1. Fresh flowers. Lately I've been trying to use all the bottles from our wedding, so our house looks like a florist shop. But I'm enjoying the bright colors and fabulous smells. :)

2. My Ann Taylor Loft clutch. This is totally frivolous but I'm tired of carrying around my giant purse. It's pretty freeing to slip a clutch around your wrist, plus it's sparkly and girly too. :)

3. Fresh basil. OK, please help me out here. You buy a whole carton of fresh basil from the store and you have 85% of it left over after you use it for one recipe. How do you save it so it lasts?? I love the stuff, especially the way it smells, and we've been using it in everything we can so it doesn't go bad. I especially liked this basil beer bread recipe.

4. Blueberries. I have vivid memories of picking blueberries at my grandparents house each summer. When I was little, I was never a huge fan of the fruit, but I loved filling our cartons with the deep blue berries and they always tasted good coming right off the bush. These days, I actually like blueberries and we've been using them in everything, just like the basil (but not together :)).

5. Café Civilization. This little coffee shop in Tremont is so authentic. I don't know what the building used to be, but it's really old and has lots of dark wood and cool booths inside. The only downside is that they only take cash, and I never carry cash! I inevitably have to run to the ATM.

6. A Beautiful Mess blog. I've been loving this blog lately. It's way cooler and artsier than I am, but it makes me feel like I'm a vintage clothes-wearing, DIY-loving, right-brained hipster.

Clockwise from top left:

1) Everything Bagels. When I was working in Oxford a couple weeks ago, my co-workers and I made a Starbucks run. One of them got an everything bagel and it. smelled. delicious! That was all it took for me to re-realize my love of the garlicy snack. The next day I had one for breakfast and one for lunch. And I've had at least one a day since then. Obviously I'm not worried about being healthy in the new year! Now that I'm a connoisseur of everything bagels, I say the best one is at Bruegger's ... with veggie cream cheese!

2) My Quirky, New ModCloth Flats. For awhile now I've loved ModCloth for its whimsical sundresses, but since I had a gift card and sundresses aren't really practical in the snow, I decided to check out the shoes. My new flats are just about as practical as sundresses this time of year, but I couldn't resist! I love that ModCloth carries Anthopologie-like products for a fraction of the cost.

3) The Sun! I don't care if it's so bright outside that I can barely see the road while driving, I love this sunshine! Someone told Nathan that on average Cleveland only gets nine sunny winter days a year. Maybe that's true some years, but I have a hard time believing it; we're about at nine already and it's only the middle of January! Please, God, keep it coming!

4) Bamboo Dry-Erase Desktop To-Do Board. My sweet cousin Cheryl gave me this handy to-do board for Christmas. Does she know me or what? It's like a mini dry-erase board that's now chained to my desk.