Some lovely things in heavy rotation right now…

Victoria’s  Secret wrap sweater

Fools Paradise, by Anita Konnka, the main character is “Obsessed with omens, astrology, dreams, fortune-tellers, and other objects of the paranormal, …both funny and morose”

Naoko, by Keigo Higashino, “After a terrible accident, Naoko switches bodies with her daughter who dies after the tragic event “  -I am not very far into this yet, but it’s intriguing, and I am interested to her how this will affect her relationship with her father/husband!

The dreamy elegance of Jia Juan Li’s oil paintings

Winter haiku from fantasy author Charles de Lint

November 20

Shadow of a crow
upon the snow is as black
as the bird above

++++++++++

December 21

On a grey solstice
day: crows, thin sunlight, restless
spirits heading home

Chergui, by Serge Lutens : sultry, yet cozy (”exotic” for bookish people who live in their heads)

Illustrations by W. Heath Robinson (this is what the woman who wears Chergui looks like, I am certain!)

The Man and I had a quiet Valentines Day dinner at our favourite little restaurant, which -despite the fact that it’s changed hands and the service gets weirder and weirder - remains our favourite.  “Our place”, I guess.  It was a little Malaysian eatery, although now I think they are pushing a Chinese menu.  Perhaps they think that will appeal to a broader customer base.   However, since they kept ownership within the same family, the guy who used to manage it is now running the kitchen and he will prepare for us things that are no longer on the menu, which is really quite nice.
We are creatures of habit, The Man and I, and I think we’d have to find a new place to eat if we couldn’t order our seafood lo mein and curry mee!  And of course there were gorgeous tulips and chocolates involved as well.
(No picture of the chocolates, I ate ALL of them the next night, for dinner.  I was very hungry.)

The next evening we watched The Wolfman, which while unplanned, was quite fitting for Lupercalia!  It was a gorgeous film - the rocky moors and the dark forests and the decaying family mansion - actually, they probably could have taken out all the actors and cut out the story completely, and I would have been happy to watch the scenery.
I also thought Emily Blunt looked remarkably like Gwen, from Torchwood.  It didn’t help that in the film, Ms. Blunt’s character was named Gwen also!
All images via aceshowbiz

I have never shoveled so much snow in my entire life as I did this past Wednesday.  The storm had started the night before and seemed to have stopped by the next morning…I stayed home anyway, because the roads just looked terrible and I could log on from home and get some work done, and really, I just wanted to stay in my pajamas.  At that time there was maybe 5-6 inches of snow on the ground, and then around 10 o’clock it started up again…and did not let up until about 8 hours later!

We went outside to shovel snow around noon, and by the time we peeked out the door at 3:30-4:00, everything was already covered again - and then some!  So…what was there to do but grab our shovels and start anew.  I probably make it more of a chore than it has to be; I hate driving in the snow, around the snow over the snow….especially over the snow.  I am terrified I will get stuck and spend all this time spinning my wheels and digging myself deeper and deeper and not be able to get out.  It is a valid fear I think.  It could happen! Or…I could spin my wheels,  pressing harder and harder on the gas pedal not expecting to go anywhere, when POP!  I shoot forward unexpectedly and plow into someone.  I am sure that could happen too.  That is why I shovel every mound, every speck of snow, right down to the blacktop, no skimping.  The Man says I am a psycho, well so be it.  I am crazy…for safety.

In between tortuous sessions of grueling labor we did take a moment to construct this little fellow:

…by the next morning he was buried under 2 feet of snow…and we had to shovel again.

This weeks much loved things and moments of enjoyment & adoration include:

† an early Valentine’s gift from The Man, a gorgeous handcrafted silver ring with a shimmering blue grey star ruby, from etsy seller jessitaylor

† Roza’s Socks pattern from Interweave Knits, Spring 2007; I have knit this pattern countless times and it always turns out perfectly.  It is my go-to sock pattern…so much so, that it’s spoiled me for all the rest of them.  It’s really the only one I knit anymore. Luckily there are probably a million different sock yarns out there to knit it with, so I doubt it will ever get boring.  Pictured with a tiedyed yarn I picked up at She Sells Yarn in Daytona Beach, along with a Beaujolais Nouveau, which really wasn’t that bad.  I am not much of a red wine drinker, but my guy at the house of spirits recommended that I try it and use it as a starting point for what I like or might not like, an he would guide me from there.  So far I am pleasantly surprised!

†  aloe vera juice  † Naoko, by Keigo Higoshino.  Synopisis: “expertly interweaving the real and the unreal, Naoko involves a working man, Heisuke, whose wife dies in a bus accident. His young daughter survives, but seems to be inhabited by her mother’s personality”   †   Sally Hansen Black Diamond Nail Polish  †  squishy, soft bamboo charcoal socks - so much better than cotton socks, or thin synthetic material for when I am on the treadmill.  Well, if they are scientifically better for my feet I am not certain, but they certainly make my feet feel better!  †   House of Harps, a blog with some of the most gorgeous vintage fashion items I have ever seen  †   The Art of Simon Marsden -oh, how I would love to travel in his footsteps to all sorts of secret, eerie,  destinations!

I hadn’t heard anything about this so-called winter storm until I went into work yesterday, and then it was all anyone could talk about.  I don’t put stock in such mutterings; I believe it when I see it!

Well, for what it is worth, this is what I saw when I peeked out the door this morning:

I can’t shake the feeling that this winter will never end; there is a strange part of me that feels like it’s always been winter, winter forever.  It is winter madness, I tell you!

Plans for this snow day include :

† catching up on phone calls (semi-done; no one answered and I left a lot of voicemails)

† giving this “breakfast cookie” that I’ve been hearing so much about on various fitness blogs a try;  it’s obviously a “play around with it until you find a version you like” recipe - mine below includes oats, flax meal, a sprinkle of vanilla Spirutein, peanut butter, unsweetened Almond Breeze milk, cinnamon, cranberries, and walnuts.  I didn’t add any sweeteners, so I can’t claim it tastes like “raw cookie dough” as everyone else does…but it gave me enough energy to spend an hour shoveling snow so I guess I can’t complain.  I think I will try it again with a ripe banana mixed in and maybe a plop of Greek yogurt and a drizzle of raw honey next time.

† prepare some meals for the rest of the week; I am really trying to cut down on all the eating out that I do for lunch…I mean… think of all the money I am wasting on food when it could be going toward useless frippery! One must have priorities, you know.  I will be cooking a big pot of beans to use for various meals, and I somehow have to incorporate every rotting vegetable in the fridge into recipe gold using some sort of vague alchemical process.
We will see how that goes.  I think I will also make these “happy vegan” carob cookies…not because I am vegan, or even vegetarian…just because they are delicious.

† various and sundry household chores, exercise and work on a few projects…one in particular that I keep putting off because I don’t feel confident enough to even start it.  Mistakes are ok, though!  That is what I have to keep telling myself over and over.  It is a wonder I ever get anything done, truthfully.

Some things right now that are making me happy right now (I do have to remember to be thankful, especially when I get to feeling down as I have lately.  Life’s really not so bad, yeah?  )…

The Man helping me try to find friends on craig’s list  - “they’re all so SAD!“  † Xena on netflix during the treadmill † neighbors who wake up before me and get most of the snow shoveling out of the way ( I should probably bring her some cookies!) † kind librarians who run into a mutual acquaintance and inquire about me, noting “I haven’t seen S- in a while…she checks out the most UNUSUAL books!” † gala darling’s radical self love project, which I think is a marvelous idea † Ólafur Arnald’s Found Songs - the Icelandic neoclassicial musician recorded a song a day and made each track available via his Twitter; you can download  them (for free)  here, and they are all quite beautiful † Vladimir Lipetskih’s and Kevin Cooley’s stunning photgraphic images…I suppose if one is stuck in a perpetual, ceaseless season of winter, one may as well surround themselves with loveliness, whatever form it may take.

I think I have probably convinced myself that I am a gloomy, grey weather lady; that mists and fog and eternal sunless mornings are the stuff of perfect days.  And maybe to an extent I am.  But I think my body actually needs the sunlight, and growing green things and balmy breezes every once in a while…because I tell you, I am starting to feel awfully grim, and not in a good way.

As a matter of fact, I was just reading over at Morbid Anatomy about “Blue Monday, The Most Depressing Day of the Year”.   She mentions that it was this past Monday, the 25th of January, but according to wikipedia, the  date falls on the third Monday of January, which would have made it not this past Monday, but the one before - January 18th.

They’ve even got a formula to calculate this date, using factors such as “weather conditions, debt level (the difference between debt accumulated and our ability to pay), time since Christmas, time since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and feeling of a need to take action”, but a source notes that the equations “…fail even to make mathematical sense on their own terms.”

Either way - this week or the week before, or heck… every day of this past month  - has seemed full to the brim of bleak melancholic moodiness, if you ask me.  2010, what happened to you??

Ah, well.  It doesn’t do to wallow.  Spring is around the corner (sort of), and hey, there’s plenty of interesting things going on.  For example, this month’s full moon is apparently a “Supermoon” , and according to astrologer Lynn Hayes, “It’s not only a powerful Moon astrologically, but it’s at perigee, meaning it’s at its closest proximity to the Earth.  This is why it is so big and beautiful, but it’s also more powerful now.” She goes on to say that ” This Full Moon will stoke the fires of our inner aggression and challenge us to direct that fire wisely.”

Hm.  I wonder what that means for excruciatingly passive aggressive folks, like myself??

I suppose until such a time as the land is restored to a state of verdancy and the flora and herbaceous things start to flourish again, I will immerse myself in the works of Margreit Smulders; her hauntingly elaborate tableaux are both  ethereal and lush…narcotic,  intoxicating.  Like a Baudelaire poem come to life.

Beauty

I am fair, O mortals! like a dream carved in stone,
And my breast where each one in turn has bruised himself
Is made to inspire in the poet a love
As eternal and silent as matter.

On a throne in the sky, a mysterious sphinx,
I join a heart of snow to the whiteness of swans;
I hate movement for it displaces lines,
And never do I weep and never do I laugh.

Poets, before my grandiose poses,
Which I seem to assume from the proudest statues,
Will consume their lives in austere study;

For I have, to enchant those submissive lovers,
Pure mirrors that make all things more beautiful:
My eyes, my large, wide eyes of eternal brightness!

— Charles Baudelaire