Sunday, February 28, 2010

Sunday, February 14, 2010

happiness is good food

i stumbled across this site today.
http://www.rawmazing.com/
i'm not overly familiar with the raw food movement, but the recipes look amazing.
and by 'recipes' i mean 'pictures'.
there's some killer food porn here...

makes me want to start cooking raw, like, yesterday.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

happiness is not coming in to work at 9 am and finding out an artist has passed.

a coworker emailed me this morning and told me alexander mcqueen was found dead in his london home.

i thought he was kidding-like when i heard heath ledger died. apparently it was suicide. like many other great artists, he must've been dealing with his share of internal creative demons.

his sp'10 collection left me without words. the prints, the shoes, the embellishments...it was sick. the models looked alien-like what the blue people in avitar should've looked like. his mind clearly works in an alternate universe.
i think this has to be (next to stella mccartney's watercolors) one of the most-photographed-in-editorials prints this season.
and we all know how much lady gaga *hearts* the shoes.






please put tilda swanton in this for the oscars and call it a day.


he was best known for being slightly macabre...morbid glamour at it's best.
F'06 was great...with the feathered (as in taxidermy not native) headpieces.




i loved SP'05. the sailor suits, the lace dresses, striped tights and candy colored palette...talk about ahead of the curve...it was like a watercolored 'alice in wonderland'





the collection had its misses...like the body armor trimmed in hair and the weird metal mouth guards that were far too similar to the not-so attractive head gear i had to wear to bed in junior high.

but who could forget those carousel dressers? if i were ever to get married, this would be the one.

RIP alexander mcqueen.

Monday, February 8, 2010

happy, interrupted.

the problem with happiness, i've discovered, is that it's really f*ing hard to be happy all the time.
during a recent goal coaching session with a fellow designer, she shared with me that she choses words to set her new year by instead of making new years resolutions (which as we all know are too easily broken).
i thought this was brilliant. i'm not a new year's resolution fan at all (see previous paragraph above) and i often find the intentions to be hollow and forced.

in class new years day, my yoga instructor advised instead of setting resolutions, she was vowing to never say anything to herself that she wouldn't say to a friend.
i also thought this was brilliant. how much harder are we on ourselves? how many times have we (or i, in case this boat might be more of a canoe, or perhaps a kayak) stood in front of the mirror in the morning thinking 'how the hell did that get so large?' only to turn around and reassure a girlfriend 'you're crazy, you look amazing' even though yes, she actually does look like she gained 5 lbs?

so far, i've failed miserably at following my yoga instructor's advice. however, i am determined to follow in the footsteps of my coworker. thus the birth of 'own your happy'.
i've decided my words for 2010 are 'happy', 'trust', and 'calm'. all of which are separately achievable yet fully dependent on each other.

i feel like for the past 5 years of my life, i've been constantly in search of something...a new job, the next promotion, that covetable pair of pierre hardy GAP wedges (last year, in case you forgot). i've said 'yes' to every opportunity that's come my way--and as a result i've had a very successful, and very fulfilled career. i've gotten loads of opportunities, i'm well traveled, and i've been to asia more times than i can count on two hands. my passport just had new pages added, and one of them now has a work permit for canada attached.

however great these accomplishments have been, lately it's been feeling like it's not enough. all the traveling is pointless if there's nobody at home waiting to welcome you back. i love my cat to pieces, but even he could've cared less, especially since i left him at a cat hotel where he got fresh catnip and playtime every minute of the day.

maybe it's my birthday coming up this week. i'm turning another year older, and again, the only remarkable accomplishments i have to sum up number 27 is a new job and a new city--the same as number 26...the same as number 24....the same as number 23...

this year i had an additional accomplishment--it was the first time in my life i'd ever been on unemployment. i was laid off back in june. i'd felt like my life had been ripped out from under me and i wasn't even sure i wanted another job in the industry that had just betrayed me. a career change felt right, however, poverty did not, and i took a new job in a new city in a new country.

maybe it's the jet lag from asia...maybe it was spending a weekend in fast-paced hong kong...but i've been having doubts as to whether this was the right decision. i miss my old friends, my old city. i miss normal television, kashi flakes, hot vinyasa flow, and decent sense of fashion.

i broke down on the phone last night with my mom. this happened around thanksgiving as well. despite my doubts, i know that the real deep-seated issues are not the new job, the new city, or even the new country with it's skewed sense of fashion--it's because i'm lonely. no matter how much i want to pretend that i'm fine being single, it's not fine any longer. i haven't dated (aside from the occasional first date) in a very, very long time. so long, i was actually still in school. i'm not even going to assign a year--it's far too embarrassing and far too painful. i've watched way too many friends/classmates get engaged/buy houses/get pregnant (some in that order--some not) and recently all the other eternally single friends of mine are no longer so. 'a killer career' only gets one so far in life. i actually envision coworkers shaking their heads and muttering 'work-a-holic' when they see me. why? because i remember saying the same thing about MY boss when i was younger--chalking up her long hours not to the fact that her position might actually demand it, but instead to the fact that she must have no life.

well, looks like the shoe's on the other foot now.

getting back to my original intention--my mantra or words for 2010.
happy--i will find what makes me happy and i will own it.
trust--i will learn to trust myself first. when i can learn to trust myself and my decisions i've made in life, this will then open me up to trust my friends, coworkers, and hopefully, potential mate in life.
calm--i will learn to let go, and i will learn to relax.

it's a small start...but it's a start nonetheless.

hair happy

for some reason, every time i decide to grow out my hair, pixie cuts come back into style--it never fails. Ever since VB rocked the pixie at the MJ show last fall, i can't help but notice it em, cropping up everywhere.
and it doesn't help either that the cut looks great on all the super fem starlettes rocking it. makes me start to re-think my desire for the pulp-fiction-meets-flapper bob i've been envisioning for the summer.

my obsession began when carey mulligan chopped off it off after 'an education'. i LOVED her look at the golden globes--she was my favorite. i've been sporting headbands lately (not because of this adorable photo) but now i kind of want to trade in one of my super wide black ones for a tiny little gem encrusted number.



here's miss mulligan looking a bit more au natural...



more pixies i heart:

ginnifer goodwin. best move ever....i can't even remember what she looked like with longer locks.



refinery29 highlighted the pixie today after maria wasikowska (that'd be alice in that little low-budget tim burton flick you might've heard about) sported one on the cover of teen vogue. again, i love:



*sigh* if only i could afford extensions so that when i tire of the novelty and crave my bob again i wouldn't have to suffer the pangs of growing it out....

Friday, February 5, 2010

happiness tonight was a bowl of kashi go lean crunch and an orange

i'm home, finally, after completing quite literally the longest day of my life. my flight left hong kong at 1 am saturday morning and i landed at 8:15 pm tonight (friday)--good luck figuring out THAT one.
my vegetarian vegan meals were at least recognizable, however, steamed vegetables and a wheat roll can only carry me so far.
i had the cab driver stop at a 7-eleven on the way home so i could get some skim milk. further bonus: they had oranges.
it was total bliss.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

happiness is a hot flow yoga class at 7:30 am.

which means i need to go to bed.

'night kids.

happiness is the perfect spring outfit

i'm having a striped anything with a side of metallic and army green moment.
throw on some pearls and it's the perfect balance.


topshop parka/marni necklace/APC shirt/current elliot jeans/jcrew macalister boots

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

happiness is not a family of asian tourists

...staying across the hall from me in a thin-walled boutique hotel.
seriously. i thought for a minute they were like, in my room.

serves me right for wanting the green room.

happiness...i don't know where it's hiding, but this year i'm finding it, damn it!

i've got a week until my birthday (not 30 yet, in case you smart asses were wondering) and here i am...blogging again.
i've put it as a goal, and i've got to maintain it...so here i go.

this blog is devoted to the quest of me (a single, pessimistic 27 soon to be 28 year old accessory designer and yogi) finding and owning my happy.

i've got a successful career (despite a minor set back last summer when i was laid off--thanks victoria's secret--i'm not bitter) and i've lived in a ton of great places--ohio, new york...canada. yet, for some reason, i still feel like my life is one-sided. like i'm missing something. like i'm the chocolate pudding looking for my graham cracker crust.

so this is the blog that will showcase it all.

could be a new pair of shoes...could be discovering a new beer or yoga position. if it makes me happy, i'm writing it down for the world to read about. and i'm owning it, damn it. it'll be mine. my own little graham cracker.

talk soon world...talk soon.

happiness in hong kong can be found at the bottom of a can of guiness.

1 can guiness + 1 pomelo + 1 mug full of muesli = 1 happy katie.

i'm in asia...the last leg of a two week emergency 'get in and get samples before CNY' factory tour. hong kong is usually the highlight of my trip, however, by this point in my trip i'm so over asians (no offense guys--rickshaw dumpling is one of my favorite places to eat at in NYC) and so over random asian fast food (THAT you can take offense to. fast food korean, japanese, chinese--it's all disgusting. especially the plastic food displays...i mean, i like to know what the hell i'm eating, but come on!)

anyway, after wandering the food court of a supposedly amazing grocery store, i finally settled on a can of guiness, fresh pomelo, and an early preview of the muesli i purchased for tomorrow's breakfast.

the guiness was absolutely brilliant.