today.

The rain stopped. I made strawberry muffins from a cheap bag-mix and ate nearly every single one. This ballerina painting that has been in my family for decades found a new home on my shop wall. I started reading (rather, re-reading) a new book. 


Days like this are nice.

rainy day storytime.

 We've been having many rainy days lately. The cats and I have been using the rain as our scapegoat. We've been quite lazy this past week; staying in and reading and tea-drinking and snack-making and not much else and blaming it all on the weather. I found this sweet little 1920s poem book amid the stacks of dusty old books in my room, and I just happened to flip to this page about John and his rainy day. How fitting. The weather is our excuse but really, unlike John, we prefer to stay in and be cozy and do nothing (don't tell on us).

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.

so it goes.

Seeing these photos of Oliver makes me realize just how much he and the others have actually grown, and it's a bit sad. These were taken in February, when I had only been in my apartment for a few weeks. Everything still so certain and very much in front of me; me, not knowing what would come. It was a bit exciting, the uncertainty, if not a bit terrifying, but that's always part of the excitement I imagine. So now here I am, teetering on the brink of it all, facing hard times. The picture frames long been hung, the flowers in their pots, bloomed and already passed on; shriveled and brown-spotted and discarded in the trash. The excitement passed, and now just left with the uncertainty, but not the exciting kind. 

I hope I can stay here in this little nest I've built, where I've surrounded myself and my kittens with all the trivial comforts that make one feel at home; trinkets, knick-knacks (like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops). I wanted so badly to be here for Fall. Winter. The holidays. Thoughts of the warm smells of Autumnal treats baking filling my tiny home, making it cozy; decorating with fake leaves and real pumpkins, and eventually with white twinkling lights and a real Christmas tree... these thoughts once caused me to well up, to swell with emotion in looking forward to spending my favorite seasons in my new home. But now: that looming uncertainty. I really, really hope I can stay, because I'm really starting to like it here.

I've had this book checked out of the library since February. It's not that Vladimir Nabokov is not one of my favorite writers, and it's not that the first two pages of this book aren't some of the most beautiful prose I've ever laid eyes upon (murderer/fancy prose style and all that), it's just I keep getting distracted by other books and just... life, more or less.


“An oblong puddle inset in the coarse asphalt; like a fancy footprint filled to the brim with quicksilver; like a spatulate hole through which you can see the nether sky. Surrounded. I note, by a diffuse tentacled black dampness where some dull dun dead leaves have stuck. Drowned, I should say, before the puddle had shrunk to its present size.” 


Maybe I'll give it another try.

shop update.

I haven't been updating as much as I'd like since I moved, mostly because the color of my walls is so hard to work with for shop photos. Depending on the garment color, sometimes it comes out a light, pretty custard-y yellow, and other times it comes out a harsh, dark mustard yellow. Which is fine as a wall color but a bit too severe for shop photographs and definitely not as soft as I'd like. It made it very difficult to create a cohesive look in my shop. 

So...I finally gave up trying to work with my stubborn, difficult walls and painted my shop-photo wall WHITE. It's so much easier to work with now, and I'm still working on it but I think it looks much, much better. Now I'm motivated to list more often (and shop for my shop more) which is a good thing because after all, this is my job.

This week's shop update is filled with pretty 1950s and 1960s dresses with bold prints- perfect for Spring and Summer. A bit of a mish-mash but I wanted to pile in as many new listings as I could just to get caught up. The next one will be a bit more coordinated. All dresses are available in the shop now.

SHOP HERE

seaside.

Every year when Spring and Summer roll around I crave all the nostalgic things that remind me of my childhood Summers, like kite-flying, carnival rides, and boardwalk arcades, but it's usually too hot here to do any of those things. We had a few strange days this week where the weather felt like early Autumn weather...sunny and warm but with a cool breeze during the day, and chilly and crisp at night, so I decided the boardwalk would be the perfect place to enjoy the uncharacteristic weather. 

I was really excited about wearing tights...tights are a rare sight after January or February, it gets too hot so quickly, so I wore my favorite polka dot tights paired with high-waisted sailor shorts (which I seem to be living in lately), a light blue blouse, vintage cat-eye sunglasses, and a pastel vintage scarf tied in a big floppy ridiculous bow in my hair. This outfit was inspired by candy shops, 1940s girls vacationing seaside, ice cream, all the pretty pastel colors of old fashioned boardwalks, and a tiny bit Lolita (it was old Vlad's birthday, after all).

I had to stop in here and get taffy of course. It reminded me of Candy Kitchen on the boardwalk in Ocean City...so nostalgic. I remember going in as a child and being overtaken by the sweet smells...all the pretty pastel taffy lining the walls and shiny, colorful rock candy in glistening bouquets...ohhhh I miss it so. I think some of my favorite color combinations as an adult are directly inspired by old fashioned candy shoppes.

We played some junky old arcade games that kept taking our coins, but we mostly just wanted tickets to trade for silly cheap arcade prizes. Isn't that the best part? We mostly picked out things that could double as cat toys- plastic leap frogs, striped spinning tops, miniature lizards, and some of those rubbery inverted domes that you turn inside out and they pop! up in the air. The cats loved those. I also got silly ridiculous things like a purple pinky ring with hearts and a plastic neon yellow gun on a hot pink keychain. I wanted one of those parachute things or a glider plane, but they didn't have either. Those are like, the main boardwalk prizes, right?

One of the main reason I wanted to go to the boardwalk was to take photobooth pictures, but even though the damn thing took my money and took four photos, a photo strip never popped out after waiting for fifteen minutes. I was given my money back, but still I was pretty disappointed. I took this weird funhouse mirror photo while I was waiting for 'the photo strip that never came.'

After the arcade we walked on the boardwalk a little...I really wanted to go on the ferris wheel (my favorite ride) but there were no other takers. It was really windy though, so it probably wouldn't have been the best time to ride anyway. We watched the go-carts and tilt-a-whirl for a little while and looked at the ocean and took some photos, then realized how much time had passed so we had to scurry to my car because the meter was definitely up. But not before getting some ice cream on the way out!

Such a perfect day.