If you look very closely, you’ll see that I’m wearing jeans with red and white stripes down the side!

[outfit: cos white tee, JUST jeans, Mayari Birkenstocks sandals, Baggu bag]

Before I start, I have to say sorry for these half ass outfit pics.  We are still in our temporary apartment with our things in storage, so I can’t snap proper OOTD photos at the moment, and need to resort to whatever full length mirror I happen to walk by these days.

Back to these jeans.  I never would have thought that I would buy pants with stripes down the side.  That was never my style.  But the super thin red and white stripes on cotton canvas felt so classic Americana to me that I just had to get them.  It’s a little bit different than what I’m used to, but feel right at home in my wardrobe at the same time.

I bought them while travelling in Europe.  I’m a little embarrassed to say this but I actually bought them at a Goop recommended boutique / cafe in Amsterdam (for the record, I don’t read Goop generally).  But while in Amsterdam, the BF and I used the Goop and VICE travel guides, drawing from two sources at opposite ends of the spectrum (bougie and straight up rachet).  It made for a very good time.

Goop recs tend to be extremely expensive, but these jeans and all the clothes at this store (which I can’t remember the name of now!) were actually reasonably priced.  These jeans were around 100 Euros.  For 100% cotton jeans, that’s pretty good! The brand is called “JUST”.  I tried google-ing this brand but the name is kind of un-google-able.

I needed a sturdy straight leg, mid rise, 100% cotton pair of jeans, and this filled that hole.  Now I can move on.

And as you can see I went to Sephora today.  I needed some tinted sunscreen after running out of my tinted Elta MD sunscreen.  I didn’t want to wait for a replacement from an online order, so I went ahead and bought some old school Laura Mercier at Sephora.  I did that thing at Sephora that everyone does:  go in to buy one thing and then come out with random stuff from the sample size products that flank the line at the cashier.  I ended up with a bottle of Olaplex 3.  I’ve never tried it before, but heard that it can work miracles, and well, my hair always needs all the help it can get.  At some point, I’ll share my thoughts on it.

We are still settling in to our new neighborhood.  Everything is so nice.  Kind of too nice?  I’m not used to things being this nice…

Some of you wanted to hear about how we moved across the country.  To sum it up, we used a moving company that’s the only company that specializes in NYC to LA/SF moves.  They only do these routes, which allows them to save time and money.  They are able to then pass on the savings to their customers.  I heard about them through a friend.  I don’t want to mention the name of the company here because I don’t want to advertise for them, but you can easily look this up with a simple google search if you are in need of this service.  It’s a door to door service with built in storage in between if you are not moving right away.  The whole thing costs around $2K, which is, I hear, much cheaper than traditional movers.  But we did have a few hiccups, ie. the movers showed up 13 hours late without communicating with us!  We freaked out and thought they would never show up, but thank God they finally did.

Once our things were loaded on the truck, we hit the road with our dog and suitcases, making stops in cities along the way at dog friendly hotels, which we reserved the day of using the BringFido App.  Our favorite hotel, by far, was The Graduate Hotel in Richmond Virginia.

To keep ourselves entertained on the road, we listened to a ton of music on Spotify.  My favorite album we listened to was I’m All Ears by Let’s Eat Grandma (it’s so good!| music video below).  We couldn’t just listen to music the whole way though.  Occasionally we listened to an audiobook by Lawrence Wright called God Save Texas.  I had heard about it on NPR and thought it’d be interesting to get into the psyche of people from Texas through Wright’s memoir.  He’s a New Yorker staff writer and a self proclaimed former self hating Texan.  It’s been a good read so far.

We spent probably around 6-7 days driving, but took extended breaks to see things and visit family.  At one point, we were about to make a pit stop in Waco, TX to see the Magnolia Silos, but after reading terrible google reviews about how much of a tourist trap it is (ie, long lines, and more souvenirs than actual home goods), we decided to not waste our time.  We went to the Alamo Drafthouse to watch the movie Eighth Grade, which was so good!  It felt very authentically middle school.  It’s a time I remember so well because it was filled with so much anxiety and awkwardness.  I can’t even imagine how much worse it is nowadays in the social media age, ugh!

The trip overall was really nice, sometimes things got very stressful, but it was mostly fun.

What are you guys up to this weekend?  I plan to go to the Farmer’s Market with my mom, ride bikes on the beach with my brother, and then catch up with some old friends I haven’t seen in a while.  It’s so good to be back and close to family and friends again!

I’ll end this post with a Let’s Eat Grandma vid. This female duo makes music that’s layered, challenging; with a healthy dose of keen pop sensibility. If you’re not into the music, you might still enjoy their style.  Enjoy!