My favorite holiday

Happy Halloween! Don't you just love jack-o-lanterns? The more they age the creepier they get.

Retro cool

Mustard
Originally uploaded by TheVintageSocietyGirl

I love the understated 70's vibe to this look. So pretty and effortless looking.

Adorable with accents

Saving Grace (no not the tv show) is all kinds of fun. Irish drug dealers, stunning landscapes, and lots of silliness. What's not to love? This was a really fun and light hearted movie that made us both giggle a whole bunch. It reminded me a bit of Death at a Funeral.

Memories

While the documentary Summercamp! is not live changing or all that thought-provoking, it did enable me to fondly recall my many many summers of 4-H camp as well as a 6th grade camp I went o 3 times. (Once as a camper and twice as a counselor). I thought it was sweet and pointless.

Hope Hope Hope

I'm knocking on wood, crossing my fingers, holding my breath, and thinking all kinds of good thoughts that the next President will be one I'll be proud of. (And that will handily protect us from the zombies). This was a recent project that's sitting pretty in front of our porch.

savannah!

springtime in savannah.
Originally uploaded by D.James Darren Ryan

In just a few days, my boy and I are heading out on our own little adventure. We happen to have a week off together - something that rarely happens. When pondering where we'd like to road trip to, he brought up Savannah. Its full of prettyness and history and we've never been before. So come friday evening, we're heading out. Yay!

Take a look

This is freaking amazing and terribly cool. Found via Whipup. (Which I often forget to check out, but luckily there's cool folk like Jen out there who remind me to even while in the midst of a gran adventure). Thanks Jen! Loved the phone cozies too!

Coincidence

I happened to watch Empire Falls the day before Paul Newman dies. I enjoyed the book (although perhaps not quite as much as Straight Man). The movie followed really closely to the book, and Newman had to have had a ball playing the drunken reprobate grandpa.

Sorrow is right

Well maybe not sorrow. Just more disappointment. I'm on a loser trek of reads. One for Sorrow started with such promise. A high school boy who sees the ghost of a murdered classmate? A beginning with ominous warnings and old country beliefs? Well, it started with lots of promise, but along the way the story got all lost and muddled and pointless. Not good at all.

After the last few stinkers, I'm due for a pretty mind blowing read.

Disappointing

I hold Francesca Lia Block on a high pedestal for giving teenage me a character like Weetzie Bat. So when I spotted this book of her poetry, I was giddy. It did not at all live up to my excitement.

How To (Un)Cage a Girl is full of poetry that could have been written by an average teenage girl. Many poems just felt like reworded poems from earlier in the book. The poem "collage" was just strung together autobiographical comments that actually just made me embarassed for Block. Bad bad bad.

The only one I could stand was "l.a. bacchantes" and that was merely cause I imagined my 13 year old self might have liked it.

Wuss

I will admit to my complete wussification when it comes to even thinking about child birth. So I was amazed when I found myself completely amazed and charmed by this documentary. The Business of Being Born is really eye-opening and pretty hopeful. I highly reccomend a look see - even for wusses like myself.

I wanted a perfect ending.

I read Gilda Radner's book It's Always Something in about two days. She was not the world's best writer by any means, but it's a very honest and sweet look at her battle with cancer. I found it rather touching.

And of course I cannot resist posting my favorite line from the book.

"I had wanted to wrap this book up in a neat little package. I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned the hard way that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end."

Once upon a time, I woke up. I took a shower with soap.

Unlike overly hyped, not-so-great movies like Iron Man, I did manage to see a sleepy little movie I hadn't heard much about, and I really enjoyed it. The Lookout is such an original tale, and the acting is pretty damn good. See this one instead.

classic

I watched Le Cercle Rouge after listening to the Filmspotting guys declare it to be one of the ultimate heist movies. I liked it. It was all dark and moody and so very stylish.

Plus Alan Delon is nice to look at.

"The hum-drum-vee is back there."

Was I the only one disappointed in this movie? It all seemed so already done and tired. As much as I like Robert Downey, Jr., this seemed pretty lackluster.

"Someone stop me; O someone please, just try and stop me! "

While sick last week, I watched Holiday on Netflix. So fun and charming. Nothing can beat a movie with both Hepburne and Grant in it. I loved the charming character of the brother as well. What a wonderful wonderful movie!

Progress

Not a ton, but I did paint my toenails the other day. I'm calling that progress on the taking better care of myself line item.

More wardrobe inspiration

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Originally uploaded by merefflorescence

I love the retro look of this outfit. The dark denim with the pale belt. The pretty pretty shirt with the big ol' scarf. Makes me think. I love wardrobe remixers that make me think.

Newly resolute

Promised windiness straight ahead! Okay, I mentioned that I've been doing some self considerations lately. I've just been thinking about parts of my life that need some work. I am a very happy girl in general, but I find myself kicking myself for not working harder at things I really want for myself. Hence some fresh new resolutions. Great big generic ones that I shall stay on track with by keeping track of the little steps. And you all know how much I love lists, right? Here goes!

Areas I want to work on:

1. Health
2. Creativity
3. Knowledge
4. Culture
5. Thoughtfulness
6. Looks

And here's the plan.

1. Health - I need to get my butt in gear. I've just not had the energy I'd like to and that's entirely my fault for slacking on the exercise and not paying attention to my diet. So a couple of days ago I started a Sparkpeople page and I'm using it to track fitness and diet. I'm excited about this.

2. Creativity - I'm going to make a list of things I want to do and learn, and then make myself do them. I like this stuff. I just need to make it a priority. More on this soon.

3. Knowledge - I'm a smart cookie. However, there's always those subjects that make me feel like a dunce. I'm making yet another list - this one on subjects I want to know more about. Then I'm going to educate myself some more.

4. Culture - I'm upping my attendance at interesting cultural events. I'm also going to figure out the books and films that I think are important for filling in some of my gaps.

5. Thoughtfulness - Right now I'm going for more emails and letters and comments to people that I care about. I'm the queen of gathering my friends together for parties and events. However, I absolutely despise the phone. Since I really don't want to become a huge phone gabber, I'm going to up my other forms of thoughtful communication.

6. Looks - Its about damn time I learned some new hairstyles and makeup techniques. If I want to improve my everyday appearance, I need to learn and practice this stuff. I'm determined to do one good thing for myself once a week.

That's the whole shebang. Expect some updates. Man do I love setting lofty goals for myself. Even if I don't accomplish everything I dream of, by setting some goals I am sure to accomplish something.

Cheers!

Outfit ideas

I want to regularly post some inspiring outfits from wardrobe remix. Today's won't let me post the picture, but I love this one. Particularly since I'm a dunce and hadn't thought about layering a cute short sleeve jacket I have over some long sleeve tops. Can I blame my cold?

Anyway, the outfit is cute and you all can expect some more inspiration regularly.


I'm also doing some serious introspection and goal-setting for myself. Expect a windier post soon.

Blog crush

I am completely crushing on this blog - What Possessed Me. Its all kind sof pretty and clever.

Addiction

I have to share my overwhelming love of Margaret's Artisan Flatbreads. I discovered these immense (about as long as my fore arm!) and delicious crackers in my neighborhood bakery a couple of weeks ago, and I'm completely hooked. I really really love the rosemary and sea salt and the sun-dried tomato and olive varieties.