The new year has arrived and so has my new planner. Being a productivity nerd, I'm sort of really picky about the planner I use. Japan was a magical land of small, functional and incredibly cute planners, but here in the U.S. it's been hard to find candidates matching all three criteria. Last year I modified "incredibly cute" to "classically attractive" and went with a trusty Moleskine. But today I was super excited to open up my mailbox and find the Little Otsu planner I ordered for 2009.

It's even better-looking in person, the hand-drawing and lettering making every page unique. And there are pages for writing down movies you want to see, books you want to read, music you want to listen to and websites you want to visit. So handy! Usually I'm resistant to dateless calendars, but this planner is so great in every other way, I don't mind filling in all the info. Anything for my slim, functional and incredibly cute Little Otsu planner.

In other holiday wrap-up news, I just barely made it into Seattle for Christmas after two canceled flights and a night in Denver. Ugh. Once I arrived, though, I had a relaxing five days of snow, family and cross-stitching (project to be revealed later).

Back in LA, I attended a brilliantly conceived party crawl for New Year's Eve, with hour-long stops at four houses, each serving different food and drinks, on a walkable route starting in Los Feliz and ending in Silver Lake. While walking we all jammed to the tunes coming from a giant boom box one of the organizers had bought at a Goodwill. I made desserts for the last stop: Guinness gingerbread cupcakes with lemon-cream cheese frosting and a caramel, cranberry and almond tart. One drunker reveler told me she kind of hated me because they were so good and another told me she kind of loved me because they were so good. I'd call that a success.

So this is the cross-stitched Christmas gift for Rob I mentioned in the last post. Sadly, I cannot take credit for the brilliant design; the conception was all thanks to the Internet. The Domestic Scientist provided the inspiration and a link to the pattern, which I doubled in size. It took forever to finish, but pretty soon after starting it I got really into it and started to realize why the ladies of yore used to cross-stitch all the time. There's something satisfying about all those tiny squares coming together to form words and pictures, especially for a compulsive neat freak like me.

Rob loves it, needless to say, and it has taken its place above our controller shelf, a repurposed IKEA CD shelf which has been dubbed "The Hutch." I set the shelf up in an attempt to organize Rob's gaming clutter (told you -- compulsive neat freak), and it has become the most commented-on piece of furniture in our apartment. Even better, Rob totally uses it! I think he likes admiring his myriad of gaming accessories, slumbering away in their little cubbies.

If home is where the controller is, where is home for the controller?

...I just made that up. It's a Zen koan for nerds. Meditate on it.