Dores Jewelry

Beautiful jewelry from Milwaukee-an Stephanie Renee of Dores. My favorite pieces combine metals and wood. So nicely done! See more in her shop and check out her lovely blog also.

Pomegranate Season

So apparently it's pomegranate season? Suddenly all of the grocery stores are overflowing with them. The pomegranate is a little pricey for a piece of fruit, but it's kind of fun and different which is totally worth my $2.

I found this great tutorial on how to easily get the seeds out of a pomegranate. I like them sprinkled over some yogurt and drizzled with honey. Another fall time treat to add to to the seasonal menu!

Swissmiss

Who doesn't love Tina Roth Eisenberg's beautiful blog Swissmiss? If you are in the Milwaukee area on Friday you must go see Tina in person! She will be speaking as part of an AIGA Wisconsin event held at Hanson Dodge Creative. More details here.

Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng

In his book What is the What, Dave Eggers tells a story based on the life of Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng. Deng fled the Sudan as a young boy in the 1980s, growing up in refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Wednesday evening Eggers and Deng will be speaking on the UW-Madison campus as part of the Humanities Without Borders lecture series. Find event details here.

Chicago

While visiting my family this weekend, I managed to squeeze in a few hours in Chicago proper. It had been way too long since I was able to get into the city. Ofcourse, there was lunch at Milk and Honey. I also poked my head into a few favorite shops in the Ukranian Village and Wicker Park, like Penelope's and Habit. I was pretty excited to have found a new winter hat at Untitled. It was sad to see lots of boutiques had closed though, including Hejfina. I guess the recession hit pretty hard in that area?

Then it was off to Union Station to board a Metra train out to the suburbs. The mostly empty Saturday train is always a relaxing ride. I love those few moments where the interior of the train goes dark as it pulls away from the station.

Brock Davis

I've had Brock Davis' website bookmarked for a while now; I knew I wanted to write a post about it. As I looked through his work more closely today, this shredded A caught my eye. I thought, now why does that look so familiar?? Then I recognized it as being the illustration on one of my favorite tshirts! I hadn't even realized it was Brock who designed that tshirt for Threadless. And many more!

You can also see more of his work in the Make Something Cool Everyday project on Flickr.

AppleBerry Farm

Are you all ready for Halloween?? Costumes chosen, jack-o-lanterns carved? And the candy! I got some of my favorites this year: Twix, Starburst and Tootsie Rolls. I like to way overestimate how many bags of candy are actually needed for the handful of kids that come by to trick or treat.





This weekend was also a perfect pumpkin picking time. Off we went to the AppleBerry Farm in Cross Plains, WI to get some apples, pumpkins, bratwurst, cider and doughnuts. I wish I could say I've been able to show any restraint whatsoever around those cinnamon donuts, but that would be a complete lie. I am also thinking of following up all of the doughnuts with this soon.



Aside from all of the tasty treats, the AppleBerry Farm is a fun stop because they have a chicken coop! Last year, I found out that chickens love dandelion greens so I love to stick little pieces through the wire and watch them gobble it up. This little guy just discovered that actually he can reach the dandelions on his own and he doesn't need me at all.



And then there was the chicken on a balance beam act, also well worth watching.