stack o books and a date night.

we did one of my absolute favorite things last night... matt had to study for his real estate licensing exam, so we went to barnes and nobles, got coffee (and cupcakes), and parked at a table with a pile of notes to study for him and a pile of books to browse for me. we used to do this all the time back when he was finishing his master's thesis, but we hadn't gone in months. we sit, engrossed in our own little worlds, until one of us makes a comment about the music playing in the store... or a random thought... or something we'd just read. i love having my feet propped on his chair, a pile of books i know i won't finish (i only made it through 2 and a half of these), and us both trying to make the other laugh and break the library-like bookstore decorum. i may have to insist we reinstate these date nights more frequently, as i'm actually very interested in what a swedish interior looks like.cupcakes never last long when we're involved.

some of the books weren't really that great. "handmade for profit" seemed about 20 years out of date, and actually recommended selling plain old dried flowers as a fall back when your sales are low because apparently, hey, everyone will always need dried flowers. (what?)

"organizing your craft space" was nice because it featured so many different kinds of craft rooms (wall to wall quilting fabric, more rubber stamps than you could use in one lifetime, crafty shabby chic, galvanized tin bucket industrial, etc.) some of the ideas were good, some were impractical, and some of those pictures were craft-room crack. i discovered that anna corba has already put into existence my dream craft room. that, and a mixture of all the twinkle lights that sally jean alexander uses, as seen in the very inspiring "pretty little things." oh, if only soldering were as simple and glitch-free as she makes it seem... and i think the most driving thing about these ladies is that they can and have actually made a living (a fairly decent living, one suspects) at this crafty handmade thing.

on a much less happy note, my heart goes out to alicia of posy gets cozy. i was telling my husband, it's a little strange sometimes, this little blog-land where i read about and am interested in people that i don't *really* know at all. but i can't stand to even think about losing my girl and will give her an extra tight snuggle after reading that post tonight.

time for a little midnight snack, and then heading off to get some sleep.