Thompson Family-Life

2013 Palm Springs, California Trip - Insta Recap

Center photo: Me, Katie & Heather in Pioneertown

From top left, moving around clockwise: 1. "Happy Trails" Sign, Pioneertown // 2. "Swap Meet" we stumbled onto in Joshua Tree // 3. Driving through Yucca Valley & Joshua Tree // 4. Desert Swap Meet/Flea Market // 5. Palm Springs Backdrop // 6, 7, 8. Route 62 Vintage Antique Mall // 9. Katie's thrift pillow find! // 10. Beautiful embroidered vintage poncho // 11. My feet lounging at The Saguaro // 12. The infamous windmills right outside of Palm Springs // 

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I'm back from my trip to Palm Springs! I thought I'd put together this little (or big!) Instagram recap. If you follow me on Instagram, you have seen most of these, but it's nice seeing them all together like this I think, too. If you want to see some larger, you can visit my feed online. 

I'm going to share some brief thoughts on this trip and how it differed from my last, but first I wanted to share my experience with this new phone in case you are in the market for a new phone and aren't sure if you want to take the iphone splurge, or save some pennies and go with a Droid. I have to say, I unequivocally LOVE this phone. There are of course pros and cons to both the iphone and android, but this phone, for me, fulfills everything I wanted in a phone. I pulled up the photos I took in Photoshop and was AMAZED at the resolution quality when I zoomed in.

I am a very happy girl. 

Also. THE SCREEN. It's HUGE! Comparing it to my iphone carrying friends on this trip, my screen is much bigger. But it is still very easy to handle - not TOO big. The screen image quality is so fantastic. I'll stop there, but I just felt like I had to share this in case anyone is phone shopping! Since Droids can now pretty much use any app that an iphone can, this is an awesome phone to have (Samsung Galaxy s2).

Center photo: Marilyn Monroe statue (did you know Marilyn was discovered in Palm Springs?)

From top left, moving around clockwise: 1. Vintage typography book I found at Revivals Thrift store // 2-10. Little Tokyo in LA // 11. Inside The Saguaro // 12. Sanrio Claw Machine in Little Tokyo

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Some trip highlights:

- Staying at The Saguaro. Yes, the highly pinned hotel that every design enthusiast and color-lover swooned over last year. And guess what? It is MUCH more impressive in photos. Ha! Don't get me wrong, it's super cute, but the photos make it look a bit more upscale. And not that I'm a hotel snob whatsoever. We are budget accommodation all the way. But I kind of expected more. It's definitely a bit more "dinky" for the money. It wasn't too expensive, but it wasn't exactly cheap either. But hey, it's still super cute and colorful and, yes, great for photos! 

- Got dinner and drinks at The Ace. Always fun going there. You can see lots of photos I took there last time I went, here. I would love to stay here one day. 

- Hung out at the always fabulous The Parker Hotel courtesy of our friend Holly! She and Heather stayed there one night, so Katie and I got to hang out with them in their room. You can see lots of photos that I took at The Parker on my last trip, here. Luckily you can always walk the grounds of the Parker and the ACE even if you're not staying there, if you ever want to check it out. But it was fun seeing one of the rooms in person (and swoon over all of the Jonathan Adler pieces!).

Center Photo: Katie, Holly & Heather

From top left, moving around clockwise: 1-4. Inside the room at The Parker // 5. Dressed and ready to explore // 6. The Parker // 7. Rt 62 Vintage Marketplace // 8. Polka-dot tights // 9. Rt 62 Vintage Marketplace // 10. The Parker // 11. shopping! // 12. My panda airplane headrest pillow : )

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- Going thrift and vintage shopping in Palm Springs and Yucca Valley. The Route 62 shop was really cute and there was a great antique mall next door as well. Some really amazing furniture pieces for great prices. If you live nearby, definitely worth a trip! 

- Visiting Pioneertown and eating at Pappy & Harriet's. Heather has been talking up this place for a long time, and it was super fun! More than anything, it gave us an excuse to drive through the desert and really experience the landscape. For this Southern gal, that view still just blows me away. It almost looks like one of those fake old Hollywood backdrops. Just too unreal looking to be real. Pappy & Harriet's was super yummy and apparently a popular destination for fun bands (and lots of hipsters, of course). I'll have more photos from Pioneertown coming soon.

- And last, going on an unplanned visit to Little Tokyo in LA before my flight out on Tuesday. It was definitely a highlight of my trip! If I can't have the real Tokyo, I'll take a little one any day. ; ) SO many cool things to buy and great food to eat. I bought too much and I'll share soon.

Ironically, even though this trip was originally planned to center around Modernism Week, we only did one event and it was a disappointment (a lecture all about Marimekko!). And we bailed on a home tour because we were having too much fun shopping. Ha! But I think that's what made this trip different - it wasn't overly planned, but totally done on the fly. I really needed some time to just relax and have good times and conversation with friends and that's what it was! And since we went in February, the weather was AH-MA-ZING! So, if it weren't for Modernism Week, I wouldn't have thought to go during this time of year. Definitely the perfect time to go hang out in the desert.

instagramin'

Just a little Instagram update! Follow me at Kitschy Digitals if you see anything above that sparks your interest. See that sweet phone up there in the heart? That is my new phone! I'm so excited. It's the Samsung Galaxy s2. It's a huge, huge upgrade from my last phone and it's apparently the rock star of Androids. I just got it today and I can't wait to start playing. The screen is HA-UGE. Most importantly, the quality of my phone pics will be a far cry better than what I had. This makes me so happy because I can now print my pics out! I just saw this on Pinterest this week and I can't wait to try it out.

Does anyone have this phone? Do you like it? Please share!

Tomorrow I'll be getting ready for my big trip to Palm Springs this weekend. I haven't been since 2010 and I've been chomping at the bit ever since. You can see my pics from my last trip here. I will be meeting the same friends that I met up with last time (they live in California - hi Heather & Holly!) along with an online friend, Katie, that lives in LA where I'll be flying into. All four of us will be driving to Palm Springs and staying at the Saguaro (such a colorful place!) It's Modernism Week there and Katie and I will be doing a Frey House Tour and attending the Marimekko Lecture. Very excited! I'll be sure to of course take tons of photos to share when I get back.

Have a great weekend!

A Little Instragramin'

Here are some peeks into life around here over the past few months. If you'd like to follow along, I'm @KitschyDigitals on Instagram! Some highlights include a road trip to Athens, Georgia, another road trip to Auburn, Alabama to celebrate a 9 year old's birthday, our first time at the Starlight Drive-in, teaching the boys needlepoint, some home decorating, geocaching, photo shoot behind-the-scenes, lunch with this lady, a date with a sweet little gal, and of course, lots of vintage finds. This weekend there were lots of pumpkin and apple pickin' and good times with friends. It's such a great time of year for just about everyone, don't you think? It's definitely feeling festive! I hope you all had a great weekend!

See more 'droid and instagram action here.

instagram it

So, yeh! I'm on IG, how about you? I'm "kitschydigitals" if you're interested. Let me know what your IG name is in the comments section, I'd love to follow! I know I've complained about my 'Droid here but once I heard that they had a new app for Droids for Instagram I was all "well, I guess I'll try it out" all non-chalant-like (you know, secretly thinking "YES! i've GOT to try this thing out that all those iphone-ers are always yapping about!"

I was hesitant to at first because I don't know about you, but who needs another time-sucker! Lord, I can't keep up with it all AND get work done! I honestly got hooked when I had access to Ethan's work iphone for a week or two. That kind of spoiled me. Then he went and changed jobs and now has a Blackberry (booooo). So, most of these pics are from my 'Droid, some from his iphone. My camera takes the worst pics and I can't tell if it's my phone/model/megapixels or what. I see other 'Droid user's pics and a lot of them look better. I'm thinking they have a better model. Mine is cheap and my bill is like $25 a month. Ha! Good on the pocketbook, not so good for photo quality. 

As a person that has spent the better part of the past 8 years or so perfecting my photography, it's hurts me a little inside having to upload my crap-tastic pictures. But hey, they are what they are, so go with it, baby. : )

As you can see, most of my photos are of things I left behind at thrift stores and antique malls... some things I brought home with me... random family stuff and other happenings going on around the Thompson household... me considering dying my hair pink (!!!)... molding eggs into rabbit faces... weekend trips to Birmingham, Alabama... margaritas... Ramona the Rat!... and exciting photos of me in my bathroom mirror.

I don't post photos a lot on IG and honestly, I prefer Twitter (i know they're different, but some people seem to hang out on one more than the other). I don't always have a pretty or interesting photo to upload with my thoughts, so that is why I love Twitter. I've seen a lot of IG accounts where the person always has a gorgeous photo to upload of their perfect home, with their perfect children, while they're homeschooling and making meals with ingredients from their homegrown garden... and I quickly start feeling like "wow. My life feels pretty dang boring. I'm sitting here getting an oil change and my kid is having a meltdown."

I moaned about this a bit on said Twitter this week, about the need to broadcast everything we do... that feeling that it's only validated if we take a pic and broadcast it across the internet. (and when you're in the Creative world that I'm in, everyone is trying to out-do each other with their perfectness.)

To think that there was a time that we didn't need to do that (broadcast everything). Even folks that aren't on Twitter, or IG, or that don't blog, most people are at a minimum on Facebook.

It's hard to remember a time when we didn't feel the need to tell everyone everything... instantly!

To think we just went about our lives, living it. Not worrying about who you could tell or show. The world really is a big Show-and-Tell game. But I get that it's just the way it is.

I seem to be a good 5-10 years older than most people I encounter in my little neck-of-the-internet-woods. We were just starting to use email when I was in college. So growing up, for me, was just normal, you know? I wasn't glued to my phone or e-mail. Or texting. I was just living my life.

It's all very perplexing if I think about it too much. Online social networking can be fun, but it's also just a bit MUCH. I can immediately feel myself getting in a bad mood if I get too immersed in it all and that says a lot to me. I'm most happy when I'm oblivious. When I'm working hard on building my business and making my time count. When I'm in the moment with my family. 

When I'm not broadcasting a damn thing about it. That is when I'm happiest.

It's a weird, sometimes fun, but always perplexing thing.

How do you feel about it all? Our constant need to have our face glued to the internet and our phones? The need to tell everyone about everything, every hour of the day. 

I have friends that aren't even part of this world. One of these friends and I were talking about it a few weekends ago. She doesn't even do Facebook.

Honestly? I envied her. A lot. We were saying that the difference between these two kinds of people, you see it immediately in their body language. For example, you're at a park. One person takes it all in. Breathes it in. People watches. The other person might do that for a little while, but swiftly becomes bored, yanks out his or her phone and starts tap, tap, tapping. It's like everyone has ADD. It's like you can't spend FIVE minutes just relaxing.

I see that in myself a lot. That restlessness. But I think it's just been conditioned in me, you know? If my business and other things didn't depend on the internet, and my connection to people around the world, the idea of totally unplugging from it would sound perty daggum awesome.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Please share!

my life in Droid pics

1,4 - Kudzu Antiques // 2,3,9 - Decatur Estate // 5 - Highland Row Antiques // 6 - Thrift // 7 - Classy Flea 
8 - My Studio (tour to come!)

I started this feature a while back and I realized I've only done it once! I know lots of you own iphones and you're all over Instagram... well, pffft. I'm a Droid girl. (kidding, I would love to be an iphone girl, but it ain't in the budget!)

I loooove having a phone that I can take pictures with. Yes, I was probably the last person on Earth without a smart phone, but I got my first last year. I especially love having my phone with me when I'm out thrifting or going to local Atlanta vintage shops. I use it to "claim" items that I can't take home with me. You know how that is. There's something about taking a photo of something, or blogging about it, or pinning it on Pinterest to make you feel like it's "your's" even though it's not. Know what I mean?

As you can see we have quite a lot of great vintage to be seen in this city!

10,11,14,18 - Cobb Antiques // 12 - Heliotrope // Moi at my new fav vintage clothing store Rag 'o Rama
 15,16 - Thrifts // 17 - My Studio

Let's also take note at how phone cameras make you look about 20 lbs thinner.

Mmm-hmmm. You know it's true.

19,23,25 - Cobb Antiques // 18 - Buford Highway (Atlanta's closest thing to Chinatown) //
21 - Kudzu Antiques // 22 - Me in my bathroom // 24 - Highland Row Antiques // 26 - My bike! Pannier bag from Cycle Chic

So if you're ever in Atlanta and are looking for great vintage, be sure to check out some of the shops I linked to. Thrifting is great here, too. I use this awesome website while I'm out (viewed on my Droid of course!) called The Thrift Shopper. You just put in a zip code and all of the nearby thrifts come up. I've spent the past six months or so traveling all over Atlanta (Atlanta is VERY big and very spread out) scouting out all of the great thrifts. It's been quite an adventure.

Do you use a Droid? Do you like it?