Happy Heart Day

Today there will be a myriad of hearts. 

Crocheted ones: 

Baked ones: 

Fancy chocolate ones: 

And of course, handwritten notes, flowers and jewelry galore: 

There will also be plenty of bursting hearts... and a few broken ones. What is it about Valentine's Day that makes people feel an abundance of pressure to show someone they love them? 

I for one, am not a fan. I don't know about you, but I'm just as happy having the Sailor tell me and show me he loves me the other 364 days out of the year. (You can see how I really feel about the holiday here.)

I ran a few errands this morning and at all of the stores, bewildered men carried around balloons, flowers and chocolates, wondering what else they needed to buy to appease the likes of their ladies. They all looked quite shell-shocked. 

Earlier this week, I had to elbow my way past a gaggle of men craning their necks to figure out which handbag they should buy for their girlfriends and wives.

I wanted to tell them this: go home and tell your wife or your girlfriend you love her. Buy her flowers tomorrow, when they are half off and you can get her twice as many for the same price! Then take her with you and let her pick out the handbag she really wants.

Better yet, surprise her on any other day of the year. Take her out for dinner when it's just the two of you and not the whole city. Take her out for no reason at all. Buy her a necklace when she doesn't expect it.

Stop in the middle of mall shopping mayhem to find a place that sells both coffee and a piece of chocolate cake when you know she's about to have a meltdown (my personal favorite, and one at which the Sailor is particularly adept...) 

But I didn't say anything in the end. 

Instead, I let them buy their balloons, chocolates, flowers and even handbags. I went home and had a few heart-shaped cookies that I baked from leftover Christmas dough, found in the freezer. 

And I reminded myself that getting to chat with the Sailor this afternoon from seven time zones over, was all I needed this Valentine's Day. That and maybe a few more of those cookies... 

Happy Valentine's Day, no matter how (or if!) you choose to celebrate.

Homemade Lavender Pillows

Our neighbors used to have this amazing lilac bush. Every day, as my mom walked me to the bus stop, I would get a glorious whiff of these amazing flowers. I was always a little disappointed when the bush stopped flowering and the smell faded. Every now and again, I smell lilac in the air, and I'm right back at the location where I grew up, without a care in the world.

Lilac may not always be in season, but my other favorite calming 'L' fragrance can be: lavender. 

There are numerous lotions and potions and candles on the market with the smell of lavender to both calm the senses and to help you sleep. I decided to make my own little sleep pillow with dried lavender. You can too!

All you need is some leftover fabric, dried lavender, a funnel and some simple sewing skills. I machine-stitched a square with the right sides together, leaving a small hole open in the top. You can leave a bigger hole at the top to pour in the lavender. The bigger the hole, the easier it is to turn the fabric right side out (I don't know why I always forget this part, no matter what I'm sewing!)

Pour the lavender into the pillow. I used a chopstick to ease the lavender down, but a pencil or knife would also work.

Once the lavender is in the pillow, hand stitch the hole closed and you're done! 

Some people keep these under their pillows, or between the cover and the pillow itself. I keep mine on my nightstand and make sure to take a few deep breaths of lavender each night before I head off to dreamland.* 

These are fast and easy to whip up for yourself or as gifts for other people. Just be sure the lavender is kept away from the other spices. See the note below...

* In all honesty, I'm not so sure if my pillow actually works. Theoretically, it should though! You see, when I got the lavender, I purchased it in bulk with a bunch of other spices, including curry powder at a farmer's market during a trip over the holidays. The spices were in their own little plastic zip bags... and they stayed that way for about a week until I unpacked them at home. Spices have no scent boundaries... and I'm pretty sure I get a slight whiff of curry powder every time I inhale the lavender pillow. Next time, the spices do not get to mingle. 

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify!

I've had this quote on my desk for a while now. It serves as a reminder for me to simplify my life when things start looking a little hectic around here. 

Lately, I feel like things are piling up. To do lists, laundry, stacks of books waiting to be read, stuff that needs to be written, posts that need to be blogged, letters that need to be mailed, invoices that need to be sent... you get the picture. 

We all have our own list. Some days it seems like it never ends. So how are we supposed to simplify, especially in this age of crazy and constant busyness? 

I'll have an upcoming post about de-cluttering soon, but in the meantime, there are ways to de-clutter your brain. Sometimes it's quicker. 

The Sailor often has sage words of advice whenever he's around. Whenever I'm feeling particularly stressed or overwhelmed about something (like that list), he tells me to go sit in my chair by the window and knit for a bit. He knows me well. Essentially, his advice helps me to simplify that moment.

The list hasn't gone anywhere, but for a few moments, I feel like it doesn't even exist.

Even if I've only had 10 minutes to sit there, knit and breathe, I come away from the chair, calmer and more inclined to tackle the list without getting frazzled. 

For some people it's knitting, for others it's sitting quietly drinking a cup of tea, or reading, or a prayer, or even watering the house plants. Whatever method we choose, I'm sure Thoreau would agree that we all need a little moment of simplicity during the day. What's yours? 

Bread for Brunch

So this glorious bit of brunch happened this weekend. 

Drooling? I sure did. 

Sometimes, especially when the Sailor isn't home, I don't make a great effort to sit at the table, let alone set it with any great fanfare. I end up hastily eating something over the sink, or somewhere near the counter, wondering if I should have even bothered using a plate. 

Is it just me, or do we all do this at some point when we're on our own? 

I have gotten better about this... and nowadays I do find myself eating most meals at the actual table. Last Friday, soon after I bought these flowers, I decided I had a hankering for Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread (this delightful dish is one of many found on Annie's Eats... my go-to site for great recipe ideas.) 

Bread isn't normally on my list of things to make from scratch on a weekend morning, but when I realized I could make the dough ahead of time and then store it in the fridge overnight, I decided to just go for it. The next morning, all I had to do was roll it out, assemble it, let it rise again and then bake it! 

As a bonus, this was the perfect scene for the first day of February's round of #7Vignettes on Instagram. The theme was 'love' and who doesn't love a good Saturday morning brunch? (Not to mention those wonderful pink Pyrex vintage plates?!)

Slipper Flop?

Remember when I felted these slippers last month? 

At first they felt (no pun intended...) a little big. I wore them around, and they flopped all over the place. Not really what you want in cozy slippers. Like socks, slippers should hug your feet perfectly to keep them warm. 

These did not. They felt like a flop to me.

So I bent the rules and threw them in the front-loading washing machine to felt them further. 

Absolute success. I had to stretch them out a bit while they were still wet, but the second felting worked. 

I wanted the blue layer on the outside, but even after the second felting, it kept falling off while I walked around. An hour would pass and I'd wonder why my left foot was colder than my right and then I'd find a lonely slipper on the other side of the apartment. The inside gray layer stayed on, however.

I kind of chalked it up to a bad knitting job (after all... I'm on a roll with this yarn and the sweaters...) but then I realized I could put the blue layer on the inside and the tighter gray layer could keep them on. 

While these are nice slippers... I still prefer this felt clog style in the winter, simply because they cover more of my feet. These however, are great for spring or fall, I think. 

Definitely not a flop!