Valentines

My husband brought home several bound volumes of magazines from 1959 {there are perks to dating a guy who knows his way around all of the special collection libraries}. There is nothing hotter than a phone call like this, "hey, I'm in the fine arts library. Can I bring you something?"

SUPER HOT. I embrace my nerdiness.

Anyway, each volume contains an entire year of the publication. I have had the most fun flipping though the pages. My initial goal was to just look at the ads for furniture and decor ideas from 1959 to help refine my searches for stuff for my house, born the same year. But there's a ton of inspiration fodder in each volume.


Tomorrow, these will be due and I'm trading them in for Vogue and the second volume of Mademoiselle for 1959 and maybe Harpers and....you get the idea.


I love this coat. It would be perfect over a suit for work or a dress for dinner. I mean, damn. It's classic, looks like Halston and, according to the ad, could be mine with the assistance of Marty McFly for like 20 bucks or something. I Googled the designer and did an eBay search for it. Nothing. One coat on Etsy, but it's not the same one.


I love this ad from the NYTimes that promises to put readers, "on top of events wherever they are hatching." It reminds me of Eric Carle books. And the newsprint is so clever. It inspires me to make stationary with paper cut outs.


Love the chair behind her and just being immersed in the blue. The ad was for the bedspread for 10 bucks.

This ad was for a raceway. So clever. But it would make a great Valentine if cropped and printed on pale pink card-stock, served in a silver envelope. Yes.




Another Times ad that ran in The New Yorker.

I love the simplicity of this ad and as Bob Ross would say, "the happy little trees."

I photograph weddings from time to time.
This shot is so great and inspires me to do some kicky engagement shots. I've been wanting to shoot a threshold shot for a while and this photo is so great...innocent with an edge.
The text was, "You get the license...I'll get the Lenox," which is a bit ridiculous and you can tell that the license nor the Lenox was on either of their minds.
I like a good cup and saucer myself, but, come on.


I have been searching for this font -or something like it- for a few months. Can' t you just see Teaworthy written in that font? I love it. I wear Philosophy's Falling In Love and the box has a similar font and I obsess about how to get that font inside my Mac so that my voice can sound all fabulous in it.



This ad promises wool to be the best for knitting. I changed the focal point and cut off her head when I photographed it a.) becauseI think it makes it a better ad and b.) because I dig it.
That could be me there knitting.
It could be you.
We could be knitting that for you.
The possibilities are endless.


Where oh where have all of the LaVerne and Shirley "L"s gone?
I love these "L"s.
L is my favorite letter.
Hands down.


Again, cropped the photo.
Such inspiration for a wedding shot.
I WILL shoot something like this this summer.
Very exciting.


From a Chanel ad of course. Thanks Coco.

Here's to magazines, and chocolate, and passion and insight.

And thanks to my guy who has always been able to see and understand the shape of my heart.

The Lloyd Dobbler Career Plan

Here's a new post for Skirt!

Cha Cha Cha

Love this shoot from the amazing Davina Fear.

It captures that feeling of just moving in together and so much more. I love the dance photos - light and movement - the ones taken outside the window, and from a distance. So great.

I've been experimenting lately with setting up scenes inside the house to photograph while I stand outside. It is so much fun, like setting up a diorama, but so challenging.

Taking The Time

I discovered that someone I have long admired for her many talents writes in a thoughtful blog. In looking through her past posts, I wanted to share this inspiring eulogy. I can only hope to live my life with such grace.

And, when you finish the box of Kleenex, her post here is so clever and funny.

Clippings from the Sunday Papers

From the NYTimes weddings section on Sunday about the couple's first date:

"It was pouring when they left the club. Mr. Blangiardo offered to find Ms. Chu a cab, but she was more interested in his parked yellow BMW motorcycle.

Unknown to him, she had a motorcycle license in California, where she lived before moving to New York in 2003. “I missed it, so when I had the opportunity to take a ride, I went for it,” she said.

He was impressed. “What other 5-foot-tall woman in an evening gown would do this?” he said. “I was sold.”

That conviction deepened as time passed. When he first saw her apartment, he was struck by the bathing suits hanging to dry, the surfboards and the cello. “I thought, ‘Wow, a Renaissance woman’ ” he said.

As for Ms. Chu, she recalled that as a child she made a list of qualities she would seek in a prospective husband. It included “knows how to cook, loves the outdoors and children — and has blue eyes.”

“It was incredible that his characteristics and my list coincided,” she said.

It's a bit unfair that the author of the piece doesn't get a by-line. I'm sure they got lots of information from the couple, but the writer made some great choices about what to feature. Bathing suits, surfboards and a cello...
It's a perfect stage, like a back-lit diorama. The curtain opens and you are there in her apartment in just three nouns.

And, for a story that will remind you of the couples from When Harry Met Sally, Friday's Storycorp is very sweet. But, if you have the time, click the little speaker icon to listen to the couple in their own words.

A long distance dedication

It rained for days.
You packed tiny speakers and plugged them into a discman that played this CD. I looked down at the street, that looked much like this one, and felt like my heart would fall into the river drop by drop if I couldn't stay with you.
Years later, you played this song when you proposed and you couldn't finish the question before I said yes.
Thank you for asking and for making my heart so full.
happy anniversary.

C'est Si Bon: Paris, Je T'aime

After two years of Johnson & Johnson, Graco and Pampers, it's hard to remember that before Elmo, my first date with my husband was on the left bank in Paris. Having a child has been a great love affair as well. But it's hard to carve out emotional space and time that is just for the two of us when our hearts are so full of our little girl.

Paris, Je T'aime reminded me of my first introduction to the love of my life and helped me see Paris from a new vantage point, the same way Amelie did in 2001.

Like a collection of short stories, 18 different directors filmed one piece about love in and with Paris. Each story takes place in a different neighborhood of the city. If one short doesn't speak to you, hang on for 6 minutes or so and it's over and then you are on to the next. It works almost like looking into doll house windows to see moments of love simultaneously happening throughout the city.

Here's the trailer:



If you can't make it to the theater, here are links to a few of the stories in their entirety. Thanks YouTube. Wes Craven, of all people, has one of the sweetest stories, but I couldn't find a link to it.

Here are 3 of the 18.
1. Alexander Payne's 14th Arrondissement. I love this one. Her French sounds about like mine.
2. Tom Tykwer's Faubourg Saint-Denis.
3. Gurinder Chadha's (sorry, no English sub-titles) Quais de Seine.

PS: The beautiful song in the trailer available in French (La Meme Histoire) or English (We're All In the Dance) is from Feist.

Seaworthy Living

About once every 6 months or so, our 1300 square foot stone cottage starts to swell. You can almost see the house's pulse from the street. I re-arrange and re-organize and purge clutter and try to set up new play areas for my daughter's toys, the dog's toys, the cat's neuroses, my husband's books and my bags. And then, I start feeling antsy under the pressure, and before I know it, I'm wandering over to the local Realtor website of area listings.

Of the thousands of listings, there is usually only one that peaks my interest and then I obsess about it, decide that ultimately it won't work for some reason or another, and then re-commit to the cottage, promising to be a better resident, devoted to finding new creative solutions to the challenges of a small space. I have always dreamed of living at sea, and this is a nice trial run at togetherness. We just need those nautical cabinets in the house with latches to secure everything and clean off the surfaces.

A year ago, we found the perfect house for us and it sold within 5 hours of going on the market. But in retrospect, we were secretly relieved that it sold so fast, because if it hadn't, and we were actually confronted with all of that space, it would have been a difficult decision.

For all of the challenges of a small house, I am comforted that no one is ever alone in the cottage, that one load of laundry can make the entire house smell like clean cotton, that cooking in our kitchen is always done elbow to elbow. You can't stay mad at anyone in the cottage because, like being on a boat, there's just not space to walk away. Music is shared. Dancing is encouraged. Cuddles are sometimes accidental. But it's home.

I just have to remind myself, each time I feel an impluse to take on more of a mortgage, how wonderful it is to have a cozy English cottage that we can fill up with books and tea and brio trains.