Veronicas Happy Feet

Because beautiful socks can make your entire day brighter!

What is the Poodle Cooking????

Red Bull!!!!

Dream Of A Vintage Clothing Lover

I have recurring dreams of finding an amazing yard sale or a great thrift store with so much good stuff I can't carry it all, and I keep finding more, and more and there's no one else shopping, and it's such a great and vivid dream. But then I wake up.
(Sometimes my unconscious mind gets mixed up and I'm on the beach finding really great stuff, and once I dreamed that I fell into an attic full of vintage clothing which was somehow under a path in the park(?)
On Friday I decided on a whim to go to a thrift I hadn't been to in a while. I had some time to kill. In the lingerie aisle I found the most exquisite, glorious 1930's FRENCH lingerie...first a slip, then a bedjacket, and another slip, and another bedjacket, then a nightgown, and then two MORE nightgowns each with a matching bedjacket.

The softest, glossiest bias-cut silk.
Peach, aqua, pale blue, candlelight ivory.
Most of the seams hand sewn.
Incredible, lush, lavish cream and ecru lace, with the raised cordonnets so popular in the 30's.
Amazing little details, like appliqued flowers, and monograms, and tiny hand sewn pintucks and shirring.
Most of the pieces look as though they were never worn.

There was squealing, and grinning! Not quite as much stuff as I find in those dreams, but real stuff is definitely more fun than dream stuff!

Still Life With Thrift Store Owls

Selected and arranged by Mom and I, at the thrift, this afternoon. Photo courtesy of my phone. I particularly like the gargoyle-owl at the bottom left. A fine collection, preserved here for posterity.

Carrying On

I'm finding that even in times of stress I'm managing to carry on with the little things. Today I cleared out my web storage (1600 files pared down to just over 200), and added new items to my ebay and etsy stores, and organized linens and hankies, and sorted the studio tour signs, and put beads away in their little storage boxes. Answered emails, sorted a few papers, listened to the CBC all day to distract the chatter in my mind.


My patient is sleeping well, and taking her meds, and resting and eating, though I am always going "Mangia, mangia!" She lost 10 pounds in about 10 days. She needs steaks and avacados and ice cream and home made soup.


Tomorrow, I'll water the plants and do laundry and sweep the studio and marvel at the gradual, wonderful possibility of normalcy.

Simple comfort: Valentine cuddles up to a disgusting but much loved catnip toy, affectionately known as "Purple Sausage".

Beads of Courage

I'm sending off these beads to Beads of Courage, a great organization and a great concept.
This is making me happy at this moment!

Uncertainty

I've been struggling with the inability to plan with any certainty, with sudden shifts in situations, with priorities in constant flux.
The uncertainty is stressful and best summed up by "I just wish I knew what's going to happen, then I wouldn't be so anxious".
And I realized that we never know what's going to happen, that's a constant of our lives and that any assumptions we have to the contrary are simply illusions. This was the best lesson on staying in the moment I've ever had.
I can handle the next five minutes, I think.