last night i dreamt about socks.  in my dream, my coworker dylan lived in a huge decrepit mansion and all his roommates were trying to get me to wear their dirty smelly socks.  i have a strict one day only rule when it comes to wearing socks, so there was no way that i was going to put their dirty socks on, no matter how pretty they were.  oh, and pretty they were….all knee-highs, all stripes, all with my favorite colors.  

i am pretty sure i had this dream because yesterday at work my order of six new pairs of knee-high striped socks from sockdreams.com arrived (free shipping!  you can’t go wrong!).  i am wearing one of them today- the two toned skater stripes in white with aqua:

i’m even wearing old converse.

But there are some products that withstand both the test of time and the siren song of new product lines.  For me, one such product is Aveeno Ultra-Calming Daily Moisturizer with SPF 15.  It’s the best moisturizer that I’ve ever used — winter or summer, dry or oily.  I only strayed once: when I was a member of the Park Slope Food Coop, I bought some sort of seaweed-based moisturizer, but I came right back and haven’t left since.

Seriously.  I could sing the praises of this moisturizer all day long.  New products don’t hold a candle to it!

Update: Here was the temporary “other woman” moisturizer.  Never again!

then i grew up and got a larger discretionary income, realized it’s fun to own things that aren’t a necessity, and came to appreciate variety, as well as quality, in hair products.  

right now i have seven bottles of shampoo and three bottles of conditioner in my shower, and although that may be a bit excessive, my shampoo and conditioner collection brings me a lot of joy in life.  one of my favorite parts of the day is deciding which shampoo to use.  hey man, whatever gets me out of bed in the morning, right?

this morning i used the newest addition to my collection: paul mitchell tea tree lavender mint shampoo and conditioner, which i got on a whim while at king’s pharmacy last night.  it was kind of pricey, but i found a dime as soon as i left the pharmacy, which i took as a sign.  no buyer’s remorse for me! 

But in these tough times, twenty-five dollars is a bit pricey for a candle that only burns for fifty hours — that’s fifty cents an hour.  But I think this candle is worth it.  And when my tax rebate is deposited in my account, I will be back at In Watermelon Sugar to buy this scent of spring.

And of course I’d rather buy it on the Internet, but the Votivo website charges eight dollars for shipping, which is ridiculous.  I mean, I’d be a third of the way to a second Honeysuckle candle — or even a Fresh Tomato Leaf one!

last weekend, on our six month anniversary, jeremy surprised me with a cadbury creme egg, the first of the season.  clearly, he knows the way to my heart.  yesterday he and i were in rite aid and i couldn’t leave without a big bag of robin eggs.  i had a hard time opening the bag, so jeremy attempted.  at first the bag refused to open, but then it exploded open, resulting in a bunch of robin eggs making their escape onto the dirty new york city sidewalk.  i told him to just leave them, but he gathered them up in an impromptu easter egg hunt and put them in his pocket.  some people may find this really gross, but i understand how precious robin eggs are, so i just told him to make sure to brush them off on his shirt before he ate them. 

lesson for today: give a girl a gourmet marshmallow and she can enjoy just one delicious hot cocoa to forget the woes of a slurpee slush snow, but teach a girl to make her own gourmet marshmallows and she will be able to create a lifetime of slurpee slush snow salvation.  

more schmallows, anyone?

Bugs — unlike some other creatures — have full-time jobs, so candy is an absolute necessity for happiness and a successful work-life balance.

My cats’ favorite toys, recently discovered at Petco, are these catnip-filled fruits.  We have the full collection, but I’ve had to replace the strawberry twice and the kiwi once.  Cat toys — like hair ties, bobby pins, and socks — have a tendency to go missing.  And although you sometimes find them under couches or beds, they are often missing forever.

My favorite toys are the mice.  We’ve got big ones, little ones, furry ones, paisley ones, sparkly ones, holiday-inspired ones, ones with feathers for tails, ones with strings for tails, ones with no tails because the cats ripped them off, ones filled with catnip, ones that jingle…  And I love them all.  They turn up everywhere — in the living room, in my bedroom, even in the bathroom.  Evidence of play that took place when you weren’t looking.

And of course, there are countless other cat toys that tug at my heartstrings.  I should buy one or two (or three) to take back to Lola and Kitty to make up for my extended absence this week.

Pictured above: (1) Active Cat Furry Mouse with Rattle; (2) Yeowww! Organic Catnip Rainbow; (3) Wrapables Shrimp Catnip Toys; (4) Caelista Personalized Letter Catnip Toy; (5) KONG Feathertop Carrot Catnip Toy.

yesterday while walking, aka freezing, around williamsburg with dorothy and amber i bought this set of bowls from a&g merch. i can’t wait for jeremy and i (and two guests!) to eat homemade spaghetti out of them- i got a pasta maker attachment set for my kitchen aid mixer on friday afternoon and am excited to test it out. the bowls are really nice and big, perfect for a salad-or-cereal-for-dinner occasion. though, really, some soup to warm us all up might be more appropriate right now, i am so very sick of winter.

the only (foreseeable) downfall of these bowls is that they are not stackable in a space efficient way, but i think their demand of precious new york city cabinet space is almost admirable.