Two of my favorite things...

Not my macarons!

The blueberry French macarons...well...it wasn't a complete fail. They taste delicious, but the presentation is less than desirable and the blueberry, cream cheese filling is more like a cookie dip than a filling. It was a battle last night, let me tell you. The pastry bags rebelled against us. The filling had to be mixed twice because the butter and cream cheese didn't blend together the first try and the whole thing looked like speckled blueberry syrup. My batch of cookies slightly burned on the bottom and they were way too small. But alas, I have promised to master these delicate pastries. Who knew it would be so difficult to create such a small piece of heaven?

~

In other news, I am proud to say I have discovered what is now one of my favorite shops in Knoxville - The Book Eddy. This is a quaint bookshop whose sign boasts, "Not your mainstream bookstore," and that is exactly why I love it! I have been eying it for a few months now - always curious as to what treasures were hidden inside and on Saturday, during a spontaneous trip to Disc Exchange (Luc's favorite music shop located next door to The Book Eddy), I finally gave in to my curiosity. The inside reminded me of every old bookshop I've ever seen in movies. Most recently, Audrey Hepburn's bookstore in Funny Face. The bookshelves go on forever, like an old library in a dream. Even the floor is peppered with books just waiting to be explored.

I found The Gift by Hilda Doolittle - a book I've been looking for for years! My heart practically jumped out of my chest at the sight of it. I found tons of books about Ezra Pound, his early poetry, even a book by Colette, a classic French icon. I am a lover of old literature and this shop has all of it! I could spend hours just sitting on the floor looking through all the books.

Luc found his share of treasures too - used records. Bands I've never heard of, except for Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Needless to say, I was the happiest girl in the galaxy after my discovery. Finally, a place that caters to all the people who care about more than what's on the best seller's list!

I've been taking an online "summer school" art class by Karyn Gartel (aka Altered Diva) called Softly Spoken and it's all about creating backgrounds for collage work. Just what I needed! This is the first piece I made using acrylic paint, stamps, gesso, colored pencils, charcoal pencil, white grease pencil, and collage images from Karyn. I call this The Caged Bird.



And this is my second one called My Stars. The quote comes from an Emilie Autumn song. Both pieces were done on watercolor paper. Even though I've done a few mixed media collages on canvas, I feel I need to concentrate more on practicing on the paper for now. I have some ideas of pieces I'd like to do, but I need to work on my color combinations. Sometimes they just turn out muddy and brown.



Karyn's blog is listed in the blogs to see on the right. Her workshop information is here. She's an amazing artist!

What else...what else...
I have been contemplating buying a bike. A vintage looking one, robin's egg blue or pink. A cruiser of sorts, although maybe that isn't the best idea since I am surrounded by hills. Nonetheless, I keep telling myself, a bike would be a grand birthday present (Aug 4). Then, after much excitement at the prospect of a new bike I remember...there's no way to get it home.

That's not completely true. My boyfriend and I went bike shopping in early spring. We took my little Ford Focus because a) his car is smaller than mine and houses large speakers in the trunk and b) we believed it could hold anything. We had stuffed a big screen tv in the backseat, a patio table in the trunk, and my whole room (when I moved from Texas) in every nook and cranny of the thing. Surely a bike would fit. That was not the case. A bike is an awkward shape and no matter how many ways we tried to shove it in, it just wouldn't go. Soo...the boyfriend decided to ride it home. I thought he was crazy, as it was getting dark outside and he had to ride it down a busy street with no shoulder! He made it home in about 30 minutes and said he enjoyed the experience. Good for him, but *I'm* not going to ride a bike from Kalamazoo to the house.

I'm wondering if stores deliver. Also, I keep going back in forth in my head whether or not I will really ride it. Sometimes I think I only want one because I love the aesthetics of a vintage bicycle.

Oh! And I must tell you that I had the most delicious dream the other night about eating French macarons. They were purple and tasted like heaven. This weekend I'm going to try my hand at making some. There's a recipe for blueberry ones in the latest Tea Time magazine. You wouldn't believe how excited I was to find that!