sunny

January 29, 2009 | Filed Under extraordinary | 4 Comments 

my computer has died so i will (granted i figure out the glitches i’m having), for the time being, be blogging from my rad new iphone that ernie gave to me for christmas. these pictures were taken from the phone: awesomeness!  i’m so slow at texting using my thumbs that I will be forced to be short, but perhaps this means i’ll post more often? we shall see…

we’ve not had as much sun as I dream of having these days, but this afternoon i was  sitting in my yellow chair while the sun slipped through the clouds, the gray, the cold. a nice place in january.

and the winner is…..

January 20, 2009 | Filed Under royal buffet | 1 Comment 

laura! with the rad guitar spice rack! congrats to laura and thanks to everyone for playing along!

Little Royal Love Giveaway

January 17, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 27 Comments 

to celebrate the amazing one year anniversary (today!) of the first ever Royal Buffet sale and the amazing three hundred and eleven Royal Lovelinesses sold, and as a little Thank You to all of you loving Royal Fans and Mollie Friends, i’m having a Little Royal Love Giveaway!  i don’t normally utilize exclamation points, but i think that in this case i may just do it, and do it again.  !!!  there!  (i’ve started frequently drinking black tea, can you tell?)

the Royal Love Giveaway is little because i don’t have a gigantic readership so it will be just between you and me and the other three or twenty three of us that come around this little place.  it’s also little because i’m giving away little things from my valentines for the year.  first, a few wired butterflies, second, a love bird mobile, and third, a string of heart garland.  all you have to do is comment, i’ll do the thing that people do with giveaways and use a random number picker, and announce a winner on tuesday, january 20th.  comments will be closed for this post on monday, january 19th at 11:59 pm eastern.

***edited to say that since i had a commenting glitch i’m extending comments on this post until tomorrow, inauguration day, until 6 p.m. EST.  thanks, everyone for entering and celebrating with me!

thanks to everyone for all of your support and love and tolerance of exclamation points today!

things that die

January 17, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments 

ernie and i went on a date tonight.  a short date, but a date all the same.  a neighbor came and played with the boys (”all she did was read her schoolbook!” jude pouted later.  hmm.) and we took lola with us for a fast trip to look for new glasses for me as my beloved and totally rad, yet old, glasses that i’ve had since henry was a baby, these have died.  this long living pair of glasses i got after having to replace the green and red and blue pair that i smashed after falling asleep with them.  the latest pair literally fell apart in my hands when i was putting them on my face.  ernie says that he is surprised they didn’t die sooner, which is very true considering that i am often very klunky with things like glasses.  i think we found The Pair that will hopefully last at least as long as the last pair.  the inspiration for them comes from the lovely sylvia and hopefully i can get away with something just as black but not quite as large.  ernie assures me that i can, and he is hardly ever wrong about this kind of thing.

it’s cold in the house, across the floors.  the washing machine is not working because (i think, fear) i jammed a giant comforter inside it and broke something.  tomorrow is saturday so ernie will be able to try to fix it.  there is a pile of laundry as tall as i am next to the drier.  it is held up by two wooden folding chairs that i scored at the liquidation goodwill yesterday, but it is a large pile all the same.  i love to wash laundry and really don’t like this kind of hold up.  i don’t know what i was thinking when i tried to wash that king sized comforter.  tonight my bed is covered in The Rest of the blankets that just don’t do the job.  it’s a good thing for socks and a baby that likes to sleep close.

my computer is also fighting for breath.  it won’t turn on now and i am stuck using a PC up in ernie’s studio.  on the one hand it is nice because i am not distracted by the internet being downstairs and at hand.  on the other hand, it’s really hard to use a PC after using a Mac.  it’s just not as pretty, and seems like i’m using one of those giant computers we used to play the oregon trail on at the library when we were kids and had paper library cards.  and it’s far away, up the stairs where lola can’t be put on the floor because there are no railings.  i also know that i’m slightly annoying to ernie up here, poking my head over his shoulder, trying to slip into the awesome chair brannon gave to him while he’s trying to work, but it’s kind of fun, too, to sit up here being on computers together.  nerdy.

oh, be sure to check back tomorrow as i’m having a little celebration giveaway you may not want to miss.

in the pink

January 13, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment 

it’s been a busy week or so what with lola feeling horrible (she’s doing much better now, thank you for caring), the house being unseemly (i can’t work while sitting in crumbs, i really can’t), and the poppytalk Love Transforms marketplace that launched yesterday.  i have some valentine foofaraw in the shop this week, things in pink, red, mostly white, many birds, some butterflies, some new scratch books (national geographic covers are so wondrous and needed new life, i believe), so check them out if you would, please.  and there are some other amazing things in the market, too.  i really love the very cute lou lou and oscar, the super cool t shirts of elefint designs, and the beautiful books by la paperie & cozy. so many other beautiful things this time on poppytalk, so pop over and buy yourself a valentine at the very least.

split the night

January 10, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 5 Comments 

lola is sick again, a respiratory something or other.  i spend all night, all day listening to a repetitive pitch that she moans from her mouth.  i’m crabby and tired and the house is a mess.  i’ve too many things to do and all of them must be done without repetitive pitches being moaned in the background, without her in the sling.  it’s short, sickness, it really is.  i can never remember this and pace the floors bouncing the babies to sleep feeling sorry for myself.  it is terrible for her, she doesn’t know why her world is so dismal and why she feels so horrible.  today we held her the day entire, one of us at a time.  the sky was gray, dreary, bleak and midwinter.  ernie said he could sit and hold his sick sleeping baby all day.  he’s the one i love, someone so much better than me, myself, and i.

annie made chicken pot pie for us.  i want to make it today, the next day after eating it the first time.  maybe the crust alone, or just the carrots.  if only comfort food that really comforted wasn’t so time consuming to prepare.

i found a few new things on the web that i’ve obsessively added to my google reader.  i love the google reader!  i know i’m so 2007 to be only just now reading blogs via reader, but i really love it all the same.  so manageable ! so easy to remember!  so fast!

a new thing: the impossible cool. indeed.

something to help us dress like french women, or at least to help us now think that we know how to do so.

a comforting place called habit, a little chicken pot pie, macaroni and cheese, chocolate pudding on the web.  so cozy!

bliss, in any form.  so pleasant, this place.

machine

January 6, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment 

the long ride, the day gray, rain here, there, winding through the mountains.  i love cincinatti by night, the blue and the red, the lights on the buildings as we come around the corner, the highway a gray whip before us.  i love cities by day, the interstate charging through the ugly parts of town, buildings skinny together, purples and blues painted unabashedly, signage that advertises the ugly parts of humanity.

we have no heat in the car, the long journey north cold and horrible, the return home too hot due to overdressing, blankets in wads at their feet, the baby crying and straining to get out of her car seat.

i love the mountains in winter, the evergreens ever green in a crowd on the top, scattered down the side, the birches slipping out of hiding, white and naked and proud.  i love the fields in the winter, frozen and muddy, cows speckle the snow.  i love the flat of illinois, the stretch of earth forever, the great cathedral of sky, the tuning of birds in flight, wings a chevron of gray and black.

we are home again, the christmas tree down, the house a wreck from the explosion of suitcases and boxes.  tonight it is raining.  a stray cat looks at me nonchalantly as he eats our cat’s food from inside our laundry room.  it is raining and warm and the night is disappearing.  this afternoon i made a terrible pot of jasmine tea.  shortly after ernie brought me coffee.  tonight in the rain and quiet i’m thinking about hopes for this new year of ours, and my hopes for the last one, the hopes that were seen, those after which hope continues to run, and those that are no longer hopes or even thoughts at all.