For the modern, socially connected workplace, an electronic representation of a paper resume is so 2004*. Today that changes. Take your LinkedIn profile, and create a graphical bio with Vizify .     Just an hour ago, Vizify launched, revolutionizing the way people make a great first impression. A disclaimer is needed before I can continue. Vizify is the brainchild of my brother-in-law, Todd Silverstein, and a couple of his friends. And, yes, I totally pulled the family card to get early access (check out my graphical bio ). Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, let's continue.     "Vizify shows the best of you by creating a highly visual, interactive profile based on the sites and services you already use." They add color to your LinkedIn profile with information and insight pulled from your Facebook profile, Twitter stream, and Foursquare checkins. Now if your Facebook profile is something you don't want prospective employers seeing, just skip...

It's no secret that my husband and I love cheese. We threw a mice and cheese party for SpriteKat's birthday last year, so the next logical step would be a Grilled Cheese Buffet (featured on Pizzazzerie)! Ever since coming across this DIY Grilled Cheese Buffet thrown by Katherine of The Side Stuff that Courtney showcased I've been dreaming about throwing my own. Such a simple, yet elegant, presentation for a no fuss get together. (With my limited free time, low stress, little work ideas for entertaining are topping my Future Entertaining To Do List.) My Must Have Ingredients Assortment of freshly baked bread from Tartine Bakery Various goat's and sheep's milk cheeses from 24th Street Cheese Co , BiRite Market , or Rainbow Grocery Heirloom tomatoes, but only if in season Red, orange, and yellow bell peppers, roasted or sauteed Portabella mushrooms, sauteed Avocadoes Olive oil Balsamic Vinegar What are your must have ingredients for a Grilled Cheese Buffet? Bon Ape...

This time last year cubes and I discovered Frog Hollow Farm peaches sitting under the stars with a hundred other people in the middle of an orchard.     We'd gathered there for Peaches and Tango to raise money for The Chez Panisse Foundation . Frog Hollow Farm is in Brentwood - the city known for its annual corn festival and is east of Walnut Creek where I work. The evening started out quite warm in the high 90s. We refreshed ourselves with chilled white wine, blueberry juice, and fresh-from-the-tree ripe peaches.   Now I have a secret; I'm not typically a huge fan of peaches. That July night under the stars, Frog Hollow Farm converted me, so much that we adopted a peach tree. A week ago peaches from Frog Hollow Farm arrived on our doorstep. The verdict? I love Frog Hollow Farm peaches. Unsure that we'd be able to eat 12 peaches before they became overripe, I decided to make a Peach Galette. While the crust turned out to be a lie (see this morning's Outtakes post fo...

Every once in a while my culinary adventures go a little sideways. Last week's Peach Galette, while beautiful to look at, was less than edible.     I had an idea that this dessert might be destined for the compost bin. Why? The original recipe was written for regular flour and butter. On our mini-moon cubes and I had learned that the secret to a flaky crust was pea-sized butter particles achieved by keeping the butter cold. The recipe called for placing the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and putting in the freezer for half an hour.   If you've worked with coconut oil before you'll know that it's almost solid at room temperature. I should have thought about what a half an hour in the freezer would do to the coconut oil. The oil froze solid. I thought about tossing out the mixture and starting over. I, however, didn't have any more oil or gluten-free baking mix. I made the decision to plow onwards.   Once baked my Peach Galette looked irresistible. I just wa...

Today's roundup is for type lovers. Whether you're tossing a bag together for a weekend away or making a statement on the train platform, there's a bag for you.   The Finds Top left to right: 26th Street Distressed Canvas with Leather Satchel, $798 ; Dear Parsy Tote, $78 ; Urban Renewal Burlap Tote, $34 . Bottom left to right: Swirling Tokyo Shopper's Tote, $1.50 ; Loquita 1234 Tote, $101.50 ; Canvas Tote, Coral, $19.99 .   Are you a fan of letters? Numbers? Or both?   My favorite tote is the Loquita 1234. The bold colors would complement perfectly my heather grey dress and black boots.   Ciao Bella! Eden   Credits: All images taken by their respective sellers: Anthropologie , Bloomingdale's , Forever 21 , Free People , Target , and Urban Outfitters . Collage created by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

A storefront on Valencia with crocheted doilies displayed in embroidery hoops got me thinking of ways these delicate designs could be used at an event. Shannon South's vintage doily lamp, which I featured in a January 2011 My Favorite Things post, immediately came to mind.   The Finds ( top left clockwise ) : Handmade dress designed by the bride Jillian, spotted on 100 Layer Cake ; Details designed by bride and groom, Laura and Dan, spotted on Love My Dress ; Red Crochet Doilies made by the bride Lucy and her mother, spotted on Ruffled ; Styled by GATHER Events and Occasions , spotted on Green Wedding Shoes ; Save the Date designed by Danni of Oh Hello Friend , spotted on 100 Layer Cake .   So besides being used for wall hangings or lighting or in centerpieces on tables, I wanted to see if there were any daring or nontraditional uses of crocheted doilies: one bride combined doilies for her wedding dress; a stationer used pieces of doilies on a Save the Date; and one bride...

Gates' three month birthday is bittersweet. It signals the end of our bonding and time for me to return to my second job.     Luckily, my parents are able to watch Gates until we get full-time care near our home in San Francisco (we're on a waiting list like most other parents). Next month, they'll be providing the highlights of Gates' development. In the meantime, here's what Gates has been up to:   She plays hide and go seek. She can place her pacifier on her chest for safekeeping and put in back in her mouth later. She can clasp her hands together and bring them to her mouth.   Ciao Bella! Eden   Credits: All layouts designed by and images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life. In The Nursery is a monthly series, published on either the second or fourth Monday of each month, depending on whether Gates has a well baby check up or not, that chronicles Gates' growth during her first twenty four months. This series was inspired by...

Once we brought Gates home from the hospital it became apparent that our one bedroom apartment was insufficient; while small, babies have a lot of stuff.     Our original plan had been to convert the room for cubes' office into a nursery for Gates.     For this room, I'd purchased two sets of decals (blades of grass and tree branches with leaves and birds) to decorate the wall above the crib and the baseboard on the wall opposite the crib. Luckily, I did not start the application. (They're not repositionable and the application is incredibly time consuming.) At the moment all of the grass has been applied to the walls of the nursery in our new flat. I've also applied three of the branches, finishing the addition of leaves for branch, and partially finishing the addition of the leaves for a second branch.     When purchasing decals, especially multi-colored decals, double-check to see if they've been assembled onto transfer film for you. I'd assumed that al...

School's out. Summer's here. It's time to hit the beach (or the pool deck) and catch some sun.   The Finds (top left clockwise) : Blog, $9.99 , Away Message, $9.99 , Words, $14.99 , Conserve Protect Surf, $19 , When You Are In Deep Water, $24.99 .   Over the Fourth of July holiday, cubes and I hit the beach. All of our towels are light in color; one, shwag from Trilogy's 10 year anniversary trip to Atlantis, is bright white and the other, handmade by my mother when I was a child, is blue and white striped. These towels get dirty looking very quickly as wet sand and dirt gets kicked up on them. Maybe it's time for us to get new beach towels.   Do you have a favorite beach towel?   Ciao Bella! Eden   Credits: All images taken by their respective sellers: Bed, Bath & Beyond , Milanoo , PB Teen , and Target . Collage created by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

When I read books such as A Year in Provence or Under the Tuscan Sun , I most want to live in a place where you pick up fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, and bread daily. Where we now live in The Mission allows us to do this.     cubes and I both enjoy our morning walks to pick up fresh pastries at Arizmendi Bakery and coffee at Ritual Roasters . On one occasion I even scored freshly squeezed orange juice. (The corner market, like those in the books, while having posted hours is open when it's open.) I especially like watching the neighborhood wake up: baristas setting up sidewalk tables, clerks taking delivery of sundries, and more.   What's in your neighborhood?   Ciao Bella! Eden   Credits: All images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

A couple of weeks ago, cubes and I enjoyed a late lunch of tapas at Esperpento on 22nd in The Mission.     We started off our meal with two glasses of Sangria. We then ordered four tapas to share: Patatas Aioli, Almejas A La Plancha, Ropa Viejo, and Rabo Toro. (To see full size images of the food we ate, visit my Flickr gallery.)   Of the four dishes, I was most excited about the Ropa Viejo. While the flavor was good, the meat itself was overcooked and a little tough. The Rabo Toro was the opposite. The flavor was a little lacking, but the oxtail was perfectly tender and moist. Of the tapas, our favorite was the Almejas A La Plancha; on our next visit to Esperpento, we'll be sure to order two! The Patatas Aioli was also good, but as other reviewers on Yelp have stated ask for the Aioli on the side.   Where do you go for tapas in the city?   Bon Appetit! Eden   Credits: All images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

After the baby was born I had three summer projects: set up our new home, get my hair done, and update my wardrobe.     When we moved in May, I set few goals in regards to unpacking. We'd lived in our other place for almost three years and only when we needed a nursery did we actively start unpacking the office/nursery; we moved with three boxes unopened from our previous moves. My only goal was to complete a room each month. In May, I unpacked and set up the kitchen . In June, I'd planned to finish the nursery. This went awry when I discovered I needed to apply each branch and leaf individually (so no Around the Home post this month). I'd thought the application would be similar to that of the grass, a single transfer for multiple blades. Unfortunately, not enough transfer film was shipped. At the moment, I've completed affixing two of the three branches to the wall and half the leaves for one of the remaining two branches.   Before we left for Priceless, I was able to...

Last night cubes wanted Thai. Craving Tom Yum soup -- something our last dining in experience lacked -- I went to Yelp in search of a new Thai restaurant and found Pad Thai Restaurant .     For me, the Gang Khiaw Warn Curry with Chicken was the stand out dish. The flavor matched my expectations (exactly the same as the dish I make) perfectly. The chicken was moist, not stewed. The only criticism was that there could have been more chicken.   The other hit was Gung Gra-bog; with bacon, it was guaranteed to be yummy. Gung Gra-bog is bacon wrapped shrimp wrapped in a egg roll wrapper and deep fried. It was paired with a sweet chili sauce that I really liked.   The soup and Pad Thai were good, nothing out of the ordinary. The soup almost had the right flavor profile; a little more fish sauce was all it needed. Unlike many soups offered in the city it wasn't cloyingly sweet.     With the exception of the Gang Khiaw Warn Curry nothing was spicy. We didn't specif...

Twitter tools seem to be a dime a dozen; everywhere you look there's a new one popping up or alternately closing down. During the Marketing Debate: Is Twitter as a Social Network Dead? I came across another: TweetCharts , a tool that allows you to generate a report of custom data for anything you can search Twitter for (hashtags, words, phrases, usernames, or URLs).     For a given search in TweetCharts, you can see how popular it is (number of tweets, frequency of tweets or tweets per hour, the unique users talking about it) as well as who's talking about it (sources and most mentioned users). You can also see what type of content is being tweeted: Are people asking questions? Providing Links? Or, sharing photos and/or video (media)? Also available is sentiment - are people speaking positively or negatively about the topic. (Note that sentiment measures are imprecise at best. See Avinash Kaushik's Twitter: Quantitative & Qualitative Metrics write up for a detailed an...

June came and went so quickly. Gates continues to grow by leaps and bounds (but that's for another post). Our flat becomes more of a home every day (again another post). Mainly June was a month of catching up with family and friends.     First, we escaped the heat of the city to celebrate our friends Helen and Icka's birthdays. In addition to the birthday celebration, other June highlights included: A visit from Todd and Arwa Priceless 2012 in Belden, CA (our fourth together and our first weekend without Gates) One trait many photographers share is our unease in front of the camera. My dear friend Icka is one of few I trust with a camera pointed in my direction. At her joint birthday celebration, she captured me in my polka dot picnic attire .     What are you doing this Fourth of July?   Happy Fourth of July! Eden   Credits: All images taken by Jessica Palopoli .

Holidays typically mean spending time with family and friends. And where there's a gathering, there's at least one camera (or smartphone with camera). Now what do you do with all those photos? Two books give me ideas for turning images into stories.     Nowadays everyone can be a photographer; but whether or not the images stand the test of time depends on the photographer's vision. With How to Photograph Your Life: Capturing Everyday Moments with Your Camera and Your Heart you'll soon have images that convey emotion and tell a story today and in the years to come.   Kelsh takes common events (or subjects) and shows how not to photograph them (i.e. the hoohum boring image that many snap quickly) versus how to photograph them. Some of the keys to interesting photos he shares are not putting the horizon in the middle of every image, changing up the angle at which you're taking the image (for example, from the ground instead of eye level), and more.   Even if you'...