at the moment...

'the same questions asked

before the spirit's journey

into the afterlife. did you bring joy?

did you find joy?

Anne Simpson 'Boat of Dawn, Boat of Dusk' in Is

Reciting these lines I stumbled upon this week in a lovely book of poetry by Anne Simpson this week at work. I'm particularly struck by these couple of lines. Simple questions, or are they?

I'm crunching cinnamon sugar roasted garbanzo beans...

Can't wait to try this recipe for caramel apple cider cake. yummmmm. I've never made frosting before, kind of apprehensive. But I'm ready for a challenge. 

Excited for the weekend, especially since we're going to drive south to Burlington to explore a bit and take some pictures. Maybe we'll drive back along the coast of Lake Champlain and pretend it's almost summer.

Loving this picture/quote from illuminecreative. 

Coveting this kitchen scale.

And looking for the perfect antique/functional bench. Need to find some good antique stores, because I'm not having much luck with the thrift stores as of late. Although I do like this one:

 

Custom order from an Etsy shop in Baltimore. Road trip time?

What are you cooking, coveting, and crunching on at the moment?

life list: buy local.

This is more of an item on my right-now list rather than my life list. Over the past few days I've been starting to ponder holiday gift ideas for my near and dear. It's (unfortunately) so easy to get wrapped up (pun intended?) in the brand name, department store, commercialized side of the holiday. I've already bought a few things from big-name stores, but I was thinking about how wonderful it would be to buy presents exclusively from local boutiques, etsy shops, and the like. Promoting small businesses and gifted artisans. So I've been scouring etsy (not really a trying task...) and I've found some wonderful gift ideas that I've tucked away to purchase in the coming weeks.

Without giving any of my gift secrets away, here are some other noteworthy things I've found...

Quirky greeting cards.

Posters for little girls. Or boys.

Beautiful hand printed tea towels.

A mustache spoon.

To stash your whiskey during long walks through Parisian streets.

And my obsession love for infinity scarves continues. 

Will you be buying locally for your holiday gifts?

xo

alli

mossière.

both images are of items for sale in mossiere.

For those of you who follow me on pinterest, you've already seen these :)  

Adding them to the Christmas wishlist!

xo

alli

de retour.

i'm done with my final papers!

yay to having a life again!

the next two-three months will be full of 

reading and research, but interesting stuff. 

i'll be narrowing down my thesis focus a bit, which will be challenging but good i think.

in other news,

we've been quite the social butterflies recently, 

now that we're both home in the evenings and finished eating before 9:30 which was the average for the past four months.  hockey finals are coming up, so some cheering in pubs with some pints is on the schedule for the next couple of days. 

i've had small glimpses of the summery buzz that is guaranteed to descend upon montreal,

hopefully sooner rather than later.

everyone talks about how bad the winters are,

but nobody mentions how excruciating it is to wait for spring here.

snow/hail/rain mix on saturday did not make me a happy lady.  especially when you're apartment hunting by foot, with an incredibly dysfunctional (ripped to shreds) umbrella.  

the apartment hunt is on, which i find is inspiring even more time to be spent on pinterest, drooling over interior design and diy projects.  

which is where i found these: 

via

via

oh and these:

which have nothing to do with decor, but could totally see them with cuttoff denim shorts and a tank top.

anyone else restless for an apartment change, spring, or just a smidgen of sun??

xo 

alli