wants vs. needs

photo on the right by Bryan, who is pretty much the best.

Etsy and I had a little falling out for a couple of years - they didn't do anything wrong of course, but the feeling of endless amazing goods mixed amongst some (let's be honest) not so amazing goods got overwhelming. Last year though I received an Etsy gift card from my brother and sister-in-law, and thus we were reacquainted. 

...and now I am ALL IN. Every so often I'll log in and click that little heart button like a madwoman. My favorites page has grown quite a bit as a result, but since I'm currently (always) in saving $$$ mode and can't buy everything I will just post them here. It's like virtual window shopping!

p.s. Actual purchases featured above! Wedding band from Lichen & Lychee and the bowl in which we keep our shinies from Revision Design.

GEOMETRY tote & Terrestre 05 necklace from depeapa

petit cafe set | Hitonari Works & ceramic spoons | aveshamichael

 Mountain Blossom furoshiki | The Link Collective & Sniffy Soap sample | vice and velvet 

Arc Earrings | Tiny Armour & Hammered Brass Cuff | Rock Salt Vintage

pizza tank | xenotees & bye zine | Sarah McNeil 

bully for you

Woah woah woah. Two new pieces? In one blog post? That is just pushing the envelope, I know.

I've been hard at work, finishing up a super fun project (coming soon!) and working on a tonnn of new portfolio pieces. Cute stuff like Mr. Rabbit and his garden thief up above and some stuff with a little bit more serious undertones, like this piece below done as a part of a campaign on bullying my agent put out.

It made me really sad to draw this poor guy getting picked on, but since I drew it I also know that afterwards these three talk it out and become best friends. YAYYY!!!

slam dunk

Sigh, another Sunday passes through my fingers like crumbs to the coffee cup. Where does the weekend go? I donut understand.

....

get it? GET IT? Maybe I made this post just so I could draw a donut and make a donut joke.

Today I grabbed a couple of tasty donuts (green tea, ooh) at California Donut for my first breakfast, had a little rest and then took second breakfast with my ladies over High Lifes and home fries at the Black Cat. This is possibly my definition of living the dream, especially since I get to watch a new episode of Game of Thrones tonight. Fingers crossed we get more Sand Snakes... really if it were up to me it would be Sand Snakes 24/7.

In media consumption, we saw Mad Max on Friday and then finished Grace & Frankie on the same night. These two things could not be more different but they're BOTH kind of my favorite right now, and I didn't want either of them to end.

To end this post I found a very appropriate Grace & Frankie gif. Seriously, if you haven't watched this show yet then stop looking at this and fire up your Netflix ASAP. I mean... LILY TOMLIN.

cover to cover

At some point a couple years ago I decided to read more books. I don't exactly remember when, but I e-mailed Katie and asked her for some good ones to start with, as she is The Book Queen. She sent me an excellent list, I put it in the Notepad app on my phone (way back when it looked like this, *shudder*) and I forgot about it.

And then magically, without even realizing it, I was checking books off the list. And then I was ADDING books to the list. IT WAS A MIRACLE, Dear Reader! A book reading miracle.

So with that I give you my List of Things to Read. It is presented to you exactly as it is on my phone: definitely not in alphabetized, possibly with some misspellings, added to whenever I hear about something interesting, read in no particular order, checked off with the emoji checkmark when I am finished. It's a crazy system but it works for me.

CRAZY LIST OF BOOKS:

The Age of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker ✔

Seating Arrangements - Maggie Shipstead ✔

Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach ✔

The Red House - Mark Haddon*

This Bright River - Patrick Sommerville

The Leftovers - Tom Perotta ✔

Dare Me - Megan Abbott ✔

The Newlyweds - Nell Freudenberger ✔

Prospect Park - Amy Sohn ✔

Blood Bones & Butter - NF Hamilton

Swamplandia - Karen Russell 

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig

This is How You Lose Her - Junot Díaz ✔

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn ✔

Dark Places - Gillian Flynn

The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards

The Best of Everything - Rona Jaffe

Fin & Lady - Cathleen Schine

Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell

Then We Came to the End - Joshua Ferris

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern ✔

From the Mouth of the Whale - Sjón

Blood Will Out - Walter Kirn

The Vactioners- Emma Straub

The Marriage Plot - Jeffery Eugenides ✔

Wild - Cheryl Strayed

The Magicians - Lev Grossman

Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel ✔ **

Wildalone - Krassi Zourkova

The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell

The Circle - Dave Eggers ✔

Southern Reach Trilogy - Jeff VanderMeer (Book 1 finished, Book 2 started)

Commencement - Jay Courtney Sullivan

The Fever - Megan Abbott

The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins ***

Wolf in White Van - John Darnielle ✔

The Anatomy of Dreams - Chloe Benjamin

Delicious Foods - James Hannaham

The Country of Ice Cream Star - Sandra Newman

The Passage - Justin Cronin

The MaddAddam Trilogy - Margaret Atwood

If you'd like to start your own crazy list, might I suggest checking out NPR's Book Concierge? I got a tonnnn of additions to my list from wading through these great little widgets. Also sometimes a book gets added just because it has a cool cover. I'M NOT SORRY.

Moral of the story: GIVE ME YOUR BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS. If you can't tell I'm all over the place as far as taste goes, so I'm game for pretty much anything.

*I started reading this book over Thanksgiving two years ago, left it in a hotel room in Ohio, paid the fine at the library and never picked up another copy to finish it. The memory haunts me still.

** My most recent conquest, now I only want to read dystopian novels and think about how terrible I would be at surviving in such a world.

***Just checked my LAPL account - I'm currently 696th in line to get a copy of this bad boy, which isn't bad considering when I placed the hold the number of people waiting was seriously more than 1,000.