Hot dog manicures. (There is nothing more I need to add. Three words say it all.)
I am really not putting our pets to work like I could be. Look at these hedgehogs! Why am I not posing my kid’s guinea pigs in tiny hats?
A lot goes into a single photograph or video segment sometimes. Like a month’s worth of building a robotic ‘burger drop’ machine.
Attention, creatives. Are you getting a lot of requests from people wanting to “pick your brain?” Here’s what to say in response.
They’re called “dieoramas.”
Fellow former or current booksellers, did your bookstore have a quiz as part of their application? (We had a one at Barbara’s too!)
Brandon took Eleanor to pick out a new toy, and she chose Janet Weiss. How ’bout that.
7 cool ways to style a scarf, which is exactly what it sounds like.
Would you like to know how I came across the scarf post? ↑ I’m a little obsessed with Jillian Holtzmann and her style. Yup. (I mean, I already own the safety glasses. Although pink is really more my thing than yellow if I was going to switch out some lenses…)
The sandbox that I ordered arrived, and I spent yesterday assembling it. I also took the kids to a stone yard to pick out our pea gravel, and that’s here and waiting to go in. I’ve pulled weeds and relocated some of the plants from the area where the sandbox will go, but there’s more to do in preparing and leveling the site. I’d love to have it finished by the end of the weekend, but it has been hot, humid, and rainy, so I’m not sure if it’s going to happen.
I haven’t been excited about my weekly (or semi-weekly) Honor Roll posts lately because everything is horrible. I think we’re all feeling it, but I guess I’ve come to accept that this is probably how I’ll be feeling through the next several months at least? So we keep going. Good stuff is still happening.
Get the look of an original fashion hero: Lady Elaine Fairchilde.
And check out who left the first comment. Ah, happiness.
Gwen has finished her amazing kitchen renovation, and the before and after post is up! SO GOOD.
A good pedestal table is a thing of beauty.
Brandon has mentioned wanting a Little Free Library in front of our house, but I’m not on board.
“Little Free Library has a seductive marketing slogan that’s carved into the top of every unit: “Take a Book; Return a Book.” Such a simple equation. And such wishful thinking. Take? Oh, absolutely. People are, in fact, really good at that part. For example there was the young mom who lifted her toddler up to the box, watching uncritically as he scooped up “Imaginary Homelands,” Salman Rushdie’s collection of criticism and essays. Which I’m sure he enjoyed.”
Blue Feed, Red Feed is illuminating. Sad!
Sigh. I don’t know. You want to look at some owls for a bit? Owl faces in order, or maybe the 100 greatest owl pictures you’ll ever see? Or maybe just Mr. Bean.
I’ve been avoiding the internet in general (social media in particular), choosing instead to spend my time off the computer and out in the garden. Pulling weeds, clearing beds, you can see the difference you’re making. There’s no name-calling, no Drumpf, Shillary, or Bernie Bros. No Stanford apologists or bathroom boycotts. No 4-4 courts, no gun deaths, and no making it about all lives.
Every fourth year, the rhetoric escalates. Every fourth year, it becomes unbearable as the stakes have never been higher (which is what we said four years ago, and four years before that). And it does feel like the stakes have never been higher, but for just a little while, I need to check out. I worry about each of my children, but the other night I wept for a daughter that will feel as unsafe in parking garages as I do. Another girl who will grow up to carry her car keys between her fingers.
My biggest comfort right now is in knowing that the fact that we talk about these problems means that we have the will to end them, but the distance from here to there is so far.
Onward, to lighter things (comparatively).
The Brooklyn Bridge is a marvel, built in the late 1800s when one in four bridges failed. How was it made?
Sometimes, the ugly duckling doesn’t grow up to be a swan. “What if you just stay a duck?”
Successfully negotiating for $15,000 more than the initial offer.
Why ‘her’? (Pronouns matter.)
The white wall controversy. Are you on board? Were you always, and are you still?
“At least 90% of the homes we see every month (we reach out to and get submissions from hundreds of people around the globe on a regular basis) have “that” look: white walls, a mix of vintage Kilim rugs, lots of house plants and a carefully curated selection of found/salvaged objects.”
(90%!?)
What are we to do if we’ve already got the white walls? Hit up the best furniture stores in Chicago for our vintage rugs, plants, and found objects, of course! (Kidding, and there really are some great shops listed.)
Cooking trends say we’re looking for kale, and now cauliflower, but are we really?
Kind of feeling like this today, but I’m about to turn it around like whoa. Gotta get my One Room Challenge space wrapped up and photographed!
Zsolt Hlinka’s altered architectural photographs are beautiful in their simplicity and symmetry.
Instead of thinking to oneself, “don’t read the comments,” what if we could figure out how to improve them?
And here’s where I have to say thank you, because I love my comments section. Even when you disagree, you are (almost always) respectful and still contributing to the conversation.
Thoughts on the nature of plagiarism in design, and what Anthony Burril (the originator of the “WORK HARD & BE NICE TO PEOPLE” print) thinks of his work being so widely copied.
So fun to see the behind-the-scenes! Watch a room come together for the latest Jonathan Adler catalog.
The truth behind “XOXO” and other email sign-offs. I had no idea!