This past summer was challenging for me. I think if you went back and looked at some of my blog posts, you’d agree. When you’re someone who likes to create and suddenly you run out of ideas and motivation, it can be a very challenging period of time. Being the workaholic that I am, I decided to keep myself busy with anything I could think of. I started blogging daily here. I talked a lot with my friends over at Pinterest and pinned.. and pinned.. and pinned and pinned. And I started focusing on other projects writing about dogs and great dog products for no reason other than I enjoyed it. It’s funny but I thought I was just wasting time. A lot of it. I was keeping myself busy with hobbies until (hopefully) the answers came rushing back to me and I could start working again. What I’m realizing now is that I wasn’t wasting time at all! In fact, I was opening myself up to other possibilities in my life, taking on new jobs I never thought I would have, and enabling myself to regain control of what I had already created (just by taking a little break from it). What I learned from that experience was:

I think I learned a lot by giving myself the opportunity to “waste” some time and explore other passions. As a result, I am now a contributing editor over at one of my favorite online publications, Dog-Milk, where I get to write weekly about dogs and great dog products. I just got through writing my very first book review for an amazing book that I adore (check it out on Dog-Milk this Wednesday). Also, I now have over 3,000 followers on my favorite new site Pinterest. Woohoo! I’ve never had 3,000 people follow me anywhere! My love for pinterest has also led me to a weekly blogging position over there (starting soon!) And finally, today I’m launching a brand new blog incorporating both dogs and fashion. My pet project, Miles to Style, has been my favorite waste of time ever and I hope it’ll turn into one of yours! I’ll be posting a total of 3 posts today just to kick things off, and start posting once a day after that (for now at least). Be sure and check it out and let me know what you think!

Happy Monday! Go waste some precious time!

Find the great print above here.

Last week, Dutch artist Florentjin Hofman unveiled his latest sculpture entitled Fat Monkey, a sculpture in São Paulo constructed from thousands of sandals. No, they weren’t Havaianas, though that would have been an incredible piece of marketing for the famous Brazilian sandal brand. They were, however, bright and colorful and made for one incredibly cool fat monkey.

Incidentally, I picked up this information via Pinterest’s “This Week In Pinterest” weekly emails. Every week, I look forward to the fun and interesting facts that Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann shares. I also get pretty jazzed to see my own weekly Pinterest stats. Thanks Ben! Keep the awesome emails coming!

This week’s Friday I’m In Llama image was pointed out to me by my good friend Ben. Aside from being a pretty cool guy, he also happens to be the co-creator of my favorite new site Pinterest. Aside from being an endless source of visual inspiration, Pinterest has been an awesome way for me to connect with some amazing people with similar interests, or “pinterests”, as myself. To me, the social side of Pinterest is one of the best components of this site and I adore posting and reading comments left by my newfound Pinterest pals. So, without further ado, here is my Pinteresting offer to you… drumroll… I’m giving away ten invites to join this incredibly cool and incredibly exclusive new site!! All you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address and if you’re one of the first ten, the invite is yours. Yippee!! Once you’re on, come follow me! Happy 4th of July!!

Early this morning, my good friend Kate decided grab a box of baked goods from Tartine, and to head over to LAMA HQ to catch the USA vs. Algeria game with me. Kate just returned from the World Cup madness in South Africa and brought back a Vuvuzela for me! I’ll do my best to refrain from blasting it at 6:30 am throughout the rest of World Cup, but I’m jazzed to have a little piece of World Cup 2010 here in my home.

So what exactly is a vuvuzela? Here’s a little bit of info I found on Pinterest via (one of my favorite Pinterest pals, Jane Wang)…

A vuvuzela is “a stadium horn commonly blown at South African Football Matches. Often made of plastic and approximately 1m long it emits a loud monotone B flat. ( A less disharmonious sound can be produced by blowing it like a trombone, dropping the corners of the mouth as in the letter “m” and blowing through the lips to make them vibrate.)” Basically, if you’ve been watching World Cup, it’s the swarm of killer bee- like sound you are hearing on your speakers.

I just wanted to say a BIG CONGRATULATIONS to the US World Cup team for their major victory over Algeria this morning. It’s been a tough and controversial road for team USA, but they have rolled with the punches (and jersey pulling, tripping, bad calls, elbows to the face, etc.) and have come out on the other side ready for round 2. Go USA!! By the way, did anyone catch June’s Vanity Fair cover?

Whoa! Remind me again, why isn’t soccer popular in the US? Hm. Viva World Cup and hot soccer men!

I’m so honored to be kicking off sfgirlbybay’s “Pin It Forward” today with nine of my favorite bloggers. In case you have no idea what “Pin It Forward” is, check out my blog post here. Caught up? Cool! So the theme for Pin It Forward is “what home means to you.” After thinking about this long and hard for several days, it occurred to me that, for myself, home has meant so many different things, (and been in so many different places) over the past ten years. I decided to share that with all of you through a story board I created telling the story of what home has meant to me from my first home all the way to my present. Come check out my Pinterest story board! I’ve numbered each shot so you can follow along in order. I hope you enjoy learning a little bit more about me. Here are a few highlights below…

Home used to be a very simple place that existed in a small suburb of Los Angeles

Until the day home became a very different place

Until, once again, home became a very different place

Until, as it happens, home has once again become a very different place

It’s in Berlin with my oldest brother

It’s in the Bay Area with new friends

home is everywhere that you are loved

Thanks again to Victoria Smith from sfgirlbybay for organizing such a massive event! I had a wonderful time reminiscing about this very personal topic in my life that I don’t often share with the people around me (let alone on my blog). Also, a HUGE thank you to the Pinterest team. I can’t sing your praises enough. I am inspired every time I log on and I have had so much fun expressing myself in a new way through your site.

I’m excited to pass the Pin It Forward torch over to the talented Christiana at Ferm Living. I can’t wait to find out what home means to this co-owner of one of my favorite shops, Hygge and West (I hope it includes some of her amazing wallpaper!)

It’s a little late in the day but I didn’t want to head out for the weekend without posting this week’s Friday I’m In Llama. This week’s image was pointed out to me by my good friend Divya via Kate Daigneault’s beautiful photographic inspiration board on Pinterest. This photo entitled “fashion and llamas” (how great is that!) was taken by Gemma Booth who has quickly become one of my favorite photographers. I can’t stop looking at her website!

Happy Friday everyone! I can’t wait to post my “Pin It Forward” inspirations on Monday!

At long last, the lovely Victoria Smith, over at sfgirlbybay, has released all of the exciting info regarding her next Blog It Forward, or in this case, Pin It Forward! The “pin” refers to my favorite new website called Pinterest. Pinterest is “a place to share visual collections of things you love.” For me, the things I love are clever products, gorgeous dresses, things for my best buddy (Miles the LAMA shop dog), all things tea related, as well as a visual reference point for the incredible Latino designers I currently work with and hope to work with in the future!

Pin It Forward is an excellent opportunity for some of you awesome bloggers out there to get an exclusive invite to Pinterest and start pinning what you love. The theme for Pin It Forward is “what home means to you.” This can be anything your creative mind wants to put out there for the rest of us to ohh and ahh over. For a more in depth explanation, check out all of the details over at sfgirlbybay. I’m super excited to be kicking things off on May 24th along with nine other incredibly admirable bloggers. I’m so honored to be in this group!

A mis lectores en español.  Si les gustara juntarse a Pinterest y ser parte de “Pin it Forward”,  déjenme saber estaría muy contenta de traducir cualquier instrucción. ¡Pero, apúrense!  ¡Hay solamente 300 tres cientos espacios y se están llenando rapidísimo!  Pinterest es amigable mundialmente ya que es un lugar de vista para compartir sus imágenes favoritas.  ¡No hay palabras necesarias!

I hope everyone falls in love with Pinterest the way I have. It’s been my obsession for the past couple of months and is a site that speaks to everything I love. I’ve probably expressed this to the Pinterest team a million times but I want to again congratulate them on creating such an inspiring place on the internet. Thank you for letting me be a little part of that. Way to go guys!