December Ins and Outs: What I Bought and Read Last Month

All three books in the inbox this month were Christmas gifts from my dad. He knows me pretty well and is good at picking out books I haven't even seen myself. He also likes to encourage my pie making for somewhat selfish reasons. The candy apple pie I made at Thanksgiving was a particular favorite of his. 

I read Made to Stick for work. It's got really great ideas, but it's definitely overwritten in that way business books often are. Maybe some people needs eight parallel examples of one principle (half of which they've already heard somewhere else), but I'm not one of them. I'm glad I read it, because the ideas really are sound, but it could have easily been condensed down. I understand now that some books are made to be scanned, rather than read closely.

Fictitious Dishes is a fantastic art project, one of those things that so perfectly rings all my bells that it makes me wish I'd thought of it. Dinah Fried styled and photographed all the images in the book based on memorable passages about food and drink from literary classics. 

Everybody's Baby was classic Lydia Netzer fun. An e-book only novella, it didn't have the depth of some of the her novels, but was enjoyable nonetheless. 

Station Eleven was absolutely breathtaking. I read it for book club, and it was unanimously beloved. It's one of those epic stories that mesmerizingly weaves together plots and characters across decades with stories encircling a virus epidemic, an aging actor, a production of King Lear, a reformed paparazzo, a cult leader, and a gorgeous sci-fi comic book. Somehow all the disparate places and characters share similar themes and work beautifully together to tell a universal, human story. 

Claire's First Birthday

On January 1st my favorite girl celebrated her first birthday. My niece Claire is a such a joy to our whole family. She's obviously beautiful, but she's also incredibly bright and very sweet. She smiles and laughs a lot. She loves sharing and hugging people. When she eats, she makes delighted "nom nom" sounds the whole time. 

Our 2015 Back to the Future Themed New Year's Eve Party

For years and years I've known that when 2015 finally hit, I wanted to celebrate by throwing a Back to the Future themed New Year's Eve party. 

Of course, as the actual date approached, I wasn't exactly in the best situation to host a party. We bought our house this year and we still haven't bought all the furniture we need or hung any or our art or even made curtains for all the windows. I don't know if you know this, but it turns out houses are a lot bigger than apartments. 

I knew that I had to pull it together because 2015 only comes once. Not even once in a lifetime, once. Ryan was a huge help, and together we got the house in order (enough), bought a sofa (we still need a dining room table, but hey, more room for guests to stand), and threw the party of my dreams. 

I made parmesan and herb flux capacitors, DeLorean cupcake toppers, and two themed cocktails, and we all rang in the new year with noise makers and a champagne toast. It was such a joy to host some of my favorite people on such a special day.

What I wore today: 12/31/2014 (Tulle Time)

Ever since Blair Eadie paired a tulle skirt with a plaid shirt two years ago, I've been wanting a tulle skirt so that I could style similarly. I've seen a lot of tulle with red plaid, which I think is gorgeous for Christmastime, but I decided black and white gingham would be a good way to update the look for New Years Eve.

For whatever reason, I rarely wear heels anymore, and I almost paired this outfit with flats, but the instant I put on these heels I realized that the shape and proportion was perfect with the skirt and I kind of remembered why heels are awesome.

We threw a Back to the Future themed party for New Year's Eve (because, hello, 2015!) and had a ton of fun hanging out with our close friends and ringing in another new year. I hope your holidays have been memorable and that 2015 is good to you!

Tulle skirt – Anthropologie 

Gingham shirt – Eddie Baur 

Shoes – Target

Our Wedding Was Featured on Style Me Pretty

Photo by Braun Photography. 

I was thrilled when I learned that our wedding would be featured on Style Me Pretty. It's the biggest wedding blog there is, and I got a lot of inspiration from them when I was planning my wedding. The feature went up on their Midwest blog and their Little Black Book blog on Boxing Day. As our first anniversary approaches, I love looking back on our wedding photos and remembering that magical time. 

Thanks so much to Style Me Pretty for featuring our wedding. See their post here.