It’s been too crazy of a week to pull together blogland finds, so we’ll have a Friday Bits throwback and I’ll share some personal bits.

Some of the final pieces the students in my jewelry class made at Lena’s. So sad it’s over, it was so much fun. What a talented group of ladies!

Squirrel staring contest, taken by Billy. Someone obviously pays attention to my photo taking.

A spot-on birthday card from my friend Lauren. Included was a bag of my favorite snacks, including cheddar bunnies. She took me to see Easy A too, which was highly entertaining.

Have a great weekend, friends! I’m looking forward to a haircut + supper club. I’m shooting film this weekend (with the camera that ACTUALLY WORKS!), so photos won’t come til Tuesday. xo

1996 was the height of my babysitting career.  I made the rounds throughout the neighborhood, from relatively easy to deal with cousins (I’m the oldest of seven grand-kids and we grew up in the same neighborhood) to snot-nose brats who locked me in a closet for two hours (true story). You know what else was at its height in 1996? Blues Clues. I can still to this day recite you the “mail time” song, tell you exactly what the host, Steve, wore and remember the exact feeling that show put into the pit of my 13-year-old stomach: agony. Therefore you can imagine my intense curiosity upon seeing that THE Steve Burns, former host of Blues Clues, was on the Moth podcast last week. And then my ridiculous enthusiasm overflowed because it was one of the best Moth podcasts I’d ever heard. And trust me, I’ve listened to like, every single Moth podcast there is. He’s hilarious, charming, and engaging, and hell, I had a crush on that man by the end, even though I had no idea what he looks like these days. You’ll have to listen to it for yourself to find out what it’s all about.

Until now. Because yesterday I was flipping through the latest New York magazine, and there’s his friggin’ amazing bachelor pad in Williamsburg.

The return of Steve Burns? I can dig it.

I don’t normally – er, make that ever – talk about my job (my real, grown-up day job, not my “I make and sell necklaces whenever I feel like it” job), but today I’m rather proud of something I designed at work that I can actually share with you, and by now everyone I work with knows about my blog. My company puts out a daily newsletter called Trendcentral, which leans towards the marketing-set, but covers other things like fashion, food, entertainment, technology – the list goes on and on of all the cool goodness. While our content is top-notch (have I ever told you how amazing my coworkers are?), the previous site was terribly in need of a face-lift. I was given the challenge to redesign the site over the summer, which I happily and excitedly accepted.

Today is the much-anticipated relaunch, and I couldn’t be more jazzed. If you want to sign up for Trendcentral, you can sign up here. One time I pulled together some picks for a cat-themed article* and terrified all my coworkers with my cat obsession. See, it’s awesome.

*of course, I did not write that article, nor do I have a hand in writing in any of them. Look at all that correct grammar and punctuation over there!

ps. this is in now way a sponsored post, nor was I asked to do it, I just think highly in my company and coworkers and want to pimp our awesomeness.

cookieboy is my hero, for obvious reasons.

via ungtblod

Even though I’ve talked about it plenty already, I can’t let today today’s Music Monday go by without mentioning that tomorrow is the release of Sufjan Steven’s new album, Age Of Adz, and I will be springing from bed first thing to download it on iTunes. I’ve been streaming the album obsessively on NPR lately, but I can’t wait to get it on my iPhone to take that obsession with me on my commute. At first I was shocked at how different it sounds than his usual sound, but I now love it more than anything else he’s ever put out. Even Billy loves it and wants to use some of the music in some of these crazy video pieces he’s making lately. We rarely share music obsessions, so this is pretty exciting for me. Anyway, his musical genius gets me excited about music in a way that I think is really essential for me in life, and I would prefer not to discuss how insanely sad I am that I missed out on getting tickets for his tour. If anyone out there has NYC tickets they need taken off their hands… :)

While my memory is a bit fuzzy trying to remember my birthdays in the past, I can at least say that this was my best birthday since living in NYC. Billy took note from the years past and figured out that I don’t care about gifts, I just want to be taken out and surprised. To have the whole night planned out for me where I don’t have to worry over where we’ll be going next and what we should do. He took me to the restaurant he works at, where they fed us like kings (really, really glutenous kings – our table neighbors must have thought we were insane…or famous), and then took me to a “secret” location, where my friend Emily presented me with my dream cake that I had completely forgotten I had emailed to Billy, as a joking request, weeks ago. My heart exploded.

If it looks like my entire weekend revolved around food, you are correct. The rest of the weekend was filled with more ridiculous food indulgences and and lots of “stop being so good to me new york, I need to quit you” moments, because this city is damn near perfect in October. My belt and grin are two inches wider.

ps. Most of the photos I took Sunday were reserved for a special project I took part in, so I’ll share those soon!

Highlights from the blogland this week:

Ridiculously incredible woven hair at the latest Alexander McQueen show in Paris. Damn. via Pigeon Toed

I accidentally skipped Music Monday in the hustle of getting back from vacation. Whoops! Let this amazing Animal Collective cover from Taken By Trees make up for it. via seesaw.

Eliot Dudik‘s Canal in Fog takes my breath away. Looks like a potential magic place. via Lane.

I’m loving Jeana’s closet visits lately, and her latest visit with Bo Carney is my favorite so far. Bo’s shop Mohawk General was my favorite store we visited in LA, and had already been an online love of mine (I’ve purchased two pairs of shoes from them.) I even met a sweet blog reader in the shop! Look at that lovely view behind her place, dang.

Love this Timo Weiland blazer to pieces at les nouvelles, the scalloped edges are really fun without being too sweet. via mosey

Doesn’t the perfume workshop at Lena’s studio sound amazing? Wish I could take it.

In other news, Sunday is my 27th birthday! 10/10/10, which sounds like a lucky birthday, no? In some ways I can’t believe I’m that old, and in others I can’t believe I’m that young. It’s an odd age where you question what stages you should be at and what goals should be made by now, especially when every one of your friends outside of NYC is on such a different life path than you. (babies! husbands! houses!) Anyway, Billy has to work on Sunday, so we’re celebrating tonight with a fancy dinner and some surprise up his sleeve. We shall see…

Have a great weekend!

One fun thing about teaching a class is not only teaching other people something, but learning from them as well (I know, cue “The More You Know” jingle here). A lot of my students purchased supplies from stores I’d never even heard of, which was exciting for me. In a city like New York, supply stores for ridiculously specific things are literally on top of each other in the oddest places. Monday I took a quick trip up to Habu, a place Patricia told me about, which is this amazing Japanese thread and yarn store. It’s eight floors up in tiny office on 29th street, and baskets of beautiful thread and yarn line the walls. I nearly died and went to heaven. Every material you can think of, including paper and metal thread! I bought the lovely bundles above, and I cannot wait to make necklaces with it.

I recently saved up all my empty glass containers from M.A.C. and got a free tube of lipstick (they recycle the containers – such a great program!). One of the girls there helped me pick this beauty out, a vintage matte in Ruby Woo. It makes me feel like a 40s movie star. Though I had to take my glasses off for this photo because of the glare the sun was causing, so I feel a little less like a movie star once I put them on. Ha. It doesn’t budge for hours too, which I’ve never found before in my life. Because it’s matte it does get a bit dry, but overall I’m pretty jazzed about it. My key to bold lips like this is to barely wear any other make up. Just mascara on my eyes or I look like a clown. I get requests from time to time for what makeup and other girly such things I use, so I might do a post on that someday soon.

Also, as soon as I have a free moment, I’m going to elaborate on my last post about moving. I think perhaps I was worried about putting my feelings out there and held back and was too vague. I also don’t want people (especially my coworkers) to read that and think I’m throwing darts at a map to decide where to live. I didn’t realize I hadn’t explained that LA is the only contender, so I can keep my job. More later, perhaps tomorrow. I love all your comments and support about the topic.

Sweet Anabela invited me to share photos of my apartment on her blog, Fieldguided, for her This Is Where I Live series. I know, hilarious timing with my last post. But my apartment is like a little refuge from the insanity, so come take a peek!

Well, I guess I was taking a big risk using that damn lomo camera on our trip, because if by chance you heard a scream from an unknown source around 5pm EST, it was me getting off the phone with my film shop when they called to say my roll was blank. 36 shots of nothingness. Serious fist shake. So, I got nothin’ but this photo I stole from Billy. It kind of looks like I’m nekkid, but I promise you I’m wearing a bathing suit.

So I’ll just ramble and open up a little to you guys. I haven’t rambled in a while.

It’s hard to easily sum up how our LA trip went because to be honest, it was kind of a roller coaster of emotions. The weather was amazing, the sunshine and foliage filled me to the brim with happiness. While the architecture certainly had its blah moments, my favorite thing to do was drive around the back streets up hills and look at cute little Spanish bungalows and old-Hollywood style apartment buildings and fantasize about living around all the cacti, succulents, and lemon trees. The people were so friendly, the tacos delicious, my LA coworkers wonderful. But driving everywhere lead to a lot of getting lost, which lead to a lot of yelling and confusion. There is no grid! There are no numbered streets to follow! Thank god for having an iPhone, or I’d still be in Silver Lake trying to find my way back to Sunset right now. To go from never driving to always driving is stressful. I don’t mind driving at all, but god, driving somewhere you’re not familiar with sucks big time. When I drive in Seattle I know what I’m getting myself into, there I did not.

The other thing that got us was that we do not handle time change well, so we were up and out the door every morning too early to visit most of the places on my to-do list, and then had to come back to Burbank, where we stayed with my uncle, and were then too tired to go back later for dinner. This is where I must mention that my uncle was an amazing host. A free place to stay, a free car to borrow, access to a pool, and let us do our thing all week. I’m one lucky niece, I tell ya.

Flying back on Saturday, we both noted that after the last few trips we took, we were not excited to come home to New York. Now back in the city, where the weather is 25 degrees cooler and raining, and the city seems to be against me as always lately, my head is swimming with decisions, as I’ve discussed with many of you already. Friday, funny enough, marked my fifth year of living in New York City. Five years of more change and adventure that you can imagine. But maybe you’ve picked up on my love for this city slipping lately? Am I ready for a new adventure in my life? There are so many more things to say about this topic, but I decided long ago this blog would not be for hashing out feelings. To be continued.

Wendy, keeping her paw warm in this chilly weather. We can’t have a weekend bits without her.