Happy Halloween

I liked it better in the olden days when Halloween had an apostrophe between the two Es in the last syllable. Hallowe'en. It even looks better that way. Anyhow, however you spell it, check out this brilliant knife holder.

I think it's hilarious and what a great way to spread some Halloween cheer to the rest of the year. You can read more about this knife holder here.

Oh my Restoration Hardware I am heartily sorry

I am sorry for looking down my nose at you all these years for being a retailer. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I've been on a quest to find glass knobs for the last couple of weeks and I found this at Restoration Hardware of all places. Check it out.

It's my new favorite glass knob in the world and even more shocking is the fact that it retails for a mere $11. It's perfect and that thing allowed me to save the day and look like a hero. Unbelievable. Who's going to save me next? Pottery Barn? Geez I hope not.

Part two of my hardware quest of the last few weeks has been finding an affordable cabinet door latch. I know where to go find them  for about a hundred bucks a pop but for $14? Forget about it. Until now that is. Check this out:

That's also from Restoration Hardware. I hate being wrong, but I can be a man about it and admit it when I'm confronted with overwhelming evidence. My trip to Restoration Hardware provided me with a hint that I may not know everything after all.

Can I order my crow any way I want it or or is it a case where I'll have to eat whatever's placed in front of me?

I LOVE a good review

The brilliant and beautiful Kelly Morriseau over at Kitchen Sync had this to say about my blog in her blog this week: 

Kitchen and Residential Design: Paul Anater, is a kitchen, bath and residential designer in St. Pete, Florida.  He has a wealth of information about stone. I knew as soon as I read his blog post "Sometimes granite isn't granite at all", and is one of the few designers I've "met" who knows that Onyx isn't really Onyx that I knew he would be a valuable resource for those of you out there planning stonework in your homes. Paul also blogs about whatever interests him, which is fun, plus he has a sense of humour.

Thank you Kelly!

Now everybody pop over to Kitchen Sync to read a take on kitchen design from a woman whose experience dwarfs mine. She's smart, she's humorous and she doles it all out with a huge dose of common sense.

Whither happiness?

On a related topic, and before I dive back into the world of residential design, there's a great article in this month's Atlantic magazine. Paul Bloom wrote a thought-provoking piece on the intersection of Philosophy and Psychology. I read it on my flight home to Florida the other day and it's been lodged in my fore brain ever since. Read his work here.

But what’s more exciting, I think, is the emergence of a different perspective on happiness itself. We used to think that the hard part of the question “How can I be happy?” had to do with nailing down the definition of happy. But it may have more to do with the definition of I. Many researchers now believe, to varying degrees, that each of us is a community of competing selves, with the happiness of one often causing the misery of another. This theory might explain certain puzzles of everyday life, such as why addictions and compulsions are so hard to shake off, and why we insist on spending so much of our lives in worlds —like TV shows and novels and virtual-reality experiences—that don’t actually exist.

Cor Sapiens Quaerit Doctrinam

I made it through my High School reunion last weekend, and honestly, it was pretty enjoyable. The highlight had to have been one of my classmates tracking down and inviting to our reunion the great woman who taught us Sophomore English. During the school year that spanned from 1980 to 1981, I was fortunate to land in the capable hands of Sister Rita. In the 28 years since that year, I have credited Sister Rita with awakening in me a love of literature and a lifelong need to see my name in print. Sister Rita had the rare talent of making a room full of 14-and 15-year-olds pay attention and find English interesting and even enjoyable.

I've been wracking my brain and trying to remember what we read and wrote about that year and I have a vague memory of writing a paper about humor, so we had to have been reading Twain. I remember too, writing the first poetry I'd ever written but I'm not quite sure what I wrote about. Despite the gaps in what I remember, what I can recall as clearly as this morning was Sister Rita's constant encouragement. Her teaching philosophy seemed to be that so long as we threw ourselves into something completely, whatever resulted was perfect. If I read and understood a passage or a short story, any opinion I ventured was valid. It was my first taste of academic freedom and it was the first time I experienced the joy of learning something for no reason other than the reward of knowing. And the 14-year-old version of me who sat in that classroom couldn't get enough of it. 

Thanks to Carol's brilliant detective work, I was finally able to tell the amazing Sister Rita how huge and lasting an impression she made on me. It felt like a circle'd been completed after 28-odd years. 

The title of this entry is the motto of my Alma Mater and it means "A wise heart seeks knowledge," if your Latin's a little rusty. Those words were hollow to me when I was a teenager, but in the years since I've come to appreciate what they really mean. Wisdom; like happiness, confidence, satisfaction, tranquility and any other state of being you can name, come from inside and work outward. Wisdom seeks knowledge, knowledge doesn't cause wisdom. That's hardly news but I'm glad I figured that one out, even if it took a while. So thank you Sister Rita and thank you oh Alma Mater dear. You set me on a path I wouldn't trade for anything.