happy holidays

One of my favorite things about New York during the holidays is when all the tree vendors pop up on the sidewalks. It's so picturesque and fun to watch people selecting a tree and carrying it home. We were very tempted this year to get a wee tree for our flat but it just wasn't meant to be. I am going to make sure that next year we make it a priority. No more tree in a can for us! The lights in our 'hood were very small town main street. Brooklyn has such style and pzazz. As much as I love the holidays in New York it wouldn't feel like Christmas without going home to Idaho. The snow, our tree with all the ornaments that our mum has gotten us over the years, the treats that Denise makes, wrapping last minute presents on Christmas eve, going to a movie as a family on Christmas day, eating LOTS of great food, listening to Christmas music and singing along really loud, our tradition of organizing the presents under the tree just so. We are usually all so tired after everything but it's still so fun.

Have a great holiday with your family and friends!

--heidi

**picture is our family tree in Idaho-ho

afirmative

I'm so excited for the second season of Flight of the Conchords. It doesn't start officially until January 18th but you can watch the first episode online here. This show makes me laugh over and over. It's set in New York and filmed here so we have a lot of New York pride when watching. Katie and I tend to break into the songs at random. "Robots" is the one I sing the most. Plus I have a bit of a crush on their manager Murray. He's so loveable in a pathetic way.

--heidi

she's so high

Oh, man I am so very excited to know that, Blur-one of my favorite bands ever, has reunited and is playing London's Hyde Park in July 09. This is a pretty big deal since they haven't played together in eight years and I'm so sad I won't get to be there (must start buying Lotto tickets...). They are a band that has just gotten better and better over time and is continually experimenting and evolving with new sounds.


*Doesn't Graham still look so good? He's wearing the glasses-heart pounds.

I'll never forget getting a cassette (I'm so old) of Leisure for Christmas when I was 15 and being happy as pie listening to it non-stop along with a cassette of Saint Etienne's Foxbase Alpha-two of my favorite albums still. Back in the 90's when it was Blur vs Oasis I was definitely in the Blur camp and had a HUGE crush on Graham Coxon (I've always had a thing for the Brit musicians). Here's hoping they come to NY too.

My favorite song of theirs is Blue Jeans but since there isn't a video for that I'll post the video to She's So High which is what got me hooked in the fist place.



--Katie

london shop fronts

I discovered a fantastic site today via Design Sponge. It is a site after my own heart. London Shop Fronts. It includes my love of signs, design and London, need I say more. It makes my heart so happy.

This is my favorite so far.


--heidi

i not dead

Such an intense beginning to our day today! Around 7:30 this morning an incessant beeping woke me up. We have a railroad flat and it sounded like it was in the back (our bedroom is in the front) so I got up to see what it was. If you don't have a carbon monoxide detector-GET ONE! Ours was going off like crazy so I immediately opened the windows and called 311. I love NYC for 311 which is the number you can call for anything-yes ANYTHING. They connected me to 911 who connected me to the fire department who was at our door in less than 5 minutes. We had three giant firemen in our kitchen and clunking around through our flat with their axes and other pokey staff things (to bust/tear down a door). These guys were big and made our place look oh so tiny. They confirmed we did have carbon monoxide in our kitchen and proceeded to wake up the entire building to find the source (the boiler?) and to check the other flats. While all this went down we stayed in the hall and watched while we waited for clearance to go back into our flat. This ends very anti-climactic because after a while they just left and we had to call our super to see if we could go back inside our flat. Wow! I love our carbon monoxide detector-If I could I'd take it to dinner to thank it for making this years Christmas the best cuz we're not dead!

--Katie

**no pictures taken by us since we were in our jim jams and we had other things going on.

image via

do you really want to hurt me?

Oh Topshop why are you doing this to us? We have been patient waiting for your grand arrival to the big apple and this is how you repay us. Haven't we suffered long enough without you in our lives everyday. You had better make this wait worth it or we're never speaking to you again (at least until you say you're sorry).

pulp

We used to go out dancing a lot with our friend Dirk. Most of the time we would see this guy at the club who looked like Jarvis from Pulp. He danced like him, dressed like him, even had glasses like him. If a week went by and he wasn't there we would be so sad because he was so fun to watch. Not knowing his name we just called him Jarvis. Jarvis of Salt Lake City what ever happened to you?

Below is a classic song by Pulp. It doesn't quite capture the magic of the real Jarvis' dancing but it's our favorite.



--heidi

** AHEM! Heidi forgot an important part of the story in that we would joke that we wanted to go to the Jarvis school of dance because we loved SLC Jarvis' moves so much. One year for Christmas we even had a t-shirt made for Dirk that said "I graduated from the Jarvis School of Dance".

--Katie