A Little of This & A Little of That

This week has been a jumble of work, kids summer activities, fun shopping and a trip to Brooklyn to visit friends.

On the shopping front, I found these placemats at Target and the pattern matches the design in the curtains, shown here. The color actually matches a wall we have in the living room so maybe I can use these to tie the living and dining rooms together a bit.

One of our cats (Mouse) thought these were a great little treat, meant especially for her. So now you get a mouthful of cat hair with your dinner...yum.

I have been looking for reasonably priced but sturdy bean bag chairs for our playroom for almost two years now. The ones at Target usually are in colors that won't work or have some sort of kiddie applique. And I just can't justify paying $100+ each from Pottery Barn or Land of Nod. On my Target trip I spotted these out of the corner of my eye:  gray AND no applique! For $25, I couldn't pass 'em by.

I love that the gray will go with just about any color I use as an accent (currently orange) in the playroom. Now I just need to find another one so each kid has their own. And I'm seriously thinking about labeling them since apparently one beag bag chair is MUCH better than the other and the big kids have been fighting for the good one ever since they showed up. Sigh.

On to a our trip to Brooklyn sans kids. I think it's been at least a few years since Freckle Man and I have had more than one night away. In preparation for our adventure, I painted my nails an actual COLOR. I know, stop the presses. But I usually just do a white-ish, baseline kinda color so it was fun to amp it up with Essie's enuf is enuf. It's an awesome shade of orangey-coral which is my favorite this summer.

I also found a skirt at TJMaxx with a fantastic pattern. I love that the skirt is loose and flowy but with a crisp geometric pattern.

The trip was a perfect blend of relaxing, sight-seeing and visiting with friends we don't get to see as often as we'd like. Thank you Soren & Cassie!

One of the highlights of the weekend was checking out the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. A lot of the flowers were past their prime but the lilies were absolutely beautiful.

And the Japanese garden and pond was one of my favorites:

I came home refreshed and with lots of new ideas for sprucing up Berry Lane. Stay tuned!