Meadowlands in Winter Make Me Wonder

1. many legs of giants, 2. box bridge, 3. abandon, 4. icy, 5. whoooshhhh, 6. pont d'hiver

The train ride from the city to Montclair isn't known to be a scenic route. The Meadowlands are widely considered a victim of environmental assault so vile it brings Naqoyqatsi-esque images to mind, and the accompanying smell is equally nauseating.

I don't know if it's because the environmental initiatives are finally accomplishing something, or because the light was just right reflecting off the snow--but on my most recent ride home for the holidays, I will venture to say that the Meadowlands seemed rather magical. Hundreds of birds were flying in the winter sky and I hardly saw any litter on the ground. The urban landscape of highways and bridges suddenly seemed to tiptoe across the fields rather than trample them.

This may not actually indicate progress of any kind, in fact, it may just be an appreciation for a barren wasteland that I hadn't yet realized. Whatever the case, finding beauty in the unexpected is always more interesting to me than seeing it where you're supposed to, and this particular experience actually gave me a glimmer of hope for this seemingly wasted habitat. I snapped these through the train window, and I hope they show a little bit of the whimsy that I experienced traveling through.

Holiday (re)Treat

Monogrenade - Ce Soir (HD) from Monogrenade on Vimeo.

Holidays can be stressful, and having family and friends around 24/7 can get exhausting. Here's something just for you, take a moment, mellow out. It's quite lovely and very creative.

When I woke up this morning with a terrible sore throat (probably the result of playing in the snow too much while I was visiting Sarah in DC this weekend) I wished I could sleep all day in peace in my warm, sunny little room, and have my mom periodically bring me hot Earl Grey with lemon and honey. I am however, no longer living in the luxury of my parents nest, and I do have several jobs that cannot simply be slept through. While summoning the energy to get out of bed, I thought about this image, that I posted almost a year ago while I was hurtling through my last semester of college. Shot by my Flickr contact SeetYing, the image still makes me feel calm and cozy, the way I really want to feel today!

Bike Wars

Cyclist Eric Baumann Featured Above

Biking has saved a lot of us city folk from infernal summers on the subway and liberated us from winters waiting in the freezing cold for the bus (I'd rather ride in the cold than stand on the corner any day). It's free. It's easy. It's harmless to the environment. Bikes are basically the best invention since sliced bread. And yet, there are still some city dwellers who want to ban the bike. The war is on my friends, and this time, it's Hipsters v. Hasids. Apparently "Scantily clad hipster cyclists... made it difficult, the Hasids said, to obey religious laws forbidding them from staring at members of the opposite sex in various states of undress. These riders also were disobeying the traffic laws, they complained." I'm not joking, and yet I have to laugh. MWAHAHA.

Read more HERE.

Thanks to Jessie for sharing!

Sustainable Stocking Stuffer?

How many doggie bags do you go through in a year? How much Saran wrap? Tin foil? Whoah. If thinking about that pile of plastic and foil is enough to make you cringe, then like me, you are probably going to be pretty amped about Abeego's all natural (and quite cute) reusable food storage sheets. Abeego products are a hemp/cotton blend, mixed with beeswax and plant extracts to make them water resistant and easy to wash. I'm thinking this might be the perfect stocking stuffer for my mother, an eco-chic landscape designer, who taught me to rinse and reuse ziplock bags when I was 6. I have a feeling she'll be more than happy to get rid of the bag-drying rack contraption, and embrace these practical replacements. Thanks to J. Bloch for finding these!

Apartment Therapy

That is to say, my apartment is my therapy. Tending to it, decorating it, and living in it makes me happy. I got my hands on a Perpetual Paris Calendar and finally my living room is complete! I am so pleased to show you all the first photographs of my decorated humble abode (my bedroom still needs a few adjustments so no photos of that hot mess just yet). The best part about this, for you lovelies, is that Little Brown Pen is offering my readers and their friends a special deal: 20% off their gorgeous art piece, the aforementioned Perpetual Paris Calendar. I'm kind of obsessed with mine, as you can see from the pics, and am considering getting another one to use as an art/headboard of sorts above my bed! Yay.

First Snow Song

For the month of December, I was invited to choreograph a piece for the dance company at Montclair High School, my alma mater. Not only is it an absolute joy to work with such enthusiastic and talented young people, it is really lovely for me to get a break from the city and travel 12 miles west to my home town. Montclair is a beautiful place in any season, and when I arrived at my parents' house and found the lawn dusted with snow I felt my heart begin to tingle with holiday spirit for the first time this winter. Supposedly, NYC had some flurries on Sunday, but all I saw was dark slushey puddles. Sometimes in the city, due to lack of trees and other natural signals one receives in the suburbs, I can only really tell the season by the increase in wind and, of course, the sparkly upscale window displays. I hate to admit that for the last four years, I've been so wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of city life that my parents had to call me and remind me to come home! This pretty winter video for Ra Ra Riot's "Can You Tell" brought me back to the long, restful, friend & family filled holiday seasons of my years in the 'burbs. As it should be, if you ask me.

Nesting

Above from Anthropologie.com

First, I started working on my next piece of choreography, in which I envisioned the dancers building a nest on stage. Shortly thereafter, I was overcome by a desire to decorate my new bedroom as a bird's nest. Not with real twigs and leaves per se, but definitely faux bois and bird print bedding, and photographs of trees, and cozy nooks and crannies. Needless to say, this motif is playing quite an important role in my life right now. Above are some things I am using as visual references, both for my home design and my work. As my friend Nichole from littlebrownpen said when I told her about my nesting, "life really does imitate art!"

A whole blog dedicated to my favorite green...

So, I REALLY didn't intend for this to become a Kale-centric blog. At all. So this is the last post about Kale I'll make for a while, but it's well worth it. Thanks to Eileen for finding this little gem!
I HEART KALE: a whole entire blog about... guess?