kindie teacher moment of the week

It's a hard life... being 6 years old, having the in-my-opinion-the cutest-name-ever: Bernard, being the cutest kid in school and all at the same time rocking this unbelievable superhero hoodie.

Can you seriously handle this cute?

Me? No.

Makes my womb do ten round-house kicks and fifteen back-flips just looking at this picture.

I can't wait for the day I have my own babies to squeeze....~.^

⋙⋙⋙currently⋙⋙⋙

Reading // 

I've made a start on the Diary of Anaïs Nin~ she is a forever muse of mine and a master at documenting her inner mind and dreams.

Also, so beautiful.

 Planning //

After being bewitched by Beach House playing live in Seoul this month, my heart leaped in to my mouth when I learned Sigur Ros will play Korea in May.

I die!

Their album Takk still stirs me in deep and hidden places when I listen to it, I can't imagine what hearing Jonsi's voice live will do. I plan to find out though.

Watching//

'The Imposter'~ one of the most compelling and gut wrenching documentaries I have seen since 'Catfish'.

This is a real life mystery/thriller which left my jaw just dangling open. 

This is a story you're going to want to hear.

 Eating //

Salty and sweet home-baked Nutella-stuffed chocolate chip and sea salt cookies.

There's a party in my mouth and you're all invited. 

Find the recipe here.

 Writing // 

Stacks and stacks of snail mail. Mail to friends, mail to readers, mail to new-found blogging pals...

In my element.

 Listening // 

Dallas has been playing the new Foxygen album 'We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic' non-stop on Spotify and I've been bee-bop-a-loo-whoppin' along.
 Loving them.

 Learning // 

That to willingly start un-believing in something you unequivocally, irrevocably and invariably believed to be true is one of the worst processes a mind can be put through.



(Thanks to Danielle for this "Currently" list inspiration ^^)

howl.

“The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface.

The desert is a place of bones, where the innards are turned out, to desiccate into dust.

The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being.

Inside out and outside in. These are worlds of things that implode or explode, and the only catalyst that determines the direction of eco-movement is the balance of water.

Both worlds are deceptive, dangerous. Both, seething with hidden life.

The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage.

Dare to breach the surface and sink.” 

― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

▲giveaway// intuitive heart sanctuary e-book▲

Did any of you resolve to look inward in 2013? To purge and cleanse, to re-connect and nurture the most important person in your life...you?
 If you answered yes then I may have here the perfect giveaway just for you guys.

The luminous Lauren Luquin, creator of the free online retreat The Intuitive Heart Sanctuary, has offered up her new  e-book, 
'The Intuitive Heart Guide', an 84 page PDF worth $44.00, to one Stars in Jars reader for FREE!

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Registration for the The Intuitive Heart Sanctuary just recently became free and Lauren is a great councilor, sparkling with good intentional energy and warmth to share with her readers. The online space also contains a great forum, with space for storytelling, council and community, and the whole site offers a wonderful online social gathering designed to enhance self awareness and growth.

While the IHS is free for women, Lauren's e-book is designed to supplement your experience in the Sanctuary and is currently being sold for $44.00 to non-Sanctuary members or $37.40 if you are a registered IHS member.

The Intuitive Heart Guide offers:

In depth & thought-provoking essays bridging your mind, body and spirit connection
15 Engaging Activities to help you explore your True Self within Community and Nature
7 Photo Exercises that build self-awareness and reflect your inner soul-work journey
8 complimentary Journal Work prompts with instructions and examples
Enchanting Images to inspire and uplift you as you move through the pages
Gentle reminders to keep you centered and aligned
Direct links to IHS- to view videos, listen to podcasts/music, and read more, etc.
Inspirational storytelling, quotes, and poetry
Ideas and resources to utilize beyond this eBook and IHS
Motivational “Real Talk” about current social and spiritual trends happening globally
and much more!

If you would like to win 'The Intuitive Heart Guide' for free then simply do one or all of the following

and shoot me a comment in the comments box to let me know which one you did plus your email address~ each one counts as one entry so you can get your name entered up to three times to win

.

~follow Lauren's blog 

~Like Lauren's Facebook page 

~follow Lauren's Pinterest 

I will choose and email the winner on Tuesday, February 5th.

Best of luck!

monday morning ear candy//satan said dance

Look at this little devil moonlighting as an innocent street fire hydrant.

That's one of the things I love about this country~ all the little quirks to be found in the unlikeliest of places.

This lil' monster has inspired this Monday morning session; 'The Devil's Hoe-Down Mix' ~.^

Tonight  I may just go dance with skeletons in the graveyard under the pale moonlight. 

What else can a Monday be good for?

                                                              

                                          

the sunday slowdown

What to do on a cold and cloudy Sunday?

This morning we threw open the windows, pumped good psychedelic rock through our speakers and gave our little apartment a deep, hard clean.

It's such a good feeling to put your feet up at the end of a good soul-cleansing purge of dirt and dust bunnies!

Later at the hair salon I ended up cutting bangs on a whim.

Damn me and my whims, I always think bangs are a good idea at the time but I'm the worst at maintaining them and they inevitably end up being bobby-pinned to the side of my head.

This evening I blew the dust off my baking trays and made these sea salt chocolate chip cookies from Ambitious Kitchen.

Holy. Mama.

I want to track down whoever thought of pairing chocolate with sea salt and kiss them on the mouth and that's all I'm gonna say about that! 

I kind of got into my kitchen groove after that and decided to pull out the ginger and spice and everything nice and boil up a pot of spicy Indian Chai.

Right now the apartment is steeped in the rich smells of sweet and salty brown butter cookie dough and boiling cardamom.

Blissed.

I hope everyone had a warm, weird and wonderful weekend ^^

kindie teacher moment of the week

Our little 5 year-old bobbin, Julie, spinning and swaying and doing swirly whirlies with big ol' hearts in her eyes, clearly feeling quite the Disney princess in her sparkly pink birthday girl dress.

Can anyone ever get enough of cute tiny humans?

I can't watch them practice this graduation dance routine without my heart dancing a little bit inside.

>.<

Roots & Feathers Guest Post// South Korea and the Universal Map

I wish you all a colorful Friday friends!

Today it feels a little like my birthday~ it's my honor to be guest posting over at one of my all-time favorite blogs Roots & Feathers, written by the beautiful and talented Laura.

Head over to check out how I woke up at the end of the tornado in the weird and wonderful 'Land of the Morning Calm'.

And I get to use my favorite word in the whole dictionary, 'kismet' ^^

Read here

☾☾ Beach House Concert ∆ Live in Seoul ☽☽

There's only a handful of concerts I have been to where I have walked out afterwards feeling like I just beheld some kind of magical occurrence.

Last night after seeing Beach House rock the Interpark Art Center in Hapjeong I had that telltale buzz in the pit of my stomach, pour me a bourbon neat, holy-mama what did I just witness? kind of a moment.

Last night was the band's first stint in South Korea and marked a smashing come-back for Korean indie- music scene promoters Super Color Super.

From the moment their incredible stage lighting transformed the sterile, wood paneled recording studio atmosphere of the Art Center's arena into a shimmering purple indoor aquarium the crowds shoulders unanimously loosened and an almost hypnotic en-mass body sway ensued for the duration of the set.

Victoria Legrand, half mermaid-siren, half glam-rock mama to Monster from the Muppets, owned the stage from the second she strode on to it wearing her trademark glitter-ball jacket.

Spending half the set hunching ominously over her organ like a B horror-movie organist, her long, skull ring encrusted fingers scuttled like spiders over the keys as she head banged and snake-hipped effortlessly along to her own singing.

She cut a mysterious figure up there on the stage, her bewitching voice soaring out from within a curtain of shadow and long red mermaid waves which frequently obscured her face. Her ethereal, siren-call voice, capable of impossible range, lended an exquisite baroque quality to their myriad of sing-a-longs from both Teen Dream and Bloom.

Alex Scally cut an impressive silhouette with his guitar and vocals backing up Victoria's mezmerising performance perfectly. 
They were a pair of snake-charmers bedazzling their pit.

The exceptional  fortune of having access to such amazing bands out here in South Korea is not lost on me and hats off to Super Color Super for their tireless efforts in the name of bringing the best indie holy rollers in to this tiny little peninsula. 

Encore.

   

monday morning ear candy + a guest post!

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Good morning campers.

And what a beautiful morning it is, despite the puddle grey skies and paper sail boat weather outside. 

You can find me hanging out over at the lovely Andrea from Mostly Happenstance blog today, guest posting about a day in my life as a kindie teacher in South Korea.

Head on over and check it out!

Andrea has been the sweetest and most supportive blog friend since we "met" online not long ago~ so please check out her lovely blog too and spread the love.

Here's a little ditty by my darling Devendra with Jana Hunter to start your day with.

Enjoy!

                                        

                                                            

                                                         

we call it home

Hey folks!

Tonight I thought I'd take you for a quick walk around the little apartment Dallas and I share together out here in South Korea.

One of the perks of the school contracts for foreign teachers is that your apartment comes with the job rent-free.

I know, right?

It can be a gamble though and we have known people who have been stung with a really tiny and/or dirty and old places to live in.

Dallas and I were lucky enough to pull the long straw with this apartment~ it's in a nice new building and although small, it has a split level with room upstairs for bedding even though we don't use the upstairs at all.

This is our first time living together so we've really enjoyed nesting and leaving our own little impressions all over the place.

We live and sleep in the downstairs area, using the bed as a sofa too.

The Life Aquatic poster was a gift Dallas got for his birthday and the two smaller pictures are pages from a Himalayan Mask coloring book Dallas bought when we were travelling in India which I colored in and framed.

The little nook under our stairs is where we stash our little dinner stroke crafting table.

We eat all our meals off this table Asian-style sitting on the floor.

I also have a little floor garden of succulents and a large plant we inherited with the apartment.

The steps make a great showcase for ornaments and tea lights.

I love the way the late afternoon sun slants in through the blinds casting orange shapes on the wall.

Mini bathroom.

And lastly our little pocket of kitchen. 

It can be a challenge trying to create a meal in such a limited space but we've gotten used to it now.

We hung the tapestry over the upstairs balcony, I think it gives a great pop of color to the room ^^

I hope you enjoyed the room tour!

 It's definitely come to feel like home to us these last 8 months.

Happy Sunday!

x

DIY// craft paper envelopes

Raise your hand if you are a stationary fiend.

I'm more than a little obsessed with pretty paper goods and rarely leave a craft/stationary store without a bag of loot in tow.

I found this darling how-to on Pinterest on how to make your own envelopes using wallpaper samples.

I happen to have a box of craft papers which have been sitting on the shelf all sad and lonely since Christmas.

Now they have been transformed into these beautiful envelopes just singing for a handwritten letter to be slipped inside and mailed across the seven seas.

This tutorial is so quick and easy these things practically make themselves.

Ready? Let's go...

The supplies: 

~ craft paper/wrapping paper/wallpaper samples or any pretty patterned paper you have to hand

~an ordinary envelope

~scissors

~pencil

First, open out your envelope, lay it on the back side of your craft paper and use it as a template to trace around with a pencil.

Cut out your template shape with scissors to get an envelope shape.

Fold each corner at the edges.

Use glue to stick together the bottom and each of the two side flaps.

That's it! You are done!

See I told you it was super easy ^^

Decorate with pretty stamps and labels and fill with love notes and pen pal letters and poems and cards and anything else that people love getting in the mail!

fortunes be told

I stepped out last night with my beautiful Korean co-workers for a night of delicious gogi followed by a ten dollar Fortune Telling.

This was my first reading and like many firsts I was quite nervous and it hurt just a little.

There was this moment after she made me split the pack three times and select seven cards...

I'm not familiar with all of the cards meanings but when you see two devils staring up at you you just know it aint good! 

I was more than a little spooked by how accurately she described a certain situation in my life without asking me a thing except my age~ she just looked at the cards and talked a whole lot of sense.

I wouldn't say I'm now an affirmed believer but it kind of fascinated and bewitched me, the whole ritual of it. And the cards are beautiful.

 My reading wasn't all doom and gloom and I actually found the whole experience very reassuring, it forced me to acknowledge a few dancing pink elephants that I've been ignoring for too long.

Do you believe in Tarot or think it's all a bunch of hocus pocus? 

I'd love to hear your opinions!

kindie teacher moment of the week

Were you aware of the existence of the magestical uni-horned sea beast called the narwhal? 

Half dolphin/ half unicorn, I was oblivious to their crazy existence in this world until I stumbled on them in my kids animal curriculum some time last year.

Marvelous much?

Blog icon The Bloggess seems to think so too!

Couple these with a pack of Power ranger crayons and you have yourself a rad little school lesson.

I was a little perturbed by the last question on the worksheet though.

What was the first thing that sprung to your mind......? ^.~

doing the cold winter hustle

There's something about this deep winter freeze that's prodding my primal instincts like a stick.
These January days are so short and bittersweet.
 We walk to and fro from school, doing the cold winter hustle, under a purple sky and yellow moon.
This lack of sunlight has paled my skin to vampish white~
I'm reaching for blacks and woolens when I dress; using them like a fur against the elements.
My sleep is deep and motionless,
making it so so hard to unfurl myself out of these cozy hibernation blankets when my eyes first open.

I've been squirreling away my winter food stores, except that instead of acorns and berries, it's those leftover chocolate pennies from Christmas.

I love to tree-watch in that morning twilight- loving on the way a few stubborn leaves still cling to their mother branches.

Everything about this season is a little magic and hazy, slightly stoned and mystical.
It's a fitting time to have my fortune told this Friday.

I'm happy to bask in the moon light and wear this winter skin...

...until spring reappears and I shrug it off like a snake...
~.^