A Castle, Architecture and lust

So for anniversary # 4, Badger & I are contemplating a journey to Southern Illinois to stay in this awesome castle bed and breakfast in the Shawnee National Forest. 

Pretty amazing, eh?

The architect, Bruce Goff, (shown "having an amazing shirt day"), was born in my home state - Kansas. He designed loads of buildings throughout the Midwest, all in his own organic architecture style.  

So, is it February yet?! Because I don't want to have to wait 2 months to go!

New music

When I was listening to NPR yesterday, there was a story on a new band, The xx.


It's lovely mellow music. I'm a sucker for a boy and a girl singing together.

And when I checked out who they were online, I discovered they came from my neighborhood in London! OK, so they're from the high school that used to beat up my high school on the bus, but when you're this far from home, you'll take what you can get. Now I like them even more!

P.S. They have quite the cover version on their MySpace page, see if you can spot it...

So many reasons to love etsy!

In the midst of my blog voyaging throughout the day, I stumbled upon this lovely etsy store called HELICOPTERstudios.  All of the stuff for sale in this store is all so darn cute! 

It's all handmade, and it folds up into a cute little tote.  What lucky kids to have such a creative, crafty mother.

The gift ideas continue...

Can somebody please send me this holiday card? I will display it all year round, I promise. 

Or how about these canvas bags.  So adorably awesome. So useful.  Yes, please.

So I don't have much use for notebooks these days, but why does that matter?  I would find a use for these!

Via Darling Clementine, one of the most adorable stores ever.

Gifts for Wee People

Gifts for wee people are so much fun. I just noticed a super-cute FB ad for American Apparel kids' clothes - indulge your mini-hipster!


I'm a sucker for these kiddos with tights where the legs are each a different color, and to be honest, I kinda wanted to see if I could squeeze into a pair of these myself...


I also got pretty excited to see these books for kids. I especially liked This is London (of course) and This is the Way to the Moon.


All adorable, wouldn't you agree?

We laughed - and then some!

How can cake decoration possibly go wrong? Here's Cake Wrecks, an entire blog dedicated to just that.

We just perused the New Discoveries in the Animal Kingdom page.

There's also pages and pages of turkey cakes from the holiday season.

I won't spoil the fun...

Indie Wed

At the Renegade Craft fair, I picked up a flyer for an upcoming wedding show called Indie-Wed. 

I'm really looking forward to this.  Seems like it's right up my alley and hopefully I can manage to blow some more money there, like I did last night (so worth it). 

Anyone want to come with?  Are you free that day?!

A literal rain shower

Can you imagine taking a rain shower? 

I can imagine it is pretty nice.  I wouldn't say no to having that in my bathroom.  No way!

Or on my patio:

So if your pockets are loaded and you're looking for something just wonderful to get me for Christmas, this is it!  Of course you'll have to buy me the home that needs to go along with it...preferably somewhere beautiful.  Thanks!

(Via Freshome.com)

Winter Wonderland

I woke up this morning quite surprised.  I didn't expect to look out the window and see this:

Ok, maybe it wasn't quite like that (I wish).  But it was surprising and made me a bit happy. 

We set up our Christmas tree on Saturday.  I never knew my fiance was the kind of guy to get the biggest, bushiest tree there is.  It's well over 7-feet tall and it eats up our entire living room.  When we were deciding on the tree, I said, well Clark Griswald, I guess if you want it let's get it.

After the craft show last night, Inna gave me two boxes full of lights, ornaments and various other decorations.  So now that there's snow on the ground and a beautiful tree, I think I shall rush home after work, drink a warm alcoholic beverage, turn a Christmas movie on, start decorating more and get completely engrossed in the Christmas spirit.  Have any of you lovelies turned into Christmas geeks yet this season?