I am so in love with this. I bought this from Life Geekery a while back, and I’ve had it for about a month now. They’re made to order, so you do have to be patient for a few weeks until it ships. But they have some other amazing character interpretations (Dr. Who, Star Wars), not just Harry Potter. And you can order for a Kindle, iPad, Mini, etc. You do have to get used to carrying Harry upside down, the opening is at the bottom. Small price to pay for greatness.

This is probably my favorite purchase for myself so far this year.

I’m taking forever to get these road trip photos up, but life keeps getting in the way.

After we left Boston and Plymouth, we headed to Portland, ME. I loved Portland. Really we spent most of our time in Maine eating, and that’s a pretty perfect vacation as far as we’re concerned. We’d heard about the food scene up there for ages but finally got to experience some of it.

Our first night in Portland, Monday night, we made a pilgrimage to Duckfat, a place we’d heard of any time the Portland food scene was mentioned. It was behind our hotel, so as pilgrimages go it was pretty lightweight, but I could have eaten every single meal here. The duckfat fries are everything you’d think they would be, with amazing dipping sauces to choose. And there’s just something about a perfect bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich on a chilly night that nothing else on earth can rival. They do it right here. Ugh, it’s pouring here in NJ today…now I want that meal again.

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That guy. I couldn’t stop talking about the Marimekko raincoat for Hannah, and he was going to try and get over to the store during lunch this week to get it. But then it popped up on the website (it wasn’t there when I checked), and he ordered it. And it. Is. Amazing. 12 months size, so she’ll grow into it all spring and summer. Entirely fabulous.

Happy Birthday to me!

My fabulous and amazing mentor Dee sent this out today, and I love it. Zazzle is now selling prints, tees, bumper stickers with this Burning Through Pages graphic (in addition to some other equally outstanding book nerd goodies). I support everything about this.

And she has adorable taste, this was my favorite theme as well.

Yesterday I took her up to the Paramus Container Store as part of a whirlwind day visiting folks. We saw an old high school friend of mine, Ryann, who’s asked me to make a baby quilt for the little girl she’s having Christmas week. We had lunch with my mom and coffee with Kathy, and in between that Hannah was introduced to her mother’s annual holiday tradition.

Now before anyone suggests that I influenced her decision making, let it be known that I held up a variety of options, 2 at a time, and she made clear decisions about which one she liked. I had greens (like last year’s cherry red and kelly green, I never posted photos of that one) and other color schemes, and she always went for these colors. I mixed in the same papers in a different hand a couple of times, and she still picked the one she liked (like these polar bears she loved). I even held up papers in the same color story, and she would either pick one definitively or grab them both and wave them around (so both went into the cart). So I feel this was as unbiased an experience as you can have with an 8 month old, and since she will be the one playing with most of this paper I figured she should have a say in it.

And she did.