The title of this blog post comes from a recent conversation with my mom, where I was talking about my blogging prospects now that my lovely, trusty old camera has lost the will to focus properly. In response, the mailman delivered a tiny package wrapped in brown paper, containing one of my family's spare point-and-shoot cameras for me to borrow for the summer. Hooray! Thanks, mom. :)

And, as a reward, I am posting a long overdue photo of my new (to me) dining table, and the primary reason I drove 1,900 miles across the country in the dead of winter earlier this year:

Its rarely that clean on the table, but I made a special effort to clear it off for this photo. Currently I am sitting in the back right chair, with my laptop and a cup of coffee, with the windows open. Its the best spot to work!

The table comes from my grandmother, who bought it back in the day and has kept it in storage ever since moving to Dallas. I am so glad they didn't sell it, because its quite possibly my favorite thing in my whole apartment!

All those details about grad school are finally starting to fall into place this week: We picked our apartment. I got access to my student account and email, where I also found my fall class schedule. I got my first semester tuition bill (not as scary as I would have thought). No computer yet, or list of fellow classmates, but I'm entertaining myself making tiny sample floorplans for our new place. :)

Maybe its the impending snowfall we're expecting tomorrow, or the Christmas music I've been selecting for this year's mix, or my latest silkscreening project, but this weekend I have been in an extra Christmas-y frame of mind. Here are a few spots to indulge your cravings for all-you-can-stand holiday imagery:

Allsorts
My mom is posting oodles of pictures of the decorations at the Homestead. Its making me nostalgic!

Vintage Christmas pool on Flickr
These people make me look like Scrooge.

Wee Wonderfuls (more on Flickr)

Meet Maxwell, my mom's entry for the Loobylu's Month of Softies!

The theme for November was The Accessorized Elephant, and December's will be Holiday Hang-Ups. I've had such fun looking at all the entries people made - seeing such amazing creativity in other people is always very inspiring to me.

Well, of the various activities listed on Friday, I ended up only making it to one: Adam and I ventured out to Falls Church Saturday night to see Not2Night play at Bangkok Blues. It turned out to be a great night! The table I reserved ended up being right at the front, conveniently next to the table filled with Jason, Robin, Jan and Jane! We snacked on some excellent chicken satay, and I enjoyed one (ok, two) very yummy Singhas while the band played.

The rest of the weekend was spent on the townhome.. We hung curtain rods, cleaned floors, and unpacked even more boxes. I spent some time on Saturday weeding the front yard and sowing some grass seed, then went to the local garden center and picked up a few plants to make the place look a little nicer. I also ventured out to the fabric store for materials for curtains to put on all the curtain rods we hung. I'm going to be breaking in my new sewing machine very soon!

I have just spent a lovely weekend hanging out with my mom and preparing the townhouse for its new inhabitants. After getting my eyes poked and prodded at the doctor Friday, I trekked out to Reagan airport. From there we went to dinner at my favorite restaurant in Old Town - Il Porto. It didn't disappoint!

I had intended Saturday to be a full day of painting. But in reality some frustrating paint color negotiations with my landlord ate up most of the day. In the end we were able to agree on some colors, but we only got about an hour of painting done before it was time to call it quits.

Sunday, however, was another story. Thankfully I inherit my crack-of-dawn waking habits from my mother, so we were over at the the new place painting by 9:30! We got through the bedroom and the entire kitchen area in one day, with only minor setbacks along the way. The place already looks SO much better! Its amazing what a little tan paint will do to grubby walls.

Despite all of our work, my mom and I are finding ample time to relax, watch our evening installments of Pride & Prejudice, sip glasses of wine, and discuss all sorts of things. Its been great!

Who knew there was so much geekish brainpower dedicated to color matching paint swatches?!

As I was telling Adam and Julie on Saturday, this Apartment Therapy entry on emptiness really got me thinking this weekend. It inspired me to purge a lot of stuff in my apartment, as well as strive to not plan for the weekend. As a result, I had a really great weekend! And my bathroom drawers are a paragon of organization. :)

My addiction to obscure supply catalogs is alive and kickin' these days. First is was McMaster-Carr, with its thousands of pages of industrial goodness. Recently its been foodservice suppliers like AceMart and Instawares, or packaging supplies like PaperMart. Anything with "mart" in the title, really.

But the newest to catch my eye is Farm Tek (via Apartment Therapy). Its got hundreds of pages of the most random, fascinating farming supplies you've ever seen. From huge plastic tents for sheltering tractors, to specialized rollings carts for weighing piglets - its got oodles of fun things to look at. The best stuff is less livestock-related and more agricultural (although I have no objection to pigs, I don't really want to raise them, you see) such as greenhouses, plant carts, seedling trays, hundred-foot industrial watering hoses with specialty attachments, etc. And of course 10ft x 10ft portable canvas-sided buildings for those inevitable roadside plant sales. This stuff is golden!

(My evil, crafty mind also tells me that if I ever wanted to exhibit at a local craft show, a sturdy canvas-side shelter is a must-have. Mua ha ha!)

with basically everything in this store..

Oh, to have $3500 to burn spend on a bed!

This week Crate & Barrel launched a trendy, funky online store called CB2. The pilot store has been open in downtown Chicago for a while now, but the online store opened this week. The collection seems to be a bit like Crate & Barrel meets IKEA - well-made, contemporary and very colorful. The downside is that the prices are still more C&B than IKEA, which is disappointing.

Most people who have spent any significant amount of time with me over the last few years have probably heard me talk about an architect named Sarah Susanka. Or perhaps seen copies of her Not So Big House book series lying on my coffee table or stacked on one of my bedside tables. Needless to say, I'm a big fan. :)

The basic message is simple - we don't need more space, we just need to make the space we have more livable. The books talk about how society has changed so much over the past century, and yet our living spaces are still built with the same turn-of-the-century floorplans. Susanka also argues against the current trend towards suburban McMansions, beginning the book with the statement "So many houses, so big with so little soul."

Her ideas about where we should and shouldn't find value in our homes has really struck a chord with me, especially living in an area of Northern Virginia that is particularly affected by this McMansion phenomenon. Today there is a very interesting article about Sarah Susanka and her current career path in the Washington Post. I encourage you give the article, as well as her books, a try.

If I actually had hardwood floors or a garage, I'd probably own some of this stuff by now. Its called InterfaceFLOR - modular carpet tiles that come in a variety of colors. Not only are they inexpensive, easy to rearrange when the mood strikes, and easy to clean when disaster strikes, but they are made of corn and completely recyclable. How cool is that!? You can buy them in a whole range of colors, textures, and styles, and the website has tools to pick out patterns and sizes. You don't need a professional to install them, and when you move to a new apartment or house, just pick up the tiles and take them with you!

I bought a coffee table this weekend! Finally finally finally. So far I've been making do with two galvanized steel bins placed next to each other in front of the couch. And while they have done the job, and have given my apartment a certain industrial, loft-esque feel, I've been looking for a replacement for some time. They tended to slide around when you put your feet on them, and there was only room for one person to eat on them. So, this weekend, I took action, and bought a heavy, dark wood paneled coffee table from World Market. I can't wait to see how it looks!

This weekend has been mellow and relaxed for me. I putzed around my apartment Friday night doing laundry and cleaning my kitchen, and then Saturday was spent purchasing my coffee table and setting up my living room so that it will have a nice place to sit once it gets delivered. Saturday night I headed over to Matt and Lizzi's for an impromptu gettogether to watch some Friends, play a spiffy new game called Imaginiff, catch some of Saturday Night Livel, and just generally hang out and have a good time. It was a late night for me and I didn't get to bed until 3 or so.. but I had a great time.l :)

Today I spent my day on that most dreaded of all shopping excursions - jeans shopping. What is it about this fashion staple that makes it so bloody hard to find ones that fit, flatter your body, and cost a reasonable amount? Who on earth came up with super low ride jeans? Certainly not anyone who has ever had to find casual work-appropriate clothing before. I spent several hours trolling through Gap, Guess, J Crew, you name it. Only when I got to Ann Taylor Loft, currently my absolute favorite clothing store, did I find a pair that I liked. The only problem? There were none in my size left in stock. Not only that, but there were no more left in stock in the entire Northern Virginia region. Because I checked. Apparently the rest of the jeans-shopping pupulace discovered these perfect-fitting jeans before I did and snapped up all of them. So now I'm back at home, exhausted, and still without pants. Well, I have pants on (sickos), but just not the new pair of jeans that I desperately need. :)