bhutan and a new clock, all in a day's work

2 years ago, i led 7 high school students from the school at which i taught on a 15 day excursion of the kingdom of bhutan. where's bhutan, you ask? oh, in the himalayas! i was the only chaperone from the school and we met up with a tour guide in paro, a "major" city. he led us traipsing through the mountains. it was truly beautiful. everything was so clean and pure and the scenery was so out of this world. everything was handmade including handwoven cloth, which were in stunning bold colors with very geometric patterns. i bought a kira, a bhutanese women's skirt (think thick cotton woven into a sarong), which was not cheap, and hoped that one day, my purchase would come to use. below is an example of kiras on wikipedia.org:
also 2 years ago, andrew and i had just begun our fledgling relationship. he went around telling everyone that he had just started dating this girl, who then disappeared to bhutan for 2 weeks, and he wasn't sure where we stood. hahahaha. luckily for andrew, i decided to keep him around because he solved my kira problem unawares! you see, as a typical guy, andrew lacks a cool comforter. cool as in chic, that is. in fact, his comforter was pretty ragged. it needed a cover. fast.

seeing as the kira i chose was of a fairly masculine print, i decided to sew the kira down the middle of a solid-colored duvet for andrew so that the duvet would kind of frame the kira in a way. i chose a gold damask striped duvet (i mean who wouldn't want something framed in gold?) and started to hand-sew the kira to the duvet like a fool. i say fool because it took forever: i sewed down every 5th white skinny stripe with white thread and then around the top and bottom with black thread. now i'm only 5 feet tall, and this duvet was about as long as i am tall, so it was very, very tedious. i removed the side ties and cut them into short strips, which i then sewed to the shams to decorate the edge. i guess he knew where we stood after he got his new duvet and shams... we now keep this in the bright green guest bedroom, home to the long mirror with the reeds.

now to explain why clara and i were in capitol hill last weekend, where we spotted the stunning yellow anthro necklace (btw, a little birdie, named andrew, told me that i am getting that necklace for my bday!!! wheee!!! little birdie stinks at keeping secrets....). this march, when andrew and i were checking out the flea and craft markets at capitol hill, we stumbled upon this really hip and modern home decorating store, called homebody, that had pricy, yet reasonable, items over all of which i drooled. (now you guys think i drool alot! oops.) in the store, i found the most amazing wall clock that i envisioned would look perfect above the future breakfast counter/hole that my dad was planning on cutting into the wall. however, since the hole was not yet cut, i didn't want to get ahead of myself. so i waited. patiently. very patiently. well, now that the hole is cut and the wall painted, i sprang for the chance to purchase the beloved clock. and here it is in its rightful home!!! each ribbon of stainless steel is an hour. isn't it clever? and the red hands match the red utensil jar on the opposite counter!whew, that's quite a bit of posting for one day. all in a day's work, right bunks?