THESE SHOES WERE MADE FOR WALKING

"walking is good for solving problems - it's like the feet are little psychiatrists." ~ pepper giardino. "all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking." ~ friedrich nietzsche 
"pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence." ~ henry david thoreau.

it all begins with the first step, and first steps can sometimes be the hardest. sometimes it's difficult to start that new project, or follow your heart. sometimes it's easy to start but nearly impossible to finish. either way, it's all about taking that first step. the step in the direction of your dreams, whatever those may be.  so let's put on our favorite shoes and take that first step. amazing awaits.  blessings xo, am

photos: my canon 7d, olivia bee, agape

COLORFUL DAYS, COLORFUL LIVES

art. painting. colors. beauty. so tomorrow i'm taking my nephew(5 yrs old) to the art supply store. he is a natural artist. whenever he gets fidgety or anxious or bored, i put pens or paints in his hand and a pad of paper in front of him. within seconds he calms down. he focuses. he is enraptured. he is quiet. and when he's done creating, i am always stunned. his works are complex and intricate, with stories within stories and they're much more interesting than any words he says with his voice. so tomorrow i promised to buy him his first real canvas. he chooses the colors, we choose the canvas and he creates his first painting. i'll post the photo when the artist is done! xo, am  photo: sundance

LAUREN GREENFIELD & GIRL CULTURE

went to hear my friend lauren greenfield speak at annenberg space for photography. it was a fantastic presentation about beauty and culture and women and bodies and fashion. lauren's photographs and now her videos and documentaries, explore the idealized worlds of stardom, celebrity and fashion. she challenges our notions of beauty and pulls back the curtain on issues such as plastic surgery, children's beauty pagents, eating disorders and the world of modeling and fashion. visit her site for more info on lauren's work. xo, annette  photos: copyright, lauren greenfield

ELLEN IS VEG NEWS NO. 1 CELEBRITY

power couple ellen and portia(vegans!) opened up their new home to architectural digest. i love the pool with a view and the lucite entryway table is actually a ping pong table. how cool is that? whimsical and classy at the same time. table tennis(aka ping pong) is such the rage right now in LA and NY.  i better brush up on my backyard ping pong!
xo, am

WHY?

two geniuses, and i don't use this term lightly, are no longer with us to share their beauty and intelligence and future creations; their perspectives on the world, their mistakes, foibles, their loves and their dreams....and for some reason i'm thinking of them today: alexander mcqueen and david foster wallace.  i am wishing that time could reach back on itself and give us all a do-over.

"I think there is beauty in everything. What ‘normal’ people would perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it."

— Alexander McQueen

“Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”

David Foster Wallace

xo, am