TLC

*images by the talented cupcake guru hello naomi

my friend pedro here in salt lake is opening a new gourmet cupcake shop: TLC: Tender Loving Cupcakes by Peter. sweet, adorable, charming--no? i'll let you know more when i do.

a field journal

I am loving these images from the fabulous A Field Journal this morning. They sing and smell and feel like springtime, unfortunately it's been snowing here the last few days. March seems to be going out like a lion.

for miss whitney...

8 Favorite TV Shows:
1. Dexter
2. What Not To Wear
3. Big Love
4. Mad Men
5. The Office
6. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
7. Robot Chicken
8. Strangers with Candy (even though it's been canceled for ages)

8 Things I did Yesterday:
1. Prepared darling's TFA posters
2. Picked out a dress shirt
3. Purchased a $90 iron, ironing board, and magic sizing
4. Graded a paper
5. Went to work
6. Colored in a coloring book
7. Crocheted a flower
8. Played school

8 Things I am looking forward to:
1. Possibly moving
2. A new job
3. Taking the GRE and applying for graduate school
4. Traveling (Spain, New York)
5. Camping
6. Etsy hat/veil/hairpiece shoppe with my sister
7. Choreography and performance opportunities
8. Fosse stops shedding

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1. Bombay House
2. Ichiban Sushi
3. Sage's Vegetarian Cafe
4. Mazza
5. Ruth's Diner
6. Himalayan Kitchen
7. Beehive Tea Room (lunch)
8. Mi Rancherito

8 Things on my Wish List:
1. A raise
2. Pretty dresses
3. Fancy boots
4. Built in bookshelves
5. A work/craft/sewing room
6. A fixed car
7. A new city
8. A new job

anyone else?

when i was a girl i was good at embroidery

*blog title stolen from Casey Dienel's album Wind-Up Canary (2006) you'll totally fall for the kitschy vibe, vibrant piano, and her super sweet voice, song: embroidery. check it.

a new etsy shop? i come from a chain of women who are incredible at handmade anything and my sister is coming up with ideas everyday. i feel the key to any sort of etsy project is a bit of cohesion in the shop, specialty items with a method to the madness. any pokes or prods in one direction or another from anyone? as far as i know anyone who looks at this silly blog knows me personally and knows what i do. if there's a mystery person that has suggestions i think that's equally intriguing. we've got ideas brewing already, but some feedback would be interesting/inspiring/encouraging.

*note: don't ask about all the "i" words today. i can't explain it to myself, let alone to anyone else.

ambition

I was watching my nephew yesterday and noticed his active attempts to learn language. I thought it silly how incredibly similar it was so my own foreign language attempts, when I realized it's exactly the same thing. He speaks in active present tense fragments with mispronunciation and has a general grasp of commands. He can listen to and understand native speakers, but could never replicate or even repeat a compound sentence or thought without extremely slow word by word dissection. It was so fascinating to observe, it made me want to delve back into spanish or french or asl, and maybe try something new like dutch or czech, greek even? He's 2, i can totally do this. So here i find myself watching the low-budget Education Network shows in French and Spanish. I remember that my back door neighbor growing up has some knack for language learning and speaks in the realm of 13 languages/dialects his younger brother only around 5. It feels so ambitious to attempt learning 1 outside of English in adulthood, but however daunting it seems, it's the one animal characteristic that humans pride themselves on as the great separater of "humans" from "animals", our distinguishing trait. Although I find this ideology silly in so many ways, it is undeniably something that we have evolved to do. to use language.

Hola, habla espanol?
Bonjour! parle vous francais?

...square one.

perfection

(*Vondelpark)
... isn't it?

i just had a massage and facial, am looking forward to sushi wine, and another anniversary of birth (tomorrow). if only the weather gods would give me a day as perfect as the one pictured above. dance show this weekend! second interview tomorrow. all 400..er..um..ish (who's counting at this point?) books moved in and finally put away. clean laundry. money tree blooms. split rock dies. healthy plants in general. bob fosse on netflicks. teach for america final interview (darling). so much is happening.

itching

(*prague castle)

I just found international travel is in the neighborhood of 40% less than it was last summer. tickets from Salt Lake City to Madrid are less than $500. Moscow $700. San Jose, Costa Rica $400. sounds oh so sweet if you ask me.

if i have an itch i scratch it

i want to go away somewhere. it's been an itch for a while now. i want so badly to feel the isolation and anonymity of being in unfamiliar surroundings. removing one's self from familiarity sparks so much creativity, hope, inspiration, and awe in such a wonderfully concentrated manner that is simply absent in day to day life regardless of how cool your life may or may not be. I'd like to see something, including the inside of the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris (photo above) for 6.5 hours while i speak mediocre french, browse, drink coffee and chardonnay, and read magazines I don't understand with pretty pictures. something. anything.