Here are a few links I enjoyed this week and the story behind this picture:

1.  Maria Van Nguyen asked “Is it ever okay to purchase fast fashion?”.  My answer is “yes sometimes” too.  I bought a blazer from H&M that I knew I would only wear a few times for job interviews when I was in a pinch a few months ago.  I agree with MVN about Uniqlo’s collaboration with Lemaire.  The new collection is dreamy.  Although ultra minimal, you can actually see Christopher Lemaire’s attention to detail in the pieces.  They use nice fabrics with good construction too.    I’m particularly intrigued by the wide leg cropped sweatpants that are probably much more forgiving than the jeans version every one is wearing these days, but I already have a pair of amazing sweatpants by Everlane.  It took a lot of will power to not buy this simple shirt with one large pocket.  The prices are pretty irresistible.  But I’m on a shopping hiatus right now.
2. I’ve been daydreaming about getting rid of everything and starting all over again and revisited this old post by  Colin Wright about the concept of completing the “minimum viable home” as your first step, before adding any non-essentials.  It would be interesting to see if I can start and end at that point.  But the war on stuff is a hard battle to keep up.
3. And finally, there’s a Scandinavian term for staying home in your underwear and getting drunk on weekends.  My weekends are much more sober in my 30s than in my 20s, but I still love staying home in my underwear.  As I get older, the weekends become such precious moments.  I’ve been spending them mostly at home working on fun projects or learning something new. Glad to be immune from the whole FOMO thing.

Photo:  My apartment came with exposed brick and this awkward faux fireplace.  It’s a common thing in NYC. I made it functional by creating a graveyard for old books with a nook to store our vinyl record collection.  To reduce visual clutter, the books are arranged with the spines facing away.  These funky little cement bookends of a meditating dog were gifted to us from my BF’s mom.  We use them to prop up the vinyls.  We buy new books digitally only, but still add slowly to our vinyl collection.  My Valentine’s day tulips are still going strong.  I placed them near the floor so our dog can enjoy the scent too.  Freddy loves the smell of flowers.  

🌻