NICK'S CAFE

Getting there.

Photo by David Newsom

"HONORING PASSING SPACES"

I'm not going anywhere. But for the last year I lived in dread of it, held tight to my space as if it was grounded and I just a flash of light. But that was because the time to leave wasn't yet. Places are animate and a part of us, they breathe at night and sleep during the day. Here is a handbook for saying goodbye, when the time brings it.

February 2, 2010, from Daily Om
Honoring Passing Spaces: Saying Good-bye to a Home

When we move from one residence to another, we often get so caught up in the forward thrust of where we are going that we forget to properly say good-bye to the home we are leaving behind. Yet saying good-bye is an important part of moving forward. It gives us a sense of completion so that we are able to fully inhabit our new space, having left nothing of ourselves behind in the old one. In this way, we honor the space that has held and nurtured us. At the same time, we cleanse it and empty it of our energy so that the new residents can make the space theirs.

Plan a walk through your home that begins and ends at the front door. Ideally, you will be alone or accompanied only by a person who shared the space with you. Prepare yourself mentally to be as present as you can during this process. As you enter the house, you might say, “I have come to thank you for being my home and to say good-bye.” You might touch the walls with your hands as you move through the house, or you might burn sage as an offering, as well as an energy cleanser. Spend some time in each room expressing your gratitude and gathering or releasing any lingering energy from the room. As you do this, you are freeing your home to embrace its new occupants. Remember to visit your outside spaces as well. Plants are especially sensitive to the energy around them and will appreciate your consideration.

As you make your way back to the front door, know that you have completed your final journey through your home and that you have honored and blessed it with this ritual of farewell. As you close and lock the door behind you, say one last good-bye. Now you can walk freely into your future and fully inhabit the new spaces that will keep you safe and warm.

I LOVE FEBRUARY

February is a my favorite month of the year. A tiny little festive month, it flies by full of hearts and old-guy clebrations and somewhere along the way a special event that happens in the cold, memorable, that you won't want to forget. I look forward to February, and commit to, March 1st, recording what that most special February moment was.

Gorgeous screen savers from Clotilde at Chocolate & Zucchini.

TOMATOES AND THOSE THEY INSPIRE

Ready to get some color back, so channeling summer through the reds.

From Tiny Urban Kitchen, escapist food and restaurant blog written about Boston and beyond.

Checking Out

Shetland Isles Cow, at show. Now interested.

New York at Night

Photo from Architect/Photographer Alexander Severin

MUST GO MOROCCO

Do I have to wait until I turn 50? Read the beautiful blog post from Pret a Voyager.

GIRL 2

- Natalia Vetrova

GIRL

I LOVE BECK!

SARCASM AS ART

From today's New York Times. When the world is so broken and the best defense is a little silly sarcasm - a symbol:

"This is what we really need. For those who want to make sure their sarcasm is recognized for what it is, Sarcasm Inc., a Michigan company, has developed the “SarcMark” to identify sarcastic comments in e-mail and text messages.

"Never again be misunderstood! Never again waste a good sarcastic line on someone who doesn’t get it!” the company said on its website. It offered such examples as “I love my job” and “Because that was so much fun the last time we did it.”

Software available at Sarcasm Inc for $1.99.

ICICLES

Jars, ice in January.

Sculpture by Naoko Ito, "Urban nature"

Virginia Woolf & Fruit

"That perhaps is your task--to find the relation between things that seem incompatible yet have a mysterious affinity, to absorb every experience that comes your way fearlessly and saturate it completely so that your poem is a whole, not a fragment; to re-think human life into poetry and so give us tragedy again and comedy by means of characters not spun out at length in the novelist's way, but condensed and synthesized in the poet's way--that is what we look to you to do now."

- Virginia Woolf

AN HOUR WITH ANNE

AGELESS AND ALWAYS A WAY TO LEARN, A FRIEND TO ESCAPE TO. A VOICE I LOVE.

YEARS

Mallory, Chambord, 2004

Modesty, la Place du Tertre

Trying to sell what he desperately doesn't want to make public. The artist's conflict. Le Marche' du Tertre, Paris.

Self portrait by Bruno Schlumberger

SATURDAY CITRUS

Optimism in a fruit. From Eating is Art.

CHANDELIER

DELICACY, FROM PLASTIC.

Chandelier made by Caroline Saul from recycled waste

LOOSE RHYTHMIC CREATIVITY

IF CREATIVITY CAN BE CONTAGIOUS, HERE IT IS.

RECOLLECTIONS

Remember the days of sitting with back against the kitchen cabinets with a baby across the lap. Always seemed like a last resort. The bare branch reflections run the soundtrack.

Work by Caroline Shephard

PRAYERS ANSWERED

CHOCOLATE FINANCIERS
Gluten free

Ingredients:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup almond flour*
4 tablespoons Dutch-process unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup egg whites (approx. two large)
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lightly grease and flour financier molds or mini-muffin tins. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and set it aside until it reaches room temperature.

Mix the almond flour with the cocoa powder, salt, and powdered sugar. Stir the egg whites and almond extract into the almond mixture, then gradually stir in the melted butter until incorporated and smooth. Spoon the batter into the molds, filling them three-quarters full.

Bake the financiers for 10 to 15 minutes, until the cookies are slightly puffed and springy to the touch. Remove them from the oven and let cool completely before removing the financiers from the molds.

Makes 15 small financiers

* The recipe writer made this by pulsing blanched almonds in the food processor until they were reduced to a powder. However, if you can find almond meal in the store, the texture will be less gritty.

From a great new recipe site, Smitten Kitchen, check it out!

INSPIRED BY SOUND?

Such a simple soultion. Tranquil Moments by Brookstone.

CHILD AT REST

Whatif
by Shel Silverstein

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I'm dumb in school?
Whatif they've closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there's poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don't grow talle?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won't bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don't grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

SANTA MARIA NOVELLA

THERE IN FLORENCE, THE APOTHECARY THAT HAS STOOD FOR CENTURIES STILL MAKES MY FAVORITE SCENTS.

RESOLUTION HALF FULL

Glass with reflection of all that's colorful. Promises of clarity and balance. Self and others.

January 1, 2010





Painting by Tony Curanaj