Think Pink! Or some other color.
After a long absence of color in the street and stores, colors are back. Pink, aqua, coral, green, you name it and it's in. Except lavender....hmm. What a nice change of pace from my usual blue and green and black. A pretty steady diet of black, really. I've put aside my black French sweater and knit a lovely tearose cotton sweater, inspired by this new Spring feeling. Sadly, I somehow did not realize that all the little white stripes would make for a million ends to weave in before I could seam the project. Oh well... If I keep telling myself that I'll have the sweater to wear much longer than it takes to assemble it, maybe it will make things go faster. Next on the slate is another cotton sweater, sans stripes, inspired by the cotton yukatas of Japan. At least, that is what the designer claims in the book. It's another project with a lot of assembly required, but I'm willing to admit that stylish garments take more work than, ahem, homemade-looking ones.

This spring renewal has also caused me to take interest in feminine pursuits like getting my eyebrows shaped and finally learning to apply undereye concealer properly. We've established that it doesn't matter how much I sleep, I'll always have circles. I bought a skirt over the weekend, and not some terrible utilitarian thing with lots of pockets. I found an outfit that looks perfect with an antique turquoise necklace that my grandmother gave me. And I walked around in heels for an entire day with little complaint. There's nothing like a bit of warm weather to make me want to shed the Doc Martens!

I've just heard about a new product from Belkin that is the solution to a problem I've had for years. I listen to a lot of NPR, but I don't want to sit next to the radio all day. Often, I have to miss Fresh Air with Terry Gross to, I don't know, go to work or something. If only there was a VCR for your radio, so that you could record your programs when you were busy elsewhere. I toyed around with this idea for ages, trying to come up with some sort of analog solution. Well, Belkin came up with a digital solution, the RadioShark. It's shaped like a big fin. There seem to be a few bugs to work out still, and I'd like the price to come down a bit before I'd consider buying it. They even offered it as one of the pledge gifts on my local NPR station this month. Very, very cool.