Tea Party ala Christmas 2008

While away for Christmas at my in laws we had such a good relaxed holiday there for once. Normally it's running around for family get togethers, spending 3-4 hours on the road amongst Sydney traffic. This time, we took it so easy.

(The holiday started badly with a smashed windscreen and oil leaking... so we desperately needed a good time after that.)

And we did.

Here's a shot of a tea party setting I set out just to play with my camera. My MIL has spent years collecting antique gorgeous china and I dragged out some of her best :)

Kim's Kitchen Remodel ala Greentea Design & Kitchens

My sponsor, Greentea Design, did a fantastic job imho remodeling blogger friend Kim's kitchen.

Kim is one half co-owner of wildly popular blog Desire to Inspire and she moved into her own house in Canada and did a really good job with her then-kitchen. It went from this:





To this with the help of boyfriend Jeff and some good blogland suggestions:





(which is bloody awesome as it is since it was looking so cool and glowy)

And in Sept 08, Kim revealed a biggie: she scored a deal with greentea design & kitchens; in exchange for some extensive coverage on their work in her kitchen, she'd get a package of some awesome japanese-inspired kitchen cabinets.

This was the discussed plan:



And after four months, here is her fantastic new kitchen!











Read Kim's kitchen reno here.

See more of greentea designs & kitchens here.

Well done guys!!!!!

The Land Before (or more accurately, Without) Time

Last week, my Swiss Army watch, the same one I have worn since high school, broke. No, the battery didn't just die -- the face became detached from the insides. I know I could get this fixed and I probably will, but for the time being, I have no watch. And it drives me CRAZY.

I don't understand how people exist without watches. Many claim they just use their cell phones to keep track of time. But it's so much easier for me to glance at my wrist than locate my cell phone, which at any given moment could be buried at the bottom of my purse, in my coat pocket or left at home/on the T/in Starbucks.

So my world is rattled by being sans watch. But it goes further (farther? I never know when to use further vs. farther...) than that-- the clock on my laptop is also not working. It has said that it's 8:28 p.m. for the past two weeks. My laptop is running very slowly and gimpily and I need to take it in to get fixed, but since the internet still works, I keep putting it off. To make matters worse, the only clock in my apartment is the one on my microwave and it runs consistently ten minutes slow, no matter how many times I reset it. I have no alarm clock -- when I have to get up early, I use the alarm on my phone.

So I'm existing in a sort of timeless vacuum right now, folks. It's disorienting, but also a little liberating. Right now, I have no idea what time it is because I'm too lazy to go check the microwave. I know it's afternoon, but beyond that, I got nothin'.

Nicola by Shabner for sale.

This is now for sale. I thought I'd offer it here before eBay-ing it. Any takers? I can try to remove it from the frame and insert it into a mailing tube if preferred, since the frame is damaged at the bottom.

Measurements with frame are 60cm height, 50cm width.

Leave a comment or email me via my paperbean design website.

Marinna Kennedy inspiration

We're back!!!

Happy New Year!!

We got back from in laws about 6pm last night. Since then till midday today, we've been madly cleaning. Once I get home from holidays for more than a week, I have a desperate need to clean the entire place, even though I normally clean before leaving. Don't ask why.

Now we're relaxing. I can't be bothered thinking about dinner.



I discovered bespoke, a line of bespoked home furnishings created by Marianna Kennedy, a talented duo from London.

I'm now struck by a need to secure an old side table, getting me some black gloss and some pretty yellow paper (or fabric) and going all decoupage-crafty!

Marianna states her ethos: "The pleasure of antiques is not only the pleasure of beautiful materials skilfully put together - it is a sense of the mind and hand behind those things - the human element that speaks through the metal and wood, the sense that somebody made this, and that there is a connection between us.... There is no reason why new, modern pieces shouldn't have this connection - this feel for the human that mass production always fails to deliver."

I'm constantly looking for a cute cabinet to store my printer/scanner and workbags... might do me some of that gorgeous decoupage work ('cause I can't handpaint like Ms Kennedy and can't afford the super pricey tag!).

Some prettyChiyogami papers might do the job nicely...

So You Think You Don't Like Poetry

Whenever I explain to someone that I'm in a graduate writing program, the inevitable next question is, "What do you like to write?" And when I say "poetry," he or she will get this strange, uncomprehending look on his/her face as if just finding out for the first time what calamari actually is.

People are scared of poetry. They think that they don't or won't understand it and that makes them not like it. If I wrote fiction, that would be easier to grasp -- the logic would be something like, "Katie wants to write a novel. I like to read novels, so I understand why Katie wants to write one." The poetry logic is harder to follow-- who reads poetry these days? Awareness of poetry for many of my friends, even the exceptionally well-read ones, consists of skipping over poems in The New Yorker.

So I'm going to post one poem a week on this blog that I challenge you NOT to like. I won't post my own stuff -- that you can read by clicking on the links under the Poems sidebar. I'm going to post poems that are so undeniably awesome and accessible that you will not be able to claim you don't get them or like them. I'll only post things written in the last decade, to prove my point that poetry is not antiquated or obsolete, but very much alive and still kicking.

This week's poem is "Eggrolls," by Alan Shapiro, published in 2005. It's funny (did you know poems could be funny?) and unexpected and, in my opinion, impossible not to like.

The gregarious babble
muffled the sharp
words the couple
in the next booth
were trying all
through dinner not
to have;
only
an occasional
No you, you
listen for a change,
or How dare you
or I can't believe this
would rise
above the barely
suppressed
staccato please
god not now
not here rhythm of
an argument they wanted
both to swallow
and spit out.
Then the pause,
the momentary
silence in which
the whole place
seemed
to be listening
to the woman say, at last,
clearly and slowly,
so everyone could hear,
"It's not
the eggrolls, Harry,
it's the last ten years."

Oh, Harry, can you
forgive them,
the young couple
in the next booth
who laughed out loud
but really did
try not to—
surely
you heard them,
how could you not have?—
as you ran past,
hurrying after her,
your disappearing wife?
And though it's nearly
thirty years
since then,
would it console you
or amuse you now
to learn they didn't
last a year,
that couple,
and even
that night,
although
they strolled home
hand in hand,
a little less estranged
for all the laughter
you occasioned,
even after
making love
and meaning it and
lying back, they heard—
they couldn't help
but lie there wide
awake and hear—
the couple from the next
apartment
who
for all they knew
could have been you and her,
go at it longer
louder
deeper into the night
than they themselves
had ever thought
was possible?

Absolutely beautiful at Absolutely Beautiful Things!

Anna Spiro, fellow Australian design blogger behind the wildly successful blog Absolutely Beautiful Things, is an incredibly inspirational interior designer and she's recently posted her newly renovated, recently bought, home in Brisbane. It's right down my design style... with more money, of course! :)

I love it so much!