While on my long journey, I found lots of inspiring ideas that I want to share. The last leg of the trip was spent in Austin. (Thanks to one of my lovely cousins, who found us a wonderful hotel). Anyway, anytime I'm in Austin I try to stop by Homegirls. I can never resist their cool vintage furniture. This visit, the were displaying art by the amazing Alyson Fox. BTW, if any of you have been to Homegirls, many of the cool displays were done by Alyson. I've been a long time fan of Alyson's work, and really loved the prints that were shown.

If you can't get enough Alyson, she now has her own clothing line called A Small Collection. The clothes are wonderful, and the website presents them in the most charming way I have ever seen! I could look at the site all day.

(This is one of my favorite pieces).

Up until now, I haven't been to keen on the whole wall stickers thing; but I found some that are really tempting me. They are from Ferm Living. My two favorites are the Love Birds and the Power Pole. Perfect for a contemporary home. Maybe just like this one that I just happened to be driving by. I don't know anything about it, I just had to take a picture. It appears that this house is in fact a duplex that is joined by the unusual metal pieces "weaving" the two parts together. Very cool.

I can barely believe it, but We're Home Again!! We were gone for 3 weeks and 2 days, and traveled over 1800 miles. We traveled to Amarillo TX, Santa Fe NM, back to Amarillo, and Fri. drove to Austin. Finally today we reached Houston again. I have to admit that I was nervous about what I might see, but a lot of the damage has already been cleaned up. I'm so thankful to say, that my house received no damage at all, and all of my neighbors seem to be without damage too. Now, I haven't dared to open my fridge yet, because I am very afraid. After so many days w/out power, who knows what might be happening in there. Oooh, yuck. Smells and all, I'm so glad to be home. I actually started to forget what it looked like!
The weird thing is that I feel so out of sorts. I'm not sure why...maybe I'm just tired. I think I feel a kind of sadness about everything that has happened in this town that I love so much. I guess it takes time to clean up your emotions, too. Although, it is nice to have all those little things that make me happy. For example:
1. Sitting down to watch The Soup.
2. Drinking my favorite coffee from Whole Foods (Mexico, Zaragoza).
3.Working on my trusty Mac.
4. Wearing my favorite slippers.
5. And (hopefully) going to my favorite coffee shop again, depending on the whole having electricity thing.

I'm so excited about sharing photos of our Santa Fe hotel. It was such a wonderful place, Mark and I fell in love with it. It is called Old Santa Fe Inn and is only blocks from the town square. Most of the time we were there we would just walk to wherever we wanted to go...if you have ever tried finding parking in Santa Fe, you know how awesome that is.

(Lobby)
The hotel is not very large, but it has gorgeous rooms and an inviting dining area with killer complimentary breakfast.

Our room was on the second floor. We went in a door from the first floor and were greeted with this beautiful staircase. (Sorry again for the dark pictures). I was already prepared to spend all my time on the benches places around the exterior of the hotel.

(View from our room)
Being able to walk everywhere was so fun, because it allowed us to see things we miss when driving. While walking around we stumbled upon a cool cafe called Cowgirl BBQ. The majority of seating is outside, with a funky decor. It seemed to not be very "touristy", I think it was more of a place where locals go; including some Very interesting characters. Of course, interesting characters are plentiful in Santa Fe.

This antique car front-end was just one of a series, placed on the roof of the cafe. They overlooked the patio, and their head lights would turn on as soon as it got dark. Liam found that to be very, very cool.

Well, folks I am officially at the start of my 3rd week away from home!! Many of you know about the devastating hurricane that hit Houston, and that most of the city has no power. Some people have no water either. Of course, those are the fortunate ones. So many people have lost much more than that. By the grace of God, my family and I were very far away when everything happened and for now we will continue to stay away. Luckily, we had someone check on our house and it didn't receive any damage. (Just no power). I've been in touch with Paloma and Cheryl, and know they are fine. I haven't personally heard from Joni, but I think she has power. I'm still waiting to hear from the other Houston bloggers, though. I really want to thank all of you for your prayers and kind words. I will try to keep updates on whatever I can.
In the meantime, I decided to share some photos from our Santa Fe trip. The first day, we walked over to the to the Santa Fe train depot. This of course is a favorite of Liam's. Last year we took a ride on the vintage train and he had so much fun. Unfortunately, this year we arrived on a Tuesday, and found out you can only ride it Fri. through Sun. Nooo!!

To my surprise, Liam was satisfied with just running around on the the cars. (I don't have my photo editing program, so the photos are a little dark). Directly next door there is the cutest cafe that I totally fell in love with. A lot of the time when I say "I love" a cafe or restaurant its because of the decor first...food second. I'm glad to say that the food was good too.

I love the skylights and the amazing mirror behind the bar. Most of the walls were either in a dark green or covered with brick. I think one of my favorite details was the white marble on the counters, because it seemed to glow. Very lovely. It was one of those places, I would move into right away, if only they would let me. As much as I liked this place, I forgot what it is called. Bad blogger!! I am disappointed in myself, but if anyone is visiting Santa Fe, it is right next door to the train station.

The rare voluntary photo of myself with Liam. I'm holding him like this because he wouldn't sit still. It took about 6 or 7 shots to get this one of his face. I think I'm not so much "holding him" as I am holding him down.
Many more photos to come!