Okay, so I'm totally famous....

The SF Gift preview brochure came out and guess who is on page 14!

It's me!

And a couple of people have called asking for my catalog. Guess whether or not I have a catalog! Not! But I almost do now..... I feel like I'm always doing everything ass-backward.

A side note to you who have just said aloud: "Bec, it's not just a feeling.... You are, in fact, doing everything ass-backward. You're alarmingly incapable of planning ahead, ever. It's as if you have not a businesslike bone in your body."

I heard you.

Being prepared for anything? or maybe planning ahead, ever? It's just not in my nature.

Friday, I'm in love....

Werner Herzog reads Where's Waldo

via my Dad, who might have a slight addiction to YouTube.

All in the name of science.

I am in search of the perfect summer beverage.

This is the criteria. Must be made of ingredients that can be kept in the refrigerator (no five exotic fruits) and cannot take three hours to make (no rosemary and peach infused simple syrup). Must be effervescent.

First test: Cosmo Sparkler.

2 parts Cosmopolitan

1 part 7Up

or

1 part sparkling water

or

1 part ginger ale

What do you think?

Ginger ale won and I liked it, but I didn't love it.

I'm a little sad about that. Because I'm all about a new summer drink, and if my new summer drink turns out to be gin and tonic, which it has been for twenty years? I think I might be a little disappointed.

Suggestions?

Miss Danelle has an idea that involves strawberries and muddling and vodka and champagne and I find that intriguing....

Postcards from Bend

Seriously. Bend, Oregon is so nice I don't know how anyone could think of moving away from there. Ahem.

Anyway, I did get to spend some delicious time with my sister and destash her stockpile of fabric and children's books. She's obviously trying to butter me and it's working. Also, I got to snuggle my niece and see my nephew ride a unicycle and hang out with all of my siblings (at the same time!) and put my toes in the Deschutes River and root for Ghana in a Portuguese cafe.

Speaking of which, I have World Cup fever so bad I forgot that the Tour de France was starting. What?

Oil Spill Response Market at Poppytalk Handmade

Hey Look! One of my Waste-Not Totes is available over at Poppytalk Handmade's Oil Spill Response Market. 100% of the purchase price ($40) will go to Oxfam America to help vulnerable communities threatened by the oil spill. So, if you're lucky enough to have a nice clean beach to enjoy this summer, and you need a stylish bag - buy this one and feel good about it!

How's that for a sales pitch?

спасибо, друзья (Thank you, friends)

That's my sister and her daughter modeling their winter coats. It will be cold in Kazakhstan.

Thank you thank you, my dears, for all your sweet comments on my last - and obviously distressed - post. Especially Faith who said: "Why Kazakhstan, it seems random and soooo far away." Which is exactly what I said when Emily first suggested it. In answer to that, Kazakhstan IS random. My sister and her husband will be teaching in an international school in Astana, and the company they work for runs schools all over the world - they could just as easily be going to East Timor.

Also, it was pointed out to me that my estimate of 196 hours of travel time to Kazakhstan assumed driving eastward from California. Which is silly. Of course, one should drive west from California to Kazakhstan, and if you consider putting your car on a ferry across the Bering Straight, it might actually be physically possible, though not recommended.

Flattened, road trip, Kazakhstan, and my underwear.

I've been flattened for the last 36 hours, by the summer bug that Fin picked up somewhere and merrily brought home. This is my own fault, because I am never forward-thinking enough to take any precaution against my children when they are sick. Perhaps, letting him pat my face with his feverish little hands all night was not such a great idea but it seemed to soothe him and that was all I could think of. 36 hours is far too long for Mama to be flattened by anything, so - while I am not feeling like 100 bucks today - I am using the just-keep-swimming method of recovery and hoping for the best.

Also, I have to get better because - Road Trip! We're driving to Bend tomorrow which is nine hours away by car and the trip cannot be put off because my sister is moving to Kazakhstan and Kazakhstan is like 196 hours away by car.

Have I not mentioned that? So anyway, my sister is moving to Kazakhstan, with her family, for two years. At least. Probably I haven't mentioned it because I don't want to talk about it really. Do you even know where Kazakhstan is? Possibly, you do. If not, I have provided a helpful map above. But that doesn't matter. I've given this a lot of thought and it's not about Kazakhstan. Of course it isn't. It's never about Kazakhstan. Just as it's always the mother's fault and no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. I'd go on, but we're risking a nine paragraph tirade about family dynamics and all you came for was a story about my underwear - see, I know who I'm talking to. And so....
Abetting my speedy recovery is the fact that I am wearing my new Liberty of London bra which I found (at the drastically-reduced price of four dollars and twenty-four cents) rummaging thru the lingerie section at Target (and I use the term "lingerie" loosely) whither I had gone because I was mad at my handsome husband for buying a cooler the size of a coffin. It is bringing me great joy today (the bra, not the cooler). Not a great enough joy to offset the removal of one's sister to Khazakstan, but what do you expect for $4.24?

At last, I wish to thank you, you who have alone read to the end of this post. You have good qualities too numerous to count and you use them to your best advantage. Plus, you look smokin' hot today. I adore you and I promise to be slightly more coherent on my return.