head in the sand

Ibride's Diva Ostrich table: coolest table ever, weirdest table ever, or both?
(I love it.)
available here.

OLBAPI!

I just found out a friend of mine from grad school, Sarah, and her friend Joanne have an Etsy store!

They make gorgeous hand made pillows and quilts and just about the cutest stuffed animals you have ever seen.
I'm in love with Florence the Dog with Backpack and Doggy Bone.

check more of their great stuff here.

well dressed

If I had this dress I would wear it every single day. (with a sweater- it's cold!)

bake off

I am thinking about having a cookie exchange party for the holidays, and planned on trying some of Gourmet's favorite cookie recipes for the occasion. Do you think I should print them all out before the website disappears?
sigh.
get em while you can, here.

tiny dancer

Our friend Keith's daughter, Ale, dressed up as a ballerina for Halloween and looking at the photos of her in her black leotard, white tights and little pink skirt made me think of the book, A Very Young Dancer for the first time in too many years to mention.
Does anyone else remember that book?

Photographer and author Jill Krementz (Kurt Vonnegut's widow) has published many books including a whole series of Very Young books; A Very Young Gymnast, A Very Young Rider, AVery Young Skater etc. When I was little, I thought they were all good, but I never loved any of them as much as A Very Young Dancer.

It's about an 10 year old girl attending the School of American Ballet who gets cast as Clara in the New York City Ballet's production of the Nutcracker. The photos are gorgeous, and the story is told from the perspective of the young dancer, Stephanie. When I was little I poured over the book obsessively wishing one day I could be so lucky as to be in the Nutcracker.

Sadly, A Very Young Dancer is out of print, but I think I still have my copy somewhere at my parents house that I hope to give to my one day in the future, hypothetical daughter. I'm going to try and find it next time I visit because just thinking about it makes me wish I never stopped dancing. (that's me in the middle.)

Do you think there are ballet classes for out of shape adults?

fancy pants

doesn't this look like the most comfortable party dress ever? Maybe I'll get it to wear to my dad's 70th birthday party in December.

Although, the paleness of my arms at that time of year might blind the people at the party, so maybe not.
available here.

fish

does it make me weird and morbid that I love this fabric fish by Tamar Mogendorff?

I also love these birds, and pretty much everything else she makes, so maybe not.



Totally random and unrelated side note: Anyone else remember this "Fish Heads" video? Rolling Stone magazine named it one of the 100 best ever.

Warning: If you watch it, like I just did, you are likely to have that ridiculous song stuck in your head all day.

leaf pile

Gus likes to sleep in the weirdest places.

most recently on a bed of construction materials and leaves.

by the way, dogs don't seem to understand about daylight savings time.

Grown in Detroit

Trailer 'Grown in Detroit' from Mascha Poppenk on Vimeo.

The other night we watched Mascha & Manfred Poppenk's wonderful documentary, Grown in Detroit, and I can't tell you how much I loved it.

It's about Catherine Ferguson Academy for Young Women, a public high school for pregnant teens and teen moms, and the school's urban farm. In a city where almost 30% of the land is vacant (enough area to fit the city of Boston or San Francisco) this school is teaching these teen moms how to use that land and profit from it. The students grow all sorts of crops from apples to tomatoes, make apple cider, raise goats and bees. They sell their crops at Eastern Market, the city's weekly farmers market.

Through their work on the farm the students learn about the importance of healthy food for themselves and their children and are empowered by knowing, no matter what, as long as there is land, they can provide that food by growing it.

The film was recently screened at the Toronto Film Festival and won the Documentary Feature Jury Award at the Austin Film Festival as well as numerous other awards.

You can write the filmmakers to watch the film online mail@filmmij.nl

happy halloween

We are having a couple friends over this Halloween to eat pizza, drink beer, pass out candy and play board games and I can't wait.

It's supposed to cool down (poor trick or treaters :( ) so maybe we'll even have a fire in the fireplace.

Have a good weekend!

good fences make good neighbors

Our house came with a cheap vinyl/chain link combo fence. (ugly!) After living with it for a couple of years we decided to put in a new one. And now it's finally done!
(Steven's parents bought us that tree during their visit to celebrate Steven's birthday. It's a Cherokee Brave dogwood, and I cannot wait until it blooms in spring!)

Looking at the photos, I'm a little bit afraid that it looks unfriendly and that our neighbors will think we don't like them, but I love it anyway.
We took out a whole bunch of arborvitae (and gave them to neighbors- it's not hard to give away free trees.) which really opened up the backyard. It looks twice as big!

We wanted to keep the fence full height (6 feet) across the driveway, but didn't want to have to open a 6' x 6' gate every time we came home.

So we put in a little hobbit door (that's what I have been calling it.)

Please excuse the construction mess- I couldn't wait to take pictures.

Besides, Ollie likes to use the piles of dirt as perches to get a better view.

Now, all that's left to do is to tear down the garage (isn't it hideous?) and replace it with a garden shed. (hint, hint!)

jack-o-lantern

now that's a scary pumpkin!

check out jeweler Eddie Borgo's how to on style.com

color

Green boots, pink helmet? Perfect.
via The Sartorialist

fly away

this is just about the most amazing/stressful video I have ever seen. And as my friend Jen pointed out, you never actually see them land.
yikes!

walk on by

Because of all the excitement we've had the past few weeks, for Steven's birthday we decided to take it easy.

After work we took the dogs for a walk down by Whitmore Lake. (which, as far as I can tell, is a river.)

And after the doggies had the best time two pooches ever had and were completely worn out, we took them home and went out to dinner.

The guy who played Ross Geller on Friends was sitting at the table next to ours, and it was a little weird to see a famous person in Ann Arbor.

Maybe he's in town to check out the school of paleontology?