A BONNIE WEE ROMANCE! WE'RE OFF TO SCOTLAND!

Well folks, I am excited to say that today the hubby and I are headed off on a little adventure. We are going to the United Kingdom for two weeks, mainly driving around Scotland, seeing the islands, and then headed down for a couple of days in London and a dear friend's wedding. Though I am sad to report that I will have to squeeze some school work in on the trip, I am head over heels happy about spending some quality time together given our crazy schedules of late. With new jobs for both of us coming up (more on that in the future!), this may be the last overseas adventure we have in a while. So we will make it count!I will do my best to post an update here and there, but you can plan on seeing me for sure after the Fourth of July when we get back. Until then, I hope you are able to enjoy some lovely summer weather!
(All photos snagged from Pinterest and saved on this board here.) 

GUILTY PLEASURES

Happy New Year! How was your holiday? I spent the majority of it alternating between bouts of rolling around in the snow, bingeing on sugar, reading, doing jigsaw puzzles, cuddling my hubby and napping. Guilty pleasures all around. Isn't that what the holidays are for?!

I am back in action here in New York and excited for 2015! I am planning to share some goals with you (as I did last year here) shortly, but in the meantime wanted to indulge in one last guilty pleasure: Pitch Perfect! I watched the original (more info on it here) with my in-laws recently and they loved it. It's total brain candy but who cares. It's fun! I was so psyched to hear that they were doing a remake. Bring back Fat Amy Fat Patricia!!!

Learn more about the sequel here.

What's your guilty pleasure?

VIVA ITALIA!

I have some exciting news to share with you guys: the hubby and I are headed to Italy at the end of the summer! I lived in Italy for a brief time in college and it is probably one of my favorite places on earth. I can't wait to revisit all the beautiful spots I discovered all those years ago and watch my husband see them for the first time. Plus, I can't wait to eats lots and lots of gelato, of course!

So here's a quick visual tour of all the places and activities I am most looking forward to . . . 

above: hiking in The Dolomites (photo from here)

boating around the canals of Venice (photo from here)

lounging on colorful balconies in Cinque Terre (photo from here)

soaking in the panoromic views on Lake Garda (photo from here)

being awestruck by the beautiful frescoes in Assisi (photo from here)

and last but never least, getting lost in the gorgeous medieval streets of my beloved host city Siena (photo from here)


What do you think? Anything else in Northern Italy I should add to the itinerary? All tips are welcome!

DAYDREAMING OF SUNSHINE AND BEACHES

Remember me? I am not sure how it happened but it's been a week since I have posted! What?! I spent the whole thing in a crazy work haze staying up all hours preparing for a lecture I gave at a symposium on Friday. Luckily the presentation went off without a hitch and I was able to spend the weekend contentedly relaxing with family and friends. I am finally feeling back to normal today and ready to rejoin the blogosphere!But you know what I am not ready to do? Succumb to the dreary rainy weather here today. Instead, I will be daydreaming about the gorgeous sunsets I witnessed (and photographed) on my trip to Hawaii two weeks ago (above). Sigh. Is it beach weather yet?
p.s. These photos aren't edited at all! The sky is really just that beautiful in Oahu!

BACK IN BUSINESS!

Did you have a good holiday? You may have noticed I was gone a bit longer than I promised. Whoops! I was in Vermont with my husband's family two weeks ago—enjoying lots of delicious food and hours of reading and playing with my sister-in-law's puppy—and last week I was in Boston doing archival research for my dissertation at Harvard. It was a whirlwind of fun, relaxation and research and in the midst of it I didn't pop in to say hello. Apologies!

Even though I was off the blogging grid, I did manage to sock away some sweet finds to share with you. I couldn't wait to share this awesome video. I have a geeky love of acapella (music made solely with one's voice, including instrumentals) and I found myself watching the television competition show 'The Voice' several years ago when this amazing five-person group Pentatonix rose up through the ranks.  Now they are touring (hooray!) and making incredible videos for our enjoyment. I recommend all of them but this evolution of music (not unlike this) is so well done it's hard to believe it covers hundreds of years!

Learn more about the group here.

UPDATE: I am also obsessed with this song!

GETTING ORGANIZED

As you have probably figured out, I have not returned to regular blogging despite my promise last week. Oops! Turns out I needed a slightly longer stretch of downtime than I thought to decompress from exams and the holidays and to gear up for 2012. 


So let's start fresh next year, shall we? I will be back in full swing (I swear!) next week with some fabulous inspiration and eye candy to get you excited for another year of "obsessive images". Until then, enjoy the last days of 2011!


(photo of products at the Apple Store taken by me, in Boston, circa 2008)

VERMONT RECAP

Man, Vermont is beautiful! I had a wonderfully restful and fun week with my fiancé's family in Woodstock. We ate ourselves silly, went exploring, stuck our noses in good books, and generally enjoyed each other's company. The weather was typically changeable for the end of summer—full of soggy thunderous rain storms and bright, brilliant sunny spells. This made for some majorly dramatic photo opportunities for me to seize, my favorite of which are above.

Hope you like them and hope you had a great week too! Back to regular posting tomorrow.

WEEKEND UPDATE, HOLIDAY EDITION

I spent the whole holiday weekend in the tiny town of Pomfret, Vermont with my boyfriend and his family. It is absolutely beautiful up there (even when it rains, which it did A LOT) and I had a lot of fun toting my polaroid around to capture some of the lovely moments.

Left to Right, Top to Bottom:

• croquet balls prior to a very fierce all-family game
• the view from the living room porch: pond framed by surrounding mountains
• bouquets of wildflowers picked and arranged after a trip to the nearby "Pinnacle" hilltop
• coffee filters for the cup-by-cup brewer after a family breakfast

Hopefully there will be many more Vermont polaroids in the years to come . . . until then check out more of my polaroid photos, as usual, here.

NYTIMES OP ART

I am back from Vermont and can promise some lovely polaroids from the break to come . . . 

In the meantime, I will ply you all with my latest discovery: the Op-Art column in the New York Times!  It's the best combination of art, information, and humor to be found in a news context.  I particularly like today's art opinion piece on a defunct dinosaur museum in Central Park.  The amusing commentary and playful drawings are just what I need to combat the hours of reading and annotation ahead of me . . . 

Check out the Op-Art piece on Dinosaurs here, the regular Opinions section here, and click on the image above for a full sized (legible) version of the piece.