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.
Sometimes there's only one remedy for when the mornings are gray and freezing, Christmas has been put away and the apartment has lost a bit of its former cheer and you've got a full day of energetic kids after a bad night's sleep to look forward to...
These are all my go-to songs on my i-pod~ most of them reside in the 'top 25 most played' section as they get circulated so often. Every one of these songs is guaranteed to snap me out of a mood rut, get my heart thumping and my lips moving and my toes tapping.
Won't you have a listen?
Another great remedy for the cold Monday morning blues is arriving at school early to find my order of Anais Nin's diary has arrived and having half an hour to myself to pore over it with a hot chocolate ^^
A new year full of promise and adventure is but a day away from us.
Tonight we'll be getting all dressed up and ringing it in out on the town with some special friends and raised glasses.
It will be with mixed emotions that I say goodbye to 2012, with all of it's swoops and dives, cautions thrown to the wind, chased dreams and surprises.
All in all it's been a great year filled with many positive and forward-looking changes in my life and my relationship.
Now I'm looking forward to beginning 2013 with intention and just a tad more planning and caution.
Dallas and I have a bigger goal we are moving toward together after this final year spent in Korea and this year will be all about working together to make this dream of ours come true.
I hope you're all busy making your own special plans for both tonight and the clean slate ahead!
Here's a little round-up of my favorite tunes and artists found and re-played over and over from the last year.
Press play and enjoy, friends!
Happy New Year!
On a side note: regarding my season of giving thread I was planning to run for each day of my winter vacation~ it turns out I was a little less organized than required to volunteer as a foreigner in Korea. Every organisation I have approached to volunteer with have been fully booked this week.
This makes my heart so happy to know that there is such a wealth of English teachers and ex-pats out here wanting to give back and do something to help wherever they can this winter.
This has absolutely not waned my desire to get involved with some charity organizations and campaign groups, I have just had to reserve my spots to attend a little further down the line.
All is peaceful and bright and dusted with white powder just as it should be.
Enjoy your milk and Christmas cookies, and don't even think about wiping that milk mustache off! Work today is all about Christmas fun for the kids~ there'll be a (Korean) Santa visiting the classrooms, lots of Disney Christmas cartoon watching, carol singing and my own class will be performing their rendition of 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' on stage in the gym while I probably weep a little bit. On Saturday we hosted Christmas dinner for our friends and I had to step out to the store to pick up a few things while everyone was arriving. On my way back home, laden with bags, breathe turning to fog out of my frozen lips, navigating the frozen pavements as the charity workers clanged their jingle bells I stopped a breathe to watch the twinkly lights on the big Department store Christmas trees across the street. I got that belly-warm Christmas feeling, the kind I haven't felt since I was a little kid and I believed. I guess now all I believe in is the magic and spirit of Christmas. But it still lit my face up like a Christmas tree.
Today's play list is full of cool vintage Christmas twang, press play and let's deck those halls.
This weekend I took my cue from all the winter woodland hedgehogs, badgers and doormice and retreated snug and warm into my burrow apartment for almost the entire two days.
This morning I was forced out blinking and shivering for work again. How rude!
Although we do have a glorious work-free day on Wednesday to look forward to as it will be election day here in Korea.
I put the final touches to my parents Christmas presents ready to be shipped to Ireland today (don't worry neither of them read my blog so I'm not ruining any surprises!)
I wrapped my Mom's present in brown paper and twine and used diy rubber stamps to print a Christmas tree design onto the paper~ a lovely and simple idea from Patchwork Cactus.
Aren't Dad's the peskiest people in the world to buy decent gifts for?
Last year I returned home for Christmas after four months of travelling and thrilled him with a traditional Native American headdress I bought for him in Thailand as he loves anything related to that subject.
This year I thought it would be nice to frame a photo we took of him wearing his gift last year and pegged them onto string along with other pictures of us and the family.
Here is a beautiful little collection of tunes Dallas put together last night just for you!
The weekends here in Korea are slippier than fish and faster than elk. They just have this way of getting away from you!
Dallas and I had a swell time on Saturday evening, going out on the town and celebrating two birthday parties, bar-hopping and slipping around on frozen snow and drunken legs.
We ate delicious Korean BBQ, sneaked trays of tequila shots to the table at the bar, got up to all kinds of mischief and laughed at the realization that all of our gifts to the birthday boy in his mid-twenties were "old man gifts"~ thick socks, cologne, a puzzle, warm gloves....though he didn't seem to mind one bit. Maybe we're all old souls on the inside!
When we got home Dallas and I carried on the party and stayed up till dawn listening to tunes. We drank rice wine, laughed and traded stories like a couple of old sailors. It was certainly my kind of a night.
This is my favorite tune of the moment. A pretty ditty by a great new band to get that heart rate bopping on this slow and frosty Monday morning.
This morning was for finding unexpected symmetry with the late season's color palette~ nutty browns and persimmon reds.
It was for hot chocolate and cold fingers and washing red lipstick from teacups after our Saturday night Thanksgiving party. I'll post the photos tomorrow, it was really a roaring success. Full bellies, full glasses and talking till dawn. Yesterday's duvet day just wasn't enough to come down from it all! This is my monday morning slow down. Time to clear my head and notice the leaves and listen to sad, sweet music in my earphones.
When I left the apartment to run some errands early yesterday evening I couldn't stop my eyes from travelling upward and admiring the naked tree branches... so artful and pretty against the changing colors of the twilight sky. Yellow gingko leaves and brown korean maple are raining down like tawny confetti on the daily and soon they will leave their mothers completely bare until spring arrives in March. There's something about nude tree branches, stark and naked, brown and twisted and gothic looking.
We're in for a long winter~ I hated the winter last year in Korea but I was living alone and 3 hours away from Dallas then. This year will be different. We're hosting my very first Thanksgiving dinner this weekend which I'm far more excited about than I should be.
This saturday was Dallas's birthday party and it was a hoot. lot's of catching up with dear friends and belly laughing and sore heads the next day. I woke up with a touch of the Monday's this morning. Perhaps this track-list will cheer up those of you who are also wishing it was friday again ~.^
Hands up if your in South Korea and over the rain.
I know I am.
Yesterday the almost supernaturally strong Autumn sun must have caught the message her moment on stage is almost done, caught a bout of depression and became weepy.
She called in her band of rain clouds to join in on her pity party. Then the breeze caught wind of the brewing tempest and chimed in to rattle the leaves around menacingly over the puddle grey land.
This Monday morning~ the sun is still sulking and the heavens are still open. I dodged raindrops all the way to work without my forgotten umbrella.
Ack.
Sombre weather calls for a fitting soundtrack. I put this playlist together last night full of some of my favorite songs with cold sounds and eerie moods to suit our skies current melancholia
Press play, sip your hot morning tea or coffee, look at the rain through your window, be haunted with sound and breathe, reflect.
Newly chilly mornings have us cranking up the thermometer and reaching for our coats instead of our cardigans, the nip in the air is more like a pinch and cold fingers are itching to be cupped around steaming hot mugs.
Dallas prepared today's mix-tape as a special remedy to this chill Monday AM.
Press play and let it warm your insides, like a little nip of whiskey in your morning coffee.
This weekend I skipped Halloween completely. After working Saturday I lay down for what turned into a 12 hour "nap". These bones are getting old I tell ya and I don't like it!
Having Saturday turn into a complete non-event made me ever more determined to pack my Sunday full of good and productive activities.
I filled our tiny kitchen with the cosy, warm scent of pumpkin spice by baking these pumpkin spice chocolate chunk muffins. Aside from burning the tops a little they tasted like Fall would taste if you could roll it and fold it and bundle it up into a muffin case!
I also worked on a great little letter DIY which I will share with you later this week~ I blame this one for the burned muffin tops~ trying to do too many projects at the same time!
In the evening Dallas and I hunkered down and watched this true little gem of a movie called
Ruby Sparks.
It stars Paul Dano who has already starred in two movies I loved; Little Miss Sunshine and There Will be Blood.
Ruby Sparks is a quirky, offbeat fantasy romance where Dano plays a novelist who writes about his dream girl...who magically becomes real.
Good morning campers, I hope your weekend's were wonderful?
I had a busy Saturday which was happily sunshine-y and filled with a LOT of subway hopping all over Seoul. I did manage to squeeze a little vintage clothing shopping in somewhere between line1 and line 6, but I'll post more on that later.
Right now, it's Monday morning desk time blues for most (including me) so I thought why not start the week off right with a little ear candy to lift you up?
While I'm the craft nerd my boyfriend Dallas is definately the music nerd half of the relationship and he very kindly put together this Monday Morning Ear Candy mixtape for you guys.
Isn't he sweet?
And he really does know his music, press play and make your Monday morning just a little bit more beautiful...
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