Chief

Gifts for Moi?

There's some lovely jewelry on etsy right now. I found a great store, Clementine, and I want this and this and this and this!


I think I was once one of these:

I heart my mum

The annual Christmas package has arrived from Blighty - thank you so much, Mum :-)

I know better than to open it until Christmas morning, but I opened the box and just checked that everything was safe (so spills, breaks, smushes). On top, I found these beautifully wrapped little parcels, which I have put under my tree. So thoughtful and pretty *sniffle* :-)

xx oo <3 xx

Any more ideas?

Since we're on the topic of giving idears, please help me!

I recently purchased a Fuji Instax Instant Camera that produces awesome little credit card-sized polaroid-esque pictures.  I love it and I love the pictures, but right now we have a giant pile of them sitting on our coffee table collecting dust which makes me sad.

So what do I do with them? 

Something like this? Or like below (I'm thinking like below)

I kind of suck with the creativity, so I can use the help!

Last, did you guys know about this?  Looks pretty neat. I think I'll fiddle around with that this weekend!

(Photos via Life in the Big Rainy and decor pad)

Any ideas?

I've had some good ideas for albums to give as gifts this year (see here and here for some suggestions), but I'm leaning towards buying them as mp3s because:

1. it's greener, and

2. no one listens to CDs any more. Also,

3. it's so near christmas, I don't trust they'll arrive on time

4. plus it's cheaper, so I can buy everyone more music!

So for all those great reasons, I don't think it's a faux pas to give people music this way.

But: how do you present someone with a gift like this? Can anyone think of any cool creative ways to actually "give" these albums to people on the day? Idears, please.

What a weekend!

... I'm still recovering! Friday evening was Lauren's art show (bravo lady, esp. the animation).

Saturday was the Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival. Our awesome and talented friends, Sexfist, played early on in the day.


Later, we returned for some Béla Fleck.


He performed some fantastic Christmas-themed music, (with the help of some Siberian throat singers) and it was fun to play "spot-the-tune".


Hope you all had a lovely w.end too!

A Badger Birthday Redux

We spent last Sunday celebrating the birth of Badger. Mo and yours truly found a carrot cake recipe (so good, even though there's not a grain of sugar in it), and Lauren helped us turn it into a work of cake-art!

It looks like we melted a Simpson...



Fire! Singing! Hope you had a good one, DB :-)

Baby Beluga

Oh my goonnnnnesss gracious bourbon pie!  There's a new edition to the Shedd Aquarium!  Puiji, the beluga whale, gave birth to a gigantic boy (seriously, it weighs 162 lbs and is longer than I am tall).

And just look how frickin' happy he is!

Love.

(photos via sheddaquarium.org)

I <3 my friends

On Sunday, all of our friends convened at Diversey Rock N' Bowl for an entire Sunday of awesomeness.  It was "sort of" a surprise to Badge who "may or may not" have suspected such an event.  We bowled, we laughed, we drank (lots, too much perhaps), we ate pizza, we ate cake (hopefully a picture will appear soon enough) and we celebrated well.  Thank you to everyone who made the day awesome, including you, birthday boy. 

SUPER BIG thank you to Bort & Anner for their generous hospitality (letting us trash their place)