Snow Day!

The snow is swirling around so much outside my window that it looks like it's falling upward, and the news is have special nonstop blizzard coverage. This means that today I had a very rare snow day off from work! The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to make a final push and finish reading a book I've been trudging through for the past three weeks.

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt had been on my reading list for a few months. I really enjoyed Possession, the other book of hers that I've read. That book weaves together the stories of two modern day literary scholars with the lives of the writers they study. The Children's Book sounded like it might be similarly structured. It follows the children of a Bohemian British family whose mother writes children's fairy tales. She writes special stories for each child, and these are intertwined with the real lives of the children. Theoretically, this sounded like something I would like. Plus, it spans the late nineteenth century through WWI, so I thought it would fit in with the little Victorian kick I've been on lately.

Something just didn't click, though, and I found it really hard to get through this book. There's not one reason I can pinpoint for why I didn't like it. I did like the characters and the relationships between them were interesting enough, but the author includes so many historical details that they really started to weigh down the story (I admit that I skimmed through most of those passages during the final 100 pages). Some skimming also occurred during the story-within-a-story fairy tales, which I found to be dull. I think my biggest complaint is that the story just seemed slow to pick up. It was until around page 350 (yes, that's 350) that I felt like it finally caught my interest. Even after that point there were times when I wanted to give it up, and was only stopped by the thought of the time I'd invested so far.

And to add two more complaints to the list- I had to keep the book out overdue from the library to finish it and the 600+ page hardcover was so heavy that I had to prop it up with a pillow when I was reading it. I'm so glad that I finished it. Now on to better, though not necessarily bigger, things.

Tim Burton

Yesterday I went to see the Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA. It was packed! We did a lot of slow museum shuffling and peering around people to see everything, and got really overheated in the crowded galleries. But aside from those complaints, it was a really interesting show.

One of my favorite parts was seeing the sketches and cartoons he did when he was in his early twenties. The characters were drawn in his typical style and the cartoons were surprisingly funny. There were storyboards and screens from some of his movies on display, including some really beautiful and elaborate ones from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and a section of other movie items, like the suit and hands from Edward Scissorhands. It put me in the mood to rewatch both of those movies, and to watch Sleepy Hollow and The Corpse Bride, which I've never seen. All of them are now on my Netflix queue.

I was also reminded of this unrelated picture I took of the full moon a while ago:

Kind of eerie and Tim Burton-esque.

Easy Italian Dinner

I recently found out about a food blog called Smitten Kitchen. One of the recipes I found there is for an incredibly easy tomato sauce that I decided to try. This is the kind of recipe where you give the directions a quick once over and know exactly what to do. It's that simple.


The ingredients are a 28oz. can of tomatoes, one onion (peeled and halved), and just over half a stick of butter. Put those three things in a pot and simmer for 45 minutes, keeping an eye on it and giving it a stir every now and then. Then, pull the onion halves out and voila, it's done.

The butter adds a sweetness that makes it smell amazing while it's cooking. The end result is a pretty tangy sauce. It reminds me of a classic red sauce that you would get at a simple, no-frills Italian restaurant, only better because it's homemade.

To use the sauce, I decided to recreate a dish I had at a restaurant recently. I put it over some cavatelli and topped it with a generous dab of ricotta cheese. It becomes nice and creamy when mixed together. I have to say, this has to be one of the easiest dishes I've ever made, and I think I liked it even better than the restaurant version that inspired me.

Six More Weeks...

In honor of the groundhog peeking out from his burrow today, I thought it was time to finally take a peek at some spring clothes. I wasn't quite ready when I saw them in the stores while the after-Christmas sales were still going on, but now I'm more in the mood for warmer weather and have been doing some online window shopping. I must say, I'm loving some of the looks that Anthropologie is showing right now.


I love the haircut, I love the French vibe, and I love that these outfits look easy enough to put together using some things I already have.

And speaking of a French vibe, I found the next pair of glasses I want on a recent post by The Cherry Blossom Girl:

I love wearing my Ray Ban sunglasses, so why not have them as glasses too? I think these look adorable. The flowered headband doesn't hurt either.

The Hat

As promised, here's the hat that I made with the yarn I got from Purl:

And, even though I'm a bit reluctant to post a picture of me wearing the hat, here it is on:

I like that the shape of it is a little reminiscent of a 1920's cloche. I can channel Zelda when I wear it (minus the craziness). I also completely love this yarn- it's the softest and coziest I've ever felt. I could even imagine that it would be possible to try the hat on after finishing it and then fall asleep and take a nap while wearing it. Not that I would do something like that, of course.

Now for my next dilemma- what to get when I go back to Purl. Do I get more of the same yarn in a different color to make some kind of scarf? Or do I get the yarn to make this mushroom hat from their website?