TOWN | CITY SURVIVAL

in the city, summer may mean running through a sprinkler on a hot day to cool off, or a ride on an elevated subway similar to a roller coaster, although raising your arms up might have a different connotation. holding on, of course :).

xo, cindy

ps i really like keane's new album strangeland. tom chaplain's voice is so beautiful to me. i love the song day will come -

some days set your world on fire,
and some days they sink like stones,
that’s when your heart will cry out,
until your body is numb,
and the night will try to tempt you,
but the day will come.

brother don’t hang your head,
until your distance is run,
‘cause though it seems so far away,
you know the day will come. 

COUNTRY | MONET'S GARDEN

the new york botanical garden has a lovely monet-inspired garden on display and the vibrant colors are wonderful. love that green, too. enjoy your weekend!

xo, cindy

ps looking forward to listening to the new album from missy higgins and the new band to me called nada surf. love the video for when i was young.

CRAFT | SELF-PUBLISHED

ever since getting a dslr in 2008, i've created a blurb book each year with some of our favorite photos. our blog is a handy resource for reminiscing, but a book is much nicer to flip through. i like digital magazines, but print is still my preference.

going through a year's worth of photos is onerous, so one of the benefits of doing a 365-project is having a partially edited set of favorite images. this year i'm doing a weekly 365-project and hope to build the book as the year goes by with an emphasis on the hope part.

xo, cindy

ps i saw this video by walk off the earth on jane's blog and love it. now that's teamwork and the girl's voice is so good.

COUNTRY | GARDEN SNOW

just a few more photos from the one snowy weekend we've had so far this year taken at the new york botanical garden. to get to the bronx river waterfall, we could have either hiked through the snow-covered woods or walked along the snow-covered pavement. to be on the safe side, we took the pavement, which reminds me of adele. chasing pavements was the obvious choice, but then i heard this version of set fire to the rain recorded live at the royal albert hall and it is incredible. the strings. chills.

xo, cindy

home | improvise

after we renovated our bathroom last summer the plan was to do the kitchen this year. but, the economy is crazy and we're reluctant to do a gut renovation, so we're giving it a minor face lift. carefully primed walls to correct the rough patches, pretty blue-gray paint, a new light fixture, new door pulls and then we'll see how it looks. i hope it's good because i would love to do a little bit more - talking to you floor.

the tomatoes are numbers 13 & 14 from our garden and we're doing a cost-benefit analysis to see if all of our hard work is worth the effort. so far, scott thinks so and he's the one that eats them. they have some decent lighting because i moved the brown floral curtains from the kitchen to the front room. i've also been moving other things around, which seems like the easiest, most affordable way to redecorate :)!

xo, cindy

ps have you heard the new song richie and ruben from fountains of wayne? it's pretty good.

nyc | cool stuff

the truck traveled from maine to park avenue & the modern secret garden was added to a building in the meat-packing district that was probably built around 100 years ago or so. cool.

enjoy your weekend!

xo, cindy

ps many of the songs i've been mentioning will ultimately end up in an online summer playlist to be enjoyed by all. i just hope i can finish it by the end of the summer. two matchsticks by the wooden birds is a goodie.

pics | restraint of view, trois

i've been lamenting the lack of a viewfinder on our point & shoot camera quite a bit, particularly outdoors in the sunlight. you just can't see very much in bright light and things aren't always composed properly in the frame.

but, a pleasant surprise has to do with the photos for our shop (items with the pink rose & blue background). the image stabilizer on the camera is great, so i haven't used a tripod as a result. i suppose there is a silver-lining to the snafu and i should consider no longer tagging my photos in flickr with - 'my dslr is broken' ;).

xo, cindy

ps i find a lot of new music through noisetrade, including laura jansen. beautiful!

pics | restraint of view

i've been spoiled by our fuji instax camera lately because using film encourages restraint. since i don't keep that much film on hand, i don't want to 'waste' it and love having just a few photos to process each day for better or worse.

i'm happy with the last photo because i actually spoke to the person and got the ok before taking his photo, which seemed like a good idea for fear of startling him and ruining the mural he was painting.

xo, cindy

ps i love the song summer holiday by wild nothing. it makes me want to jump in the convertible we don't own an drive up the coast.

pps the translucent sculptures are from the fashion district pilings project by brooklyn artist joan benefiel and will likely be meeting my digital camera very soon because they are so interesting.

life | too darn hot

it's no news flash, but it is too darn hot, y'all. the other day we received a lovely email from sheri miller regarding her new album, winning hand, and listening to music is about all we can do. she has a beautiful sound and i think you will really like her - listen here.

xo, cindy

life | summertime

i notice many of the best photos are in portrait and it's just not natural for me to hold the camera that way, so i'm trying to get there through square. the white flowers are called speedwell. aren't the pretty? all those tiny blooms? the cherries are from a product shot for our shop that didn't make the cut. i went with crayons, instead. enjoy your weekend!

xo, cindy

ps a couple of weeks ago i mentioned some of my photos for the chance store were used on a blog without credit. well, jen left a nice comment on the post and they changed it. so, a big, big thanks to her for doing what i should have done, myself. in fact, they've included the names of all of the photographers!

pps a nice band for the weekend from good ol' new jersey - the feelies. i love let's go, which i read about on chance.

nyc | quaint in the city

a little bit of quaint in the city from the fourth of july. it's not all high rises, steel and concrete around these parts and i'd love to see that porch at night. cosy.

xo, cindy

ps blog-friend tamara is a wife, mom, blogger, artist, photographer and a musician. listen to her wonderful band handwritten letters here - i love the song the garden (surprise, surprise). they also contributed a track to a compilation cd benefitting the victims of the alabama tornadoes - have a listen here.

nyc | high line

last weekend we visited the newly-opened section to the high line, which extends it ten blocks north up to 30th street. we love this beautifully-designed elevated park and this new section is great because you really feel tucked in between the buildings on either side. along with wild flowers, there's also a section with grass and a sense that you're above the trees.

the rainbow city installation for kids was cute and it seems there was a marriage proposal. on our way south we saw a banner on a building asking sabrina for her hand in marriage followed by the case with champagne, roses and the engagement ring. i wonder what happened?

enjoy your weekend!

xo, cindy

ps have you heard of brooke waggoner? her music is terrific and you can download her new album, heal for the honey, for free. i love the song young friend.

nyc | elevated subway

if i ever start a new blog it should certainly be called 'the pretty & the gritty' because i love both - flowers, graffiti, vintage, decay, beach towns. i found myself in the first car of an elevated subway car yesterday and couldn't resist taking some photos because it wasn't crowded. i'm not one for roller coasters, but who needs one when you can take the subway?

the window was kind of dirty and that seems like it was a good thing as it softened the images, naturally. i'm still working on the high line photos, which is also an elevated train track come to think of it.

xo, cindy

ps i really love the new song from incubus - promises, promises. hope the rest of the album is just as good.

fun | this & that

i used to put our photos in these mosaics, but then stopped and went with simpler frames. now that we have the vintage shop i want to send some emails to magazines/blogs and these types of layouts might come in handy.

for the photos, i use a folding table and set-up the shot in our living room by the window. sometimes, i leave it overnight, which is interesting since that's where we spend most of our time. there's a lot of nudging involved and i spent most of the time on an overhead view that will probably never be used because i missed one nudge!

but, enough about me. there's been a lot of goodness passing through my desk that might be interesting to check out if you have a chance -

• meg's son davy and his band, a basement rendezvous, have issued their first ep & it sounds great!
• great advice for photographers from jpg - i like no. 3 & must do it.
• mowielicious magazine - double gah!
• scientific social networking tips about best time to post & tweet.
• my first etsy treasury is all pink.

thank you for all your support regarding the photography credit issue. i'll be less accommodating in the future. i never really thought of it as stealing when it came to my photos, but now i see the light :). have a nice weekend!

xo, cindy

ps i enlarged my photos. did you notice? they're now 425 wide vs. 400. baby steps.

life | get on board

fujifilm instax | a couple more of the bus in full here

when i was in brooklyn with jen, we came upon the one million acts of kindness bus. have you heard about this before? after 9/11/01 and the shootings at virginia tech, bob decided he had enough of the violence and was going to do something. he bought a bus on craigslist, had his friends & family paint it and is spending 10 years traveling around the country with his dog bogart spreading the word. the goal of the project is to encourage each person to perform one million acts of kindness in their lifetime and that sounds good to me.

something else that sounds good to me is the italian band - il volo. i saw them on american idol this week and at first was amused because they don't really sing in a style i usually like - kind of old-fashioned. but, after listening to them for a while, i think they're great. and, the dude in the red glasses is so cute. listen to the girls squeal when he sings, but that's not me. really ;). enjoy your weekend!

xo, cindy

color | bits of yellow

although pink seems to be the color of choice for spring, i do love the yellows whether on a sunny day or through the fog. i'm sorry i've been mia, but this shop business takes a lot of time. how do people sustain personal relationships, blog, tweet, facebook, flickr, create, have a shop and/or another job and sleep? i really don't know!

xo, cindy

ps sometimes, i learn about wonderful bands on twitter and the walla recovery is one of 'em. i love their cello-folk sound and they're giving away a free download.

life | pretty blooms

a flowering tree just down the street.


bouquets in a store window that just so happens to be called scott's flower shop.


daffodils on the night stand.

i recently learned about the band the civil wars and love them, especially the song falling. i suppose it's an appropriate band to mention today since it's the 150th anniversary of the civil war. but actually, i wish there were no war anniversaries to commemorate.

xo, cindy

ps have you seen what bella sinclair is doing to benefit the american red cross for the japanese disaster relief fund? it's wonderful.