peach and roasted vegetable salad

this is a peach and roasted vegetable salad with a grain of your choice (cous cous!) and topped with feta cheese.  how amazing does that sound? thanks to love and olive oil for bringing this recipe into my world.

check out 9 more delicious summer salad recipes here, including one of my all-time favorites, spinach topped with strawberries. i want to try a salad with kale… it’s a staple ingredient in my morning green juice, but i’ve never eaten it raw in a salad before, have you?

image (and recipe) credit: love and olive oil

hamptons living room

i’ve always wanted a house with a ridiculously large living room.  i love the idea of walking in and thinking: there are 20 different places to sit in here, which spot should i choose? i am especially loving the color palette in this hampton home… the mostly sleek grey tones with the pop of green is simply perfect!  the kitchen is awesome as well, and i would totally live in this garden.

image credit: elle decor

alone time

as an only child, alone time was never hard to come by, and i think it served me well. as a now-married grown-up, i can totally handle alone time, but prefer alone time with my hubby (as in, watching a movie at home, together, not out socializing with 10 other people).

what do you think of mr. wilde’s quote? and do you treasure or dread being alone?

image credit: via tumblr

surf spray

i am a big fan of bumble and bumble’s surf spray (really truly, i get california-surfer-girl-waves with almost no work).  and i just learned they now have surf shampoo and conditioner? where have i been?!  i can’t wait to try out this trio.  has anyone used the shampoo and/or conditioner before?  i’d love to hear your thoughts.

image credit: via sephora

the summer we read gatsby

and gatsby mania continues over here as i just finished reading danielle ganek’s lovely novel, “the summer we read gatsby.”  this book pretty much has nothing to do with f. scott fitzgerald’s “the great gatsby” other than it takes place in the hamptons, and one of the main characters is pretty much obsessed with the book.

as i have already mentioned, i like fairly light reading material. i am not into the classics, and i don’t read anything educational for fun.  this book really hit the mark for me: it was light and entertaining; the characters were well developed; i could imagine myself in every scene; and it ended well. there was a little bit of romance, a little bit of whimsy, a little bit of mischief, and little bit of fashion. i really don’t ask for too much from my books, i just want to thoroughly enjoy it all the way through.  this is the first book in a long time about which i can really say “i loved it” and i wholeheartedly recommend it for your summer beach reading.

do you have any suggestions for me? what shall i read next?

image credit: via goodreads

dolce and gabbana

this ad has me dreaming of a vacation on the italian riviera. obviously i’d be dressed (head-to-toe) in bright dolce and gabbana prints.  way to go d&g, you’ve definitely got me dreaming the dream!

image credit: dolce and gabbana

nomad photography

i have dreams of being a photographer.  however, it is totally not happening.  i don’t have the drive to carry my camera with me everywhere, and i don’t have the guts to take candid street photos of people, which is what i really want to do.

now damon o’reilly has got it down! as a young photographer based in south africa, he photographs everything from weddings to wildlife. now i know that most of you, my lovely readers, are not based in south africa, and therefore this information is probably not super interesting to you.  but i recommend you take a minute and click through… his photographs are really amazing.

which one is your favorite?

image credit: nomad photography