This Week's Quote

Under a Rock

A personalized iomoi lucite tray would make a fabulous gift for a bride to be.

Evidently, I have been living under a rock. I had not heard of iomoi until very recently. iomoi is a stationery company with fresh, whimsical designs. They carry an assortment of personalized stationery including calling cards, note cards, lucite trays, invitations, etc. However, they are unique in that they offer an e-stationery membership. Through the membership, you are able to choose from several stylish designs and customize them to your liking before sending them off to your friends. It only costs $15 per year.

Founding partners, Irene Chen, former director of product development at Donna Karan and Matthew Grenby, an entrepreneur had grown accustomed to communicating through e-mail as they were separated by several time zones. Wanting a more personal touch, they set about designing hand-written notes that could be sent via e-mail and iomoi was born.

Out With The Old, In With The New

The new and improved La Dolce Vita header

I've been wanting a new header for a while and commissioned Kylie of Bandelle to design one for me. I think she has one of the best designed blogs out there and I knew that I would love whatever she came up with since I love her aesthetic. She was so wonderful to work with and listened to all of my suggestions. I absolutely love the end result and think it really reflects me and my blog. What do you think?

The original La Dolce Vita header

¡Viva España!

I returned from my trip to Spain last night. After nearly 24 hours of traveling, I'm sure you can imagine how happy I was to get in my bed. Our travel company booked the most ridiculous return flights for us. The tour bus picked us up at our hotel at 4:15 am. We then flew from Madrid to Frankfurt, had a 2 hour lay over, flew from Frankfurt to Chicago, had a 3 hour lay over, then flew from Chicago to Houston. Rough travel schedule aside, it was a wonderful trip.

We could not have hand-picked a better group of students to travel with. They all went into the experience with an open-mind, wanting to soak it all in. They were well-behaved, but incredibly funny and fun. We started in Madrid, where we did some sight-seeing, visited The Prado and Reina Sofía Museums, and went to a Flamenco Show. Then, we drove to Salamanca, where we spent seven days. The kids stayed with host families and went to Spanish school in the mornings. We spent the afternoons seeing sights like the Old and New Cathedrals, University of Salamanca, Casa de las Conchas, and San Esteban Monastery.

In the evenings, Jennifer (my friend/ fellow teacher) and I enjoyed typical Spanish dinners with our tour guide, Julie and Rebecca and Christine, the teachers from the Chicago group that we were combined with. After dinner, we spent time in the Plaza Mayor. The city was hosting its 4th Annual Music and Culture Festival, so there were concerts in the Plaza every night. We got to see Rufus Wainwright (love him!) one night and Gilberto Gil another night. On our first day, the kids asked what we would be doing that night while they had their first, awkward dinner with their new families. We cheekily said we would be hanging out at the library. Well, we actually did! As part of the music festival, they had a really cool lighting and sound set up with different European DJ's and a full bar set inside of the Casa de las Conchas, an incredible building from the 15th century which now houses the city's library, so yes, we did hang out at the library.

We also visited the walled, medieval city of Avila, the Roman Aqueduct and fairy-tale Alcazar castle in Segovia, The Escorial, and the Valley of the Fallen before returning to Madrid on our last night.

I can honestly say that I've never missed my husband more than I did on this trip. It was the longest we have ever been apart. It was hard seeing all of these wonderful places that I knew he would love knowing that he was more than an ocean away. I absolutely loved Spain and can't wait to go back, though next time, it will be with Fabian.

Click on "View All Images" to see enlarged, individual versions of each picture in the slide show.

Summer Reading

Image: Grey Crawford via Desire to Inspire

I just got back from Spain last night and was incredibly excited to see my husband after 12 days of being apart, but was also quite excited about the new books that had arrived from Amazon while I was gone!

I read this during my trip, mostly on the plane. I have read all of Emily Giffin's books (Something Borrowed, Something Blue, and Baby Proof all of which I loved), so I picked this up as soon as I heard about it. She writes what I like to call smart chick lit. I didn't enjoy it as much as her other books because there wasn't enough going on. Most of it was a description of the characters and their surroundings in anticipation of the ending. It was a so-so book in my opinion.




Lauren Weisberger is known as the author of The Devil Wears Prada, which was entertaining, though not incredibly well-written in my opinion. However, I am a sucker for a book set in Manhattan (now that I think of it, every one of these books takes place there) and occasionally enjoy a nice, fluffy read.





I am really excited to read this book. I believe I first heard about it through Habitually Chic. It combines two of my favorite things: real estate and New York!

This book is pure eye candy bound in a hard cover. I can't wait to thoroughly examine each and every page. It is like having the Sex and the City movie on your coffee table. The book includes details about the characters, set design, fashion, and more.