Some unexpected delights from the weekend:

• Drinking coffee and staying up too late with friends – It’s even better when they bring you birthday gifts of pink legwarmers and the New York City Ballet Workout.

• Finding these Count Von Count stickers at the Sanrio store (see below) – I’ve mentioned this Sesame Street collection before, and finally gave in and brought something home. I love looking at this stuff; most of the products are pretty witty. These stickers are quite happy and nostalgic that way. (Plus my mom would kill me if I started walking around with a Count Von Count purple vinyl purse… and who could blame her? The stickers are much safer for all involved.)

• My dad hunting down a copy of Harry Potter (thank you dad!) – This movie really is better when the weather is slightly gloomy/rainy outside, and you’re curled up in front of your parent’s rather large TV.

• This delicate Waterford tea cup – I found this lonely, little tea cup at the Robinsons-May closing sale (which was a pretty big disappointment – everything was marked way above normal prices before taking off the 60-70% discount). I think the pattern is really special (called Chrysanthemum). You can’t tell from the picture, but the little pink dots are raised. The soft colors complement another recent birthday gift from my parents - this plate from Tord Boontje’s Table Stories collection.

This plate didn’t look like what I expected to at all – it was actually much better. The pattern in the light grey is really understated. In fact, in direct sunlight, you can't see the pattern at all. I love that it has a happy deer pattern on it without screaming “hello, I’m 12 -- check out my awesome deer plate.” (Why is it that half the things I like seem to say that?) I like this plate for being so nice and quiet about it. And no, I have no idea what I’m going to do with my quickly growing collection of plates and cups. I guess I’ll have to start having people over and making dinners. (Um, right.)