thoughts tending northerly.

I've been thinking about New York a lot. Or rather, I've been thinking about travel and New York is the last place I went, so I've been reminiscing. I never posted about New York when I went last October, mostly because we were so busy eating fancy French brunches and picking through tiny, overpriced vintage shops and devouring chocolate brownie-mountains and enjoying the almost-Fall weather to stop and take any proper photos, and also because it was a bit rainy the few days I was there, and hair was not looking its finest. Girls. you know. I did take a few photos one day, as we walked through Prospect Park, but not as many as I'd have liked. I also only had my point-and-shoot camera because at the time I didn't feel like lugging my slr or any polaroids along with me, but in hindsight, I wish I would have. If anything, it's an excuse to go back (but how soon?). There are so many other places I want to see.


I've been experiencing a bit of wanderlust lately, making mental lists of faraway (and not so faraway) lands I hope to visit. Discovering new blogs and reading back to their Fall blog posts isn't helping- New England in Autumn is at the top of my list. I've also been wanting to visit Georgia apple orchards for years. Apple cider and cozy woolen sweaters and warm apple donuts and thick cable-knit tights. I need that. Georgia is close enough to drive, so if things work out the way I'm hoping, that should be an easy trip to plan. The crisp air and golden leaves of northern Autumns are always on my mind, but lately? I've been dreaming of mountains. I may have to do something about that.

fall is kind of here.

"Fall" is finally here. Florida Fall, at least. which means that the weather is really nice, way less humid but still pretty warm during the day, and a little bit chilly at night. I'll take what I can get. I've been in a slump lately, and this weather definitely changes my mood. 

I spent all week soaking and fixing up some really pretty things for the shop, but the light was so weird all weekend and all my shop photos came out looking green-ish and crazy, like they were taken underwater or. something. I tried again today and the photos came out a little better, so hopefully I'll have those new things listed by the end of the week. Just about eight to ten things, a few perfectly worn-in cotton 1940s dresses, a long edwardian skirt, a 60s jacket, a few pairs of boots and oxfords, and an edwardian tea dress. The palette is mustard, cream, sage, lavender, and brown, and I think those colors are really nice for early Fall. 

I'm trying to get as much done this week as possible, because one week from tomorrow, I'll be flying off to New York for the week. I'm verrrrrry excited. I haven't been there in over three years, and I've never been in the Fall or Winter, which I'm MOST excited about. I can't wait to bundle up and dress for actual Fall weather and stroll the streets of bklyn with my bestest gal. Some things on the itinerary are pretty dress shops, brunch at a french cafe, a dessert date at The Chocolate Room, caramel apple making, and if I'm lucky, a visit to the MET. (all of the best things, basically)

This dress I'm wearing is a dress from the shop, I hated the photos I had because you couldn't tell how cute it really was so I decided to throw it on and take some new ones today since the weather was so nice. It's kind of silly of me to be selling it because this is one of my favorite kinds of dresses, but I'm trying to be better about not keeping every single thing. I do have a shop to run, afterall. So you can find it here.

st. augustine.

My cousin declared Saturday the 11th to be my fake birthday, since she wouldn't be here for the real one, so we put on our cutest polka dot dresses and headed to my favorite place in Florida (probably the only place in fl I actually like), St Augustine. We were going to make a stop at the st john's flea market first, but we got a bit of a late start so we picked up some sprinkle donuts and coffee and went straight to historic downtown. We visited the Lightner Museum (which will take up a whole post on it's own) and spent the day walking around and peeking into cute antique shops and eating macarons, and I kept finding pretty little gifts throughout the day; one sitting on the seat of my car when I got in, another mysteriously popping up on the table when I came to sit down, etc.

It was such a lovely day (aside from the weather which was disgustingly hot and almost unbearable) and I felt pretty special all day, like it was my real birthday. We ate lunch at a little wine bar that looked cute and promising but ended up being sort of terrible and awkward, but despite the odd, pushy owners and weird food we had a fun time at our little table and there were little white lights hanging across the ceiling, which pretty much makes any situation better. And at the end, when I came back from the restroom, there was a pile of gifts and a giant cookie and sparkler candles waiting for me and it was pretty amazing.

1940s style glasses - anthropologie

1930s swiss dot dress (from this post) - ebay
navy vintage bag - thrifted

cousin visit.



My cousin left today to go back home to New York, it was a long fun exhausting week filled with much eating and shopping and lots of silly girly fun. She arrived on Thursday and after I picked her up from the airport we went to a nearby mall in Orlando to eat. We ended up going to the Cheescake Factory because it was there and we were starving, and we got huge burritos/tacos that we could barely finish even half of, and then of course, I ordered a big slice of white chocolate raspberry cheesecake to go. We got coffee and walked around for a little bit, browsing in Anthropologie, where I picked up a few of my favorite soaps and a pair of 1940s style sunglasses, and Urban Outfitters, which was even more underwhelming than usual but I bought a pretty 60s inspired lace dress on sale that I unfortunately won't be able to wear until probably October because it has long sleeves.

We went to bed pretty early because she was tired from the flight and I from working the day before and from last minute errands earlier that day, and the next day we woke up early to go to an estate sale that wasn't very good, and some antique stores that weren't very good either. We were going to have lunch on Canal Street but after driving up and down and not really finding anything too appealing at the moment we decided to have lunch at Mulligan's, a cute pub nearby which is a staple of mine so I knew we'd find lots of things we liked on the menu. After lunch we got frozen yogurt and then settled in pretty early yet again so we could get up early the next day to go to St Augustine, which I will talk about in a future post!

dress - urban outfitters like three years ago

sandals - target

vintage heart locket - thrifted

40s style glasses - anthropologie

oakhill flea.

the flea market i mentioned in my previous post, oakhill flea, ended up being pretty good. i managed to come home with a few little treasures for myself and maybe some for my other shop, thefoxparade. i didn't take any photos while i was there because we arrived kind of late and i was trying to hurry to see all the booths before they packed up and left but a couple of the booths were really good, although some had crazy, unreasonable prices. i came away with some fun things, like old junky glass bottles and little floral hankies (both of which i have plenty but can never seem to resist bringing home anyway), and some cotton twine for packages which i always snap up whenever i find because even though i don't use it up very quickly, i never know when i'll come across it again and i don't want to run out. the loot:

 glass coca-cola bottle c. 1940s

 little photo frame to fill with dried flowers, since i missed out on that one at the antique shop and need to re-create that loveliness!

floral hankies to keep or gift or use with shop packaging. between hankies and antique crochet doilies i have dozens but always snag them anyway because they're so pretty and don't take up much space.

there was one grumpy old curmudgeon of a man at one booth who, when my brother brought me over to show me an old blood pressure monitor, shooed him out of the way, saying "don't fiddle with that, it's older than you are!" to which my brother replied, "so it's not for sale then?" the man said it was, and my brother and i made comments about how silly it was to not let people interested in buying something test it out or even touch it, and ultimately walked away. other than that, everyone was nice and friendly and a few were a little strange but all in all it was good. after the flea, my mom and brother and i went to a pub called mulligan's for lunch and then we were all pretty tired and went home. my mom and i spent the rest of the evening being lazy on the couch watching shows about antiques and auctions, and that's about it.

in exciting news, i asked my mom if she would be interested in driving to savannah one weekend, just to poke around in antique shops and eat at little places and be lazy, and she said she would, so i'm going to start planning and sorting out the details pretty soon.

ideally i'd like to stay at a pretty bed and breakfast in the historic district, like the hamilton-turner inn, which may or may not be haunted, although i'm sure that's out of my price range at the moment. we'll most likely be going in about a month or so, so if anyone is familiar with the area and has any suggestions regarding where to stay, eat, shop, etc, please let me know!