Cut Copy deserves to be on The Best of 2008, there’s no argument there, but did I get the wrong song?  I’ll let you decide.

Cut Copy-Feel the Love This is on there.

Cut Copy-Far Away Should this be on there instead?

Near perfection

Beth and I had a dinner party last Saturday night. Beth loves to entertain and I love to cook, so it works out well.  To excite the palate, we had a cheese plate with five variations of goat cheese and a blue cheese.  To compliment the cheese, I added  pistachios, almonds, craisins and a whole grain mustard.   I made a rustic ciabatta bread to go with it, the bread recipe was a challenge to pull off, but I decided it was well worth it when I was rewarded with some of the best bread I have ever eaten*.  I will include the recipe here eventually, but I want to get better pictures before I post it.   To accentuate the cheese and to clear the palate, we served sparkling pomengranate juice, sparkling blueberry juice, and a sharp ginger brew.  It served its purpose perfectly and instigated some interesting drink mixing.  I was very pleased with this portion of the meal.
*The bread ruined my dinner.  I had eaten a half of a loaf before our guests even arrived.

For the main course, I made an authentic molè*, Spanish millet, and refried beans.   The Molè was pretty good, I was pleased with it.  I began it the Tuesday night before the party and worked on it nearly every night leading up to it.   I didn’t really follow a recipe, but if you would like a general outline of how to make a molè,  just e-mail me.  The Spanish millet turned out better than I had hoped, I will include this recipe here soon.  Its a great way to add variation in your grain consumption.  The beans weren’t good, I just cooked them as an afterthought and guess what, they tasted like an afterthought.  I was disapponted with this part of the meal, possibly beacause I was full of bread and cheese. Our guests provided a great salad to go with the meal and some very tasty chocolate soufflès for dessert. Both were wonderful and complimented the meal perfectly.
*This is not a pozterisk about molè, it’s a pozterisk about the hidden potential of your keyboard.  Check this out:   Φ
Pretty neat.  I did it by holding down the Alt key and pressing 232 on the number pad.  I was attempting to make an è which is holding Alt and pressing 0232 on the number pad.  Here are some more accents. Here are some other thingies. ©©©

So, that was the big dinner.  Now onto planning the next…

My sister in law gave me the coolest Christmas presents EVER. Tons of vintage patterns. I have adored looking at them, dreaming of all the possibilities, hoping that I had the skills to pull them off. Well, I finished the first of hopefully many today, and I have to say that I am (a little bit) proud. I just love it. I don’t really have anywhere to wear it, but I LOVE it. I got the fabric (about 6 yards) for 4 bucks at Goodwill. I got the trim at Jo-Ann’s. I actually wasn’t planning on using the trim, but ended up needing it to cover a few of my mistakes.

And for those of you who love vintage patterns like I do, Reachel recommended this amazing site to me. I’ve been staring at it for hours since then. Those Vogue Couture patterns are simply beautiful, really, I believe they are patterns for creating a work of art. Which one is your favorite?

And I apologize for the non-creative background. I need Brittney to take all my pictures for me!

Scary?

Check out the Billboard top 10 from 1999.

1. Believe, Cher
2. No Scrubs, TLC
3. Angel Of Mine, Monica
4. Heartbreak Hotel, Whitney Houston
5. …Baby One More Time, Britney Spears
6. Kiss Me, Sixpence None The Richer
7. Genie In A Bottle, Christina Aguilera
8. Every Morning, Sugar Ray
9. Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here, Deborah Cox
10. Livin’ La Vida Loca, Ricky Martin

Ouch, thats a real kick in the pants.  I have to make a cd of these songs.  Will anyone ever listen to it?  It’s for a class reunion and I want it to be authentic but the authentic 1999 is too painful to look at, can’t I sugarcoat it a bit?  If I add the Flaming  Lips, Tom Waits, The Magnetic Fields or Sigur Ros to it will I be Jaredizing  the cd?   I’m just gonna get it over with, I’ll fill out the remaining songs with the rest of the top 20:

11. Where My Girls At?, 702
12. If You Had My Love, Jennifer Lopez
13. Slide, Goo Goo Dolls
14. Have You Ever?, Brandy
15. I Want It That Way, Backstreet Boys
16. I’m Your Angel, R. Kelly and Celine Dion
17. All Star, Smash Mouth
18. Angel, Sarah McLachlan
19. Smooth, Santana Featuring Rob Thomas
20. Unpretty, TLC

Oh!  The Humanity!!!

There’s more, I have to do this for 96, 97, and 98 also.   The Macarena people, the Maca-stinkin-rena.  My head is going to explode.*

*If you listened to these songs at the time, I understand, it’s ok.  I’m not judging you.  There are even some good songs thrown in there.  That being said, if you are still listening to your cassette single of the Macarena while trying out the dance moves in front of the mirror, you might want to seek counseling.

So, the discussion has begun over at the book club forum, exciting stuff.  Thanks to those who are contributing to the discussion.  You still have plenty of time to read Life of PI, so pick up a copy.  Just get a library card, you can do this, I believe in you.
Have a great MLK/Civil Rights Day,

You can make a quick and easy little girls dress out of one of your old skirts. This is how:

Take the skirt ( mine were flowy, tiered knee length skirts) and cut it down the back or side seam, so that it is one long rectangle.

Put it around your daughter, neice, friends daughter, whoever you intend to make the skirt for, and measure how big you want it. Cut the excess skirt away so that you have enough to make a 5/8th inch seam or so. (but don’t make the seam yet)

Find or buy a scrap peice of fabric that is the same length as the waist of the skirt. Make it the thickness you want by folding it over and pressing it. You can make it thin or thick, depending on the look you want. Both are cute.

With right sides together and raw edges of fabric next to waist of skirt, sew them together.

I just sewed the open seam up, the one that you cut. You can make buttons or put in a zipper if you want, but I just left mine to be a slip on dress.

For the shoulder straps, you can use ribbon or lace or trim of any kind. I used some lace trim that I thought was really cute. I just put the dress on the girls and measured how long to make the staps, then sewed them on.

It took about and hour to make both. I hope these instructions make sense, if you have any questions feel free to ask. I will take step by step photos next time.

My girls love these dresses.

01-She and Him _ Why Do You Let Me Stay Here_.mp3

02-Oasis _ The Turning.mp3

03-Shearwater _ The Snow Leopard.mp3

04-A.C. Newman _ Submarines Of Stockholm.mp3

05-Forest Fire _ Slow Motion.mp3

06-R.E.M. _ Houston.mp3

07-Beach House _ Gila.mp3

08-Wolf Parade _ Fine Young Cannibals.mp3

09-MGMT _ Electric Feel.mp3

10-TV on the Radio _ DLZ.mp3

11-Ley Lines _ Cardiac.mp3

12-Vampire Weekend _ Campus.mp3

13-Bon Iver _ Blindsided.mp3

14-Thao Nguyen _ Beat (Health, Life, and Fire).mp3

15-Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s _ As Tall As Cliffs.mp3

16-The Raveonettes _ Aly, Walk With Me.mp3

01-Shearwater _ Century Eyes

02-Fleet Foxes _ White Winter Hymnal

03-The Helio Sequence _ Can’t Say No

04-Bon Iver _ Flume

05-Frightened Rabbit _ Old Old Fashioned

06-Vampire Weekend _ The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance

07-Cut Copy _ Feel The Love

08-Sigur Rós _ Gobbledigook

09-Dr. Dog _ The Old Days

10-The Black Keys _ Psychotic Girl

11-Kathleen Edwards _ Asking For Flowers

12-The Whigs _ Right Hand On My Heart

13-Santogold _ Starstruck

14-Plants and Animals _ Feedback In The Field

15-Cloud Cult _ When Water Comes To Life

16-Wolf Parade _ Call It A Ritual

17-TV On The Radio _ Golden Age

18-Portishead _ We Carry On

19-M83 _ You Appearing

20-Okkervil River _ Lost Coastlines

Its a great cd and I ended up with 3 cd’s full of leftovers also.  I’ll post those some other time.  If you want a copy of the mp3’s just leave a comment or e-mail me  at jared@functionlovesform.com.

Enjoy.

Its Christmas Eve Eve and I’m still not finished with the Best of 2008.  I’m under the gun.  No way I’m getting done.  Anyway, here are my finalists for 2008 song of the year.

Call It A Ritual-Wolf Parade
I have a soft spot for Wolf Parade.  I think it’s because I listen to the majority of my music while running and Wolf Parade makes great running music.  That or they just make great music.

Winter Hymnal-Fleet Foxes
Do you find yourself asking, “Where did harmony go?”.  Here’s your answer.

Re: Stacks-Bon Iver
Bon Iver made it on my best of 2007 list but, as it turns out, the album wasn’t properly released until 2008.  This album was recorded by one man.  He secluded himself  in the wintry Wisconsin wilderness for 3 months, recording with nothing more than a few microphones, 2 drums, and some aged recording equipment.  This is beautiful, Heart Wrenching Music.

Feedback In the Field-Plants & Animals
This was the early frontrunner for song of the year. Can it hold out?  The suspense is killing me.

Starstuck-Santogold
This does not fit my typical taste in music.  Its stop-start, bleep-synth, indie hop that gets better with every listen.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Ella Fitzgerald-Sleigh Ride

Duke Ellington-Dashing Through The Snow

Chet Atkins-Jolly Old St Nicholas

Vince Guaraldi-O Tannenbaum

How to Make the Most Out of Your Space

Whether you live in an apartment, house, condo or cardboard box, space is usually an issue. My husband, my extremely cute baby, and I live in a decent size house, yet we still run out of room. My options were to either make my husband move out, or figure out a different way to come up with space. I decided that the closet in our spare bedroom was just wasted space- no one stays in that room or hangs anything up, so why not put it to use? Closets can make awesome offices/workspaces. I turned this closet into my scrapbook-ers paradise. You can put a small desk in the closet, and arrange all of your items in baskets or boxes on the closet shelves. It made so much more room AND my husband still gets to live here.  Its a win-win situation.

visit Emily’s blog here.