a site for {uninspired} eyes

With nearly 3 weeks since my last post, I feel like I needed to at least surface and say hello! Thank you for checking on me. Everything is well here, just very hectic. I have my mother in law coming to stay with us for 17 days, starting 6.1, and we have been rearranging the house because our TV went out and hubs insisted on buying a large TV which necessitated the purchase of a media console, which necessitated losing at least one piece of furniture in the living and family rooms, which made for loads of rearranging and tweaking and condensing and spring cleaning. Whew. No pics yet as we're still not done. And when we are done, it won't be that exciting so don't get your hopes up. Anyways, I just bumped into this site today: http://abeachcottage.tumblr.com {for some reason I cannot get it to link!} and thought I'd share. I'm not a beachy decor person per se, but with these lovely pictures to inspire, who cares what the style is called? Hope you enjoy....

{discoveries}

vintage blue & gold chocolate tin: $2.50





Vintage french transferware plates $8.50 each
Robins egg blue plates: $2 Marshall's specials



$10 garage sale mirror, free picture ledge-turned-faux-mantle from my parents, $7 robins egg blue platter from Marshall's and leather pouf from Morocco (gift from sis & moroccan husband)


Amazing beaded crystal sconces: $20 each at Home Goods
Antique butter pats above them: $1 each at an estate sale

Old books: $1 each various garage and estate sales

Antique sugar bowl: $3 Goodwill


Little robins egg blue chalkboard: $5

So surprised to discover that I have an unintentional ironstone sugar bowl collection.... hilarious. See what happens when you tweak your house??? What's been your latest score?

p.s. For an absolutely amazing home tour, hop over to Maison Douce and check this out:

http://isabellang.blogspot.com/2009/05/oh-happy-day.html

{smitten/tangents}

My love affair with blue goes on... it was reignited when I bought two vintage french blue transferware plates {pics to come soon} during out trip to Monterey at this place, the site of some serious shopping:








Could you just die for this plate? I have never seen anything like it!!!







But, as I get older, I give myself permission more and more to go all white, maybe with just a hint of color:







It's hard to do in my house with my leather and tapestry couch and chair and heavy antique wood dining table, but I work it in wherever I can and when in doubt, I paint it white. When I am buying something new for the house, I choose white. It all started when I was a little girl visiting family in Ohio, and we went into this place called 'Lenora & Larissa'. I'll never ever forget it. Everything was white, old linens, huge feathery beds, creaky wood floors, lavender and powder scents in the air, I was in heaven. I never forgot the feeling that store gave me. As I said, as I get older I give myself permission to go all white. I can't wait till I'm living {someday, not soon} in an all white environment. Yum.

But I'm also loving the bohemian granny chicness of these images, most from Atlanta Bartlett:






How nice to have choices! Hope you're all well. My sister is in labor so I'm playing the waiting game. Hope to have an update soon!

Love,
Kari

i've lost it...

... my mojo that is.

It all started innocently enough. I was preparing for a 4 day work/vacation in Monterey with the hubs and kids for hubs company's annual shareholders meeting. {Translation: Hubs works 14 hour days for like 3 weeks preparing for this and then works all day Friday and part of Saturday and has Sunday off in Monterey. Company puts us up in a big fancy shmancy suite and gifts us massages and tickets to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to make up for crazy work hours.} Fun, but not a total vacation if you know what I mean. Still great, who would've paid for our suite otherwise? This time I got smart, I took a nanny {translation: our 13 year old baby sitter} with us who was all to happy to help me with the kids while John worked in exchange for loot and great company parties and beach BBQs.

So I digress. All the preparing led me to no blogging. Then the actual vacation happened and I'm a freak and won't announce on my blog that I'm out of town, so that explains that part of the absence. But then we got back and the laundry piled up and the toys were screaming to be purged and reorganized and darn it if the pantry didn't *beg* me to be moved and rearranged again. And then I thought, what the heck will I blog about anyways? I have no projects completed, I'm too lazy to upload all our vacation photos. What. Do. I. Do?

So, I did this: Nothing. And you know what? It felt pretty good. So since you've now read {if you're not snoring by now} 4,356 words of mine with no pretty pictures or POINT, I am going to post random non-sensical fabulousness I've collected recently online. Hope you enjoy. And yes, I got 2 awards in my absence and right now I am so tired I can't even find the images to post and then forward to 20 people. Please forgive me. I hope I find my mojo soon. You'll be the first to know when I do. Thanks for checking in on a sista and everything. Y'all are the best.









p.s. If I stole one of the above images from your blog, I sincerely apologize. I cannot for the life of me keep track of where I get things from. I save them for my own enjoyment then when I'm desperate for something to post on, like now, I scrounge them up. My sincerest apologies if I offended you or committed a faux-pas.