love

birthday list

snow, sneezes, protein shakes, pictures, my mom the photographer, joe’s jeans, millionaire matchmaker on dvr, no exercizing, mango shrimp tacos, salsa, thrifting, sharing secrets, anthropologie, tissues, cards, tears, englishtown antiques and used furniture (an old supermarket – what a wierd, spooky, and amazing place), presents, shrimp scampi, broccoli rabe, lubrano’s trattoria, new tights, yellow tail cabernet, laughing in the car all the way home, cake ice cream cake from coldstone with kit kats covered in sprinkles on top, candles, smarty pants bag from mom and dad, perfect sweater from grandma and pa, phone calls, american girl coconut from matt (he went on their web site and ordered it after i said i fell in love with him in the city), giada cookbooks, leather journal

meet coconut. p.s. i decided, he is a boy.

coconut

27

jacket

vogue 8522

i really, really, really love the weekends. i had minimal homework this weekend so i have been able to sew, sew, sew and shop and cook. all of my favorite things. we have a new tradition that i am enjoying of buying something really yummy and really easy to prepare for saturday nights. last weekend we had fresh scallops, and last night we made stuffed salmon (already stuffed with crab courtesy of costco). home is nice. i am so over eating out every night.  

i made this jacket this weekend from a very easy vogue pattern called vogue 8522. i was a bit overwhelmed when i realized i would have to make a lining but it turned out to be a peace of cake and nicely hid all the seam allowances, etc. i don’t really like the sleeves but i can overlook that because i do love the collar. i may end up hacking the sleeves off and making it short sleeved. we shall see.

running, lifting, shopping, baja shrimp tacos, coldness, stubborn carpet stain, pajamas, lifespan development reading, resilience, orange juice and seltzer, manasquan vs. st john vianney, pizza with friends, cabernet savignon, sleeping in, millionaire matchmaker, blankets, heat, mucinex, dishes, salmon quesadillas with leftovers, 12 breakfast sandwich making marathon, stuffing freezer, snow, notebooks, gel pens, baseball hats

more sewing

i ordered a pattern online from sew liberated called the school house tunic, i made the shorter version and love it, very cute and flattering. one of these days i need to have mr. matt take pictures of the things i am making when i am actually wearing them

schoolhouse tunic

schoolhouse tunic close up

 

ps after much googling, i found a great setting on my camera, no flash, quick shutter speed. makes me feel like a pro even with my regular digital camera.

lately creative

feeling good, being creative, back to adventures

magnolia at rockafeller center

bagel making on a sick day

simplicity 2894

my favorite kind of day is a gallivanting day

hat, chrissy, perkins, eggs benedict florentine, half frozen melons, bank, home goods, roaming around home goods for three hours, big iron e, scrapbook papers, wallet, big mirror, pulling into the parking lot of costco but deciding not to go in, target, clearance cardigans, bandaids, baja fish tacos, limes, pineapple salsa, habitat for humanity restore, pasta maker, visit with neighbor, make pasta, make sauce

clean pasta maker til it looks like new

looked it up on amazon – $129.00 – and i had almost walked away from it for $19.99

put in flour, eggs, oil, water, salt, mess up, and then do it again

make the cutest little rigatoni’s ever, and whole wheat

this is going to become a regular tradition

a delicious day

things i am doing to get ready to be a therapist

two chairs

hanging out with the people who encourage me and believe in me and promise me i will still have time to sew and ride my bike and make salsa and breathe, read, pray, envisioning what it may be like, applying for an internship at a place i really want to work, doing self-assessment type workbooks, thinking about motivations, registering for more classes than i can probably handle while still working in the cube, starting to tell people about what it is that i am doing, care, practice really listening, call my mentors, share my fears, order books on amazon written by yalom and kottler, talk to all my classmates and friends that are already doing it, love people, get malpractice insurance,  join the american counseling association, learn more and more about empathy and how to let others know i have it, figure out how to answer the question, “what do you do?”

hey sadness, you are on notice

things i have been doing lately to feel better:

running 2 miles straight a day more days than not, stretching, sun salutations whenever i feel like it, sewing lots of sewing (i want to post pics soon), downloading fun music, cooking brand new recipes, baking brand new recipes, making a schoolhouse tunic from a pattern I bought from http://www.sewliberated.com/, making mccall’s pattern 5787, knitting a big chunky cowl from the January Martha Stewart Living called Dobb’s Ferry (i call these big cowl things woobies), trying to be home more, trying to talk on the phone less (i loathe the phone), eat yummy whole foods

below is a picture of the Dobb’s Ferry Cowl from martha stewart living (not me)

this cowl was so meant to be. my mom bought me one skein for christmas of the exact yarn that this pattern calls for in a gorgeous cream called fisherman. so chunky and delicious. she also bought me a hole puncher in honor of my blog. she so gets me and i love her so much.

in other news, i am trying a new approach to my skin care. i have literally tried every acne product under the sun. certain people don’t always realize i have terrible skin because i wear very nice makeup in front of said people.

things i have tried on my face:

proactive, benzoclin, differin, clindamycin, dr perricone’s vitamin regimen, vegan diet, water water water, steaming, no treatment at all, washing with just plain old soap and water, washing with dial, no washing, hot compresses, cold compresses, clinique’s acne line, everything ever sold in the skin care aisles of cvs or target, strawberries pureed, witch hazel, crushed up aspirin (crazy, you say? i know.)

my latest maybe solution:

slathering on benzoyl peroxide (i read about it on acne.org)

playing pretend

this is what I used to call make-believe when I was little. I loved playing pretend

prairie (my friends and I would run around my backyard and tree house in prairie dresses and bonnets that my mom made and bake mud pies and ride invisible horses), barbies, dollhouse, mystery solving, mermaids in the pool, chef (when we were out to dinner there was nothing I loved more that taking all the leftovers and sugar packets, etc and combining them in a cup – thanks mom and dad for letting me do this)

i could seriously go outside and play prairie right now.