Wrapping The Week

 {Decorology}

I love how fresh and optimistic this door looks. It is an outlook I'm trying to adopt. Summer is here, I do believe. So I'm keeping this short and sweet.

Funnies and lovlies from the week: 

• Bad/funny music videos from around the globe have hit my mailbox this week, including: Danny and Armi, Yatta and my personal favorite, Zanger Bob.
• Loving these mixed media florals from Lisa Solomon.
• Birdy Brooches at Lillie's 5 and Dime.
• I do wish I had time to sew. Collete's Patterns are darling.

May's Music

Today I'm packing for a long weekend out of town, where we'll be helping my folks move and hanging out with extended family. I'm listening to music while working, Audrey's playing, there was a huge double rainbow at the end of last night's storm, and this morning it is sunny. Life is sweet.

Here's a little sumptin sumptin to kick off the summer. May's music mix is 2x4. Two songs by four bands...summer music for sure.

Brass In Pocket

Just because I'm feeling special. And just because this song is still so great, 30 years later.

Major Score

Guess what I found in my parent's attic during their move? Major Score! 

I saved my Fashion Plates.

Cedarsong Nature School

 {Photo Seattle Times}

I am so in love with this Outdoor Preschool Program, where students spend at least three hours a day outside. Cedarsong Nature School, based in Seattle, Washington. Read more here.

Wrapping The Week

Wrong way to save a drowning person.
oil, mixed media collage (2003)

My goal is to get away on Saturday, somewhere all by myself, and do some reading, writing, and reflecting. I'm trying not to feel guilty about it and trying not to think of the 18 million things I need to get done. But I need a retreat. I still don't even know where I'm going. The plan was just hatched on Thursday. Curious where I'll land. We have a graduation party with family on Sunday so I have to be back on Saturday night.  

So this week the hours I haven't been working or taking care of my domestic duties, I've been consumed with Pinterest, a free service to share collections of things you love -- whether that's food, art, shoes, or books. It is completely addictive. I signed up to take part in Pin It Forward, so look for that in the later part of June.

I did manage to stumble upon a few goodies this week, like:

• Living in shipping containers. I love to look at alternative housing ideas like this one, or treehouses, railcars, and the like.
• Art made out of simple things like tape. 
• Retaliate, a lovely video made by Michael Kirkham and Vivien McDermid {via It's Nice That}
• This marvelous, magnificent, magical stove.

Have a truly scrumptious weekend.

Esperanza Spalding

Catching up on my backlog of New Yorkers and found a great article on singer, composer, and bass player Esperanza Spalding. Refreshing is the best word I can think of. More please.

Mangolicious

I made some version of this from a magazine years ago and have since lost the recipe. I'm sure I could find something on the interwebs, but mostly I just improvise often throughout the summer. We had it last night with grilled salmon and it was fantastic. I've also made it with the mango chicken sausage from Trader Joe's. It is best if made a couple of hours ahead of serving.

Summer Mango Cucumber Salsa

1. Mix together diced mango, cucumber, red onion, and red pepper. (Usually I use one mango, 1 small cucumber, 1/4 of med red onion, and about 1/4 red pepper. But there is no hard science...use whatever you have on hand at a proportion that looks tasty to you. I've also added diced jicama and a seeded jalapeno to this with pleasing results, but those aren't as commonly in my kitchen.) 
2. Mix together approximately 1/4 cup of orange juice, 1-1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar, and a teaspoon of olive oil (optional). Again, feel free to adjust these proportions to your liking.
3. Pour marinade over diced ingredients, add some chopped cilantro and toss.

Findings

I found this clipping in my grandma's bible on Sunday. That is me and my mom in the middle. Isn't she pretty? I guess it was 1967 or 1968.

Embroidery

Yesterday was bittersweet. Family gathered at my grandma's house and we went started the painful process of going through her belongings. A mix of laughter and tears. Dozens of embroidered quilts and pillow cases were divided. My grandma did amazing embroidery work. I'm not exaggerating. Her stitches were beautiful, tight, even, and plentiful. Sometimes her color selections were a little off, and she went through an extensive butterfly phase--but truly, the work is amazing. I hope to get some photos up soon. I have embroidered in the past, and hope to do more in the future. Below are some great examples of contemporary embroidery artists.

Jenny Hart, the Austin, Texas based artist and founder of Sublime Stitching. My grandma would have loved this tribute to her favorite country star.

East coast artist, Daniel Kornrumpf does some amazing portraits.

Realist Carol Shinn. Hard to believe.

Other sites worth checking out:

• Feeling Stitchy
• Embroidery as Art
• Mr. X Stitch

Wrapping The Week

The rain is doing great things for all the plants we put in last week. My herbs are doing tremendously, as our my container plants on the front porch. But I must say, "Enough ALREADY!" Rain predicted for the next three days. The three of us will be climbing the walls.

Here are some highligts from the week:

• I'm heady in love with Girl Put Your Records On, a lovely 2006 song by Corinne Bailey Rae, who I know very little about, but oh, I'm making it my duty to find out more. (Alternate version)
• My friend, Tim, launched the website BLISTO! and I'm going crazy over there.
• The Selby is Todd Selby's insider’s view of creative individuals in their personal spaces.
• Anthropologie, why must you torment me so?
• Playground in Paris, via Handmade Charlotte.
• Very fun evolution of the Crayola Color Chart, via Black*Eiffel.

Poem

Ill Wind

Two red birds
high on a wire
one said love
one said fire

Two black birds
deep in a tree
one said you
one said me

But wind came up
and tossed them away
no on hears
what they say

--Michael Ryan
{Photo: We ♥ It}

Working

Some days are more challenging than others. This was some day.

Library Love

I love that Audrey already squeals, "Booooks! Booooks!" when we pass either of our neighborhood libraries. We love going to the library, but extracting her when it is time to go can be a bit of a challenge. It easier when Lindsey is with us. But it is a dreary day, so we may just do it.

I found some lovely library photos on the Curious Expeditions blog. You really need to check out the entire post, but for now, here are some beauties for your slobbering selves. I hope to devote a future blog post to personal libraries. Save that for another rainy day.

Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

(This looks amazing!)

Handelingenkamer Tweede Kamer Der Staten-Generaal Den Haag, the Hague, Netherlands

(This looks beautiful, but not sure it is quite cozy enough for my tastes.)

Peabody Library, Baltimore, MD

(A brighter options, with nice reading cubbies.)

Theology Room at St. Deiniol’s library, North Wales

(This may be my pick. The lighting is gorgeous.)

 

Rennie Mackintosh Library, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland

(Aesthetically interesting, but the desks look not too comfy.)

Cornell Law School Library, Ithaca, NY, USA

(Another beauty for its lighting. But law books. Ugh.)

Sterling Memorial, Yale University, New Haven, CT USA

(I have serious card catalog envy issues. This photo doesn't help.)

SOLD

My parent's got a contract on their farm. I have so many mixed emotions. I knew this would be tough. I am elated that they will be so much closer. But when I think of all the good times at the farm, and of its incredible beauty, I get so emotional. I have often said that place has felt more like "home" than any house we ever lived in growing up--and I've never lived in the house. My parent's moved there after I was out of college and living on my own. But I love their new house and am very excited to help my mom with all the details of making it feel like home.

We actually spent Saturday at their new house and then had dinner at Cowan's for Mother's Day. On Sunday, I slept in while Lindsey made me breakfast. I got some caramel coral bells and a bunch of other sweet little things from my two darlings. We worked in the yard most of the day. I got my zinnias planted and Lindsey finished the vegetable garden. It was a lovely weekend.

Wrapping the Week

{You Are Beautiful}

This has been a week of big disappointment. But that big disappointment produced some real Oprah-esque A-HA moments. I won't bore you with the details of my introspections and emotional wranglings. Suffice it to say, I think there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.   

We will visit my mom for mother's day on Saturday. On Sunday, I hope we can finish planting the garden. I'm not a fan of begonias--I don't like their waxy leaves--but I bought one this year and planted it in one of my grandma's tea kettles. She had a collection of them lining her driveway. This Begonia Carpet, via Wide Open Spaces, would thrill her.

Here are some highlights of the week.

• Apartmento, a Spanish magazine with photos of real people's apartments. No stylist.
• Gina Alvarez presented at Pecha Kucha this week. I've been a fan of her work for some time, but had never seen/met her.
• Took a tour of the future home of Grand Center Arts Academy. The Beaux Arts building is a lovely space indeed.
• These vellum mobiles are a beautiful little project from Oh, Happy Day.
• The soundtrack from Stealing Beauty is one of my all time favorites and I love the scene where Stevie Wonder's Superstion plays. I love it even more on Sesame Street.

And finally, a little Dorothy Parker poem for  your weekend.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Inventory

Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Windowscape

Last weekend I finally got hairdos for my three little lovlies. They look so cute next to sugar bowl Annie. (All four courtesy Etsy's Plants on the Brain.) The peppermill girl was Audrey's birthday gift to me. 

Best Coast

I can't get this Best Coast song out of my head. This isn't the official video, but I love it.

Wish

{We ♥ It}

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.
~Eleanor Roosevelt~

Just for safe measure, I'm doing both. 

Vitrolite

The house of one of my college friends was profiled in the Post Dispatch over the weekend. The slideshow is great. The entire kitchen of their 1930s home is Vitrolite. Check out the Vitrolite Obsession Flickr pool. I'm also loving the Retro Renovation site these days.