L-House Update: 35

An L-House Update...

1. Cool bag

2. Vintage stamps for modern-day!

3. Doesn't this train make you think of the Polar Express?? (Or, I suppose the Hogwarts Express...)

4. Holly's house is for sale.  Anyone wanna buy it for me?

5. Dance moves.

6. Cake.  Chocolate cake.  That reminds me of Matilda.

7. Meryl.

8. Deco cigarette case.

9. The Mummy exhibit!  Really, just historical exhibits in general.  Nostalgia for fifth grade field trips.

10. Cool New Year's how-to!

Things that are awesome

This picture:

Having an iphone (!!)

Instagramin. (!!!!)

Spontaneous museum trips.

The album my fabulous brother-in-law (Sir Chadwick von Jewsroch) got me for Christmas

Eating well.

Polar bears.

How my dad did my Christmas stocking-- he chose items from my various L-House Updates.  Suffice it to say, it was adorable and AMAZING.  More on that later.

Hangin out with the super cool sister and aforementioned Sir Chadwick, and

spontaneously buying tickets to Chicago to go hang out with them even more.

My mom's monkey bread.

Memory lane-ing.  And realizing that you have accomplished many of the things on your 12-year-old wish list.

Wearing fisherman sweaters.

Mini hourglasses.  Aka the-five-minute-glass.  (We timed it.)

My family and I are going on a horse-draw-carriage ride through Colonial Williamsburg in a couple of hours.  Something I haven't done since I was five...?  Six?  Should be entertaining.  Definitely more on that later...

Hope yall also have some awesome happenings in your lives at the moment! --m.

Instagram Adventure: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Christmas Eve

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. 

"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. 

"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.' 

"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.

"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. 

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

The Art of Drowning

Gone With the Wind

Masks

Feelin Overwhelmed.

Chastity: I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed? 

Bianca: I think you can in Europe. 

Soon.

via piccsy

L-House Update: 34

An L-House Update...

1. Pretty Scarf

2. These gloves look super cozy!!

3. Striped shirts.  Again with the coziness.

4. Pretty jars.

5. I love this.

6. NPR lists are the best.  Read, read, read.

7. I want to go here! (Or to there... Liz Lemon would say...)

8. If I had walls to paper, this is what they would be papered in.

9. Best bookstore in the world??

10. Last day of classes.  Good food.  Good friends.  And all that jazz.

I Can Tell That We Are Gonna Be Friends

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Simply because it makes me think of wintertime, and the lighting was so beautiful.

Gift Guides

So... I'm way too busy to make my own.  (Buzy/Lazy...whatever.)  Aaaanyway, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite gift guides that I've found.  They're super fun to browse.  Enjoy!

A Cup of Jo

For BOYS

1  2  3 

For GIRLS

1  2  3

Tomboy Style

For TOMBOYS 

1  2  3  4  5

From Me To You

For BOYS

For GIRLS

1  2  

For PHOTOGRAPHERS

Photo via Oh Happy Day

L-House Update: 33

An L-House Update...

1.  Isn't this cool?  I wish I could do it!

2. Snazzy marshmallows.

3. Watching this movie on the couch with a bowl of Brunswick stew.  Inspirational battle speeches, beautiful scenery, and an awesome soundtrack.  As my friend Amanda said, "Where would we be without cloudy afternoons?"

4. Phillipp Haager.

5. Books with super aesthetically pleasing descriptions:

"The only light in here came from the fireplace, where a bright blaze of logs settled slightly, sending a fountain of sparks up into the chimney."

-Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

6. Cranberry Nutmeg Pancakes with Lemon Curd.  Don't these look delicious??

7. Isn't this awesome?  Found it on my sister's blog.  We then had a conversation during with we both lamented the fact that we didn't become ballerinas.  Alas.

8. Beautiful rug.  I love how bright it is!

9. Super cozy looking sweater.

10. Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols.  I am so excited to sing it on Sunday!  It's so beautiful and mysterious.  

Christmastime

"All the Christmases roll down the hill towards the Welsh-speaking sea, like a snowball growing whiter and bigger and rounder, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged, fish freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find; holly or robins or pudding, squabbles and carols and oranges and tin whistles, and the fire in the front room, and bang go the crackers, and holy, holy, holy, ring the bells, and the glass bells shaking on the tree, and Mother Goose, and Struwelpeter - oh! the baby burning flames and the clacking scissorman! - Billy Bunter and Black Beauty, Little Women and boys who have three helpings, Alice and Mrs Potter's badgers, penknives and teddy-bears - named after a Mr Theodore Bear, their inventor, or father, who died recently in the United States - mouth-organs, tin-soldiers, and blancmange, and Aunty Bessie playing "Pop Goes the Weasel" and "Nuts in May" and "Oranges and Lemons" on the untuned piano in the parlour all through the thimble-hiding musical-chairing blind-man's-buffing party at the end of the never-to-be-forgotten day at the end of the unremembered year."

This is one of my all-time favorite visions of Christmas.  It's so beautiful, warm, and comforting-- don't you think?  There's something mysterious and Dickensian about it.  The Christmas magic and all that.

Growing up, my mom always put on this Christmas CD.  And, there's this wonderful narrator all the way through it who reads excerpts from various Christmas literature in a bouncing Welsh accent.  This is my very favorite part.  It's from a piece called Memories of Christmas by Dylan Thomas. 

photo via emily 

Lilac Wine

It's a Jeff Buckley kinda day, friends.

I hope you're drinking a hot mug of tea out there somewhere.

LomoKino Super 35mm

The only response I have to the above is the following:

1) GAAAAAAAAH!

and,

2) I want one!

Take a gander...

Baked Eggs with Goat Cheese and Prosciutto

Recipe and photo via Shoot to Cook

Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor"

This was stuck in my head today.

Enjoy.

L-House Update: 32

An L-House Update...

1. Aren't these gorgeous??

2. These balloons are AMAZING!

3. I read a short story today that included an extremely obscure movie reference.  I got the reference, and immediately called my mother.  Bam.  (For those with a curious mind, it was a quote from The Quiet Man, "When I drink whiskey I drink whiskey, and when I drink water I drink water.")

4. A bit of spring for you on this December day-- in the form of a vintage Laura Ashley wedding gown.  Sigh.  Reminds of Anne of Green Gables.  And Princess Diana's wedding.  And the turn of the century. And tea parties.  Etc.

5. A beautiful homage to the most important meal of the day...

6. My Parents Were Awesome.  Hilarious. I love old pictures.  My only complaint is, where's the blog for pictures of parents who are still awesome?

7. I finished reading my book of short stories last night-- I Knew You'd Be Lovely.  Lovely is, funny enough, the perfect word to describe it.  I tried to stretch out reading it as long as I possible could.  Perfect for Winter.

8.  The other day, I was talking to my friend Maddie, and she asked me "If you were a Christmas Carol, which would you be?"  I said O Holy Night.  It's my favorite.  I just wish it weren't sung so often, so that it wouldn't be as trite as it is.  But, then again, I wouldn't want anyone to miss out on hearing it...

What carol would you be?

9.  This picture just makes my heart ache for some reason.  But, can you guess who it is?

via sweet thing

10. There is this poem by Donald Justice, and it's called, "A Poem to be Read at 3 AM".  I've only ever let myself read it at 3:00 in the morning, so I've only actually read it twice.  But, in the still quiet late at night-- it's worth it.