life in november

It's been busy around here since we returned from Europe.  First and most importantly, of course, we met and brought home Pickles.  He has been such a sweet, lovable addition to our little family.  We also seem to have had a hard time staying at home since coming home, and took lots of little trips around Michigan in November, treasuring hunting and enjoying the last of the autumn foliage.  

Winter has also arrived here--suddenly!  Or it seems sudden.  (Autumn just never lasts as long as I would like.)  The flannel pajamas and down comforter are out and in use.  And I suppose I'm finally getting into winter nesting mode:  I've been making cocktails (the maple leaf and rum/cider concoctions are the current favorites) and have started thinking about my holiday baking.

Speaking of which...Andy and I had the flu over Thanksgiving, so we didn't have our big feast until last night.  I am not a big pie fan or maker (I know, it's un-American, right?), so I was going to make a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.  However, while looking for a recipe, I stumbled on this recipe for Pumpkin Cheesecake Mousse.  It was really easy to make, and quite tasty.

How was your November?  You can follow me on Instagram if you're interested in life behind the scenes around here.

xo

K

insta summer

One visitor leaves, another arrives, and that's pretty much summer here and that's how I like it!

 The above shows a week full of making lavender lemonade, finishing a fascinating book about Vienna, visiting our b&m space, discovering excellent wrap skirts in the garage and a tiny broken egg in the backyard, crazy estate sale finds, and good times with my visiting pal, Don.

And--if you hadn't already noticed--I've become an instant (hah!), hardcore, Instagram convert.  I'm mostly following a lot of other vintage sellers, and haven't yet quite figured out how to find other interesting people to follow.  The very best Instagram feeds in my opinion are those where you see all kinds of bits from someone's life, from what they do for work, to where they live, and what they eat and drink and read and watch.  (My Instagram is here.)

I hope you had a lovely week, too!

xo

K

last week

Last week was so busy!  We celebrated Andy's birthday, had two major vintage buys (one a surprise that fell smack in the middle of his birthday celebrations), and my friend Stephani visited us.  There was a lot of cocktail making and coffee drinking, some good eating, a ridiculously hot and humid visit to Saugatuck's beach, and beautiful Michigan moons.  (More photos on my Instagram.)

We also reserved our apartment for our week in Vienna, which I'm very excited about.  Now we just have to find a place to stay for our week in Munich...any thoughts on neighborhoods/places to stay from those who are from there or have visited would be greatly appreciated!

xo

K

cruel summer

Ah, summer!  So beautiful, and yet, so...hot.  And sticky.  And slow.  Summers are always slow for us.  Not the good slow as in, take a breath, enjoy life, go on vacation.  Slow as in, retail sales seem to grind to a halt.  Usually, Andy takes on other extra work in the summer to help make up for this.  But this summer, he has been working his tail off to launch his new career in real estate.

This has meant we've stuck pretty close to home.  Our long overdue visit to friends in NYC?  On hold.  Trips up north, and a visit to my parents in Colorado?  No can do.

But it hasn't been all bad.  Though most of this summer has been hotter than usual, August has given us a bit of a break.  We've been able to turn off the air conditioning and even use the oven once in awhile.  So I made this tower of smitten kitchen salted chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

Backyard badminton has been excellent.

Hydrating with pink gin and tonics.

Enjoying beautiful late afternoon sunlight.

Naps with a snuggly old terrier.

And reading and drinking beer in a bubble bath.

I mean, seriously.  I really can't complain.  It's a very good life.  I hope your summer--whether jet-setting or staycationing (ugh)--has been delightful!

xo

k

the long weekend

I don't have a smartphone, so I don't do Instagram, but if I did, the long Memorial Day weekend would have looked something like this.

This shot is kind of typical of our summer weekends--Andy and me headed south into downtown Grand Rapids, laughing smugly at the cottage-bound traffic jam headed in the opposite direction (in this case, they were lake-bound).  Since we live on a lake already, there's no mad rush north or west for us.  (Do you like the crack in my windshield?  Keeping it real!)

Michigan beers and pinball at the Pyramid scheme.

Quality couch time with Lucy the dog.

We visited an out-of-town friend's chickens to feed them and collect eggs.

This little lady is also named Lucy, and I'm nearly as obsessed with her as I am with the canine Lucy.

Look!  She just hatched a baby chick...who did not want her photo taken, and tried to hide herself up in Lucy's wing.

Lucy the dog had, surprisingly, zero interest in the chickens.

We decided to give gardening--on a small, manageable scale--a go again.  Tomatoes, basil, rosemary, cilantro, petunias, marigolds, and a tiny lavender, pink, and white ground cover-y flower whose name I can't remember.  The lady behind the cash register was all, why are you taking a photo.  I thought the cart was cute.

Cobb salad season!  Well, salad season, period--but Cobb is the best!

xo

K

summer camp

My dad and a couple of stylish gals at Camp Don Bosco, late 1940s-early 1950s.

My parents sent me to summer camp in the mountains of Colorado when I was 12.  This was a somewhat traumatic experience for me.  It was the first time I was away from home for more than a night or two.

Recycled journal by StoriesDivinations on Etsy.

I was very homesick.  And when my parents sent me a box with my favorite stuffed animal in it, it made it worse!

1970s plaid-trimmed camp blouse, by simplicityisbliss on Etsy.

I did not know anyone at camp other than my sister, who was with the other nine-year-olds.  I was shy, gawky, and still somewhat tomboy-ish at age 12.  The other 12-year-old girls showed up at camp with lip gloss and hair dryers with which to blow dry their feathered 'dos.  They all seemed to know each other already.  And then I got my period.  It wasn't my first period, but I wasn't prepared for it.

Poison Ivy lip balm by ForStrangeWomen.

My grandmother, Edna, and my dad, camping in a teepee, 1940s.

There were horses at camp, but I seemed to be the single girl who did not harbor a fascination for these beasts.  I was terrified of falling off.  And if you're not already thinking "future sociopath," guess what camp activities I enjoyed and excelled at?  Yep.  Archery and rifle range.

Vintage Dinah Sheridan photo via Performing Arts / Artes Escénicas' Flickr stream.

But all my camping experiences were not miserable.  I had lots of fun times camping with my dad and friends in our Indian Princess/Trailmates groups.  (For those unfamiliar, this is a YMCA-sponsored father/daughter quality time program, a la the Girl Scouts.  Only lots more fun and with an unfortunate appropriation of Native American culture, though it looks like the Y is getting with the times and is now calling the program Adventure Guides and Princesses.)  Growing up in Colorado meant amazing camping opportunities in the world's most beautiful places, from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Sand Dunes. 

Cute little German cabins/cottages from MademoiselleChipotte.

After I moved to New York, camping trips meant escapes from the city with a large group of friends, sitting around the fire all night, drinking beer, and narrowly missing getting kicked out of the campsite for being too loud.  Oh, and there was also a spring break trip to New Orleans where we camped at a site within the city and heard gunshots.  This didn't phase us though.  We lived and went to school in the Bronx.

Vintage kerosene lantern, from calloohcallay.

Edna making camp coffee, 1950s.

I haven't camped since leaving New York, which is kind of odd, considering I live in Michigan--basically an outdoor wonderland.  The closest I've come is staying in a cabin at Legs Inn after a night of beer and Polish food!  And really, that's kind of my style of camping after all, I think.

xo

K

thank you, peppermint club

It's March--the month of my birth. I was born March 20th, the vernal equinox, and on the Pisces/Aries cusp, if you follow astrology (I don't). I share a birthday with such interesting people as Ovid (!), Henrik Ibsen, B.F. Skinner, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mr. Rogers, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Spike Lee, David Thewlis, and Mookie Blaylock. I was born in 1969 and my mom remembers watching the first moon landing with four-month-old me.

This is where it all started.

[photo is from the University City Public Library, via the Missouri Digital Heritage Archives]

My parents met in 1965 in St. Louis. They used to go dancing here at the Peppermint Club. My mom told me Ike and Tina Turner used to play there.

This is my lovely mom circa 1964. I love the giant Peter Pan collar.

Here's my handsome dad, circa 1963 or 1964, at college. I know I'll get this story all wrong, but I don't think my parents clicked immediately after their first date. Apparently there was a little dating of other people in between, but then they found each other again. I have a made-up scene in my head of my mom dancing with some other fella at the Peppermint Club and my dad getting jealous and realizing he'd better bust a move if he wanted to date my mom.

It turned out all right in the end. Here's Mom on her honeymoon with my dad. It is 1967 and they are at Big Spring State Park. It's the state park, so naturally she has teased her hair and is putting on lipstick. (I mock, but I would totally be doing the same.)

More honeymoon photos. Gosh, I wonder where my love of plaid came from?

Mom in a sweet plaid blouse.

A plaid jacket. (I love this look.)

Dad in plaid!

Heck, even Paw Paw (dad's dad) wore plaid. This photo is a couple months later, post-honeymoon.

Grandma Edna and my mom. I would totally wear my mom's outfit--print blouse, ankle-skimming jeans, pointy flats. I think I did wear this outfit all last summer! I am liking Mom's hair here, too. (Someday I'll have to do a post on Grandma Edna's amazing style.)

My favorite photo of my parents. How mod are these crazy kids?

Mom in their cherry red Volkswagen Bug.

Dad and Mom in Fort Campbell, Kentucky in 1967. Dad ran the bakery and mortuary on the base. An interesting combination. I'm loving my mom's maroon coat here. I feel like it might be corduroy, but that's because in the 1990s I wore a nearly identical one that was black corduroy.

And there's that sweet Bug, which would crash a couple years later (with infant me in it!). No casualties or major injuries except the Bug itself.

Special thanks to my mom who inspired this post by sending me a link to the Peppermint Club photo, and who dug up these amazing photos for me.

xo

K

city mouse or country mouse?

Having lived for 11 years in New York City, a part of me always has been, and still is, a City Mouse. Though I escaped the city to live in what is, essentially, the country, I still love my trips into "the city"--whether that be to visit friends in New York, my best friend in Detroit, or more frequently, downtown Grand Rapids.

Grand Rapids is not a big city, but its downtown is pretty thriving, especially lately. It seems like a new bar or restaurant opens every week. Saturday night was evidence of this. We went out to celebrate 900 sales on Etsy (yay! Thank you to our lovely customers), and had to drive around forever to find parking. Public transportation is one of the things I really miss about New York. Anyway, I wore this wonderfully lightweight 1950s dress with matching belt, and because the dress is fairly sheer, a vintage deep blue Van Raalte full slip underneath. The slip came from our big estate buy last summer. And I added this chalkware dogwood brooch, which I appropriated off another dress from that same estate buy.

Here's Andy, all dressed up in his favorite style: 1960s prep. As you can see, he also is sporting a new haircut. It's a little shorter than I like on him, but I think it goes well with his vintage plaid shirt.

We had a lovely night, meeting up later with friends for cocktails at my beloved Viceroy.

On Sunday we spent a little time on the lake. Here's Country Mouse me (and Lucy) in the canoe. I'm in my typical lake gear: swimsuit, gingham shirt as cover-up, water shoes, and giant hat. This was taken just after I had a small freakout about a bug that I had to remove from my decolletage.

Ah, nature.

I am not really an outdoorsy person. Well, I shouldn't say that. I'm not the type of outdoorsy person who likes: sports, loud and fast boats, heat and humidity, bugs.

I am the type of outdoorsy person who likes: slow paddles around the lake, hearing and watching the birds in the trees, shady walks in the woods, and floating in the lake with a bottle of beer.

Sunday was pretty bustling (with human life) on the lake. But there were other creatures, too.

There are always lots of dragonflies (one bug that doesn't bother me a bit!). This one caught a ride on the canoe.

I guess I love the city and the country. I'm very lucky to be able to get frequent tastes of both. I hope your weekend was lovely, wherever you spent it!

xo

K