Monday, November 15, 2010

A happy sunshiney hello

At the Bay

If you live in California you HAVE to be amazed at the weather today (80?!) as well as over the weekend. All I can say is enjoy it!! Pretty soon it's going to be drippy & gray (sorry - not trying to be a wet blanket, but it's how I reality check my sun-loving self).

We had to drive up to Berkeley to get Bird a new (big girl!) mattress. We found an awesome deal on an organic zero VOC twin mattress for kids. It's difficult to find affordable mattresses without flame retardants (and fyi, Ikea's mattresses have flame retardants too...though you could cross the border & buy from Canada to get around it). The trick is to include wool in the cotton mixture making up the mattress. Wool is a natural fire retardant and therefore no icky chemicals are needed (not that we NEED fire retardants do we? Anyway...). European Sleepworks in Berkeley started making a kid's mattress just for this reason - they wanted something affordable for kids that would fit into the health & environmental beliefs of their company. Thank you for that!! So ironically, Bird has a ~$200 loft bed from Ikea and a ~$400 mattress. She loves all the extra space in her bed - so cute :o)

So anyway, long trek to Berkeley...on our way we took a wrong turn and ended up having to cross the Bay Bridge (this is a costly mistake). Poor Jared had to hold his hands to his head to keep it from exploding (very goal oriented guy). But we made lemonade from the situation by getting off the bridge onto Treasure Island which we'd never been to. It was awesome! The view from the island is completely amazing. It was a gorgeous clear day and the Bay was gleaming beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, Alcatraz, and city of San Francisco. Bird REALLY wanted to climb down the barrier rocks into the water and after nearly losing her shoes we decided it'd be best to hit a different water spot after getting the mattress.

We found Birdshore Park and had playground/lunch/sailboat watching/Bay splashing time and felt so grateful to live in such a beautiful place that never runs out of things to do & see.

Today I'm working on sketches for a new collection of fabrics. There's some geometric, some art nouveau, some floral, and of course stuff that's uniquely Devon :o) I'm loving it. My parents arrive for Thanksgiving family time this weekend so I'll be kicked out of my studio for most of next week (...sigh). Important for me to get a lot done this week.



Hugs, Devon
:o)

2 comments:

Laura Zarrin said...

I've never been to Treasure Island either. I never know what to do or see around here. I need to get out more.

I can't wait to see what new designs you come up with.

Klay said...

sounds like an adventure!