Flower Farm

Twee!

2010-04-20T23:31:00.003-04:00

At this point, I am pretty sure that I am going to do nothing but go to class and write (my thesis and various other essays) and occasionally eat and sleep between now and 30 April. NOT CUTE. But this song "Twee" by Tullycraft is really cute, and has basically become my theme song.

Listen to the lyrics--you'll see why.

Love, Jillian

Coast Highway Sandals

2010-04-18T19:50:00.002-04:00

These are so so so so so so so expensive, but I think that I might buy them for myself as a thesis reward/bribe.

I can't help it. Look at them! Look at the name! I HAVE TO HAVE THEM.

Love, Jillian

Avoiding my Thesis

2010-03-30T21:29:00.010-04:00

My first draft of my thesis is due tomorrow (AAAAHHHH!), so of course I have hidden myself in the library (soon I will be hiding in Guild when the library closes in two-and-a-half hours) with my thesis-writing hat (see below) to pull an all-nighter. And, of course, I am taking regular breaks to do really important things like text people, check Facebook, and update Flower Farm!

"Thesis Hat" is basically a euphemism for "Hat That Covers My Hair So You Can't See How Dirty It Is Because I Haven't Had Time To Shower." Also, I am wearing my new glasses!

I keep saying that I am going to make a real post someday, but it looks like "someday" is starting to mean "after graduation, if I am still alive." So, instead, I am going to post a bunch of pictures of kittens that I have accumulated over the past week or so when I should have been working on my thesis! I am well aware that this proves that I am really, really, REALLY close to becoming an insane cat-lady.

And here is a picture of Primo Levi (the author I'm writing my thesis about), because even though he wrote about super-sad stuff, he was still a super-cute old man!

Also, check out this article (kind of) about Flower Farm that was in the Bi-Co News (Bryn Mawr and Haverford's newspaper) last week! That's it for now, I should probably get back to writing.

Love, Jillian

Let's Go Surfing

2010-03-19T14:42:00.003-04:00

Love, Jillian

In the Sun

2010-03-11T09:40:00.003-05:00

I know it's been a while, but I promise I'll make a real post soon! Until then, here's the video for "In the Sun"--She & Him's (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward) first single from their album Volume Two:

Love, Jillian

Coming Soon

2010-02-20T15:02:00.002-05:00

I am currently waiting for this to come in the mail:

More later.

Love, Jillian

GreenMarker

2010-02-18T21:56:00.003-05:00

My carrel could be so cute:

Just in case you read Japanese, here they are.

Love, Jillian

My Perfect Road Trip(s)

2010-02-14T14:36:00.006-05:00

Because of the BLIZZARD we had this week and because of how bad the Philly area is at clearing roads, we just had a bunch of snow days this week. So, obviously, I had lots of free time to plan my perfect road trip! I think I mentioned how much I have wanted to go on another road trip back in my post about Big Sur, and even though it is probably not going to happen, at least now I have one totally planned out just in case.

At first I started out with the idea of basically going to Big Sur and back, but then I figured, "If I'm in Big Sur already, I might as well go to San Francisco. And if I'm in San Francisco, I should probably head east and hit up Lake Tahoe and stop in Sausalito on the way because it is adorable. And maybe Yosemite. And you can't not go to Sequoia! And then Death Valley is right there, and then it's really not that far to the Grand Canyon." And so I ended up with this:

A/R: my house, B: the Getty Villa, C: Santa Barbara, D: San Luis Obispo, E: Hearst Castle, F: Big Sur, G: Santa Cruz, H: San Francisco, I: Sausalito, J: Lake Tahoe, K: Yosemite, L: Sequoia National Park, M: Death Valley, N: Las Vegas, O: the Hoover Dam, P: the Grand Canyon, Q: Big Bear Lake, R: my house

That is not even like a road trip anymore, you would probably need at least three weeks to do it. I guess most of the stops are just places I would stop along the way to break up the driving (the Getty Villa, SLO and Santa Cruz, etc.), but there are also a lot of places where you would have to spend at least two nights so you can have a whole day in Big Sur or Lake Tahoe or Yosemite.

So then I split it up into two smaller road trips. The first one is just in California (because why would you ever leave??), and the second is kind of like a southwest road trip.

A/M: my house, B: the Getty Villa, C: Santa Barbara, D: San Luis Obispo, E: Hearst Castle, F: Big Sur, G: Santa Cruz, H: San Francisco, I: Sausalito, J: Lake Tahoe, K: Yosemite, L: Sequoia National Park, M: my house

A/J: my house, B/H: Barstow, C: Death Valley, D: Las Vegas, E: the Hoover Dam, F: the Grand Canyon, G: the Mojave National Preserve, H: Barstow, I: Big Bear Lake, J: my house

I think that the first road trip (the California one) would be really awesome do to in like October, because then Yosemite and Lake Tahoe and all of the other tourist places aren't insanely full of people like they are in the summer. Plus, October weather is really nice and not too hot (I hate being too hot). I would say that it would be a good fall break road trip, but I am not going to be in school in the fall!! That is terrifying/awesome.

And then the second road trip is one that I would definitely not do in the summer, because I would probably like die of dehydration in Death Valley. And then I would eat myself into a food coma at the GIANT IN-N-OUT in Barstow (that is the only reason Barstow is a stop). But it would be awesome in like early spring when the flowers bloom in the desert!

Even though neither one of these trips will probably ever happen in the near future, it's fun to think about. I've already found a campground in Big Sur that has hiking trails along the Big Sur River all the way down to the beach and horseback rides that go into the Redwood Forest (just typing those words makes that "This Land is Your Land" song get stuck in my head)! Who knows, maybe I will magically make enough money this summer to be able to borrow (steal) my mom's Prius and go on my California road trip in the fall!

Love, Jillian

P.S. Happy Valentine's Day! I am working in the cafe (again) and playing exclusively songs from the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs album, just like I did last year!

Want:

2010-02-12T21:00:00.004-05:00

Find them all here.

Love, Jillian

P.S. I am updating from my brand new Macbook! It is so pretty and shiny and it actually works (unlike my old one)!

Happy (late) Birthday!!

2010-02-07T13:09:00.006-05:00

I just realized a few days ago that yesterday was Flower Farm's first birthday! I meant to make this post yesterday, but we got SO MUCH SNOW on Friday night and Saturday that I got snowed in. I guess I could have made this post yesterday anyway, but I really wanted to use this picture that I'd saved on my computer, and I couldn't have done that until now. Because, isn't this the most adorable birthday cake ever?

Plus, it is basically perfect that we had an amazing snowstorm on the day of Flower Farm's birthday, because snow days and snow-day activities are fun and adorable, and that is what Flower Farm is all about!

And this is a goofy picture, but you can see the scarf I made when I was sick a few weeks ago:

Now I am going to go take a shower for the first time since Friday.

Love, Jillian

Coffee

2010-02-02T16:50:00.003-05:00

So I've definitely been debating with myself for a while now about whether or not I should actually write this post. Coffee and I kind of have a love/hate relationship because I get addicted to it really easily and so when I don't get to have any I just end up getting headaches and not being able to function. But it is also really nice to have something warm and delicious every morning that wakes you up a little. Plus, it is fun to make! I love these little espresso-maker things:

I had one in my apartment in Milan that was teeny-tiny and precious. It only made one cup of espresso at a time, it was perfect! And I always get really excited when I find restaurants and cafes that make coffee that is so delicious you can drink it black. There is one place in Philly that has really good coffee and I have been craving pretty much everything on their menu for like a full week now. Hopefully I will go soon, maybe I will make a post about it then!

Love, Jillian

P.S. Happy Groundhog Day!

These Stairs

2010-01-31T22:38:00.006-05:00

I'm not even going to try to make up some reason why this is cute or justifiable to post here, the fact is that it's just about the coolest thing I've ever seen:

When I have a house, I am totally doing that to the stairs.

Love, Jillian

It's Cold Today!

2010-01-30T14:02:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, my mom called me to "let me know" that it was 19 degrees out but felt like 7 because of the wind chill. Today, it is equally cold. I would be okay with that if it looked like this outside:

I think I am going to see if I can maybe go play with some kittens after I'm done being lazy and pretending to clean my room.

Love, Jillian

P.S. OH MY GOD IT JUST STARTED SNOWING OUTSIDE WHILE I WAS WRITING THIS POST! It's perfect!

Kittens

2010-01-24T14:41:00.006-05:00

More than anything else in the whole world right now, I wish I could have a tiny little pet kitten. Kittens are super extra precious and having a kitten would have made me feel less bad about my throat trying to kill me this week, and not getting to go to Michelle's ugly sweater party (best party ever?!!?!) would have been a whole lot less boring and lame if I'd had a kitten to cuddle and play with.

I was absolutely, completely, ridiculously obsessed with kittens last spring semester--I'm pretty sure that like every other sentence that came out of my mouth was somehow about kittens, and usually involved me asking whoever I was talking to if they'd buy me a kitten or what kind of kitten I should get. I have since learned to control that impulse, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about kittens ALL THE TIME.

I've come to the conclusion that having a kitten would make my life basically perfect. It would even make all of the reading I have to do less icky, and I would be way more okay with spending tons of time in my room thesising if there was a kitten there, too. Okay, I am actually okay with the reading because it is Dante and I have been nerdily longing to take the Dante class FOREVER and I really like my thesis, but STILL. Kittens are awesome. The end.

Love, Jillian

P.S. Check out this terrifying-but-somehow-cute video about kittens.

My Best Friend This Week

2010-01-23T13:12:00.010-05:00

I wish that I'd had this adorable little ice cream cone this week! Ice cream was the only thing that didn't hurt to swallow, so I guess this is actually a pretty accurate idea of the amount of ice cream I ate between Wednesday and today:

Luckily, the health center gave me some antibiotics and now I can eat without it hurting too much, even though my strep throat isn't entirely gone yet. I think that my favorite ice-cream face is the little green one. Or the white one all the way on the bottom. They are all precious!

Love, Jillian

THE SHIBA INU PUPPIES ARE BACK

2010-01-19T16:30:00.002-05:00

Unless you've been living a life completely devoid of all cuteness for the past year or so, you totally remember the six Shiba Inu puppies from San Francisco that had their own little live webcam thing going on last fall. Well, the same dog had five more puppies, and the webcam is back!!! Just in time for school and procrastination and all that good stuff. I don't even need to explain why this is cute, just try to remember to leave your computer every now and then to eat and maybe shower or sleep. Watch them do all sorts of adorable things here!

Love, Jillian

Pear Coasters

2010-01-18T15:27:00.002-05:00

Check out these insanely adorable pear-shaped coasters that I found on one of the random blogs I read:

Aren't they precious?! It looks like knitting to me, so maybe someday I will be able to make some myself!

Love, Jillian

Braids!

2010-01-08T15:40:00.005-05:00

I am pretty sure that I have always thought braids are incredibly cute. But I don't think that my mom knows how to braid hair, so I didn't ever learn how until I was like twelve. But thanks to the internet and an old subscription to CosmoGirl, I learned how to braid and French braid and do those reverse French braids where it looks like the braid is on top of your hair instead of under it:

Over the summer I learned how to do this kind of braid:

And yesterday, I finally learned how to do this:

I love fishtail braids! I am always jealous of little five-year-old girls whenever I see them with fishtail braids, but now that I know how to do it, I don't have to be jealous anymore. I guess now I just need to start actually braiding my hair every so often, and then my hair will always be cute!

Love, Jillian

I Want A House

2010-01-07T11:13:00.006-05:00

Self-explanatory.

Love, Jillian

The Blow

2010-01-06T11:44:00.002-05:00

So I know that I have basically abandoned Flower Farm for almost two weeks, but I am back! I got distracted with break-things like sleeping and getting way too used to the summer-like weather we've been having (except for the one day when it rained). I have also been busy listening to a lot of The Blow!

I think I first fell in love with The Blow when I heard "True Affection" around two years ago. I didn't know who the band was, but I remember really liking it, and so when I stumbled upon it a few months ago, I got as much of The Blow as I could! The Blow is Khaela Maricich from Portland, Oregon, and she makes some seriously adorable music.

I have to admit, even though "True Affection" is super cute (just check out the lyrics), "Parentheses" is like a million times cuter. Luckily, both songs are on the album Paper Television. I also really love that "'Come On Petunia'" uses the chorus from The Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," and I really like pretty much every other song on Poor Aim: Love Songs, too.

But seriously, at least go listen to "Parentheses" on her myspace. The cuteness is pretty hard to miss.

Love, Jillian

Slow Club's "Christmas TV"

2009-12-24T15:47:00.004-05:00

Because today is Christmas Eve (!!!), I figured it was the appropriate time to write about the most adorable, saddest, most perfect Christmas song EVER. It's "Christmas TV" by Slow Club, and I listen to it all year because it is just that precious. I think that I listened to it on repeat for at least half of my flight home on Friday, and I've been listening to it a ton since I've been home, too. Every line of this song is full of Christmas adorableness and perfection, especially where it goes, It's okay that I pray/ that you will miss your flight/ and have to stay with me another night. If that doesn't make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, you have no heart or soul or feelings and you are probably a robot or something.

Anyway, I have to go do laundry and finish making/wrapping my Christmas presents, so here is a cute little video of Slow Club singing "Christmas TV" inside a cute little gazebo-thing!

Love, Jillian

My New Necklace & A Bulldog Puppy!

2009-12-21T02:06:00.004-05:00

I went to the Seaside Bazaar in Encinitas (I will make a post about it someday) with my sister today, and pretty much finished my Christmas shopping! I went to the same woman I always buy jewelry from, and found two really great antique pieces. I bought them both, and of course, one of them was for myself. Mine is a pietra dura necklace, check it out:

I can't write about the other one here because it is a present, but it is also super cute and totally worthy of being included in this post. Oh, well! I feel like all I've been doing since I've been home is sleeping, eating, knitting, and putting gas in people's cars. It's pretty sweet. And between doing those things, I found this adorable video of a tiny little puppy that is so little it doesn't even know how to walk yet!

Love, Jillian

Home is Cute

2009-12-19T20:13:00.007-05:00

I got home last night after being gone since August, and it is even better than I imagined! There are so many reasons why being home is amazing, and everyone is probably sick of hearing about how much I love San Diego, but I can't help it!

This is what I wore to run errands today:

This is what I saw out my car window:

I hope everyone on the East Coast is enjoying the snow. And now I am going to go eat tamales for dinner!

Love, Jillian

Spirit Animal Break!

2009-12-17T02:08:00.007-05:00

Because I am about to die/fall asleep while re-reading the same play for the millionth time, I thought it would be a great time for an update. Jillian's post reminded me of how much I've been thinking about what animal I would be. I finally figured it out. A CHINCHILLA, DUH. Jillian is a chipmunk cos she is tiny and cute and sometimes has these weird spurts of energy where she decides it is okay to attack me. There are always chipmunks outside of my house and they are really precious and sometimes they just lose it. But even though we are basically the same person, my spirit animal just isn't a chipmunk. I am not that teeny tiny and cute. Instead, I am totally a chinchilla. I am still really fuzzy and soft and precious but not like Jillian. If I were a chinchilla, I'd attack/bother other chinchillas like this:

Seriously. Jillian knows how good I am at bothering people. For weeks now I've been bugging Jillian about this. "Jillian, am I a baby pig? or a lion? or what about a calf? what about a duck? can I be a pony? No?" I think she was ready to kill me. Good thing today while looking at pictures on my computer to distract me, I realized, I AM A CHINCHILLA. Actually, right now, I feel like this chinchilla:

TRAPPED! Chinchilla's love to sleep during the day, just like me! And they are funny and round and have little noses. I have a weirdly round face and a tiny nose! I also know that a lot chinchillas can't stay still. I am so bad at staying still sometimes. Like sometimes we will be laying around in Jillian's bed and I will just feel the need to tap things or move around and I just can't help it. I knew someone who had a chinchilla and they said that they are super moody sometimes and just sort of sulk but then just want to run around. I am basically like that.

Have you guys ever seen a chinchilla take a dust bath? CUTEST THING EVER. Go look it up on youtube! I will admit, I do nothing that can compare to how cute that is. Oh and chinchillas are so lucky cos they never have to write 20 page papers about Rosario Castellanos or stay up all night in a library. Okay, as much as I want to just think about what everyone's spirit animal is, I'm pretty sure it's time to go back to doing work. But later I'm gonna go curl up in bed and I'll feel like a happy chinchilla for a few hours.

Love, María

Finals Are Not Cute, Baby Chipmunks Are

2009-12-17T00:24:00.009-05:00

Hey, guys, it's finals week! Obviously everyone is going insane and is super stressed-out, and María and I are no exception. We just had to kick some freshmen out of our carrels in the library, and they even had the nerve to roll their eyes at us and the one who was in mine just tried (and failed) to stare me down while I was fixing my chair so that I am no longer stuck in her butt imprint. Unfortunately for her, she didn't know that my evil-eye is powerful enough to make people instantaneously burst into tears (true story). But once we go home for break (Friday!!!!!!), I'm sure that we will stop being so cranky and regular posting will resume. Until then, here are some pictures of a sleeping baby chipmunk to tide you over:

María thinks that baby chipmunks are my spirit animal, and this is probably exactly what I will look like as soon as I get on the plane on Friday. I plan on passing out before takeoff and not waking up until Saturday except for when I need to switch planes and get my luggage and eat delicious food when I get home. Hopefully we will still be alive at the end of the week, and now María and I are going to play a little game in the library called "How Much Work Can You Get Done Before The Sun Comes Up Or You Lose Consciousness?!!"

Love, Jillian

Sweaters

2009-12-14T14:28:00.010-05:00

Now that it's gotten cold and finals are eating up my life, I've been getting out all of my sweaters and hoping that they'll make me feel better. I have tons of sweaters. TONS. But I always buy more and more because they are one of my favorite things. I have all sorts of sweaters. I have super cute sweaters, and super hideous sweaters, super soft sweaters and super weird itchy ones. And do I love them all the same? Mostly.

That's me attempting to show you the buttons on my sweater. I totally failed, but oh well, I tried! This sweater has been in my closet at home forever. I kept forgetting I had it so I wouldn't bring it back. It was with a bunch of other sweaters that I never ever wear and totally forgot I had. The other day I pulled it out because I haven't done laundry in awhile so I had no real clothes left. Then I realized how much I love this sweater because of the buttons! They are gold and they have lions on them! I will admit though, that it's not very flattering and makes me look sort of strange and boxy and there aren't many thing I can wear it with. But I think it looks nice with my floral dresses because I love florals so much and should probably write a whole blogpost about that. I wore this sweater on Saturday night and our friend told me I looked like Emily Gilmore. Yikes! I don't care though because I still think it's a pretty awesome sweater. Plus I was also told I look like a lemur that night so I'm not sure what to think. Later, I thought I'd lost one of the buttons but luckily I found it. It was probably the best part of the night. My life isn't very exciting.

This sweater is currently snuggled between a bunch of Jillian's super soft clothes in one of her drawers. I basically assume all her clothes are really soft, and I don't have a real explanation for that. Isn't it precious? It is! It's full of bows and when I wear it I feel like I look like a present. Once, last year I think, I wore it while also wearing a bow in my hair. It was a little much, but I couldn't help it. I got this sweater at the Bryn Mawr Hospital thrift shop back when Caroline and I used to go in there to waste time almost every week. It fits me kind of funny so I rarely wear it. Plus, I feel like It needs to be paired with pants and I rarely wear pants. It looks much nicer on Jillian. She actually made it her profile picture for awhile, with the caption "coople sweater" Cute! Okay, that's just another really creepy fake Korean Drama term we've come up with to feed our addiction. Well, mostly just mine and Melissa's. When I went home for Thanksgiving break I left it for Jillian so that she wouldn't miss me so terribly. Sick, right? She's also the only other person who has ever worn it, except for the time Allegra tried it on and quickly took it off. When I die she gets the sweater but she has to share it with my little sister.

My very favorite sweater is this super old United Colors of Benetton pullover. It's really kind of shapeless and hideous and sometimes feels kind of scratchy cos it's so old. But, it is my very favorite. It used to be my mom's back when she was a teenager. My grandfather, who by the way is one of my very favorite people ever, went to Germany when she was younger and he brought her back the sweater. When I was younger, I remember my mom would wear it all the time, but little by little she stopped wearing it. She loves it so much though, which is why she kept it tucked away in her closet. Now, I had my eyes on this thing since forever ago. So, when I came back to college sophomore year, I tried to find a way to get my mom to give it to me. You have to understand that my mom knows better than anyone how clumsy and horrible I am, and she's seen me lose/break/destroy things since I could move. So, I knew that she wouldn't just give me the sweater because I wanted it. Instead of asking directly, I sort of suggested she give it to me since she never wore it. And then, I snuck into her closet right before getting in the car for the super fun 13 hour drive and stuck it in my suitcase. By the time she noticed I was feeling pretty pleased whenever I opened my closet but still way too guilty to wear it. When we finally talked on the phone about it she told me I could keep it but that if anything ever happened to it she would kill me. I now guard it with my life and just this year told Jillian she is the only person in the world besides my sister who can ever touch it.

Ah! I love sweaters. All of the ones I own. Like this red cardigan that was $9 and has a weird hole in it but looks really cute with dresses. And my cashmere sweater that has the worst neckline but is so super soft that I don't care at all. Or this old man sweater that I bought a size too big and stretches out after you wear it and it looks like I'm wearing a sack. Ummmm. Sweaters are just so great. I know that Jillian has a bunch of favorite sweaters and I bet everyone else does too. Okay, now I need to go back to my real life where I have to finish a 20 page Spanish paper. This is basically as long as that paper. Ah!

Love, María

Airports

2009-12-12T13:15:00.005-05:00

Right now I am "working" at the cafe. But a week from today, I will be waking up in my big, comfy bed at home! And even though I have to write a huge paper and a smaller paper and my thesis proposal before then, I am still in a good mood pretty much all the time because I know that at the end of this week, I will be wearing t-shirts (without like four more layers of clothes on top of them) and eating delicious food and playing with Chelsea and sleeping a lot. I am definitely excited to go to the airport on Friday.

I have always really loved airports for some reason. I know a lot of people hate them because there is a lot of waiting and sitting around involved, but even that isn't enough to make me not love them. I just feel like whenever you go to the airport, it is a good thing. Either you are going to the airport to go somewhere exciting, or to go home, or to pick up someone who is visiting you, or to drop off someone who was visiting you (because, let's face it, by the end of a whole week with whoever is visiting you, you are probably a little sick of them), and so every time you go to the airport, it is cute and happy and fun!

I guess probably a lot of why I like airports and airplanes is because my grandpa loves them so much. I seem to have inherited his obsessions with chocolate and ketchup, so I probably got the airplane one, too. Plus, even when I was a kid and I hated my middle name, I still would always tell myself that it wasn't so bad because it's Amelia, and Amelia Earhart was pretty awesome.

I don't know how else to explain it, something about airports just makes me really happy. I love this one airport in Texas (Dallas?) because it has a monorail, and I still have to admit that Charles de Gaulle in Paris is really pretty, even though I am still bitter over when I got stuck there for twenty-four hours. On my way home on Friday, I have a layover in Las Vegas, and I always end up in this terminal that basically has a wall of windows and you can see the entirety of the Strip while you're waiting, and even though the Philly is a disaster, I kind of like it because everyone always hates it and is lost and confused, but I've finally figured it out and that makes me feel special. My freshman year, I went to Boston for part of my fall break in October, and landing in Boston was probably the prettiest thing I have ever seen. There were so many trees and it was right at that time when they are all like bright orange and yellow and so pretty.

Of course, my favorite airport of all is San Diego (surprise!). It is just so tiny and precious, and when you take off and land, you fly right out over the ocean and if you have a window seat on the right side of the plane (I can never remember which side), you get the most amazing, perfect views. I always like having a window seat, especially when I am landing in San Diego, because then I can look out the window and look for my favorite places, like Balboa Park! And then, when you finally step outside at the airport it just smells like San Diego and that is wonderful. It's like ocean-y and flower-y and plant-y and I-don't-know-what-else-but-it-makes-me-happy and I am so ready for Friday afternoon when I take off and get to go home to seventy-degree weather and sunshine!

Love, Jillian

Party Dresses

2009-12-08T21:32:00.007-05:00

I feel like lately all of my blog posts are kind of about cute things, but mostly just reveal how absolutely insane I am. This is definitely going to be another one of those posts, because it is mostly about how I create weird little personas/characters/lives in my head, and then spend a lot of time imagining what secretary-me or housewife-me or career-woman-me (my mom put this idea in my head because she kept telling me over the summer that she sees nothing wrong with never getting married and having children, and instead having a career and lots of disposable income for clothes) would wear.

So I don't even know when this started, but at some point in my life before high school I somehow became convinced that being an adult and being married meant that all of your weekends between Thanksgiving and New Year's were spent going to fancy holiday parties that required you to wear fancy dresses and fancy updos and your husband to wear nice suits and cute, knit ties. This may have something to do with the fact that for most of middle school I babysat for the same family and one of the parents was the CEO or CFO (I don't remember) of this big hospital and that is basically what they did every weekend of the holiday season.

Because of this and my pathological need to create a wardrobe for all sorts of weird, impossible, future versions of myself, I always get distracted by PARTY DRESSES when I am doing my Christmas shopping for everyone else. And, every year, I find one perfect party dress and stalk it and spend a whole month imagining how I would do my hair and what shoes I would wear and how cute the holiday parties would be! Anyway, this is this year's obsession-dress:

Luckily it is already sold out in my size, so I will not be tempted to buy it. I always end up buying a ton of things for myself while I am doing my Christmas shopping. Today I bought a dress for my sister for Christmas, and I also bought two shirts and a skirt for myself. But by doing that, I spent enough money to get free shipping AND I had a coupon that got me 10% off everything. And when I bought my mom's Christmas present, I bought myself a shirt that was on super-sale. Obviously, I have a problem. I have even already planned out exactly what I am going to buy with all of the Christmas money I get from my relatives every year. Sick (in both senses). I am going to stop now before my computer dies and I reveal any more craziness.

Love, Jillian

Cursis Melodías

2009-12-07T02:02:00.005-05:00

I can't sleep. I just keep being up all night and tired all day. This has been happening for weeks now. My body probably hates me. Tonight, I tried moving things around in my room, brushing my hair, changing my sheets even though I did that 2 days ago. Nothing works! Then, I spent a long time sewing buttons onto my skirt and wondering when I'm gonna finally fall asleep. And then, seven minutes ago, I found this:

Oh, Natalia! She is so precious. We went out for brunch and it was really delicious and now that I think about it, I had approximately 7 cups of coffee all day which is why I can't sleep now. Anyway, on the way back from brunch, I was telling Jillian and Melissa about how my sister's name was gonna be Natalia and then ended up being Mariana at the last minute because my grandfather told my mother that he knew too many ugly/mean people named Natalia. Hahaha, that sounds horrible and is totally not the only reason.

Anyway, "Cursis Melodías" is definitely one of my favorite Natalia songs. And isn't the video cute? Of course it is because she's just really super cute. I just want tons of Mexican girl cuteness, but apparently I just didn't get it. I guess I can just write these silly blog posts instead. Fun.

Love, María

Snow!

2009-12-05T17:06:00.003-05:00

It is snowing!! Today is the first day it's snowed this school year, and obviously snow is totally adorable and Flower Farm-worthy. Especially this snow. Yesterday the weather forecast said that it was supposed to snow overnight, but that it was supposed to be that weird, slushy, snow/rain mix stuff. There was a little of that this morning, but now it has turned into big, fluffy, perfect snow!

I always get really excited about snow, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I live in California. When we lived in Delaware, my mom and I would always get really excited for snow days, and she would get up at like four in the morning to listen to the radio and see if her school or my school or Jocelyn's school would be closed. Then she would call all of my friends' parents to tell them that there was no school, and they would always make fun of her for being so excited about it (she's from New Jersey, so snow shouldn't have been new or exciting or anything) and for calling them that early in the morning.

Apparently, this is hereditary, because ever since I've been at Bryn Mawr, I basically do the same thing. What usually happens is my mom will call me and tell me that we are supposed to be getting a lot of snow, and if I think it's going to be enough snow that we will have a snow day, I will go to bed early without doing any of my homework, and then I will wake up at four in the morning (this happens on its own, I don't even set an alarm) and look outside and check my email to see if Mike Hill has sent out an email saying that the buses aren't running and class is canceled. Then, I text all of my friends and go back to sleep.

This is why I always arrange my dorm room so that my bed is next to the window, even though all of the dorms I've lived in are really old, so the windows are really poorly insulated and it is always really cold right next to them. It is totally worth it, though, because nothing is better than going to sleep when you know it is going to snow or it's just started snowing, and then waking up in the morning and having everything be covered in snow.

Also, this whole snow-thing has made me think that I am psychic. Normally we don't get snow that actually sticks until I am home for winter break or the beginning of spring semester, but this past week I haven't been able to stop listening to "Snow Days," and even when it was sunny and nice out the other day, I kept thinking about snow. Probably because it is December and almost Christmas time and I love snow so much!

Love, Jillian

Lento

2009-12-03T12:03:00.005-05:00

Unlike Jillian, I am not in a really great mood. That's because my email hates me. Plus, I've been freaking out about my life and work and aaaaahhhh. That's why I've been listening to Julieta all morning. "Lento" will always be such a great song. Seriously. You should also go here and check out the Julieta Venegas remix of "Bestia" which is just so good.

Hopefully I'll finish a real post soon. Until then, I'm gonna just try not to die.

Love, María

Sunny Days & Good Moods!

2009-12-03T10:41:00.008-05:00

I am in such a good mood today because it is so sunny and nice out! It is that perfect kind of fall weather when it is chilly enough for a sweater and a scarf and a light jacket (if you are me, anyway--I guess normal people would wear only one of those since it's like almost 60 degrees out), but it is sunny like summer. María hates when it is sunny, but it makes me so happy because I always miss the sun when I am not in California and I have to use my fake-sun lamp thing in my dorm room to make myself feel better.

When it is sunny out, I feel better about everything. Like right now, I am in the library and I just came back from Haverford, and even being packed into the Blue Bus wasn't enough to ruin my good mood. Plus, my carrel in the library is in this room where two of the walls are giant windows, so even though I am sitting here doing research for my huge term paper, I am still in the sun and I am still happy! The sun has even made me actually LIKE writing this paper! Even though it was mean to me and made me pull and all-nighter Tuesday night, I am currently really nerdily enjoying reading entire books just to find two useful quotes and over-analyzing fourteenth-century Italian literature.

On top of that, I am listening to this really adorable playlist I made of all of the songs that I want to listen to when I am driving on the 101/any road with an ocean view at home in sixteen days! These are some of the adorable songs on my playlist:

I guess this post isn't really about any one cute thing in particular, but I think it still works. Being in a good mood just makes everything super-cute!

Love, Jillian

Heading Back to the Midwest

2009-11-25T11:15:00.003-05:00

I am about to walk over to the train station so that I can make it to the airport on time and fly back home. I haven't been back to Chicago since August! I am sad that my headphones broke last night because now I'll have to survive being on the plane without them. Lulz. It's not that long of a flight, I can do it!

Here are some of the songs I wish I could be listening to on the plane:

Since I'll be at home for awhile, and sadly we don't really celebrate Thanksgiving, I'm gonna try to make cute posts about things to pass the time. I mean, something cute has to happen, right? Maybe.

Love, María

Tu vida en 65'

2009-11-22T09:09:00.006-05:00

This movie is both cute and incredibly sad. And I am totally serious about the incredibly sad part. In fact, I asked Jillian to watch this with me earlier this semester and when we were done crying in the Rock living room, I was sure that she was going to stop being my friend for asking her to watch it. This summer, I made my little sister Mariana watch it and she just kept saying "This is so sad, Marifer, so sad" Well, at least I warned you!

The movie is all about Dani and Ana, Dani's really precious friends, and love and sadness and coincidences and everything being connected. This sounds almost exactly like when I was describing Los amantes del círculo polar, but Allegra says this is sad but at least cuter than Los amantes del círculo polar so I guess that's a good thing. Oh, plus it's set in Barcelona! How precious. Barcelona is adorable all on it's own even without really cute/sad things happening. It reminds me of how much I want to learn Catalan, but can only say please and thank you. I also really like the version of "Por qué te vas" that Javier Álvarez does. It's so perfect. I could listen to it all day.

Everyone in this movie is so cute! The trailer just reminded me about how there's this whole thing with watching laundry in the washing machine, it sounds weird, but it's really cute. I just ordered this movie from the library so that I can watch it again sometime in between going crazy and going home for Thanksgiving. Sometimes I think it is just an excuse to cry, but there are also parts in the movie when everything is so precious that I am not crying because I'm sad. Hah, I'm starting to sound kinda crazy, but I just want someone to ask me to watch the washing machine with them.

I'm really excited to go home because I haven't seen my family since August and I really need a break from Bryn Mawr. I don't usually go home for Thanksgiving, since we don't really celebrate it, but I'm excited to be going home this year. I am also really excited to force my mom to make me pozole and chilaquiles and to eat a real hot dog. Sometimes I remember how much easier it is to live in Chicago than it is to live near Philadelphia. And even though there are Mexican people in Philadelphia, it's just not the same. At phonathon we had to call someone's parents who live in Los Angeles, and they were so cute and Mexican and I got to speak to them in Spanish. Speaking of things in Spanish, last night, Jillian and I were talking to some guy who was like "give me any Spanish word and I will turn it into reggaetón" and it was really strange/funny but then became really annoying. Wow, I totally just remembered that happened as I was typing that. I need to get more sleep.

This post was supposed to take 20 minutes and has now taken me almost an hour. I lose at life.

Love, María

Pumpkin Pie (w/ Encinitas Obsessing)

2009-11-21T12:48:00.008-05:00

My most favorite dessert ever is probably pumpkin pie. It is super adorable, and the fact that it is a seasonal food makes it even better, because I feel like foods are more special and cute when you can't just have them whenever you want.

María knows how strongly I feel about pumpkin pie, and that is why she bought me one a few weeks ago when I really didn't want to go to my one class, and then used it to force me to go. She even bought me whipped cream, because she knows that I cannot eat pumpkin pie without it! And then we ended up eating basically the whole thing with spoons after I came back from drinking in my friend's room after work on a Thursday night, and I kept yelling about how I wished pumpkin pie was a dude so that I could marry it or something.

Basically everything about pumpkin pie reminds me of awesome things. It smells like cloves and happiness, and reminds me of Thanksgiving, which is one of my favorite holidays because of ALL THE FOOD. Pretty much every holiday we celebrate in my house is more for the food than for any other reason. I'm pretty sure the only reason we celebrate Easter is because that is when we eat ham and "cheesy potatoes," and I know that the only reason we celebrate St. Patrick's Day is because of the corned beef, since no one in my family is even remotely Irish.

And then when I think of Thanksgiving, I think of being at home, which I have been really obsessed with lately. Normally I am okay with only going home over winter break and spring break, but this year I have been having really intense and vivid dreams that I am driving down 101 or that I am at the beach. On Thursday night, I had a dream that I was going north on the 5, then I got off at Manchester and went west so that I was on that road where you go through this tiny neighborhood and as you come up the hill and around the corner and it turns into Vulcan Ave. (Encinitas people, you know exactly what I am talking about), you are basically smacked in the face the most intense ocean view, and in my dream it was sunny and the ocean was super-blue and perfect. And then I woke up in my dorm room and I was not pleased.

I think that the reason I want to go home so badly is because I (hopefully?) won't be going home for longer than a few weeks this summer to go to Jocelyn's graduation, since I don't think I'm going to find a job in Encinitas and I don't particularly want to move back in with my parents. Plus, the other weekend one of the guys in a band that played at Haverford was from La Jolla, and we talked for forever about how perfect San Diego is and how much we miss being able to use San Diego slang and still be understood, and then I was talking to him about how I will probably end up on the east coast and I will probably never get to go home and be lazy and eat Pannikin and In-N-Out and go to the beach every day for a full four months ever again!

Luckily, I can still kind of pretend that I am at home by sitting in my room (or the cafe, like I am right now) and listening to Best Coast. María is going to write a post about her someday, and after my friend Bee sent me one of her songs, I made María give me all of the Best Coast that she has, because I needed it because it basically sounds like California is coming out of my speakers.

Also, since this post has already become a post about how much I love California, I might as well mention something else really cute and happy about it. Lately, people have been randomly telling me that I seem like I am from California, or that I am exactly like what they imagine people from California would be like, and I have to say that nothing could possibly make me happier. I'm sure that there are negative things that come with being California-y, but for some reason hearing that makes me feel the same amount of good-ness as if someone told you that you were the most perfect, adorable, attractive, amazing person to ever exist. Actually, that would probably make me really uncomfortable, but I think everyone gets what I mean?

So, in conclusion: pumpkin pie is awesome and adorable and perfect, and I really really miss the ENC.

Love, Jillian

Yo no te pido la luna

2009-11-20T19:20:00.005-05:00

This weekend I'll make a real post about Javiera Mena. For now, just watch this video. It's almost as cute as Belanova's "Baila Mi Corazón" Just almost though. The song is really cute too, it's all about wanting to just love someone. And even though it's a cover, Javiera Mena makes it way more precious.

Anyway, I'm too tired to make a whole post but this video is so cute, and I am in love with this song. It's not even 7:30 yet and I'm already thinking of going to bed, my life is so exciting! The truth is that this is mostly just because Jillian has work tonight and my life is really empty without her. Hah.

Love, María

Hedgehogs

2009-11-18T08:30:00.005-05:00

I kind of just realized exactly how long it's been since I last made a post here. Oops! Marìa's been on top of her Flower Farm game, though, so it's not too bad. In my defense, I have been too busy staying up late to see meteor showers, being a supermodel, drinking giant cups of coffee, doing Italian department things, checking out tons and tons of library books and piling them up on my carrel, reading about medieval Christian numerology, picking my thesis topic (AH!), and listening to obscene amounts of The Magnetic Fields and Best Coast to really have time to sit down and write a blog post. But today I have time! I was planning on sleeping late since I went to bed at three, but apparently my body only wants five hours of sleep after last night's three hours of sleep and I am wide awake.

Some time last week, Marìa and I were talking about how I haven't made a post in forever, and then I told her that I wanted my next post to be about hedgehogs! Hedgehogs are precious, and I wish that I could have one as a pet, but they are illegal in both of the states that I live in. Isn't that sad?! But, look, aren't they so precious that you just can't even think of being sad?

I don't have any cute stories about hedgehogs, nor do I know anyone who actually has one, but Marìa was telling me about how her friend had a hedgehog that used to lick lotion off of your hands and put it on itself. How adorable is that?!

If hedgehogs weren't illegal in Pennsylvania, I would totally get one and keep it in my dorm room. It would be the most spoiled hedgehog ever, because Marìa and I would probably just sit in my room all day and never go to class and play with it and pet it and give it little hedgehog treats! I guess it's a good thing that we can't have one, because then I would probably fail all of my classes. But at least I would have a precious hedgehog to make me feel better!

Love, Jillian

A Little Weekend Update

2009-11-15T14:55:00.015-05:00

Things I've (re)learned this weekend:
1. I am a brat.
2. I miss tamales almost as much as I miss my family.
3. I want a pony.
4. This video is cute: http://www.videotapas.net/html/2_lonely_drifter_karen.html
5. I like this song.
6. I wanna have a farm party where we dress up as cute farm animals and we can make these:

&
(From Bakerella)
7. Iced Lattes taste better if Jillian makes them for me.
8. I suck at being on time for work.

Love, María

Post Post

2009-11-12T18:21:00.007-05:00

This week has just been strange. Actually the past 3/4 weeks have just been really strange. I think it's around that time of year when you suddenly begin to realize you are really unprepared for life but are also past the point of caring. Not good. Jillian, Melissa, and I have really just lost it. This was really confirmed last night around 1 am when we were all sitting in Melissa's room making absolutely no sense. So, instead of really dealing with all this, I am here making a post about our friend's band. Sounds good to me.

I suck at writing things so I just stole this from their Myspace: "Post Post is an indie rock band comprised of four college juniors who met and formed at Bryn Mawr College, an all-women's liberal arts college outside Philadelphia (they wouldn't let Kevin in, he had to go to Haverford instead)" Post Post started right here at Bryn Mawr! Kewl. Seriously though, nothing good happens in this place. I'm joking, sort of. Anyway, we know Michelle cos she works at the café with Jillian, and is pretty darn cute. That's why I first started listening to this band. I once told Michelle and told her I would never pay $5 for her music, I was lying. Really, I'm just a really mean person and like to make jokes like that.

Anyway, last night, I tried to get Michelle to tell me secrets about Post Post. She sort of refused at first and only told me that I should write that she is the cutest member of the band and that the other members are only sort of cute. Not true, guys. I have seen their band and they are all pretty cute and cool. I was once Marissa's Spanish TA and even then I could tell she was way cooler than me.

So I always come up with really funny ways to describe the music that I like. I'm sure you've seen all those made up words in my posts. I tried to think of a way to describe Post Post and I am going to have to use heartachey again. But that's why I really like their music, it is really heartachey and it's that music that you start searching for when you're like sixteen and you realize you have feelings and then you just need stuff like that once in awhile. That's what it's like for me. Oh, plus did you see that picture of them eating breakfast foods? We love breakfast/brunch.

I've been listening to Post Post a lot so that I could have something to say to you guys other than "O hai, they're kewl" and I'm glad I did that. They released their EP Meta Meta in September, and even though it only has 5 songs, it is really easy to listen to it for like 3 hours. I am telling you this from experience. When Jillian first bought it, we listened to it in her room over and over.

I just asked Jillian what her favorite song is, and it's actually not on the EP but you can go listen to it over at their Myspace, it's called "Architects." My favorite song changes all the time. I will say, that "Say When" gets stuck in my head the most. We both really like "Bones" and even though I used to skip listening to "The Auction (Part II)" I now really like it, especially the beginning. "Wolf" just makes me want to cry. A lot. Their songs are like really sad and heartachey words with almost rough music behind them, inside them, something like that, yeah. And all those lyrics that are so good and so sad work really well with the music and Michelle's tiny voice that sometimes gets so loud and is almost like yelling. Yikes.

We're going to go see them play a show tonight at Pilam and if you're reading this and are in Philly, you should totally go too! I am excited because we keep missing them plus they are playing with Pants Yell! who are one of my favorite bands right now. So, yeah check 'em out.

While telling me little secrets last night, Michelle told me that she's come up with a 13 track album concept that would just be 13 tracks about one person with an architecture/skeletons/bones theme. I told her it sounded very sad, but very precious. And that's the kind of thing Jillian and I really love, and what Flower Farm is all about.

Love, María

Pink Couch Sessions

2009-11-08T19:13:00.004-05:00

Pink is my very favorite color. I've been meaning to paint my room peach/pink since I got back but I haven't gotten around to it. And I just really love it so much. So, when someone mentioned the Pink Couch Sessions, I couldn't help but be really curious about how cute they might be. I've written about Black Cab Sessions on here, and this is basically the same thing, except that instead of riding around in a cab, these guys are playing on a pink couch! Cute. Now, I will admit that these videos would be way cuter if I got to pick the pink couch, but whatever, this works.

This is the first one I watched, and I'm glad I did because it was actually really cute and that's why I kept looking at more videos. Actually, that first one is still definitely one of the most adorable ones. I also really like this Nana Grizol session because that song is really sort of precious. The one with just Madeline singing is also super cute. This Wild Moccasins song is called "Fruit Tea"and that's pretty precious. Really, it is. Plus I want that girl's hair and I watched this one three times so that must mean I liked it. Oh, and look at this one! It's Vivian Girls. Everyone loves them. I went to see them last year with Caroline in Philadelphia and even though I hated almost everyone there, I liked it.

Heathers - Waiter from If You Make It on Vimeo.

My very favorite has to be that Heathers one, probably just because I think those girls are super cute, and when I saw they were on here I got really excited.

Hm. Oh, this song made me laugh just because of it's title, since I feel like that's all I do this semester. Bleh. This Best Friends Forever session is probably less cute, but still one of the ones I really like. Now, this might make me a horrible person, but for some reason this one really makes me laugh. I can't explain why. This one, with Defiance, Ohio is pretty impressive just because there are so many people!

Another really cute one is this one with Watercolor Paintings. Isn't she cute? She is. I wish my brother and I could start a cute little band. He would never do that. Hah. Hmmmm. What else. Oh yeah, this song isn't bad or anything but it is one of my favorites to watch just because of all those faces they make. The Pink Couch Session with Grandfather Clock is just really depressing. Seriously. Maybe, that's just me.

Okay, so basically I spent most of yesterday avoiding life and sleeping and watching these videos in between. And even though that was a pretty bad idea, because now all I want to do is sleep, it was also a good idea because it gave me something to write a post about. Except, I'm pretty sure this is a pretty horrible post because I can't really tell you everything about all of them so I just sound like I'm babbling. You should probably just watch them for yourself. You don't even have to go crazy like me and watch all of them in one day! Plus, maybe they aren't all the cutest things ever, but c'mon, some of those were pretty cute. I just want to start my cute little band, guys. And I want a pink couch. A cute one. And people can come play nice songs on it. Aw. Too bad instead I need to edit my paper, send emails, do laundry and figure out my life. Yeah, that's just not as cute.

Love, María

For Keeps

2009-11-07T13:26:00.014-05:00

For Keeps is one of my favorite albums ever. It is the album I want to fall asleep to all the time and every time I take a nap I play it. It's so good for a million reasons. I love The Field Mice, I really do. And I thought about writing a post just about them, but I think it's better if I break it down a little more.

I like it even if it's the last Field Mice album. It isn't the fuzzed out pop that first made me love them, it isn't all those perfect songs on Emma's House, but it is still pretty fucking perfect. And I can't say that it's my favorite Field Mice album because that would be a lie, since I can never choose my favorite anything, but I am really in love with it.

A month ago my friend Maggie asked me for some Field Mice stuff while we were at Burger Friday. Apparently, I am really weird about giving people my music because I thought it was a good idea to only give Maggie Emma's House and For Keeps even though I definitely have more of their stuff. The thing is that we trade music almost every Burger Friday, and I figured I could just give her more later. I didn't realize how sort of terrible and selfish that ended up coming off as. I am just really silly. Anyway, I will say that I'm glad I gave her this album first because I really love it so much and I knew she'd really love it.

My favorite song on the album is "And Before the First Kiss" which is kind of predictable. It has such a great Field Mice title, and is so horribly depressing, I think. But it is also really sweet and don't you want to listen to a song that is both really sweet and really sad? I do. There's also "Think of These Things" which I like because I think everyone has sort of felt that way about someone. And it sounds really horrible to just say, but sounds less terrifying in a pop song. Also, can we talk about how perfect Annemari Davies is on these songs? Her voice is so good. It's perfect in "Five Moments" which starts off the album, but it's just as good on "Willow" which has such a heartbreaking little chorus. And when she sings "When I said them I meant them" I know I've been listening to this song that's about to be over but is still about to make me cry. "Tilting At the Windmills" is a really good track that makes me feel a little scared in the best kind of way. "This Is Not Here" has typical Field Mice lyrics that are all about lovelovelove and being sadsadsad. Oh my. The last song on the album, "Freezing Point" is loud and noisy and makes me feel a little better about all the sappy songs I just listened to.

This album sounds so sad! And it really is so I'm not gonna lie to you and say it's not. But wait, there's "Coach Station Reunion" and that song is just so very cute that it makes me smile a little through the rest of the album. "Smiles and kisses there will be, tomorrow/I'll hold you tight, I'll look into your eyes" UM, HOW CUTE IS THAT? Pretty cute, right? Plus it's all about being really excited to see someone, and that is so precious!

I know that the album was re-released in 2005 with extra singles on it, but as much as I want new Field Mice songs, I like the way it works with just these ten. If you want to listen to a bunch of sappy sweet pop songs this is perfect. If you don't, then I don't have very many suggestions for you.

Love, María

jj

2009-11-04T19:00:00.012-05:00

I really like everything that jj has released so far. Lately, I'd been listening to a lot of the same stuff, but before last week, before I decided to only listen to Spanish pop music, I'd been listening to a lot of jj.

So since jj is so ultra-mysterious and everyone has already made a blogpost about them, I've been trying to figure out what I am gonna say. Here it is, I like them all the time, I like everything by them, I like them, like them, like them, a lot lot lot. Wow, that "sentence" was way more annoying than I thought it would be.

I think I first realized jj existed because they're on Sincerely Yours, and I love a lot of the music that comes from that label/Gothenburg in general. Everyone fell in love with Air France earlier this year/last year, but I just wasn't so into that. I really love their other labelmates, the Honeydrips, and well, at some point, I think we all sort of fell in love with The Tough Alliance. But I don't think I really fell in love with all of Sincerely Yours, until I found jj.

My favorite song on jj n° 2 is definitely "are you still in vallda?" just because of how perfectly sad it is. It just makes me feel like I can have a really good cry and be really peaceful. Isn't that strange? Maybe that's how I feel about the whole album. A lot of people have complained that they are too spacey or that they sound too much like TTA and Air France but just not as good. I don't agree. I like how spacey and empty and achey everything sounds. "ecstasy" is a lot of people's favorite song, and even though it's not mine, I still like every bit of it. I love "me & dean" where it's like "if you tell it to my heart/where would you start/with a truth we shared/or the lies that drove us apart" How could you not love that? I have been listening to "things will never be the same" over and over again, and that is much less spacey, but still really great. "my love" makes me feel kind of like I am listening to a Taken by Trees track, and that's not a bad thing. "masterplan" is very TTA, I won't deny that. "from africa to málaga" is another song that almost makes me cry, "my hopes and dreams" makes me a little anxious and I'm not really sure why. I am just so in love with jj, and I have been for awhile.I also really like jj n° 1, but I can never choose which I like more "my swag, my life" or "my life, my swag"

Everyone always wants to find out who is actually a part of this project, but I honestly don't care. I just want to keep listening.

Love, María

Tuca Tuca

2009-11-04T18:33:00.003-05:00

Because I am sad that my pilates class got canceled, and because I need to do something to take my attention away from the giant and terrifying bug that is currently smashed under one of my favorite shoes that I am afraid to move (the whole story is too terrifying for this blog and made me freak out in a way that is reminiscent of the time that my dog chased a squirrel into my house), I am going to make a post about this adorable video for a song I already kind of wrote about!

In my Pink Martini post, I mentioned that one of their songs in Italian was this precious song called "Tuca Tuca." Well, at that point, I had only really listened to it once or twice, and I hadn't really listened to the lyrics or fully appreciated its adorableness. But now I have! I did a little bit of research, and found that it is actually a cover of a Raffaella Carrà song with the same name and there is a dance that goes with it! Basically, the song is about a dance that was made up to go with the song (confusing).

Doing the "Tuca Tuca" ("Toca Toca" in standard Italian, or "Touch Touch" in English) dance requires you kind of tap the person you're dancing with on their knees, waist, shoulders, and face, and it is supposed to mimic the way you would kind of randomly touch someone that you have a crush on. But, wait, it is even more precious with the lyrics. Basically what the chorus says about the dance is, "It's called 'Tuca Tuca'--I made it up myself so that I could tell you that I like you!" ISN'T THAT THE CUTEST SWEETEST MOST ADORABLE THING EVER?! I obviously think so. Watch Raffaella sing/dance "Tuca Tuca," and see for yourself!

Love, Jillian

The Honeydrips

2009-11-02T18:43:00.003-05:00

I've been trying to finish up a post about another Sincerely Yours band for awhile now, but I thought writing this post would be easier.

I've loved The Honeydrips since I first heard the song "(Lack of) Love Will Tear Us Apart" because it really is that good. I am prone to playing one song over and over if I like it, which annoys a lot of people. I can't help it. According to iTunes, I've already played it 24 times just today. Sick.

The Honeydrips is Mikael Carlsson's solo project. That first song I heard by him has Hanna on vocals and that's part of why I like it so much. The album Here Comes the Future was released in 2007. That's forever ago! I didn't find it until sometime early last year. He's on Gothenburg's Sincerely Yours label, which most people know of because of TTA or Air France. Sometimes, I think I might like the Honeydrips better, seriously.

I've seen this album described as a little St. Etienne and a little like the Field Mice. But it is just so perfect for listening to all the time that I love it. I think that "I Wouldn't Know What to Do" always ends up being my favorite song on the album. I can't help it. I also really like "Wait for the Grief to Come" There's also a song that's not on the album, "Åh Karolin" which I really like. Normally, I have tons to say about the things I post on here. But I really don't know what else to say other than I think you should just go listen to the album. Seriously.

Love, María

Pink Martini & Splendor in the Grass

2009-11-02T07:51:00.008-05:00

A few days ago, Pink Martini's new album Splendor in the Grass came out, and I finally bought it! Of course, it is super precious in the same way that everything by Pink Martini is.

I remember when someone bought my dad Hang on Little Tomato when I was in high school and I immediately fell in love with all of the cheesy, showy, over-the-top-ness of all of their songs. I don't know how else to describe their music. It is kind of jazzy, kind of lounge-y, kind of film-noir-y amazingness in a bunch of different languages, which just makes it extra cute! It always makes me happy to listen to music that isn't in English, especially when I can understand it! Even before I learned Italian, "Una Notte a Napoli" was one of my favorite songs of theirs, and even though I don't know Japanese or Croatian, I really love "Kikuchiyo to Mohshimasu" and "U Plavu Zoru."

I am listening to Splendor in the Grass right now, and it is definitely everything I could possibly want/expect from a Pink Martini album. "Ninna Nanna" and "Tuca Tuca" are in Italian (!!!), and the title track is just extra perfect. "Ou est ma tete?" is also precious, and if I keep going, I will probably just end up listing every song on the album.

Now it is time for me to finish my reading that I didn't finish because I fell asleep in the middle of it last night, and then I have to go to my meeting at the Career Development Office so that I can maybe be in Minneapolis in January (I will freeze to death, I am insane)!

Love, Jillian

Hey Jude

2009-11-01T19:59:00.003-05:00

I know I haven't posted in a while because I have been too busy avoiding homework and acting like an idiot at Halloween parties, so I am going to post a precious video to tide everyone over until I have time to make a real post! It is basically the most precious thing ever. A small child + a guitar + "Hey Jude" = an incredibly cute video! You have to watch the whole thing, though, because when the kid gets to the part of the song that goes "better, better, better," it is SO CUTE and hilarious.

Love, Jillian

Día de los Muertos

2009-11-01T14:41:00.007-05:00

Halloween is over guys! But wait, Día de los Muertos has just begun! Okay, I kept asking Jillian if it was okay for me to even write this post, and we decided it is. Because I really like Día de los Muertos. I can't wait until I have my own apartment so that I can make real ofrendas for my grandfather and my great grandparents every year. I'm not joking, I really love them.

So here's a little list of things I love about Día de los muertos. I love the little sugary calaveritas. They are so cute and when I was little we'd always get some and I was a little afraid of eating them. I don't really like the way they taste because I don't love sweet things, but I still think they are precious.

Of course I love ofrendas, I just said so. But seriously, they are so beautiful. In Chicago, we used to go on field trips to the Mexican Fine Arts Museum, which is now called the National Museum of Mexican Art, to go look at ofrendas. They were amazing, seriously. We never really made ofrendas but my mother made one when I was around ten. It was tiny but really pretty, and it's just such a nice idea. It's more than just about looking nice, it's the whole thought behind it. It's such a nice tradition, I just really love it.

Pan de Muertos, I really like it. I don't know what else to say about it except that when I was little I thought it was made from the bones of the dead and so I was scared to eat it. When I quickly realized that wasn't the case, I was all about eating it. It's bread, I love bread. Period.

I also really love cempásuchil. They are such pretty flowers! They are orange and yellowish and just so nice. They're marigolds, and I think they are some of my favorite flowers. When I was little I also thought that cempásuchil was the same as flor de calabaza, which are squash blossoms. I got really scared because cempásuchil was associated with Day of the Dead and I thought it was creepy that we were eating that. Again, I was wrong, and this made me really happy. Because I love squash blossom soup and squash blossom quesadillas so much that I would've been a really sad kid if I couldn't eat them anymore.

I could probably keep going with all the things I love about this holiday, but I won't. I will say that my mom used to read me this book about Day of the Dead when I was little and it was one of my favorites. I like the idea of writing little poems for people, and going to the cemetery to visit their graves, and it's just all so pretty, really. And I don't know if people really understand it a lot of the time, and I was afraid of making this post because I didn't want people to think I was saying it was just some silly little holiday that was cute, because it's not.

I almost made an ofrenda this year but I didn't think I had anywhere to put it. Maybe I'll just light some candles tomorrow night though. We'll see. Día de los muertos is always a little sad, but it also makes me smile.

Love, María

2NE1

2009-10-31T13:43:00.014-04:00

Hey guys, it's HALLOWEEN! Kewl. I am really not very excited because I don't have a real costume. But, if I could be anything for Halloween, I'd want to be CL from 2NE1. Seriously. I love this band. All I listened to while writing my really horrible Spanish Senior Sem paper last week was 2NE1. I love K-Pop! Okay, maybe I just love select K-Pop.

But, guys, these girls are so cute! Seriously. Jillian wrote about their song "Lollipop" but there are so many other gems on that album. So basically these 4 girls just make some of the cutest songs ever. They are upbeat and catchy and sometimes they have really intense lyrics that I can't actually understand until I watch videos with subtitles. Maybe I should start learning Korean.

All the girls in 2NE1 are super cute, but CL is definitely my favorite. When I first watched the video for "Lollipop" I thought Bom was my favorite because she always wear the cutesiest things but CL is so sassy. That's why I know I like CL best. She can also speak Japanese, Korean, French and English fluently! She is so cute but still super sassy and I wish I were her and not just for Halloween. Melissa really likes MinJi, and I can't deny how super precious she is. She's also only 15! I wish I had been in a cool girl group when I was 15! They all wear super precious things that only look super precious because they're the ones wearing them. Dara is the only person who could pull off that weird hairstyle from the "Lollipop" video, and only CL could wear a weird leotard paired with a vest and tights and look cool. Seriously though, yesterday, our friend Michelle taught us the word for cute in Korean and if I could remember what it was I would use it to describe 2NE1.

I really like all the songs on their mini-album. Plus, I wish I lived in Korea so that I could've bought the actual album because it comes in this really cool case. I've been listening to their songs over and over to see if I can choose favorites, but it is really hard. I originally wanted the album so that I could listen to "Lollipop" but after I got it, I realized that there are so many other good songs on it. "I Don't Care" has really upsetting lyrics, but it is such a good song. Plus, since I can't actually understand Korean, I don't have to pay attention to how sad they are all the time. "Fire" is SO good. Plus they do this really cute dance in the videos for the song. I also really like "Let's Go Party" but I guess my least favorite is "In the Club" It's just not as good. I'm still not sure how I feel about "Stay Together" but I'm gonna keep listening to it and figure it out.

Basically, this mini-album is really good and I can't wait until they release a full-length album next year. I know that I love twee and indie pop but lately I can't listen to it all the time because sometimes those songs are really cute but also really heartbreaking. So I just keep listening to 2NE1 because it is just catchy and I can think about how cute they are and don't have to deal with understanding how sad the lyrics are. That sounds kinda stupid, but it's not! Anyway, I have been at Haffner for way too long now. I think it's time to end this post and finally leave.

Love, María

Atole

2009-10-29T20:33:00.008-04:00

I've been trying to finish up some posts but it's been really hard. Mostly, because ever since I started, all I wanna do is listen to Fantasía Pop or watch weird videos with Melissa. Now, Melissa is home for her sister's wedding and I am all alone. I've spent my time crying and writing letters to Korean popstars that sound something like: Dear Big Bang & 2NE1, Please come to the US. Come play a show near Philly so that I can charm you, become best friends with you/marry one of you... just kidding guys! I don't write letters like that! I just proofread the ones Melissa writes and make sure she uses at least 3 of the 10(?) Korean words we know.

ANYWAY, the weather hasn't been so nice lately. It's rainy and gross and I don't like it. Mostly because I don't own the right clothes/shoes for this weather and because I also no longer have an umbrella. I also don't like rain because I hate when it gets on my glasses. Life is hard. What I do like about the weather is that it's been getting a little colder. That makes me happy because I love cold weather! When it starts to get colder I always begin to crave things like soup and one of my favorite things ever: ATOLE.

I really just love Atole. It's basically this drink made from cornstarch and a bunch of good stuff. You can make different flavors on your own or just buy packages that you just add milk and sugar too. Now, I'm not gonna lie, I kinda love the Maizena Strawberry atole. It is totally not as good as homemade stuff but it's pink and I've loved it since I was teeny tiny and I can't help liking it. I even noticed that they changed the shade of pink this summer when I made it at home. Seriously, it's different. Other than that though, I have real favorites. One of them is my mother's guayaba atole. It is perfect. I am not joking, it is really that good. Everyone in my house loves it and this summer we kept asking her to make more. Sadly, my mom has other things to do besides make atole, so sometimes she'd say no. Once I tried to make it and it really just didn't turn out as delicious. Sad.

My other favorite kind of atole is champurrado. It is all cinnamon-y and chocolate-y and full of all this really great stuff. It's delicious. And it goes so well with tamales! I am sad that I haven't found a good place for tamales in Philadelphia. In Chicago, or in Mexico, there is always someone selling tamales and atole on the street, and that's usually the best champurrado ever. Seriously. Sipping champurrado from styrofoam cups and devouring warm tamales on the street is on my list of favorite things.

Some of my other favorite flavors are tamarindo and nuez. There are tons of flavors though and you can basically make atole out of anything you think might be good. I've also heard tons of really funny/cute Mexican proverbs with atole in them. Oh, atole, I miss you! Okay, now I am just sad that I don't have any atole or tamales. I am going to go back to reading my paper for the 900th time.

Love, María

Belanova

2009-10-27T22:28:00.005-04:00

I had a really horrible day and I thought I was going to cry for 90% of it. BUT I made it to all my classes! And now I am sipping lemonade in my room and writing a blogpost, so that must mean things are looking up. Sometimes, I really just want to listen to Mexican pop music because it makes me feel better. Or it just makes me want to sing along. That's one of the reasons why I like Belanova. They aren't the best band ever or anything, but I really like them. I've wanted to write this post for a long time but I kept stopping. Now that I'm actually writing a post about them, I decided that I'll just write a post that's mostly about their last album, Fantasía Pop, or else this blog post would be way too long.

Belanova is a Mexican electropop group. I first started listening to them after I saw them on TV all the time. I remember one of their videos would play all the time when we were in SLP visiting my grandparents one year. At home, we only have cable so that we can get like 1000 channels in Spanish. This is mostly because without these channels we wouldn't get to watch Mexican soccer, and I don't know what would happen then. Because everyone in our house knows that there is no talking if the soccer game is on, it's sick. Anyway, because we get 1000 channels in Spanish and a lot of these are music channels, I sometimes watched them when I was getting ready. Belanova was on ALL THE TIME. So, it was pretty inevitable that I just continued to listen to them.

Fantasía Pop is so good because I can listen to it all the time and never get sick of it. It was released in 2007, and ever since then, it's been on my computer and I play it when I feel like listening to really good pop songs. The first song I ever heard by them isn't on this album, it's called "Por Ti" and I could dance to that song all the time. I have been listening to it all day and I am not sick of it. The girls next door probably are though.

My favorite song on Fantasía Pop is definitely "Vestida De Azul" it is just so perfect. Some people think it sounds like a Julieta Venegas song. Maybe, maybe not. Denisse's voice is just so cute and almost squeaky sometimes. It makes me happy. "Dulce Fantasía" is also really good, when she sings "sabes que me duele no encontrarte/sabes que es dificil que ya no estás" my heart kinda breaks. "Rockstar" is so electropoppy and has clapping and silliness. "Bye Bye" is what I listen to sometimes when I'm putting clothes away. It is all "my life is so hard!" but also really dancey. Also, all the lyrics in "Cada Que..." are perfect pop song lyrics like "y cada que pienso en ti/se enciende mi corazón/y nada es más triste que hoy/hablar de ti" how sad! I even like "Toma Mi Mano" which isn't upbeat but is still really good.

The video for "Baila Mi Corazón" is probably the best video they've ever done. It is just completely precious. I like it better than the video for "Por Ti" simply because look at all those pretty colors! Denisse is so cute! And everything looks like it's made out of paper, kewl. I just wish I was precious enough to wear those teeny tiny cutesy outfits. I just want to have a cute little band!

Now I'm sure that A LOT of people really hate Belanova. Sometimes people think they are annoying, or just not very good, well, I just don't agree. They are so precious that I can't not love them. They are silly and poppy and heartachey and cute. Okay, maybe a tad bit annoying, but that's not totally a bad thing. So if you don't like them, sucks for you. And if you just want to listen to some precious Spanish pop songs, go listen to them now!

Love, María

PS: I knew this blogpost was gonna be too long. Sorry, guys!

Andrew Bird w/ St. Vincent at the Electric Factory

2009-10-27T10:50:00.005-04:00

On Sunday night, Maggie, Zanny, and I went to Andrew Bird's concert at the Electric Factory in Philly! It was pretty awesome. I have really wanted to go to another Andrew Bird concert ever since I saw him back in January/February (I can't remember which month it was, because it was either right at the end of January or the very beginning of February), and the fact that he is now touring with St. Vincent gave me a reason to go.

St. Vincent played all of the songs we wanted her to play ("Now, Now," "The Strangers," and "Actor Out of Work"), and obviously Andrew Bird was just as precious as he always is and did a lot of that adorable little head-shake/nod thing he does all the time. But probably the best part was when he brought St. Vincent and her band all back on stage and they played the most amazing version of "Scythian Empires," complete with flutes and clarinets and tons of adorableness.

I know I have a lot of friends who think that Andrew Bird is their perfect man and that they are going to marry him (at least four), but it was just really obvious that Andrew Bird and Annie Clark are totally in love. Before he had her come back out on stage to play "Scythian Empires," he made this little speech about how this has been the best tour ever because he gets to hang out and "jam" with Annie, and then for the encore, he brought out St. Vincent again, and they played "Marry Me" together while totally staring at each other. She may as well have changed the lyrics to "marry me, Andrew." So, sorry everyone. They are probably going to get married and have tons of super-skinny, musically gifted babies.

Love, Jillian

Food Porn Daily

2009-10-21T22:59:00.007-04:00

Okay, I know what you are thinking, and that is that anything with "porn" in its name totally does not belong on Flower Farm. But, you are wrong. When Anisha first showed it to me, I wasn't sure if writing a post about this website was appropriate for Flower Farm because the food that is mostly involved falls into the non-precious food category (i.e. it does not involve pink frosting and sprinkles). Then I realized that 1) this website is too good to NOT write about it, and 2) there are totally pictures of tiny little desserts and cupcakes on the website, so it totally qualifies as adorable.

Red Velvet Cake w/ Cream Cheese Frosting

The website I am talking about is Food Porn Daily, and it is basically the most perfect website I have ever seen in my life. Every day, a new, giant, beautiful photograph of delicious food is posted. That's it. You can click on each picture to see the picture from the day before it, and other than submitting a photo of your own, that is all you can do. And why would you want to do anything else?! Their motto is "click, drool, repeat," and that is exactly what I did for at least an hour last night after coming back from the gym.

Because I have already been through every picture of every delicious dish on Food Porn Daily, I will share with you some of my favorites that I stole (yes, I save my favorite pictures on my computer, so what?).

Potato, Leek, Spinach & Bacon Soup

Moist Delicious Pumpkin Pie w/ Whipped Cream

Caprese Salad Skewers

Fried Green Tomato, Crimini, Mache, Poached Egg & Mustard-Basil Creme Fraiche

Aren't you so hungry now?! But aren't you also so glad that beautiful, delicious, perfect food like this exists?! I guess sometimes I forget that, because even though our dining halls are not too bad, they are nowhere near as wonderful as these things. Every time I look at this website, it only enhances my constant and intense cravings for things like corned beef, bacon, chorizo, and poached eggs. Apparently, I do not have enough protein in my diet. But Food Porn Daily will kind of help me out (or make me crazy) by reminding me of all the wonderful things I will be able to make in my adorable kitchen when I get an adorable apartment!

Love, Jillian

Big Bang Ice Cream Video

2009-10-21T13:48:00.003-04:00

Normally, I wouldn't share any of the crazy Korean videos we are weirdly in love with. But, c'mon, this is full of really cute things like ice cream and pretty clothes. Plus, I might just not care because I'm really distracted by all the pretty pastel colors.

I don't think I need to say anything else.

Love, María

Jonathan Johansson

2009-10-19T16:08:00.005-04:00

All I have been able to listen to lately is Swedish music. Something amazing/terrible happened to my brain when María, Melissa, and I went to see Asobi Seksu with Anna Ternheim and Loney, Dear at Johnny Brenda's on Saturday night, and ever since then I feel incomplete if there is not Swedish music in the background of my life. I am not even exaggerating, I stayed up until after three last night just because I didn't want to have to be asleep and not be able to consciously listen to Swedish music anymore.

I blame this on the fact that while we were trying to buy time at Honey's before going back out in the freezing rain to walk the ten-ish blocks to the show, I drank three full cups of coffee and caffeine does really weird things to me, especially when I haven't had it in a long time. But it is also due to the fact that Swedish pop is the sweetest, most perfect and precious and heartbreakingly adorable music to ever exist!

A really great example of this is Jonathan Johansson. For now, I've been able to listen to his album En hand i himlen for free, but I'm pretty sure that Last.fm only lets you listen to things for free so many times, and I've already listened to the album three times today. It is just so perfect that I can't stop! I think that this one review of some Swedish band I read put it perfectly when they said that the melodies and music in Swedish pop all fit together so perfectly, but the songs also sound so delicate that even if you only changed one note, you feel like the song would just break like a tiny little glass figurine.

Even though I can't understand anything he is saying, Jonathan Johansson's songs make me feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy and heartbreaking feelings! En hand i himlen even made me laugh when I first realized that "Alla vil ha hela världen" is definitely a cover of Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." "Sent för oss" is dance-y and perfect and even though the whole album makes me feel warm and fuzzy and cuddly and happy, "Innan vi faller" makes me feel that way even more. "Du sa" is just so perfect that I can't even put it into words.

In a way, I think that it is a good thing that I don't understand Swedish, because if the songs sound this precious and perfect to me now, I would probably just be completely debilitated by the adorableness of what he is actually saying, and I would probably never be able to leave my room again because I would be too busy not sleeping and listening to Jonathan Johansson all the time while crying because of all of the perfect, sad, precious, happy, adorable things it makes me think about. I guess that giant sentence just shows you how extra-insane caffeine makes me--I had coffee last night and again just now.

Love, Jillian

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Part II

2009-10-18T15:01:00.002-04:00

Almost 2 weeks ago, I finally saw The Pains of Being Pure at Heart play a show. Before that though, they released their Higher Than The Stars EP. And if you follow any music blog, which actually I don't really, you'll see that they've been releasing stuff all over the place since their full-length album. Plus, even though I already wrote a pretty lengthy post about them, I figured it was worth it to write about this EP and their show.

Higher Than The Stars has four songs and a remix on it. I almost said "it's short and sweet" but that sounds stupid. Plus, like the Pains, it's not really as saccharine as a lot of the other stuff I listen to/write about. But I do really like the EP. The title track has such perfectly POBPAH lyrics and when Kip Berman sings "in the back of her mother's car" over and over I just wanna sing along. Both the title track and "Falling Over" are almost dreamy sounding tracks compared to other Pains stuff. I still really like them. But I really love the noisiness of "103" because I'm pretty sure the fuzzed out pop started my love for this band. "Twins" is sort of in between, noisier but maybe a little catchier. The Saint Etienne remix of "Higher Than The Stars" is a nice ending to the EP, but maybe that's just because I also love Saint Etienne. There's also another remix of this track which is not on this EP. That remix is done by Skanfrom (the guy from Television Set and Sleeparchive) and for a bit I thought I might like that better. I'm not really sure now.

Anyway, after listening to the Pains forever, and missing their shows all the time, I finally made it to one. I went with our friend Melissa, and we showed up way too early. Then we met up with our friend Maggie, who is actually in this Sociology class at Bryn Mawr about popular music. The show was, basically, uh, research, because Kip was going to her class the next day. The Depreciation Guild opened for the Pains, and I actually really like them, so it was nice. Then they finally came on and for a little I could only think of how precious Peggy Wang is. She seriously is, guys. Even moreso in person, when she's wearing my dream flower print 90s jumper dress. It was Kip's birthday and he was really precious about it. I liked their set, and even though one of the guys in front of me smelled like Smirnoff Ice, all was good. I love the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and I was just really glad to finally go to a show. They are just so good and so adorable! At the end Kip almost fell and almost poured a his drink on me. But c'mon guys, he's so precious that I just sort of shook my head.

According to Maggie, Kip was super precious in class. And he mentioned a bunch of my favorite bands, which I had just shared with Maggie at Burger Friday. At the show, Maggie's professor had mentioned that Kip Berman's mom was also coming to their class, saying something like "I've had rockstars come to class, but I've never had the mothers of rockstars come to class..." Well, apparently, it just made everything extra cute.

On the way back to Bryn Mawr, Melissa and I took some really ridiculous pictures. I really hate pictures, but the show put me in a good mood. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart don't always put me in a good mood, but I really just love them.

Love, María

Baseball

2009-10-16T16:54:00.011-04:00

In case you couldn't tell from my fall and summer season-posts, I think that baseball is pretty adorable. I am really bad about actually paying attention to it until the postseason, but then I get excited when I randomly catch a game on TV.

I think the reason I have so many warm and fuzzy feelings about baseball is partly because my grandma loves the Yankees more than life, and because of Maple Valley.

When we lived in Delaware, we would go to the Maple Valley pool every day in the summer. I was on their swim team for five or six summers (I can't even remember, I did it every summer), and after practice in the morning, I would basically just stay there for the rest of the day. We used to walk to Wendy's in giant packs to get Frosties and fries, or we would hang out by the picnic tables and eat pizza that people would order, and if it was cloudy or during adult swim, we would go to the field behind the deck and play baseball!

One of my friends in middle school's dad always had tickets to the Padres' games, so I probably went to every home game of theirs the summer between seventh and eighth grade. I've never felt any particular attachment to the Padres because people in my family all like the Yankees, so all I remember from those games is wandering around the stadium and eating too many hot dogs and thinking about how precious baseball uniforms are.

Something NOT cute happened to me last night involving baseball. Maggie, María, and I were watching the Phillies/Dodgers game last night, and two freshmen kicked us out of the Pem East TV room so they could watch some ridiculous show that they had "reserved" the room for. I think was called "Supernatural." I am too mad to look up what that show even is, but it sounds stupid.

This makes me angry for three reasons.

1)When I was a freshman, if I had walked into a TV room and seen that it was full of seniors (they know Maggie and I are seniors because we work with them), I would have just gone to find another TV, because THEY WERE SENIORS AND I WAS A FRESHMAN.

2) At Bryn Mawr, people put little notes on the doors to the TV rooms to reserve them for whatever shows you happen to watch. So, it's not uncommon to see little notes that say the room is reserved every Thursday or Tuesday or whatever, for an hour or so. However, it's fall break, so it's perfectly reasonable to assume that the people who reserved the TV room are not going to be using it, since the whole campus basically empties out every break and everyone goes back to New Jersey or Connecticut or New York or whichever super-close-to-here state they are from. I guess what I am trying to say is that during break, reservations are no longer valid.

3) Baseball games happen in REAL LIFE. Once they are over, that's it! I watch two TV shows regularly, but I just watch them an hour after they air on my computer in my room. Life is easier that way. Once a TV show has aired, you can still watch it later and it will still be interesting exciting. Sports don't work that way at all.

It was just really disappointing because we basically missed the best part of the game. When we got kicked out of the room, the Dodgers were winning 1 - 0. When we got it back an hour later, the Phillies were winning 5 - 1. In between, we were wandering around campus in the rain, looking for an available TV, and then sitting in Maggie's room constantly refreshing MLB.com and screaming obscenities and imagining all of the horrible tasks we could give these girls at the cafe when we have them on shift (I actually still kind of want to do this) because we were missing awesome things.

But in spite of all the horribleness, the point here is that baseball is adorable. I guess I didn't do a very good job of explaining why, but it just is. Like last night, I didn't think that I really had a preference for either team, but then I found myself getting really excited and happy every time the Dodgers scored and getting nervous when the score got close. It is just really precious, and I am excited to watch the Yankees/Angels game tonight. And this time I'm not going to give up the TV room.

Love, Jillian

Taken By Trees

2009-10-14T20:26:00.007-04:00

Victoria Bergsman is incredibly cute. She is also the reason I began listening to the Concretes. Her voice is one of the reasons I loved them so much. So in 2006, when she left the band to pursue a solo career I wasn't really worried that it wouldn't work out for her. And while I love Maria Eriksson and Lisa Milberg, the Concretes are just not the same without Victoria.

Then, she did some vocals for that Peter Bjorn and John song that I can probably never listen to again. But then, finally, Victoria Bergsman became Taken by Trees. I spent plenty of time listening to her on her website and falling in love with "Too Young" which is just so achey and good. Then there was that really good remix of it, which made me fall more and more in love with that song. "Sunshine Lady" and "Cedar Trees" made me want to cry, but not in a really horrible way. And that pun in "Tell Me" always made me smile a little. Open Field was just pretty much amazing. Victoria was still using her perfect voice but sometimes this was sounding better than some of the stuff she had done with the Concretes. So, forever ago, I decided she was perfect and that I could listen to her all the time.

Recently, she went to Pakistan where she made her newest album, East of Eden. Before she actually released it though I spent a really long time streaming her song "My Boys" until it seemed like I'd been listening to that song forever. Really, I'd just been listening to it for days. It's a cover of that Animal Collective song "My Girls" which I remember everyone praising and totally loving. But I just haven't really been all that into Animal Collective since a couple of years ago, and I like this version better.

Anyway, now that the whole album is out, I'm stuck listening to it all the time, all the time. And I don't mean "stuck" in a bad way, but I really just can't stop! It was so perfect for those last few days before going on break. "To Lose Someone" is the perfect opener, and feels almost like everything is about to break. But it leads to the next song "Anna" which feels a little more hopeful, and which I know Jillian listened to on repeat for quite a long time. I can't help but love "Greyest Love of All" because it is so soft and achey, and I love songs like that. Then, there's "Tidens Gång" which is in Swedish! I love Swedish! It is very simple, and I think that makes sense because Bergsman has said before that she prefers to write in English because writing in Swedish is almost too real/scary. "Watch the Waves" is less soft and achey but still really nice. And while I'm not so in love with "Day by Day" or "Wapas Karna" I still like the way they fit into the album.

Basically, I am really pleased with this new Taken By Trees album and I wish I had Victoria Bergsman's voice. I listen to her when I'm falling asleep in my super cold room under tons of blankets. It's nice.

Love, María

Sweater-Cuffed Booties & Other Fall Break Things

2009-10-13T10:21:00.010-04:00

This weekend, before María and I went to New York, I had a skirt that was an Anthropologie impulse-buy that I wanted to return. The problem with returning things at Anthropologie is that there is always something else to buy! So, of course, I ended up exchanging my skirt for these adorable boots:

Aren't they wonderful?! They are so comfortable, and they only cost $40 more than what the skirt had cost, so I can lie to myself and pretend like I only paid $40 for them. I haven't worn them yet, because I break shoes in really quickly and I want them to stay new and pretty forever!

Basically, fall break so far has been all about shopping and delicious food. The same day that we went to Anthropologie, María and I also went to a bunch of other stores and bought other adorable things, like this one shirt I got (on sale!) at H&M with a big bow on the front! Bows are adorable. We even stopped by the men's section of J.Crew to get a birthday present, and it was hilarious because every guy in the store had a girlfriend who was picking out his clothing for him. They probably have the right idea, because most guys I know dress pretty horribly. I am just too lazy to force them to dress themselves well.

New York was basically full of naps, insanely cheap clothes from UNIQLO (I got a denim pencil skirt there for $20 that looks just like the one that costs $158 at Anthropologie), pizza, football, Chinese food, BFFs, diner food, and free drinks thanks to the Phillies! I definitely want to go back before the end of the semester.

I hope that everyone else is having a super-cute fall break, too!

Love, Jillian

Puppies and Stairs

2009-10-09T18:25:00.003-04:00

Fall break has officially begun! This means that I have almost a whole week to sleep and slack off and be on Bryn Mawr's campus when it is even more deserted than usual, and then like two days at the end of the week where I freak out and don't sleep and do all of the work that I should have spread out over the entire ten-day break. Yay!

But that is not the point. Right now I am waiting in my room to go into Philly to go to this restaurant in the Northern Liberties. It is supposed to be delicious, and I am supposed to be going with a bunch of people, but I am still waiting to hear about which train we are taking. It is already 6:30 and I am starving, and anyone who knows me knows that I do not deal well with being hungry. I am even hungrier because this restaurant has Reuben sandwiches, and so all I have been thinking about since yesterday is how much I want corned beef.

There are two things right now that are keeping me from freaking out and going insane with hunger: the left-over cookies I took when I closed the cafe today (they are delicious, but they are a poor substitute for corned beef), and this precious video of a tiny little Corgi puppy trying to go down some stairs!

IS THAT NOT THE MOST PRECIOUS THING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN?!!?! It reminds me of when we first got Chelsea and she had never seen stairs before, so she refused to go upstairs for like the first week we had her. Plus, anything that can make me giggle when I am about to go into a hunger-induced rage must be incredibly adorable. I need that puppy! As soon as I have my own house, I am going to get a puppy. And a kitten. And a giant refrigerator full of corned beef for sandwiches.

Love, Jillian

A.P.C.

2009-10-06T13:01:00.003-04:00

It's really difficult for me not to love A.P.C. Every time they come out with anything, it's pretty likely that I am going to fall in love with it and then have to decide if it's worth it to spend 2 of my paychecks on one thing. It's so difficult to make the right choice! I am glad that Christopher shares my addiction. At least then, when new things are released, I have someone to complain to. Unfortunately, both of us always end up buying things because they are just so cute.

About 2 weeks ago I got an email letting me know that there was new stuff. Ah! How could I resist clicking ont he link and then staring at all the stuff for almost an hour? I couldn't. Obviously. It's okay though because I am so poor that I couldn't even convince myself it was okay to buy anything. I guess that means I have some willpower. Maybe. I will most likely just wait until everything goes on sale and then I will feel the need to buy stuff.

They also have their Madras collection, which always has more super cute stuff. There was a dress this summer that had monkeys on it. It's so cute! I also almost bought a romper from them. That's how sick going to their website makes me. My favorite thing right now is this dress. It's so precious! It's green and has all sort of adorable things (including ponies!) all over it.

Isn't it ADORABLE????? It definitely is! I love A.P.C. because everything they make is really cute and also really simple. It's also super comfortable and my dresses are always super soft. Plus, they make tons of things that aren't pants, and I hardly ever wear pants. If I had a precious boyfriend I would buy him all those cute A.P.C. sweaters. Or well, I'd hope he'd just wear them on his own. I guess for now, I'll just have to talk to Christopher about all the precious things that we want to buy and try to convince each other that spending all that money is okay.

Love, María

The Bakery House!

2009-10-06T11:13:00.005-04:00

This morning, I got up early ("early," as in, before eleven) and walked in to Bryn Mawr to go to The Bakery House! It is this super adorable bakery at 640 W Lancaster Ave. that is full of cupcakes and cakes and cookies and banana bread and candy apples and all sorts of things that will probably give you cavities, but will also make you really happy!

I didn't even know The Bakery House existed until Liz drove us there last spring to buy cupcakes for the garden party that María and I gave (it was adorable, but we were too busy dying from how disgustingly hot it was to take pictures), and now I am in love! We are having a fall tea (basically a little gathering of Italian students and professors and anyone who is interested in the Italian department) TODAY, and I bought cupcakes from The Bakery House! They are going to be delicious, and I am probably going to have to cut them all in half so that everyone can have some, but it will still totally be worth it.

And now I will shamelessly advertise: if you are reading this and you go to Bryn Mawr or Haverford and you are remotely interested in Italian and/or eating free cookies and cupcakes with me, come to the tea! It's at 4:30 in the London Room in Thomas!

Love, Jillian

Lollipop

2009-10-05T13:24:00.005-04:00

Ever since we started hanging out last semester, my friend Melissa has slowly but surely been sucking me into her obsession with all things Korean. I was able to resist when all we really did was watch Boys Over Flowers (I love the show, but it didn't make me want to fill my life with Korean pop culture), but when she introduced me to Korean pop music, I finally had to give in.

A perfect example of this is what I did yesterday. After going to brunch, I went to the library and did work for two hours. Then, I decided to go to the cafe and take a little break. I wrote my blog post about St. Vincent, talked to all of the cafe people who were hanging out in the cafe (we are all always there even when we are not working), and then I watched the video for "Lollipop" (2NE1, featuring BIGBANG) over and over for a full hour. I know, I am sick. But just look at how adorable it is!!

How can I possibly resist?! It is full of adorable, pretty girls dancing around in crazy neon clothes in front of a weird rainbow background. Perfect! I want my life to be just like that. Plus, I am kind of developing a crush on the one guy from BIGBANG who wears those really thick-rimmed glasses for part of the video. I also kind of like the one who has the little origami squares on his shirt during his little solo-thing. And now every time I am on my computer, I cannot resist the temptation to watch at least one 2NE1 music video. It is just like being in elementary school again, and being obsessed with the Spice Girls! María and Melissa and I have each already picked our favorites.

The moral of this story is really that K-Pop is super addictive, and you should probably just stay away if you want to have any free time ever again. I guess I should have put that at the beginning of the post, because if you just watched the video for "Lollipop," you are definitely already hooked.

Love, Jillian

St. Vincent

2009-10-04T15:18:00.004-04:00

I am in such a good mood today! I am in a good mood for several reasons. It is super nice and sunny out today, and it feels just like perfect, wonderful, San Diego summer weather. And I had a really good weekend that wasn't even ruined by the really awkward Haverford party I went to last night. And, most importantly, Maaaaaaggie said she'd go to the Andrew Bird concert with me that is coming up in October! This is exciting because 1) I have wanted to go back to another Andrew Bird concert ever since I saw him in January, and 2) St. Vincent is opening!!

St. Vincent is the moniker for Annie Clark. She is from Oklahoma and was raised in Dallas, TX, and she is super precious and adorable! I have always kind of liked her since her album Marry Me came out in 2007, but for some reason I have been super extra in love with her this semester. I keep listening to "The Strangers" from her second album, Actor, over and over again. All of her songs are just so pretty and wonderful!

I am really excited to go see her. Obviously it was fate that right after I became super obsessed with her, I saw that she was going to be playing in Philly with Andrew Bird, and even though it took me almost a month to find someone who was willing to go with me (people didn't want to pay the $25 for the ticket, I guess), it is now going to be totally worth it!

Also, I figure that I kind of deserve to go to this concert, since I am apparently already having horrible grad school dreams. I must have had one last night, because when I woke up this "morning" (it was not morning at all, it was like noon), I saw how sunny it was outside my window, which made me think that I must be in California, which made me think that it must be winter break, which made me think OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO BE LATE FOR MY UCLA GRAD SCHOOL INTERVIEW, I HAVE TO GET UP AND GET DRESSED AND RUN OUT THE DOOR RIGHT NOW, WHAT IF THERE IS TRAFFIC?!!!

Then, as I was flailing around/falling out of my bed, I realized that I am still at Bryn Mawr and it isn't even fall break yet, let alone winter break. But obviously UCLA is stressing me out in particular, since their application is due 15 December, when everyone else's isn't due until 1 March.

But anyway, listen to this acoustic version of my current favorite, "The Strangers," and see for yourself how adorable St. Vincent is!

Love, Jillian

the About-Town Dress

2009-10-03T12:41:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, María and I went into Philly because I had a sweater and a dress to return, and because I felt like going into Philly instead of going to the Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters that are closer to Bryn Mawr. When we were in the Anthropologie by Rittenhouse (the cutest one!, it is in an old mansion and super-pretty), I found this dress that I had seen online that reminded me of a dress Peggy (from Mad Men) wore in one of the more recent episodes. In the picture they have online, though, it looks a lot less precious than it does in person:

In person, however, the About-Town Dress is ALMOST the most perfect dress ever! It has a much more fitted waist, and the skirt poufs out more than it looks like it does in the picture. The reason that it is only ALMOST the most perfect dress ever is because it didn't fit me!

I got the size that I normally wear in Anthropologie dresses, and when I put it on, I almost couldn't believe that it had enough room for my shoulders (from the Slovak side of my family), but was still small enough that it fit my waist (from the Japanese side of my family). The only problem was that I could only button the first two buttons up from the waist, and then no amount of shoving and wiggling was enough to get the other to buttons to button over my boobs (from the Italian side of my family). And then when I tried the bigger size, I was able to button it, but it was super-huge on my waist and the shoulders were too wide to the point where they would have needed lots of expensive tailoring. It was really, really sad. My life is obviously really hard. But then I found the world's most adorable skirt ON SALE, so that made me feel better.

But seriously, words cannot explain how amazing this dress looks in person. I feel like a lot of the time, there are things on Anthropologie's website that look amazing in the picture and horrible in person. This dress was like the exact opposite! I wish I could have bought it, because I would have worn it every day!

Love, Jillian

Talulah Gosh

2009-10-01T12:53:00.009-04:00

Oh Talulah Gosh, what an adorable name for a band! Talulah Gosh supposedly formed after Amelia Fletcher and Elizabeth Price met at a club when they were both wearing Pastels badges. What an incredibly twee start! Eventually Elizabeth Price left the band, they got Eithne Farry to join in on vocals, and then they broke up in 1988. Then some of them would go on to form another band I love, Heavenly. But before all that happened they made some of my favorite songs ever.

When they broke up, I wasn't even born yet. Still, when I discovered them at fifteen, I was in love. "Beatnik Boy" is the most perfect song. With lyrics like "all my life I had a dream/of someone I'd like to meet/he would be mine, he'd be so fine/my beatnik boy so sweet" it is both precious and super heartbreaking. And of course, like all those other bands I love, it makes me wish I had a perfect boyfriend to listen to them with. There's also the song "Bringing Up Baby" which is of course about the Katharine Hepburn movie. And even before I was a Bryn Mawr girl (oh, wait, am I supposed to say WOMAN?) it was one of my favorites. "Do You Remember" is so sadsadsad and "Talulah Gosh" makes me wish I were that girl. And then there's "My Best Friend" which always makes me smile and then frown, especially when they sing "I'll give you my heart/I'll give you my heart/If you'll give me yours" Yikes!

Talulah Gosh were also cute enough to come up with nicknames. Amelia and Elizabeth became Marigold and Pebbles. How precious! When we finally start our band, I think we should have nicknames. Until then, I can listen to Talulah Gosh over and over and sing along and feel like it doesn't matter that I started all my homework super late, AGAIN. Or that I am writing this blog-post while waiting for my Linguistics class to begin instead of doing more important things.

Love, María

I Don't Really Love You Anymore

2009-09-30T13:45:00.008-04:00

Anyone who has looked at my Last.fm page lately can see that I have been absolutely obsessed with "I Don't Really Love You Anymore" from the Magnetic Fields' album I. Back when I first started listening to the Magnetic Fields, I realized that I was too poor to buy all of their albums, and so I just picked a few. One of the albums I didn't buy was I, and I don't know what I was thinking!

Ever since I finally got I last Friday, I have been in love. "I Don't Really Love You Anymore" is just so adorable and perfect and heartbreaking and wonderful! Here is a video of them performing a slowed-down version of "I Don't Really Love You Anymore" in Cambridge in 2004:

I just cannot get over how precious and perfect the lyrics are! I want to write about all of them, because I am having a really hard time picking my favorite lines. But if I absolutely have to pick which lines are the best, I would say that the part where he sings, Because I am a gentleman,/ think of me as just your fan/ who remembers every dress you ever wore, is the most precious thing I have ever heard in my entire life!

I know for a fact that no boy I have ever dated remembers every dress I ever wore, or even remembers more than one or two dresses I ever wore. I also know there are are boys who probably do remember every dress I ever wore, and those are never the ones I date! This is probably because I know that they are too perfect and dating them would make me feel the same combination of adorableness and heartbreaking-ness that this song does (that is way too much emotion for María or me to handle). Obviously there are life-lessons to be learned from this song!

I can't write this post without also including the part that goes, 'Cause I've read your horoscope/ and now I've given up all hope./ So I don't really love you anymore, because I totally read the horoscopes of boys I like and I thought that I was the only one weird enough to do that. I have ten minutes left now before my ridiculously hard Italian class (the other one I am taking is really easy), and I will probably spend it sitting in the cafe and listening to "I Don't Really Love You Anymore" over and over until then.

Love, Jillian

Nissan Figaro

2009-09-30T13:08:00.002-04:00

I woke up with a horrible headache and I have no idea why but I feel like my head is going to explode. Not adorable. Anyway, I am now drinking an IZZE and listening to Jillian and Jen talk about how horrible computers are. I'd rather not join in the conversation since I've had horrible luck with mine and it just makes me angry. Instead, I'm gonna write this blogpost.

I've wanted a Figaro forever and ever. They are the cutest cars ever. All you have to do is look at the picture and I bet you realize that it is precious. If you don't think it's super cute, something is wrong with you. I just recently found out that the Figaro was originally only sold in Japan. Jillian is Japanese and she's pretty cute so that must be a good sign. Plus the car's name is pretty charming.

So, basically, I just want this car because it is so cute. Plus I bet I'd look really cute driving it because it's just my size. Now I just need to get really rich or find someone who loves me enough to buy me one like in the Korean dramas we watch. Or maybe someone will build me a cute car like in Gilmore Girls. Until then I'll just look at pictures of it whenever I'm avoiding work.

Love, María

Peanuts

2009-09-29T19:44:00.004-04:00

I just went to a talk where a bunch of our school's advisors and deans and whoever else talked about grad school and the application process, and it has basically placed me right on the verge of a grad-school-application-induced nervous breakdown. Not cute.

So! I have decided to take a break from listening to Hole while making an overly-complex and comprehensive list of every single grad school I could possibly apply to (with my own personal rankings and really crazy reasons why I would or would not want to go there, mostly based on whether or not I would need to magically be able to afford a car and weird obsessions I have with certain cities that I haven't actually spent any significant amount of time in) to make this post about my other favorite comic, Peanuts!

Just like Calvin and Hobbes, I can't really pinpoint exactly when I started loving or reading or having any exposure to Peanuts. If I had to guess, I would say that I probably first saw A Charlie Brown Christmas before I was actually able to talk or understand anything that was going on, and I definitely used to read the reprints of Peanuts in the newspaper when I was a kid.

I remember when I was in the fifth grade (Ms. Wilson's class), one of the seating charts ended up putting me in the back row of this side-part of the classroom with this kid Grady (my mom called him "the All-American Wonder Boy" because he was blond and tall and played every sport ever) and my friend Nick (hi, Nick!), and it was a disaster. We basically just sat there the whole time and made snarky comments to each other, and Ms. Wilson would always say things to us like, "quiet in the peanut gallery," or whatever.

Okay, so, until I looked it up approximately ten minutes ago, I totally thought that the term "peanut gallery" was a reference to Peanuts. The really complex explanation that I came up with in my ten-year-old head was that because Peanuts occasionally makes somewhat snarky social commentary, a group of people sitting and making snarky comments (think Lucy) was a "peanut gallery" because it was like a "gallery" of Peanuts characters sitting and saying sassy things about whatever was going on.

Apparently, this is not the case, and the story behind the term "peanut gallery" involves actual peanuts. I still like my explanation better.

Basically, I relate everything in life to Peanuts. My favorite character was always Schroeder, and Linus always reminded me of my sister, because he carries his blanky with him everywhere and sucks his thumb. Snoopy only served to fuel my incessant begging for my parents to get a dog, and I always kind of assumed any pet dog would also have a bird-friend like Woodstock. And finally, there was an exceptionally dirty guy at Haverford last year that María and I would call Pigpen.

But most of all, I associate Peanuts with Christmas wonderfulness! We always listen to the A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack during Thanksgiving dinner (Thanksgiving is the day that it officially becomes socially acceptable to allow Christmas music and decorations and everything else Christmas to permeate every aspect of your life), so just hearing it makes me happy and hungry. Obviously, everything about Peanuts is just incredibly adorable!

Love, Jillian

Lorrie Moore

2009-09-29T10:37:00.002-04:00

Does Lorrie Moore belong on Flower Farm? I don't know. Do I think she's precious? Yes, I do.

I saw her read last week and it made me giggly and giddy and I felt a little stupid. But I can't help it, I love her! I know at least 10 people who hate her. It's true. Once we had to read Self-Help in my class and a girl said something about how stupid everything sounded and how there was no point. That girl also wrote one of the worst stories I've ever read. Oh well. I'm not even really sure if Jillian would like Lorrie Moore, but I really really do.

Lorrie Moore's writing is super heartbreaking/funny/cute/smart/sadsadsad all at the same time. And if you haven't noticed yet I am really into things like that. When I was younger, I used to think that if I read "How to Be a Writer" and "How to Be an Other Woman" enough, I'd eventually be able to write my own really great short stories. Sadly, no matter how many times I read anything, I just kept coming up with the most horrible half short stories half prose poetry blobs. When I read Anagrams, I just fell more and more in love with all her characters and with Lorrie Moore. I just kept wishing I'd magically write a whole book one night and it would be at least okay. It didn't happen.

I was excited to see Lorrie Moore read at Bryn Mawr last week. I was also a little scared. It's kind of how last year Marilyn Hacker was one of the writers that taught my poetry class. She was the third one, so I had to wait 4 weeks before getting to have her. I spent those weeks eagerly reading all my favorite things and getting more and more scared that she'd be really intimidating and hate everyone. Then, she got to class and she was still the amazing Marilyn Hacker but was also super sweet and calm and I was pleasantly surprised. I even kept the whole 2 pages she wrote me about one of my poems. Anyway, this is kind of how I felt about Lorrie Moore. But from the moment that she got on stage, all I could think about was how precious she was and how much I like her. It was all okay. And even though she read from her latest book, which I haven't read, it still made me really happy.

I convinced my friend Melissa to go with me to the reading, and then I got really nervous that she might hate Lorrie Moore and then decide that we could no longer friends. Okay, not really, but almost. Fortunately, she really loved it and she mentioned how nice Lorrie Moore's voice is, saying something about how it was the kind of thing you wanted to hear before falling asleep. I'm gonna say that I think that's pretty true. And even though I hadn't shut up about Lorrie Moore and hadn't been able to let her borrow my books because they are all sitting in a flowered hat box in Chicago, she seemed happy to be there.

So, all in all, it was really great. And I should probably shut up about it now, because I'm sure this whole post is just me gushing and gushing.

Love, María

Restaurant Week: Time

2009-09-27T11:21:00.005-04:00

Our last restaurant of Philly Restaurant Week was on Friday, and that makes me sad! But Time was totally delicious and wonderful, and it was a good ending to our Restaurant Week adventure.

María and I weren't huge fans of the atmosphere (it was so dark that we didn't even bother trying to take pictures), but the food was SO INCREDIBLY GOOD. Thinking about the Free Range Chicken (sweet corn and bacon stuffed leg, red cabbage puree, sautéed fingerling potatoes) is making me drool right now. They also had a really delicious risotto with mussels in it. I can't write about the food anymore because it is making me way too hungry.

I would definitely go back to Time. I wish I could eat delicious food like theirs every day of my life! Plus, they had a jazz trio playing when we were there, and jazz makes me really happy. Hopefully, after I return my weird-fitting-and-insanely-expensive Anthropologie sweater, I will once again have enough money to go to more restaurants in Philly!

Love, Jillian

Park Ave.

2009-09-26T19:59:00.011-04:00

This post is funny since I never thought I'd be writing a blogpost about Park Ave. EVER. Posting lyrics on my LJ back in high school doesn't count. But here I am, writing this blogpost. Here's why: I really like/hate Park Ave. and it's this weird thing that makes me feel like it should be a secret and like I am a really sad 15 year old girl. At some point, I liked them for exactly that reason. I was a sad teenage girl who needed to write about her feelings. Plus Omaha was so close, but so far. Again, life was hard! I mean, remember when everyone was either really in love with Conor Oberst or just wanted to kill him? Everything was so complicated.

Now I like Park Ave. because the songs almost make me giggle. I am positive that they are pretty horrible and probably not very cute. Also, this is crazy, but at the back of my mind, I have this weird fear that my life will turn out like the song "She Teaches Art?" or just a combination of a bunch of Park Ave. songs. Scary. Anyway, the cute part of all this, isn't so much Park Ave. as it's just all the silly memories I have about listening to them. Like how at 14 I was sure that being 20 would end up being incredibly heartbreaking, but that just meant that I had to paint my room a horrible turquoise color and wear really adorable seafoam flats that looked like they were made of foam. They were precious though. Also, as much as I love writing posts about really adorable things like gumdrops and pink ponies, I think sometimes I want to write sillier posts. Plus, even if they're not cute, that's fine, it's not like I'm writing a post about Commander Venus.

Love, María

Update: Starfucker

2009-09-26T02:30:00.002-04:00

The Starfucker show was amazing! I am even more in love with them now than I was before, because even though they told me they weren't going to play "Boy Toy" when I talked to them before the show, they did! And they played "Girls Just Want To Have Fun!" It was so good, and free, and wonderful, and probably one of the better concerts I've been to, and definitely the best concert I've been to at Haverford. And I got the set list after the show! I can die happy now.

Love, Jillian

Velocity Girl

2009-09-25T12:27:00.006-04:00

It's been so long since I've posted anything on here! Good thing Jillian has been blogging enough for the both of us. The thing about posting anything on here is that I have 1000 ideas but I can never decide which to finish first. Because of that there are like 60 drafts. Oh well. Anyway, since I'm sitting at the cafe waiting for Maggie and Jillian to get here so BURGER FRIDAY can begin, I think it's a good time to update.

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Velocity Girl and I love them. They're so incredibly 90s, but so good! I think writing a whole blog post about them is a little difficult though because all I wanna do is post random lyrics and tell you all about cute I think Sarah Shannon is. Because, well, she really is. Plus, she had that short but not too short hair that I kept wanting but could never actually pull off.

I used to listen to Velocity Girl and dance around my room. "Drug Girls" is the best song to do that to because of I could yell that part where she sings "fun is never easy its an occupation!" Then I'd pretend to clean my room but would instead only make my bed and throw all my clothes in the laundry room. "Hey You, Get Off My Moon!" was the song I could sulk to when I was done pretending to clean. My life was hard!

Now, when I listen to "I Can't Stop Smiling" it makes me really happy, or at least it makes me wish I were super happy. I also really like "Pretty Sister" and "Copacetic" and of course "Crazy Town" I enjoy all the really ridiculous videos that come with some Velocity Girl songs, and it's totally worth it to search for them. If only so you can see how horrible/great they are.

Unfortunately, while trading music with Maggie, I realized that I no longer have their album Gilded Stars and Zealous Hearts which makes me really sad. It makes me wish that it would somehow magically re-appear on my computer. Anyway, Burger Friday is almost over now but I'm wearing a really adorable dress that's also really soft, and I'm in a good mood so I'm gonna keep listening to Velocity Girl.

If you've never heard any Velocity Girl, you should probably start now. And if you have that last album you should probably let me know!

Love, María

Starfucker

2009-09-24T22:42:00.003-04:00

I am super excited, because tomorrow is basically going to be one of the most awesome days ever. María and I are having our usual lunch date with Maaaaaaaaggie at the cafe (Burger Friday), going to our last restaurant of Restaurant Week for dinner, and then we are going to go see Starfucker play in Haverford's Lunt basement!

This is significant because I basically swore off Lunt basement this year for two reasons: 1) I am now 21 and therefore I can now go to all of the 21+ shows in Philly instead of hoping that good bands get tricked into coming to Lunt, and 2) I spent way too much time there sophomore year and last semester and I am kind of sick of it. But Starfucker is so full of Portland electro-pop adorableness that I am willing to go!

I have basically spent all of my free time in the last week or so being super excited that they are coming and listening to their albums over and over again! My favorite song by far is "Boy Toy!!" The lyrics are super cute when they sing, No sense in hiding away/ when you're already gone/ and I want you to stay/ in my arms/ in my head/ in my eyes/ in my heart/ in my lungs/ in my lungs/ in my lungs! I put it on repeat and dance around in my room, even though anyone walking on the path outside my window can totally see how ridiculous I am, and everyone on my hall probably hates me for blasting music at really weird hours.

I also think that there is some sort of rule that says all adorable bands have to do a cover of "Girls Just Want To Have Fun." If they play both of those songs at the concert tomorrow night, I will die of happiness!!!

Love, Jillian

Restaurant Week: Chifa

2009-09-23T13:05:00.002-04:00

On Monday night, María and I went to our third restaurant for Restaurant Week, and it was super adorable! We went to Chifa, which is on Chestnut St. and super close to Market East. It's a Peruvian restaurant inspired by Chinese food restaurants called "chifas" that are all over the place. Basically, it is Latin-Asian fusion food, and it is delicious! We didn't take any pictures, but you can see the table where we sat in this picture I stole from their website.

The whole inside of the restaurant was so cute and had really adorable blue and white tiles on the wall behind us, and in the back of the restaurant they have these little semi-enclosed rooms for bigger groups of people. But since it was just María and me, we had an adorable little two-person table in the front where we sat and made fun of this couple that was on a date a few tables down from us because the man had ordered a cocktail. It was even more funny because our waiter and a bunch of the other waiters and the bartenders couldn't believe that María and I both got beers instead of cocktails, and that we completely devoured all of our food.

Everything we had was incredibly delicious. My favorite thing was the Chaufa Rice (stir fried rice, chorizo, mango, edamame, soy glazed scallops), but the Aji Gallina, Beef Noodle Bowl, and Scallion Pancakes were insanely delicious as well. Basically, this is how I feel about the restaurants so far: I don't really feel like I want to go back to Xochitl, not because it was bad at all, but because I cannot bring myself to spend that much money on Mexican food when I am used to $2 tacos, I definitely want to go back to FARMiCiA, but I won't get a cocktail, and I absolutely have to go back to Chifa or I will die, because it was too delicious for me to never eat there again.

Our fourth and final restaurant is on Friday!

Love, Jillian

Fall

2009-09-22T11:54:00.003-04:00

As promised, I am going to make a post about why each season is adorable on the solstice or equinox or whatever it is. Today is the fall equinox, so now it is officially fall! Fall is probably my favorite season and Bryn Mawr/Philadelphia/Boston/the East Coast gets really pretty, so I am excited.

Fall is adorable because of changing leaves, crisp weather, cardigans, thick-knit sweaters, boots, hand-knit scarves, baseball games (still), back-to-school shopping, brand new notebooks, school supplies, bonfires, apple picking, apple orchards, Halloween, pumpkin patches, Thanksgiving, leather jackets, fall break and imaginary fall break travel plans, apple cider, apple pies, pumpkin pies, hot tea, and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

Love, Jillian

Apple Cider!

2009-09-19T11:58:00.004-04:00

I have gotten into this really fun/embarrassing habit lately of turning my music up really loud while I am getting ready to open the cafe on Saturday mornings (baking cookies and scones, making coffee, trying not to burn or otherwise injure myself), and singing at the top of my lungs and dancing around like an idiot. Unfortunately, I can't seem to remember that the doors to the cafe are glass doors, and therefore anyone walking through the campus center can see me, and people who are coming to the door to look at our hours usually end up staring at me like I am crazy.

But whatever. The point is that this happened today, but was enhanced by my joy at the discovery of apple cider in our barista fridge! We only carry apple cider at the cafe seasonally, so when we get apple cider, it means that it really is finally fall, and that is exciting for all sorts of reasons that I will list in my upcoming post about fall.

Plus, apple cider is super delicious and adorable in its own right. It is full of all sorts of delicious spices that just make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, and who doesn't love that?! I will leave you with the video for the Weezer song that I was caught singing and dancing to before I opened the cafe today (it won't let me embed it, so you'll have to click this link).

Love, Jillian

Restaurant Week: FARMiCiA

2009-09-18T22:48:00.009-04:00

Tonight María and I went to our second restaurant of Philadelphia Restaurant Week! FARMiCiA was super adorable and delicious! It's right off Market St. and all about organic wonderfulness. The main courses weren't as amazing and different as Xochitl, but they had a lot of really good comfort-food dishes and all of the desserts were insanely good. My favorite part is how they don't put a basket of bread on the table, there's a waiter who goes around the restaurant with like four different kinds of bread and you get to pick what kind you want! The bread I had was too good for words.

The inside of the restaurant is adorable, and they have like a million different cocktails to choose from, although some of them are pretty iffy (by "iffy" I mean that María's tasted like Dimetapp and mine tasted like a liquefied cough drop). But we had lots of fun with Melissa , Allegra, and Isabel, and I will definitely be going back to this restaurant even after Restaurant Week is over!

Here's some of what we ate:

Saffron & Raisin Challah

Lancaster County Chicken Breast with Parmesan Polenta and Green Beans

Boneless Pork Chop with Mashed Potatoes and Broccoli

Classic Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée & Raspberry and Peach Fruit Crisp

Our third restaurant is on Monday, and since no one else can go, it will just be a special me-and-María date!

Love, Jillian

PhillyCarShare

2009-09-16T13:36:00.004-04:00

Since my sophomore year at Bryn Mawr, I have been a member of this really cute organization called PhillyCarShare . They have a bunch of places in the greater Philadelphia area where anyone who is a member can use the cars parked in their special parking spots to go to all sorts of fun and adorable places around Philly. That way, you don't have to actually own a car if you're not going to use it that often anyway, and you get to save money and the planet! Adorable.

I just remembered how cute it is because I am sad about how I had to cancel my membership today. They had to cut back on cars, so there is no longer a "pod" on Bryn Mawr's campus or on Haverford's campus, so it isn't really worth it for me anymore. But it is still a really cool thing to have, and if I somehow end up living in Philly after I graduate, I will totally become a member again.

I am going to really miss my PhillyCarShare membership, because I was able to do all sorts of adorable things because of it! I went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore (my favorite aquarium of all time, I need to make a post about it), an orchard in Westchester, and Longwood Gardens during their Christmas display (I need to go to that again this year and make a post about that as well)! Basically PhillyCarShare is adorable, and facilitates all sorts of adorable activities! I will miss it.

Love, Jillian

P.S. Writing this post made me remember Captain Planet. I love that show! Now I have like eight new posts to make.

Restaurant Week: Xochitl

2009-09-14T19:37:00.024-04:00

Last night was the first night of Restaurant Week, and I can't believe that I didn't discover this sooner! María and I went to Xochitl, and brought Melissa , Julia, and Anisha with us. It was basically perfect, delicious, Mexican wonderfulness. The whole restaurant is adorable and the walls downstairs where we ate are painted the same blue that everyone's apartment is painted in Adam.

First of all, when we walked in they were playing "Eres Para Mí," which is a super-cute song by Julieta Venegas. I don't think we've made a post about her yet, but we've mentioned her and posted two of her videos and she is adorable and María and I love her. Then, everything I ate at Xochitl was really delicious, and I'm pretty sure that María approved as well, and she is pretty critical of Mexican food.

Xochitl's Restaurant Week menu has four courses, and you have a choice of three or four different things for each course. And María and I got completely different things for each course, without even planning it that way, so we ate all sorts of delicious things! My favorite part was dessert, so that is what I am going to post pictures of. I have pictures of every course, but that would make this the longest blog post ever!

María & Tres Leches

Me & Churros y Chocolate

Julia & Pan de Chocolate

And at the end, they gave us each a $10 gift card to come back! I definitely want to. Our next reservation is on Friday night, so get ready for more adorableness from Philly Restaurant Week!

Love, Jillian

Al Franken Drawing STATES!

2009-09-12T12:40:00.007-04:00

A few days ago, I stumbled upon this adorable video of (Senator!) Al Franken at the Minnesota State Fair drawing an adorable and perfect map of every state in the United States! For some reason, when I first saw it I thought it was adorable, but decided that I shouldn't put it on Flower Farm, so I put it on my Facebook instead.

Then, last night, I realized that all I've been doing is watching this video over and over and thinking about how cute it is, and that everyone who reads this blog (all five of you) already knows how María and I feel about states! So, here it is!

This video has already done a really good job of being cute enough to make me feel better today. I needed to feel better today because I obviously am not competent enough to do anything that requires fine motor skills, like unlocking a door. I'm at work right now, and I have been here for less than two hours and I have already had to use the little first-aid cabinet in the back TWICE. That's right. That means that I've now used it a total of four times since coming back to school, which was around three weeks ago.

But it's okay, because now my hands finally match again! Thanks to my clumsiness, both my right and left hands will each have one weird-looking finger as a direct result of me closing a door on it. And I didn't even cry this time, probably because I am now used to shutting doors on my own fingers, so that's kind of an improvement. And it doesn't even hurt anymore, because Al Franken and his state-drawing are adorable enough to make the throbbing pain go away!

Love, Jillian

Lisa Loeb and Laundry

2009-09-12T10:50:00.005-04:00

I've been sick for the past couple of days. It was totally not fun and I feel like the taste of cold medicine will never leave my mouth. Gross. But since I'm feeling tons better today and couldn't sleep, I woke up and decided to do laundry. Right before I was actually completely awake though, Lisa Loeb's "Stay (I Missed You)" began playing and I remembered how much I love that song. I spent a lot of time wishing I was Lisa Loeb, I mean I'm pretty sure I'm still sort of wishing for that. She is just super adorable in a very 90s I want to wear velvet mini dresses sort of way. I also like listening to Lisa Loeb because I begin to think of how I spent a large part of my life thinking I was definitely going to end up with Jordan Catalano or Troy Dyer. Sick, right? It makes me laugh.

Anyway, now I'm just sitting in my room reading blogs and waiting for the rest of my laundry to be done. I love doing laundry. Perhaps it doesn't sound cute to other people, but I think it's really nice. It's really relaxing and makes me feel a lot better about my day, especially if I do it right at the beginning or right at the end of the day. The only thing I don't like about laundry is socks, but that doesn't matter because I own maybe 6 pairs of socks. I also like how accomplished I feel after doing just my laundry even if it's nothing compared to the ridiculous amounts of clothes I wash when I'm at home and do everyone's laundry. Plus, after doing laundry, my room smells super clean and it's just really nice.

I'll leave you with this video while I go back to folding clothes.

Love, María

the Pentatonic Scale

2009-09-10T18:30:00.008-04:00

My flute teacher from when I was in high school posted this video on her Facebook a while ago, and I think it is so cute! It's Bobby McFerrin ("Don't Worry, Be Happy") at 2009's World Science Festival, which I imagine is something like TED, which I am addicted to/in love with. I already love Bobby McFerrin because "Don't Worry, Be Happy" is my JAM and if the title of the song was "Don't Worry, Be Happy, Fill Your Life With Adorableness," it would probably be Flower Farm's motto. After watching this video, I love him even more!

Check it out, and sing along with the people in the video, because something really cool happens!

I guess I should probably add that I am a huge music nerd, and that is probably a lot of why I think this video is so cute and exciting! But also, it just is super cute and exciting!

Love, Jillian

Calvin and Hobbes

2009-09-04T15:18:00.004-04:00

I don't remember when I first discovered Calvin and Hobbes or who showed it to me, but it is definitely the best comic ever! I don't even know how to explain why it is so adorable, because everything ever about Calvin and Hobbes is perfect!

We even have The Complete Calvin and Hobbes at my house, and it is huge and in hardcover and was probably really expensive, but also totally worth it. And it's not one of those comics where you think it's a really good idea to buy the complete set, and then after you read like five of them in a row, it's too much and you have to stop. I feel like that happens with TV shows on DVD a lot, too, but not with Calvin and Hobbes! I basically read the whole thing as soon as we got it, except for when I took breaks to sleep and eat.

I mentioned it earlier, but Barbara has a Hobbes bumper sticker. I always used to wish that Hobbes would be MY friend, because he is just so cuddly and soft-looking and then he always randomly attacks Calvin just like how María and I randomly attack each other! And they do everything together, just like how María and I do everything together!

Also, for those of you who were following the story of my disastrous adventure into the world of paint colors (that's you, Mom), I finished painting over the Arizona Green Tea color and now my room is perfect and wonderful and I love it! My walls are covered in Veiled Violet, and it is adorable and the most perfect color because it kind of reminds me of blueberry smoothies and prettiness and flowers and fairies (sometimes even I don't understand how my brain works). I want to paint my whole life this color!

Love, Jillian

Menswear for Women

2009-09-04T00:09:00.011-04:00

I guess it is officially a trend now (?), but I am totally in love with this whole menswear-for-women thing that I've been seeing lately (especially at J.Crew). Now, I have to specify that I am in love with the formal aspect of it, rather than the casual. I love the idea of taking blazers and trousers that are normally very masculine looking and making them part of a really girly outfit. I am NOT in love with the idea of wearing giant, gross jeans and calling them "boyfriend jeans" when really you just look like you broke out your cargo pants from the nineties/from before you lost twenty pounds and rolled around in some paint. That is casual to the point where it just looks sloppy. But the whole I-borrowed-my-preppy-boyfriend's-trousers look is adorable.

That's not to say that I actually own anything that could be considered menswear, because I definitely don't. This is because, when I was somewhere between the ages of twelve and fifteen, I used to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror, pulling my halfway-down-my-back hair away from my face and thinking, "I could totally be a boy." But then I would let my hair down and I was really obviously a girl. And then I would pull it back again, but let a few pieces fall forward, and that was also somehow feminine rather than masculine. Then I turned fifteen and cut all my hair off. The fact that I have been contemplating the fluidity of gender identity since the age of twelve just goes to show that Bryn Mawr is my perfect school, even though it sometimes makes me think I am going crazy.

But the point is, I've always felt like there was a lot of potential for me to kind of become a boy because I always thought I had a kind of androgynous face and rarely wore skirts or dresses and my best friends were boys more often than they were girls, so when I realized during my sophomore year at Bryn Mawr that I really want my life to be full of all things feminine, I felt the need to absolutely drown myself in them. I feel like, even if I could be a boy, why would I actually want to?! For example, I have only worn pants three times in the last two weeks: two of those times I was at work and I am not allowed to wear skirts there, and the other time was because it was so cold in the room I had to be in all day that I couldn't tolerate wearing a skirt. I still feel like a boy when I wear pants. But seeing how adorable this whole menswear thing is is making me want to incorporate it into my wardrobe (you know, if I magically won the lottery).

I really love this outfit, because even though the blazer is pretty masculine, I feel like the whole outfit together basically screams, "I AM A GIRL!!" especially with the giant necklaces and cashmere hoodie. The same thing is true I think for the first picture, and I think that the only real reason that I think menswear-for-women is adorable is because you can wear these super-masculine pieces of clothing and still make them girly and pretty and wonderful.

Also, María and I finalized our Philadelphia Restaurant Week schedule tonight (it's really two weeks), and it is going to be SO PERFECT. I'm going to bring my camera to all four restaurants and make María take pictures so that way she won't have to be in any of them, because she hates being in pictures. We are going to eat at a Mexican restaurant, a Peruvian restaurant (Peru has a lot of Asian immigrants, so the menu definitely shows that influence), an organic hippie-but-still-cute restaurant, and a French-inspired restaurant. I am beyond excited, even though we will both have no money left afterward. It will be totally worth it, just like the dream macarons!

Love, Jillian

Juana Molina

2009-09-02T00:02:00.004-04:00

Juana Molina isn't exactly cute to a lot of people, but that's okay with me. Her music has huge sounds and perfect silences. And even though I first fell in love with her album Son, which has one of my favorite titles ever and some of my favorite songs in Spanish, I spent my last weeks at home listening to Un Día.

Her fifth album, Un Día, was released almost 3 years ago. And even though I sometimes jokingly refer to her as "mi argentina favorita" I completely stopped listening to her after finding Son forever ago. I just stopped, and that was it until I heard the song she did for the Rudo y Cursi soundtrack. I am in love with that song. I listened to it so many times that my sister was ready to kill me, and I didn't even care. The song is basically the plot of the movie, but it's Juana Molina's voice and the little starts and stops that really get me.

I like Juana Molina now, and I liked her 2 years ago. But I like her for completely different reasons. Un Dia, isn't as sweet as Son, that's the first thing I think of. But it's also a lot louder than Son, and that's part of why I like these songs. I don't miss the quietness of Juana's voice in songs like "Micael" when I listen to "Lo Dejamos" from the newer album. I also get really happy when I hear those little bits in songs like sweetness of songs like "No Seas Antipatica" which is from the older album. Plus "El Vestido" is so amazing that I have to love Un Dia. Basically, Juana Molina's music has changed, but I don't want to say it's evolved. It's all still very her, and I love it all equally. And I think that's why I love "Rudo Y Cursi", because it has all those really big moments from Un Dia and all those tiny sugary parts from Son. And when I listen to it, Juana Molina is really mi argentina favorita.

Love, María

the Hardware Store

2009-09-01T11:05:00.003-04:00

I just got back from walking over to Suburban Hardware in Bryn Mawr, and it made me realize that hardware stores are probably my favorite places to go! They are full of adorable old men (I love old men, I think they are the cutest people ever, I know it's sick and weird) and all sorts of fun tools and hardware things that I don't know how to use, but I want to! Plus, hardware stores make me think of all those Home Depot commercials with people being happy and painting their walls and doing all sorts of things to their houses to make them even more adorable than they already are!

Hardware stores also remind me of when my grandpa worked at Fishkin's, which is actually a camera supply store according to what the internet is telling me, but that is basically the same thing. When we used to go visit them in Perth Amboy from California, my mom would always take me to go visit him at work, and I would get to sit on his lap behind the counter and for some reason he would always be eating a doughnut with chocolate icing on it, and I would get to eat some.

Then, in the hardware store today, they were playing Steely Dan! That is basically my dad's favorite band and I have been listening to them since I was in the womb. I know every word to every Steely Dan song, and that is not even an exaggeration. So, that made me happy, and I told the old man who was ringing me up that my dad and I love Steely Dan. I am pretty sure that my dad loves hardware stores, too. He definitely loves Fry's, and that falls under the category of (specialized) hardware store in my brain.

I also realized today that Southern California must miss me, because while they are stuck with the humid, super-hot grossness that we would normally be having in Philly right now, the wonderful, seventy-something, sunny, beach weather has followed me here! That kind of weather makes school so much better, even if Bryn Mawr doesn't have ocean views from the English classrooms like my high school does. Now I am going to run over to the Campus Center to see if my package got here yet!

Love, Jillian

P.S. Restaurant Week in Philly is coming up, and I am planning on doing a big post about it with pictures of the restaurants that María and I are going to go to with our friends! It should be super cute, so look for that sometime this month.

It's A Wonderful Life and the Charleston!

2009-08-31T13:56:00.006-04:00

Last night when I was watching the newest episode of Mad Men with María, there was a scene where everyone is at a party and dancing and they do the Charleston!! I basically instantly started freaking out in the Campus Center because the Charleston is the dance they do in It's A Wonderful Life and then the gym floor opens up and everyone falls into the pool and George and Mary fall in love and it is the most adorable thing ever! Now that I've seen that dance in It's A Wonderful Life AND in Mad Men, I obviously have to learn how to do it so that my life can be perfect.

It's A Wonderful Life is one of my favorite movies of all time, and it is the most adorable movie ever because it is full of happiness and cute things and Christmas-y goodness and James Stewart and my family always watches it every Christmas, because that is what everyone should do. If you haven't seen it, regardless of whether or not you actually celebrate Christmas, shame on you! And shame on your parents for not making you watch it as a child! If you are one of the people who hasn't seen it, or even if you have, watch this scene because it is the dancing scene and also probably my favorite scene in the whole movie! Start it at the 3:10 mark and you'll see what I mean.

Doesn't it look like the most adorable movie ever?!! The correct answer is, "YES!!!" I am probably going to watch this movie tonight, because I own it on DVD and because I haven't watched it in a while and because it is never too early to start watching Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music! Even if you don't own it, the whole thing is on YouTube, so go watch it anyway!

Love, Jillian

Rewarding Myself With Online Shopping

2009-08-27T20:28:00.008-04:00

Today was basically the most exhausting day of my life. First of all, I woke up inside my Arizona Green Tea bottle, and I've decided that even though I don't hate the color, I don't love it either, and true love is really important to me in regard to things like paint color. So, I am definitely repainting it, and my tentative color choice is a really pale yellow. This means that, because of the combination of the Asian characters that some former resident painted on the windows in my door and the color of my walls and the rice cooker and Japanese, chef's knife I have hidden in my closet and the fact that I live here, my room will basically become a four-walled Asian joke. It also means that I will have to put on like two coats of primer, which I am not happy about.

But! Back to my day. I'm back at Bryn Mawr early to train the new, baby freshmen at the cafe, and I'm also here to train to become a T.A. for the Italian department! That means that every second of my life is scheduled until classes start on Monday. Today, I went to work at 7:30 (which felt like 4:30 because I haven't gotten used to the time zone yet), then I got off at 9 and went straight to the T.A. training session, which I had to leave at 10:30 to go to the Academic Fair for all three hours and tell new, baby freshmen about how awesome it is to take Italian and almost lose my voice in the process. When that was over and everyone else went to lunch at 1:30, I had to go back to the T.A. training session, because they were just getting back from lunch at 1:30, and then I was there until 4 when I met with the new Italian professor so that she could fill me in on what I'd missed while I was at the Academic Fair.

Basically what I'm saying is that I really think I earned some sort of not-entirely-necessary online purchase, and this is what I bought!

Kimchi Blue Stripe Floral Fit N Flare Tunic

Deena & Ozzy Suede Zip Bootie

I also bought myself a pair of rain boots, but I actually need those. And, now that I have this dress coming, I will have to buy some more hangers. Right now I have exactly the right amount of hangers for all of my dresses (including all six grey dresses--I have no shame) and jackets and blouses and skirts, but once that dress arrives, I will be one hanger short, and wrinkled dresses are not adorable! Hopefully it will all get here soon and it will be just as adorable in person!

Love, Jillian

Lula

2009-08-26T19:54:00.005-04:00

There are all sorts of really silly things that I do when I'm alone and have no real plans. A couple of weeks ago, while talking to Christopher, I went through some of these things. These thing are ridiculously particular. For example, I love to brush my hair while watching episodes of Twin Peaks. This doesn't mean that I love to brush my hair when I'm watching TV shows, not at all. I would never brush my hair if I was watching The Wire or later episodes of Dawson's Creek, but I totally used to do it while watching Party of Five. But nothing is as perfect as watching Twin Peaks and brushing my hair, I can't explain why I like this so much. Anyway, now I sound like I'm some crazy girl, but I'm sure everyone has little things that they do that seem pretty ridiculous to other people. And while I could go on and on listing these activities, I won't, for fear that you'll all stop reading Flower Farm. But the whole point of this story brings me back to the subject of this post, Lula.

Here's why: I love "reading" foreign magazines which I can't understand while eating pickles and painting my nails. My favorites are Russian magazines, it's strange. It is ridiculous for SO many reasons. First off, I don't speak Russian, I can't read Russian, I don't have any weird obsession with Russia like I do with Sweden or Iceland. I just LOVE Russian magazines. In fact, I once tried to convince a boy I dated to bring me back piles of them when he went to visit his family. That's how sick I am. (I'm pretty sure he declined solely because he somehow knew I did something crazy with them.) It's also strange because I like to mix these in with me reading things I actually understand like Italian Vogue, Jalouse, and Numéro. BUT I don't ever do this with American Magazines. EVER. And I only "read" Korean Vogue with Vogue Nippon and German Vogue. It's a scattered mess, but it's also a real system. And this whole pickles and nail polish thing makes me sick if I think about it. Plus, I need to balance everything so that nothing is ruined. It's quite a skill/mess.

Anyway, Lula is my favorite magazine, and it's not even Russian! I used to get really excited flipping through issues of L'Officiel Russia or Russian Vogue, but it is so much better when I am also flipping through Lula. That's because nothing can be as precious as Lula. The name is cute, the covers are always darling, and the last one had Chanel Iman on the cover! Of course Zooey Deschanel has been in Lula, I mean it's a given. But Lula is so cute that I even liked the spread with Kirsten Dunst. And the truth is that Kirsten Dunst sort of annoys me sometimes. But not in Lula, no! She looked adorable. I tried to think of my favorite issue or spread or anything but I can't pick just one. There are only 8 issues out (the 9th is out in September) so you should try to get your hands on one/some.

I also really like that Lula doesn't have 3000 ads. It makes me a lot happier. Plus this magazine is full of pastel colors and I can't help but love them. It's sick. Perhaps that's why I've decided that my new room is definitely going to be a light pink/peach color. It'll be like living in a grapefruit or with a My Little Pony. Personally, I love both, so I guess I can't go wrong.

The point of this whole post is that little silly habits aren't so cute, but when they involve adorable pictures of girls in amazing clothes, they can be. Sort of.

Love, María

Leonbergers

2009-08-26T18:27:00.004-04:00

Ever since I was little, I've wanted a really big dog. I used to especially want a Great Dane, but ever since I saw one in Sunset like a month ago, I've wanted a Leonberger! They are adorable, and I need to think about something other than how the color I chose to paint my dorm room makes me feel like I am living inside an Arizona Green Tea bottle.

Too cute, right? Leonbergers are taller than I am when they stand up, and they have fluffy, adorable hair, and they love to cuddle! Basically, the Leonberger is my perfect dog AND my perfect boyfriend.

Love, Jillian

Jóvenes y Sexys

2009-08-24T20:37:00.008-04:00

I keep trying to finish my posts, but it's hard since I'm all over the place. I'm finally taking some time to just write a post and stop being stressed out. Here's a band I've been in love with for SO long. I've only heard 6 songs by them but they are definitely adorable and I loooove them.

Jóvenes y Sexys are Cheky y Loocila from Venezuela. They make super cute songs and are now living in México. Whenever people ask me about them I immediately say: Un montón de canciones chulisímas! If I'm speaking in English I just say: CUUUUTE SO CUUUUTE! But I'm positive that chulísimas is a much better word to describe their songs.

Their little Bruno EP was the first thing I heard by them. Then I found the song they did for Las Canciones de Maru y Roman, the sountrack for Voy a explotar. Just a couple of weeks ago, I heard the song they did for the Rudo y Cursi soundtrack. It's a cover of "Amor Platonico" which I'm pretty sure is originally by Los Tucanes de Tijuana. Now, I'm not a huge fan of banda, but I grew up listening to it at familiy parties and even though I don't like it, I don't hate it. But when Jóvenes y Sexys sing this song, it's just so perfect that I could listen to it all day. They even make the word cochambrosa sound cute, even though I know exactly what it means.

Their EP is also super cute. Half of it is in Spanish, the other half is in English. My favorite song is "Suerte" which is just so precious and quiet and makes me both sad and happy. "El Reloj" is definitely the sweetest song on the EP. Almost saccharine but not quite. And then there are the two English songs, one of them is a cover. And even though I know the song "Divine Hammers" by the Breeders, I like the Jóvenes y Sexys version better. The other English song, "Gold Day" also has joiejoiejoie on the track, it's not my favorite but I do really like it.

Basically I am completely in love with these two. I'm always waiting for more songs from them. But until that happens I'm just super happy I found them.

Love, María

Barbara!

2009-08-23T21:06:00.008-04:00

I am going back to Bryn Mawr tomorrow, and even though it will be super-exciting because I will get to see all of my favorite people, it will also be sad because I will be separated once again from Barbara! I've mentioned her before, but just to refresh everyone's memory, Barbara is our adorable, almost-seventeen-year-old minivan. Barbara is a 1993 Toyota Previa that we bought right after my little sister was born, and we have had her ever since! I named her in high school, because I needed something to call her when I was encouraging her to make it up the hill on D Street right after you cross Vulcan. So, basically every childhood/adolescent memory that I have somehow involves this car.

For example! When we lived in Delaware, we would drive down to Grandpa Joe's beach house (looking back, I'm pretty sure it was actually a condo, but I always called it a house) in Florida every summer. It was a twenty-something hour drive, so we would leave super-early in the morning and spend a night in Georgia, and we always made sure to bring empty grocery bags, because Jocelyn would invariably throw up on the way down and then complain about being hungry. Also in Delaware, my mom and I got stuck in the snow and my mom called my dad to tell him to come get us, but not before she spent a decent amount of time ranting at him about how we should have gotten a car with four-wheel drive and that we were going to get rid of Barbara. But obviously we would never do that.

Before we moved to Delaware, we all went up to Sequoia National Park around Thanksgiving, and I was a little over 5 years old and Jocelyn was a baby, and a bear ripped off the back driver's side window while it was in the parking lot to get in the car and look for food. He even ejected the Nirvana CD we had in the CD player, and left giant paw-shaped dents on the roof of the sedan next to ours. I remember because the drive home was the first time I ever got to sit in the front seat. We had put a garbage bag over the back window, and my dad had to sit with Jocelyn because she was screaming from all the noise it was making (it's windy in the mountains), and my mom was mad because we had to leave early. Then, when they replaced the back window, the Toyota people put a brown-tinted window in instead of one of the grey-tinted ones that we were supposed to have.

Years later, after Jocelyn's sixth grade graduation, we all went out to breakfast with Jocelyn's friend's family (their two daughters are also Italian-Japanese mixes and their last name rhymes with ours, which is too cute), and we parked Barbara on this tree-lined part of Second Street in downtown Encinitas. One of the tree's giant branches fell off and through Barbara's back window, and when the Toyota people went to replace it, they matched it to the brown-tinted mistake window, which is adorable because it reminds me of getting to sit in the front on the way back from Sequoia!!

Barbara was also a really awesome car to have in high school. When I got my license, my parents got a Prius that I drove for a while, but then I made my mom trade cars with me. This is because I went to SDA (the hippie high school), and it was actually cooler to have an old crappy car that all of your friends could pile into than it was to have a brand new car. Basically, everyone's dream car was a VW Bus (those are SO CUTE and I still want one). It ended up being really useful for hour lunch on Wednesdays. And for dances! When we went to prom our junior year, my friends and I decided that taking a limo was tacky and a waste of money, and that it would be way more fun to take Barbara with her peace-sign and Hobbes (of Calvin and Hobbes) bumper stickers. We ended up taking her to our winter formal our senior year, too.

Basically, Barbara is the most perfect minivan ever and I will probably cry when she finally dies and we have to get rid of her. That will be a sad day, but I figured that I should write about her while she is still here for all of us to love and appreciate! And now, since we always park Barbara right in front of our house, she is forever immortalized in Google Maps' street view!

Love, Jillian

Gregory and the Hawk

2009-08-22T04:16:00.007-04:00

Every now and then I stumble upon random bands for no apparent reason, and sometimes I actually really like them and that always makes me happy. Gregory and the Hawk is one of those bands. I guess it's not actually a band, it's Meredith Godreau's solo project that occasionally features musician friends of hers. Her songs are all mellow and adorable, and she has this tiny sounding voice that kind of reminds me of a little girl, but in a good way.

Of all of her folksy, acoustic, adorable songs (yes, I am still on my girl-folk kick), "Boats & Birds" from The Boats & Birds EP is my favorite. The lyrics are just too adorable for me to resist! When I think about my favorite lyrics in a lot of songs (like Slow Club's "It Doesn't Have To Be Beautiful"), it is usually the part that involves the ocean that really makes me go, "AAAaaaaaw!!" Example:

If you'll be my boat/ I'll be your sea/ A depth of pure blue just to probe curiosity/ Ebbing and flowing and pushed by the breeze/ I live to make you free/ But you can set sail to the west if you want to/ and pass the horizon 'til I can't even see you/ far from here, where the beaches are wide/ Just leave me your wake to remember you by.

Even though I got her two albums, In Your Dreams and Moenie and Kitchi, that EP is still my favorite. "Avalanche! Oh, Avalanche!" is cute and kind of quirky, because she is actually singing about avalanches in a completely literal sense, and "In Fact (the Carousel Remix)" is adorable because it is a break-up song, but not in the I-am-so-sad-feel-bad-for-me sense (the title-lyric is, In fact, you even broke my good tape deck/ In fact, I don't want to be friends).

I know that this whole cutesy girl-folk thing isn't for everyone, but Gregory and the Hawk is definitely worth checking out. I liked it so much that I actually paid real money for the EP and everything!

Love, Jillian

One Cute Website

2009-08-21T13:45:00.004-04:00

For some reason, I randomly remembered this website called Orisinal that is full of adorable games I used to play when I was fourteen or fifteen. One of my friends (I can't remember if it was Morgan or Charmaine) showed me Pocketful of Stars, and I was pretty much instantly addicted. The animation for each game is full of adorable little animals and prettiness, and the music they use in the background is always really good. I remember that I always used to dream that someday I would stumble upon the sheet music for the piece they use in Floats, so that I could play it on piano.

My favorite games were definitely Snowbowling and The Amazing Dare Dozen, but I also really liked Rainmaker and Hungry Spiders. There are a bunch of new games since I last looked at the website (like, several years ago), and A Dog For All Seasons and The Crossing are super-cute, too! Basically, Orisinal is the most adorable way to waste time that I can think of, and since school is starting soon, it will probably be really useful!

Love, Jillian

Two Talking Cats

2009-08-18T12:29:00.006-04:00

I thought that after my last post full of adorableness, I wouldn't be able to update for a while because how could anything else compete?! But, I was wrong! I found this video this morning of two adorable cats talking to each other and being cute! I've really wanted a cat lately even though I am somewhat allergic, and this makes me want one even more! The video has some ridiculously huge number of views, so most people have probably already seen it. It's totally worth watching again, though!

Plus, these cats are basically María and me (I am the stripe-y one) on Allegra's bed. For realsies. María and I have taken over Allegra's bed because it has so many fluffy pillows and she is probably hiding in the library, and I am bugging María because I want her to pet my hair, and she is saying that she doesn't want to because I just made her pet my hair and her arm is tired, and I am saying "Pleeeeeeaaaaase???" and rolling around and making adorable noises and trying to look adorable so that she will pet me, and then she finally gives in! I'm not even making this up, that exact situation happens all the time.

Love, Jillian

Three Adorable Movies

2009-08-17T18:05:00.006-04:00

I know it's kind of a lot at once, but I figured that instead of making individual posts about each of the three adorable movies I've seen in the past three days, I should just make one big post about all of them! So, here goes!

On Saturday, I saw Adam. I made a post about this movie back in July when I first saw the preview, and it turned out to be every bit as adorable as I expected it to be! The movie takes place in New York City, and it is basically all about Beth (Rose Byrne) and Adam (Hugh Dancy), who has Asperger's syndrome, and their whole relationship and basically what it's like to be an adult with Asperger's syndrome and to be in a relationship with someone with Asperger's syndrome. It was especially interesting for me because I know all about autism spectrum disorders because of my mom's work, but it had never really occurred to me before that most people don't know about them or understand them at all, which is what they show in the movie. One guy who reviewed Adam went so far as to say that the character was "just quirky."

But anyway, the whole movie was basically unbearably adorable. This is because every time Adam learns a new social skill or handles change well or whatever, it makes you really happy for him! And any movie that starts off by referring to The Little Prince is automatically adorable. Plus, Rose Byrne and Hugh Dancy are super-cute in the first place, and even though the movie happens in fall, winter, and early spring in New York City, it is somehow always that perfect, crisp, fall weather that means you can wear corduroy skirts and cable-knit sweaters and tights and boots and scarves and maybe a pea coat, but it's not so cold that you have to wear giant puffy jackets and anything that will cover you up, regardless of whether or not it is adorable. And Adam always wears really adorable sweater-and-collared-shirt combinations and basically dresses exactly how I imagine my ideal man dressing.

And on top of all that, everyone has adorable apartments with adorable paint colors on the walls and there are two especially adorable parts in the movie involving raccoons! I know that this is horrible to say because I love Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt so much, but I really recommend seeing this movie over (500) Days of Summer. Both movies have boy-meets-girl adorableness and really amazing clothes and adorable actors, but Adam has substance beyond that, and it does a much better job of making you feel better at the end.

Sunday, I saw Julie & Julia. Anyone who loves cooking absolutely has to see this movie. Meryl Streep is perfect, and Julia Child and her husband are super-adorable together in the movie!! There is also a super-cute little French girl who is in the movie for like two seconds. And both Julie and Julia have a Le Creuset pot in the "flame" color in the movie, and now I think that that is the color I want for my future Le Creuset pot.

This is basically a movie about exactly how I want my life to be. If I lived in this movie, I would have an adorable husband to be adorable with who loves all of the food that I make with my Le Creuset pot in my adorable kitchen in my adorable apartment, and we would have adorable dinner parties and an adorable cat! And at least for a little while, there would be no babies to mess everything up and break things! Perfect.

Finally, today I saw Ponyo (real title: Gake no ue no Ponyo, or, Ponyo on the Cliff). Hayao Miyazaki, the writer and director, is probably one of my favorite people ever, and he always makes adorable movies. Ponyo is super-adorable, too! The plot of the movie is basically The Little Mermaid, including the possibility of her turning into sea foam from the original story (Disney left that part out of their version), except that Ponyo starts out as a goldfish and the story is about five-year-olds instead of adults. Plus, Ponyo loves ham just as much as I love bacon!

The town that Sosuke (the boy who finds Ponyo) and his mom live in is adorable, and the scenery in the ocean and on land is amazing. Apparently Miyazaki drew a lot of the ocean scenery himself (it's all hand-drawn animation), and this movie is worth seeing just to see that. And Sosuke and his mom live in an adorable little house on top of a cliff by the ocean! What was disappointing was that I'm pretty sure Disney messed with the end of the story to make it simpler and target it more towards kids (it's rated G, while his other films are rated PG or PG-13). Miyazaki's movies that I've seen are marketed as children's movies, but what I've always liked about them is that there's always some sort of theme that makes the movie interesting and relevant for adults, too.

Miyazaki's films are different from most children's movies because none of the characters are purely good or evil, and I think that that confuses most Americans who take their kids to the movies and expect something much more Disney-esque. I think that having characters who aren't just one-dimensional and who are more like real people makes Miyazaki's movies even cuter. Spirited Away is probably still my favorite Miyazaki film, but Ponyo is definitely cuter than the rest!

Love, Jillian

Mad Men

2009-08-16T12:42:00.012-04:00

The season premiere of the third season of Mad Men is tonight, and that reminded me of how perfect everything in that show is!

I mean, I suppose that other than all of the amazing clothing, it kind of sucked to be a woman in the early '60s. Luckily, I am completely capable of filtering all of that out when I watch the show, and I can instead focus all of my attention on mentally willing all of the clothes and hairdos and shoes and brooches and adorable houses in Mad Men to magically become part of my life. It also makes me want to smoke and drink and wear red lipstick, but then I remember that I look horrible in red lipstick and that I wouldn't be able to function if I drank all day and the cost of a cigarette addiction would severely limit my ability to satisfy my shopping addiction.

Basically, Mad Men is supposed to be all about advertising executives in the early 1960s, but really when I watch it, it is all about Betty (a housewife with the most perfect husband ever, other than the cheating and secret past thing) and Joan (one of the secretaries) and the wonderful things they do and wear. Plus, it makes me really happy that all of the women in the show are either housewives or secretaries because being a housewife/secretary is my DREAM! Who wouldn't want their life to be just like this?!!

Or this?!!

No one, that's who. That is why I will definitely be watching the premiere when it comes on AMC at 10 tonight, and yelling at my mom and my sister to be quiet so that I can plan out my future wardrobe/life.

Love, Jillian

Cake Car Commercial

2009-08-15T21:09:00.007-04:00

I've started tons of posts and just haven't gotten around to finishing them. Then, I read Jillian's post about the Volvo and it reminded me of 2 things. The first is how much I want a Volvo and the second is how cute this other car commercial is. Our friend Melissa thought of the same thing. Since she loves cute things just as much as we do, I'm pretty confident about how adorable this commercial is. It is pretty perfect. It has a cute car, Julie Andrews, and CAKE. So, until I can finish up some of my longer posts, I'll leave you with this.

Love, María

UNIQLO

2009-08-14T22:32:00.003-04:00

During my sophomore year, my uncle who is a Japanese professor and therefore really into all things Japanese (including being really judgmental about Japanese restaurants and their authenticity) told me about UNIQLO! It is a super-adorable Japanese clothing store that opened in SoHo in New York City a few years ago. If you combine the color selections from American Apparel with a little of the preppy style of The Gap (as in, The Gap from the '90s before the quality of the clothing went downhill) and throw in a little Japanese kawaii-influence, you get UNIQLO. And, it's not ridiculously expensive! How could that possibly be bad?!

Of course, when Julia and I went on a roommate date to New York that same school year (during free NJ Transit week!), we had to go to UNIQLO. We also went on a carriage ride in Central Park, and then went to this super-tiny, super-delicious, super-romantic restaurant in the Village after shopping, and we had wine and Julia bought me dinner and it was the perfect date except that neither one of us is a man. We also went to Longwood Gardens in December when they have all the Christmas lights with our other roommate, Kate, and that was also the perfect date except that none of us is a man. Then, Julia went abroad FOR A WHOLE YEAR and I have been pining away ever since and waiting for her to come back so that we can have more roommate dates.

But! That is neither here nor there, and the point is that I wanted to buy like a million things at UNIQLO, but I wouldn't have been able to carry all of the bags. And since there is only that one store in the U.S., I haven't been back yet, and that makes me sad. If any of you ("you" meaning all five people who read this blog) are in New York City, you should go! They have men's clothing, too!

Love, Jillian