NumberNineteen

*Post 100!!!*

I can't believe that its true, but I've written 100 posts on my blog!  What a wonderful experience the world of blogging has been!  First, as a reader, and then, taking the plunge to have my own blog.  Though I was very excited & enthusiastic when writing my first posts, I did wonder if anyone would want to read what I wrote.  It seemed a bit presumptuous!  But, it turns out, that there are lots of people out there that love the same things that I love!  The sweetest, most interesting, most creative people that I could ever hope to have in my life.  I am honored that you all come by to visit me & spend time here. 

Your friendship has been such a gift & I'd love to give a tiny bit back!  Just a little give- away of a few vintage pretties that I've been putting aside for such an occasion....

An embroidered fingertip towel, a pretty postcard (postmarked 1912!), a petite vintage milk bottle, a pincushion fashioned from vintage fabric, and a bar of chocolate with a delightful vintage image decorating its wrapper. (the book is just a prop for the photo)

Check out the back of the milk bottle!

Just add a comment by 9pm Eastern time tomorrow evening (June 28th) *Edited: Enter by 9am Eastern time Sunday, July 1st--I thought that I should add on time for those who can only do their blogging on the weekends & you will be entered!  I'll post the winner soon after that.

Cozy Reading Corner

I hope that you all had a good weekend!  We mostly stayed around the house, doing projects & puttering about.  Spending lots of fun time together--the best!

I thought that I'd share one of our favorite corners in the house--the coveted chair in the corner of the family room. I say coveted because there is frequently a quiet competition to see who can claim it first--Glenn, myself or Dexter, the cat! 

All snug in the corner, it has just the right light for reading.  With the table right there, I have room for a book & a drink or, on nights when I'm clipping out my favorite photos from magazines, room for scissors & little piles of clippings. (Here are the magazines that I'm looking forward to reading tonight:)


The old camera was Glenn's grandfather's and the owl print is in honor of my maiden name, "Wise". For many years, I was a "Wise Owl"..... :)

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I have very exciting news---this is my 99th post!  So, you know what that means....In honor of my 100th post, I will be having a give-away of some vintage pretties!  Stay tuned for my next post :) 

Inspiration Friday

Its all about living rooms this week!  I choose some of my favorite living rooms from my clippings & found that they are pretty different in style from each other.

 

I think that the common thread is the design of each room.  I love the solid design of the traditional rooms--the placement of furniture, the quality of the main pieces, the pleasing-ness to the eye of the arrangements.  But, my heart is captured by the vintage rooms.  I'm in love with the history, the character, and the texture that the unique vintage items bring to the room.

My real house is a constant work in progress that tends towards the rooms with  traditional arrangements & pieces that I pull together with old things that are full of personality. I'm always trying to get to that perfect place of the house saying "Kim lives here & this is who she is". 

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I'm looking forward to this weekend as being very low key.  Low on the expectations that I put on myself, high on relaxing and being with Glenn & Hope.  If the weather is nice, we are going to return to the park in which we hiked on Memorial Day.

What are you up to this weekend?   

Ode to Daddies

Happy Father's Day to all Daddies out there & to all Mommies who are married to great Daddies!  We spent today doing whatever Glenn wanted to do.  I let him sleep in while I got up with Hope & got her dressed, including her new hat that I ordered for the occasion!  I had her toddle over to Glenn with the hat on & his gift bag in her hand.  He loved it.  We went to one of our favorite places  in Arlington, VA for lunch.  This is one of the reasons that it is one of Glenn's favorite places:

That is not a collection of beer bottles, those are all of the beers that they offer! Here he his, debating over which kind to enjoy with his sandwich:

Here is Hope, wearing her new hat:

On Saturday evening, we had a date at home on our backporch:


Mmmm, margaritas!!!

A chair for Hope & a chair for Daddy.

I always tell Hope that she is the luckiest girl in the world because she had Glenn in her life from the moment that she was born.  I had to wait 27 years for him!  Glenn is the best, best Daddy ever.  He is so patient, so much fun, and so focused on Hope. His dedication to Hope & our family is his number one priority.  He is the best partner in the world.  Glenn, I can't imagine being a parent with anyone else but you.

I think that Glenn had a nice weekend.  I didn't get to see my own Daddy, since my parents live about 5 hours from us.  But, we talked on the phone today & we are going to visit them in a few weeks. Dad, if you are reading this, I *promise*, a gift is coming! :)

My Happy Things--Inspiration Friday

Heather of PresentPastCollection shared her favorite "Happy Things" in a recent post & urged her blogging friends to do the same.  I think that its  a wonderful idea, so I'm making it my Inspiration Friday post.

I don't think that I need to explain why this is one of my happy things!  Every single night, we creep into her room before we go to bed & watch her sleep.

This CD ... I've been listening to it pretty much non-stop since I bought it after this post.

Mmmmm...Mike's Hard Lemonade.  I love, love, love this stuff.  I'm pretty crazy about TDubb's as well.  I'm out of it...must get some for the weekend!

This pizza place, which I just discovered near my office.  Its just on the corner of a shopping center, totally inconspicuous.  The pizza is amazing!!!  I've been there twice since discovering it last week. Yum yum yum.

My new bubble bath.  I take baths several times a week, so I have to re-stock my bath goodies every once in awhile.  Last weekend, I picked up these two heavenly scents. 

These are just a few things that have made me happy in the past week or so!

You know what really makes me happy???  The weekend! :)

A Vintage Purse & A Bunny Adventure

Andrea at Velvet Strawberries posted today about her most GORGEOUS collection of vintage purses.  I have never seen such a lovely grouping of velvet flowers & fruits. I happen to have one vintage purse with velvet flowers, that I bought on a whim on ebay.  No one else was bidding on it, if you can believe it!  I thought that I'd share it, sort of tagging along on Andrea's theme.
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My weekend was good (it was a weekend, so it probably was good!), though very busy.  My college friend & I had a wonderful time in Old Town Fredericksburg.  It is so chock-full of wonderful shops, especially antique shops, that we didn't make it to all of them.  I didn't buy anything (though there are two items that I keep thinking about & might have to go back & buy!!!), but Christine made a real find--a promotional English tapemeasure that was produced by the biscuit company MacFarlane's, probably sometime in the 20s or 30s.  Here is a link to one that is very much like it: tapemeasure, though she did not pay anywhere NEAR $105!!!  I think that the best part is the printing on the tape that states: "Granola, the Finest of the Digestive Biscuits". Christine has a bit of Anglophile in her, having also spent some time in college living in England, so she & I were gaga over this.  Christine, you made the find of the day! 

On Sunday, Glenn & I went clothing shopping, which was a mixed success.  I found several good items for work, but, for some reason, I purchased all but one of them too big.  I tried them on & they looked fine, but when I tried them on again at home, I couldn't believe it. They were all embarassingly baggy.  Did I have a sudden weight loss in the car on the way home?  Did my body somehow drop all of the water it was retaining?  So, I've exchanged the pieces for more appropriate sizes.  I wish that I could show you photos, because some of the pieces are so cute.  But, I can't find pictures online & they don't look as nice on the hangers.

Oh, I almost forgot to write about our bunny adventure on Sunday evening!  I was outside of the garage, watering my plants, when I noticed a little animal scampering in the garage, straight behind our freezer.  Its little cotton tail said that it was a bunny.  I told Glenn, who, being a country boy, has experience in catching bunnies.  Of course, we just wanted to get the bunny safely out of the garage & set it free.   So, Glenn moved the freezer & the darned thing went straight into our pile of stuff for our garage sale!  Then, he somehow got into the lawnmower bag!  Then, he ended up in a corner behind some shelves!  Finally, we got it cornered & used a spray bottle of water to urge it into a box.  Of course, we didn't want to touch it, so its mother wouldn't reject it (human smell on it).  Here it what this little guy looked like:

The poor little thing was so scared, I felt so badly for it.  It was SO tiny--maybe 4 inches long--I'm not exaggerating!  What a sweet little guy he was--Glenn deposited him safely near some bushes in the backyard, where I hope that he is now happily eating grass :)

Inspiration Friday

I had a fun lunch hour earlier this week, browsing in the magazine section of Borders.  I picked up the new issue of Romantic Homes & also, 100 Decorating Ideas Under $100.  The  latter was featured on  Cindy's Blog for her Inspiration Friday last week,  which inspired me to buy the magazine!  It was a good buy--lots of fun pictures and projects.

The first photo, above, is from Romantic Homes.  Look at all of that eye candy! I want to play in that room!

Look at this bed below, under the eaves....so cosy, so pretty.  The layers with the embroidered pillow, quilt & white linens reminds me a bit of this bed from last week's Inspiration Friday.  This picture is from the 100 Ideas magazine.


Isn't this bathroom adorable?  So, so cute!  I love these bathrooms that look like real rooms...sigh....



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So, what's up for your weekend?  I'm having a college friend over for lunch on Saturday & then we are going to Fredericksburg for some antiquing & browsing around the cute shops.  Sunday morning, I'm hoping to go to some estate sales.  It would be really great if I could find some time to go clothing shopping as well.  I really need some summer work clothes.  In the past three summers I was: 1)out of work 2)pregnant 3)an at-home mom.  So, I'm low on office appropriate summer clothing.  My office isn't super-formal, but I need to wear something nicer than t-shirts.

Have a great Friday!

By the way, I can't get the underline off on the above paragraph...sorry about that!

Cool People With A Letterpress

My sister, Terri, & brother in law, Ezra, are two of the greatest people that we know.  They are smart, witty, and talented, not to mention the greatest Auntie & Uncle on earth! They both have so many interests and talents.   Terri  is a skilled knitter as well as photographer.  Her photos of live concerts have been featured on club's websites, in fact. 

One of Ezra's interests is letterpress printing.  He received a small  letterpress from a family friend & starting making invitations for family events, with Terri as his trusty sidekick.  This past December, he was selected to participate in  the Boston Bizzare Bazzar and just this past week, his work was featured in the weekly paper The Weekly Dig (although I can't find the article  online, darn it!).  This spring, he purchased a much larger press, which apparently weighs as much as a small car.

I would show you a scan of the invitation that they printed for one of my baby showers, but Typepad isn't cooperating!

 

The whole point of telling you all of this is that, in conjunction with the recent article, he now has an up & running website & an Etsy store.  Check it out: Rainy Planet Press  &  Etsy . I'm particularly fond of the owl bookplates...Glenn received some of those from me as part of his Valentine's day gift.  I believe that Ezra plans on adding more items to the store soon, so keep a look-out.

Weekend Treasures

This month's flea market was a bonanza!  I had a great time, snatching up items at just about every other booth.  Almost as soon as I walked in, I spied the thermos.  The cutters were at one of the last booths.  I'm collecting some wonderful vintage kitchen/picnic items that will look really nice as a vignette in my booth.

I also found this fun old portable typewriter:

And, lots of vintage tea towels &  this wonderful little plate:

And, I found this lovely painting for our house:

Other good news is that Hope is feeling much better!  The third round of antibiotics is doing the trick.  And, she will have a long-term solution very soon--the doctor has recommended tubes in her ears, which will happen in the next few weeks.  She is back to being the baby that we know & love, not the grumpy kid that we've lived with the past month.  Here is a photo from today (this one's for Nana :) ):

She looks like she is up to something, doesn't she?  Yeah, thats my kid!

Inspiration Friday

When I was digging through my box of old clippings to find the photo of the dressing table , I found a bunch of beautiful pictures from magazines.  Most aren't as old as the photo that inspired the dressing table, which was very 80s (I should show you the picture on the reverse side of the magazine page sometime!).  These are mostly from the 90s-early 2000s.  In any case, I thought that I'd share a few in this weeks (very late) Inspiration Friday.

I covet that oval tray or painting in the photo above.  If I had it, it would be a prized possession.  It would hold a place of honor.  How else can I wax poetic about that oval tray?

Speaking of rose paintings, look at this collection...Swoon!....

 

I just realized that both of the top 2 photos are from the same home...lucky lady....

And last, this beautiful & cosy bed.  I'd probably put a yard long painting of roses or something more vintage-y above the bed, but I love the pillows & the quilt.  Couldn't you just sink into this?

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So, what are you up to this weekend?  I'm going to the monthly flea market (held in a parking garage!) tomorrow morning.  I've convinced Glenn to accompany me, luring him with promises of a visit to his favorite coffee shop afterwords.  He was away most of the week on business--in Minneapolis--I tried to convince him to take me along so that I could meet my blogging friends Martha & Allie, but it was no-can-do.  I kind of had to show up at my job anyway.  In any case, I missed him, so I'm trying to find ways to spend as much time with him as possible while still fitting in my antiquing! :)