animal hand-tattoos

continuing with my theme of whacky awesome non-necessary items wanted from england at home...when i saw these animal hand-tattoos i immediately thought of my dad, who would dig their silly genius.* the concept is so fantastically simple! i love the rad designs & radiant colors (two key factors for a killer temporary tattoo). these would be perfect for a boring car ride or to cheer up your too-far-away daughter. if you aren't near brighton, you can find them online in many many places. because clearly, these are totally for grown-ups.

* for instance, while skype-ing recently, my pops & i were one-upping each other with various silly faced thumbpeople complete with paper hats.

anniversaries of

today is the anniversary of my niece being born! my first niece. the niece that made me an aunt. & that made me less scared of the fragile-amazingness of littles. and changed me, the way that tiny ones who you are connected to change you. & it kills me that i'm not there to see her in her punky ruffled dress, eating cake, & throwing her head around laughing. the ocean is folded in waves between us, but i am thinking of her. & wishing her great first cakes & another year of tall wonders. and sending love love love, to connect the small map-dots which represent the distance between us. happy first year Zoe!!!

christmas crack up

this year Z's parents gifted my family a set of christmas crackers, a traditional british holiday game which consists of brightly wrapped cardboard tubes that you pull at each end--and with a bb-gun pop and snap out comes a crown & a prize. this particular version was a concerto--each cracker had a little whistle and a number and when conducted appropriately (by Z, of course) a holiday tune was created. that was the idea anyhow. not knowing some of the included british songs, we were sort of a hot mess of whistles and doubled-over laughing. regardless, it was a blast. and i think the beginning of a new holiday tradition!

in ten years

one of the things i love to do is imagine Z in ten years (or more). he's so handsome now, with his scruffle and untame-able curly black hair and glasses. and i super heart him as he does things like practice his conference talk. but imagining him as a tenured professor, giving lectures, coming home from classes all wind-blown and trench-coated (clearly we are living somewhere on the east coast in my mind)--well, that just catches my breath. Z is one of those guys you can tell will age well. so in ten years, i imagine professor Z like this man--feeling utter confident in his self and his purpose. and more matured (in both age and behavior!). swoon. i am a lucky gal.

we'll be back home this evening (super late). and i assume we'll be so tired we'll just hit the hay. so until tomorrow.

{via the sartorialist}

hanging onto the vine

this tune was inspired by a 1964 magazine ad that claimed hunt's ketchup was a better brand because they urged their tomatoes not to despair, to hang onto the vine a little longer, to wait until they were absolutely ripe. my sister has called me little tomatoe forever (as seen in the last post's comments, and yes with an 'e'). this has become a running joke in my family because Z hates tomatoes with a passion.

i'm taking the rest of today and tomorrow off from the land of blog but i'll be back this weekend, so don't go away. happy thanksgiving statesiders! and happy thursday to the rest of you!

folding the fall into roses

this will be my first thanksgiving away from family. and part of me is grateful that i've made it this many years without being too far to travel back home. but the rest of me is feeling dreadful about missing out on the inaugural thanksgiving at N2's (my sister and hubs) new house, and all the raucous game-playing, food-eating, and general merriment that is sure to be had. even though my pop(rock) set up wireless skype for tomorrow--i wonder if it will just make me more jealous. hey! pass me some stuffing! so instead of endless dwelling on my food-family-sadness, i am dreaming up creative tablescapes. these origami maple leaf roses would be perfect natural centerpieces, don't you think? chuck in some (clean) feathers and you'd have a table topped with the bright & unexpected. check out the rose folding instructions here. maybe tomorrow afternoon i'll take a long turkeyed-up nap as my celebration.

(notice how i skipped over this holiday in my previous post? that's because with no t-day here, it's already all twinkling christmas lights and sugar-y carols in london!)

knitting (up) a storm

it is loud & wild & wet outside today: slanted rain and pummeling winds. so i'm hanging inside, where it's dry and sort of warm. and less miserable. i'm reading and working and sending off job-related stuff and--(even though i never thought it would happen, because despite being a strong crafter i am extremely impatient with things i am bad at)--knitting. Z successfully taught me to knit! i sat in front of him and he put my hands in his and had infinite patience while i made miserable wobbly lines of wool. but we finished our first project friday and it's pretty rocktastic (N, it's for you!). so yeehaw. even if it is annoying to be bad at things, it's kick-ass to learn a new skill. i highly recommend. go go go! try something new.
and a happy dry sunday to you all!

{image via lawkevin}

missing people

today Z & i are both feeling a bit tired. so we mostly stayed inside the petite bateau and were bummy (we went out briefly for yarn). i admit, i am missing our flat filled with people. we had such a good week with Z's family here. and now it's so so quiet. and we have bunches of working to do. but even though i'm a bit down, that's okay. because there are some big things ahead of us. and then a trip back home. and work will be rewarding once it's not so much about deadlines. so, even though there's a feeling of endings there's also a few tiny sparks shooting up in the distance, a few reasons for cheer (not in the least that i love the holidays). i hope you are all having a stunning tuesday. but if not, that's okay too.

{image via jennipenni}

tentacular tuesday

on sunday we adventured to the brick lane market with Z's sister L. we had hot cider and donuts. we had browsing and serious discussion of what to do with our lives. and we finally found dan hillier's upmarket stall. Z & i fell for his work when we first moved here, after we saw it at a craft fair in the old queen's head pub (one of our favorites for drinks when it's not a weekend night), but we'd never found him at the market. apparently this trip was beshert (a word meaning meant-to-be that Z's mom taught me). we happened to see a print of his in a shop window on our way to the market and L fell for hillier's work as well.

so, the three of us searched him out and then poured through his odd prints and picked out a few. i admit that his work is hyper influenced by max ernst's surrealist collages in une semaine de bonte. but i also admit that it's not like you can own a numbered ernst. Z & i bought the top print at market price which is much much cheaper than online; L bought the bottom one along with a stark & beautifully masculine print of a faun standing across from a stag with a tree growing out of its head. we agreed it's neat for siblings to own pieces by the same artist (like each of us have a section of something larger).

what i dig most about hillier's work is the expression of emotion, the caught-in-the-act of feeling: a brief glimpse of grieving, or anger, or delight. go check out more of his work here.

a lighthouse, a visit

above is the lighthouse at peggy's cove in nova scotia--a province so surreal in its frozen stretches of snow-ocean-sky-scape that i never quite believe the bright photographs we've taken when we look back through them. you can't see the cold, but it was so biting the day we took this we were only allowed outside for five minutes at a time before Z's dad would bundle us back into the the little cove-side restaurant. we ate the most mouth-watering clamchowder and fresh baguettes of my life. i was so star-filled and warm, i swear i could have walked across the lighthouse's thin searching beam, into that cutting water for a swim, and been fine.

the point of all this canada talk? Z's parents are flying in this afternoon! and his sister will be joining us from rome on wednesday! we haven't seen any of them since the wedding--and it will be such a relief to hang out in a less stressed and super-charged environment. we can't wait to traipse around the city, have a bit of a ruckus, and just generally catch-up. welcome to london!