featured

Switzerland travel diary

featured

My favourite secondhand bookstores in Philly

featured

Birthday disposables

guest

A curated life, Kat Lee

central park - a curated life, kat lee | brunch at audrey's

Y’all know my love/hate relationship with Instagram and the curated life. Kat is here on the blog today to share some thoughts!

I don’t know many of the people reading this right now, but I care a lot about what you think of me. And I mean I care a lot about what you think of me. And I know you’re thinking: “Kat, everyone cares a lot about what others think of them, get over yourself.” And for a long time, I thought that too, that I was exaggerating the ways in which the opinions of others shaped the ways in which I viewed myself, that is, until this past fall semester. As part of an education course I was taking, we were required to take a personality test to determine the five foremost traits of our personalities (liberal arts education amiright?). Every trait of the twenty-five or so students in the class appeared more than once. Except one. That one being mine, which revealed that I care a shit ton about what others think of me.

Read More

books

How to Fall in Love with Anyone by Mandy Len Catron

how to fall in love with anyone by mandy len catron - book review | brunch at audrey's

– I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review. –

To be published by Simon & Schuster on 27 Jun 2017
Goodreads | Amazon

An insightful, charming, and absolutely fascinating memoir from the author of the popular New York Times essay, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” (one of the top five most popular New York Times pieces of 2015) explores the romantic myths we create and explains how they limit our ability to achieve and sustain intimacy.

What really makes love last? Does love ever work the way we say it does in movies and books and Facebook posts? Or does obsessing over those love stories hurt our real-life relationships? When her parents divorced after a twenty-eight year marriage and her own ten-year relationship ended, those were the questions that Mandy Len Catron wanted to answer.

In a series of candid, vulnerable, and wise essays that takes a closer look at what it means to love someone, be loved, and how we present our love to the world, Catron deconstructs her own personal canon of love stories. She delves all the way back to 1944, when her grandparents first met in a coal mining town in Appalachia, to her own dating life as a professor in Vancouver, drawing insights from her fascinating research into the universal psychology, biology, history, and literature of love. She uses biologists’ research into dopamine triggers to ask whether the need to love is an innate human drive. She uses literary theory to show why we prefer certain kinds of love stories. She urges us to question the unwritten scripts we follow in relationships and looks into where those scripts come from in the first place. And she tells the story of how she decided to test a psychology experiment that she’d read about—where the goal was to create intimacy between strangers using a list of thirty-six questions—and ended up in the surreal situation of having millions of people following her brand-new relationship.

In How to Fall in Love with Anyone Catron flips the script on love and offers a deeply personal, and universal, investigation.

Read More

travel

4 days in Portland // summer break 2017

multnomah falls - portland, summer break 2017 | brunch at audrey's

The final city of our west coast road trip! We spent the first two days at the beach and the last two days in the city. I Skyped Kristy whilst in Portland, and she was like, it feels like everyone is visiting Portland! What’s happening there? I didn’t realise that Portland was a hot destination! We had just chosen it because Kat’s parents had a beach house for us to stay at. But I’m not surprised that Portland is a hot destination; the nature scenes are gorgeous!

Read More

Uncategorized

How I edit my photos

how i edit my photos | brunch at audrey's

I’m really cautious about writing “how to” blog posts, because I never know what I’m doing so I don’t feel like I’m in any position to tell anyone how to do anything, but a “how to” on how I edit my photos has been requested, and I’ve noticed some of you ask questions about it in the comments as well. I don’t know how helpful this will be, but I hope you get something out of it!

Read More

travel

3 days in Seattle // summer break 2017

glasswing - seattle, summer break 2017 | brunch at audrey's

My family and I visit Seattle almost annually, but this was the first time I had gone with just friends! Places I’ve hit up in the past were Snow Lake, Kerry Park, Cederberg Tea House, Cafe Cesura, Drive Thru Boba, Amore’ Coffee, Chihuly Garden and Glass, and Paramount Theatre for George Ezra’s concert. If you haven’t had enough of Seattle by the time you get through this blog post, feel free to click through those links!

Read More

lately

Summer [not a bucket] list 2017

summer bucket list 2017 | brunch at audrey's

I lived in Beijing for 8 years before I moved back to the States for college, so I know what the Internet situation is like in Beijing. Or so I thought!! When I went back to Beijing over winter break, the Internet situation was worse than I remembered. The VPNs that I used to use weren’t working, but luckily, my family had recommendations. However, the Internet connection was so weak that I couldn’t even connect to the VPNs! Forget about trying to access social media; I couldn’t even access websites that weren’t blocked by the government! Luckily WordPress wasn’t blocked, which I was surprised by. Hopefully when I go back this summer I’ll still be able to access WordPress.

Somehow I survived winter break in Beijing, with much thanks to Sheena and Ray, who I hung out with almost every day. We didn’t have the Internet to distract us, so all of us were going a bit stir-crazy, and it’s not like it’s nice to be outside in Beijing due to the pollution. What a wonderful opportunity to unplug! you might say. Well, to a certain extent, yes. But there was also legit online stuff that I had to get done that I couldn’t get done, which stressed me out. Imagine not being able to check Gmail because Google is blocked…

So I’m creating a list of things that I can do whilst in Beijing as I will be spending the rest of my summer break there, and unfortunately, this time without Sheena and Ray to keep me sane. It’s more of a summer to-do list than a summer bucket list. Actually it’s more of a summer suggestion list than a summer to-do list.

Read More

Hey there!

Catch me burrowed in a book with some boba on hand. My life is pretty average, but it’s the little things that count, right? Thanks for stopping by! -Audrey

[[ more >> ]]

Stay in the loop

Subscribe to new posts by email

Archives