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love list

Meg requested a love list and it's been a while since we've had a list of love on brinki-dink. Frankly, I think we could use the positivity around here. So, below, please find a list of things that I am in love with lately.

macadamia nuts
mountain passes
breaking stuff against the brick wall in my backyard
aspen trees
kona coffee with vanilla creamer
twirling in strappy heels
reading during windy storms
monsoon season!
watermelon and Bacardi slushies
writing cards for friends, and actually mailing them
long drives through vast stretches of desert
manchego cheese
macbook
my sunglasses
Sade
jumping over river rocks in chacos
my new book
watching kids giggle about secrets
talking for hours on the phone with old friends
running uphill
playing chicken in the pool
butter softened garlic
hummingbirds
jokes
playing dress-up
pencil cacti
cotton candy sunsets
Ray Charles
lumberjacks
haikus
watching videos about photoshop on lynda
donkeys
maps
candles that smell like warm blankets
chivalry
mystical movies
the alphabet game
piggyback rides
the smell of a log cabin inside
wildflowers
flickr
Alison Krauss
woodcut etchings

Mountainous

Pictures of Colorado, for your viewing pleasure. Check out the Flickr set for the whole enchilada.


A beautiful cabin in the woods of unincorporated Summit County. This is my dream house.


Lake Dillon


Peak One


Mountain Wildflowers

Snowy Mountain View from Mt. Royal

panic

My FLickrPro account just expired. I panicked to see so many of my photos disappeared. Why am I storing all my photos on the internet again? Oh yeah, I'm an idiot.

Renewing account to get Colorado pictures posted soon.

I Thought it Was the End of the World

Last night, I was laying in bed, enjoying a quiet night of reading and relaxing when the power started to flicker. It went out and on and out and on. And then it was just out.

Not two seconds later an alarm started going off. At first, I thought it was a car alarm or a police car, but that wasn't quite right. It could have been a house alarm. My mind though went to that place and decided it must be a city-wide alarm, altering the citizens to imminent disaster. I looked out the window and saw a haze of dust blurring the houses behind me, the stars and moon were nowhere to be seen. The wind was loud and behind the piercing alarm sounding in the distance, I could hear metal creaking and garbage cans tumbling. It started to warm-up a little bit in my room and I could taste the dust in my mouth. The only thing I could think of during the twenty minutes or so that the power was out, was that I was going to heat-up and die in a this dust-filled valley of hell.

Thankfully the power came back on and, as the dust settled, I regained my sense of security. I woke-up this morning though thinking of all the things I need to buy for an emergency desert disaster kit. Anyone know how to store 100 gallons of water under a bed?

Haute

Last night I caught a PBS special on "the secret world of haute couture" and I found myself glued to the television. The show was an expose' of sorts, breaking into 'the club' of women who buy couture. The club isn't filled with celebrities or socialites, it's actually quite an old group of baroness's and wives of wealthy oil tycoons.

What I found facinating and totally didn't realize, was that this world of haute couture is dying. In it's heyday, right after the second world war, the number of fashion houses showing in Paris was over 100. Today, the group has whittled down to 12 or 13 designers. Those designers, of course, include my favorites, Chanel, Versace and Dior...

What I loved most about these women was that they guarded their couture collections with a mysterious secrecy. They were illusive, hard to track down and not one of them told exactly how many pieces of couture was in their closets. Each of the women intereviewed noted that their obsession with couture was an obsession with art. Wearing couture isn't about making headlines or attracting attention (or men), it's about walking into a room and knowing that you're wearing a painstakingly constructed work of art that no other woman in world will ever wear.

It seems rather sad to be that the world of couture is shrinking. It's being gobbled up by fashion for the masses. I'm certainly part of the masses and I'm not at all complaining about the wide selection of affordable, stylish clothes available to me. However, I hate to see the world of high fashion as art disappearing. It's not practical, oftentimes it's not even wearable, but it's an irresistable art form that's in slow decline and there seems something very tragic about that.

Colorado

I'm off for a few days of much needed mountain time. This girl is tossing her backpack in the trunk of her Subi and driving north, 14 hours north to be exact.

We're heading to Frisco where we'll play on Peak One and play in the Dillon Reservoir. I have been craving big mountains, little towns and glacial runoff like a mofo here in the desert this summer. I can't wait to be surrounded by Colorado wildflowers and aspen groves. I plan on returning with altitude sickness, microbrews and more than a little dirt under my fingernails.

My Floatie

It's been so hot here during the day with temperatures regularly peaking above 113. It's not as fun as it sounds. However, one of the advantages to the extreme heat during the day is the lovely warm nights. Living in New England for so long, I'd grown accustomed to bringing a cardigan or little jacket out with me on summer evenings. Even in the middle of August, night brings a chill in New Hampshire.

Here in Phoenix, though, summer nights are warm. One of my favorite things to do lately is walk down to our neighborhood pool with some friends, a cooler and my floatie. Recently I got one of these:



It's hard for me to express how much I love this floatie. Its mesh bed is light and non-rubbery, letting the water flow freely along the backs of my legs, and the pillow is perfectly shaped and covered in silky nylon. At night, when it's quiet and calm, I lay in my floatie with a cocktail in-hand and watch the stars circling around a sky that, for a moment, seems just for me.

Cactus Mosaic

Check it out, my photo got selected for a twitter mosaic!

Juicy Aesthetic

It's been a while, eh? I really have no excuse for not posting the last couple of weeks. Not that I need one, I mean the whole point of blogging is writing by your own rules, right? I'm just saying that if I did need an excuse for my absence around here, I'd be lacking.

I've been spending my days at the pool, in my tent and on my new Mac. That's right, world, I got a Mac! I love its sleek and smooth design, the soft keys and the seamless interface. Oh, Mac, how I heart thee. I started learning Photoshop and have been absorbed with the magnetic lasso and the gradient tool.

To give you just a taste of the productive measures I've been taking with my new computer, I'm posting a collage I made. Personally, I think its quite a study in taste and refinement.