Since everything has gone into holiday def con five mode at Target and it has me coveting all the things I figured hey! Time for another round up of Target awesomeness!!

pajamas ($24.99) - I see marshmallows roasted in the fireplace when I look at these so YES!!

dotty socks ($6.00) - these come in a pack of three & personally I never turn down socks or dots

fur pom pom hat ($13.60) - the perfect hat to wear to the tree lot 

striped sweater ($29.99) - I'm convinced one can never own too many striped tops, or anything for that matter 

fairisle sweater ($24.99) - these can be quite pricey but why? your'e not wearing it after christmas

felt fox ($9.99) - because it would look lovely on any mantle & it doesn't scream CHRISTMAS!!!

snowglobe ($12.99) - this is pretty much all my holiday dreams manifested in a snow globe

scarf - gap, sweatigan - f21*, jeans - ae, bag - kate spade, shoes - shoemint

Guys it's time I admitted openly that I simply don't have a lot of common sense. Case in point - the day I ate a taco while driving and wearing this scarf. See a normal person would look at crunchy taco and the thick brownish red sauce oozing out and would say to themselves "this is going to be messy, especially since I'm driving so I better take it off." And and an even better person would say "I probably shouldn't eat while driving." What does an idiot say??? Nothing. An idiot bites into the taco like a wolf that's been starved for ten years and ends up with half the taco on their nice new white scarf. The idiot being me, of course. 

The incident happened last year and the scarf has since been cleaned, as much as possible, though there are some spots I'm always hiding under my hair that are lovely reminders of just how dumb I can be sometimes. In fact papa bear and I joke that my "infinity scarves" are really more like "bib scarves" since I can never remember to take them off before eating. So if we ever meet in person and you get a slight whiff of potato soup it is not potato scented perfume that I'm wearing, it's actual potatoes. I figure if I ever get trapped in my car during some blizzard on a mountain I can count on always finding some snacks inside one of my scarves. So it turns out I'm actually really resourceful! Like a squirrel! Which happens to be one of my favorite animals to be drawn, made into a stuffed animal or featured in a cartoon. I actually can't stand real squirrels. Have you ever seen one up close?? RABIES!!! That's all I see when I look at their mangy fur. So yeah, squirrels? They're only cute in movies, books and drawings. Or as a sugar dish, ornament or toy. 

*this is the cardigan/sweater thing I mentioned last week. I have since declared it my sweatigan!

^ my two best sight-seeing buddies ^

all we did was walk & eat it was perfectly dreamy & low key

^ she's really getting excited about toys & books and we love watching her play^

^ she is so addicted to swings she cries the second we take her out ^

^ I couldn't bring myself to leave & take my eyes off this view ^

Dorothy Parker once said "New York is always hopeful" and we found that to be true as well after our trip to the city last week. Amid all the garbage, noise and general bustle there is the unmistakeable air of hope. It's in the twinkle lights sparkling through a shop window. It's in the kind compliment from one stranger to another. It's in the line of people waiting for something called a "cronut" for 45 minutes at 8 am in the morning on a particularly chilly day. It's in the way everyone was grinning like a kid on their birthday in Central Park because if those kind of colors don't inspire awe in you then it's all over. It's in the way your heart beats extra fast and you feel like you can do it all after all. 

I could say more but I know I could never say it as well or as beautifully as these writers so I'll just leave you with two quotes that perfectly encompass my sentiments about my second favorite city in the whole wide world:

“The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.” 

― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Cut off as I am, it is inevitable that I should sometimes feel like a shadow walking in a shadowy world. When this happens I ask to be taken to New York City. Always I return home weary but I have the comforting certainty that mankind is real flesh and I myself am not a dream.” 

― Helen Keller