Wow, I am exhausted! Good thing it's a four day work-week.

I went to Providence for the weekend to visit Madelyn.

Friday night: Vieux Farka Toure free concert in the park. Met some of Maddie's friends there.  Blanket on the grass, picnic. Watched the guy who dances at every event and  Dubbed him Sir Dance-A-Lot. Drank Perrier.

(Excuse me, but my mind is being blown right now. How did I ever not see this video of Crazy by Gnarls Barkley? It's amazing.)

After the concert: Went to Cuban Revolution. Had Cafe Cubano and flan. Yum.

Saturday morning we went to The Happiest Place on Earth: Savers! (pictures to come)

Next, we headed to Somerville for the Boston Handmade Marketplace, where Maddie was a vendor. 

Jessica did an amazing job of putting on this show. The merchandise was varied and high quality, turnout was great, set up and takedown was hassle-free. The live music really made it special. 

I met some wonderful people, saw awesome stuff and took tons of pictures, which I will post this week. But first I must pimp share Madelyn's darling pottery.

Fez Monkey Teapot!! Kitty Mush bowls!
By now you know that you can visit her etsy shop, Lucky Monkey, right?

I love those egg cups, above. Do you recognize that chicken? 

Maddie's newest motif:

Oh. My. God. Raccoons! So cute! 

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Sometimes I find myself pleasantly surprised at how different I am now.
There was a time when I wouldn't have agreed to help Maddie at this show because my anxiety would have been unbearable. I would have not believed in myself enough to know what to do (or be comfortable not knowing). I would have been afraid of someone looking at me trying put up the tent and I would have been sweating and blushing and embarrassed. It's not rational, it doesn't make sense - but that is how I lived most of my life: in constant fear and panic. I can feel it fluttering in my chest just by bringing it up. Sometimes I forget how bad it was and how much it ruled my life.
I don't like scary and suspenseful movies or haunted houses. That state of anticipation and adrenaline that they invoke is a feeling that  I have worked very hard to soothe  and talk myself down from.
It is so rewarding when I notice that I am perfectly comfortable in an environment or situation that would have totally freaked me in the past.
That happened on Saturday and it was cool.

More soon.

xo, m 

Yay! Thanks for all the lemon-love!

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As you know, Saturday I went to Boston for the Craft  Magazine party.
I got off the T at Porter Square and headed down Mass Ave to meet Karen at Simon's  Cafe. I was running a little late because there was construction in one of the tunnels, but I couldn't resist pulling out my camera to  capture this:

This may come as a surprise,  since  you know that I am a procrastinator, but I am rarely late. I am usually early. I dislike being late. Of course, things happen. Sometimes I am late  due to things beyond my control and that can happen to anyone. But chronic lateness? That frustrates me.  I think to be on time, you actually have to be early. For example, if a yoga class starts at 9 and I live 10 minutes away, leaving my house at 8:50 will make me  late. Even if I do pull into the parking lot right at nine, I still have to get in, pay, find a spot, etc. For me, yoga at 9 means be at your mat and ready to start at nine (or earlier)! Again, I  admit it, occasionally I am  late and I feel bad about it. Especially  when I have to  put my mat at the front of the class because there's no room anywhere else!

Ok, back to Boston.
Latte and scone at Simon's:

Yes, I did  feel like a total spaz whipping out my camera to take pictures of my food, in case you were wondering.

Catching up with Karen was great fun- talking about mental health, crafting and scones (whose connection can not be disputed).

Here's Karen:

It was funny how similarly we were dressed: we were both wearing summer dresses over pants with sparkly slipper-shoes. I wanted those  pink velvety beaded shoes of hers!

Next we stopped in at Nomad and spent ages drooling over every little thing. Somehow I managed to resist buying a single thing!

Oh dear, I guess I'll have to cover this in multiple posts - since it's time to get ready for work.

A few random bits:

Listening to: We're All in the Dance by Feist (on the Paris Je T'aime soundtrack)
Reading: Alabama Stitch Book by Natalie Chanin
Thinking about: my  next fabric line
Eating (too much): Trader Joe's Sunflower Seed Butter
Wondering: How are you? 

xo, m

oh, hey! I forgot to tell you that I announced  the winner(s) of the  200th post giveaway! Yep, follow that link if you wanna know!

That yellowy quilt top I started has grown:

Mmmm, buttery, sunny, golden, lemony.

On Saturday, after gardening all day, I took a nap in a quilt-draped hammock. Ahhh...Have you noticed how patchwork is even more magical when spread on  grass or a hammock?

Listening to: Jolie Holland 

Just finished devouring and am about to go  back for seconds: What It Is by Lynda Barry 

Lynda Barry friggin' rocks. Brilliant, hilarious, heartbreaking.  

About to watch: Paris, Je t'aime 

xo, m

 You guys are like, yawn, right?

Well, I am sorry. 

I am going to try not to bore you.

But  I love to show you my goodies. Not those goodies, you cheeky monkey.

I will break up the endless photos of my estate sale finds with some actual , you know, writing- how about that?

I had a lovely weekend. As you know, I shopped.

I visited with a handful of good friends. Great friends, actually. Wonderful, vibrant women.

I watched Marie Antoinette with my friend Sue last night. She and I have been friends for years, but fell out of touch over the last few since she moved away. This week, I finally reconnected with one of the most creative people  I know- she's a real problem solver, an idea generator.

Sue wrote a book a few years ago, check out the title:
How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying To Kill Me.   It is just what it sounds like, her account of how she survived  suicidal thinking and multiple attempts. Though I no longer have suicidal thoughts, (that's right- I have struggled with depression and anxiety my whole life, and was prone to suicidal thinking when I was in my teens) I have found this book  helpful. I think it could be repackaged to address 'depression' and reach a wider audience- a lot of people are depressed but aren't suicidal, and therefore would pass this book on the shelf. But How I stayed Alive... is perfect even 'just' for the blues. And anyone who gets the blues on a regular basis (like I do) knows there's nothing just about it!

Oh, this is neat: I accompanied Sue when she had an appearance on Good Morning America in 2002. I'll have to dig out some photos of our trip to New York!

As for Marie Antoinette, we enjoyed it. The visuals, of course, were delectable - sugared almond opulence.  

Another friend I visited with was Erica- one of my best friends from high school. We, too, had been out of touch for far too long.  I finally tracked her down and we got together again last November, for the first time since the early nineties!  Perhaps  because the last time we hung out regularly was back when I was in that depression and suicidal thinking mode, spending time with Erica  is medicine for my heart. Seeing how far I have come- that I made it through that time, and seeing her happily married, a mom -  wow.I am so happy that we have found each other again. Erica is funny, smart and sweet and I just love how she is as a mother. We enjoyed soy lattes at Borders this morning. Erica's 16 month old daughter, Jane, had foamed soymilk.

And then there is Andrea, a complete doll that I met last fall when we both enrolled in  a yoga teacher training. I have since pulled out of the program ( but will take it again next session) but Andrea just taught her first class on Friday! Wowee, I am so proud of her! We went out for Indian food that night and had a ball catching up. Then today, we took a two-hour Jivamukti Yoga workshop, which was awesome! I have a crush on that yoga class now- we'll see if it blossoms into true love.

I hope I got you through all the photos with a minimum of yawning.  Now a little recap of my goodies : cool magic brain calculator, some plastic Marys etc, Thor's chicken, spice rack that we are going to spruce up, neat dice
( hey, now we know what those weird dice were, from way back!) and some beads. Whew!

Oh yeah, tonight I spent a few hours working on a secret project! I'll be able to fill you in on that soon.

Thanks for listening - and looking.

xo 

Word dice from an estate sale -  a while ago.

I've shown a little bit of this trunk before. I got this at a yard sale for 75 bucks. I rarely make any purchase that pricey at a yard sale, but I couldn't resist.

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Last weekend, I did a little blog housekeeping:

Remember how I am freakish about my links? Well I changed around my blogroll categories, made a bunch of subscriptions public ( which I will list next time, so you can go visit) ,  and tidied up my little wave pattern I have going on with the link list. It takes time, but I find it oddly soothing and satisfying.

On the sidebar, I added a place  to subscribe to yummygoods by email. ( Krissi and Jooky, there you go!) I also linked to my Sugar Snap preview.

Last weekend was quite productive! Spent some quality time with my honey,  did my bloggy cleanup, worked on the kitchen ( which is looking so cute, it gives me flutters), did some great estate sale shopping.  

This is from last weekend:

This, too:

Last night, I was looking for some new music online and  found this adorable song:

Born to Hum ( once you get there click on the little arrow to the left of  the track name) by Erin Mckeown.

I hope you will listen to it, let me know if it makes you smile.

 I love Maira Kalman's illustrations, but who would have known she does lovely embroidery, too?

From her new book, The Principles of Uncertainty:

So charming and imperfect.

Love the lettering.

Dude, You won't even believe the awesomeness that I received in the mail yesterday.

I have been obsessed with sewing lately ( I know a little black kitty who feels the same way.) I got Bend-the-Rules Sewing a few weeks ago- just looking at the cover makes me happy!  I had some good news last week, so to celebrate I went a little bit wild on the amazon . Yesterday, I was greeted at the porch with one of these:

Amy Butler's new book! I've only been able to spend about a half an hour with it so far, but it is luscious and warm and inspiring.

Oh, and I also got one of these:

I had gotten Sew U out of the library a while back and thought itwould be a good one to own.

And how about one of these?

Joelle Hoverson's new one! Gorgeous.

I also got Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing and Crafter's Companion.

I can't wait to dig into these!

Hey. Having a kind of frustrating day. I really want to be working on my mystery deadline, but I am having printer issues. I have to keep walking away from it because I am so annoyed! I just want  to run a dang cleaning utility and it seems to  be impossible. I  am trying to uninstall and reinstall the driver and ... welll. grr. You don't need to hear me complain about this. It will get figured out, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, it is too hot ( even for me) to garden today and designing and gardening are the only things I really feel like doing. So I went out for a bit to try and relax and at least get some Trader Joe's shopping done.

As I was walking up to the store, I saw a a stiking older  mature woman. I sense that she is older than she looks. Classy, elegant woman.  She was wearing crisp black capris, crisp fitted white oxford.  Great black patent leather shoes with a peep toe and a stacked heel- really cool and hip shoes, but still classic. She looked like she had just gotten her hair styled- but a loose flippy mid-length effortless type of style. And a sweet calm face. And the best accessory of all: a genuine smile.

We caught each other's eye, smiling,  and I just wanted to say "Who are you? !"  We were  walking toward each other and she said to me, "I love your hairstyle!" I wish I had said more, but I simply said thank you .  >sigh<

Back to shopping. They were out of my favorite thing: frozen dark sweet cherries. Which I  eat everyday with Greek yogurt.  YUM.  I asked one of the worker guys and he said they are going to be replacing them with frozen Bing cherries.  Permanently replacing them. I hope I love those Bing cherries, man.

I feel like a good girl when I shop at Trader Joe's because I usually remember to bring my reusable bags. 

I finished up at Trader Joe's and decided to swing by the mall and run into Barnes and Noble, but only if a parking space readily presented itself. And it did!  It was so close to the entrance I actually was afraid to park there, thinking it must be a handicapped spot or something. But it wasn't- I checked.  So I ran in  to grab some magazines. I decided I was just going to buy a whole bunch of them - whatever I wanted.  I got about 5 or six. Yum, I love magazines. Freaking love them. I'll tell you more about them later.

I went to the music section and just felt like buying something I had never heard of. I like to do that from time to time. I saw this one  by Eilen Jewell and listened to about 15 seconds of it and decided to get it.

I love  new music. I mean finding music that's new to me. In this case, it's both.  This just came out in July. I am listening to it right now and I really like it!  I have been really into old-timey americana roots music lately.  This fits the bill.  You can listen to some tracks and read reviews here.

I love going onto amazon and looking up someone that I like, and then following the links to "explore similar items."  That's one of the ways I find new music. Another way is going to the library and picking a cd based on the title or album artwork! Believe it or not, that is how I found The Be Good Tanyas and Antony and the Johnsons!

The other cd I bought today is  Dub Qawwali - the devotional Sufi vocals of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan layered with reggae and electronica! Many years ago I got Star Rise (in another fit of  random cd purchasing) and I love it -  so I figure I will love this too.