at the moment...

My kitchen smells delicious with the garlic sautéing on the stove.  I'm making lemony tuna and olive oil pasta with red pepper flakes from this recipe.

I'm laying out what to wear tomorrow for the 10K.  Gloves, hat, two layers of underarmour, new amazing underarmour running pants, long socks.  sunglasses?

I'm still laughing about the montage of clips sent in to jimmy kimmel when he asked parents to film themselves telling their kids they ate all their halloween candy.  My favorite was the little boy randomly doing (bad) math at the end and calling his mom sneaky :)

I'm thinking this dress would be a lovely addition to my winter wardrobe.

Looking forward to an extra hour of sleep on Sunday!! Not so much the getting dark at 4:30pm part though :(

Happy Friday friends!  What's in store for you this weekend?

xo

alli

stories.

'without a story, we perish. stories define our lives: they teach us what is possible and good, help set our goals and limits, offer us role models and explain mysteries. without stories- myths and legends, folktales and sacred texts, romances and comedies and tragedies- our lives would be formless'

- marilyn farwell -

this morning brought...

a bit of research and attempts at writing

a new curiosity with joan didion and a search for her book, the year of magical thinking 

goosebumps from this video (and many others watched, which explains the attempts at writing part...)

Oh! Last night I made the mexican version of the chicken and pesto stuffed pasta shells that I made awhile ago, Mexican Stuffed Pasta Shells and I am happy to report they are just as delicious.  I didn't have any taco sauce, but used the rest of the sauce from marinating the meat... and the salsa I used was white bean and corn, which I think added a great extra flavor and texture that I would have missed if I'd used regular salsa.  Just finished the leftovers for lunch! 

happy thursday!

xo

a capella.

This is from a blog that's on my reader feed, for me, for you by kate miss.  Usually I skip her music posts because I'm at work or can't listen to them at the moment I read them.  By mere chance I got out my headphones and played this one and I've been humming it since.  It's an a capella group singing a Robyn song (which reminds me of summer days at the lake with that cd on repeat).  With their coordination with the butter container (?) percussion and their enchanting voices I'm almost sure you'll play this more than once :)  Makes me miss singing so much!

xo

alli

reblogged from for me, for you.

pilots.

I saw this on facebook this morning and it made me laugh.  I especially like his note about falling wings or motors.  Or the more money than they know what to do with part.  Sign me up!

xo

alli 

november.

Happy november!  And what an unseasonably warm way to start the month of pumpkin pie, warm lattés, leaf crunching, leg warmers, and first snowfalls.  It's a gorgeous afternoon where I am and I plan on taking full advantage by going out for a long run later.  I'm preparing for a 10k through Oka National Park this Saturday.  It'll be my second 10k and I'd like to shave a few minutes off my time of 58 or so minutes the last time I ran it in 2008.  But mostly it's just a great motivation (obligation?) to keep training after I ran the half-marathon at the end of September.

And since we bought a box of 38 or so tomatoes this weekend (!!) I'm going to spend the evening starting some tomato soup to freeze and maybe some spaghetti sauce.  Anyone every tried making and freezing marinara or spaghetti sauce and have some recipes to share?  Also since I have an ample supply, other tomato recipes would be appreciated :)

I've been having a kind of no excuses sort of week, which was the motivation behind starting an every-day-of-november-blog-a-thon.  It started as a kind of experiment, and it's actually started making me feel quite productive.  Every time I'm reminded of something I need to do, instead of making an excuse to do it later I do it right. then.  No excuses!  Spending two minutes on something that you've been thinking about for months weeks is SO worth the relief of not carrying it around with you anymore.  So stay tuned the rest of the month, we'll see what I come up with :)

xo

alli

ps. feel like a no excuses november?  join me and L from rooms and books! 

photojourney.

photo credit: kendra smoot 

I love pictures- portraits, still life, landscapes- that draw you in and instantly inspire stories in your head.  I like to daydream about the people in a photo. Where they work, who their family is, their accents, the way they make breakfast in the morning.  How they laugh, what they're scared of, or what book is sitting on their dresser.  I think it's a testimony to the talent of a photographer who can draw you in and inspire those kinds of thoughts from a single glance.  

Also, this video made me teary-eyed over morning coffee a couple days ago.  Makes you want to get out of the city and just breathe deeply for awhile.  With an amazing camera in tow to capture everything with.

xo

alli

on blog silence and motivation.

Enough of the blog silence!  I know I've been quite absent recently, my friends.  And although life is busy at the moment, I'm not even sure if I can blame it on that.  I feel like I need to reorganize mistinguette a bit, or at least have more of a blogging goal.  I'm inspired by so many of the craft, cooking, fashion, and travel blogs that I read and although mistinguette touches on many of those subjects, it just feels so unorganized and thin to me sometimes.

I had a little brainstorming sesh this morning as I sipped my coffee and watched the morning sun reflect on the beautiful leaves outside my apartment window.  I've come to know that I am a person that is motivated by goals that are concrete and determined over a certain time period.  That's how I trained for and tackled the half marathon- I've never been so motivated to run in my life.

So! I've decided that I'm going to give my blogging self a month long boot camp if you will.  I am going to post every single day of November.  I'm sure some of the posts won't be lengthy or profound, but I'm interested to see what will come out of forcing myself (in a nice way :) to blog everyday.  To write everyday.  Even if it's just a few words.  And now you've heard (read?) me say it.  So. I have to keep my promise.

So stay tuned, for an active November on mistinguette :)

xo

alli

painfully vibrant.

weheartit.

There is an incredibly beautiful sunset out my window.  Today there was a clear blue sky, and the air was deliciously crisp.  The cold that makes you button up and wrap a scarf close to your neck, without the bitterness yet that winter will bring.  A peek up the hill on my morning walk to campus and I can see leaves slowly changing.  Farmer's Markets are buzzing, and there's the anticipation of everything lovely about autumn.

But.

There's something inherently melancholy about the whole thing.  The vibrant colors.  Painfully so.  The sun reflecting off an airplane in the fading blue sky.  The stillness between light and dark.  The silence of street lights warming up a street.

Perhaps it's the quiet ache brought on by nostalgia.  Reminders of memories and moments lived in past seasons.  Braided together with the present.

Do you ever feel like this during autumn?

xo

alli

Although I'm not quite sure this video would cheer you up, it might captivate you like it did me.  Nice song, and a pretty powerful video.

originally posted on dooce.