tasting in Napa.

Pacino had his first surgery of the year.

We took a long weekend in Pebble Beach for the AT&T Open.

March

We spent a long weekend in Hermosa Beach for the Lakers game and visiting family.

And and extra long weekend in Palm Desert.

April

I started my 1000 gifts list.
Healdsburg wine tasting weekend with friends.

May

We celebrated my review at John Ash and more wine tasting.
My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.
We celebrated my birthday in Chicago, where we found the most amazing breakfast spot.
{more Chicago here}

June

Summer relaxin' - BBQ's and burgers
A bit of nostalgia for Croatia

July

We attended the Festival of Chris (Dan's mom's birthday weekend).

We took a road trip to Hermosa Beach for a friends birthday boat cruise.

Pacino had his second surgery of the year.

Festival of Chris Part II - Italian cooking class and tour.

August

Pacino took his first boat ride and I tried paddle boarding on the lake in Tahoe.

September

Girls trip to Vegas for Labor day and my very first dive, ever.
Pacino had his first birthday.

I got to show my love around my favorite city in the world - Paris.

There was a surprise engagement in Paris!

We found out that Versailles in closed on Mondays.

A good friend from London visited for the weekend and we went wine tasting - quelle surprise.

We discovered every sort of fried food you can imagine at the Dallas State Fair.

This girl moved to New Zealand and I miss her all the time.

October

I ran / jogged / walked Nike Women's Half-Marathon.

I fell in love with autumn in New York.

November

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Dan's family and ummm... more wine tasting.

December

Celebrating the holidays with the Nutcracker and ice skating in in San Francisco.
I hosted Christmas Eve at my house - this was huge for me!

Cheers to 2012 and may 2013 be absolutely amazing for all of us!

LMF

images: first / last

Traveling to Paris

If you've seen my tumblr or pinterest you'd know I may have a small obsession with France, and Paris specifically.  I actually didn't realize how obsessed I was until I was looking through my tumblr for images of Paris for this post.  Turns out there's a lot!

As I posted about {here}, I finished my college degrees at a university in Paris, living there for 2 years.  For those couple of years I felt like the luckiest girl, traveling between my two homes, San Francisco and Paris, and traveling around Europe.

In exactly 2 weeks Dan and I will be arriving in Paris.  He's never been.  Words cannot describe how excited I am.  Paris feels like a second home to me and getting to share it with the man I love is all the more exciting.  I cannot wait to see Paris through his eyes. 

Things I am most excited for:

 1 - a demi baguette for less than 1€

Why don't we sell baguettes in halves in the US?!  And why is a good loaf of french bread $3.50+?

 2 - Zara

I first discovered Zara and H&M when I moved to Paris.  And as happy I am that they have since come to America, I must admit I still love the collections in the Paris and London stores.  

 3 - hot chocolate from Angelina's

I think this photo says it all.

4 - delicious bread from the boulangerie Eric Kayser 

The flat we rented isn't far from the location where I first fell in love with this delicious bread!

5 - showing Danny around one of my favorite cities in the world

It's been a while since I was showing someone around Paris.  I'd love to hear suggestions!

What would you love to see if it was your first time in Paris?
Restaurant recommendations are always appreciated!

LMF
*images via and via

Making amends

I should hang this saying someplace in my home.  

It's definitely something I need to remember.

This week has been a bit about making amends for me.  Which can be really hard sometimes.  It's the swallowing my pride part that can be tough for me.  And getting over my hurt feelings and making the first move to break the silence.

I don't think this means let yourself get walked all over just to keep the peace.  But I do think it's saying think about how important whatever it is that's come between you, and how important that person is to you, and to your life, and decide which is more important.  

I'm curious, how do you usually make amends?  Is it face to face, or over the phone?  Or writing an email or letter?

LMF

*image via - if anyone knows who the original source is, please let me know so I can credit.  thanks!

Forgiveness

I needed this recently. I figured other people might to. 

Man, oh man this is hard to do. 

Somehow, it's the right things that always are.  

LMF

unanswered prayers

I didn't really enjoy my first year of college.  The dorms were over capacity, so I lived off campus. I didn't really find my classes challenging.  And I worked in a nearby mall that wasn't actually nearby when you factored in LA traffic.

My roommates didn't really work or attend class much either.  I came home to a lot of parties, which was awesome some of the time.  Other times, I found random people passed out in my bed. Not so awesome.

After the first year, I moved back home, which for me, at the time, was a huge personal failure.  I attended the junior college there and after a year, decided I would transfer back down south, but to San Diego this time.  I had lots of plans.

My best friend decided she would come with me and we found an apartment near school.  I sold my car and bought a new one that I could trust on drives back home or road trips (Vegas!).  And I had already talked to my manager about transferring to the store down there.

I planned on transferring in the spring semester.  I didn't apply to any other schools since I really didn't want to go anywhere else and I wasn't worried about getting in. I had good grades, was on the dean's list and had already gotten into the school when I applied in high school. No sweat.

But when I hit the submit button on the online application, a window popped up that said only San Diego residents could apply for spring due to overcrowding.

It may as well have said, "your dreams have been crushed you're never getting a college degree", because that's how I felt.  If I wanted to go there I would have to wait until the fall semester, a full 8 months later! That was unacceptable, and devastating to me.  But it was too late to apply anywhere else.

I just kept thinking, 'How could this happen?  I thought I did everything right.'  And how I badly wanted to move to San Diego.  I pictured beach parties and living with my best friend.  It was supposed to be the like the college you see in movies.  That's what I wanted!

I would sit on the computer doing searches about different schools just desperately looking for anything with no real confidence that I'd find what I was looking for.  I wanted San Diego.  I had planned on San Diego.

I don't know what made me think of it.  I think I was so shocked and feeling so lost that I was just grasping at anything. The semester before I had studied abroad in Paris.  During one of my classes there we attended a lecture at the American University.  I still have no idea why it even came to me to look the school up.

The school sounded amazing.  But who gets to go to school in Paris? No one I knew.  Even as I was looking through the website it didn't even seem like a possibility, just something fun to dream about.

My mom stood over my shoulder reading about the curriculum and the student body.  Then she said, "this is the first school I've read about that seems like a perfect fit for you".  I'm pretty sure I rolled my eyes.  "Who just moves to Paris out of the blue?"

She said, "Why don't you just see if you can apply?"  I checked.  I could.  I sent in my application with very little confidence that anything would come of it.

A few weeks later a thick envelope came in the mail from France.  I was in.  It felt real then, like it really could be possible.  I still don't really know how we did it, but somehow two months later I was living in Paris.  And I spent the next two years getting two college degrees, meeting amazing people from all over the world and traveling around Europe.

This weekend I was sorting through some of my old photos, trying to create some sort of organization from the mess that comes from switching computers every couple of years.  As I looked through my photos, trying to identify cities and time periods, I realized that even though I've moved back to where I started from, so much that has happened in my life because of my time in Paris.  

Had I moved to San Diego as planned my life would be 100% different.

Thank God we don't get everything we want in life.

LMF
*all images original to Champagne Reveries

This weekend I did not:
 - workout;
 - bake the cookies I wanted to bring to "J crew's" baby shower;
 - do any laundry;
 - vacuum or clean my house, as I had planned.

Instead, I:
- spent Saturday afternoon and evening with friends and their families (and their babies!);
- lounged in the sun eating delicious food, listening to great music, drinking champagne punch;
- took my Dad out to lunch at his favorite burger place in Healdsburg for Father's Day;
- lounged on my deck drinking iced tea reading a new book

{via}

Nothing was crossed off my to-do list and it was perfect.

LMF

On your own

via

This resonated with me today so I thought I'd share.

I think it's so true and so important to learn to be on your own.  I know it's not inherently built into everyone's character.  But I think it helps you gain confidence and self reliance.

What do you think?    

LMF

It's Friday!

I saw this on FB and it made me smile.  

Have a wonderful weekend!

LMF

June Goals

How did it get to be June already?  We're almost halfway through the year and it's about to be summer.  

My first blog post {here} was a list of my resolutions for the new year.  I look back at it often and so far I think I'm doing pretty well, but there's always room for improvement.  And it's always helpful to sit back, look over your goals and re-evaluate if necessary.  So I thought I'd get a few goals for summer down, along with keeping with my new years goals.

I've had a few health things going on over the past few months.  Nothing too major and everything's okay, but I haven't really had the energy to workout like I used to and it's really been a reminder to make sure and take better care of my body.  

Goals for summer:

    1.  Re-start my yoga practice

2.  Drink more water every day

3.  Finish decorating my outdoor space 

{this is where it's at currently}

{it needs some help}

4. Make sure to get girl time in

5. Get to the beach

{preferably wearing this}

{Jessica Lorren Photography}

Just a short and sweet list. Cheers to summer!

LMF

*all images original to Champagne Reveries unless otherwise noted.

{Images} 

May 29

Today's my birthday

via

and my first day back to work from our mini-holiday in Chicago

What a fantastic city!  

Will post more about out trip later, but today's my birthday :)

via

Hope your day is wonderful!

LMF

Lost iPhone

I had a really great weekend, that ended with losing my iPhone. Not so great.  Sunday evening I went to charge my phones (one for work, one personal) and realized I couldn't find my work phone.  Worse, I couldn't remember the last time I had it (at least that's probably good evidence of a good weekend!)

For the weekend, we had friends in town, the guys were playing in a golf tournament (which Dan ended up doing really really in - yay!), and the ladies were just hanging out relaxing and maybe a bit of pampering. :)  Sunday afternoon we got pedicures, at Palms Nail Spa. I specifically remember setting down my phone and thinking "I cannot forget my phone".  And I remembered getting up and taking it with me then.  The rest was a complete blank.  We went on with the rest of our day, tacos and margarita's, relaxing in the sun, etc.

OPI - An Affair in Red Square

But when I realized later that night that it was gone, I was a complete wreck. I tore apart the house, my car. Nada.  I could barely sleep.  The next morning I called around to everywhere we'd been.  When I called the nail salon, the woman couldn't have been nicer, she said "oh no, that's an expensive phone!"  She took my number and said she'd check with everyone there and call me back.  She called me back less than 5 minutes later and said "my sister's still sleeping, but I told her to call me as soon as she wakes up."  She was calling employees at home!  Too sweet, I was hopeful at this point.  A little while later, she called and said yes her sister had found it and put it away since it was "such an expensive phone!"

I went in after work and picked up my phone.  They were so sweet.  The woman said, "I'm glad we had it, it's such an expensive phone!"  I stayed and got an amazing manicure, $15 for 45 min!

OPI - Will You Mari Achi Me 

{it's hard to see, but this color is gorgeous in person, kinda nude and pink with just a bit of gold shimmer}

I had to post today, just to say thank you to the women at Palms Nail Spa in Windsor, CA, not just for finding my phone, but for the amazing pedicure and manicure, and being so friendly and  so so nice.  I will definitely be heading back!

LMF

It's Monday, get started already!

I needed this today.  Thought there might be a few other people out there who might too.

Happy Monday!

LMF