trace's

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paint store

In my ongoing war against clutter, I recently saw this idea on pinterest and was excited to give it a try. Recycling my old glass jars as touch-up paint containers. This is a good one for me, I have a lot of one gallon paint tins in my garage, most of them almost empty, and I don't want to get rid of them in case I need to repaint a chip or scrape on one of my walls, door frames,…

mindfulness

                                      (source: thesocialmediamonthly.com) I have a very busy brain. There are lists of lists running through it at all times making sleep and relaxation a challenge. I'm constantly multi-tasking and feeling like a winner when I have as many balls in the air as possible, until I drop all of them. (more…)

DIY gift tote

When a friend has helped me out I've sometimes put together a basket of goodies to say thanks, or I've found one already wrapped and ready to go. This week a lovely family really stepped up when I needed them to look after one of my children while I was away with the other one! (more…)

spring clean-out

            (photo: http://nylonpinksy.tumblr.com/) When my husband, Alan is away filming, he can get a lot of down time. He's an avid reader of the news and Zite and likes to send me articles to read while I hold the fort at home. Actually, they are usually pretty interesting, but when this one came along: Do This One Thing A Day To Defeat Clutter Forever by Max Wong, I wasn't too enthusiastic. The writer claims that if you remove 10 things…

how to beat jet lag – links

There are those people who fly long-haul and hardly miss a beat, appearing to move seamlessly into their new time-zone. I'm not one of those. Long haul flights kick my butt. I wake up at 3am, hungry and ready for work. At 6am I want to sleep and sleep. I'm a mess. (more…)

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Camps Bay beach house, Cape Town

I just had to show you the house we stayed in during our visit to Cape Town. A true South African beach house, this beautiful home hugs the boulders on the edge of Camps Bay. In fact, the master bathroom has been built around a boulder! (more…)

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Camps Bay, Cape Town

The view of Camps Bay from the top of Table Mountain Continuing our trek (less than 2 hour flight) south to Cape Town, we arrived at the beautiful Camps Bay just in time for it to be named in Tripadvisor's 2014 Traveler's Choice Awards list of the top 25 beaches in the world. My husband, Alan, managed to find a house right on the beachfront to be  his home away from home while working on Syfy network's newest series Dominion. (more…)

bushveld oasis – South Africa

I've been lucky enough to have stayed in some pretty nice places on my travels, but our suite in the middle of the South African bush took my breath away. Not only was it comfortable and luxurious, it was a perfect blend of rustic and modern, decorated in a spare yet stunning style, and it was completely private. I wanted to pick it up, move it back to Los Angeles, and live in it forever. (more…)

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safari South Africa style

Going on safari through the South African bushveld is a very intimate experience. Instead of vast plains with huge herds of animals grazing and hunting (which I've heard you'll find in northern Africa), we would drive out of our camp before sunrise and come across an elephant pushing over a sapling and stripping the bark for his breakfast or some other fairytale-looking creature going about it's morning rituals. On one of these morning drives, we stopped and sat quietly watching…