Friday afternoon treat: type coasters. Jumbly and lovely, and made of sustainable bamboo. From here via the blog at Chicago-based Plural graphic design.

Here is a mantra for an effing cold Friday, when Mouse is really supposed to be working. I traveled around in Belize with this English girl Vicki who used this phrase quite a lot. Quoth Vicki, "I can't be bothered to do any laundry today" or, while we lay in the sun in our bikinis, "Oh, I can't be bothered to turn over." I have considered this for a long time, and I don't think we have an equivalent expression in American English. "Can't be bothered" isn't so coarse as "I don't want to" or so whiny as "I can't." It does not give a reason for not doing the thing, because the excuse is so clearly not the point. Instead, it's an unendingly polite way to let yourself off the hook, as though you have an inner secretary who is trying to conserve your time and energy and says, "I'm terribly sorry, but Mouse just can't be bothered with working today."

I had this goal for the Christmas holidays of not accumulating so much stuff that I needed to ship a box back to Chicago. But mice have very large and generous families. The box was packed with useful stuff ranging from a new griddle for our kitchen to candy, and it was supposed to take seven days. Instead, it took fourteen days, and Mouse kept getting more and more worried about her loot. It finally came yesterday, HA!, and here are some of the goodies it contained: soap from L'Occitane, soap from Hermes (ooh, don't mommies do good stocking stuffers?), Boyfriend's thumb wrestling masks (see below) and beautiful going out on the town makeup (in glinty gold compact) from sister. Yay.

So, Mouse has this auntie who is a dear and sweet person but sends the most random and bizarre Christmas presents in all the land. Once it was MENSA math flashcards, which is random and bizarre because Mouse is severely allergic to numbers.

This is what was in my stocking this year, and I pulled it out and turned it around and puzzled over it for awhile before I figured it out. Ohhh, I said at last, it's an antique fork, tines bent up, two holes to screw it into the wall, and I bet you are supposed to hang necklaces or something on it.

I am deciding whether or not it will be allowed to live in my house. I think I must remove the heart-shaped beads from the tines. Thoughts on salvage?

I got Boyfriend real presents for Christmas, but I shouldn't have bothered. These lucha libre thumb wrestling masks, which I put in his stocking, are clearly the coolest thing ever to happen. They were at least Mouse's favorite out of all of his presents. Although I am told that I cheat at thumb wrestling. Pfa.

((Not sure where to find them online; mine came from here.))

Saipua is guest blogging on Design*Sponge today! About anemones! (Anemones are my absolute favorite flower and would actually make me consider getting hitched in otherwise-icky January.)

In case you're searching for inauguration party invites, here are some cute ones from La Familia Green (via Modern Craft). For the party Mouse and Boyfriend are attending, we have been instructed to bring something blue to eat, in honor of my snowy state that got its color scheme turned around this year, hurrah. Who knows a good blue thing to eat?

Argh, how did I not see these before I spent all that time making chaps for my tiny niece and tiny nephew for Christmas? They are SO CUTE! (They are also $117, so I would've ended up sewing the dern chaps anyway, I guess.) (Chaps by Wovenplay via Tiny McSmall via Mighty Junior)

Tiny nephew purportedly calls his chaps "chapstick," and tiny niece will not take hers off without a fight. I gave them red bandanas, too, and told them about bank robberies. Uh oh.

Pictures soon, I hope!

Here it is, the Mouse perfume for awhile, Diesel Fuel for Life. I like the name. Perfumes: The Guide calls it "courageous, inventive, beautifully crafted," and "terrifically weird, left-of-center." I quite agree. The first time I wore it, I kept pulling my tee-shirt up over my nose so I could smell it again. Every time I wait and put it on fresh, it smells different: sometimes sweeter, sometimes deeper. It has changing levels from morning to evening, so that it smells different at various hours of the day. There is fruit and herb in it, but it avoids smelling like food. The bottle is pretty and covered with a lace thingie that feels neither old nor cutsey. And the scent never conflicts with my mood: it can just as easily be a smell for happy mouse or glowery mouse.

The only trouble is desensitization. I can smell it for three days of wear, and then can't smell it at all. So I can only experience this perfume in hits and starts, three lovely days when I need them most and then away it goes for awhile. 

Mouse likes green things in the house during the winter, to remind her that it won't always be like this outside. This little succulent and two of his buddies hang by my kitchen window and make me happy every day. Vase from CB2.

Here's the second installment of my two-pronged strategy to defeat the cold: winter minestrone soup, steaming hot and packed with nutrients and leafy greens to help fortify you against all those germs. It includes tons of veggies (carrot, celery, onion, tomato) and then two to three massive bunches of winter greens (swiss chard, escarole, and cabbage*).

The flavor comes from a slow-cooked broth, so it takes awhile to make. But it is delicious, and the recipe makes so much soup that my pot very nearly ran over. Try it with ditalini pasta and you're set for a cozy winter's eve.

The recipe is from Gourmet (Jan. 2009) and listed online at handy Epicurious.** Enjoy!

*Works fine to skip one of these if your grocery has paltry veggies. (I'm looking at you, Trader Joe.)

**Works fine to do it with 4 oz. pancetta and a dollop of chicken broth if people at your house are worried about cholesterol or whatever.

Here is the Chicago forecast for the next week: cold and snowy, effing cold, effing cold, cold and snowy...I thought I would share the secret weapons I have found so far which keep me warm and content. 

1) Long undies: I wore my Patagonia Capilene 3 to the grocery store yesterday. The weather said "seven degrees, feels like eight below." The shopping trip involved shoveling my car out of a snowbank, then sitting in my cold car. And I didn't feel chilled at any point during the shopping trip. Hurrah! 

2) SmartWool socks: they have this sock called The Cable that is the thickness of a normal sock, except it's wool. That means it stays warm even when it gets wet. The "Smart" bit helps, too, because it also will not slide down inside your boot until your foot is half-naked. It also comes in lots of jazzy colors, if you are so inclined.

3) Good boots: say what you will about Uggs--they may be fuzzier and more comfy when dry--but Mouse is a girl from snowy climes and believes in Sorel boots. Although I also own this pair for serious snow conditions (they are rated warm and dry to 40 below or something), the ones above are my favorite boots ever. They are small enough that I do not feel like a T-Rex. They are fuzzy, but they are so thoroughly waterproofed that when you step in a puddle or a snowbank, your first thought is not "dang it!" but rather "oh, what a nice sound that made."

Stay warm, everybody.

Here are the runners-up, the perfumes that almost won my heart. Left: Hermes, Un Jardin en Mediterranee, which Perfumes: The Guide calls a three-star "tomato stem." What it smells like to me: warm, maternal summertime, gold jewelry, tomato leaves, short (sexy) hair. I will definitely wear it every day when I have kids. It is what I want to smell like as a mom. Right: Burberry, The Beat (not reviewed, just came out). What it smells like to me: on the edge of pink pepper, light, uncomplicated, bubbly, fun, mod. It's the smell of my more carefree self, so I wear it sometimes. But it's too hollow for everyday.

I will tell you tomorrow about the one I chose.

I want to live in this floating house on Lake Huron. I would not even care that it's probably effing cold there. Mmmm. (spotted on Apartment Therapy Chicago)

So, over the holidays, sister who lives in snow farmhouse's husband taught Mouse how to make this honey candy. Basically you heat honey and then twist it into these pretty, glass-like sticks. Oooh, I thought, how nice that would be for stirring tea! Turns out, perhaps not. It's pretty, but it's complicated to make and frequently involves burning either the honey or one's left thumb. And although it's delicious as candy, it's less good for stirring tea--the honey flavor is diluted by the corn syrup in the candy, and the melting part is sort of icky and sticky.

Better just to let it be. But here's a nice picture of how it would have been.

Yeeeee! Mouse's mother is taking her on a beach vacation. Time to start scheming about buying a new bikini. I particularly like that ruffly one on the top right. (Top: Anthro, Urban Outfitters; Bottom: Urban Outfitters, Anthro.)

The search for a new perfume starts with a look at the old ones. Mouse switches her scent every time there's a major change in life. Old favorites, from left to right: Curve (ha ha, my first perfume ever). Reviewed in Perfumes: The Guide as three star, "sour and conventional." I can't remember what it smells like. Next is J'Adore, from that heady, romantic first few years of college, a three-star that was better back then as a "dark, incense-like rose." Then there was the first big heartbreak, and I responded with simple, watery, tear-like Acqua di Gio, which they don't review. Coming into my independence, I found loud, big-voiced Chance, a three-star "floral oriental" that had the best longevity I have ever experienced in a perfume. (I could still smell that sucker when I went to bed, even when I wore it every day.)

Then there was a brief flirtation with Stella, not pictured, which wasn't quite right for me (despite giving it three stars, the book is incredibly hard on Stella, calling it "a fragrance for women who programmatically say no"--yikes). And there were a few confused years at the beginning of grad school scented with L by L.A.M.B., reviewed even more harshly. I briefly liked both of those scents. I remember Stella as being simply too feminine for me, and I loved the freesia and pear in L. My problem was the drydown--other people could still smell the perfume, but after the first day, I couldn't smell it at all anymore. Where is the fun in that? So the search began for a new scent.

Mouse is having motivation issues on this icky cold Monday, so clearly this sheep needs to come sit on my desk while I attempt to work. This is the second San Juan Chamula sacred sheep I brought back from Chiapas. The first one was a present for my dad, who threw it away when he moved (boo!). But this sacred sheep, who I mailed home in a butter box from a long backpacking trip, has a loving home on my bookcase, or today, on my desk. And he smells like wool and charcoal and butter, an oddly comforting smell.

So, having been on the edge of being a perfume nut for some time now, Mouse probably should not have read Perfumes: The Guide by Lucca Turin and Tania Sanchez (Viking, 2008). It has made me compulsively haunt Sephora and Nordstrom for free samples of the perfumes that sound interesting, trying out scents with varying degrees of success. Three Guerlain scents (each reviewed with five of five stars) came with enticing words: Apres l'Ondee (left) is described as one of the twenty greatest fragrances of all time, and as having a "melancholy, powdery iris note" but also thyme, rosemary, and sage, which make it "smile through its tears" (mmm). I'm a romantic, but cannot find this one anywhere you can get a free sample.

I liked the idea of Jicky (right) because it is the oldest perfume in continuous existence, and wearing something that has been around since 1889 is damn exciting. But the fragrance isn't, at least to me--I found it sort of stately, a perfume meant for a person who has a bosom.

At the end of my Guerlain experiment was L'Heure Bleue, described as praline with "sunny orange flower." Boyfriend brought that one to a quick, wrist-scrubbing end when he commented (not unkindly), "mm, you smell like a donut hole."

More this week on the great perfume adventure.

This was pretty much our weekend: eating these cookies and watching Hitchcock movies. Needless to say, it was great. We have discovered (by basically eating this entire plate of cookies over the course of three days) that although they do not stay gooey by themselves, a quick 20 seconds in the microwave returns them to their heavenly gooey state. Recipe here, from Smitten Kitchen.

Hurray for Boyfriend, who noticed that Mouse is tired of lugging around her giant (although beloved) digital camera. This one turned up for Christmas, and will fit inside the teensiest clutch next time we go to a wedding, or in my back pocket next time we go to a beach, or in my handbag next time I leave the house...