morning snack

It's a beautiful, warm Saturday in our neck of the woods - warm enough to comfortably have a morning snack outdoors. It's currently 12 degrees, with our town Christmas parade to look forward to this evening.

The weather has been so warm, it feels more like late summer than late fall. It's definitely enjoyable, but I haven't really taken time to settle in to many Christmas preparations - it still feels so far off, even though the calendar is telling me otherwise. I bought some cedar branches at the market this morning, so perhaps once I get some planters filled, and the weather cools off tonight, I'll be more excited about it. In the meantime, I'm loving all of the leaves in the yard, and the beautiful browns and yellows and oranges outside.

Have a lovely weekend!

wish list / gift guide

Thanks to Katie for sending these my way! I love having them in the house, and it was so sweet of you to think of me!

I love and appreciate beautiful, useful things, and good design. While I certainly don't love the materialism associated with Christmas, I do love making and buying special gifts for people. (In fact, I love that all year.)  Bearing those things in mind, I've seen some lovely things lately, many of which are handmade by small businesses that I think are just the bees knees. They're also things that I would love to receive for Christmas, and wanted to share a gift guide of sorts. If you and I have similar taste, just recommend this post as a not-so-subtle hint to someone who may be giving you a gift. Or you might like to buy something for someone else! (Or yourself.)

Here goes!

Camille from Red Onion Woodworks and Wayward Spark makes the most gorgeous natural edge cheese and cutting boards. They're available through her Etsy shop. Go to her blog and there's a 10% off coupon code!

This card had me giggling.

This would be a perfect stocking stuffer - a flower frog I could use with any of my many regular-mouth jars!

Balsamic vinegar spiked with elderberries and figs - yum!

I've been longing to try some Mast Brothers chocolate. (Have you seen their beards? Chocolate + handsome bearded brothers making beautiful things in their gorgeous storefront by hand and with love? Each bar is even hand-wrapped. Yes, please!)

This spatula looks just perfect in every way.

I have a wee bit of soap money saved up, and I don't know how much longer I can resist investing in this amazing scarf.

Or I could save up towards this gorgeous bag, which I would probably use every day. Oh my, it's beautiful.

Okay, I think that's enough for tonight. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you American folks! Hope you're enjoying a wonderful long weekend.

*Just so you know, no one asked me to post any of these things, or compensated me in any way!

yesterday

Happy Wednesday! (Yesterday I was convinced that it was Wednesday, and today I've been certain it's Tuesday.)

I took these yesterday as I took a quick break for tea after a long drive before seeing a student. Nice break, eh?

In totally unrelated news, (and this may (or may not) seem out of character, because I don't usually address the topic here) I've really been enjoying Caitlin Doughty's videos, tweets, and posts lately. I heard her on Q a couple of weeks ago (you can listen to the full show, here), and she's just a lovely, articulate person that I respect. Oh, and she's also a mortician - death is what her videos are about. I've always had a rather matter-of-fact view about death, and I think it's at least partly because I attended funerals as a child, accompanied my Dad to collect the deer he hunted and watch in the garage as he skinned them, and then we ate them. Somewhat related: when I was in third grade, a boy in my class skinned a rabbit for show-and-tell. And I didn't think this was out of the ordinary until much, much later. (I, on the other hand, made Dream Whip for the class. A sign of things to come?)

It just seems so sensible to me that the way to truly appreciate life is by embracing death as  inevitable. That's what makes living so amazing - we've been given this beautiful opportunity to spend some time here with all of the other particular humans who are on the planet at the same time.
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*Edited to add a comment I left below: Re: death; I couldn't agree more about the thought of losing children (or anyone close, really.) Like every mother, I'm sure, it's my worst-case scenario, and I can't imagine (and don't want to) what it would be like. I realize that writing one sentence and trying to sum up my thoughts on the subject of death is a little bit silly, and maybe I should have waited until I had time and words to write a full, proper post. Anyway, I'll try to explain a tiny bit more, just so it doesn't sound like I rejoice in the idea of losing someone, because that's not the case at all. Rather, I was speaking in very broad strokes about the larger idea of death, and how it's viewed in our culture; the way that death is usually treated as something not to be talked about, to be whisked away and hidden from 'regular' people and avoided at all costs. I think that there is a place to speak thoughtfully and realistically about death. None of which I stated explicitly in the original post, and I probably should have. (And now I have to run out the door to take Phillip to the bus. I hope that makes sense!) 

more quince jelly

I made my quince jelly on the weekend. Isn't it magical that this adorable greenish-yellow, inedible-when-raw fruit turns into that amazing, vibrant red, delicious jelly?