How lovely is that?

HARMONY Deer Art Print, $24 at animama

Pixie Campbell makes beautiful earthy-mama delicious paintings and writes a super-sweet blog too, where she featured my October Apron among some of the loveliest gifties I've seen. Thank you Pixie, for finding me so I could find you right back!

I'm not a bad girl.

In the language of first graders: I'm not a bad girl. I just make bad choices. Like going to the outlet mall on Black Friday. Bad idea. And all my own - people tried to talk me out of it. I don't know what came over me. Thinking of shoes, maybe? I don't know.

It's not that I never shop in the real world. I do. I have kids, I go to Target, I admit it. But mostly, I dwell in this little, insular handmade world where every item is personal and precious. I was totally unprepared for the depressing effect of mountains of discounted merchandise. Totally. Unprepared.

And if you are bracing yourself for lengthy blather about the woeful commercialization of Christmas, don't. I love presents and honestly, "Santa can hear you" is pretty much my favorite parenting tool right now.

It's just that when I buy two pairs of children's gloves for five dollars, I have to stay up all night thinking about poverty and global economic systems and what would have been better: paying $10 or not buying them at all. The best choice would probably have been paying $60 for hand knit gloves made of undyed alpaca wool from animals fed only organic whatever it is that alpacas eat.

Problem solved. Let's go run around on Pismo Beach. Please, don't lose your gloves.

Goodies for Renegade!

Wooly tweedy lacy frilly goodies for Renegade. With cowgirl snaps.

Three weeks to Renegade and time to start stressing in earnest - complete with anxiety attacks, all-nighters and periodically bursting into flames. Inhale. Exhale.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dude! Part of me is appalled that we will spend this day overeating to commemorate the mass genocide of indigenous people. And the other part is like: hello, pumpkin pie!

Get your art on!

Dolan Geiman - on whom I have a slight art-crush - is having a sale! You really must go because his work is wonderful and amazing and CHEEP! ha ha. Because of all the birds? O, nevermind. Just look....

ps. I just read the Etsy Featured Artist interview, and now have a crush on Allison as well. Read this and you'll see why. Also, I bought this:

My hero.

Seamus says: Mama? If I was a hero, I would save the day!

Oh, little man! (I want to say to him.) You are my hero and you save my day everyday in so many ways, you beautiful amazing creature - I aspire to deserve you. But I'm afraid that my ferocious maternal ardor will freak him out so I just hug him a little too hard and he says: Mama? We're endotherms.

O, glorious junk.

Piles and bins and stacks and boxes of glorious junk they have at the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse. It is sublime....

Old slides! Who wouldn't want them? Certainly I bought some - do you even have to ask?

Silk. Silk! For $5 a pound! There's something about buying something by the pound that isn't a melon that makes me think: Bargain! even when it's totally not.

Old textbooks that smell like old textbooks and have the library cards still in them. Wow, I love random garbage/treasure! Nirvana. I'm helpless. There's something wrong with me.

And watching my offspring dig thru a heap of whatever and emerge triumphant, holding aloft a strip of blue mylar or a floppy disc and yelling: Mama, you gotta See this.... well, I'm jubilant (of course) and worried. There may be something wrong with them as well.

Found: one very small home. Unoccupied.

Treasury Love.

My apron is in this awesome Treasury by felicitycrew (whose photos are lovely lovely lovely, by the way) - my little apron couldn't be in prettier company, could it? Awwwwww....

How lovely is that?

Nice Day To Wash, 8x10 print, $45 at Bonnie Jones Photography

It's going to be a good week!

Actually, I have no evidence of that. But? In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I declare that it will be a good week. If I say it with enough confidence and alacrity, maybe it will come to pass. If not, there's always coffee.

Hello, coffee....

Goodies for Renegade!

DIY Vintage Quilt Kits.... I could eat them up, I love them so.

Countdown to Renegade!

Only 37 days to the Renegade Craft Holiday Sale in San Francisco! And I have about 725 days worth of getting-ready to do. Did I not mention that bRex will be at Renegade? I only found out about it myself on Monday because at first I didn't get into the show and I was like waaaaaaaa! and I was like what's wrong with me? and why am I here? and what am I doing? and then I started to get used to the idea but then someone else dropped out or didn't pay or wasn't ready or whatever and so they asked me if I wanted to come or what and I said okay. Okay?

My friend, Danelle, says that I should not continue to dwell on this point. She says it is awesome that they realized they forgot to include me the first time.

I say: the cool kids don't hate me after all!

Still, I think I may have to sneak past security and set up my booth in the bathroom. Not that I wouldn't do that.

What I learned at the Zoo.

Pandas are not bears. They are raccoons. Also, I learned that the number one thing my kids enjoy doing at the zoo is: pushing buttons. Their second favorite thing had to be a three-way tie between: climbing things, tromping through the landscaping, and eating candy. Viewing exotic animals was way down on the list. Twelfth maybe.

Here we go....

Road trip: This time to southern California, specifically Carlsbad, more specifically Legoland, also known as Heaven on Earth to two of my favorite people.

An ethical question and a certain perfect necklace.

Best way to dress up your jeans, white t-shirt, and black cardi? No, not the leopard print flats. Again. You need something with effortless je ne sais quoi, something current and timeless, something perfect.

Paula: if you don't want to know the provenance of your Christmas present, read no further.

I have the honor of being included in a two-party online mutual admiration society with Carole Maher, the proprietrix and heart and soul of LuLuSparkles. We've never met, but we typety type back and forth and some of her lovely, delectable creations have come to live with me and some of mine have gone to live with her. I'm crazy about her shop full of vintage-made-new baubles and the witty, romantic descriptions and I just adore LuLu herself.

So, I got this necklace from her as a Christmas gift for Paula, which was very forward-thinking of me and not at all typical behavior. And it arrived in all it's splendor and glory and I could see right away how tempting it would be to keep it for myself so I closed the pretty box and put it away.

And then of course I was invited to the social event of the year - the Ironmen Soccer End of Season Cotillion for 6-Year-Old Boys at Chevy's. There I was, in my jeans, white t-shirt, and black cardi. I opened the box. I looked. I looked away. I put on the necklace. I took it off. I put on the leopard print flats. Took them off. Sighed deeply and emailed LuLu:

If you buy a necklace for someone, is it okay to wear just once before you give it to them? twice?

And she replied:

It is TOTALLY (her caps) acceptable to test drive once or twice! As long as the person you want to gift it to does not see you wearing it.

Talented AND wise, she is. (My caps.)

So, of course, I wore it. It is perfect. It says: I don't have to try to look this amazing, I am actually this cool.

How lovely is that?

Multicolor Crocheted Circle Scarf No6, $85 at subrosa123

Stupid Fancy Grocery Store.

It's not the whole reason I'm blue, but part of the credit for my general malaise has to go to the fact that my grocery store closed. It wasn't the best grocery store, but it was My grocery store. It was a little dim, a little shabby and I'll be the first to admit that there was a bit of a freshness issue with the milk. Sometimes.

But it was close and so very very friendly. The produce guy and the butcher were chatty. (Did you know that the "color added" in farmed salmon comes from the feed? Neither did I.) My discordant children were handed cookies. I strolled like a bon vivant through checkout. If I was frazzled, they soothed. If my offspring were well-behaved, they noticed. Life was good, even when the milk had expired.

So now I have to go to the further-away newly-fancified grocery store with it's internecine parking lot and sphenic, hermetically-sealed melons and tantalizing crockery placed just at four-year-old fingertips. The aisles are too narrow, the lighting is weird and frankly, I don't want to grind my own peanut butter. Checkout pullulates with self-important professionals buying their bento box lunches and impatient five-dollar-juice-sipping teenagers. And do they carry totally useful fancy items like culinary lavender or morels? No! Stupid fancy grocery store.

OooLooky: Branding!

Sewing a label on your product. Good idea! I'm not a hundred and fifty thousand percent in love with these (as one would hope to be), but they do the job. And when people covetously ogle your new MamaGoToMarket Bag and ask you where you got it, you'll be able to say: "It's from BananaSaurus Rex!" rather than, "Um.... It was on the internet - something with a lizard and a fruit? Maybe?"

Also? I'm pretty sure that Johnny Damon and I are related, based on the following evidence: He used to play for the Boston Red Sox and I'm from Massachusetts AND his last name is Damon and my grandmother's maiden name is Damon. Just sayin.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

I awoke to the sound of a crinkling halloween candy wrapper and a whispered "can you open this?" and therefore: It is officially Christmas. If you don't believe me, look. Poke around in the Eco-Friendly section and you may find something BananaSaurusy.