contessy christmas

I got two cookbooks for Christmas both by Ina Garten AKA Barefoot Contessa to add to my two other cookbooks also by the her highness of the hamptons. I also got these two frames from Target I'd been lusting after for a long time and some barefoot contessa soup recipe notecards that turned out to be just perfect to go into said frames. Couldn't have looked cuter if I'd planned it, which I didn't. Thanks Emily, Jill, Dan, & Matt, you know you guys are going to be the beneficiaries of the cooking anyway....

this made me laugh

its sort of like lucy's psychology advice booth but brought into this decade... (and no that girl isn't paris hilton)

hoops

Usually one image inspires me when taking on a project. At first glance the image is just bam, ooh, simple yet, hmm, interesting. What is that? EMBROiDERY HOOPS. You're average run of the mill embroidery hoops you can get at Michael's or a sewing store. The ones in the picture are extra extra large and I was just too weirded out to buy something that could end up just looking stupid so I couldn't commit to anything more than the few I grabbed at Michael's. To spice it up, I added into the middle via fishing line a few of the jeweled ornaments I bought at Target and you know what, it looks pretty pretty darn good. Image at top is from Real Simple and image below, is my dining area.
The rest of my homey Christmas decorations are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/emailevy/OurChristmas08Decorations#

purty blue and white

As I reviewed the latest images of things I'd been attracted to on the design blog circuit, I found myself noting that I gravitated a lot toward things that were blue, white, shiny, and silver. Most of our home is dominated by the color black since we both love it so much but our bedroom doesn't have any black in it. Its blue and white and silver.

When you're young and not rich it seems like you get the stuff that you can live with for the time being and then when you have moolah, you get the stuff to make you feel like a grown up. Our bedroom is a prime example. All of the furniture is the Malm stuff from Ikea. What I want, is an upholstered bed with mirrored side tables. Still I'm fairly happy with our bedroom, its the room in the apartment that makes me feel soothed and I think its because of the colors. So here is a little page of things that inspire me to dream of blue and a few images of things that are mine that wake me up (the Jonathan Adler umbrella, the diamond vase, pencils, bedside carafe, and frame with picture of my dream closet).

marley was dead: to begin with

This is pretty square honey, Matt said as the high school girl carolers dressed as girls from the Charles Dickens era sang Jingle Bells. Square was one word for it, awkward was another. It'd be one thing if the carolers were off to the side singing and we could just watch them in passing but they were at the front of the room and you just had to sit there and listen. They kept going too, song after song and I'd try to just enjoy it but I was too uncomfortable. By that time, the room had been filled up with kids, maybe some teens that were friends of the carolers, middle aged moms & dads, grandparents, and us.

Was it a mistake to have come, to have dragged poor Matt to the library to watch a reading of Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol?

Finally, the carolers were done. They bowed. Everyone clapped. Again. Like they had after every song. And now the reading...

Up to the podium came a man dressed in another era appropriate costume with a black top hat. He gave us a quick intro of these readings, how Charles Dickens himself would do them every Christmas around town and wouldn't that have been something, to see the man who created these characters provide the voices. The man got into character and began reading a classic and for the next hour, I sat there, happily, patiently. I've seen about four versions of The Christmas Carol told and I own three of them but hearing the words of Charles Dickens himself describe Jacob Marley's transparent body made it I dunno, magical. The man would do the voices for all the characters and had a fake British accent as the narrator the whole time. I can't say I've ever heard someone read such a lengthy story, it felt so old, harking back to a time when people would do this sort of thing all the time with a lack of computers and DVDs, they would read aloud to each other, experience a world in words together.

After the reading, we were given wassail & cookies and people chatted happily about the experience. And recalling the telling of tiny Tim when he makes mention of who made lame men walk I shed another little tear, words are powerful things and it was nice to be reminded of that.