Mitfords

On my reading list this week courtesy of Paperbackswap , The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family.  As if I have time to read and reading also requires quiet, which I can only find in the bathroom (barely) and sorry to say I am not one of those people who can read while on the pot, eeew.  But I've been waiting for this book forever and my obsession with all things Mitford is ongoing despite all the politics associated with them or maybe it actually is because of it. Only they could make Nazi sympethizing look so glamorous...gasp, how scandalous!  

And of course a quiz, Which Mitford Sister Are You?  While taking it the entire time I kept thinking, "Please not Unity!" "Please not Unity!", instead I got Diana,  beautiful and smart, but still a bit of a Nazi, but at least she didn't shoot herself in the head over it.

New Friends, Heat and a Mighty Wind

Started off the weekend meeting a fellow vintage monger, Elizabeth from the Etsy shop The Vintage Mistress .  She has impeccable taste and did I mention flawless skin?  It was her last weekend in town so I took her around to some shops I tend to visit.  Wasn't sure how I was going to handle shopping with possible competition or how I would've behaved let's say in an instance where she stumbles upon a 1950s Dior dress only 30 seconds before me.  But I am amazed to say the experience did not at all put me in a crazed terratorial predatory state, then again vintage Dior(or Chanel) had not been found that day so it remains to be seen what the future may expose ;) It was a great time and it was a shame we didn't have more time.

The rest of the weekend spent desperately trying to stay cool as we had another heat wave come through.  The house was too hot to stay in so we migrated to the shoreline. 

"A" is for Annabel

Beach Baby

And of course Jack, there is nothing to say here.  The poor boy is touched:

                                                                   Zombie Beach Baby

He's gone reptilian on me.

And of course you can't end a weekend without a good Tornado:

5 power lines in a row snapped like toothpicks.

I know an Angel

I saw her only briefly,but it was enough to make me lover her.  Enough to make me scream, hate, want to kill, cry in a way I have never cried.  Experience a sadness that traps you and even though a year has passed you still find you haven't escaped it. And I know I never will.

This time last year I received a call, never a good sign at 2:30am.  But never in a million years did I expect the news I got. 

I think I know what she would have looked like if she were alive today, I can almost see her face.  She has a permanent smile and of course has a head too large in proportion to the rest of her body just like all the babies born in my family, wavy dark hair and fat fat cheeks. But when I dig deeper to see the color of her eyes, I don't see anything.  When my niece died she still had newborn eyes, I never got to see if they were going to be blue like her mother's.  I imagine if she did have blue eyes she would have grown up to look exactly like Scarlett O'Hara.

Evangeline Grace, you are in my thoughts today as you are everyday.

                                             Evangeline Grace 4.18.2009~7.19.2009

I Am Love

Have a bit of a girl crush on Tilda Swinton.  Ever since I first saw her in Orlando I've been smitten.  So of course it goes without saying that I've been planning whole heartedly to see this movie. 

Not only said to be visually pleasing, I'll also be looking forward to some serious fashion inspiration and swooning  like over the vintage Birkin in the above photo.

Cloggered

So I had to stitch up my husband this evening.  As you can most probably tell there was an incident last night.  I had put out a few pieces of vintage I was planning to photograph including a pair of vintage clogs. 

Well the husband decided to pick a fight with the damn clogs and yes the shoes won, do I dare say it, he got "cloggered".  Managed to trip on one and his face somehow ended on the other, resulting in an injury that will most likely scar ala Tina Fey/ Harrison Ford. 

 Watching the way he fell was very surreal, enough so that my first reaction wasn't for his welfare but for the shoes, THE SHOES!!  Because only Loony Tune characters fall that way, no one in REAL life falls that way.....well obviously I was wrong because grown men really do fall like Elmer Fudd.   Maybe this is where I should start saying how terribly bad I feel so I can stop sounding sociopathic.....I feel really bad.    Well maybe now he will take me seriously when I say this business will put me in an early grave.

I guess it's a good thing I didn't get a photo before the bandages, the hubby wasn't too thrilled as it is when I snapped off a couple of shots a few minutes ago while he was trying to sleep, so I can imagine taking photos of his bloody gash for the blog a big no-no.  If it's any consolation to him, even though in this round of Man .vs.Vintage  he might have lost, he did put up of a heck of fight rendering the clogs unsellable. 

They are rather menacing aren't they? 

Auctions and Vintage

Some of my spoils from an auction over the weekend.  I have a love hate of auctions.  LOVE what I can find and the prices, HATE everything else.... like crowds, spending all day waiting for the items to come up, how fast the auctioneers rattle back and forth numbers, what up wit dat?  does it truelly save time or do they just do it because it's tradition?  And I hate the uncertainty that after all that you invested you still may go home empty handed.

I forgot to also mention what a complete tool the compettitive air turns me into. It's not pretty or very lady like...think Howard Stern and Sam Kinison wrapped into one;) I am no longer present, my doppleganger takes over.

Luckily this weekend I had a headache(yeah lucky, ha!) and the husband went for me.  He was able to get for me everything on my list and two additional pieces I hadn't even spotted previously.  I think he did pretty well, no?  I adore the grey victorian jacket and the colorful 1930s georgette dress, but the jacket is still wearable and can totally be incorporated into a modern wardrobe, so it has me giddy like a vintage virgin. 

I'm pretty sure everything is destined for the shop and should start appearing this week.

The Getaway

                                                            Astoria Park

                                                                                  This is what complete bliss looks like

  Jones Beach(bayside)

                                                             Annabel was going for Jackie-o but instead got Elton John

Socrates Sculpture Garden

roots

in the installation

mmm, kefir shake

                                                                    my oldest, kefir smoothie burns coming out the nose

Some shots from my recent trip to New York, did as much as you can with two two-year olds in tow, record breaking heat and no help....well there was my oldest but it's a bit too much responsibility(and just plain stupid) to expect a 13yr old to be responsible for a toddler on a subway platform.

So it ended up being more or less a practice vacation, we didn't go crazy with activities, saw family, saw friends, shopped, bought some vintage(of course) despite my old haunts being completely void of treasures>:(  And despite my protests humored my father and went with him to the beach,  I live by lakes, bays and the ocean, last thing I'm going to go to NYC for is the beach(read eeew), but it made him happy and I am glutton for punishment.  Already have plans to go back for an extended stay before summer's end sans babies this time.