I am heartily sick of winter. The weather has been springlike here for the past few days, but as I said to my husband, if you don’t like the season in Southwest Ohio, wait 24 hours, and you’ll get a new one. (By 24, I mean 6.) If you’re here by my side trying to …
Tea for Valentine’s Day
A ritual I love and post on Instagram frequently is enjoying a cup of tea in the afternoon while my daughter has her after-school snack. This has been such a soothing practice and, let’s face it, a jolt of just enough caffeine to get me through the rest of our day. Sometimes, I could do …
How to wear vintage (without looking like an extra from Mad Men)
Let’s dive into a lesson I learned the hard way. I love vintage clothing and was lucky enough to inherit some beautiful pieces in addition to shopping vintage stores, sewing from vintage patterns, and buying vintage-inspired clothing from J. Peterman in my younger days. It’s taken a lot of trial and error to work vintage …
A Vintage Recipe: Raisin Scones
I’m fortunate to have inherited a number of recipes from my great-great aunt, who was a remarkable cook. Of course, a lot of these recipes have needed some updating or tweaking. Tastes have changed since the 1950s. She was also handwriting these recipes for herself, perhaps hastily scribbling down something from a cooking show before …
Books I Didn’t Write: Vol. 1
I used to never be without a book to read, but that hasn’t been the case in a very long time. Having a baby put an end to it. Although my daughter is now seven years old (!), I’ve never managed to quite get back into the reading habit. When she was 15 months old, …
Outfit Post: Back to Black
I was at a work conference earlier this week, and one of the events was an awards dinner. Immediately, I assumed it was black tie because my mind is always primed for black tie. It was actually business attire. Settle down, brain. I’ve written before about largely phasing black out of my wardrobe. Of course, …
A Valentine’s Day table
Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day? It was never a favorite of mine and is also less than a week after my birthday. Over the years, it’s grown on me, and we’ve done a bit more to celebrate rather than ignoring it entirely. We always keep it small with no gifts, but it’s nice to enjoy …
Project Kickoff: Throw Pillow DIY
Throw pillows seem like an odd item to cause major hesitation, but they’re one of the finishing touches our living room has been missing. I don’t really like the idea of buying something cheap as a stopgap to be replaced later, so we’ve just gone without while deciding on the perfect ones. I’ve been overthinking …
Buying stopgap items
One of the reasons I have some unfinished-looking home spaces and a scanty wardrobe is that I really don’t like to buy a stopgap piece of clothing or furniture or really anything. Humans in general already put so many discarded items into landfills and secondhand shops. It just seems more environmentally and budget friendly to …
A tale of two tea sets (and a recipe)
As an undergrad reading Swann’s Way, I mostly found it boring. The only thing Proust really did for young me was provide a master class in food writing. Have you read it? He does make a madeleine and a cup of tea sound terribly good. This led me to Google for both a madeleine recipe …