Amusements with morning coffee

The first time I lived in Texas, I found myself in a similarly isolated small town. But that was before UPS and Federal Express went everywhere, before Netflix and before the Internet. Everything seemed SO far away.

Now I'm struck by how connected I still am to the world. I sit in my kitchen each morning, as I am right now, enjoying my coffee and perusing the Iowa City Press-Citizen and New York Times headlines online. (Favorite recent headline--and I'll let you guess which paper this comes from--"Too much pie? Never!") I'm set now that Marfa Public Radio is back on the air and my sister's gift of The New Yorker keeps arriving.

So I thought it might be fun to share my list of "faves" of the moment, which keep me connected to the visual, the urban, the wacky.

After checking overnight email and the newspaper headlines, I visit a few of these before I head out for my morning run:

• Texas Mountain Trail webstats (of course!)


• Smitten Kitchen http://www.smittenkitchen.com/ (Deb's won a food blog award in the humor category and her photographs are amazing! She's responsible for my new food adventures making bread and ice cream.)


• Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/ (To see what my friends are reading!)


• Bookcrossing http://www.bookcrossing.com/ (checking up on international programs, mostly)


• Manolo's Shoe Blog http://shoeblogs.com/ (Yeah, I know this goes completely against type, but he's funny and while I don't BUY or WEAR great shoes, I do like to look at them!)


• Red Lipstick http://www.redlipstick.net/blog/ (A refugee from earlier days in an all-girl punk band, she owns a boutique in Brooklyn and designs amazing knitted wear. She takes a very structural approach, almost an architectural approach to her work, and has been nominated for international design awards. Quick to anger, her tantrums are amusing and she frequently posts cute pictures of her dogs! What more could you want?)


• New York Nitty-Gritty http://otilius.blogspot.com/ (takes me to the city)
  
• 3191 http://3191.visualblogging.com/ (interesting partnership between friends living 3191 miles apart)
  
• Shorpy http://shorpy.com/ (historical photographs, including ours here: www.shorpy.com/texasmountaintrail
  
• The Sartorialist http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/ (Fashion on the streets of Paris, Milan, Bejing)
  
• A Dress a Day http://www.dressaday.com/dressaday.html (another in the category "My life is more about jeans these days, but I am still a girl!")
  

One more....favorite TV show of the moment is Ace of Cakes! Here's their website: http://www.charmcitycakes.com/ I tip my hat to anyone who takes a sculptural approach to things, including this crew who can pull off a convincing BLT or Taj Mahal cake with good (usually droll) humor. This link to a YouTube video might explain it: http://www.charmcitycakes.com/noflash/index.cfm?rd=blog&id=15

Okay, that's enough for now.