Saturday, February 19, 2011

Stuff to Get Excited Over

Little things, since it turns out being adult is so often pretty boring and monotonous.

~ Eight pieces of jewelry heading my way. Hooray for success!!! . . . even if it was mostly Ashli's friends who came.

~ I went jacketless a few days last week. And didn't freeze! Also, the six inches of snow that fell Thursday night was the light, fluffy, pretty kind. And it's already mostly melted. Spring just might come again this year. Someday.

~ The Valentine's candy may be gone . . . :-( . . . but THE CADBURY CREME EGGS ARE OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~ I got a new wallet! And while it's not nearly as fabulous as Aunt Sharon's (or as shiny), I kind of really adore it.


I'd actually wanted a new wallet for a while, and I've been looking for one for months. Even chose this style as soon as I started looking (because seriously, isn't it awesome?) but I just couldn't find a pattern/color/style/whatever I really liked. Then on our weekly trip to the mall a few days ago we - well, I - randomly decided to pop into Vanity to look around. And what do you know - voila! The perfect wallet just waiting for me to show up and take it home with me. Yay! (and if anyone else is looking for one, they've got a bunch on clearance for five bucks . . . not this one, sadly, but some other really cute ones!) I especially love that it's got a soft textured leather feel to it . . . which you totally can't see in the pictures, but was the deciding factor between getting this one and the other one I really liked.

~ Vanity was having a buy one get one half accessory sale - YAY! So I took what was probably a very long time - but who notices time passing when you're having fun accessorizing? - trying to pick from all their awesome stuff, and finally ended up with this:

Isn't it pretty? It's really shiny too, so much so that when I took a picture with the flash you could hardly see what it looks like. I thought the chain was a bit longer than it actually is, so I need to get an extender, but I can't wait to wear it all over the place and offend people who have nothing better to do with their lives than get offended and judgmental at stupid little things that don't actually matter in the grand scheme of life. It's so weird that crosses seem to be hugely and suddenly in style now . . . I may have to get a couple more, although Luke has vehemently vetoed any that look like belong around the neck of an uber-Twihard. Kind of sad, because those are some of the prettiest ones, but they're also a tad much for my general style, so I'm rather okay with it. I'm all for the simple elegance sort of thing.

~ FOUR DAY WEEKEND!! YAY!! Whoever scheduled parent/teacher conferences the Friday before President's Day is seriously a genius.

~ As you may have heard via facebook we had goose for dinner yesterday. It was a somewhat fresh goose too, since dad only killed it a month ago. It was a little intimidating to cook since neither of us had ever even eaten goose before, but it turned out pretty tasty. Also - all those literary references to goose skin crackling over the fire or when you eat it? Totally accurate. Which was pretty cool. Naturally, cooked goose jokes were made ad nauseum because that is the flavor my husband's sense of humor takes . . . mine too, although not quite to the same degree. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the duck we got when we got the goose. I'd love to try and recreate the duck soup they make at Kamin (fabulous local Thai place) because it was seriously YUMMY, but I imagine that's a little ambitious. And probably expensive, filled with spices I've never heard of, much less know where to get. Any suggestions? It's not a whole duck, or I'd just roast it like we did the goose.

~ The Logan Borders is officially one of those closing . . . sale started today, and I'm totally hitting the place up Monday. I'm torn about being excited over this one, since that means there is now only one bookstore in town. (I'm not counting Deseret and Seagull for lack of variety and I no longer much care for their selection reasons.) On the other hand . . . going out of business sale discounts! Not only am I going on Monday, I shall be going more or less weekly until they're closed to milk the higher and higher (theoretically, at least) percentages off. Someday we will have a house, and in that house the decor will be mostly books. And I haven't yet given up hope of someday having a room that looks like this.

P. ost S. cript
So last month I won a book called How Music Works. And it was really interesting. Among the things I already knew and the obnoxious mathematical equations explaining just how the differences in notes are created that I wasn't interested in the least, there were a lot of interesting things that I learned. Among them, just why Eastern music sounds so different from Western. And it mentioned bunches of youtube videos that illustrated whatever point was being discussed, which was really great. Among them was this one, and if I didn't already love Eastern music I would after listening! It's long, but worth it. I totally added these guys to my "everything plus the kitchen sink" Pandora station and the entire time I've been writing I've been treated to some BEAUTIFUL Indian music. Enjoy!!



6 comments:

  1. 1. Cadbury creme eggs are lovely and totally worth living for.

    2. Nice send up to Sharon's wallet. Yours is also very lovely. I may need to go to Vanity.

    3. I love crosses. I always have. Wear one quite often.

    4. For spices, try Shangri La (right by Subway on 4th). For the duck, I would do something like this: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/seared-muscovy-duck-breast-black-pepper-sweet-mustard-sauce-soft-mascarpone-polenta-asparagus-leeks-recipe/index.html I've only had duck once, but it was like this and DIVINE.

    5. Borders was PACKED today. And it was only 20%. I was surprised. And the cafe is closed. Which was sad.

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  2. Tawnya took the numbers, so I'll go with letters.

    A. Love the wallet. Sometimes I want to be one of those people that switch out all my cards, receipts, punch cards, money (ha....oh wait...) into new, gorgeous wallets to match my outfit. But.... I'm not! I stick to one red wallet... But I do plop it into various purses, does that count?

    B. I love that you go to the mall weekly. Do you always buy things, or just window shop/ people watch?

    C. Amen on 4 day weekend! Although a couple late nights leading up to it...well worth it! A couple conferences were totally blog-worthy...alas, that whole confidentiality thing. Boo.

    D. Yay for spring....someday.

    E. I want to hit up Borders....I drove by today-PACKED! Maybe I should buy this month's book club book since I haven't started it yet...(oops)

    F. I love that you want to offend judgmental people with your pretty necklace. I think you should wear a shirt with it that says, "Judge away!"

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  3. Hmm ... letters and numbers are already taken for bullet point differentiation ... what to do, what to do.

    > I'd vote for sad that Borders is closing. Granted, I've always had a soft spot for Borders since growing up, Borders was our local bookstore. Before it became a chain. Even after they achieved chain-status, the receipts from the Ann Arbor store would always print "Store #001"

    >> I've never understood why some people consider a tasteful cross necklace to be "offensive" ... now, if you were wearing something of a size that it'd look good on Mr. T, that might be a bit excessive. Or if you went around and made sure to point it out to everyone you interacted with, yeah, that could get offensive (or annoying). A swastika necklace would be offensive, not so much for the cross.

    >>> I don't get any time off for President's day.

    >>>> The reason eastern/western music sounds different depends largely on different instrumentation and different chord progressions. That being said, people tend to listen to stuff that they like, and people tend to try and make music that people will listen to, with the end result being that most people will make music that is familiar to them, because they figure that's what people around them will want to listen to, and make more money for the performer.

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  4. Blargh. Don't people realize that if they hold out the discounts will go up?! Hot Topic got up to 80% before they finally closed up shop!!

    Anyway.

    Aunt T -

    1. RIGHT?!

    2. Thanks. :-)

    4. Yum! We might have to go with that one . . .

    5. The cafe's last day was Thursday. We went in to ask questions but beyond the cafe closing the regular employees didn't know anything for sure.

    Katie -

    A. Me too, but it's way too much effort. And now I want a new purse to go with the new wallet, even though I have plenty of those. :-)

    B. Luke is like the proverbial kid in a candy store about Fun Unlimited, even if he's just looking around to see what's new. Generally we just window shop. But I do need some New St. Patrick's Day socks now that I think about it . . .

    F. It may be a personality defect, but I've always been drawn to defying conventions obnoxiously. People who have so much time on their hands that they worry about everyone else are my specialty. And I love the shirt idea!

    Eric -

    >> It's a Utah thing. Mormons don't use or wear crosses (generally speaking) and somehow the idea developed that crosses are "bad" or "evil." Not sure how it happened and it's totally inaccurate, but some people just can't mind their own business, you know?

    >>> That's what you get working for a company where holidays only exist for other people. ;-) Luke doesn't get any off either.

    >>>> Actually, the notes in Eastern music and the intervals between them are completely different than Western notes. Which of course, does make the chords/progressions different too. Either way, it's cool stuff.

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  5. We were having that very conversation (RE: waiting until the discounts were deeper). I did buy a few kids books that I thought may go quickly by the look in the peoples eyes (we still hadn't gotten all the Piggie & Elephant books), but for my books, I'll wait. People were carrying around baskets. I didn't even KNOW Borders had baskets! And buying a lot of CDs which just blew my mind. $20 / cd - 20% off = still a whole lot more than buying the album MP3 style on Amazon...

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