This past week left us speechless… yet again. While beautiful reveals help to create moments of escape, we have to continue keep our eyes wide open and actively fight against injustice. So before we get into another small dose of escapism, if you can donate to Jacob Blake’s GoFundMe and if anyone has information about how to help the victims of the Kenosha protest please put that info in the comments. Okay, let’s get to the link up…
Today’s home tour comes to us from The Design Files (duh!). This home is a masterclass in pops of color. Homeowner, interior decorator Phoebe Rolleston and architect Lucy Bowen really created something beautiful.
From Emily: The new Studio McGee collection for Target is better than imagined. I need nothing right now which pains me because I want this table, this pouf (in blue), and this console so bad. Yay to my friend Shea for such a great collaboration with my other friend, Target. 🙂
Lastly… Woah, this is a VERY GOOD LADDER.
From Ryann: This piece by Jazmine Hughes awoke my soul and made me feel excited about reading and writing again. It is beautifully written, full of personal reflection and social commentary, all while celebrating personal triumph and new experiences. It’s probably the best thing I’ve read all year, so if you are in the mood for a very poignant and intoxicating read, I can’t recommend it enough.
From Jess: If you love arches and stunning architecture you are going to LOVE this Modern Spanish home. I can’t stop looking at it!
From Julie: From Julie: “Earlier this summer my sister, Val, and her family decided to make a big move up north to Bend, Oregon after a year of traveling the world. And yes, they did get quarantined abroad for about a month before traveling home to Los Angeles but that is a whole other story. They are becoming true PNW-ers and have even started a small business on Etsy selling butterfly habitats. Why butterfly habitats you may ask? After the move my sister got talking with an old high school friend, Julie, (another Julie!) about her beautiful garden in LA (check out her IG here: @this_bountiful_life) and how she had so many monarch caterpillars but couldn’t find a shop that was selling affordable habitats. So, being the creative, ambitious and currently unemployed (after traveling for a year) person my sister is she decided to create @ButterflyCasita.
Here’s more info about their products from Val: Our Butterly Habitats are an easy, exciting new item to bring home and begin a lifelong love of nature’s most beautiful pollinators. The Butterfly Cottage is our smaller design. Perfect for a balcony, small patio or for anyone who would like to hang their butterfly habitat on an outdoor wall. Whereas, The Butterfly Brownstone is our larger design. Tall and slim, just like the New York buildings they are named after. Perfect for a garden or outdoor space. Are you an avid gardener who wants to bring beautiful pollinators to your plants? Are you a parent of curious young ones who love to learn about creatures? Are you focused on how you can benefit the environment with simple everyday practices? Our Butterfly Habitats are perfect for anyone who has a love of nature! Our habitats provide caterpillars with a safe home during their metamorphosis process. Get ready to watch one of nature’s most beautiful transformations. Egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly!
From Caitlin: I love Korean food. (I picked an apartment within walking distance of Hae Jang Chon for a reason — it is THE best all you can eat KBBQ place in LA, I will debate it with anyone, and their bulgogi is SO GOOD that friends from the South Bay will drive all the way up to meet me there for a meal. Shoutout Hae Jang Chon!!!) Anyway — I wanted to start learning more about ways to incorporate more Korean food into my everyday meal rotation, so I picked up this cookbook by Maangchi which I LOVE. There are tons of ingredient and equipment lists at the beginning so I haven’t felt super overwhelmed (my normal food prep lately has been like…toast, so ANY cooking is a stretch) and it’s also just fun to read and super educational. She also has an awesome YouTube channel if you’re more of a visual learner:) 10/10!!!
Also from Caitlin: A friend sent me this video on Friday and it made me happy cry. SO SWEET.
Since Nisolo can’t hold their annual warehouse sale in person, they’re holding it online… and this is GREAT NEWS for us, because we are all Nisolo super fans. We own (and can vouch for) these open-toed mules, these d’Orsay oxfords, these 2.5″ block-heeled mules, these slip-ons, and our everyday mules. They also have a ton of cute keep-forever bags and earrings available. It’s our favorite sale this week!
From Mallory: I’ve never owned a yoga mat before last week (which is really weird of me) so I did some research and decided to splurge on this one in green sage. Worth it.
From Sara: My mom is a teacher of 35+ years, so we’ve been chatting A LOT about the distance learning and zoom class situation. She’s currently teaching TK, and if you have TK aged children, first of all BLESS YOU, and second of all I have some recs straight from my sweet mom. Even if you don’t have TK aged kids, these app recs are great for all young and elementary school kids!
First up is my mom’s favorite app, VOOKS. From their site – “It’s a kid-safe, ad-free streaming library of read-along, animated storybooks.” My mom says she plays one of these every morning for 15 minutes while kids trickle into their zoom session, and she loves it.
Second is Deep Space Sparkle Art. These online art classes were actually a special recommendation for Birdie because I told her how much she loves doing art. My mom is very art-based (she also used to teach art classes on the weekend, as if spending 5 days a week with children was just not enough! SOME PEOPLE ARE TRUE ANGELS!), and she thinks the classes and activities this site is putting together are really awesome.
LASTLY – My mom works in a majority low-income school district in Los Angeles, and distance learning has been a really tough transition for many of the kids in her class. Many of their parents are working essential jobs which keep them from being home, they have limited access to the internet, and limited access to basic school resources and supplies at home. And if you didn’t already know this, public education is severely underfunded and teachers spend SO MUCH out of their own pockets. This year my mom put together kits (that included art supplies, books, supplies, etc., all out of pocket) and personally dropped them off at each student’s home. So I asked my mom what would she LOVE for her kids to have this year. What are the things that she really wishes she could give her kids to just make their educational experience that much better, and not just the bare minimum.
She came up with two things – First, she’d love to get each of her 15 students headphones with microphones. She says it helps their focus tenfold when they’re able to block out noises from the rest of the house (including siblings who are also trying to distance learn). SO, I created a Target registry where anyone can purchase a pair and have them directly shipped to my mom, who will then deliver them to each student!
Secondly, she would love to give each student one new book a month. Ownership of books is so empowering to kids on their journey to reading. She’s set up a Scholastic donation collection here in order to be able to fund this goal of giving each student in her classroom one new book every month for the entire school year.
These two things would make a huge difference to 15 kids this year. And I know the teacher is my mom, but I can’t tell you enough how AMAZING of a teacher this woman is. It’s rare that someone knows at the age of 5 so passionately what they want to do, and then spends their entire life pursuing that passion, getting two masters (one at age 53!), and doing it all in a second language (my mom is an immigrant whose first language is Spanish). OK I’M DONE CRYING NOW, and thank you anyone and everyone who can donate to help in any small way.
UPDATE: All the headphones needed have been purchased. THANK YOU! If you’d still like to contribute to Sara’s mom’s classroom you can still donate to the Scholastic book fund or you can donate a gift card via the Target registry link. All gift cards will go straight towards supplies for the classroom. And lastly, we’d like to add one more place you can donate to help school children in California right now. Currently, there’s a large need for school supplies in Northern California, where many migrant workers live. Money is currently being raised here to help these workers buy masks to wear for safety as they work as well as purchase school supplies for their children. THANK YOU SO MUCH for everyone’s generosity.
That’s it for today! Have a happy and safe rest of your weekend. See you tomorrow xx
Opening Image Credit: Design by Phoebe Rolleston and Lucy Bowen | Styled by Annie Portelli | Photo by Eve Wilson | via The Design Files
Sara, tell your mom thank you for the work she’s doing! I bought a pair of headphones and hope it helps the kids!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
What is TK?
Transitional kindergarten. Between K and 1st grade.
TK is the year before K. It was created for kids with fall birthdays (sept – dec 2), entering public school at 4 years of age. Gives them two years of K essentially!! If your child will be turning 5 between Jan and June, s/he qualifies for ETK (extended TK). Not all LAUSD schools have them, but you can find on LAUSD.net. Sadly, nothing for July and August kiddies! Hope this helps to clarify.
That’s often journalism-speak for “information we need to fill in later”, so it possibly accidentally got through without final edit once she double-checked with her mom.
Anne is correct!
Just donated to the book fund! Tell your Mom she’s a rock star!
xxx
Link is missing for the Korean cookbook!
Just added!
Love, love, love, the chance to help with the work Sara’s mom is doing. I’m a literacy specialist and public school teacher too, and these books will make a world of difference for her kids.
Thank you so much and thank you for all the work you do!
Sara…your Mom is an Angel on Earth! Good luck with the making a difference projects. x 😇
Ryann….that was a really great read, thanks! 🤔
Julie…..such a great environmentally wise idea! They ship to Australia too! Amazing! 🦋
***I’m currently without a plastic card of any sort (That’s why I can’t join in on The Insiders…I sent an email to Caitlin about it, BUT I don’t have a card and won’t have one for a long while, so I still can’t ‘get in’.)
Paypal should be an option if it isn’t. You don’t need a cc, paypal can be linked directly to your bank account.
You do realize Jacob Black had a warrant out for sexual assault, trespassing, and domestic abuse. He resisted arrest, shrugging off 2 attempts at the police trying to stun him, and even put an officer in a headlock during the arrest attempt. Look up the facts. I don’t care what the color of his skin is, he’s not a good man. Not sure why you’re promoting a go fund me account for a criminal that abuses women and has no respect for authority. Honest question. Please enlighten me.
According to the constitution, all people are supposed to get due process. The offenses you mention are not capital offenses. The police tried to kill him. That’s not how things are supposed to work.
Of course. And the officer would have to deal with the consequences in court for his actions. That’s what the court is for.
I worry what this is flaunting: an abuser can do whatever they want, sexually abuse women(while a child is present), resist arrest, violently fight with officers, have a weapon(a knife in his case), and know that the country is going to support him. Slippery slope.
But hey, you can give him all the money you want. Sounds like an outstanding citizen.
It’s odd that you respect “what the court is for” yet don’t seem to be disturbed by a police officer playing judge and taking a man’s life into his own hands.
The problem is the cops are not charged with anything and never make it to court. That is why we are fighting
Being a bad person doesn’t mean the police get to execute you on the street. If a police officer defaults to attempting murder rather than deescalating the situation, it means they are really bad at their job. Jacob Blake is no angel but he deserves the same rights that you do. There are situations where shooting a suspect is unavoidable, but they are few and far between and it is no coincidence that cops seem to be much better at deescalation when the suspect has white skin. For a really simple recent example, observe the different treatment, headlines and news coverage of Kyle Rittenhouse vs. Jacob Blake. It’s really not hard to understand, so if you are “honest” in wanting to learn more you need only Google.
Of course the police should not get away with executing people on the street. Put yourself in the officer’s shoes – you go to break up a fight knowing the person involved has been accused of a heinous crime (raping a child) – then said person resists your attempts to deescalate the situation, puts you in a headlock, then resists the warnings to stop again by attempting to be tased (which didn’t work). He then walks away displaying a knife (again not listening) – goes into the front seat of the car to grab who-knows-what – a gun? Another knife? A bat? Are the cops supposed to wait around for this low life to listen to them on his terms, when he’s ready? NOPE. Don’t think so. He had his chance to act like a decent human being and comply, and he didn’t. If that were my father, son, or brother in that uniform, I would have told them they had no choice to do what they did. If Jacob Blake complied, he would not be in the hospital right now. Also, don’t want to hear he’s a great dad. He’s not. He has many court petitions because he hasn’t… Read more »
You’re missing a lot of nuance here, and much of what you’ve said is either conjecture or fabrication. It might be worth your while to follow your own advice and “look up the facts”–actually, here, I’ll help you: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/08/posts-distort-facts-on-jacob-blake-charges/
But it also might be worth reflecting on why it’s important to you to depict Jacob Blake as this violent monster with such superhuman strength that he’s immune to stunguns. I’m just gently trying to suggest that you do, in fact, “care what the color of his skin is,” even if you think you don’t. Even if everything you said were true, do you really think the officer’s life would be in danger if he didn’t shoot him? Do you think it justifies the trauma to his children? you think that the state should execute every person who has been accused of a crime? And would you be outraged if he were totally blameless in every facet of his existence, but still…you know… black?
Sara,
Thanks for letting us know how to assist
your mom and if later you set up some type of funding where people can give money for a book a month for each child in your mother’s class …..I would love to sign up.
Thank you ever so much for bringing this to our attention.
While “anonymous’s “ comments are less than pleasant, and not knowledgeable of the law, the fact that you guys have let them stand is a complement to your open community approach.
Gives us a chance to experience some as they really are, very eye opening. And disturbing.
I am really grateful for the links, as I am also a tk/preschool teacher in a low income area in Oakland, CA, and teaching via zoom to this age is really tough. It is also tough for students to learn by using cell phones if they don’t have computers. I spent last semester raiding my closed up classroom of any and all materials, and made a monthly delivery of art materials, work packets, books, and even snack food to my students at their homes. Now I need to replenish in order to do the same for my new students this semester. The links you sent are really helping me get inspired to figure out how to serve my students as best I can under these difficult circumstances. I signed up for Vooks immediately. Good luck to your mom! She sounds amazing! This was the inspiration I needed.
It is possible to think both that Blake should not have been shot 7 times and that it’s gross to raise money for someone with a history or abusing women and children.
This!!
Do you want the burned down/looted business owners’ info? Surely they are “Kenosha protest victims”.