Shopping for glasses online

I love my pink glasses. The color kicks ass and the shape is just right. Plus they're cheap! I get them online from Zenni Optical. I'm uncertain about buying stuff directly from China - ethically, I worry that these are made by people working in terrible conditions. And the quality sucks. They last about 3 months before they break - usually the left arm snaps off.So, despite the fact that I love these so much, I started looking for a new pair of glasses. The problem is that I can't afford to spend a lot of money and as a result I'm shopping online again. Where, of course, you can't try them on and there's no guarantee of quality.

But upside is: fun virtual try-on programs! Yay!
I found a totally cool new place to buy glasses online: Spex Club. These are the ones that I fell in love with for some odd reason:

I've never had glasses like these before. I have a round face and the word is that you're not supposed to wear round glasses if you have a round face. I was always super worried that my round face made me look fat and so was always going for looks that were supposed to make my face appear less round. Rectangular lenses were supposed to do that.

This time, I just got bored and started playing around. And these are awesome! Or are they too Harry Potter? I can't decide.

This is a moot point though, because these particular ones are no longer available. Poo.

But then I found these:

These are from Zenni Optical and they're only $6.95! I'd have to get the polycarbonate lenses so that would make them about $30, I think. Still, a steal. I'm thinking that I might order these just to check out the style.

I love visiting my parents

I'm visiting my parents in Delaware this week. I grew up here, though not in this house. I couldn't get away fast enough after high school, but now I come back and appreciate it in ways that I didn't then. Of course, things have changed. My parents moved to a much nicer and feng-shui-ier house that is somehow totally calming. There's something about the East Coast that always makes me feel slightly inadequate - like my regular granola gear isn't good enough and I should be spending inordinate amounts of time doing my hair and makeup. I've only been here since Friday and I've already shaved my legs after not having shaved them for 4 years. But ... I like it! I love looking down and seeing my smooth legs. I used my mom's electric razor/trimmer thing and totally got a thrill from seeing the somewhat huge pile of hair that was left when I was done. This time it's not because I felt compelled by some outside pressure though. I've just been feeling so depressed recently. No surprise - I had a baby 5 months ago and haven't really put any effort into taking care of myself since. It's finally gotten to me - I was feeling so frumpy. And I am not ready to be a Gwendolyn yet! Gwendolyn is what my mom calls the women who she thinks don't put any effort into their appearance and buy ceramic figurines on QVC. My mom is strangely fascinated by QVC and watches it regularly, shaking her head at other people's mysterious bad taste.
I love visiting my parents because I get to enjoy their neat house full of nice design-y furniture and stuff that I can't afford. Is it weird that I like my parents so much? It's not like we never disagree, but I pretty much think they're great. I love their style and their way of life. It's not really for me, not entirely. But its so nice to visit.
And my mom has all these beauty products! I love visiting anyone, actually, for this - trying out new beauty products without have to buy them. My mom has been into these grapeseed extract creams and things. And she has this facial peel cream that heats up. So I did a facial peel (heated peel = awesome), then tried all the grape products. How could I resist? While the peel-off mask was drying I gave myself a pedicure and read an interview with Ashley Judd (who I just think is the cutest) in an old issue of More magazine. This is the kind of thing that I never do at home. I painted my toenails sparkly gold!
At home I'm all crunchy-granola. I don't wear makeup, I don't paint my toenails, I don't read magazines. But being here has reminded me that I can do paint my toenails and still be serious. In other words, I don't have to take myself quite so seriously. I've been lightening up a lot recently and I really like it.

WTF am I doing?

So, I've been lamely thinking about blogging for ages, and coming up with blog posts in my head all the time. Except I don't really blog. I have this blog here, but I never post to it. I guess because I feel awkward writing to an imaginary audience of people - who are these people who don't now but might (really?) read this stuff? I want to write this stuff down for myself, a lot of the time - to remember a good recipe or a good link to something, etc. And my husband is always saying, "You should blog this!" when we come up with something good.
But I guess I've hard a hard time writing in a voice that doesn't seem stilted to me. Most of the blogs that I look at are so *polished* - all fancy photos, etc. And honestly, I just don't have time for that. I'm not going to be doing that. I have a baby, I'm working on my PhD, I'm trying to keep my house reasonably clean and my dog exercised. I barely have time to take care of myself. Case in point: I just painted my toenails and shaved my legs for the first time in years. Years! So I'm not going to be spending my precious spare time finding the perfect angle from which to photograph my kitchen counters.
Also, I'm not sure how on board I am with the concept of sharing everything online. Or at least, I wasn't. But I've been reading xoJane and loving it - loving the honesty with which those ladies put themselves out there. It's so refreshing to hear about their mishaps and successes. I've genuinely felt freed by their writing to be more myself and to accept my own voice.
And accepting my own voice is something that I've been really struggling with. I'm working on writing this philosophy dissertation and one of the major things that has been holding me up is my fear of putting myself out there - of sharing my ideas with the rest of the philosophers. More on that later. The point is though - I like the idea of just keeping it real.
So here we go. I'm going to post to this thing when I feel like it. I'm going to write what I feel like writing. I'm not going to worry about keeping it to some kind of a theme or being able spin a book off from it or whatever these other blogging ladies are doing. Though props to them nevertheless. And I'm hoping that putting myself and my thoughts out there on here will in some way help me get over that fear so that I can put myself "out there" in other ways too. Cheesy, but whatever - that's what I'm doing.

New Beginnings

We got married! I had so much fun - more than I had expected. Turns out, there is nothing like having everyone you love together in one place and wishing you well.
It was October 23rd, 2010, but hey - I just got around to uploading all those photos.

Drunken Mushroom Mashed Potatoes

It's the kind of fall day that makes you want to eat warm and cozy things. We went to the park this afternoon with Gilda and then made drunken mushroom mashed potatoes:

- boiled potatoes
- beech, oyster, shitake fresh mushrooms (handful of each) and 1gm of dried morel mushroom (cooked down with enough butter, black pepper, nutmeg, a dash of soy sauce, New Holland Cabin Fever brown ale, and Buffalo Trace bourbon. More beer and more bourbon added and cooked down again - three total times).
- potatoes mashed with butter, cream, nutmeg & black pepper
- mushroom mixture whirred up with 2 cloves of roasted elephant garlic (brushed with oil and roasted at 300F)
- mushroom mixture mixed into the potatoes.

Delicious :)

Baked Apple Pie Toddy

Eric and I just made this up today, after fiddling with the Hot Toddy recipe that's in the Dec-Jan 2011 Mary Jane's Farm magazine.

- 1 baked apple (peeled & cored, filled with 1 pat of butter and some cinnamon, then baked at 400F for 1hr - we made 4 at once, baking them in pyrex)
- black tea (we used Tulsi tea b/c we had it and it was caffeine free)
- 1 T brown sugar
- 1 pat of butter
- shake of sea salt
- small splash of vanilla extract
- nutmeg
- 1 oz of bourbon (or however much)

We whirred everything up with a hand blender, adding the butter after first blending everything else a little.
It was so delicious - like a hot apple pie drink. There's a Szarlotka in Poland (apple juice and Zubrowka) that taste like a cold apple pie, but this is amazing for cold nights by the fire!

I think next time we'll use mead instead of the bourbon. On our honeymoon last month, Eric and I stopped at the Shady Grove Meadery in Tennessee. How could we not stop at a place called Shady Grove that made mead?? Their mead is so delicious - I generally prefer dry wines/meads/ciders/etc but their sparkling apricot mead blew me away. We also got some amazing honey and honey-rosemary jam. Later we were kicking ourselves for not buying a whole case of the sparkling mead. I made really simple but delicious drink when we got back to Indiana with their non-sparkling dry mead: mead with San Pellegrino Limonata soda (my absolute favorite soda - along with the aranciata).

baby projects!

Eric and I are having a baby! I'm due February 15th. We don't know yet whether it's a boy or girl ( we find out in two weeks!!), but I'm already getting excited for all the baby projects that I can do. Somehow I never really feel like crafting in the summer - too much gardening, I guess. But now that the weather has turned crisp, I'm itching to get out my sewing machine and knitting needles. And a baby gives me such a good excuse! So here's a list of projects ...

1. Newborn nightie like the one from Natural Nursery Knits
2. Matching blanket
3. Matching cap

I haven't decided on the color scheme or yarn for those yet. I'm not really into the whole pink/blue thing. I'm planning to decorate the nursery with a 'woodland' theme - trees, owls, mushrooms, squirrels, etc. I'll post more on that later. I'd love to get a self-striping yarn in some more saturated colors.

4. Woodland themed quilt. Either with appliques or with woodland print fabrics. I'd like one side to be patchy and the other side to be soft - maybe flannel. I've never made a quilt or really done any applique before though, so this will be a challenge!
5. Booties!
6. Wool soakers. We're definitely doing cloth diapers, so these are going to be essential. I'm actually thinking that we might do the elimination communication thing, but we're still going to need diapers and soakers.

I'll probably start working on most of these after the wedding (October 23rd!), because right now I'm overwhelmed with wedding planning stuff. But I might get the yarn for the blanket, at least, so that I can start going to the Tuesday knit group at the Chocolate Cafe.