this week…

I LOVED

remembering MY roots

☁☁☁

small, SPECIAL things

// hot cinnamon tea + pineapple sherbet + mexican rice (not together)

// solutions by real simple a.k.a. the #1 book on my wish list

// my new mp3 player that’s a lovely shade of purple + clips on my coat

// discovering just how wonderful charles wright’s poetry is

// browsing the beautiful pieces over at sumiko shop

// my medieval europe course, which is my favorite this semester so far

// this equally delightful + beautiful stream of photographs

// the words remnants, volcano, prescience and indigo

// watching jordan staal reach a whole new level of awesomeness during the game against the habs last wednesday (which we won 5-2)

☁☁☁

three GORGEOUS images

{untitled by kyle scully // 226 by julian  bialowas // vintage 60s dress by persephone vintage : via EZ}

☁☁☁

well, that’s one week of the spring 2011 semester down, and fourteen more to go. i’m happy to report that professor/classmate/logistics wise things are, overall, pretty dandy. :)

what did you LOVE this week, my darlings?

xo Alison

bury the beat no. 16

MUMFORD & SONS

recently i wrote about florence + machine, and how her/their album was such an integral part of 2010 for me, not just in terms of musicality, but also as a source of inspiration + comfort. mumford & sons is the other side to that same coin of music/love for this year. this past february i downloaded the mumford & son song “the cave.” it was in a slew of other new music finds, somewhere in between grand hallway + sonya cotton, or maybe pearl and the beard. mumford & sons stuck, though, like no other. their inaugural album sigh no more touched me in a way that can only be described as damien rice-ian. when i first heard damien rice in 2003 i was fifteen and had frizzy hair and wild dreams, a short fuse and a big heart, red + pulsing right there on my sleeve. listening to damien rice was a way for me to take my own temperature, to settle into something that was brimming with emotion that was beautifully controlled. it changed me.

i’m not fifteen anymore. i’m not even a teenager anymore, so listening to mumford & sons for the first time this year wasn’t exactly the same as finding mr. rice emotionally speaking, but in the way in which i connected to the music, the physical melodies, the lyrics, the sound, it is identical. and that’s as high a compliment that i can give about an artist.

so here are those english folk renaissance men, mumford & sons…

find mumford & sons here

☁☁☁

how’s your thursday been so far, my lovelies?

xo Alison

p.s. sid’s point streak ended last night at 25 games. i am all ennui now because of it. i really wanted him to be able to twirl his honorary mustache. ah well. here’s to the next outrageously amazing recent hockey history record he breaks :)

hushed.

RAINY/GREY

the world feels hushed in my corner of the world. it’s been dark + dreary all day, and in the afternoon it started raining cold, november rain, the kind that tries so hard to be snow. i’m thankful to be tucked up inside, writing about the role of mimesis in Thomas Wyatt’s poetry, and partaking in these rainy day staples ::

// a mug of extra hot tea with sugar + half’n'half

// damien rice, the swell season, quiet coldplay, and acoustic john mayer

// an excessive amount of fig + spiced pear candles

// slippers, sweatpants, a huge penguins shirt, and several blankets

// a fresh batch of creamed chipped beef on toast

// jane eyre, a moleskine notebook, and katharine hepburn movies

// these lovely images

{photo credits: one. two. three. four. five.}

☁☁☁

what are your rainy day necessities?

xo Alison

to do

this AUTUMN i want to…

// buy too many pumpkins for one porch

// have a weekend-long woody allen marathon

// find my way back to vermont

// live on apple spice lattes + homemade baked potato soup

// read a joan didion essay every day

// have my life revolve around the boys once again

// wear cotton layers + handmade scarves + plaid shoes

// take photographs in the woods

// write poems about red leaves + frosty mornings

// take part in the rally to restore sanity october 30 in D.C

// work on my nonfiction essays

// watch sam + dean winchester figure things out

// make wild, scary decisions and stick to them

// see this exhibition at the akron art museum

// listen to nickel creek + damien rice + ryan adams

// finish the semester on the dean’s list again

// share my life + stories + obsessions with you here

what’s on your fall to do list?

xo Alison

{photo credits: one. two. three. four via EZ.}

morning coffee + dying blooms

{by mwashin}

as you may have noticed, at the start of every month i post about what’s been on my mind for the last four weeks. it’s a way to recapture, remember, and solidify what i did + loved + experienced during the previous month. september is a very special month, though, so to me it deserves something a little different. even though there are technically a couple weeks left summer, with the start of school + the change in weather, the start of september always feels like the start of fall, so i figured today was the perfect day to collect a string of moments from the summer season as a whole, moments that when i look back on 2010, i will think…

that was the SUMMER when…

* i wrote my best poetry

* i let my hair get ridiculously long, like small of my back long

* i started both a tumblr + and a twitter

* i put hanson’s shout it out on daily rotation

* i didn’t get to see jack or john in concert, which ended up being okay

*i found out i wasn’t as interested in psychology as i thought

* i had my heart broken by sergei gonchar

* i traveled nowhere, except a few day trips to pittsburgh

* i purged four trash bags worth of irrelevant things from my past

* i watched a ton of movies, some good but most bad (sigh)

* i made local natives // the tallest man on earth // balmorhea // mumford & sons // damien rice // sondre lerche the soundtrack of the season

* i organized my life around my mother’s oncology appointments

*  i re-watched veronica mars + sports night + 30 rock each all the way through

* i bought an embarrassing number of purses

* i ate clementines + crusty bread consistently

* i took a thousand photos of  morning coffee + dying blooms + the sky

* i read charles bukowski for the first time

* i was convinced the NHL regular season would never come

* i learned the importance of taking risks

* i fell in love with the wonder that is IKEA

* i welcomed two adorable vagabond cats into our family

* i marveled at the beauty of brandywine falls

* i heard hanson perform madeline + save me live for the first time ever

* i didn’t post for two full weeks, and came back a better blogger

* i said goodbye to billy guerin

* i took these forgotten photos…

when you look back on this summer, what will you remember?

xo Alison

twitter | tumblr