goodbye, 2011!

Hello to all!

I hope everyone is ready to say GOODBYE to 2011. It was a year filled with much too much bad news and much too little good news. 2011 set the bar so low that it made 2010 look like the height of awesome. (2010 was the year I had pneumonia for 3 months). I am far to old to write to Santa, but not old enough to believe that writing down my wishes for the coming year is in any way silly or futile.

 2012, here is my wish list: I wish for my friends and family to be healthy. I wish for my children to remember you in smiles and friends made. I wish for the perseverance to face my goals head-on. I wish for peace in our heads and forgiveness in our hearts and kindness in our actions.
Thanking you in advance,

Kara M DeCarlo

(Go and write your wishes down, too! I believe life is better when we can move towards what we want, instead of running blindly from what we don't want)

Wishing all of you beautiful dreams and a joyous New Year!

Pensive in the face of the New Year

Yes, I completed all my holiday presents. I plan to totally cop out of wrapping them by putting them in brown paper bags & stapling the bags shut. My holly jolly ho-ho-ho spirit left about two days ago and I am just ready for this season of gifting to be over.
To make it through the next few days of holiday go-round, I will be needing a designated driver. Luckily, I have a husband who will gladly take on that role. Thanks babe!

I also have to submit my 2012 goals list to my lovely friend who has agreed to hold me accountable to all of them. She is a therapist by day, so I do not expect to be able to wiggle my way out of them.
Which means that I have to be realistic in my aspirations and not go overboard with planning.

This is proving more difficult than I imagined. As it turns out, I am the Queen of Unreachable Goals--probably the reasons for this would require immense amounts of therapy, but we all know that's not going to happen. So now I have to weigh each goal against the reasons for putting it on the list, and the probability of achieving said goal. Doesn't that sound like fun?!

Not to me either. So I have been working in fits & starts, but there are only 8 days left of 2011.

Blah.

Happy New Year.

In case you were feeling rushed..

Firstly! There is free shipping at my etsy shop with the coupon code JOY2U. Happy Holidays!

Secondly, I am not yet done with holiday presents, because I have decided to do a handmade holiday for the second year running. Which wouldn't be so overwhelming if I hadn't added some people to the list. So far I have made hot cocoa mix, marshmellows, book pins, flower brooches, and upcycled journals. I still have to make bracelets for a gaggle of teenage girls, and fleece camo hats for boys.

I am running out of time and energy...but mostly time.

So I hope you all are enjoying this time of year, however you celebrate it!

LONDON, BABY!

Flying out of Chicago, we headed west over Lake Michigan. Hi Chicago!
 I flew from Chicago to DC, where I met up with my Mom and we flew together to London.

The view from our floor of the hotel. We were on floor 12, so it was pretty spectacular. That castle-looking building is the Renaissance hotel at St. Pancras. On the other side of that is the King's Cross underground and railway station (King's Cross is where Harry Potter left for Hogwarts).

That low-lying red brick building is the British Library. They had a fabulous exhibit on Illuminated Manuscripts. Also, I saw the Magna Carta and a First Folio of Shakespeare's works.

And there was food! I especially enjoyed this little treat: a rosemary & chocolate macaroon, a raspberry & basil mousse, and a lavender & citrus sorbet.

And of course we had to go to Harrod's to see the Christmas decorations and ride the Egyptian escalator. We also popped into the Harry Potter shop.

That's the dome of St Paul's (Where the old lady feeds the birds in Mary Poppins) and that bit of water is the Thames River)

We went to the Globe Theatre & museum. That's me with Will--I am a HUGE Shakepeare dork. I went to Shakespeare summer camp when I was in high school. True story. The theatre season runs April to October and groundling tickets are only 5 pounds a person!

And we popped over to Baker Street to catch a glimpse of 221B (Where Sherlock Holmes "lived". There's also a Sherlock Holmes Museum next door, but I didn't see the need to pay to look at an exhibit of a fictional character).

And then we came home. We crammed a lot into 3 days. I loved the public transportation, the museums, the weather, and even the food.

London--you rock!