What I Love Wednesday: Food Edition

1) This GIF by Kyla Roma (Croissantasaurus Rex) is so hilarious and cute:

 2)  Mr. X-Stitch is one of my all-time favorite blogs.  Their Plush of the Month feature introduced an upcoming book release, "Yummy Crochet."  This sweet little [veggie] burger is one of the many how-to's the book will include.

3) San Francisco illustrator Wendy McNaughton created this amazing graphic for the NYT.  It's a totally awesome chart pairing famous writers up with their "snack" of choice:

Crafting Treasure Trove

What an amazing weekend. My sister, the illustrious Kelly, came to visit from Cincinnati, and we had an absolute blast. We ate Indian Pizza, went to an independently curated film event, brunched in the Castro with wonderful friends, and walked all over my neighborhood to take in the sights.  Kelly was celebrating her recent birthday, and I was celebrating the recent end of grad school, so there was no excuse not to kick back and spend two days doing nothing but having fun. 

AND she brought me a total treasure trove of crafty love!  Books galore, some really fancy yarn, and a hand-stitched mermaid that I have been dying for her to make me.

!!!

Now that I don't have classes, I think it's pretty clear from the picture above what I'm going to be doing with my free time.

So. So. Cute. I love her.

Also, I started a new afghan that I can't wait to post... but I need to get a few more stripes in there before it's impressive enough to really be talking about.  Now that the days have calmed down a bit (after last week's flurry of school activities and the weekend's festivities) I'm back to my regular posting schedule, so more soon!

"A Tiny Bit Extra"

Hello, Conceptual Receptionists!

Thank you all so much for the sweet, encouraging comments on my last post. The final reading of my thesis went really well, and I got to spend some much needed time celebrating with people I love.  Delicious food was eaten, movies were watched, champagne was cheers-ed. Oh, and I got a "congratulations-you-did-it" package in the mail!

Moms are amazing.

The owl hot-pad and towels have made my kitchen extra-awesome, and the banana notepad, note cards, and travel mug helped me get back to work with a smile on my face. 

I feel like a million bucks... and already have a list a mile long of what I want to do with my shiny new free-time. (I'd love to share it with you this weekend. I need help deciding what giant project to get all stoked about next!)

Right now, though, I'm getting everything ready for when my sister arrives in San Francisco tonight! It's going to be a wonderful weekend.

I want to leave you with some good advice I received this week.  "No matter what you're doing, always do just a tiny bit extra, even if it's just smiling through a moment you dislike.  If you do this, you will shine like a beacon."

FIN!

For the last two years, August 16, 2011 has been on my mind.  In a few hours, this epic date will arrive and I will relinquish my thesis to the USF MFA faculty.  And you know what? I couldn't feel better about handing this puppy over.

TADA! All boxed up and ready to go!

In honor of this momentous occasion, I have decided to unveil my other masterpiece.  I've been working on this 7-color ripple stitch blanket for, well, almost as long as my thesis. (This blanket is BIG.  Like, two-people-snuggled-up-in-an-armchair big.) The two feel very interconnected to me.  When I lost steam with writing, I turned to my other, crafty outlet for some clarity and quiet.   Despite the totally different types of discipline and brain activity these projects required, they both called upon a level of dedication that I'm proud to say I now possess. 

Crazy snuggly. Bring it on, winter!

Tomorrow night, I'll join some of my very best friends in celebrating our new book-length creations, and we will all read from our work at Lone Mountain.  And then? Well... on to the next adventure. 

Weekend Musicology: The Civil Wars

Laura wrote a really sweet post this week about the ever-loved "singing into the hairbrush" type moments.  As a result, The Civil Wars (and this video) have been playing on loop in my apartment today.

I've been feeling like total gunk lately and have been doing my best just to slog around and get things done. Something about Joy and John Paul's soul-tastic oooh-ing above is what I need in a serious way.  Least important (but true, true, true) I covet Joy's wardrobe.

Oh, and have you seen the lyric video for Christina Perri's "The Lonely" yet?  Typewriters galore and more of that tingle-inducing vocal belting.  Warning: Don't watch this if you are feeling even mildly hurty-of-heart. It will not make you feel better.




Time to get going with the day. The sun is shining in the Mission District, there are huevos rancheros to be eaten, books to be read, and theses to be finished. Here we go...

Got the Blues

What I Love Wednesday // Favorite Posts of the Week

I'm feeling really inspired by all of the bloggy goodness I've come across lately.  Not only have I reached my first goal (fifty followers! hooray!), I've been meeting awesome people and collecting great ideas left and right.  In order to celebrate all of this, I want to share some posts I've recently loved on the blogs that I follow. 

 

Molly at Velvet Tangerine does an awesome feature called Late Night Inspiration. Most recently, she gathered some truly fabulous vintage mug shots. Who knew prison pics could also be fashion inspiration? ;)

Tara of Deer in a Bottle runs one of my favorite weekly features: Typography Tuesday!  Stop by to see some great graphic design, and grab a few free fonts while you're there.

Danielle of Tongue Tied in Awe got engaged! She's already started putting together some beautiful inspiration posts that you can check out here. Congratulations, Danielle!

 I am really into Sarah's blog, Desirous of Everything.  She's a fellow book lover, writer, and celebrator of all things crafty. Sarah is interested in starting up a web-based creative writing workshop, which you can read more about (and sign up for) here!

And finally, Erika of A Tiny Rocket is doing a painting a day in August!  That seriously knocks my socks off. I've done a poem a day for a month and it was NOT easy.  They're all fantastic, but check out my favorite one here.

What were your favorite reads this week?

Monday Medley: Custom Blythes

med·ley [med-lee] noun:

a mixture; hodgepodge; jumble

***

I love dolls. I have loved them since I was a little squirt, and at age 26 they are still my absolute favorite.  This likely comes as no surprise, after my delighted discovery and purchase of Coco last month.  So you can imagine, then, how excited I get about the infamous Blythe dolls!  I could spend hours peeping all of the new Blythes/Blythe accessories online, but my recent weakness is scrolling through the flickr sets of the amazing modifications artists have been making to these girls.  

Here's a smattering of my recent favorites (all of which you can be sure I am coveting.) 

^ via ^

^  via ^

 

  ^ via ^

^ via ^

Scorpio and Gemini! ^ via ^

^ via ^

I'll show you my sweet purple-haired Blythe in an upcoming post!  (She has an amazing hand-made wardrobe that my sewing-sorceress of a mother birthday-ed to me... It's unbelievable.) 

How was your weekend?

Fog, Flowers, Fillmore St. (Summer in San Francisco)

NTS Photography

 

Three for Thursday

My favorite mug sits atop my thesis. Almost done!

Joey's: Multitasking at its finest!

The One AM Radio playing at The Rickshaw Stop. <3

Tonight is my final meeting with the thesis advisor!  Soon, soon, soon this will be done.

An Homage to Getting Organized

As the mayhem of grad school begins to die down (knock on wood!) I am relishing the act of organization.  Piles and piles of papers have been removed from the nooks in which they were crammed. Mountains of abandoned notes have been deposited in the recycling bin. After two and a half years of rushing around, I am regaining a semblance of put-togetherness and it feels like a million bucks.

And so, I give you the classic "What's In My Bag" post! I've been able to downsize from a clunky messenger since I'm not hauling twelve books on any given day.  Here's a glimpse at a newly streamlined life:

1. Bag (Target)

2. Powermint Tic Tacs

3. Sunglasses (thrifted)

4. BART Card

5. Stamps 

6. Wallet (thrifted)

7. "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon

8. Burt's Bees Hand Salve

9. Antique compact (thrifted)

10. Moleskine Reporter's Notebook and Pencil

11. iPhone

12. Business Card Holder

13. Lip Gloss (Sephora - Natural Shine)

14. Flip Cam

What's in YOUR bag? ;)