Monday, February 21, 2011

the case of the gimmes.

ever read the berenstain bears book that talks about the "gimmes"? brother and sister bear go out shopping with their parents and cause a big scene in every store because they want everything - candy, toys, you name it. moral of the story is, brother and sister bear have to learn that they cannot have everything they want, and must learn to be content with not getting anything at all.
the past few days i have felt like brother and sister bear (minus the tantrums and subsequent scolding from my parents). all the sudden i have this overwhelming urge to splurge! thankfully, due to the careful parenting of my mom and dad with frequent help from berenstain bears stories like this one, i have learned that contentment is a virtue, and one cannot/should not selfishly spend like mad. another thing that helps the contentment process is being broke and currently without a means of income (job ideas? anyone??)...but that's beside the point. since i cannot/will not buy all (or any, for that matter) of the frivolous things i've been drooling over, i've decided i will share them with you all instead :)
Black Leather Band Watch
a simple, classic watch with a black strap. this one is from anne klein, and not quite what i want, but you get the basic idea. i want it to look polished, classy, and timeless.
if i was much more frivolous and very much wealthier, i would go with this gorgeous specimen from michael kors. 



this adorable tank blouse from target. you can't tell from this view, but if you follow the link to target's website you can look at the back - grey stripes! i don't normally approve of mixing patterns, but this top does it the right way.


this laptop bag from fossil, though the color i want is this one; the image couldn't be taken off the website. mmm so much soft leather, so much more fashionable than my plain black back-packy one. (though, mine has served its purpose very well for the past three years, and is still going strong. and it was cheap to boot!)


Midnight Blue Sparkling Drusy in Oxidized Sterling Silver handmade ring

ok, seriously...how beautiful is this ring?? an incredible etsy find.

THE LIBRO grey leather pouch

another awesome item from etsy. i swear, i could spend a million dollars on this site alone.

Screenprinted Mr. Darcy Proposal notecard set (3)

and finally, these darcy notecards, which are from etsy as well. this combines three of my absolute favorite things: beautiful handwriting, notecards, and pride and prejudice...all in one gift!

well, that's that. of course, as i'm sure you can imagine, there are about a thousand more things i could put on here. but seeing as how i have an exam tomorrow, i will have to stop here for now :)
hope you enjoyed my little wish list! 
(hint :: my birthday is in 4 days...any takers?)

xo.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

bits/pieces/remnants

hello all! happy sunday to you :)
as i write this i am sitting in my favorite of places, barnes & noble, with my dear ali, who is listening to lectures on nutrition and "how to not get food poisoning"....
clearly, she is thrilled.
but! it is a beautiful day, and i am proud of us that we are out in society rather than caged up in our rooms, which is what we too-often do on the weekends. so while i bask in the bookish atmosphere (also it smells like cinnamon buns....mmm!) i figured i would post some pictures of doodles that really should have put up for valentine's day...ah well. here goes:

 this day i was very much craving a reeses cupcake.

 a pretty flower for a pretty someone?

letter. 
(yes davey, that is your name and address. no davey, i have not sent your letter yet.)

i really need to work on making these posts less random. i'll get better...i really will. 
but for now, farewell and best wishes.
xo

Friday, February 18, 2011

inspiration.

Staged
sweetly simple storage 

Today In The Studio
a creative space


Saturday Afternoon
colorful pretties to sip, munch, and nibble out of

these delightful set-ups come from smile and wave, who's blog i just found/started following today! i literally can't get enough of her blogged-about ideas and photos. check her out!

xo

ah, spring.

today is a breath of fresh air, figuratively and quite literally. as i walked to class this morning i felt the blues of winter melt away and the sweet hope of spring fill my body and soul. of all the seasons, spring is my absolute favorite. it signifies new life, a rebirth of nature and of spirit. even the most difficult of tasks is met with ease when spring is here; nothing is so awful that cannot be made better with the warmth of the sun.

i celebrated this first (unfortunately premature) burst of the season with a little picture-taking spree at my absolute favorite church in valley forge national park


the most beautiful blue door you ever wanna see.


the lovely alex by my side





here's to hoping the weather sticks around for a while...
how will you celebrate spring today?
xo

Monday, February 14, 2011

ahh, valentine's day! 
a sweet day full of pink and red and hearts of every shape and size. there was a spirit of flirty fun in the air today, and it seemed that many people put a little extra effort into looking nice, which is always exciting!
for my part, i decided to break out my rarely-worn feathered headband
and add some curl to my 'do:


i also celebrated by making valentines for my much-cherished friends (which unfortunately i did not take pictures of...silly!). what did you do to make your valentine's day extra special?

xoxoxo

Saturday, February 12, 2011

early valentine's fete

hello all! (or, hello one or two or three who take the time to visit me :) )

today me and two of my dear loves had a little "happy valentine's day" celebration, and all in all it was a lovely day.
i started the day off by waking up slowly and adding a little glam to my get-ready routine:

soon after that it was time to head to kendra's (one of said "dear loves"), with supplies in pink & red colored bags in tow (yes, even the most mundane of details are important when it comes to valentine's day). 
as soon as we got there i set up all the valentine-making supplies, which unfortunately but kind of expectedly we never ended up using



at least they looked cheerful, right?

the lunch menu for the day was chicken salad with apples, craisins, and walnuts on heart-shaped bread! no, the bread was not heart-shaped when we got it...although that would be awesome. but we used these handy little guys to meticulously make food into a valentine's shape:


i didn't get any pictures of the sandwiches, which was dumb, but i mean...i'm sure you can imagine what chicken salad looks like. google it if you can't. anyway, they were delicious, and i'm extremely excited to eat the leftovers tomorrow! 
after lunch it was on to baking cookies, specifically lemon ricotta cookies with glaze. 


so. yummy.
we were going to use food coloring to dye the pink, but we forgot :( sad. ah well, less red dye in our system is always a good thing i'm sure. and as if that wasn't enough of a sugar shock, we also made dark chocolate hot cocoa as per martha stewart's recipe:



^ the beautiful kenno herself!
^ sipped from my new mug! check the homemade whipped cream on top.
mmm. so yummy right?? the hot chocolate tasted delicious, though we found that our bodies could barely tolerate more than a few sips of the stuff...too much heavy cream! if martha ate/drank everything she advertised, she'd be 600 pounds. so i can only assume martha's not sipping this stuff regularly.

the rest of the afternoon was spent silently watching pride and prejudice, one of our absolute favorites...i can't think of many stories that are more romantic, and it set the perfect mood for the day. for sure one of the best movies, with the most beautiful soundtrack

 a fun time had by all :) if only every day could be as productive and sweet as this.

xo

Friday, February 11, 2011

quickie

(not that kind)

what am i doing right now, at 12:20 pm on a lovely, sunny friday?
planning out a little valentine's day get together with my sweet and silly girlfriends :)

at the moment i'm making a list of ingredients for several yummy sweets i want to make:


dark chocolate and milk chocolate/p.b. hot cocoa....sound amazing, don't they???




my little ingredient list. also on the menu? lemon-ricotta glazed cookies (a la giada) and chicken salad with apples, grapes, craisins, and walnuts. MMM. my stomach is growling already.

welp, that's all for now...a picture/drawing post will come tonight. have a wonderful friday! embrace the warm sun.

xo

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

d.c.!

hello! 
so, as i mentioned a few days ago, this past weekend i got to go to d.c. for the day with my dad, my brother coop, and my dad's coworker ken who was here all the way from londontown! 
we left in the morning (later than planned, naturally), and it was a long, boring ride in the rain to rockville, maryland. 


so boring, in fact, that coopy swiftly fell asleep. 

upon making it to maryland, we dropped off our car and decided to take the metro the rest of the way into the city. we greatly underestimated the amount of time the we'd be on the metro; we guessed about 20 minutes...it was almost an hour.
but our spirits were high nonetheless!
 me and daddy ^
^ coop and ken
after what felt to be much more than an hour, our train stopped at the center city station, where we found a little goober named davey!
(in spite of this face, he really was happy to see us.)
we then shortly emerged above ground to the rain and misery that encompassed the entire day. the weather definitely put a damper on things, but at least museums are inside, haha!
while ken, dad, and coop went to the national gallery of art, me and davey decided to visit the natural history museum so i could see the fun things like stuffed animals and my beloved dinosaurs.
clearly the better choice.
the following pictures capture our journey through the smithsonian, and our encounters with wildlife, both modern and prehistoric.




^ a "dinorama", as davey called it 



 i found a davey! ^








^ the dingo ate your baby

...so awesome, right?
but you know what's not awesome? paying 25 dollars for a crappy museum cafeteria meal.

but even expensive food and crappy weather weren't enough to keep us from having a fun day.

(bad picture, but just look past our faces and into the emotion.)
that's all for now :)
xo