Garland Love

I love garlands. They're so festive and can be used year-round, too! Here are some lovely ones I found from Arcadia Home. These range from $34 - $45.

Here are some I found on Etsy!

{pom-pom garland}

{comfort and joy}

{scallop bunting}

{powerline flags}

{rainbow felt balls}

{cottage garland}

{vintage hankies}

{merriment}

{stars}

Yarn Loveliness

{photo from foxslane, a blog i found through knottednest's blog, which i found through the etsy forums.}

Future Wedding Gift?

Okay, I am not getting married in the foreseeable future. But I will one day. And it is possible (probable?) that it will be to a Canadian I currently know. If that happens, I am registering for these pillows ASAP. They will go on opposite ends of our super-comfy future couch. And maybe sometimes, they will cuddle in the middle. :)

With Love

dear company i have been on hold with for 20 minutes,

customer service can be defined by the following:

answer the phone.

dear boyfriend,

i miss you. you work too much. some days i'm unhappy with that, some days i understand.

mostly, i miss you.

dear sister,

good luck on your finals today. i know how stressful math can be. :/

dear fox news,

i watch you all day long. so, when i hear that story x is "breaking news" for the fourth time, four hours after it happened, i get a little irked.

dear mom,

i hope you are having fun in vegas. we miss you here. i don't know if i would confide in you about my unhappiness today, but i would at least come hug you.

dear dad,

i'm sorry i yelled at you earlier. i am worried about things i don't want to tell you about. you drive me crazy. but i'm sorry.

dear roommate and supposed best friend,

you have hurt my heart and i wonder if you understand that. i love you, but i have (some) self-respect and i have to stand up for myself. it's hard because your mind is so linear and non-emotional that i wonder if you're capable of seeing how you hurt my feelings. even if you can't, it's not fair. and that's a really hard thing for me to admit. i hope we are still best friends tomorrow. if not, i will miss you so very much.

dear heart,

try to calm down. you are alternating between very fast beats and very slow ones. i recognize the rhythm of pain. i'm so sorry.

with love, katie

Knitted Garlands

{photo from knottednest, a lovely new blog i found through the etsy forums. kristen sells super sweet items made with fabric on etsy, here's my favorite. the photo above is of her finger-knitted garlands (tutorial here)}

HotChocSpoon!

The boyfriend sent me a link about this product this morning and I decided I had to share it with you!

Chocolate Company is a dutch company that came up with an ingenious product: hot chocolate mixes on a spoon, aptly called the hotchocspoon.

From their website: The idea is simple. Place a spoon in a mould with 50 grams of delicious liquid chocolate. Let the chocolate solidify, remove the chocolate covered spoon from the mould and stir this through hot, full fat milk. Heavenly. The Hotchocspoon is our flagship and comes in 50 different flavours. Honest!

These are available in shops throughout Europe and also online. At 50 euros for 20 spoons, it's a bit pricey, but maybe for Christmas? Maybe for/from the boyfriend? Maybe for wedding favors? :)

Book Review: The Sookie Stackhouse Series (True Blood)

I remember my bookstore transition from the grade school section to the young adult section. I only lasted there for about a year then I moved onto the regular fiction section. I remember thinking the young adult section was beneath me, like when I would pass over the juvenile Goosebumps section for the more teenage Fear Street section. Even now, when we reference R.L. Stine and Jon brings up Goosebumps, I have a fleeting feeling of superiority.

To clarify, I'm not a mean person or elitist, but I could read at a very high level when I was very young and so I skipped over most of the intermediate reads. I didn't understand why someone would want to read something (I considered) so basic, but I see now that not everyone was reading Stephen King and Anne Rice at 11. It's very likely that the only age-appropriate books I read back then were required reading for school.

When The Twilight Saga came out, I thought it was for teenagers. I thought it couldn't have substance. I saw the movie and enjoyed it so much that I bought the box set of books. To be frank, I wasn't impressed. The story was interesting, but the characters were so whiny! I know that Bella is a teenager and that Edward is a centuries-old teenager, but there's a reason why no one but teenagers can stand teenagers. They are really annoying. So, Twilight was a bit of a bust for me.

Cue one year later, I'm at Mike and Sarah's house watching Real Estate Intervention with them and they mention that they've been watching True Blood. They assured skeptical me that it was good and most importantly, that it was ADULT, so I gave in and we watched an episode. This was episode 6 of season 2.


I WAS HOOKED. That same night, we watched 3 more episodes in a row  and the next night, we finished season 2. As I drove home around midnight, I called Adam and said, "OMG, we have to watch this amazing show." Adam and I have finished season 1 now and are now in season 2, past where I started. He has this habit of saying, "Oh no, what's going to happen now?" and he means it rhetorically, but I have to try hard not to answer. :)

Way back in October, I ordered the Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set (the series True Blood is based on). I received it 10 days ago (because the other book in my order was a pre-order that hadn't been released yet) and as of this morning, I'm just starting book 8. I am DEVOURING these books. They are amazing. They're funny, dark, witty, sexy, surprising, engrossing, and suspenseful. Yesterday, I ordered Dead and Gone (book 9), but I don't think I'll get it before I finish book 8. And Dead in the Family (book 10) doesn't come out until May!!! What a travesty. That's why I don't like reading series, because I freak out when I need the next installment.

I would LOVE to give you a synopsis of each book in the series, but that would give away a lot of the story. Here's a link to a basic synopsis of each book, if you're interested.

If you're a fan of True Blood, be prepared for a bit of heartbreak when you read the books. Characters that are major in the show are minor in the book. Lafayette, one of my favorite True Blood characters, is barely a blip on the radar in the Sookie Stackhouse books. Also, while Bill and Sookie are a fixture on the HBO series; in the books, Bill becomes more of a minor character and Sophie gets involved with a parade of really hot guys - none of whom are humans. These developments made me angry at first, but as I've moved forward in the books, I've realized that this is almost more exciting because you get TWO Sookie storylines.

That aside, I HIGHLY recommend the Sookie Stackhouse books. If you liked Twilight, read them. If you like True Blood, read them. If you like Anne Rice's Complete Vampire Chronicles, read them. At less than $40, the box set is a great Christmas present, too.