Beautiful things, money and freakouts, wtf self?

Yesterday (before my last acupuncture appointment for a month!) we stopped at an outlet of the same rug store we bought the living room rug from. Having seen the big difference it made, I thought Mum might have been right about a rug being good in my bedroom. Plus, there was the pre-Christmas sale.

Well, we looked at the machine-made rugs - but once you've seen handmade ones, machine-made is really second best. So we looked at the handmade and they were gorgeous and there many colours and patterns and I picked out half-a-dozen or so to look at. Then the guy unrolled some silk rugs. They were gorgeous. And far more expensive, naturally. But hey, I picked out a few to look at, why not. Hah.

We'd just got home when the rug guy arrived to demonstrate(?) the rugs in my room. Several were nice, one was possible, several were no ... then came the silk rugs. Mum loved the third grade one. I though it was nice but it didn't 'speak' to me. The second grade was beautiful and the first grade one was amazing. Have you ever felt a silk rug? Oh my. They feel soooo nice.

(I said to Mum, 'This is all your fault!'
Mum: 'What did I do?!'
Me: 'You showed me the difference between machine rugs and handmade! Of course this happened!'
Mum: 'Well. Yes.')

I sat there dithering about the two and finally decided that the first grade one belonged on a wall not my bedroom floor. It was glorious but the second grade is better for my room and I don't feel guilty about walking on it. Plus, I really couldn't justify the price of the first to myself, even on sale.

The one I bought is a silk Kashmir rug, in a Tree of Life pattern with rose pink, aqua, browns, creams. It's so beautiful and it's heaven to walk on. (I woke up last night and actually reached my foot out of bed to touch the rug. I wanted to know if it really felt as good as I thought it did.*g*) I can easily see myself having this rug for decades. I can't find any pictures that are quite right but this shows a similar pattern. Wrong colors though. These are closer. And silk rugs do not photograph well (or easily, at any rate.) So many of them look faded in photos. But look at them in the light and the sheen is amazing. And the way the colours change from different angles is even more dramatic than with wool rugs.

( And my minor freakout about whether I 'deserve' nice things )

Christmas is coming, let us enjoy happy things

I made soft chocolate caramels again and raspberry caramels. Despite various mishaps like nearly forgetting to add water to the first mix, discovering at last moment that the cream was starting to turn for the second (Mum went out to get more, bless her, and has made butter from the first lot of cream. Right. That ... hasn't happened before. Huh.), miscalculating the amount of glucose syrup I'd need and having to top up with golden syrup and my general apprehension about working from a google translation of the french ... I think they've turned out okay, judging by the scraps in the saucepans!

Now I just need to slice them and wrap them all ... individually.

*
Our cat has a new (hot purple, to match his harness) collar with extra bells and is living up to his nickname of Jingles. He also likes to curl up under the Christmas tree and 'act like a present'.  I don't think he'd like this Christmas tree though!
 

And have you seen this marvelous flash mob singing 'Hallelujah'?