Quotable Sunday

                                       Change is Inevitable

Growth is Optional

 (from a bumper sticker I saw the other day.  It opened my mind a bit.)

Lines & Shapes

A few weeks ago I won (!!!) a giveaway from this fantastic blog. The first 6 editions of Lines & Shapes. Sweet! What an enormous gift. I've wanted to look at these books ever since I first heard about them, and they have been such a treat to pour over, and were a big hit with the birthday party crowd. Also shown above-- our first ripe tomato! A Stupice (pronounced stoo-peach-ka).

happy birthday to you

We had a birthday party for R last weekend and of course I didn't take pictures, but here are a few from the next morning. I was so pleased with how the fabric bunting came out (although this picture is dark and you can't see it)-- I will be making more of those, they made our living room feel perfectly festive.

I have a hard time staying up late, and I fell asleep a good 4 or 5 hours before everyone else went home to bed. Oops. I woke up to a Michael Bolton poster hanging in my room, so I'm wondering what all I missed.

Quotable Sunday

And the turtles, of course...all the turtles are free / As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.

-Dr. Suess

(Thanks to Kyrie for starting Quoteable Sunday-- I love it!)

trying real hard...

...not to spend my money on:

this bag

these undies

this cute tote

and this beautiful skirt

Self control is not my strong suit. My work week has been a little bit on the miserable side, and I could easily drown my sorrows in Etsy purchases.....BUT I'm trying to save more these days, so maybe I'll start posting about things that I have the urge to buy, and see if that relieves some of my crazies.

scenes from a weekend

A bit of solitude. Spent some time focusing on my new mantra, in the form of a quote by Audre Lorde:

"I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to

act,

write,

speak,

be,

I'll be sending messages on a Ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side."

sea plan(t)s

Sunday was a much-needed day with my boys at the coast. We went for a walk in the marsh and then headed a few miles inland to swim (okay, skinnydip) all afternoon at a sinkhole. There was some guitar playing, some good food (um, cream cheese stuffed french toast with fresh berries, anyone?), a sauna, and a nap (for me) on the deck. These weekends, they go by so fast.

And then, this:

Jackie is the MOST cute.

just your everyday garden romance

My dad got this book the other day, and I've been oogling the romantic photos ever since. It's a great compilation of antique gardening traditions and implements.  Witness these:

This is a fruit loft! What? A special room just for storing fruit for the estate. Doesn't it look like an amazing place to sit and think?

And, this is possibly my favorite thing from the book--this is how they stored grapes! They used these special glass bottles, filled with water and tilted at a certain angle-- each with a small piece of charcoal in the bottom. This way, they could have grapes at Christmas. Genius! I so want to try it.



Ahhhh. I could stare at these pictures for hours, dreaming of living in a different time-- a time when a whole lot of care went into growing and storing food.  I especially love those terra cotta pots. I have a real thing for pots...

something that brightened my Monday

Today I got the exciting news that the portrait I ordered from Ashley G (via her lovely blog) is ready! It's a surprise for R's birthday next month-- a custom portrait of our little family, and I adore it.
I wish I could order 10 more and have a whole wall of family portraits. As it is, I'll be adding this to a group of some of her other work. I really love her style.

good read

I want to add my voice to the internet roar over this fantastic book. I'm a huge fan of Orangette. Come to think of it, Orangette was the first blog I really got into, and I've been a loyal reader ever since I stumbled across it. Thank you, thank you, Molly Wizenberg, for so many great reicpes that have made me popular at potlucks and parties of all sorts. This recipe in particular is much requested by the crowd I run with, and this one and this one too are perennial favorites. As a matter of fact, I made these cookies this weekend. YUM.

I made myself wait a bit before I started this book, because I just knew it was going to be over too soon. I was right. I completely devoured this book in a weekend, and have plans to try most of the recipes. It is just such a lovely book, illustrated by Camilla Engman, and packed full of fantastic anecdotes that made me laugh and cry-- sometimes together. I highly recommend that you check this one out!

Also, check out this adorable child's rolling pin and bread board my mom found for my nephew! I squealed when she showed it to me.