Saturday, August 31, 2013

10 Things I like about her

For my wonderful best friend of many years, maid of honor, sister in Christ on her birthday.

   

1. Her obscene love of chocolate (and the way she tries to convince me that she eats 3 slabs of chocolate a day and still looks like a super model).
2. The way she always smells like caramel and sweetness.
3. Her humility (she is SO beautiful and SO smart but doesn't seem to notice). 
4. The crazy sense of humor that comes out late at night after lots of sugar. 
5. How pretty she looks in Turquoise. 
6. The way she can fit everything into her handbag (and has everything you'd ever need in her handbag).
7. Her never ending optimism and encouragement about anything that I do (whether it's my writing, or my baking cupcakes that she KNOWS taste better when she bakes them). 
8. That I can not see her for months and months but when I see her again it feels like the months apart never happened.
9. The way that she writes, so descriptive and beautiful [you can check it out here: http://danicasmuts.tumblr.com/]. 
10. That she is one of the only people who, when I'm upset, gets as upset as I am and when I'm happy is as happy for me as I am.

Because she's lovely. Obviously. 

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The perfect clothing

Gosh I never ever post about anything remotely concerning fashion BUT when I saw this collection I knew that I just had to share it with the world (my very small world of blog-followers). So here it is, the new Free People lookbook collection called 'Like a rolling stone'
It's beautiful and colorful and makes me want to buy all the clothes and then go live in a wood cabin and be a gypsy (or at least look like one). It also- weirdly enough- makes me want a llama. 

 









You can check out the Free People site here to see more of their amazing stuff:  http://www.freepeople.com/

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Things my husband says part 1

This is Graham. He is quite funny, QUITE. But he thinks he's definitely the funniest person he's ever met. Most of the things that make him giggle/laugh/cry with laughter have to do with me- I have a suspicion that he married me because I provide him with comical relief or at least endless amounts of humorous material. He's been saying forever that he'd love to write down the things that he says about/to me to be able to show the world his genius. So here are some touching things he's said in the past while-so that you can decide for yourselves.

   

*Lynsay, after being incredibly aware of the weight she's put on comes to Graham to show him that she can't fit into her jeans anymore and when she bends over they rip. Graham thinks this is very funny. Later when they're out for lunch and the bill arrives the waiter puts the bill in front of Lynsay* 
Lynsay: "See, even the waiter knows that in our family I'm the one wearing the pants." Graham: "yes, the ripped pants" *Graham dies of laughter* 

Lynsay: "Love I'm not going to be here for the afternoon is that okay?" Graham: "of course it is. I'll have time to spend with some of my old girl-friends."

*Around easter time, driving to Petermaritzberg* 
Lynsay: "I think we need to get out of this lane, it says that anything over 3 tones can't drive here." Graham: "I don't think we need to worry about weighing that much unless... *looks at Lynsay's stomach* how many marshmallow easter eggs have you eaten?" 

*Also around easter time* 
Lynsay: "do you want a marshmallow egg? No? Well I'm going to have one" *Graham puffs out cheeks, makes his body as big as possible and follows Lynsay around making loud stomping/eating noises* 

[And this is Graham's favorite] *Graham is standing around a braai with his friends telling them how excited he is for the start of the Premiership season when Lynsay comes into the conversation* 
Lynsay: "Why don't you get this excited about seeing me?" Graham: "Because you don't go away for three months at at time."

   

Yes, this is my life. It's enough for me to want to go on an all-cupcake diet

Monday, August 19, 2013

A teensy little monday post because I got no sleep

Happy Monday! Here is a puppy for your effort

.  

4 more weeks to Paris! I keep wearing my country Road jumper (shocker, its cold in Durban) with French words on it to remind myself of this glorious fact. The days are moving speedily along; I finished Lolita and have given myself over to Charles Dickens 'The Haunted House' which I find way too creepy to read in bed at night time (even with Graham next to me- although for the past few days due to his sickness it's felt more like i've been sleeping next to a railway station. One that I have to wake up every hour and ask to roll over so that I can get some sleep... so if you see me and wonder why my face is like it is the best thing would probably be not to tell me that I look tired). 


I'm daydreaming of pasta.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Lolita and musings

After the shortest long weekend ever I'm back in the same place as I was last week when I told you I had resolved to get my reading butt into gear and I am happy to report that I have! I'm on my way to finishing Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita which has been an incredibly challenging read. Not because of how he writes, I love his whimsical sarcastic way of writing, but because of the subject matter. The narrator often begs the reader to try and understand the things he's writing from his point of view or at least to be sympathetic to his unhealthy obsession with little girls ("nymphets") and Lolita in particular. I do think I'm more sympathetic than Graham has been (who tells me the narrator should be locked up in an asylum for perverts) but it's still been difficult understand or to get on board with Humbert's (that is, the narrators) illicit actions regarding his "step-daughter."

   

Aside from reading we had a friend come and stay over at our place this past weekend. We only have one bed so we had to buy a blow-up mattress and slept on it on our lounge floor which was like a mini camping trip (a camping trip where graham would slam/roll his body into the tv cabinet every 2 hours or so throughout the night). We spent saturday lounging around, getting tea, going back to bed, having hour-long heated debates in bed while the sunlight streamed in through the curtains- the perfect way to spend a day in my opinion. We decided to take a chance on having lunch at a mexican place well known for their food poisoning and we came out alive with full tummies (the food was surprisingly good!).

   

[Only 6 more weeks to Paris and Amsterdam. One of my lovely friends is in Paris at the moment and all her pictures and tweets are causing the anticipation of traveling to be SO much more than is rationally acceptable. Grahams mom bought me a beautiful brown leather passport cover to take with- 6 weeks seems like a century away!]

 

For the past few days (and days to come) I've been cooking my little heart out-obviously not to the level that it's done on master chef but still- I made my (when I say my I mean Jamie Olivers) amazing chorizo pasta on saturday night which has become to go-to dish for when we want something yummy and spicy that requires very little effort. I baked for women's day on Thursday (regular vanilla biscuits with royal icing but for some reason they turn out to be flipping fantastic) and I shall put the recipe on the blog soon. Last night I made spicy fish stew which may replace the chorizo pasta as the easiest tastiest dish I know. And tonight it's roast chicken and oven veggies- so chilled. I must admit that I'm pretty impressed with myself, a year ago I could make toasted sandwiches but now I think nothing of making roast chicken. Its pretty awesome what you can teach yourself to do when you have to. When you have a starving husband at home who looks at you with puppy eyes when he asks what dinner is. 

 

I know you're dying to read a bit of Lolita now to see what dodgy things the characters get up to so i'll save you the trouble of hunting the book down; 
[this quote is taken from the time that the narrator first sees Lolita] 
"It was the same child-the same frail, honey-hued shoulders, the same silky supple bare back, the same chestnut head of hair. A polka-dotted black kerchief tied around her chest hid from my a gaping eyes, but not from the gaze of my young memory, the juvenile breasts I had fondled one immortal day. And, as if I were the fairytale nurse of some little princess...I recognized the tiny dark-brown mole on her side. With awe and delight... I saw again her lovely in-drawn abdomen where my southbound mouth had briefly paused; those puerile hips on which I had kissed the crenulated imprint left by the band of her shorts- that last mad day behind the "Roches and Roses." The twenty-five years I had lived since then, tapered to a palpitating point, and vanished."

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

An english major who doesn't read

I have never been incredibly good at anything. Only recently have I developed some skill in baking, I'm able to draw fairly well if I put my mind to it (I have an amazing memory- you can ask Graham to verify this) and I sing pretty well, or so i've been told, but i'm not REALLY good at any of these things on this very short list. I have only ever been really good at reading books. (Embarrassing though it may be) I'm proud to say that the awards I got in school were for reading. I was on every book general knowledge team there was throughout school. Reading was what I looked forward to every break time and at the end of every school day. sheesh I was the girl who had read her matric set-work in the first year of high school and when she felt like she needed some challenging reading decided to spend some quality time with Chaucer. I was the girl who other girls didn't understand- because who reads anything other than magazines- and the girl that intimidated the boys by being as knowledgeable about Sci-Fi and fantasy worlds as they were. I was the girl who preferred books to people because books were safe and you could always rely on them to take you into another world.

   

With my obvious love, no, passion, desire, hunger for books the day that I discovered that I could get a degree in reading (by becoming an English major) was a very exciting day. And now here I am, living the dream only now I don't read. 
Looking back trying to figure out what happened I instinctively blame my studies. In the past 4 years I already have to do so much reading for university that any reading outside of my degree is limited to magazines (what up high school girls). But if I'm honest the reason I read less now is because I'm lazy. I would way prefer to spend an afternoon on our couch watching The Style Network or E! or anything really trashy and exciting than doing something as strenuous as reading Charles Dickens (something my teenage self would have laughed at). 
Enter my very patient and long-suffering husband, the reading champion, the man who has read 30 books this year so far. For almost 3 years he has gently nudged me to read, clearing my dish-washing schedule, making a set reading time for both of us, giving me books he thinks i'll enjoy, encouraging me to "talk literature" with him. But I've been more set in my television watching ways than either of us anticipated.

   

But then something happened. This week I read this post: http://sixtywinters.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/things-i-lovewantneed-right-now/ and was inspired. Not even the whole post, just the first part. To see how many books someone can read when they make time for it because they love it made me want to immediately change my tv slob ways.

 

Today I begin a new book. And I'm excited about it, I haven't had a new book in a month and a half. Hopefully this re-kindled passion will set me on the road to becoming an english major that my child and teenage self would have been proud of.