Cast, Cheer

There's a prayer from the Episcopal tradition that asks for forgiveness not only for things poorly done, but also for things that have been left undone. For me, it's a reminder that neglect, disregard can be just as nasty as more proactive naughties. In that spirit, I am taking the week to meditate on those things I want to do before the next year has whistled, whispered by; to plan the things I don't want to have left undone. I will also be cleaning out my disgusting silverware drawer.

Tonight, I will drink bubbles with a friend, and eat melty cheese, and cast yarn on needles and wishes out into the cold night.
This week, I will work on casting wishes onto some other kind of needle, weaving some other kind of cloth.

A very happy new year to you. I wish you giggles and cheer, smooches and drinks and maybe a single midnight tear.

{Champagne bubbles from flickr.}

Sing, Sleep

Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed.

Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.

Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales

Calm, Bright

Many thanks, lovely readers, for your comments yesterday. The package goes to Lynnetta, who felt compelled to hide her head in shame. Come out from behind the curtains and e-mail me your mailing address, Lynnetta. I'll send the lovelies your way, your way. I'll send the lovelies your way.

As for the rest of you beauties, be merry! May peaceful and wonderous holidays find you soon, find you well. I'm taking some time for myself starting tomorrow, but will be back after the new year dawns, rested and ready to write. Thank you for all the joy you contribute, and for sharing in this treasure of a community. Be calm. Be bright.

{Photo from Domino.}

Tokens, Post

In the spirit of holiday tokens and yule clogs, and because you, dear readers, bring me such joy, I would like to send a small box of pretties to one of you. The box will hold a handful of teensy tokens wrapped in paper, topped with bows, and accompanied by glad and peaceful tidings.

Leave a comment on this post by midnight tonight, and I'll randomly select a recipient in the cold and foggy morn. A box for holidays, for Boxing Day, for sign.

{Photo from Martha.}

Fill, Keep

Light posting this week, lovelies.
I have bows to tie, papers to crease, stockings to fill, secrets to keep.
One day, I will buy yule clogs for tucking teensy packages into. But not today.



{Yule clogs from Martha.}

Presents for Littles

1. For playing with, beautiful, detailed Teatro Olivia comes with sets, playbills, and costumed characters for Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake and Turandot, and bejeweled, porcine theatre-goers peek through opera glasses. I play with mine every day.
2. For playing in, for learning design.
3. For flame-warmed fingers.
4. For dressing up, for flying.
5. For dressing down, for tucking in.
6. For color.
7. For bump.
8. For twirls, of course (tutorial via DesignMom).

Better, Lone

And many thanks to those of you who left a little lunch-box cheer yesterday. I feel much better, and even a little less 'lone.

This, from David James Duncan's The River Why, on being lone:

Bill Bob stood off by himself imitating the deep knee bends of a water ouzel on a rock in midriver. When they left they all hugged me, even H20, and Bill Bob presented me with a huge stack of Lone Ranger comics, solemnly explaining that I, too, was now "lone."

Salty, Sweet

For your best-loved naughties' stocking toes. Pretty salts in teensy bags, accompanied by orange or vanilla sugar, or coal.

{Sel gris photo from Flickr.}

For Secret Stockings

Svelte stocking store-boughts from Muji. If you can't hop down to their Soho store to gather up packages of simplicity, you can order a smattering of items through the MoMA Design Store: Unassuming notebooks for secret spy journals, and a streamlined stapler for surreptitious fastening.

Lonesome, Lunch

Sometimes working from home is lovely, like when I want to wear pajamas and not drive in the snow.

But sometimes it's very lonesome. Like today, when I would just like to wave at someone and say "Hello" or "What did you have for lunch?" So I'm waving at you instead, dear reader.

Hello! What did you have for lunch?
(I had cashews, tea, a clementine, and half of a roast beef sandwich, in case you wondered too.)

The Useless Presents

More from Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales today:

Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies
and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-
conductor's cap and a machine that punched tickets
and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake
that no one could explain, a little hatchet;
and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it,
a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo than an
ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow;
and a painting book in which I could make the grass,
the trees, the sea and the animals any color
I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep
are grazing in the red field under the
rainbow-billed and pea-green brds.
Hardboilds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches,
cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and
butterwelsh for the Welsh. And trooops of
bright tin soliders who, if they could not fight,
could always run.

Small, Big

Hello and welcome to any of you lovelies who have found your way over via Living Small. Say hello, if you wish!

A particularly wonderful friend recommended Living Small months ago, and I have been enamoured ever since. I love reading the writings of one crafting, thrifting, small-living Ms. Smaller, who kindly sent a bounty of soft and gentle words this way last week. Go visit--you'll find yourself using utterly fabulous phrases. Phrases like "shazam," "too cool for school," and "bonkers for brontosauri." For reals. And you're going to want to craft it up, and maybe can something, and laugh out loud in utter delight. Grey may very well be the new black, but small is--most definitely, I must agree--the new big.

Glitter, Freeze

Saturday: After oatmeal, a wonderful three hours spent cooing at one of the new babes and chatting up a friend. Ran crazy holiday errands in the warm sun, picking up things like glitter for crafts and oranges for pomanders. Yoga, then crafting and black bean/sweet potato quesadillas with small ones. Closed the door to my own house just as the wind howled, just as the blizzard began.

Sunday: Wrapped pretty gifts, shown above, in my jammies while listening to a Prarie Home Companion and trying to stay warm despite the 8-degree day. Attempted the caramels: May have not cooked the candy part long enough, because they taste like sugar butter rather than caramel. Could use more than a mere teaspoon of salt, for sure. Ran out to the shops and found a dress for a holiday party and a well-stocked j.crew sale. Made it home heavily-laden in time to tromp in a park cold enough for cursing and watch steam rise off the lake in billowy clouds. Decided the party dress was just too lacy to proffer any real protection from below-zero weather, so donned a wool jacket and skirt, and skipped the peep-toe shoes. Attended a festive and warm holiday party, drank prosecco, smooched people I love, didn't drop bruschetta on my clothes, and made it home grateful for light and family and warmth.

Everything About the Wasp, Except Why

An offering from Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales today. I came upon an early printing of this book in a shop one Christmas and snatched it up tearfully after reading the first page. This tiny blue edition, with woodcuts by Ellen Raskin, is perfect for holding close, giving away. Hear Thomas read it here.

There were the Useful Presents: engulfing
mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made
for giant sloths; zebra scarfs of a substance like
silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to
the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-shanters like
patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies
and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking
tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to
the skin there were mustached and rasping vests
that made you wonder why the aunts had any
skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted
nose bag from an aunt now, alas, no longer
whinnying with us. And pictureless books in
which small boys, though warned with quotations
not to, would skate on Farmer Giles' pond
and did and drowned; and books that told me
everything about the wasp, except why.

P.S.

Why don't I have cashmere underpants? I would not even need to clean my bathtub if I had cashmere underpants.

Bathtub, Coo

No posting today, for I have to Clean Up My Messes and Find Something to Wear For a Party and tend to my Formidable Stacks of work. Two of my dearest and most darling of friends are in town for the week with their brand-new babies, and I can't wait to catch up and laugh and coo and stare at my girls' features in their girls.

But I also feel a little bit like they both are Grown-Ups since they created life this year, and the very least I could do is have a bathtub with no hairs in it. Just in case anyone decides to measure my grown-up-ness by the cleanliness of my bathtub. Which they won't.

(But I'm cleaning it anyway, just in case they accidently do.)



{Picture from Toast.}

Messes I Have Made Since Monday

1) Rosemary tree watering mess. Very muddy.
2) Exploded stoneware le Creuset baking dish because I thought it was made out of cast iron like the pots and used it on the stove top. Particularly frightening mess. Cried. Ordered another baking dish.
3) Crafty messes, consisting of felt and yarn and yellow-topped pins.
4) Plates and teacups and juice glasses all over the house mess from working 14 hours straight.
5) Half-read New York Times sections everywhere mess.
6) Scarves and blankets strewn about the ground from being too cold/too hot mess.
7) Christmas tree watering dripping mess.
8) Vitamins fell on the floor and I haven't picked them up yet mess.
9) Oatmeal still in the bowl from when I wished I was eating pancakes instead.

So far that's all.

For Waving, Holding

From that wondrous land of restaurant ramekins and vintage creamers, that bastion of milk glass, porcelain egg-shaped tags. For waving at, for holding, hands from Fish's Eddy. Spied in Design Sponge's $25.00 and under gift guide last week, though I've been coveting them since I stumbled by the store while trying to find a restaurant last summer.

For Sniffles, Dabs

Vintage handkerchiefs for hand, tuck, dab. A quick etsy search yields over 1,000, including this sweet friend.

For Color, Grasp

I would like to make these for coloring with and for sending in a small ribboned box to some sweet and lovely toddlers for coloring on things that are not walls. I love the smell of crayons, and I love peeling wrappers, and I love melting wax and warm ovens. Mmmmmm.

For Stockings, Mouths

I've been wanting to make these fleur de sel caramels I saw while peeking at Design*Sponge awhile back. I plan to try them out this weekend and twist them into wax paper for a neighbor or two. If they turn out well, a second batch will find its way into stockings, and from there, mouths.

And if they don't turn out, I'll snap up a smallish box of Fran's gray and smoked salt caramels for pressing into hands over the holidays. Yum.

Love for Plea and Gift and Sign

I've been humming this pretty little Christina Rossetti carol, a verse of which goes like this:

Love shall be our token;
love be yours and love be mine.
Love to God and to all men,
love for plea and gift and sign.

I'm taking the verse as my intent for the holiday season. As such, I plan to post a smallish handful of pretties for giving over the holidays. Little things, some made by hand. Things for pockets, stockings, palms. Tokens, if you will. Signs.


{Warm and cosy felt houses from etsy shop Filzfelt.}

Percale, Sun

Mrs. Glass, who did some of her most inspired, most perpendicular thinking on the threshold of linen closets, had bedded down her youngest child on the couch between pink percale sheets, and covered her with a pale-blue cashmere afghan. Franny now lay sleeping on her left side, facing into the back of the couch and the wall, her chin just grazing one of the several toss pillows all around her. Her mouth was closed, but only just. Her right hand, however, on the coverlet, was not merely closed but shut tight; the fingers were clenched, the thumb tucked in--it was as though, at twenty, she had checked back into the mute, fisty defenses of the nursery. And here at the couch, it should be mentioned, the sun, for all its ungraciousness to the rest of the room, was behaving beautifully.

J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey