Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Perfection
These pictures (well, to be honest just about any of Melanie's pictures) make me ecstatically and overwhelmingly happy.
I think I like her photographs of her children best - in their eyes she captures all sorts of innocence, anticipation, and pure joy that can only come from the heart of a child.

So Mabry - meet the world. Its a fabulous place that can be very scary at times and certainly traumatic but with parents like yours, you can take it head on girl!

World - meet Mabry. Be nice to her!

Monday, July 28, 2008

"Every house where love abides and friendship is a guest,
is surely home and home sweet home,
for there the heart can rest"
Henry Van Dyke
Where I Fall
I know most of my posts lately have had more to do with the reality in which we live in than the actual interiors that we spend so much time, effort, and finances in creating, but the fact of the matter is that all these things really do intermingle.
Charles Dickens
You see, "home" is this prestigious and wonderfully perfect place for me. No, I don't actually mean the place I grew up or even the tiny little place where I lay down my head every night. Its more about the things I surround myself with - the memories held in photographs of an amazing group of friends, pottery created the year I found out that I was a tad ADD, the kitschy accessories from countless years of shopping with my mom at random antique stores all over NC, teacups from when I lived in Yorkshire, the books that have made me happy or sad but never failed to made me think. . .so many meaningful objects put together with loads of love in order to encompass politely and refreshingly everyone who enters.
Robert Montgomery
I don't have "strangers" in my place. I don't like "certain" people's joo joo being in my domain. This is my safe haven and I've made mistakes letting people in that I shouldn't have before. Its like there's this imaginary boundary somewhere right off the Durham Freeway and if I don't like you, you don't get to know where I dwell.
Henry Anatole Grunewald
That whole "picking up a girl for a date" thing really is an antiquated and unsafe system, because we're gonna have to really click for you to be allowed here. Furthermore, since this blog is my place to rant, if we haven't ever had like an actual conversation either on the phone or in person, then I'm offended when you ask me out. You don't know me. If you're asking someone to spend moments of their life with you - moments they will never get back and all you know about them is a picture you've painted in your head, you can pretty much expect them to be a little hesitant . . .especially if you work with this person:
Harriet Beecher Stowe
I love allowing people to spend time here-not because I want to show off my glorious designs (its so far from finished so that is certainly NOT the case) but more so because if you're special enough for me to open my door, as cheesie as it sounds, I'm opening my heart a little bit too. I'm saying "come in, make yourself at home, make a memory with me", even if its for selfish reasons. It must be said, you see, when you leave a part of me can still feel you here; playing with Allouicious, drinking a cook-out milkshake, having a cig, eating a meal I prepared for you, perusing a book. "Come in" is an invite to ask questions about the pictures on the wall, to look through my closets and say "why have I never seen you in that?" to know a part of me that you wouldn't otherwise get to see.
"You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right."
Maya Angelou
These memories are made bittersweet when you leave. Especially if you've shared more here than just a quick chat or a bottle of wine. If I've open up my door and let you into my heart, its really hard to close that door when you walk away. I know, in my right mind, that by leaving it open and not locking the deadbolt behind you allows for all sorts of thoughts to enter, all sorts of boundaries to be laid aside, all sorts of unhappiness to unfold. My tragic flaw is thinking too much. I honestly think its one of my greatest attributes too.
"Where thou art - that - is Home."
Emily Dickinson
"I think too much" could easily be translated as "I love too much". When I call you "friend" this carries alot of weight. When I tell you "I love you" I always mean it, every single time. When I want you in my life, you better be prepared because I don't know how to do it half way. For better or worse, you're gonna get my unfiltered thoughts when I think you're wrong and you're gonna get my unending dedication when you need my shoulder. You just gotta know that you can't have one without the other.
"Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule."
Frederick W. Robertson
The wise Shakespeare once said: "love does not alter when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove - oh no, it is an everfixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken" If you knock and I let you in. . .its your choice whether or not to stay in my life but I promise you, you're gonna be in my heart's home forever.
Even if you say this:
"I thought it was the only time you could say to me that this feels right, leave me out",
you'll still always be welcomed back home if you ever change your mind.
Title and last lyric from Reindeer Section
Images are mine - please ask before using them. Thanks!

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Goals and Objectives
My girl Kelley (one of the spectacularly hilarious bff types) lives in Florida and has this really great job for a division of a really big American pharmaceutical company which will go unnamed. Once a month she has to have a meeting with like 6 group leaders that she works with to go over her "goals and objectives". I find this concept fascinating and I think we should start it here as well, especially since my horoscope for today said this:
You need a few new dreams! Today, you should switch mental gears and start spending more energy thinking about, well, positive thinking. Visualize the brightest future you can possibly imagine - the job you want, the person you want, the life you want! And don't you dare waste time worrying about whether or not you will fall short or fail. Its important to keep your focus on the bright side. News is coming near the end of the day that might come as a pleasant shock.
Ok, so short term Goal and Objectives for today:
1)Finish cleaning this mess of an apartment
2)Finish the painting I'm working on for this favorite bff:

3)Complete the duvet cover out of this fabric:

4)Meet up with a few of my favourite people staying with me tonight and/or going to the concert.


5)Have a blast with the Avett Brothers (photo came from here)
That's about it for today.
As for the rest of my life. . .
1) The job I want would consist of me going to a store (owned, designed and operated by me) where people enjoy being,
where good design prevails,


where good design is affordable,
where we have cupcakes every Tuesday, why? because Tuesdays are special dammit! Didn't anyone tell you? (image found here)

I don't want any other job, just a store.
2) The person I want. . .eeeek I don't know who he is anymore. I used to (I thought) well to be fair I thought I knew who he was a couple of times. He's not my favourite little aid worker, not my favourite farm boy or favourite rapper - who on earth could he be???
I do have priorities that I would really enjoy as far as he goes:
-he should like these guys (image found here):
-it would be really great if he was a ginger, you know something like Eric Stoltz (image found here) : No no no, of course I'm kidding about those being priorities, I mean sort of, kinda. I actually know exactly the type of person I really want but all those intricacies of his spirit will have to remain a mystery until I find him and choose to share. Hopefully it will look something like this:

all above images found on www.allposters.com
3)When I think of the kind of life I want I pretty much picture a cute little house like this:
It will be, obviously, in the middle of nowhere.
Decorated kinda like this:
Where I lay around all day (after working at my glorious job/store) reading books about Audrey Hepburn while looking beautiful like this:
I can work in a garden that looks like this:
I'll be a domestic goddess like my favourite bff Kate and make food that looks like this (found on orangette):
We'll have couple of kids that look like this (found here): On vacation, my luscious lover and I will go to places like this (found here):
We'll have amazing friends over for cookouts, and Christmas, and stupid game nights. We'll go to the beach and get outrageousley tan like this:
I'll go on "shopping trips" for the store with this lady:
To fabulous destinations like this (found here):
And we'll all live happily ever after like this (image found here):

When he's gone I'll wanna go too.
That's basically it - that's what I want.
First things first - this guy and my friends will never continue to love me if I live like a slob so I'm gonna go get started on that cleaning now. UGH!

Note: if an image isn't given credit it is either mine or I have saved it a long time ago and I don't know where it came from - if you know, please help me out. Thanks.

Friday, July 25, 2008

The Satorialist
I haven't been paying enough attention to this phenomenal man lately, but that's all gonna change because I'm adding him to my daily reads. Here are some of my July favourites: