wearing white

one of my favorite things about warm weather

do as hens do

This past weekend was my "hen do" in Charleston with all of my bridesmaids [sans Ashley :( she's pregnant!] and my mother and godmother. It could not have been a more perfect weekend. We stayed at a cozy hotel, ate excellent dinners and brunches, went to the beach, and had heaps of champagne. Exactly what I needed.

re-released

ohmygoodnessgracious. they re-released these and I stilllll can't afford them.

P A R N A S S U S

Over the past year, I've watched a tragic domino effect as bookstores in Nashville hit the decline - slowly losing one after the other. The only bookstores that seemed to have held on are the indie favorites - like Rhino, Bookman-Bookwoman, and Elders - all of whom specialize in used books. However, the demand for locating a new book and enjoying the instant gratification of finding one is slim to none. No longer are the days of heading to our local Borders to wander amongst the literature section only to choose a book based on cover alone [you know you do that. we all do that.]. Instead, we begrudgingly resort to Amazon...only to wait days for our purchases to arrive in the mail. 

And, don't even get me started on the electronic readers! I may be old-fashioned, but I like to doggie-ear my books to mark my spot. I love to write occasional notes for my possible predecessor or occasionally underline lines I found extra clever. How might one do that on a kindle? It's heartbreaking, really.

Therefore, you can imagine the PURE JOY I experienced whilst learning of a new independent bookstore that opened up in Green Hills - it was intense. This Monday, I finally began my search and found it, literally nestled amongst a nail salon and a sushi restaurant. Parnassus Books, you're everything I've been missing. What's not to love about you? Your upright piano? Your children's section, complete with tiny doorway into a world of illustrations? You're wonderful and we're really glad you're here.

wall of art books + doorway to children's section

don't you just want to crawl in there?

piano time

cute gift section...complete with alice cuff and other literary-inspired jewelry

good die young

This past week, my little brother and his group of friends lost a close friend, for lack of a better phrase, in a ''freak accident''. Below are some thoughtful words written by an amazing writer and friend of my brother, Mack Burgess. How odd and often tragedy brings people together...possibly more than anything else. Although the contents of this blog are typically on the lighter side, this was something weighing on my heart and mind. 

For Eddy, An Essay

by Mack Burgess

As of this writing, a dear friend’s body rests peacefully in a hospital bed in Gainesville, Florida.  Though his heart is beating and his lungs are breathing, there is no life to speak of there.  It’s sad and confusing, and makes my soul heavy and my head hard to think.  Strictly speaking, I do not understand what constitutes “life,” but what I know is that mine and many others’ have now an indescribable emptiness that will remain agape for the rest of our lives.   

The tragic thoughts and visions of my friend’s death are still very fresh in my head, and perhaps now is much too early to try to wield any meaning out of the whole terrible experience, but frankly, writing is the only kind of therapy that has ever done me any good.  This is hardly light reading material and I understand if this isn’t the kind of thing you’re looking for here, but if you so care, I’d like to share with you some thoughts on that awful day and what one might take away.

People that go so young and so soon leave an incredible, albeit tragic, impact on those around them.  It makes you think extremely hard about their life and what it means for the rest of us.  When tragedy strikes, we all reach desperately around in the dark for something to grab; something to hold onto that gives the whole awful experience some kind of meaning.  I don’t know if I’ve found it yet, and perhaps I never will.  All I can do is live a life my dear friend would have wanted me to live.

I don’t know whether he is in a "better place," as spiritual folks often like to say.  I know it makes me feel a great deal better to think so.  And I think if such a place exists, he is certainly there.  But if there’s anything dear Eddy wanted us to focus on, it was THIS place.  The place he loved with all his being.  The place for which he made incredible and inspiring sacrifices.  The place on which we live.  

This place is now missing someone that made it a great deal better.  It’s incomprehensible how someone who loved and cared for this place so much had to leave it so early.  Eddy was a steward of the planet earth; a shepherd.  He taught me a lot about what it means to really live here; to coexist.  And hopefully, if anything positive is to come from his tragic and premature departure, it will be that others will observe his example, and learn to treat this place with the same love and care that poured from Eddy’s soul onto the small, green earth.

We no longer have dear Eddy.  What we have are wonderful thoughts and memories, and what is life if not these precious breaths of mind?  What is life if not a recollection of experience?  Whether or not he resides in that better place that makes us all feel so much better about earthly departure to invoke, Ryan Edwards is eternal in the thoughts and memories he’s left behind.   We will think of him often and with all the fondness of his spirit.  Not the way he was, but the way is.  Ryan Edwards was life in the most real and meaningful way.  I am him.  And so are you.

I feel blessed and cursed to have been with him in his final moments.  This kind of thing takes a toll on a person, I’ve come to find, and while I don’t want the focus of this to be on me at all, I feel compelled to share some thoughts on what my dear friend might like me to say in his place:

Live within your means.  Take what you need and then give.  Care not just for things and people living now, but for those living here in the future.  Life is about togetherness and community.    In short, live for others.  The rest is bull****.  

These are rough recollections of things he often said.  His countless friends will attest.  He had an incredible way of imparting fundamental truisms between the bogus and self-centered conversations that so often plagued the rest of us.  His favorite word might have been “sustainable,” which, in his final days he made sure I understood meant “capable of lasting forever,” in the literal sense.  He was passionate about organic agriculture and truly sustainable energy futures, and these are subjects on which we often spoke.  Looking back, it moves me to think how badly he wanted us to understand perfectly the denotation of that word.  Take from it whatever you will.

I’d like to remember him the way an old greek chose to remember his late friend.  I found this poem and wept.  How amazing is this ability, even so long ago, to capture what it feels like to lose a loved one.  I suppose this feeling, too, might be sustainable.

“They told me, Heraclitus; they told me you were dead.

They brought me bitter news to hear, and bitters tears to shed.

I wept when I remembered how often you and I

Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,

A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,

Still are thy pleasant voices, they nightingales, awake;

For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.”  

Rest easy, dear friend.  I love you.

miu miu make-up

karlie kloss  

i'd live here...M O N D A Y S

hutches and wardrobes and cabinets OH MY!

n e e d l e p o i n t

I cannot deal with these needlepoint details from balmain fw 2012...holy moly.

impressive gifts

When I was in high-school, I worked at a tiny embroidary and monogramming shop down the street called Sew What. That was in 2002. Now, they've moved locations and grown into one of the best custom monogramming shops in Nashville. As a gift from my old boss and close family friend, Jeanie designed me a wedding monogram to go along with the 20's theme of my wedding. It flows really well with my save the date and invitation. I'll probably use it on the programs and maybe the rehearsal dinner invites. So beautiful and creative :)

all growed up

Last week the vet found a cancerous growth on Flower's side so she's in surgery today at the animal hospital. Because my dogs were litermates and typically stuck together like glue, Bowser is having a bit of a struggle today without his sister. I found this picture of him as a puppy when we first got him...and took the second picture of him today...pouting on the floor. I cannot believe they're almost two years old. My little man isn't so little anymore :(

thakoon addition

the. whole. damn. collection. here.

we'd probably be really great friends

I'm not quite sure how I came to find Mallory's blog, Where The Lovely Things Are, but I can confidently say it is one of my favorites in my reader. Each and every post she writes...I wish I had curated it myself. She is a fellow children's book lover and fashion enthusiast...and therefore I'm a huge fan. She's also a fellow Nashvillian and if we were to ever meet, I'd assume I'd want to be friends forever and demand access to her vast book collection. This recent post about ladies in red from past movies is quite wonderful. AND this might be my most favorite illustration post: Tales from the Ballet. Somebody find me this book...the illustrations are so dreamy.

i'd live here...M O N D A Y S

Anytime I see black/white-checkered anything, I immediately think of Lynny's favorite store in NYC - Mackenzie-Childs. She collects their enamel kitchenwares - all covered in, you guessed it, checks. At first, I was indifferent on the print, but it has grown on me over the years. If only these walls were actually enamel - or even porcelain! I especially like it in smaller spaces - like the bathroom or as the kitchen backsplash :)

Over my twenty-something years of life, I've come to appreciate the idea of quality over quantity. I think this shows true when it comes to my selection of handbags. It all started with my very 1st black, leather Anna Corinna bag - which I bought at Wink in Soho YEARS ago. It is my favorite purse of all time because of its functionality and the softness of the leather. From that purchase forward, I decided to only buy based on durability and quality of materials...and perhaps the need for things to be somewhat aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Therefore, I began to rid myself of the trendier, cheaper purchases I had previously made and focused more building a collection of quality, staple bags.

Anna Corinna, soon after, joined forces with fellow designer, Dana Foley only to start the line Foley + Corinna. I have since bought two more of her bags [one brown and a smaller grey version] and some other favorites. While I think it's silly to pay $1000s for a handbag, I do think paying somewhere in the  middle ground for a quality is okay. With that said, I respect designers that embrace the middle ground of prices - making their bags somewhat affordable - i.e. Rebecca Minkoff, Kate Spade, Marc Jacobs, and Tano leather handbags which can be purchased at Fire Finch in Hillsboro Village [Nashville]. I'm also a huge fan of vintage handbags. If you're afraid of buying vintage, purses and clutches are where to start [I also like vintage silk scarves :) ]. I love my vintage, woven bucket bag that I bought at Stella Dallas vintage in NYC...it was $14.

 anna corinna #1

 foley + corinna #2

 mini rebecca minkoff

 basically holds my iPhone, ID, and lipstick. love it for concerts.

 marc details

 vintage fendi clutch loey bought me at the attic in columbus, ms. 

she has its white counterpart. #besties

 current friend named kate.

 vintage woven bucket bag from Stella Dallas Vintage

 tano leather bags are Q U A L I T Y. trust.

 patent green marc