Capers

I was just reading through the blogs I like to read through every five minutes of my waking life, thinking about how I want to update my blog, when I decided to just update it and quit thinking about it. It's going on 8:00 a.m. and I don't have anything on the calendar today except a baptism at 1:00. I should mention that it's my baptism. Stanley is getting baptized as well. It's a prerequisite for becoming members of our church, and I read through the church's statement of faith and what baptism means to them, and it didn't offend me, and actually sounded kind of nice, so we're taking the plunge. Not literally. We're just getting sprinkled.

Remember the baptism scene in Oh Brother Where Art Thou?



I asked our pastor if we could have a baptism like that and she just laughed as though she thought I was joking.

Stanley mentioned the possibility of clothes shopping today, so I'm planning to hold him to it. I would like to buy another pair of high heels so I'm ready for the next high-heel party, whenever it may be.

Speaking of clothes, I am digging the whole Can Michelle Obama Single-Handedly Revive the Fashion Industry buzz. When she arrived at the President's Address to Congress this past week, I involuntarily uttered the word "Wow" in appreciation (rather than in a train-wreck sort of way). I just thought her dress was great.


I thought for sure someone must have a blog that chronicles everything she wears, and indeed they do. I added it to my blogroll on the right.

I've been really materialistic lately. Have you noticed? I like to think of it as sort of a rebellious expression of patriotic artistic consumption. A "REPAC", if you will pardon the acronym. And REPAC is CAPER spelled backwards, and capers make life and food more interesting and tasty, respectively. So that makes my materialism okay.

My sister's boyfriend's brother has been nominated by Obama as the Under-Secretary for Policy at the Department of Transportation. That makes me 112,459th in line for the presidency. I will not take this responsibility lightly.

Neither the aforementioned sister, whose pseudonym escapes my memory at the moment (edit: It's Lotus*. Thanks, Lotus!), nor my other sister, Janis/The Chicken Lady** have yet succumbed to Facebook. I'm just curious to know if they have decided against it, or if they are considering it, or if they have not yet considered it. In any case, it would be nice to keep in touch in that way if they are so inclined. If not, don't worry about it.

Have a great weekend!

*Name changed.
**Name changed and doubled.

House Party

Tonight might be the night that I wear the shirt/dress/skirt/halter top/waffle maker/chimney broom all-in-one garment that I went off about in the last entry. I'm going to a High-Heel Party, the second of such parties that I have attended with this group of ladies since the year began. Okay, let's be succinct. It will be the second of such parties I have attended ever in my life, with anyone. Tonight the temperature is going to get down to 7 degrees F, which is about as cold as it was for the first party. The hostess smartly asks people not to wear their heels to the party, but rather to bring them and put them on upon arrival. I think it's the only way she would get anyone but the most moronic invitee to show up for a high-heel party at this time of year. My God, I can't wait for Spring.

These parties are fun. I'm not being sarcastic, even though the following description sounds like I might be. The evening involves sitting, sipping champagne, eating brie, chatting, and whipping out a new pair of shoes once in a while for the other guests to ooh and aah over. I had totally intended to buy another pair of shoes before tonight but it didn't happen. I feel that my shoes will be deemed sub-par. Perhaps I should walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Then I will know what it is to suffer.

My new favorite website: Etsy.com. It's a huge marketplace for buying and selling handmade items. I had wished for a website like this and was so glad when I happened upon it. It has a lot of cool features such as many different ways to search for items: editor's picks, sellers who haven't sold anything yet (would be cool to be their first sale, esp if their stuff is great), items just listed in the last couple of minutes, and the requisite (and utterly useful) category/keyword search. I bought something from the site. Would you like to know what I bought? Okay I'll tell you.

Look how cute.



It's made from a Scrabble tile. I'm not sure which letter is on the back because I haven't received it yet. It was $13.00 plus $1 shipping. If you want a similar necklace (no two are alike, as far as I know), the one who made/sold it is "deciduoussoul". I like this necklace because of the following factors, conveniently lettered for easier reading.

A.) The house. It reminds me that I have a house, and a house blog. I like anything that reminds me of aspects of me. I like me. WOO, me.
B.) The tree. It kind of looks like it could be a birch tree and in fact, in the description, the artist says it's a birch tree. Ergo, birch tree. Just like the one we have in front of our house.
C.) It's got French on it for some reason. This reminds me of our trip to Paris.
D.) Is that bermet in the background? It seems more green than bermet but photos can lie, and it might turn out to be bermet in real life.
E.) It's on a Scrabble tile. Reminds me that I was once addicted to Scrabble (more precisely, Scrabulous) and overcame this addiction. This makes me proud.
F.) It's cute.

I have to get ready for the party so this will have to suffice for a blog post. Hope you're doing well. Miss you.

What Hazel Is Into This Weekend, With Apologies

I'm into bargain hunting, organizing, internet idea mining, re-connecting, and ruminating this weekend. And blogging.

Bargain Hunting:

I don't know if it's because I am more focused on getting a deal since we're in a recession, or if prices have actually fallen, but it seems like there are a lot of really cheap clothes out there right now. I don't mean cheap like "oh joy, these boots normally cost $300 and I got them for $85" cheap. I mean "excuse me, is this a typo, or is this leather jacket really 3 dollars?" cheap. I've been wishing I had some new clothes as I recently purged my closet of everything I haven't worn in a while, which helped me see just how few things I wear. So that means I get to shop, and you get to hear me go on about it. I can't help it, I gotta tell ya!*

I've been doing some in-store shopping and some online. Both have their pros and cons. Shipping costs are possibly the biggest con for online shopping, but if the prices are low enough, the shipping begins not to matter to me. I feel funny sharing the following details with you because I know it's materialistic and crude, but here I go anyway. Yay for blogging! I am really excited because on Friday I spent $65.00, including shipping, at newport-news.com and got 8 items. And I don't mean 8 tanktops. I got 2 skirts appropriate for church, a sweater coat, a long denim coat, a peasant top, a pair of jeans, a long-sleeve tee, and some type of garment that I am not sure what it is but apparently it is whatever you want it to be. I got it almost purely out of curiosity, but also because it was only $7, and seemed like something I might wear. Maybe a picture would help.



If you want the full effect you need to look at another picture of it here and I'm pretty sure this is the same thing but in a different color. It's Norma Kamali which I only say because it might be important for legal or practical reasons. I really couldn't care less who made it, but I'm sure she's a nice lady. According to the description, one can/shall/will "wear it as a long-sleeve top or turn it into a skirt, a halter top or a tube top". Four uses for $7.00!! We'll see what happens. If I only like it as a shirt, it's still a good deal. Not sure if I like the look of the tube-top dress with random sleeves tied around the waste; my wardrobe choices don't normally veer into the Escher-esque, but maybe the arrival of this miracle clothing is when everything will change.

Organizing:

I'm a closet closet organizer and this weekend I figuratively (but not literally) came out of the closet. I won't go on forever about this but I moved the crystal wine glasses from the bar to the hutch and put a bunch of every-day glasses in the bar for guests to use at parties (and broke one in the process). On special occasions like holidays or when we're having people over for dinner and using the good china and silver, we'll get out the crystal. I also organized the office closet, linen closet, and the clothes closet in the dressing room, and took some things out of the coat closet that don't get used, and put them upstairs in my bedroom closet, which is practically empty since we don't use those closets for clothes. I am trying to come up with some way to use those bedroom closets. They are kind of small. What would you do with a closet that you didn't need to use for storage? A hamster colony? I've often seen closets turned into workstations, but I don't want/need a workstation in the bedroom. I'm wondering if it would make sense to make it into a reading nook by putting a large cushioned bench in it with lots of pillows and a lamp, and some interesting wallpaper. I don't know if I would use that, though.

Internet Idea Mining:

I want to sew well enough to do this. I have a lot of boxy tee shirts that I treasure but that I only wear to Texans games or as pajamas. This would solve my problem. I may practice on a non-treasure shirt first. I'm going thrift-store shopping this Saturday and it will be fun finding a tee-shirt that I can re-do.

Re-Connecting:

I finally wrote to Aunt Edna today. By coincidence, and to my dismay (and pleasure), I actually got a letter from her yesterday. When I saw it I let out a yell, the source of which was a mixture of guilt, frustration, and surprise. But I do like her letters.

Ruminating:

There is a viral message going around Facebook that asks you to write "25 random things" about yourself and post it for your FB friends to read. Salon.com had a moderately enjoyable article about it. I wrote up a list (not random; who are we kidding) but I don't plan to post it on Facebook. There is no list of 25 things that is both interesting enough to post yet bland enough not to offend the sensibilities of my most conservative friends/family. But you, dear readers, are a safe crowd, even if you are a new reader who happened upon this page randomly while doing a blog search for "hamster colony", and a blog is designed for just this type of list. So here are 25 not-so-random things about me.

1. I’m left-handed.
2. My ears aren’t pierced.
3. I can think of a lot of inappropriate things to write on this list and they make me laugh so I wish I could share them but it’s a public forum, and forum rhymes with decorum.
4. I have a Ph.D.
5. I dislike jalapenos, sea urchin, orangina, and popcorn, and whole wheat gives me problems.
6. I dislike live music.
7. I have issues.
8. Merging onto freeways frightens me and I go out of my way to avoid it, and to a lesser extent, water, and to a minor degree, fire.
9. I am married and he cooks and drives.
10. I like painting, drawing and crafting. I want to make more time for them.
11. When I see a yard sale, I pressure the driver to slow down so I can scan.
12. I like Eminem, who may have a new album coming out this Spring called Relapse.
13. Anything having to do with interior design fills me with joy.
14. I adopted my cats 8 years ago and wish I hadn’t, but I would never give them up now. And they are pretty great cats.
15. I have never worn green on St. Patrick’s Day, which has mainly been an attempt to get attention. It hasn’t worked very well.
16. There is a lot of peace in my soul these days.
17. I voted for Ross Perot because I was young and naïve and all the cool kids were doing it.
18. I have healthy fingernails.
19. I am grateful to my friends and family for helping me become who I am. This is not a veiled criticism. I’m being positive. I like you guys.
20. I was raised on fresh goats milk.
21. As long as I can remember, I have had recurring dreams about being in a badly malfunctioning elevator in an extremely tall building.
22. Walking into an empty bar or restaurant makes me feel like the world is my oyster.
23. My favorite thing about the beach is the horizon.
24. Celebrity-bashing makes me angry.
25. For the first time in my life, I can honestly say I have a favorite color, but I am not sure what to call it, probably due to the fact that I like several shades of it, and each shade has a different name, and the names can sometimes refer to the wrong color. Please see random fact #7.

*Katz's never closes!

Bermet Living

Look at all the bermet! I happened upon this photo by pure chance in this blog about questionable home listings. That blogger was dismayed by the color choice and sheer volume of such, but I admire the audacity of whoever chose this design scheme. My mind reels thinking about what color furniture and accessories to fill it with. Obviously either neutral or....dare I think it....more bermet!!!! Check this out (it's on this page and is apparently from the anthropologie catalog):


Wow wow wow wow wow.

I'm going to post something soon that is not about bermet. But first, please admire this bermet stationery I bought on clearance at Home Goods today:

I needed stationery because I have to write to my Aunt Edna* and my only excuse for not doing so is that I didn't have any paper or notecards that I really liked. Now I do. It's by Vera Bradley and I think I like her (assuming she's a real person) company, after looking through the website to find a picture of this stationery. I much prefer buying her stuff a couple years after it comes out, at > 80% markdown.

So now I have stationery, so here I go writing. Yep. Writing that letter now.

While at the grocery store I picked up a particular item that I am really excited about. Two of them, in fact. Neither of them are bermet (woo hoo!). I'm going to use one or both of them for an utterly simple, incredibly inexpensive interior design project and then I'll post a photo and tell you all about it. I wish I could tell you right now but I don't like to talk about things I plan to do in the future, because if I don't end up doing them, I've written about it for no good reason. I shouldn't have told you I'm going to write to Aunt Edna. I can feel the pressure building. That will be followed by guilt, then lots of unnecessary food.

And speaking of unnecessary food, this is for Laura:


Mmmmmm.



*Name changed because I know you would hunt her down and steal her identity or something.

Bermet-a-gogo

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