Giving, For Boys

This year has been a crazy year for David and me.  We moved from Durham to DC, we went from two incomes to none, we went from two forty hour weeks to one eighty hour week and one zero hour week* and from a duplex with a wee yard to a teeny one room flat.  David has been rocking law school and I think he deserves an extra great Christmas.

1.  David howls like a lunatic while watching Stephen Colbert (or Colbizzle as he is called chez moi)  and so America Again might have to make an appearance under the tree.  Colbert is always better in audio book so you can hear his crazy face voice.

2.  To celebrate a new school and a new degree in a new city (and because I am way into university pennants this year) university pennant.

3.  David is big into Fair Isle, big into Christmasy sweaters, big into J. Crew.  This sweater is gorge.

4.  Last year we got my father and mother slippers and David got me slippers.  I think maybe it's his turn and I can replace the battered slippers he has worn into pieces.

5.  David is insane about dogs.  He will cross a street like a loon for a chance to pass an Airedale and Roger (the schnauzer) is his best friend.   He could spend hours looking at cute dogs so what could be better than photo book Dog Dogs by Elliott Erwit.

6.  Given the sixteen hour days (sometimes longer!) that he spends in the library at least he can have stylish notebooks.

7.  His family tartan tie (or mine, whoever has a tartan and a pretty one)

8.  We have an ongoing battle about small bedside alarm clocks.  I hate digital and he he hates the tick tick tick of my old analog.  This tick free Big Ben Clock is pretty and quiet.

9. This wooden iPod Dock would be very nice on his dresser.

10.  David is definitely the sentimental one in our family and he wants to keep photo albums and get picture frames.  I love these Pinhole Press photo books and I think he would allow these instead of pasting photos into an actual album.



* that would be my unemployed ass.

Not Buying

This Visual Essay about a year without shopping by Sarah Lazarovic is great.  I keep thinking I should try a year without buying.  But maybe that would be better done in my fifties.  Like Judith Levine.  I just got an office job for the first time in three years and I need to look good and I'm a chubster and need new clothes that fit.  So I can look professional and people will promote me.

I guess I buried the lead.  I got a job.  And it's a really good one.

Giving, For Besties

1. For all the drinking - May You Never Flask
2. For wearing to brunch - Raw Pink Tourmaline Earrings
3. For hanging on the walls of their groovy apartments - NY Print
4. For wearing to the farmers market - Clutch
5. For wearing out to lunch with a sundress - Silk Clutch
6. For when one just needs salty and sweet - Bacon Chocolate
7. For the most stylish of fridges - Gemstone Magnets
8. For keeping notes on everything - Colour Block Notebooks
9. For wearing every single day - Trio of Earrings
10.  Because we should bring back Friendship Bracelets in style

Giving, For Mums

My mum actually does  on occasion read this blog so I'm not going to post anything that will actually be under the tree for Mumsters this year. I wish I had a million dollars so I could get my mum ALL of these things but since I can't I'll send them out into the interwebs and maybe you'll buy them for your mum.

1. I think one of us almost always gets pajamas for our mother, mostly my brother, if I were going to get her pjs this year I'd get her these Constalation Pajamas.
2.  While this year plants are absent from her Christmas list she has typically asked for a jade plant or something else fun.  I really love this rosemary plant.
3. This gorgeous jacket is one of my favourite things and my mum would look super glam in it.
4.  I think Mummie is a raw diamond earrings kind of a lady.
5.  She is also a big old hippy and I think she might be interested to know how black beans eliminate damp.  Healing with Whole Foods will tell her all about this.
6.  When I lived in York for a year I brought my mother loads of the British foods she had as a girl.  They are all available through British Delights foods here.
7.  Since most of her children are out of the house (poor Quatro at home alone) she is all about the horses and has decided that horses don't need to do anything they don't want to do.  They don't like bits so maybe a bitless bridle would be just the thing.
8.  Alexander McCall Smith says that his books are like tea books and my mother likes a good cup of tea of a book like one.  Maybe his newest, The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds, or the similarly tea-like Mrs. Miniver, or A Cotswold Adventure.
9.  My mom is a statement necklace wearer and has been even when everyone else was wearing wee tiny chains with a teensy weensy pendent.  I think this statement necklace is divoon.

Cinnamon Hearts

Last night Quatro and I listened to Six to Eight Black Men and made Katy Elliot's Cinnamon Hearts and Alton Brown's Sugar Cookies and watched Christmas episodes of Fraiser.  The cookies are delightful and cinnamon hearts smell magical (although they looked perfect when the went in, some imperfections surfaced while the baked) and David Sedaris' is the very essence of holiday fun. At least in my family.

To counteract Katy Elliot's beautiful pictures here is an ugly one of our hearts.

Giving, For Dads

My dad is a pretty cool guy.  He was on the homepage of the National Day of Listening this year being interviewed about living in Spain after the death of Franco and leaving under duress.  He's an attorney and texts Kanye lyrics to Mary and he is, as Tres says, an Art Mongrel just "gobbling up the art world".  Tres is also an art mongrel so I guess she would know.  He was a chef for a while (and a garbage man) and loves good food more than almost anyone else I know.

1. I am 100% sure that the first song I ever heard was the Morning Edition theme (I was born at home at night and I can't imagine that they didn't put on NPR in the morning as they have every other morning of my life.  The Tivoli Radio is suppose to be the best.
2.  My father introduced me to Cee Lo and Outkast and tells me I'm his "best black jew" regularly.  I think it means he loves me. How about The Lady Killer by Cee Lo?
3. Dad is also a huge believer in buying books on subjects.  He's a big ask an expert kind of a guy.  How about this The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to Classical Music?  He's always talking about what a bitch Mrs. Wagner was.  I know.
4.  Did I mention that he goes to yoga five days a week?  He does.  And I'm pretty sure that Cork Yoga Blocks are better than the plastic ones they have there.
5.  For cooking his darling daughter dinner - The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.
6.  Peppermint Bark needs no introduction.  It means Christmas in a way that nothing else does.
7.  The 20th Century Art Book  so he can gobble up a little bit more of the art world.
8. My parents local coffee roasters  is Greencastle Coffee Roasters and they have a million teas and coffees and they are mostly delicious.  Perhaps a couple of pounds of something delicious that he wouldn't buy for himself

Mittens

Last year for Christmas I made each of my siblings a pair of mittens for their stockings.  This year my mitten making is limited to actually making myself a pair.  I read a bunch of patterns and ended up finding this typewritten in my grandmother's* knitting stuff.  If you know where it's from let me know and I'll avoid the copyright infringement and take it down.  I figured it might be written by my gran so I'll post it for you since it avoids any weird setting of the thumb.  Happy knitting.

Grandma Mittens**

I used size 4 double sided needles and a ball of worsted weight yarn.

Cuff - Cast on 44 stitches and divide on 3 needles. 

Join, work in round k2 p2 ribbing for 3 inches. 

Decrease 2 stiches in the last round.  There should be 42 stitches.

Hand - K even for 2 rounds.

First increase round: Increase one stitch in the first stitch, k1, inc 1 in the next stitch, k to end of row.

K 2 rounds even.

Second increase round: Inc 1 stitch in the first stitch, k3, inc 1 in the next stitch, k to end of row.

K 2 rounds even.

Continue to increase with two more stitches in between the increases every 3^rd row, increase until you have 54 stitches on.

K 2 rounds even.  Slip the 15 thumb stiches to a stitch holder.

Cast on 3 stitches, there should be 42 stitches on now.

Continue to work even until the measurement above cuff is 6 inches.  Decrease 3 stitches in the last row.

First decrease round: k2tog every 3^rd and 4^th stitch, 10 times

K even 3 rows

Second decrease round: k2tog every 2^nd and 3^rd stitch, 10 times

K even 3 rows

Third decrease round: k2tog in succession all the way round.  Break off yarn, leaving a tail.  Draw end tightly through all stitches and fasten off.

Thumb – Slip to two needles the 15 stitches from the stitch holder.

With 3^rd needle pick up and knit on the 3 cast on stitches.

There should be 18 stitches on  the needles for the thumb.

K around until the thumb  measures 2 inches above the cast on stitches.

First decrease round: *k1, k2tog* repeat 5 times

K even 2 rounds

K2tog in succession.

Finish as for top of mitten.

Make another mitten exactly the same way! 


* Does't she look like Olivia de Havilland? Isn't she gorgeous?
** And yes that blanket is that bright in real life. One of two family tartan blankets we got from the UK contingent as wedding presents.