Diet "Cheat"

If a diet is a regimen and a regimen can be more specifically a routine, then it's my routine to post on a weekly basis and you'll note that this post is a bit of cheat... it's not my artwork but a picture of a delicious macaron & it'll make you want to cheat on any diet regimen you follow! Be sure to visit the beautiful Laduree online or in a major city near you!

Spring macarons from Laduree

Barn Find

Nothing like a "barn find" -  my kind of barn find... not the relic found in an old farmstead's barn, but finding an old barn itself, in all her fallen glory.

This is a barn I found on a trip between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Surprisingly/not so surprisingly, it is on an old, winding country road, not far from a super busy highway, but these old roads and thoroughfares co-exist in a kind of indifference to one another. 

Barn afar

Barn in close

Barn a-Wyeth

A Declaration: "A Small Happy"

I'm making a declaration, kicking off a new phrase and hoping it catches on and goes the world 'round, "A Small Happy." I experienced it earlier today and it was important to my day.  It's that little thing that unexpectedly gives you a tickle and makes you smile... a small happy.

I prefer books of stamps and don't care much for the self-service, print on-demand postage.  Books fit nicely in my wallet -- that key tote-able office of my life.  Given that my life is so busy and that I depend on a mini-office wherever I go, the 24-hour lobby of the P.O. and the off-hours self-service have been my go-to for a long time.  But self-service stamps are sooo g.e.n.e.r.i.c. and, ugh, bland.

So on that rare trip to the Post Office counter today (the U.S. Postal Service, after all, does have business hours on Saturday), I was glad to learn in-person from the clerk that books of stamps are still sold. My fussiness over how things are stored and arranged in my wallet would be satisfied. But more important, even if the floral designs were sold out, I was delighted--tickled--to learn that the most adorable Charlie Brown stamps were available. This gave me a small happy!

Here, take a look and tell me you disagree... How could you? You couldn't, because these designs are such happy little characters. (By the way... I know it was only last week when I was touting the arrival of spring and that these stamps are little, snowy, holiday pictures, but they are such sweet, sentimental and beautiful blue tones!)

Have yourself a small happy!

A small happy with a little Peanuts!

Spring-yyyyy

Hello Blossoms, I am thinking of you, especially my fave counterpart bloggers from Paris... Paris Breakfasts & Janice MacLeod-Lik of Paris Letters fame! Here's a tribute from the Enchanted Mid-Atlantic where it is now quite spring-yyyyy and the April showers will soon bring us lovely May Flowers!

Salut printemps!!!

Drizzle, schmizzle

Ha-ha, it's overcast and drizzling at my house.  How about yours? No matter, let me share with you the wonderful blossoms of spring in the Enchanted Mid-Atlantic.  Here are shots of the Magnolia trees in my yard.

(Click photo to enlarge.)

Such beauty!

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." -- Anais Nin

Calls forth Anais Nin 

Baby, hit me one more time... with that BEAUTY!!!