Our World Tuesday: Spying on the Neighbors

For most of this past year, we've been watching a new villa growing up, across the lake from our house.  The builders are taking their time, and we can't figure out if it's meant to be a private residence or a hotel. Whichever - this place is going to be enormous!

Holidailies 2013

It's that time of year again. Time for the Holidailies project.  I don't think I participated last year (if I could remember last year, I'd know for sure), but I'm going to take a stab at it for 2013.  OK, going in, I know I won't be posting daily.  But I'll try to post at least several times a week - something I've been wanting to do anyway (Joysweb is sloooowly fading away, and I'd like to try to remedy that). 

So, I've already missed Day One.  Sorry about that.  Well, not really sorry - yesterday's suggested prompt was "introduce yourself," and I'm really bad at introductions.  Hi, I'm Joy. I'm a blogger.  How's that?

But today's prompt is about Favorite Holiday Songs, and that's something M (the hubby) and I were discussing just the other day, in a local restaurant.  Well, not favorite HOLIDAY songs exactly.  It was before Thanksgiving, but (of course) they were playing holiday music and we were trying to come up with songs that were appropriate to wintertime, but not specifically HOLIDAY songs.  We could only think of half a dozen:

1. Baby It's Cold Outside
2. Frosty the Snowman
3. Jingle Bells
4. Let It Snow
5. Sleigh Ride
6. Winter Wonderland

All of those are winter songs, and some of them have come to be thought of as holiday tunes, but I don't think any of them actually mention Christmas or the holidays.  Is that right?  Can you think of any others? Let me know.

Soooo. I guess this is actually a post about favorite non-Holiday songs?

Blue Monday: Coffee is in Fashion

Blue Monday is hosted weekly by Smiling Sally.
To see more offerings, or to participate yourself, please head on over to her blog.

Confession time - I have a bad habit.  OK, I've got TONS of bad habits, but this one is totally shameful. And here it is: I love snapping surreptitious photos of people in Starbucks.  There, I've said it.  I'm a Secret Starbucks Snapper, and I dig it.  And I don't intend to stop, either.

Of course, as a caffeine addict, I love Starbucks and go there often.  And I've begun to derive a great deal of entertainment from seeing how the people IN the various establishments put themselves together.  Starbucks fashion.  It can be really fascinating.  As an example, a few weeks ago in one of our local places I grabbed this snap of several female patrons in various shades of BLUE:

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Doesn't the young lady in the central spot look interesting?  I love the way she's combined her simple mini-dress with the patterned leggings. If I were twenty years younger (or ten pounds thinner), I'd definitely try something like that.  And I'm totally in love with the striped T-shirt and red shoes on the right. Not so sure about the outfit on the left of the shot - I'd take the boots if they were given to me, but I'm not really crazy about the rest of the look. (Maybe if I were twenty years younger and ten pounds thinner?)

Unconscious Mutterings: Week 566

This week's mutterings from LunaNina:

1. Taxes ::  TEXAS with the letters scrambled
2. Deter :: one of those words I have trouble pronouncing
3. Regret :: one of those things I try not to think about
4. Consume :: one of those things I try not to do too much of
5. 1600 :: Pennsylvania Avenue (my hubby used to work just down the street, in DC)
6. Retire :: -ment: one of those things I'm totally loving
7. Console :: one of those words that have different verb/noun meanings
8. Property :: taxes (OK - you got me started with that first word)
9. Return :: taxes (how long can we go on with this?)
10. Laughter :: one of those things we need more of