Last year I went a little crazy because the Gap (of all places) was selling something I had wanted for years – a flip flop type shoe without that between the toes thong action. It was called the Ribbon Slide, and it was perfect. I’m embarrassed to tell you how many pairs I bought. If by any chance you are like me (and I know you’re out there since I got a bit of mail last year about these shoes) the slides are available in Gap Outlet stores right now, and come in colors combinations of green with pink, blue with lighter blue and maroon with pink. I talk about them a bit more on my mostly ignored (by me) I can’t wear flip flops page. The outlet stores are also carrying those colorful jelly totes from last year. Oh and clothes or something. Thanks go out to Molly for letting me know they turned up again!

I have been looking around for a small round table to fit in our small kitchen, and later (when we move) to use outdoors. My conditions were: no holes*, no larger than 30″, as close to $50 as possible. After looking through lots of outdoor furniture listings for bistro tables I came up with two I liked.

A 24″ silver folding bistro table from CB2. This is the one we bought because it’ll be easy to move and store, yay.

Colorful retroish 24″ tables at Target in red (also yellow and sky blue). Not available in the Target stores, I learned after taking a trip to two stores looking for this.

* As for an umbrella. Also no openwork table tops — this was ruled out after I managed to drop peanut sauce on my toes twice during an outdoor dining experience.

Last weekend I made a mini version of the Martha Stewart Coconut Layer Cake. I was going to make cupcakes but then I found small 4″ cake pans just calling to me when I was looking for a big 8-cup Pyrex measuring cup (to microwave oatmeal in, works well if left uncovered). I had enough batter to make some mini cakes using some strange hybrid Wilton mini muffin/tartlet shaped pans I bought in a moment of weakness some time ago. It turned out well considering I halved the recipe, didn’t use pastry flour or ultrafine sugar, and used the cursed Wilton pans. I considered making it blue but decided against it when I discovered I didn’t actually have any blue food coloring in the house.

Check out how it looked like a Big Mac when being assembled!

Do you know anything about growing and drying lavender? Good, I need your help. I have a lavender plant in the front but I’m not quite sure what it will look like when it’s ready to cut. The sources I’ve found (and, ok, I haven’t been to the library yet) say to cut it either before the first bud opens or before the first flower opens. So I’m going to ask you: Is my lavender ready to cut? If you can tell please let me know: notmarthaATgmailDOTcom, my huge thanks.

Too soon? Do I want to wait for one of those little purple tubes to pop open into a flower and then hack all the stuff off? Do I want it to look more like the lavender in the picture on this page? Some places said the lavender will continue to open as it dries so I didn’t want to wait too long.

Lavender related pages I’ve found so far: How to dry lavender at Cat Smith, Culinary uses for lavender at The Master Gardeners, some ABC News article Lavender Libations with recipes for lavender lemonade and bath stuff. Martha Stewart pages say to cut when about a third of the buds have opened, and HGTV on making lavender wands.

Cuteness! The Eggling is seed in soil packed inside a pourous ceramic container that you crack the top off to begin growing. There is a selection of herbs and flowers. via Conspicuous Consumption. More selections at Catfish Greetings via the AZ Central.

After a weeding session we discovered there is a small herb garden with rosemary, mint and thyme growing in the side yard, and that the bush thing in the front that currently looks like an exploding firework is going to look a whole lot more like lavender in about a week. I’m excited.

How did I miss this? Go go check out the Fred Flare Next BIG Thing shop full of cool stuff made by small businesses.

Yikes, sometime last week this site turned four years old. Yay.

This little cake baked (microwaved) in a mug is so adorable. at Lovescool.