Charms 101

On my birthday last year, I stopped in at a local shop called Brooklyn Charm and decided that I was going to make myself a necklace. Because it was my birthday, I decided that this necklace was going to have lots of MEANING and that it would be all about ME. My hopes and my dreams, represented via talismans, if you will. If you don't know me (or even if you do), you might be interested to know that I'm fairly superstitious. Not in a fear-the-black-cat kind of way, but more in a hold-your-breath-and-make-a-wish-while-driving-through-tunnels kind of way. I am a firm believer in luck, and an even firmer believer that things happen for a reason. I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a soul inside of my teddy bear, and one night, after having dinner with a dear friend last January, I tied the bakery string from the pie we ate around my wrist and decided I would wear it until it fell off. (Unfortunately, it has not yet fallen off and it is not looking so hot, but it always makes me think of my friend!) Similarly, I have a hunch that if you wear a necklace with meaningful charms, the charms are then infused with an intention, and by wearing the necklace, you will then activate that intention and carry it with you.

Of course, the charms that I picked out on that day were a feather (for flight!), a wishbone (for luck!), a heart (for love!), and a hummingbird (for...more flight! Speed? Maybe because it's so pretty? Yes, prettiness!). I was so excited about my birthday intention charm necklace that I didn't stop to realize that just about every other girl in Brooklyn has these very same charms, also wishing for flight! luck! love! prettiness! It was all very personal at the time, you just have to trust me. So I picked out my charms, and I found the corresponding jump-rings, and a nice girl helped me find the right chain, and then she strung them all on the necklace and I walked out the door a new woman. Until I got home and realized that they all just kinda grouped at the center and you couldn't see anything but the feather. But with the other junk behind it, it looked sort of like a feather laying atop a scrap pile. Which was exactly the look I was going for.

I set the necklace aside for months, and then last weekend I went back into Brooklyn Charm and asked what I could do to fix it. Yet another very nice girl in the shop suggested that they could just attach the charms to the chain so they wouldn't slide around, and I thought, well that's a great idea! But they were busy and I didn't feel like waiting, and Robb was coming to meet me for a smoothie (the Girlfriend Getaway smoothie, to be exact) and I thought, well I'll just go home and attach the charms to the chain myself. How hard can it be?

Friends, let me tell you something in no uncertain terms: Jewelry is a pain in the ass. And this coming from a person who has voluntarily made her own candy corn! They make it look so easy in the store, popping those jump-rings on and off the chain like they're just twisting the stem off an apple. And you know what? If I had the appropriate tools, it might have been easy, too, but all I had were a pair of extra large needle-nose pliers and some other type of wrench or something. (I'm bad at tools.)

The first step was to take the charms off of the chain. The heart, which had no jump-ring, slid right off and will be used another day on another necklace. The other charms, however, needed to be surgically removed with pliers. To do this, you first need to hold one side of the tiny jump-ring in one set of pliers, then grab the other side of the jump-ring with the other pliers. Once you've got a grip, you sort of twist them away from each other, creating an opening big enough to pop them off the chain. This part was not so bad. It was getting them back ON the chain--like, attaching the jump-rings to the tiny little chain links--that was a pain in the ass. Those little chain holes are so teeny tiny! And the charm kept sliding off of the ring while I tried to jam it through the tiny chain hole. But eventually (and I'm talking like an hour later, no joke), I finally managed to get them back on the chain.

So you may be wondering (or not, that's okay too) what I mean by love, luck, flight, and prettiness.

Love is maybe the easiest to explain. I could stand to love people more each day. And not just my man,  but also my friends and my family, and every creature I encounter. Even the jerks. Especially the jerks. Without love, I fear my edges will harden, and some days on the subway, they get pretty damn rigid.

Luck is what I like to call it when a thing works out my way. And sometimes, I would even venture to say that luck is a result of good choices. But occasionally I've noticed that luck can even happen when you've made a bad choice...and it's that kind of luck that makes me the most hopeful (it's never too late to make it better; no matter what, you are never beyond the blessings of occasional good fortune.)

Flight is not leaving, and it's not running away. For me, it is the moment when all of the practicing--the sharpening of the mind, the largeness of compassion, the daily practice of trying to become a fuller person--coalesces, becoming something that is more meaningful. It is the moment when the things you have wanted and worked for start to happen and life begins anew. To make a very literal metaphor, I imagine the Wright Brothers in their workshop, knowing that their physics is right, and that it's just a matter of time and patience before their experiments yield positive results. They had already seen the fits and starts, the glimmers of success. When the plane finally left the ground, I'm sure they were ecstatic, but not totally surprised.

The hummingbird, as I said before...well it's just pretty. And if you read this blog often enough, then you know that's fairly important to me, too.

Dithering in Brooklyn

I've been in this house for a few years now, and each year, I do a blog post about nothing but spring. Spring spring delicious spring. It feels like very familiar territory. Maybe because that's what this blog is all about. (Or, in my thesis that I haven't written, what I want this blog to be all about.) Bright colors, new life, the happiness of coincidence, the passage of a day. 

Just yesterday I walked to the local Buffalo Exchange to buy some new jeans (yup, ripped the crotch on another pair...what is it with me and my chafey thighs?), and I thought, I'll just bring the camera. You never know what you'll see along the way. And sure enough, there were these purple flowers. A sea of them, in fact, crashing upon my head. To say that they are bursting from the tree would be silly. They are a floral infestation. They are positively frothing. This tree is at its ecstatic zenith. If a tree could have an orgasm, this would be it! May I look at this photo and always remember how lush it feels to stand in the presence of a tree this joyous. 

It seems that each spring, there is a day that feels like this, when you just know that everything is going to be okay. 80 degrees, a sweet perfume of blossoms, followed by a strawberry banana smoothie called Girlfriend Getaway from a local eatery. (Seriously, it's a very embarrassing smoothie to order: "One Girlfriend Getaway, please!") 

Not ten feet from the ecstatic purple tree was a border of tulips hanging on for dear life, their giant voluptuous petals starting to lean back against the air. Oh, dear sweet sinewy tulips...I wish we were able to grow you in our yard, but alas, we have gremlins that chop off your head before you even bloom.  It was a serious problem last year, but this year its fatal. The gremlin has perfected his system. Thankfully, daffodils are not delicious to the gremlin, and we have lots of those. 

Earlier that day, before the jeans shopping and the Girlfriend Getaway and the insanity of the purple flowers, I worked in our backyard and Camper followed me around, a loyal devotee. I gave him a bath and then made him sit outside. I read Nancy Drew; he chewed on a bone. Later we went for a very wimpy run (my jogging is pretty much his natural walking pace). There were squirrels to chase and old Polish ladies to sniff, so I can only assume he had fun.

Camper also helped me transplant my tomato plants to a bigger cup size (which is not meant to sound like I'm talking about bras, but if I were, I guess you could say that the plants went from an A-cup to a C). There's something about going from that tiny plastic cup to a big old pint-sized plastic cup that just drives my tomato plants wild. Over the next three weeks, they will undergo a massive transformation, from puny little sprogs to robust burly plants. Part of this growth spurt is because, when I transfer them over, I thin them down--my least favorite gardening task. Of the two or three little tomato plants growing in each cup, I have to decide which one looks the strongest, which one has the best chance at survival, and that's the one I get to keep--the rest of the sprogs get yanked. It always feels like such a waste, but I know it's for the greater good. Perspective, Liana! No wimpy tomatoes!

So this is weird. Yesterday, when I was thinning my poor plants, I realized that all of the stems were purple. Are the stems of tomato plants always purple at this phase, I thought? I've been growing tomatoes for four years now, and for the life of me I don't remember purple stems. I took this tangled sprog photo above to share with you all.

And then my inner Martha Stewart stylist said, no, Liana, line them up all pretty. No one wants to see that tangled mess.

Around this time, I looked up from my tomato stem styling long enough to notice that my special mutation daffodil--my dear old friend--had bloomed. Ah yes, my double daffodil, growing beneath the cherry tree. It's become ritual now, me and this daffodil. It's always late to bloom, having two heads to sprout instead of one. I prop its head up with my hand and we say hello to each other. Each year, I look into the heart of this flower and try to see where it starts being a daffodil and where it stops. It has none of that decidedly buttercup shaping. It's not even a classic yellow. It's almost more of a dahlia, but now that's not quite right either, is it. Each year, its genetic memory winters over in the bulb, and it remembers to grow up exactly as odd as it did the last year. A gorgeously strange mutation, like no other in the world. And it's in my backyard. Mine mine mine. I feel very lucky indeed.

Flamenco Sketches

 

We are back, my friends! Back from our travels, our adventures, our eye-opening experiences. Oh, it is always so fascinating to go to another country. Even going to Canada is fascinating (I remember once going over to Windsor and being fascinated by the whole new array of snack foods...like ketchup-flavored Ringolos!). But Spain felt somehow even more exotic than Canada, if you can imagine. Especially as we headed south from Barcelona and went down to Andalucia.

To give you a brief and probably inaccurate history lesson*, most of southern Spain was once occupied by the Moors, who were Muslims that came up from Africa (southern Spain is just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from Morocco, after all). And with thanks to the mighty Pyrenees mountain range that separates Spain from France, much of Spain, especially the south, was sealed off from the rest of Europe for a very long time--including the dark ages. So while the rest of the people in Europe were knocking two rocks together for luck and eating their left foot for sustenance, Spain flourished under Moorish rule, building amazingly grand palaces, and encouraging intellect in the city centers like Cordoba and Granada, with Jews and Muslims and Christians all coming together to share their latest learnings in grand libraries (until the Christians decided to take it all for themselves in the 13th century, which paved the way for that whole crusade thing). But despite the reconquista, a lot of the cultural traditions and the architecture from that time can still be seen today. And because Spaniards were so shut off from the rest of the world for, you know, a few centuries, all sorts of strange traditions were born which are still practiced today. Two of those traditions are bull-fighting and flamenco. And because I am not so big on blood sports, Robb and I decided to go see some flamenco in Sevilla.
 
The thing is this: flamenco is absolutely a living and breathing traditional art form, and if you walk down certain streets at certain times of night, you can see glimmers of dancing, you can hear the hands clapping, and not-shy voices burst into song. But if you want to see a show--like with the long ruffled dresses and the castanets and the whole nine yards--you have to go to one of the places in your guidebook. Which is how we wound up sitting elbow to elbow next to a tour group from Japan, drinking kool-aid flavored sangria. But the good news is that the performers were phenomenal.

About 30 minutes into the show, I went to jot down a thought I kept having about symmetry in my journal (more on that later), and then for some reason, I started sketching what I saw on stage. Robb and I kind of giggled at my line drawings and so I handed the book and the pen over to him.

 

When I looked over at what he drew, I almost snorted sangria out of my nose. His rendering of this poor, lovely singer on stage looked not unlike the Crypt Keeper. 

He handed the book back to me.

Now, in my professional art training (i.e., one semester of basic drawing skills at community college 15 years ago), I really grew to like the type of sketching where you look at the object, not at your hands, and you just let the pen move as your brain is seeing it. What you wind up with on paper is never ever actually what you are seeing, but you do manage to achieve all sorts of curves and expressions that actually do match the object--much better, in fact, than if you tried to drawn them exactly. And sometimes you wind up drawing something that looks like what a drunk Picasso at age 9 might have produced. (I like to imagine that the woman's right breast, above, is not sagging, but has "movement.")

Robb's style is much more precise (see isn't this fun?). See how this man's guitar is in proportion to his limbs? Well done! I was also very impressed by how he captured the player's man-bun on top of his head.

My guitar player, however, was a little less proportional. Why he needed to have such a large head and such tiny legs, I am not quite sure. But he makes a nice match for Robb's passionate, twirling senorita.

 

And I finished with this drawing, knowing when it was time to leave well enough alone. I looked down after I finished her skirt and thought, well now that's actually kind of elegant. And then I put the pen away and enjoyed the rest of the show.

It was such a strange thing for us to do...go to a live performance and sketch throughout. But I must say, it was actually an amazing way to appreciate what was happening on stage. I find that if I just keep my eyes on the stage during performances, I sometimes start to tune out...all of those hand-claps and the heels clacking a million miles a minute, it all starts to sound the same if you aren't careful. But somehow having a pen in hand occupies a corner of your brain that allows you to really hear, to really appreciate the shape, the movement, the curves, the flow.

OK, but really, why did Robb and I start sketching during a flamenco performance? 

I think that, perhaps, we were inspired by our surroundings. What I will remember most from this trip is that there was art everywhere. Or what I call art. Which reminds me, this is what I wanted to say about symmetry. As humans, we can't get enough of it. Our eyes love geometry and repeated shapes. But where true artistry seems to come into play is when the symmetry is flourished. A flamenco dancer's even micro-stomps are not just a series of even beats--they are accented by half-time hand claps, and the rest of the space is filled in by the finger picks of the acoustic guitar. Meanwhile, on the walls of the Alhambra, ancient plaster walls were stamped over and over and over again with a swirling floral design, leaving an impression that is still there 600 years later. Stand back and it seems random. Look close, and you can see where the design begins and ends. As long as we can detect the steady pulse, it is no longer chaos and we can follow the path of the artist. We can understand the creation, and sometimes even the person behind the creation. And that is what I learned about art in Spain.

And because I firmly believe in the practice of showing, not just telling, here are some photos of some of the prettiest examples of artistic symmetry I saw in Spain.

Tiles on the walls of the Alhambra, a Moorish Palace built in the 13th century.

Plaster relief in the Alhambra, created using molds.

Original flooring in the Alhambra. (BTW, on these very floors, Columbus asked Isabel and Ferdinand for a little cash to go to the New World.)

Star shapes cut from the ceiling. Highly impractical, but very beautiful.

A newer palace at the Alhambra, it wraps around in a perfect donut.

Lovely scalloped ceilings in the Mezquita of Cordoba.

More scallops in the Mezquita.

Newly planted olive trees, as far as the eye can see.

And perhaps my favorite artwork of all--this sketch on a blackboard at a bar, just some person with chalk making the most perfect matador and bull I could ever imagine. Oh, to be so gifted...

*Note that everything I stated in this blog post has been learned from museum pamphlets, B&B hosts, and Rick Steves. No facts have been cross-referenced or closely researched, which is to say that nothing here should be used for book reports or when trying to "make a point" at a party.

España Bound

The first time I traveled to Europe, when I was 19 years old, I remember having an irrational fear of gypsies. It's those guide books, I tell you! They devote whole chapters to the art of gypsy pickpocketing, which consequently makes young American girls feel as though, if they don't have a money belt slipped down between their underpants and their low-rise jeans, they'll find themselves penniless and passport-less in a train depot in middle-of-nowhere Tuscany. On the train from Paris to Rome, I remember waking up in our sleeper car throughout the night, and each time I woke up I was dreaming of gypsies.

Flash forward 15 years and I am still finding myself scared of gypsies! This time I blame Rick Steves, who wrote my current guide to paranoia in Spain. (Did you know that there are gypsies who will ride by your car on a scooter and reach in through your open window to steal your bag while you're stopped at an intersection? Thanks a lot, Rick Steves! Is nowhere safe??)

To that end, as I have been preparing for this trip to Spain, which I am about to embark on in just a few short hours, I have spent many an hour looking for the perfect pickpocket-proof bag. And when none of the bags in the shops met my qualifications, I decided I had to make my own. It needed to cross over my chest (no purse-snatchers for me!) and have a zipper, of course. And it needed to be made from a lightweight material so at the end of the day I don't feel like I've been carrying bricks. And it needed to feel happy--but not too happy--so I chose this tribal print for the outside of the bag, and a happy yellow for the inside.

I must say, I was very pleased with my zipper work! Actually, I have a confession to make: I had never installed a zipper before this one. And an even bigger confession: Before installing the zipper, I consulted my Reader's Digest Sewing Book--the be-all-end-all of sewing technique guides--and the diagrams and whatnot for how to install a zipper kind of gave me a headache, so I just sort of winged it. No idea if I did this right. But I like how the patterns on the panels line up on either side of the zipper, so that was cool!

But my vacation sewing didn't end with the bag. In a less paranoid sewing moment, I also decided I needed a new tunic, so I whipped up this little halter. Though I've never been to southern Spain, I do have a funny feeling that these colors and this print and the weave of the fabric is how it will feel. Close to Morocco, but not quite, and with floral swirls and punchy reds that have a sort of flamenco clickety-clack-with-a-rose-between-your-teeth kind of feel. But who knows if this is true...I'll let you know how it actually was when I'm back!

I tried to go out in the backyard to take a photo of myself wearing the tunic, but the dog was jumping around at my feet, and the light setting was all wrong, and then the upstairs neighbor in our apartment building opened the window and his little 5-year-old son said "Hi Wiana! Hi doggy!", and, well, that's hardly a time to continue taking glamour shots of yourself out in the backyard. But then I decided that blown-out photos can actually be quite kind, and so I share this little photo (note that I'm also wearing my gypsy-proof purse), with promises of more photos to come when we return. Adios for a bit, my friends. See you in April!

Goat Cheese & Honey Cheesecake

This pretty tart is NOT my cheesecake. But it's pretty!

Last week, I was talked into entering a company bake-off. And by talked into, I mean a coworker said, hey are you gonna enter the bake-off? And I said oh yeah, I forgot about that. Ok.

The truth of the matter is this: I was not so sure at all that entering the bake-off was such a good idea. As of late, I have simply had too much to do!! In just one week, Robb and I take off for a fun-filled 10 days (TEN DAYS) in sunny Spain. And for the last month and a half, I have been working my tail off to ensure that A) this vacation doesn't make me get woefully behind at work, B) I don't leave any unexpected messes on anyone's desk, and C) I won't think about work AT ALL while I am in Spain. And so, there have been some long hours. And there have been some nights where I woke up in a cold sweat, worried about, like, whether or not the project where you build a coffee table and grow plants inside of it is technically a terrarium or a miniature greenhouse, and if the latter, will all of the plants die if they don't have drainage?

What a silly thing to lose sleep over! But these, I'm afraid, are the things that haunt me.

And so, it was with some sort of foolish combination of energy and enthusiasm that I agreed to enter last week's company bake-off.

The contest was pie-themed! But unfortunately, pies are not really my forte. Because Robb wasn't around to make my pie crust (he is MUCH better at pie crusts than I am), and because no fruit, except like quince, is in season right now, I decided to make a cheesecake. A goat cheese and honey cheesecake, with a strawberry swirl on top.

This is my cheesecake! Sort of pretty.

I'll just cut to the chase right now. It didn't win. But think about it: when is cheesecake EVER the bake-off winner? (Stupid, stupid, stupid...always make chocolate! Always!)

Something else won. Something chocolatey.

I don't think this pie was the winner, but isn't it pretty?

Anywho, about my loser cheesecake. It was not cheap and it was not quick, but it was fabulously awesomely delicious. If you have about 4 hours and $35 to kill, follow these instructions as written and then proceed to devour it while sipping some sort of earthy red wine. Wear a Greek toga and golden underpants for extra fanciness. Super decadent, right?

If you have about 2 hours to kill and you're broke, might I recommend a modification? Cut all of the filling ingredients in half to make a short cheesecake, and just put it right in the fridge once it's cooled. It becomes almost more like a fancy frosted graham cracker cookie, and the richness of the goat-and-cream cheese and sweetness of the honey become a little less overwhelming. (Yes, I'm one of those people that is overwhelmed by cream cheese...and yes, I tend to scrape off half of the goop that comes on bagels...why do they think I need all that? So messy!)

Without further ado, I present to you the non-award-winning adaptation of...

Warren Brown's Honey and Raspberry (er...Strawberry) Cheesecake, from United Cakes of America

For the Graham Cracker Crust:
9 full graham crackers
3 tablespoons superfine sugar
3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/8 tsp salt

For the Filling:
16 ounces cream cheese
16 ounces goat cheese
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1/2 cup honey
4 eggs
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup strawberry puree (To make the strawberry puree, bring about a cup of sliced strawberries and a half cup of sugar to a boil. Cool down, blend in a food processor, and set aside.)

Preheat the over to 300 degrees. Grease a 9" x 3" round pan and line the bottom with parchment. (Note that I was too scared to use a spring-form pan--thought it might leak in the water bath!--so I used a shorter cake pan instead. But if you use a spring-form pan and succeed, let me know.)

Crush the graham crackers (a food processor helps) into fine crumbs and toss it with the rest of the crust ingredients. Press it firmly into the pan and bake for about 10 to 12 minutes. Set aside to cool and leave the oven on.

Put a roasting pan in the oven and fill it about 2/3 full with water.

In the bowl of a mixer, beat the cheeses on medium speed to soften them. Reduce the mixer to slow and add the sugar and honey in 2 additions each (about 3 minutes total). Add the eggs one at a time, allowing each to combine. Mix the sour cream, heavy cream, and vanilla together, then pour into the mixer slowly.

Pour the filling into the crust and drizzle about 1/4 cup of strawberry puree on top. Use your fingers to trace a swirly fancy design into the top.

Set the cake pan in the water bath and bake for about an hour. (The center of the cake should be slightly wobbly when you nudge it...that's the best I can describe it...sorry!)

Turn off the heat and leave the oven door ajar for 1 hour. Remove the pan from the water bath and let it cool for another 4 hours. Then put it in the fridge overnight.

Run a spatula around the edges to loosen it and plop it onto a plate for serving. Eat it!

(And if you're making the cheater version, bake it for the full hour so it really cooks through, but just pull it out of the oven and let it cool on the counter for a bit. Then eat it!)

Meet Hot Lips (the Knitted T-Rex)

So I don't know if you all remember, because it was SO LONG AGO that I hardly remember, but do you recall when I decided that I was going to knit a dinosaur from the appropriately named book Knitted Dinosaurs? I actually went so far as to ask all of you which dinosaur you wanted me to make, and based on your votes (and the votes of your children and dogs), I decided to make the T-Rex!

Folks, this was so long ago that there were leaves on the trees, and they were turning pretty colors. Want proof? This is a photo I took from the window aboard the Amtrak train as I rode up to Rhinecliff to go to the Sheep and Wool Festival. See? Leaves!

And here is the dinosaur's tail, which I knitted on the train whilst sipping coffee. (Actually, looking back on this, I can't think of a more idyllic way to spend a Sunday morning...)

Not long after the Sheep and Wool Festival, I actually finished knitting all of the components that make up a knitted dinosaur. These include (clockwise from top): a body that, unstuffed, looks like a snake with a crocodile head, a mouth that turned out to be way too large, two tiny useless forearms, a couple of legs, a couple of of foot pads, and in the middle, a spiky ridge to run down the middle of his back.

Over the course of another week or so, I sewed the whole thing together, attaching this to that, stuffing each little limb, and weaving in all of the tails. I must say, sewing a dinosaur together is a bit less romantic than knitting him on a train while admiring fall foliage. But he came together really nicely (except for maybe that giant mouth.)

My roadblock came right before Thanksgiving, and it was so stupid I can't even stand it: I didn't have any felt for the teeth and the eyes. That was it. That was the ENTIRE roadblock. And so my poor dinosaur sat there fully assembled for months, with no eyes and no teeth. He was basically soulless.

Want to know how long it took me to fix this problem? FOUR MONTHS. God, that is so embarrassing. I know that I've been talking about this theme a lot recently, but why do I leave so many things right on the verge of completion? Here's what I'm thinking: This is the year that I attend a special month-long workshop held by, like, Oprah Winfrey, and my yoga teacher I loved so much in San Francisco, and maybe my mom, and possibly a life coach, and when I emerge from this workshop, I will be a person who actually completes things in a reasonable amount of time. Or, you know, doesn't start things until the other things are finished. Or, you know, become a perfect person.

Yup, totally gonna happen. I'll go call Oprah right now.

OK, my quest for perfection may be a bit unrealistic. What I should be focusing on is this: I finished the damn dinosaur. I had to walk seven blocks to buy the felt, and then it took one whole hour to cut out his felt teeth and eyes and sew them on. And now, I present to you: Hot Lips Houlihan the T-Rex!

So about that mouth...this is what I was talking about when I said it turned out a little, um, large. (I used a different yarn at a slightly smaller gauge and wow does that make a difference...well, now we know.) 

You'll notice, too, that his entire body is actually a little large--18 inches nose to tail! In fact, to show you just how large he is, I posed him next to a toy dinosaur that I've had for years and years. Not that this comparison will be helpful at all for anyone who hasn't seen the toy dinosaur before. OK, maybe I just wanted to take a picture of them together because I thought it was cute. So sue me!

For similar reasons of cuteness, I also decided to take pictures of Hot Lips eating the smaller T-Rex as he tries to run away.

And then they became friends.

Epilogue: After giving it some thought, I don't actually think that Robb and I need a stuffed dinosaur in our house. And so, pretty soon, he will be leaving his little buddy to go join a yet-to-be-born baby. (I can't tell you who yet. But if you are pregnant and you are a friend of mine, you might be in the running. But don't get your hopes up, because it might not be you.)

Let's hope that Hot Lips brings years of joy and fun to this little baby, and that his giant teeth and mouth don't scare the crap out of the child and scar him/her for life. Yay!

In the meantime, thank you, friends, for participating in the making of this dinosaur! I hope it was all well worth the wait.

Cheater Scarf

This has probably been one of the dumbest winters ever (at least in this California girl's opinion.) One of the great perks of growing up on the West Coast and then moving to the East Coast is the magical appearance of this white fluffy thing we call snow. This year, however, I have seen none of it (except for on Halloween, which made no sense.) I have two pairs of Sorrel snow boots and nowhere to wear them, people! Instead, I've been bundled up like I'm in San Francisco--layers of dresses, sweaters, jackets, and light scarves. Even hats--my beloved hats!--are more of an optional accessory than a must-have line of defense. Crazy town, I tell you. 

From January until last night, I have been pretty much living in my purple/gray tie-dyed scarf. Truth be told, I AM STILL NOT SICK OF IT. Other people might be sick of looking at it, but not me. All the same, I got to thinking that I should maybe have one other scarf option to get me through the rest of this stupid winter. And so I decided to turn a crummy old short scarf into a ladylike cowl.

I'm not going to lie to you. This scarf came from the lost-and-found at the bar where Robb works. And no, it's not the first item of clothing I've worn that's been left behind by drunk people. Ever wonder where your favorite hoodie went after a murky night at the bar? The bartender's girlfriend is probably wearing it. 

This scarf was a little scratchy, a little synthetic, and the edges were raveling just a bit. Plus, it was way too short to be worn as a scarf--48 inches! Four measly feet!--and so it was literally good for nothing. But Robb brought it home, and I went ahead and washed it, and then it just sat there doing nothing. And I hate it when clothing items (or items in general) just sit there doing nothing. So last night, in what can only be called "a fit of clothing repairs" (seriously, I fixed ripped pajamas, tank-top straps, holes in sweaters...I was on a roll), I took some white yarn and sewed the edges of this scarf together. (For those who want to try this trick at home--even non-knitters--it's super easy and here are some tips. Though you can always hack it and sew the ends together any old way you like--the seam goes at the back of your neck, so it can be as Frankensteiny as you please.) 

Once the edges were sewn together, I could slip the thing over my head and wear it like a big loopy necklace (which provides zero warmth). Or I could wrap it around my neck twice, like shown above, which is an awesome cuddly way to keep your neck warm (plus it looks all fancy and twisted.)

And if the wind picks up and my ears get cold, I can lift up one of the loops and slide it over my head like a hood. It is surprisingly warm! And when I look at my reflection in car windows as I walk by, I feel feel very glamorous, and maybe just a little bit "old Hollywood insane."

Of course, you could also go ahead and knit yourself a simple little scarf and sew the ends together, but my thinking is this: we only have one more month of this silly little winter to endure, so rather than spending that month knitting the scarf, why not grab some old ugly thing and turn it into something a little fresh and useful, something to give your purple tie-dyed scarf (or your equivalent of a purple tie-dyed scarf) a time out. And then before you know it, it will be spring, my friends! Spring!