Lent.

Most years Joshua goes to Ash Wednesday with me.

Not this year, our first year at home for the event, and man it was packed! I love Ash Wednesday and the next 40 (ish) days. Fasting, prayer, alms giving... refocusing so you can truly experience the joy of Easter. We should be doing it at our church as well! You don't have to be R. Catholic to be into itttt-

I'm giving up sweets and swearing (as always).

More British TV= Obsessed.

This video cracks me up- I would have adored watching Downton with girlfriends!!

There's always season 2 on netflix eventually: it will happen.

Can you die of happiness?

This is my love, and his other love.

My heart might burst.

I never had a chance of not falling in love did I?!?

I can't stop looking at them... presh.

Grey.

Oooh I love grey.

Grey dresses, grey quilts, grey couches (especially grey couches). I could go on and on but normal people don't typically want to look at all 100 grey things I've bookmarked.

Walking Dead Party.

My family has been in the party business this month: three parties in three weekends! This weekend was zombie party. We ate ribs, and face cake (of the brother's gf since it was her birthday). It was pretty spectacular. We even invited Keith Green to the party!

I'd say we nailed it!

Nailed It!

Book week was a success!

And when I say success I mean I love books and talking about books and reading books and so I had the most enjoyable week ever!

Aren't these pretty covers?? Embroidery is my next skill to learn.

Gauguin and dating.

Valentine's Day. Not really my thing due to candy, red, and teddy bears looking equally bad on me. This year we're celebrating with two great things: SAM (Gauguin) and chicken salad sandwhiches at Cheesecake factory with the early crowd (grandparents have to celebrate too)!

I'm so glad I'm dating someone who I don't have to drag to art museums! I can linger as long as I like. Joshua is great. Really though. I can't imagine finding someone who is more patient and smart and funny and on top of all of that reigns in my willful spirit. Not that we don't brawl, but we agree on the important things: Jersey Shore and mixed drinks is a perfectly acceptable way to spend an evening, everyone should be obsessed with soccer and church history, and we can make it work.

(photo from here)

I'll wear heels.

We'll read books on the ferry.

Gorgeous paintings. Of books.

Jane Mount paints pictures of people's favorite books, their ideal bookshelf. She even does custom orders (unless all you really want is the Harry Potter books, in which case she's got you covered already!). I love the gorgeous bindings on all the Jane Austen books- I just read an article that said books are becoming works of art in order to entice people to buy them as opposed to a kindle or nook copy (can't remember where, sorry).

I think that's something that should have been happening anyway!

Owning vs Borrowing

I housesat for some friends and I visited them to see how to take care of the puppy before they left. I only had one question: where did they keep their books? I'd been in every room in the house and hadn't seen a bookcase! And they told me

THEY DIDN'T OWN ANY BOOKS- THEY JUST BORROWED FROM THE LIBRARY.

(photo from here)

I thought that was the weirdest thing! What happens when you want to read your favorite book right then? But then I examined the books I own vs the books I brought to college and I realized that many books I own I don't really love or read or need. If I want to read Frederick Douglas or The Sun Also Rises I can always hop it down the waterfront library and borrow it. I took every book I was sure to read with me to school and they neatly fit on my dresser top.

I'm having a dilemma: purge my books or let them be the one thing I collect?!?

All stars.

I went to my bookcase and looked at my books and picked out the ones I read and reread- everything on this list I read at least twice a year. More if I'm being honest.

And what I actually read makes me laugh:

I love the struggle in Guy.

I love that it's short and that doesn't make it less great.

I bought a new copy of this in Paris but knowing me I'll give it away to someone before 2013!

Comfort poetry. He loves the sea, I love the sea.

When I can't sleep I read this book out loud and it lulls you like the waves. Not joking.

If you're extra awake you can read it in spanish (this version is bilingual).

I enjoy this entire series but this one is my favorite: it's James' time in WWII and some of the funniest vet stories. There is no one in the world I can think of who wouldn't enjoy James Herriot. I've given copies of his books as gifts more than I've given anything else.

The first Chuck book I ever read, and also the best.

Love the biographical way it's told. "We'll never be as young as we are tonight."

The exception to my read twice a year books is Fermor, I still haven't finished A Time of Gifts just because I have this thing about finishing books I really love! It's so dumb but the magic of reading a book for the first time.. I don't want it to end! A travel memoir, he walked Europe in 1938 and then writes the book twenty years later with the help of his journal and his hindsight about the coming war.

A school book that I actually loved.

If you like the Middle East (Wait, everyone isn't obsessed with Islam?) try it out.

Nick Horby (favorite) + Arsenal (favorite) = GUARANTEED SUCCESS.

I read this book more than any other- I went through a period where I kept it in my purse and just read it over and over. I'm glad this wasn't the first book I ever read, I would have been ruined! Hornby's voice (especially his non-fiction and columns) is so relatable. He is what I want to sound like and what I want my best friend to sound like all at once.

This shouldn't count as a real book, it's a conglomeration of Reader's Digest jokes.

I'd say don't laugh, but that's kinda the point.

Whoa nerdy!

I love the second Hunger Games book (one is great too)!

I love the arena, I seriously love every single character and every single situation.

Adaptations.

Sense and Sensibility is my favorite Jane Austen movie adaptation. I know how serious that sounds (when Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy is in the running he hardly ever loses) but I've watched it so much more than Firth's six hour epic. It's on my short list of homework movies.

Turning books into movies is a tricky business.

Do you add extra excitement if it's a slow book about relationships? How do you shorten a 500 page Harry Potter novel but retain the little pieces that make everything make sense at the end of the series? How do you take the intense moments from The Hunger Games or Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and translate them into something kids can watch/adults can stomach?

One thing I like about movie adaptations is that it helps entice people into reading. Our close friends have young kids and we read The Hunger Games together in anticipation of the movie coming out- we read the City of Ember as well and we're going to rent the movie to watch. I know girls who haven't read a single book reading the entire anthology of Jane Austen. Boys who will read anything that involves WWII after watching Band of Brothers.

My dad says the only book he's read that was worse than the movie was Forrest Gump (he does a wicked Forrest Gump impression as well).

BOOK WEEK.

Did I mention it's book week?

I like them so I'm talking about them.

For a whole week.

Done and done.

Everything books that's not books.

Sky high arched bookcases!

Made from ikea bookcases, I think even I could pull of this easy diy!

A place to rest your books (via hip hip gin gin).

A nightstand wouldn't be truly finished without it!

Books on clothes.

I got this one for my birthday and I've already worn it to death!

Sometimes when a great idea happens it's so simple that I can't believe it wasn't invented before. Like book candles.

How to read.

One of my favorite childhood memories is my mom reading to my brother and I after we finished dinner. We read adventure books sometimes like The Lost World but we also read Wind in the Willows which has no dinosaurs or guns. And we looked up every word we didn't know (Scottish people and their big words). Dinner was for family time and books.

The National Endowment for the Arts has some interesting reading on literacy in America. I love to read but I know lots of people who are not as enthralled by the smell of dust and bindings... Nick Hornby talks about reading for the joy of it and makes some perfect points. Even reading these links is going to be a turn off to some!

Maybe being an introvert (despite being loud) gives me an extra push toward loving books- they are quiet companions.

Uniqulo.

When are you coming to town!?!?! I'm so sad they aren't on the west coast yet... hurry!

Any company that focuses on the basics and has two grey striped tunics is designing with me in mind!

Prints.

I'm accidentally into huge photos.

It's the lazy decorator's dream... one graphic pop and you're done.

A hallway with a gallery style for smaller multiples and everything is displayed, no pain.

I will own before I am 25 a Corey Arnold print.

Corey.

Peaceful.

Beautiful.

Nighty night.

The best way to end the night is definitely video chatting with brother and boyfriend!!

We laugh together.

Whipped these up today for some twins who go to our church, we're making them a basket of goodies. Ombre baby hats, they'll be so in for spring!

Today the music died (in 1959).

Article.

BBC.

Breakfast nooks.

My friend has been putting together her dreams about a home for a while now and her kitchen photos reminded me of an old obsession.

My only requirement for a kitchen is this: a breakfast nook. Really what this entails is a bench at the table and a corner it can be tucked into. I spend 0% of my time in the kitchen UNLESS it's sitting with people who are cooking. Or getting ice cream from the fridge. So for a kitchen to be useful to me it has to have a place to read a book or drink some chocolate milk and not be in the cooks way. Besides, if we are going to have a small house (which I desperately want) a nook might be the only option!!

(photos via apartment therapy and the kitchn)

Seven more nooks!

Schloss Neuwaldegg.

(image here)

I can't believe I lived here sometimes!

I desperately want to live in a small house (think: less stuff, less cleaning, keeping what I really need only) but I look at pictures of my one time home and I loved being able to literally wander it. Can't wander in a tiny house!

A brief history of a real castle.