For Christmas, Garlands

I love paper cranes on paper ripped from magazines and strung around. I'm very young. It seems appropriate for very young holidays and birthday parties. These are also lovely. The Oldest-and-Best's bachelorette party is going to be at the house next week so Christmas decorations that double as awesome-sauce party decorations might be cool.... I have a feeling the maid-of-honor (who is Oldest-and-Best's seventeen year old sister) might be bringing over some seriously crazy decorations but hopefully my cranes can stay.

I am also super duper loving these flower gardens from Once Wed. They may be slightly more labor intense than I want while lying on the couch watching design television... we'll see.

Cards, Westies, Old-Man Pajamas

Thanksgiving was awesome. Lots of dinners with family and friends and last night to end the week an awesome afternoon and evening with The Oldest-and-Best and her fiance and parents and sisters (one of whom is looking very cute and round and preggo) and David. It was lovely. And now I'm very sick and lying on the couch (in my checkered pajamas that are probably identical to ones your granddad owns) with a westie and a marmalade cat on my lap cuddled up together. I am taking this as an opportunity to pound tea with honey and lemon and knit a cable-knit scarf for David and hats with ear-flaps for my wee cousins. I should probably think about Christmas shopping and start folding paper cranes for hanging around the house and figure out where I am going to put my tiny little Christmas tree. Collect Christmas lists etc. But instead I'm going to stay here with my sore throat and sweet dog and a Design Inc holiday marathon. I would also like these gorgeous Rifle Paper Co. Christmas Cards. Yay. Christmas time.

Nothing Really Matters But Moi

Pine

I am either a bit batty or a sucker for stained glass but either way I have a sneaking suspicion that I love this.

Today I Feel Like...

My mother and I are kind of obsessed lately with HBO's Grey Gardens. I'm also really kind of into Little Edie in general. Add that little fact to the recent find of a banging mink coat in my grandmother's closet that I am willing to punch my sister in the face for and Halloween 2010 is on.

To be honest, as I'm exhausted and desperately needing a vacation, I'm feeling a mink coat and crazy scarf to hide my uncooperative hair would be clutch today. It's a Little Edie kind of day in these parts.

Image link

Food, La Famillia and Cold Ears

This weekend has been exciting. Dinner party with The Oldest-and-the-Best and her fiance and his brother and the brother's girlfriend and David and some random hangers on. There was pear tart. I love pear tart. Then David's nephew's christening and little white outfits and pretty dresses on godmother and aunts and (I would like to think) on the uncle's girlfriend and brunch with shrimp cocktail and brisket and goat cheese and pumpernickle and mini-cheesecakes. My love of cheesecake is well documented. Then a mad rush to a dinner party at friends of my parents where David met my youngest sister (the fourth daughter and therefore Cuatro) and my brother and they like him and he likes them and there was more food and butternut squash curry soup and meat balls and shrimp dip and some amazing pork roast and pie and bread pudding and coffee and lots of chatting and funsters. Then today there was a restaurant supply store with Dad and Cuatro and the brother and two hours of grocery shopping and a liquor store run. And this evening a very greasy dinner of french fries and fried shenanigans and ice cream and some arcade games with David and the siblings (we are scheduling in getting to know you times; get to know my boyfriend please, like him, thanks). Tomorrow a rather mellow day until David and I drive to Baltimore to pick up Dos and Tres at the airport and have dinner with them before returning to the summer house where the whole family (Mummie, Daddy, Uno, Dos, Tres, brother, Cuatro, Susie, the Cat, Mum's new pitbull, her old alsasian and a very old cat plus two cousins, an aunt, an uncle and a corgi) will be spending Thanksgiving. David will be called upon to get to know more famililial shenanigans later in the week.

In the mean time, my ears are cold. My very stylish and alcoholic friend Alexandra had these last year at New Years and I pine for some big pouffy crazy ones. I would rather if they weren't make from a real fox and I would rather they were under a hundred bucks. I'm disapearing for the rest of the week. There are turkeys (seriously, PLURAL) and lots of sisters and dogs and biscotti and cuddles. I'm outtie. With love.

Golden Girl

Mary has gold shoes, is in love.

Buy This

The Da Vincis' EP See You Tonight is on iTunes. I named See You Tonight because I am the pretty boy front man's pretty big sister. That pretty boy with the blond hair and the cuteness? Yeah, he's my bro. Download Fifties Film. It rocks. Download the album and listen to it a lot. It's catchy. I named it. I get thanked in the liner notes. WORD.

Make This

I put down knitting for awhile but then frustrations at work arose and life challenges made themselves apparent and I started again. I have been working on this scarf on and off for approximately the last seven months, putting it down when I got bored and picking it up again when other projects had mistakes that I couldn't quite bring myself to rip out and correct.

I blocked it on Sunday as I was battling a massive headache from vodka the night before. I think it is quite lovely despite the circumstances of its completion. In fact, I've been wearing it all night simply because it is too pretty to take off.

You should make it too. I wish I was clever enough to have designed it myself. That being said the pattern was created by the very talented Whitney over at the purlbee.

Sweaters, Susie

Joblessness can be useful. So Susie is getting a sweater. Not the crazy awesome pink one, but a nice sensible one for keeping her tiny self warm now that it's cold. In green. Knitting has commenced.

Sweets

I am still jobless. Yet another interview turned into yet another rejection. I am still spending my days at home alone with the dog. So. Wearing David's stripey sweater around the house and making sweet potato fries for lunch. With honey peanut sauce. I wish I knew how to make sweet potato fries. The ones above aren't mine. I wish. Le sigh.

All I Want for Christmas

Tresor By Lancome, $48.00 - maybe just because I'll buy anything Kate Winslet sells me. But it smells so niiiiice.

Ugg Boots - These feets is cold

Pearl earrings, I ask every couple of years, I get new ones every couple of years and then I always loose one.

Cardigan, Old Navy $29.50. I need to get over cardigans. In a big way.

Belt, Old Navy $14.50 - actually I kind of want this for David's nephew's baptism and maybe The Oldest and Best's bachelorette party so maybs before Christmas

It's cold. I think I need a crazy fur hat to keep my very chilly head warm.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg MD & Zoe Francois - because YUM

Cloth Napkins, Ten Thousand Villiages $6 each, David and I are now a no paper napkin house hold and these would really be an improvement on the red Christmas-y ones we use.

Shiny bracelets, this one is from TTV but in general I just want bracelets, they are the future. Understand.

Tres is an amazing artist and I think she should do a portrait of Susie (hint hint hint hint, E)

I may or may not have a problem

I might have carbon monoxide poisoning, just a little. Which might be why I think that Susie really really needs the sweater above and that I really really really need this awesome book. I also may need a job.

Pet Projects: The Animal Knits Bible, $12.21 on Amazon

These are a few of my favourite things

I really love NPR. And I super duper love cakes. And All Things Considered is a big effing deal in my mind. So All Cakes Considered is kind of like God's gift to Hannah. Go forth and BAKE, he said to me.