For reals, though.

Due to my preferred costume, I seem to get a lot of remarks referring to my habit as some kind of religious statement. Questions like "How are your sister-wives?" and suggested affiliations with the Amish and the like.

In the interest of defending my own style choices, while also redeeming the reputations of the faithful, I'd like to present an alternative inspiration: the Waltons.

The long-running 1970s television series about a big ol' poor-in-money, rich-in-love family living at the bottom of a mountain in 1930s Virigina is pretty much right up my alley. We have rustic living, rural sensibilities, beautiful scenery -- all through the lens of the '70s prairie-revival.

Items of note:

• barefeet with overalls
• pinafore aprons
• Mary Ellen's straw hat
• suspenders
• so. much. gingham.
• braids and pigtails
• screen doors
• liberty print like it's going out of style (I assure you, it is not)

What's not to love?

this is how i work

“What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose-knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful, that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through.

I should like to come back, after a year or two, and find that the collection had sorted itself and refined itself and coalesced, as such deposits so mysteriously do, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life, and yet steady, tranquil compounds with the aloofness of a work of art.

The main requisite, I think, on reading my old volumes, is not to play the part of a censor, but to write as the mood comes or of anything whatever; since I was curious to find how I went for things put in haphazard, and found the significance to lie where I never saw it at the time.”

Virginia Woolf

(And Alfred Einstein's desk.)

keeping my skates sharp

Last spring, I bought some framed pictures at the Salvation Army for $1 each. I discarded or crafted most of the pictures, keeping only the frames--except this one.

A crowd of colourfully dressed mid-nineteenth century skaters was too good to throw away. There's so much going on there. Left foreground, a man chases a young woman who looks alarmed as she skates away. On the right, a man pushes his wife on a sled while a little dog barks. I can count at least four people who have fallen. And all around, scarves, muffs and all manner of Victorian winter dress abound.

It was printed in 1862 by Currier & Ives, a large New York City printing company that advertised their products as "coloured engravings for the people." An artist would draw the image on the printing stone, the page would be hand-pressed, and according to the Met website, "handed to the industry of women at home who filled in the scenes with watercolors." Pretty romantic. 

I stored it away, and after returning home to a Canadian winter after a long trip, amidst all the unpacking and setting up life again, I set it on the mantle. It's been there ever since, a reminder that a winter day is not a wasted day.

 www.centralpark.com 

les poux sont retour

Just back from Europe, a whirlwind trip that will be processed through countless conversations, while trying new recipes and maybe a few blog posts. After taking so much in, I'm ready to put out. 

A Saturday afternoon at Marche aux Puce, the Paris flea market. There were some really great Eames rockers sitting in the rain, suspicious cartons of cigarettes for sale under the bridge, and countless thousands of vintage postcards. 

Most of all, though, there was this: 

Baby heads and googly eyes and tiny beakers, too!

Edit: Since arriving home, I've been reading Handmade in Paris, a lovely book by Pia Jane Bijkerk about all things fait main. I foolishly forgot to bring to Paris with me. It's worked out well though, because I discovered and fell in love with many of the featured galleries and store-fronts all by myself, and I'm finding out all sorts of background and histories of the places through the book. 

Including this flea market stall, which is connected with a store in Montmartre: Tombees du Camion. Which means "fell off a truck" in English.