Twee!

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

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

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

Love, Jillian

In the Sun

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

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


More later.

Love, Jillian

GreenMarker

My carrel could be so cute:


Just in case you read Japanese, here they are.

Love, Jillian

My Perfect Road Trip(s)

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:

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!!

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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!

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

Self-explanatory.

Love, Jillian

The Blow

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