hottest august ever.

let me preface this post by saying to all you craft folks that carry on several blogs at the same time, i don't know how you do it. i've had plenty of time this week to write, have badly wanted to write, and am just now actually taking the time. so hats off to those of you that find time for more than just one! i'm amazed by you.we went to lazy days in cary on saturday:
and let me tell you, for those who are not familiar with august in raleigh, it is hot. really hot. so hot you're not sure you can breathe the air and you don't even want to move and there's sweat rolling down your back hot. (if you're wondering if the girl with the tiny rear end in the white shorts is me, i'm going to just go ahead and let you think that it is). so of course, there was no parking anywhere near downtown cary, so we walked quite a while before we even got to the walking where the interesting stuff was... and we couldn't help but wonder why they keep having this thing in august in north carolina? they know how hot it is by now, this is not the first year. we decided they should just go ahead and change the name to sweaty days. or keep it lazy days because after an hour or two out there you're too lazy to do anything else with your day.

i came home and took a nap.

but it was nice to see that so many different types of crafters were doing so well, and interesting to walk around comparing prices and display ideas, etc. we stopped and got an egg salad sandwich at blue moon bakery and it was wonderful. we got our fantastically delicious wedding cake there, and even though we don't go to cary that often, like to stop in whenever we can (or whenever we have an occasion for cake- which is easy to find if you look hard enough!)

i'm not sure who to hold responsible for the fact that i am just now discovering the loveliness that is marie claire idees magazine or how i knew to look for it the other day in borders, but oh wow... unbelievable. i didn't have any spare cash to take home the one copy they had, so i resorted to being that weird girl that tries to covertly take a picture of one of the pages that had a really inspiring idea (one of the great benefits of being obsessed with and permanently attached to my powershot).

besides getting to brush up on my french by trying to read it, it is crammed full of unspeakably cool handcrafted ideas for self and home that are so wonderfully simple, so wonderfully french, so wonderfully do-able. you know when you read some idea books/magazines and, even if they include instructions for the projects, you just know that you will never actually be able to pull it off exactly how it looks in the picture? well, everything in here gave you the delicious feeling of being able to make something exactly the way you're picturing the perfect outcome in your head as you read. it doesn't hurt that the french have that inexplicable way of taking something completely ordinary and making it beautiful and useful and special. i honestly don't know where my affection for all things french came from or where it's eventually going, but this magazine is really incredible.