keepsakes and kick up the dust. {seven kinds of happy for friday the 4th}

Listening To: Devil's Spoke by Laura Marling
Devouring: the February 2011 edition of National Geographic. The cover story, about the parties that happen in the tunnels underneath Paris ... is totally creepy. And scary. And, of course, a little bit dreamy.

Greetings lovelies! I have a confession to make, which might seem quite banal, but I promise this is need to know stuff I'm about to tell you:

As I type this post, I am munching on the most delicious homemade granola ever.

Disclaimers:

I suppose it isn't exactly "homemade." Because it's not like I actually harvested the oats. Or picked the fruit. Or dried the fruit. Or gathered (... scooped?) honey from ye olde bee colony. God is the only one who really makes stuff from scratch. I just mixed all that goodness together. (Saying I "made" something this easy feels like cheating.)

And, technically, as I type this, I am not eating granola. I'm more like sideways glancing at the bowl. Eating from the bowl of granola while I type would be a crazy cool trick, rabbits-out-of-a-hat cool. I suppose I could try to dive in face first, the way my dog eats. This granola is certainly good enough to attempt such a task. Alas. I'll try to keep it classy.

That said, if you're in a baking mood this weekend, you should totally give the granola a whirl! I used Lucinda Scala Quinn's recipe. That recipe is a perfect base. The fun part is playing and planning and mixing whatever kind of other fruit or nut you want in the mix. The granola is good this morning but the best was last night -- taking the granola out of the oven at the 30 minute mark to "stir" it. At which point I totally "ate" some of it. It tasted like a cookie. (For those of you who are local, I get all my granola fixins at the grocery store on this campus. By far the hippest little health food store I've ever discovered.) (They have a whole aisle of candy too, which is my favorite kind of health food.)

Anybody cooking up anything fun these days?

The granola started my morning off happy. And the happy got me to thinking about 7 Kinds of Happy. Remember that old concept that I thought would become a regular feature? That sort of faded to a one-timer? :) This seems like just the right kind of day for another round of seven. Here goes!

7 Kinds of Happy for Friday the 4th.

1. Q&A a Day. This is the coolest concept for a journal I've seen in a long time. You'll note that this is a thick "diary." Like, text book thick. But there is a cool reason for the vastness. The idea behind the Q&A book is that you are asked to write the answer to a different question, every day, for an entire year. When the year is up ... you start over again ... answering the question that went with the day. Each question page has a space for five entries. The idea is to look back after five years and think about how you've changed. And also, to see how far you've come. I think that could be so interesting. And maybe easier to maintain than a traditional journal. People are often surprised to find I don't really journal. I have a journal, but it only contains an ongoing list. (I'll tell you more about it some other time.) I think this Q&A book would be a great place to let your heart unravel. I've seen it in Books-a-Million and it's also carried over on the Anthropologie site.

2. The Butterfly Globe. I can't remember where I saw this, originally. It makes my heart so happy.

When I was a kid, I used to sit in the floor, and spin the globe, and press my finger against the bumpy world until the spinning stopped. And then I imagined that I lived wherever I ended up pointing (which was usually somewhere in the ocean). Did you do this too?
The fact that this globe is covered in butterflies makes it extra wonderful. And heaps on even more nostalgia. When my bffMelanie and I were kids, we started a club called "The Butterfly Agency." (Membership was limited to us and our imaginary friends). Melanie would scamper through the yard, trying to catch butterflies in a Mason Jar (we were professionals ... we didn't need nets).


While she was doing this, I usually sat on the porch and ate Doritos.

Then we both studied the butterfly and matched it with a butterfly in a book my Dad brought us all the way from Kentucky (!). So, so fun. I love butterflies because they remind me of summers with my bff. Butterflies also remind me of my granny. She gave me a jewelry box once, a gorgeous little porcelain jewelry box, with butterflies painted all over the sides. She said, "You've always reminded me of a little butterfly - the way you flit-flit-flit, all bright and sun-shiny all over the place." That's pretty much the sweetest compliment ever. It's fun to know something bright and happy makes somebody think of you, isn't it?

My friend Aaron texted me one day and said: "I just ate a taco and thought of you." That didn't have quite the same effect on my psyche. (But I was flattered all the same.)

(PS - I'm not going to try finding the link for the site again. The globe costs like a billion dollars or something crazy. You savvy DIY types could totally whip up something just as pretty!)

3. Sergey Ponomarev's photograph from the latest edition of National Geographic.

The picture is even more beautiful when you see it in line with these others. So much devastation. So much loss. Ashes and tears and remains. And then ... a wedding. When I see love up against that kind of darkness, I realize the weight of it. Not just the weight of the words - I love you - but the weight of hope, and security, and responsibilty. The way loving another person anchors you back to the good. Makes me think of that verse in Psalms, "The darkness isn't dark to you."

4. Essie's "Little Brown Dress." I know spring is coming. I know it's time to start rocking the greys and lavenders and spring shades (those neutrals are so pretty aren't they?) but I'm holding onto the dark just a bitty bit longer. Against my pale skin, black is a little too garish. But this dark shade (a very chocolatey brown) is great. (Another favorite dark-not-black is OPI's "Lincoln Park After Dark.")

5. Verabel + Fox. I have it on good authority that my Mom, The Pie Wizard, is hoping to eventually purchase a locket for me and my sister (and for her too). She's not necessarily interested in getting lockets that match (the three of us have different taste in jewelry) but she wants to possibly get them from the same place (so there are similarities). And she wants pieces unique-looking enough that they would feel very special. Keepsakes. Presently, she and I are both flipping over Verabel + Fox, a Portland based company that makes gorgeous pieces.


Perfect mix of heirloom and modern, I think. The art deco locket is my favorite, but there are so many lovelies in their shop. I adore the design of their website too. My other favorite locket is this. Way more pricey that I usually pay for jewelry, but it has such a timeless look about it (especially if you're looking for a keepsake or special gift).

6. Julianne Moore for Talbots. I gotta be honest ... Talbots is not a store that typically intrigues me much. These days, Mom and I are into consignment shops. And Target sale racks. As far as major chain stores, Talbots has never been my thing. But these ads with Julianne Moore were so gorgeous that I clicked through to look around. Love the way they shot these pictures! The lighting makes them look so storybook.

My mom thinks I look like Juliane Moore. Whenever she tells me this, she's usually squinting. And not wearing her glasses. But I like to latch onto that compliment all the same.Because last time I hung out with my nephew? He told me I looked like Velma from Scooby Doo.

We were dueling with light sabers and I made some kind of quip about the republic and the emperor and he put down his light saber and said, very seriously, as though he was breaking this news to me as gently as possible: "You really are a nerd."

And I said: "Most assuredly. Yes."

He said: "You look like Velma from Scooby Doo."

And I said: "Great. That's exactly what I was going for."

He nodded. "She's a nerd too."

"They're all nerds on Scooby Doo!" I said. "Except the blonde. She's just an idiot."

She's just eye-candy for Shaggy. I didn't say this to my nephew, but that's my consensus.

7. Laura Marling

As you probably know, Laura Marling is a British songbird who specializes in dark, plucky ballads. I'm smittten with her album, I Speak Because I Can. I don't listen to music closely enough (typically) to see differences in each album an artist sends out. But this album had a very different vibe from her first. Her voice is still clear and strong and the writing is still great, but these songs growl more. They're not too perfect. I love art that isn't too perfect. I love musicians like this, who write kick-up-the-dust songs. You know the type? When you can picture people jamming on a front porch, dancing around and kicking up dust over a song? I love that, when music is earthy and elegant and unrefined. That's how Laura Marling writes and plays. I think. (This is why I don't write about music often ... ;)

(PS: I hear, from The Rogue Accountant, that Laura Marling dates the lead singer of Mumford&Sons. Is that a glimpse of his face around 1:18?)

Would love to hear what's making our heart spin this week. And let me know your thoughts on Beastly if you see get a chance to catch it this weekend! I'll be watching it with my mom. I haven't seen a movie in an actual theater in a really long time, so I'm quite giddy over this :)

Happy Weekending!