Got it in the mail today. In love.
Current Obsessions #4
25 Apr01) SmashBooking
I’ve embarked on a SmashBook project that is a little more involved that the average throw-it-all-in-so-it-sticks sort of thing. I’m making an old-timey (read: Middle Ages) Book of Hours, which traditionally would be a book of prayers recited at different times of the day. For example, my book has a section called “Lamplight”, which is a throwback to vespers, a time when the lamps were lit and prayers were recited among monks in Medieval times. I’ve got fun stuff, though, like songs and recipes and journal entries and lots of summery pictures all smashed up in my trusty travel-ish themed journal. It’s been great fun so far, and I recommend Smashing, whether you decide to do it name brand or just on your own. (There are some great homemade SmashBook inspirations if you do a search on Google.)
02) Joe Pug‘s The Great Despiser
Came out this week and is incredible!
03) Justin Townes Earle‘s Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now
Came out… last week? Maybe? And is also incredible!
04) This Etsy shop makes the best quality handmade garments I’ve ever seen.
05) the sermons of Webster Kitchell
I’ve been reading God’s Dog, which is the first in a collection of sermons that Reverend Kitchell wrote about his conversations with Coyote, the demi-god that rules the mythology of the American Southwest. The sermons are entertaining and thought provoking and I highly recommend them for everyone, but especially for Unitarians and people who kind of… blend their religions to help them make sense of the world. (To give you a feeling for what I’m into right now, I’m also reading Monday Night Class, Transcendental Meditation and the Jefferson Bible. It’s an odd, heavy, lovely load I’m self-imposing.)
I can’t wait to make these!
Happy Anniversary.
25 Apr
I’ve been with a great guy for a long time. On May 10th it will have been nine years of togetherness, four years of marriage.
I jumped on Polyvore and played around with some colors and whatnot. This is fancier than the outfit I’ll wear to our fabulous fondue dinner that will celebrate us in all our permutations: friends, lovers and companions extraordinaire. We may be going through rough times right now, but nothing can stop us. We’ve packed too much life in already to be gotten down by anything trivial like sickness or hardship.
Happy Anniversary, baby. It’s been a heck of a ride so far.
(Note: I actually own the scarab ring from JewelMint and I highly recommend it. So cute.)
(Oh! Also note: I’m home from the hospital! So don’t send mail there! Okay, I think we’re updated to the fullest extent now…)
A little bit about what’s been going on with me.
12 MarSo, friends:
If you follow on Twitter or Facebook or, heck, I don’t know, are connected to me by brainwaves, you might have noticed that there’s some stuff going down in my life right now. Dial it back six years, you now that I had cancer and here we are again, playing the same game with a different set of rules.
Leukemia. Yeah. That’s a new one for me.
The first bit of the treatment didn’t go so well, so on Valentine’s Day this year (a day usually meant for MONSTER celebrations because it was the old anniversary for my end-of-chemo) my doctors moved me to a hospital in Milwaukee named Froedtert Lutheran Memorial.
Incidentally, this is a great place to reach me by mail right now if you want to talk or get fun postcards because – let’s face it – the hospital is boring and I could use something fun to do! Send me mail and get something back!:
Liana Woods Weiland,
Froedtert Memorial Hospital 4NT,
9200 W Wisconsin Ave,
Milwaukee, WI 53226
Things aren’t all bad right now. I got some great news last week that the first stage of a chemo WORKED and we were all pretty floored.
I’ve also taken this time to reflect on, you know, what it actually means to be alive and breathing and an entity that shouldn’t care quite so much about what the world around her thinks. So on the other side of this, you might see a very different, very much happier me. Still me, of course, just freer.
See you soon. Stay healthy, friends.
Current obsessions #3
13 JanOkay, to be honest, my current biggest obsession is Tumblr. Just threw myself into the fray and good lord is it a lot of fun. If you’re looking for me, I might be spending quite a bit of blog time there (at Just Us Folk, of course), pondering the meaning of my hippie existence and wondering if the big blog is worth the work. (Sigh.)
All right. Onto the list:
1) You Won’t.
Great band. Check them out!
Of late I have been dreaming of a tiny succulent garden to call my own. I think this would be an excellent home for that garden, don’t you?
3) This chevron tunic/dress from Etsy.
4) The weekend.
I don’t know why the weekend is still so radical for me because I’m out of work. But it is. I feel like on the weekends I can at least not stress so much about not having a job and just chill.
5) My new rug.
We got this ENORMOUS Oriental-style rug for our living room and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve spent a lot of my day just laying on it under the guise of flattening out wrinkles. Really, it’s just super comfy and awesome. (Though I hate it when something is suddenly $30 cheaper than you paid for it. Grr.)
Have a happy weekend everyone!
Outfit: If I didn’t own boots, I wouldn’t need feet.
6 Jan
Let’s talk boots. Sweet, sweet, knee high, faux leather, affordable boots. They’re everywhere right now and a few months ago I was desperate for a good boot. And now I have two pairs.
TWO PAIRS. I swear I wanted to write poems and sing songs when the second pair showed up at my house. The FedEx guy and I are very close.
Tips for boots: Get some skirts and find some skinny jeans. That’s all most people need to rock a good boot.
Tips for one-leggers (or no-leggers?) who want boots: Try, try, try. You may need to DIY (I rolled up a bandanna and stuffed it into the front of this boot to fill out the shin), you may need to send a million pairs back to Zappos, but don’t give up. I’ll do a whole boot post soon, chronicling my experience finding boots.
The outfit:
Nooworks dress from Modcloth // plaid shirt from Target
cardigan from Nordstrom Rack // boots from PacSun
faux bois sunglasses from Swell // socks from Sock Dreams
song credit from the title of this blog: Joe Pug’s Nation of Heat
book on the coffee table: Rabbit, Run by John Updike
I unintentionally under-accessorized today and ended up being glad. There’s definitely enough going on with the bright aqua plaid and the red and black diamonds.
Here’s to give you an idea of how the boots end up fitting, shown on both homegrown leg and my favorite accessory:
And an idea of how badly this outfit coordinates (though I definitely wore it out in public today without a care in the world):
Happy weekend, everybody. Go get dressed. It might end up being more fun than you think.
Solar flare.
4 Jan
This time of year (you know, when after the holidays you look around and say, “What the heck happened to all the fun stuff I was doing?” It’s just so… January.) has me craving any sign that spring is possible, even if it’s far away. Just a few sunny captures from my phone.
