Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

Picture 0f stockings of all siblings and now David at my parents house,

nicked off of Facebook as I don't have my camera or computer

We are at my Mum and Dad's for Christmas, New Years and the lead up to our week in the Highlands. We bought thermal long underwear and wool socks and pullovers and we drank spiced wine and we cuddled puppies and kittens (BOTH!!) and ate turkey and stuffing and mince pie and all four of my parent's daughters cuddled up in a bed and watched Law and Order SVU for hours. Tonight we're off to go to my cousins and uncle and aunt to greet 2011 and eat goose and then on Wednesday, Mum, David, Sister Tres and I are flying to Edinburg for my gorgeous cousin's gorgeous wedding with a gorgeous cake-topper made of pegs by me. Photos will abound. I'll be missing for a bit. I hope your Christmas was the most wonderful and that you get good and zozzled tonight and that 2011 starts with a hangover and gets better everyday. xoxox

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

Picture 0f stockings of all siblings and now David at my parents house,

nicked off of Facebook as I don't have my camera or computer

We are at my Mum and Dad's for Christmas, New Years and the lead up to our week in the Highlands. We bought thermal long underwear and wool socks and pullovers and we drank spiced wine and we cuddled puppies and kittens (BOTH!!) and ate turkey and stuffing and mince pie and all four of my parent's daughters cuddled up in a bed and watched Law and Order SVU for hours. Tonight we're off to go to my cousins and uncle and aunt to greet 2011 and eat goose and then on Wednesday, Mum, David, Sister Tres and I are flying to Edinburg for my gorgeous cousin's gorgeous wedding with a gorgeous cake-topper made of pegs by me. Photos will abound. I'll be missing for a bit. I hope your Christmas was the most wonderful and that you get good and zozzled tonight and that 2011 starts with a hangover and gets better everyday. xoxox

Seriously...

...I think I was a magpie in a former life.

loveliness via modcloth

Favorite Things: Agate

I'm digging agate jewelry in an obscene way right now. I got out my super awesome rocks and minerals collection from my childhood the other day and carefully took out each specimen, stared at it, and put it back in its rightful cardboard spot lined with wool (I arranged this box when I was in elementary school, thank you very much. My first-grade birthday party was a rocks-and-minerals theme; my mother made a cave in our basement from dropcloths and she hid "gems" everywhere and we had a hunt with flashlights to find them and then we made our own necklaces. I was a really cool kid okay).

Anyway, I bought a cool agate ring yesterday. I think that's what I was trying to say with this post.

Bumble

Bees are my favourite bug (puffins are my favourite birds and gorillas are my favourite animal, just in case you were wondering). I've seen several gorgeous bee things around the interwebs and feel like I need to share them with you. Just in case you were trying to find some bumblers to remind you of the summery warmth during the snowy loveliness.

Blue Bee Box from FCL Style, $10.00

Tiny Golden Bee Necklace, $36

Bumble Bee Print, New York Public Library Digital Gallery, $25.00

Sick

Unmade Bed

Being sick is always no fun. It's especially no fun when one wants to be Christmas shopping and making ornaments and going to parties and having people over for dinner. Instead I've spent the last week and a half on the couch feeling terrible. Today I was sent home from work with bleary eyes and red face. Now I'm watching Miracle on 34th Street and hiding under my blanket on the couch. Bah humbug.

Consistency

So every time this ad comes on I get really teary and stupid and smack David and whine about how magical my soul feels and the spirit of the holiday. I am a big effing nerd. Guster always make my soul feel magical, because I'm a loser. Once I camped out with my best friend and two sisters on their sixteenth birthday for like ten hours to be the first in line to see Guster and be in the first row. We played scrabble and ate pizza and wore hats. It was awesome. David was randomly at that concert two hours from where either of us lived when I was a highschool senior and he was a college freshman. But still. We were in the same room. And it was a great concert. Long way of saying, I may be a moron who cries at Target commercials that aren't even sad but at least I'm consistent. Guster makes me magical. Whatever. Goodnight.

More of These Christmas Joy Outfits

I want this to wear to parties. Christmas parties. I don't know what to wear to these parties. This would help.

But This...

...I am so drawn to. It's the sparkles, I can't help it.

Buy

Perhaps I'm just thinking of Christmas and my started-but-unfinished decorations and dreaming of baking delicious things but I think I find this super-cute? With dark tights, boots, and a long cardigan? Or have the candy canes gone to my head?

Lovely things via Modcloth

To Do

Today I am sick, I am lying on the couch and pounding tea and snuggling with the dogs. I crawled out of bed in order to make vegan pumpkin bread (not really committed to vegan, just no eggs at home and lazy). I hate being out of work sick and having lots of things hanging over my head. Making a list seems to help.

1. Finish making the fabric advent calender (Dave had one as a tot but his sister's got it now, I'm trying to be a nice crafty wife and replicate his joyful youth)

2. Christmas Cards - lovely notes written, names signed, addressed and stamped (didn't I JUST DO THIS? THREE TIMES? Save the dates, invitations, thank you notes? ACK!)

3. Find silvery grey bridesmaid dress that doesn't make me look like fatty wee piglet.

4. Make Tilly (my gorgeous cousin who is having a gorgeous wedding in the gorgeous scottish highlands) her cake topper, figure out how to make a kilt for a peg man.

5. Knit someone a Christmas present (no, not you, sisters, I heard you when you shouted at me about not knitting you Christmas presents)

6. Either find passport or expedite replacement passport so I can go to Scottish wedding (ick ack damn, where did it go? Why can't I use my British passport again? Oh that's right because they won't let me back into the US without a visa. EFF)

7. Gift baskets for Dave's family, presents for my family, wrap and mail.

Somehow that didn't make me feel much better. I think I will watch more Design Inc and sniffle more. Wish was back at the summer house with my mutter and wee sis.

Day after Thanksgiving we all when on a lovely adventure to Shepherdstown, WV to shop and take a cart ride with sleighbells. Photo of the haflingers pulling the wee cart.

Wish List, Yum Yum Yum

1) Lovely sweater from J. Crew, $171.00

2) Chalet Turtleneck Sweater, $51.00

3) Martha Stewart Living - I've got an addiction, ack

4) Vogue Magazine - I read the articles, whatever. Don't judge me.

5) Ballet flats,

6) Gorge sauce ring

7) Vintage clock from etsy, $35

8) To put a cupcake on this would make me soooo happy

9) Lovely snowy, glassy, sparkly bracelet, $125

10) Sparkletown necklace, $75 and another one, $79.50

11) Around My French Table, by Dorie Greenspan

12) One Big Table, by Molly O'Neill

13) I really want my sister to paint me a picture of Susie, I wanted her to do it last year and she didn't. Meaner.

14) Anything Lavender. I have an addiction.

Home Again, Home Again

Back from Thanksgiving, done with work, eating Sunbelt Granola (the ghettoist of ghetto granola) by the handful from it's alluring box and thinking about all those Christmas cards on the desk waiting to be written (being married seems to indicate to me that I should actually send Christmas cards like an adult) and the flat that needs to be cleaned. Snugged on the couch with Susie and the Cat sick as hell. It's very nice to have a husband to get ginger ale and crackers. Very nice.

Thanks. Given.

Cliche:

I am thankful that Susie is still alive.

I am thankful my mother doesn't have a job so she can answer my texts about Susie's health and how to fix watery split pea soup.

I am thankful for sweatpants, not just on Thanksgiving but every day (sidenote: in college my roommate and I would enter our room and immediately shed our trousers for less constricting clothing, sweatpants featured prominently. F*ck pants was our moto. Sometimes still is).

I am thankful for fried potatoes I will be enjoying in sweat pants with Best-Friend-from-High-School on Wednesday night, and for grand old time with Oldest-and-Best on Friday.

I am thankful for our cute new apartment and our very new family.

I am thankful for free cable which hasn't shut off in the four months since we moved in despite the lack of bill.

I am thankful that I will get to be with my whole gorgeous family on Thursday (except Dos who is enjoying her semester in Rome and will be dancing on a bar somewhere in Italy being luminous and living the dream).

I am thankful for Daveroo. Who basically a year ago was still just this guy and is now my husband. Which still seems like a big scary weighted word but I'm working on it.

Picture of last Thanksgiving, my brother with Susie.

Turkey

Thanksgiving. We had some difficulties with David's family immediately before the wedding. One of David's family members tried to get him to nix the idea of marrying me and when that didn't work as well as she might have hoped, shit went down. A lot of it. There were tears and feelings were hurt. I tried to be cool about it and rise above it all but when you arrive at your bridal shower with a puffy, red, streaky face then you have a problem. We got married on a Saturday and that Thursday we packed up and moved to North Carolina, I've seen David's entire family (sisters, brothers, in-laws, nieces and nephews and parents) once since we got married which was nice (seeing them, not the only once aspect). Now we're trying to negotiate our first major holiday together. Which set of parents do we spend the day with? When do you see the second set of parents? How does one you tell your mother that you aren't spending Christmas with her? (luckily that someone is not me) How do you not hurt more feelings? This is difficult even with perfect relationships (as if those exist). My oldest and best friend (who basically could not like her in laws more and who's husband lurves her parents) think it's a suckfest. Trying to do it when your sister in law would probably like to devour your face and serve you up instead of a turkey? Reaaaaaally a suckfest.

At least any holidays not spent with my sweet and lovin' family will be spent with David's (now my) nephew, Ian, who has yummy cheeks for biting and cute tiny toes even if his mom is a mega b-word. The face he is making is the face my brain makes when I contemplate Thanksgiving.

Picture of Ian at our wedding, taken by Shaun Yasaki.

Hint

Just in case anyone who's name is David would like to know about a nice present for me for Christmas which is my most favourite time of the year. I think this is real pretty. Just sayin.

New Weddings

My lovely lovely cousin is getting married in January at this lovely house in the freezy breezy Highlands of Scotland and, this time, I get to be a bridesmaid. I've never been one before and I'm thrilled to the teeth.

Some Things....

....I really like about being married, three months in.

Now that we are married, David makes me tea every single morning and every single evening and sometimes he peels my oranges for me. He used to do it sometimes but now he does it all the time.

Now that we are married, I can tell David I really hate his new haircut and he doesn't mind that much because I'm not going anywhere.

Now that we are married, when my dog nearly died and David went with me and my arms full of westie and wool tartan blanket and my red, puffy, sobby face to the vet and didn't say anything about it when I cried really loud and ugly in front of all the vet people.

Now that we are married, we have our money, and our dogs and our cat and our flat and our car and our computer and our bed and our dinner and our lives. Which is much easier than having to mind your own life and car and flat and dog and computer and bed and dinner and money. Much much easier.

P.S. The dog has been in the doggie hospital for two days and while for normal people this might not cause heaps of sobbing and ghashing of teeth and sleepless nights, for me this is it. So send Susie happy thoughts.

Last Weekend

My mother and I went to Rhinebeck, NY for the State 2010 Sheep and Wool Festival last weekend. I could not have been more excited. Normally I would insert a self-deprecating remark here like "the line forms to the left, boys," or "golly gee I'm so cool it hurts," but eff it, I was a small child waiting for Christmas. I have no shame.

So. Crisis. I need a bangin pattern for an aran shawl. Back story: I found a booth occupied by a woman from Wales who owns her own Lincoln sheep and spins all of her own wool. I bought two skeins of natural wool. She didn't know the yardage and thus neither do I but it was so gorge I needed it (THIS is why I still live at home). Anyway, sweater is too risky because of possible yardage restrictions so shawl it is.

Image via

Puppies, Yarn

Look! It's Susie!

Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! This would be the happiest Christmas present for a Hannah.

Be warned: if someone buys me this book everyone will be getting knitted dogs.

Best In Show: Knit Your Own Dog

Tiny Things and Big Things too

I am hiding from the blogosphere right now. I'm looking for a job and struggling a bit and hiding. So here the World's Eentsiest Stop Action Movie for you.

I bought said boots. I pray that I get them in time for homecoming and furthermore I pray they fit.

Now it's late and I want to go home.

A Brief Aside

I am not one of those cool girls who never wanted to wear a white dress and didn't think about weddings. This is the evidence. I wore this for a whole year.

P.S. Dear Four-Year-Old-Hannah: I want yo shoes. Love, Twenty-Four-Year-Old-Hannah

This Morning

I was so hungover I was crying. Finally I dragged myself out of bed to prevent Daveroo from trying to feed me something awful like egg whites and spinach and I fried mushrooms, bacon, bread and egg and drank an entire pot of tea. Then I was healed. I know you were wondering.

I took a better picture of breakfast but you could actually see the fat glistening on every mouthful and I didn't want to share that with you so graphically.

For Fall, With Boots and Tights

A, B, C, D All from the J. Crew Factory thing that's going on this weekend.

Autumn

I feel like fall but no one told North Carolina, it's still hot. Still muggy. I still have to run the window unit air conditioner all night long. Uncool. I have been looking forward to wearing this coat that I found in my family's (big theatre nerds all) costume box this summer and claimed as my own. I am also looking longingly at this. And wishing it were 1989 in New York and cold and crisp and crunchy and that big hair was cool and that I worked at an imaginary publishing company and wore big glasses and that Mary was Carrie Fisher and that David was much shorter and balding. I'm eccentric. Leave me alone.

Just In Case

Anyone was wondering what I would like for Christmas, it would be this. I would also like it with a white saphire. Because those are yummy too. Yum yum yum. By Kate Szabone who made my engagement ring.

White Wedding

I tried on 12 dresses and cried in two fitting rooms (I mean you Banana Republic) and finally found this which fit so I bought it. It's white and not my wedding but I figure with black shoes and a black cardigan I will be groovy. What do you think about wearing white to someone else's wedding?

Let Them Eat

The cake came from our friendly neighborhood farmer's market cupcake lady. She made the cake, dropped it off with Meghan-the-day-of-coordinator and then at the last minute we decided that my little tiny peg people should go on the regular cake. Because I'm crafty darn it. Crafty. She also arranged some extra flowers around it. My youngest sister at it for breakfast every day for a week after the wedding. It was so unbelievably delicious. I remember reading somewhere on APW about a couple who served cake to everyone and we hadn't really thought about who was going to serve the cake so I ended up doing it. Which gave me a chance to speak to everyone who wanted cake and made me feel like a real hostess, I loved it. I also managed to resist feeding David cake. Which. I. Did. Not. Want. To. Do.

Feeding cake to my sister-in-law, which I did want to do. Please ignore my double chin.

If anyone in Western or Central Maryland or South Central PA wants a fantastic farmers market cake tasting like magic, shoot me an email and I will hook you up. I have all the hook-ups.

All photos by Shaun Yasaki

Snap Dragons and Lavender

Way back in the pre-engaged engaged phase where we were getting married but he hadn't asked and I was scouring the interwebs looking for beautiful things I decided that if Meg and Peonies could do their own flowers than so could I. I found a DC area floral warehouse, ordered online and Friday morning Dad and my sister Jessie (yeah, I have three sisters, and a brother, there are a lot of us floating around) went to pick them all. My favourite flowers are snapdragons and I basically took the two colours of snapdragons that the warehouse had and then picked six other things in basically the same colours, a tiny bit of greenery and some berries and that was that.

I had been saving jars upon jars to pour the candles into and we used the rest for the centerpieces. None of them looked the same and we all just kind of went for it. People advised me to do a test run but I was poor and lazy (and still am) so I just decided to go for it when the flowers arrived and we did.

Gorgeous bridesmaids and sister put together flower arrangements

We arranged all the flowers in buckets and cookers and two of my bridesmaids, my Oldest-and-Best-Friend who DIYed her flowers in December and my sisters and I went to town. We made our own bouquets just sort of gathering them up and handing them off and that veteran friend wrapped the bouquets with floral tape and navy ribbon (something blue!)

Littlest sister rocks the hell out of flower arrangements

Maid of honor turned out to be florist extraordinaire

Now for the specifics: I kept looking for these when I was planning and I couldn't really find much. I had 400 stems, and spent less than $500 and we had SO many flowers. There were six bridesmaids bouquets, my bouquet, two little flower girl bouquets, twenty-table arrangements, four alter arrangements and heaps and heaps left over. We filled every vase in my parents house and there were flowers everywhere. It took a lot longer than I might have anticipated, there were seven of us and it took several hours to sort everything out. And the mess. There was a really big mess. My dad got the job of carrying all the stems and leaves to the compost bin.

A Bit of DIY, A Bit of DIT

SO. I figured it was time for some official photos and some round-up sort of things. I thought I would start with some of our many many do-it-yourself or do-it-together projects. Our wedding got very very DIY. My bridesmaids and I did the flowers, David and his groomsmen steamed the linens and cleaned the barn, my mother and sisters did a hundred little DIY projects and my uncle and my mother's cousin together painted the farm sign the morning of the wedding, we hung all the lights, my sister wrote the place-cards. Our wedding was not just something we picked-out and put together, our wedding was something that we built, that our families built. I wore a flower in my hair my friend from college made for me, I carried a bouquet wrapped by my Oldest-and-Best-Friend, our wedding felt like something we had spirited out of nothingness. To show you every single one of our do-it-yourself projects or do-it-together projects would take days, but here are some of my favourites.

The wedding was held in the barn on the farm my family my family bought my freshman year of highschool. There is a room in the barn that The-Oldest-and-Best-Friend and I painted and cleaned out to use as a fort and my little sister later took it over and painted it lime green. I lived in the house on the farm by myself when David and I met. The barn was full of hay and pigeons and David spent hours and days and hours pulling hay out of it and spraying it down and trying to get rid of the pigeons and keep them out. It was his full-time job for most of June and July.

I ordered two reams of tissue paper online (shipping that stuff costs a fortune) and my sisters and a few adorable friends spent many a random episode of Bones making those Martha Stewart Pom-Poms that every single other bride seems to have at her wedding. We made what felt like thousand but we barely had enough, I loved the way the antique white looked against the barn, we had them hanging over the wedding cake and over the band (which was my brother's band, they are totes stellar, listen to their music, buy their cd).

These sparklers don't really count as diy but I put them in a jar and wrote a tag and they were the best wedding exit ever. Yeah, EVER.

This freezer was in the bottom of the barn the entire time I lived there. My little sister did some serious disinfecting while leaving the rust intact. I wanted rust. My friend Meghan who was my day-of-coordinator propped it open and we filled it with glass bottle cokes and Perrier (dear Sam's Club, I love you). The bar ended up right next to it.

I was planning on making a ring pillow for the boys to carry but three days before the wedding that wasn't done and I was planning on having them just march up the isle. My mom offered to make a ring bowl and boy did she ever. Mummie is the single greatest boss of paper mache and rocked the hell out of this wee bowl. My sister Ellen (Tres) painted our initials and the date one it as well as the gold ring.

Ellen also wrote ninety names on these old fashioned mailing tags and she and my dad wrapped them around the napkins we got at Sams Club. I poured 90 candles using soy wax. I bought fifty pounds of the stuff online (here) and had everyone I know saving jars for me. I used all 50 pounds. There are now candles EVERYWHERE at the house.

My bridesmaid Christina apparently burnt herself a lot and drank most of a box of Franz while making these babies but they looked GORGEOUS. I was moaning about not knowing what to put in our hair and she told me she had it and she did. She made one for each of the bridesmaids and I considered it evidence of the excellent time they all had after I left when I found two in my parents pool the next morning.

I got the idea to use a chalkboard for a seating chart ages ago and my 13 year old sister, Fiona, jumped on it. She found the frame for $3 at a garage sale and she primed, painted it, bit of chalkboard paint, bit of wood, wood glue and some nails. She's the bomb.com My sister Ellen then used chalkboard pens to write the seating chart on it. Right now it's waiting to be put on the wall of our new apartment in Durham. I can't quite bring myself to erase the names of everyone who was there with us. Lovely lovely lovely.

Photos by Shaun Yasaki and my sister Ellen

Boots and L.L. Bean

I have to admit that I'm a little bit in love with the new L. L. Bean Signature line. Okay, a lot in love with it. "Cozy" is not exactly the most fashion-forward word, but the looks make me think of mountains and dogs and hot apple cider and pumpkins and make me smile. Therefore, I want. Go forth and prosper. I dare you to look at this coat and tell me its not beautiful.

I'm also thinking that maybe, just maybe these boots might fit. I have calves like a brick house and I would generally ignore them but these boots are smooth-talking their way into my heart. I think I need to try them.

Perks of Husbands

We were homeless for my birthday. Between house sitting and our own apartment. I ended up coming home to my parents' for two weeks while David slept on a friend's couch. For my homeless birthday we were staying in a hotel in Durham and David got the day off work and we went to the zoo, and the Magnolia Grill and I got a lovely chocolate cake from Scratch. We'd been married a little over two weeks, I had bronchitis, I was in a new city where I knew no one. David did really really really good. And he got me this. Or rather he had our friend Mary Wunderlich paint it. Snapdragons are my favourite, and have been forever. I remember snapping them as a little girl in Chicago, they featured very prominently on the wedding cake, in my bouquet, in mason jars exactly a month ago. She also stuck some lavender in there. Because there was also lavender in the bouquet, in mason jars. She's good like that, is MW. The wedding pictures are getting processed slowly. I'm tired. The moving is tiring, the being so far away is tiring. But they are coming. I promise. Over in our friendly neighborhood wedding blog.

So I Make Pottery Now...

...And I blog about it on Friday nights. At 1:20 am. Because I'm not cool enough to go out. And I don't feel like sleeping. Or packing to go on vacation for a week.

And things have been stressful. But pottery, it's really really excellent.