in all things, moderation

i am going crazy with my free time (again) and keep wandering from one scheme or another to be rich and famous and artistic. not particularly therapuetic in all this was the maira kalman show at the ICA that iele and i went to recently. we had a lovely breakst at naked chocolate cafe, where i was amazed at the peanut butter icing, which tasted exactly like the former with the smooth texture of the latter. Also we had coffee in glass mug, which i always find weirdly enchanting. but i, as usual, digress. Maira Kalman makes the most beautiful things. she embroiders and paints and does pen and ink drawings of brooms and coffee cups. she reads kafka and goethe and proust and flaubert and weaves them seamlessly into her art, where intellects and authors and artists mingle with hat boxes and day coats by issac mizrahi ( a personal friend of hers).  she eats chocolate croissants and thinks things in beautiful cafes. i want to have a life like heres, but it is hard, you know, when you feel mired in work and life and laundry. i feel everyday should be made more special and inspirational, but i am so frequently tired and just want to watch the x files. i don't know how to tap into the specialness of my life. lately everything just seems like work. 

Crafters donate to help Haiti

Crafters donate their crafts to Etsy to be sold at the benefit of Haiti earthquake survivors.

Dedications

Is it okay to dedicate your very erotic werewolf romance to your young kids "who have more patience than I [she] deserves?"

Husband, yeah sure, okay.

Awkward moments: Mooommmmm why do you make weird animal noises when you are in your study writing your "stories?"

Since November? E-gads!

well since the GRE and grad school applying and Christmas, I realized i hadn't had a free day off in four and a half months. this was last saturday and i didn't know what to do with myself so I CLEANED THE HOUSE. Agent 99 said it was sickening that I'd forgotten how to relax. So the Sunday after I sat around in some obscenely wide legged jeans and ate all day. My aunt has given me a dangerously delicious oatmeal cookie recipe and I have it in the fridge so i can make em a pan at a time whenever the mister and i feel like havin a treat to go with a game of Bananagrams.

So that is where I've been. 

Here  is a list of everything I got for Christmas, feel free to respond with similiar:

Black knee length coat from Victoria's Secret

which goes strangely well with the mom-style fur-lined duck boots I got from L.L. Bean

A cookbook of recipes written on recipe cards from my auntie. 

Are you Being Served? on DVD

The Graveyard Book, which will merit a separate post on Gaiman's ability to get it up but not to finish it off

The Looking Glass Wars

Another book that looks right up my alley about vacationers, including little old ladies, riding camel-back somewhere exotic. The actual name of the book escapes me at the moment.

My surprise favorite gift of a set of adorable, bristly little wooden forrest creature ornaments from my dearheart. there is something so nice about getting ornaments for a shared tree from someone you love.

In my stocking(s) Betsey Johnson socks, a black skull candle, a wee garden gnome, magnetic mah jongg, a glittery bow for my hair, a batter spatula that gives the middle finger, some hair barettes meant for small children-mostly these are ducks and bows and the like, but there is one inexplicable bear playing a banjo and a  host of body lotions and sugar-free chocolate bars and etc.

The world's most cleverly crafted apron with matching cupcake tray and oven mitts sewn by the goddess Sarah who could be selling the dang thing at Anthropologie for $80.

The above hat in magenta and black, which keeps me warm but makes me look like a gay Scutt Farcus. 

A lovely card and heirloom Cameo ring

A mason jar of peppermint liquer

A subscription to Real Simple (yay!)

...and a few other things i have since forgotten. On the whole, a good haul, and an excellent Christmas. 

And yourselves?