photo tales of a monday morning

This morning, I…

turned my books into a rainbow.

perused and drooled over Yotam Ottolenghi's 'Plenty' cookbook.

left my bed unmade, crumpled sheets and all. 

made sure my mug was perpetually filled with the blackest black coffee. 

shrugged on a thick cardigan and enjoyed the blustery weather. 

(Not pictured: I spent hours with my nose stuck in the kindle edition of Joshua Fields Millburn's 'A Day in the Life of a Minimalist'.)

What are some of your favorite things to do on a slow morning? 

a cliché life analogy

We woke up to a dark sky today. Around 8 AM, it started raining, and continued all morning; not just a steady sprinkle, but a violent downpour for hours. Temperatures dropped, sweaters were hastily donned, and skirt and pant hems were soaked a good few inches up the calf. For a while, you couldn't see anything in the distance. The mountain range protruding from our otherwise-flat terrain was invisible in the gray, wet gloom. 

But now, it's 3:14 in the afternoon and I'm sitting on our back porch gazing in awe at the most surreally pure landscape I've beheld in the entire time we've lived here. I can see brown and green patches of earth speckling the savannah, and detailed crevices eroded down face of the mountains. I can see all the way down to where the ground curves to meet the sky, and where the Nile snakes its way miles into the North. I guess we just needed some rain to clear up the view. 

listenings || entry two

Does good music ever catch you off-guard? Today, I was doing homework while simultaneously skimming through some music on my iPod I've never actually listened to (you know, that music you keep so that you can nonchalantly tell other people "oh, yeah, I love *insert-obscure-indie-band-here*"), and I happened upon a song that made me put down my pencil and stare at the wall until it was over. 4 minutes of just staring and taking in the chill-inducing melodies, the euphorically poetic lyrics, the organic grit of the artist's voice. It was 4 minutes of perfection.

Whenever you find music that amazing, I think it's a crime not to share it. These have been on repeat on my iPod lately; I think they're best enjoyed accompanied by a free afternoon, maybe a small tedious project, and a warm cup of coffee (or tea, whatever you fancy).

Cosmic Love - Florence + the Machine

Here's to Now - Ugly Casanova

Tenuousness - Andrew Bird

Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second - STRFKR

Soul Meets Body - Death Cab for Cutie

Daylight - Matt & Kim

Fake Empire - The National

Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois - Sufjan Stevens

Until We Get There - Lucius

Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners

The Lament of Eustace Scrubb - The Oh Hello's

To Be Surprised - Sondre Lerche

What about you? Have you recently found any songs that are just too fantastic for you to keep to yourself?