In the interest of sharing

Found two super spiffy design blogs today!

Nice Spice

and

All Things Bright and Beautiful

Enjoy!

halfway in it

Sarah Vowell is so fucking smart and funny. I wish she lived next door.

This book has no writing in it at all - just pictures. Its beautiful. And it is a great way to convey the confusion that faces a lot of immigrants.

This was a pretty book and it flooded my dreams with east coast island imagery. And this excerpt is stunning:

She was pulling a rope out of the water and knew it was coming to the end when the barnacles started to appear and they became more think and clustered. Then it was strangely peaceful and the sound was turned off. She stood at the bow of a ship. If only she could have stood this way above the water and really breathed and let the waves go by like pages being turned and watched everything more closely and chosen things more carefully then she might have been able to read the spirit within herself and would not have spent her life as if she were only halfway in it.

For a moment she felt an astonishing brilliance and heat and light and all of herself flared up and the vibration after sixty-five years was not weakened by time but more dense then suddenly it was as if the flame had caught the flimsiest piece of paper for it flickered up and flew into the air then quickly sank down withered into a thin cinder of ash which blew off, inconsequential. Her life had not been long enough for her to know the whole of herself, it had not been long enough or wide.

Halloween

Today is my most favoritest of holidays. I've complained for years that none of my friends throw a Halloween party so this year my boy and I decided that we would just have one. The party is saturday and I'm such a slouch. I have only a few decorations made (cause of course I had envisioned making tons of cool decorations) and I have almost a whole Rosie the Riveter costume but I REALLY wanna be Frida Kahlo and have not yet let go of this hope. Of course if I were Frida, then I'd want lots of Day of the Dead style decor which I don't have.

The sorrow of glorious dreams combined with laziness and procrastination! Whatever we come up with, I will share pictures I promise.

- Oh ya, and throwing the party is on my 101 list. Recent list accomplishment was trying scotch. I liked but did not love. In a couple of weekends, I'm taking my boy to Chicago and we're gonna have a fancy tea someplace (both also on the list). I guess I am a little productive.

So good!

This Simple Harvest cereal is my new morning crack habit. The brown sugar pecan kind is so seriously seriously good. I consider telling you all about this to be my good deed of the day.

Books books and more books...and one lil movie

Stargirl was pretty adorable. I want to give it to every preteen I know.

Love The Last Days of Dogtown. Loved loved loved it. Those of you who like historical fiction should pick this one up. Those who don't should still pick it up. Such a well-told tale. I may have to borrow The Red Tent from the library now.

I read somewhere that this book was funny like the tv show The Office. Its not. Its terribly terribley heart-breaking in lots of everyday ways. Its a good book, just not a hardee har har laugh a minute read.

This counts as one of the 50 nonfiction books I read as part of my 101 list. Very thought-provoking!


Fun read! I like Ms. Esquivel.

We watched Hot Fuzz recently. Silly fun! But not nearly as fun as Shawn of the Dead.

New Obsession

Are you watching Pushing Daisies yet? If not, you should be. Freakin adorable and the best set design I've ever seen on a tv show.

And speaking of pretty rooms - go vote for Jamie's mad decorating skills on Apartment Therapy. I want her to come and prettify my place now too.

Plaid

Shiny Squirrel always manages to find the coolest fashions. Like this:

Isn't that skirt the cutest? Made by Ric Rac.