Boxing Day

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas! I certainly did. I talked to Phil on the phone (he's visiting his family in Portland, and I am still here in Cambridge), and he told me that my Christmas present was hidden in the closet! That man is so sneaky. And he has excellent taste - he gave me a chunky oatmeal colored sweater. Just two days before I had stopped at the goodwill on my walk home from lab and bought myself two more. My collection is becoming quite impressive.

I had Christmas dinner with Marie and Will. We made two dishes from recipes out of her Trader Joe's cookbook.  I made garlic mashed potatoes because I don't think I've had a Christmas without mashed potatoes.  For dessert we had a brie fondue, also from TJs, with baguette and green apples.  And I made mulled wine, which no one liked but me so I had quite a bit of it. :)  After dinner with watched Despicable Me.  It was adorable.

Today I had grand plans of post-Christmas shopping, but then I realized there was a blizzard warning.  Which means the three miles or so between my apartment and the mall become much longer.  I still got bundled up and walked to Mass Ave and Harvard Square for a look around, but I didn't end up buying anything.  I did stop at Whole Foods just before home and bought some more coffee - Marie and Will gave me a french press for Christmas (yea!) and I used up the last of my beans yesterday testing it out.

It is still blizzarding and blustery outside.  The scene outside my window looks sepia toned.  I don't mind a night in if it means a chance to knit, drink chai tea, and watch movies with Rizzo curled up next to me.

boots

I've been coveting these Madewell riding boots after seeing them at the Newbury Street store ($298):

Until I found these boots, in my size, at the Buffalo Exchange ($20.50):

Fall fashion success!

cool like that and the trouble with thrifting

Thrift shopping is great because every once in a while you find something that is unique, awesome, cheap, and just your size. But since these finds are few and far between I have a bad habit of deluding myself into thinking that something is my size when it's not. Case in point - these teal cowboy boots I bought at the Pasadena flea market:



a hair too small means I've worn them once in the past year. In a fall cleaning of my closet, they are on their way to the thrift store, but I wanted to document, to my future self, that I am the cool type of person who owns teal cowboy boots (even if they don't really fit all that well).