So far tonight I've listened three times to "Here at the Right Time" by Josh Ritter, and I swear my knees get a little weak when he sings: my love for you was always sure / the bucket was broken / but the water was pure.
If you like his music, I also get stuck some days on "Homecoming" and "Girl in the War". And if you need to, say, run stair repeats or get dressed to go out at night (I KNOW THOSE ARE VERY DIFFERENT THINGS but oddly they benefit from the same sort of tunes), try "Getting Ready to Get Down".
Today it rained all day: a steady, persistent drizzle. It's the sort of rain that doesn't require an umbrella, but makes your jacket damp and your shoes just wet enough that you have to leave them outside the apartment door.
My skin is still stinging from yesterday's sunburn (I'm pale enough from this long winter that spending a mere 20 minutes in the backyard, sipping coffee, on a sunny afternoon garners me a red glow).
For a brief moment around 4 PM, I had that heavy, dull feeling that often arrives without warning in the low valley of the afternoon. You've already passed the acceptable time for coffee; lunch feels like a distant memory; and it's too early to contemplate dinner.
So far tonight I've listened three times to "Here at the Right Time" by Josh Ritter, and I swear my knees get a little weak when he sings: my love for you was always sure / the bucket was broken / but the water was pure.
If you like his music, I also get stuck some days on "Homecoming" and "Girl in the War". And if you need to, say, run stair repeats or get dressed to go out at night (I KNOW THOSE ARE VERY DIFFERENT THINGS but oddly they benefit from the same sort of tunes), try "Getting Ready to Get Down".
Today it rained all day: a steady, persistent drizzle. It's the sort of rain that doesn't require an umbrella, but makes your jacket damp and your shoes just wet enough that you have to leave them outside the apartment door.
My skin is still stinging from yesterday's sunburn (I'm pale enough from this long winter that spending a mere 20 minutes in the backyard, sipping coffee, on a sunny afternoon garners me a red glow).
For a brief moment around 4 PM, I had that heavy, dull feeling that often arrives without warning in the low valley of the afternoon. You've already passed the acceptable time for coffee; lunch feels like a distant memory; and it's too early to contemplate dinner.
So far tonight I've listened three times to "Here at the Right Time" by Josh Ritter, and I swear my knees get a little weak when he sings: my love for you was always sure / the bucket was broken / but the water was pure.
If you like his music, I also get stuck some days on "Homecoming" and "Girl in the War". And if you need to, say, run stair repeats or get dressed to go out at night (I KNOW THOSE ARE VERY DIFFERENT THINGS but oddly they benefit from the same sort of tunes), try "Getting Ready to Get Down".
Today it rained all day: a steady, persistent drizzle. It's the sort of rain that doesn't require an umbrella, but makes your jacket damp and your shoes just wet enough that you have to leave them outside the apartment door.
My skin is still stinging from yesterday's sunburn (I'm pale enough from this long winter that spending a mere 20 minutes in the backyard, sipping coffee, on a sunny afternoon garners me a red glow).
For a brief moment around 4 PM, I had that heavy, dull feeling that often arrives without warning in the low valley of the afternoon. You've already passed the acceptable time for coffee; lunch feels like a distant memory; and it's too early to contemplate dinner.
DO
1. Wear sunscreen
2. Always have a book to read. Right now, I’m starting this one and in the midst of this one and just finished this one.
3. Turn on music whenever you have a chance. It’s an instant mood improver. On that note, here are four songs I like lately: Thunder by Imagine Dragons (for driving in a cab with the windows down at sunset through Central Park wearing something pretty on the way to a night out) and Another Way by Ten Fe (for slow-dancing around the living room) and Nice by Rye (for listening just after you've poured your first glass of wine in the evening) and Good and Ready by Anthony D'Amato (for singing along, loudly, and probably ideally alone given my personal vocal abilities).
Alternative titles for this recipe included "99 Problems But Brown Butter Ain't One", "Toffee for President", "Legitimately Addictive Cookies" or "Medium-Sized Circles of Heaven" but I reined it in. (You're welcome.)
I've made three batches of these cookies since discovering the recipe a week ago. I did run into the SMALL issue of not being to find toffee bars -- which surprised me, given that I consider Skor bars to be one of the greatest candy bars around (simple is better, kids!).
Yesterday I realized we had no real dessert in the house. Travesty! (Also the result of ten days away, and being really OCD about cleaning your kitchen before vacation.) There's usually at least something sweet to be scrounged up, whether cocoa powder for a quick stovetop chocolate pudding or a leftover slice of cake wrapped up in the freezer. Okay, perhaps I'm being dramatic, as there was a pint of vanilla ice cream with a few spoonfuls left in the bottom (and a serious case of freezer burn), but nary a cookie in sight.
Today it rained all day: a steady, persistent drizzle. It's the sort of rain that doesn't require an umbrella, but makes your jacket damp and your shoes just wet enough that you have to leave them outside the apartment door.
My skin is still stinging from yesterday's sunburn (I'm pale enough from this long winter that spending a mere 20 minutes in the backyard, sipping coffee, on a sunny afternoon garners me a red glow).
For a brief moment around 4 PM, I had that heavy, dull feeling that often arrives without warning in the low valley of the afternoon. You've already passed the acceptable time for coffee; lunch feels like a distant memory; and it's too early to contemplate dinner.
Alternative titles for this recipe included "99 Problems But Brown Butter Ain't One", "Toffee for President", "Legitimately Addictive Cookies" or "Medium-Sized Circles of Heaven" but I reined it in. (You're welcome.)
I've made three batches of these cookies since discovering the recipe a week ago. I did run into the SMALL issue of not being to find toffee bars -- which surprised me, given that I consider Skor bars to be one of the greatest candy bars around (simple is better, kids!).
Yesterday I realized we had no real dessert in the house. Travesty! (Also the result of ten days away, and being really OCD about cleaning your kitchen before vacation.) There's usually at least something sweet to be scrounged up, whether cocoa powder for a quick stovetop chocolate pudding or a leftover slice of cake wrapped up in the freezer. Okay, perhaps I'm being dramatic, as there was a pint of vanilla ice cream with a few spoonfuls left in the bottom (and a serious case of freezer burn), but nary a cookie in sight.
Things I'm appreciative of:
1. How easy it is to make a solid Aperol spritz at home [2 parts Aperol + 3 parts Prosecco. You're supposed to add a splash of club soda, but let's face it, that just gets in the way of things.]
2. Old movies. We grew up without television, and on Friday nights my dad would take us to the closest Blockbuster (when you live on a farm, that's a 15 minute drive), and he'd pick out a movie, which we'd tote home in its blue plastic Blockbuster cover. The four girls, in our matching pjs, would snuggle up and watch things like Casablanca and old PJ Wodehouse films and Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris. Our favorites were Doris Day and Fred Astaire movies and they still make feel me so comforted and happy.
If you want a good song, put on "River" by Leon Bridges. Then put on "Priceless" by For Kings and Country and sing really loudly when they get to the i see you dressed in white/every wrong made right bit (trust me, although I do realize this is a Christian gospel band but look, it's catchy). Then put on "Gold Angel" by Minke.
Today the rain started lightly, tapping at the window to wake me up early. It's coming down in sheets now. Every time a car passes outside on the dark street, it sounds mysterious and hushed, swooshing through the wet puddles. I'm finishing a glass of wine and sampling a slice of babka, which I made today using a recipe I'm playing around with (more on that soon).
How was your weekend? Are you slightly sunburned, and sticky with aloe gel? Are your shoes gritty with a fine dusting of sand? I'd like to think there was excellent music (I'm thinking Bruce Springsteen and the Lumineers and some country because #mdw #america as the kids say), bare feet, and iced coffee. That you pulled your denim shorts out of the bottom drawer where they've been all winter, and ate a bowl of blueberries for breakfast, and went to bed an hour too late after drinking too much tequila and laughing so hard your abs hurt.
There’s nothing as delicious as anticipation. Even the word is luscious, long and drawn out, and strung with crisp consonants. I like how it feels to say it. I like how it feels to sense it.
The best sort of anticipation is for something good but undefined. A nebulous, hazy event awaits, shimmering ahead of you. You're ready, but you don't know quite for what.
You may be wondering where I have been. You may be sitting at your dining room table at this very moment thinking: "listen up girl, I have been JONESING for some cake, and it is your job to provide me with it, and you've let me down!"
I'm so sorry; I really have let you down. Does it help if I tell you that I have been gallivanting about the East Coast, eating warm baguettes from the King Arthur bakery in Vermont and playing with my new niece who is getting wonderfully more chubby with each passing minute (by playing, obviously I mean squeezing her thighs and singing her terribly off-key Josh Ritter and John Denver songs)?
Nothing says summer like the smell of a campfire. Watching a fire burn is incredibly mesmerizing: the rapidly licking flames disappearing into the ether in a jumble of colors that turn from neon blue to deep red. Campfires were special occasions on the farm: we'd have our cookouts down by the first pond. My dad set up a small circle of weathered stones, and we’d trek down from the kitchen holding plates of burgers and homemade buns and squeeze bottles of ketchup.
So far tonight I've listened three times to "Here at the Right Time" by Josh Ritter, and I swear my knees get a little weak when he sings: my love for you was always sure / the bucket was broken / but the water was pure.
If you like his music, I also get stuck some days on "Homecoming" and "Girl in the War". And if you need to, say, run stair repeats or get dressed to go out at night (I KNOW THOSE ARE VERY DIFFERENT THINGS but oddly they benefit from the same sort of tunes), try "Getting Ready to Get Down".