{T.I.L. #24}

Happy melted ice day! It was icy earlier this morning, I promise. 

Again, I kinda did nothing all day and it was glorious. We have a chance of ONE.more.day off as it is supposed to snow in the early morning. *fingers crossed* I'm obviously praying for safe-but-impacted travel because I'm a 1st grade teacher and that's just what we do. Plus, it is a nice nudge for parents to keep buying teachers' Starbucks. You think 3 kids snowed-in with a whole house & yard is bad? Add in 17 more kids, reduce it to one room and very limited outside time...that's our school day in winter.

Why yes, I WOULD like a Grande drink instead of a Tall, thankyouverymuch.

On to the Things I Love post for today. I briefly mentioned this love in this post when I posted this picture:

I grew up in Mississippi and they may not have top-notch education or lots of money for the masses, but they have one thing really right: exposed brick.

{T.I.L. #23}

I have really enjoyed having a day off of work to do nothing. Snow days are nice because you are forced inside for the most part and you don't have to feel guilty about it. 

I have another day to practice not feeling guilty because we have ANOTHER ice day tomorrow! Yesssss.

Obviously with a snow day, I've had time to catch up on my shows that I don't have time for in the regular workweek. I also had time to catch up on a few Netflix movies that were recommended to me. My friend, Lauren, steered me toward the BBC miniseries movie "Death Comes to Pemberley" and she didn't fail me on this one. Of course it is no secret that I have a mad writer crush on Jane Austen and an even madder crush on Darcy & Elizabeth as characters. This book/movie takes place a few years after the marriage and does a great job of highlighting the real struggle of marrying in a different social class than your own. Plus, it has murder mystery thing going on...I mean, who doesn't love those?!

The other thing I noticed was a frequent use of one of my favorite "old-but-new-but-old" items for my household. I was going to write a post about these anyway, but now I have a movie screen shot:

to show that:

That's right. I'm bringing candles back. I own a few chambersticks and I'm not ashamed to admit that I use them. First off, candlelight is amazing and everything looks so glowy in its brilliance. Second, I love the nod to pre-technology days and I find myself wanting a dimmer evening as I prepare for bed. And last but not least, they are just darn cute to me!

I guess I've always loved them because I used to use a dark brass one in our farmhouse when I was little. My parents were always big candlelight people so it is no surprise that a chamberstick (which is just a personal, portable candle) brings back great memories for me. 

I started collecting chambersticks a few years back but they were harder to find then. Good news: it looks like they are making a resurgence these days! You could definitely go the modern route with some of these futuristic versions. I bought a few modern ones from IKEA:

This one is huuuge and is meant for outside

Honestly, I prefer to browse eBay and other dealers for more vintage cuties:

They go great on a stack of old books or nestled into a built-in bookshelf. Functional decor at its finest! I have a few others up my sleeve but I'll have to share those in another post (I've got my reasons!)

Until then, just wait with bated breath, picture my Jane-Austen-lovin' nerdy self lighting my bedtime chamberstick, and chuckle at my vintage awesomeness. 

And then, go get yourself a chamberstick because you want to be awesomely candlelit too.

{T.I.L. #21}

Today's post on something I love may be a little bit shorter (edited to add: nope) because I'm always pooped on the weekends. I'm especially pooped today because I woke up extra early to attend one of those "do it HERself" Home Depot classes on installing a faucet. I was hoping my new kitchen faucet would thank me...plus I really don't have running water in my kitchen yet. 

When I got there, they didn't really realize they had a class scheduled (even though I registered) so the guy tried to 'make do' by finding one of the plumbing guys to help. And by help, he meant that the toothless worker stocking the shelves was going to 'talk me through' how to install my kitchen faucet. This ought to be rich.

{T.I.L. #20}

Sometimes I enjoy these weekend, 'put-a-bunch-of-things-I-love-all-in-one-post-because-no-one-is-probably-reading-this-anymore' posts. I almost stopped blogging about Things I Love the other day because I felt super arrogant all of a sudden. 'Who cares about whether you like twinkle lights when kids are starving in other countries?' Right?

Then I realized that enjoying life and all the things in it do not make us selfish or arrogant. They also do not stop our hearts from caring for other, more important things like people. I also really enjoy seeing what makes others tick, so 'about me' pages are kinda my favorite. This month has been like one, ginormous, all about me page. In fact, I've just been literally updating mine by cutting and pasting the links to all these posts. Double-duty, people!

With that said, here is some more nonsense so that you can know me better:

{T.I.L. #19}

Ohmygosh, that kinda sounds wrong when you say it without context.

I'm talking about these cuties:

{T.I.L. #17}

'What's that, now?' you may be asking yourself. 

I first saw a Swedish Mora Clock in a blogger's house pictures and I fell in love with the feminine shape and interesting curves. 

Pic from The Nester

When I bought my cottage, I knew I wanted to get a Mora Clock of my own. I googled around and found this cutie:

Ebay

I looked at the price tag and decided to wait until one went on sale. 

Well, it turned out that close-to-400-bucks WAS the sale. 

So, I kept looking and found this:

eBay

It is a reproduction and made for hanging on the wall instead of standing, but hey! Gotta cut corners somewhere to get the right price tag of $160. It looks a little more green-gray in person than the gray-green pic, but I really like it. It has delicate, dainty curves and a pretty distressed finish. I can't wait to hang it in my new house. You know, the one for which I still need to pick a white wall color? 

At least I have the important things done, amiright?