Daddy's Little (Hairy) Helper

I went to the grocery store today, and this is what I saw just outside the sliding-glass doors:

A yellow Lab, no leash on her, waiting patiently on a patio chair drawn right up to the front doors:

I snapped a few fast shots (this one is underexposed--I only had a moment!):

Then a man came out of the store with two bags of groceries. He handed one to the dog, and as jaws dropped, the two of them made their way through the parking lot:

What a good dog!

Kate Spade Polka Dots

Kate Spade continues to crank out adorable china collections. Here's her letter-A mug from a series of alphabet plates and mugs. Every letter has a different color and pattern, but of course I love the dotted ones best:

This is her random-dot version of a kitchen-utensil crock. I don't need it, but I SO want to buy it for somebody:

The tins hold four large-sized cookie cutters. I don't need extra cookie cutters, either, but I'm tempted to buy them, just to get my hands on the tin:

(Just a small quibble, Kate: Ampersand-shaped cookies will be a b**ch to slide off a hot cookie sheet.)

And her randomized polka-dot plates. And bowls with snap-style lids:

 I want them all!

Vintage Linens

Recently I scored some vintage linens at very reasonable prices--some of them just $1 each! They need to be washed and bleached, but that's no big deal.

I love using vintage linens in my powder room. They look great if they're ironed all crispy-flat, and they look great if they're air-dried all wrinkly and shabby-chic-y.

I think they're easier on the environment than the one-use paper ones. (Honestly? I'm not 100 percent sure.)

But I'm sticking with them, regardless. I prefer all-white linens over colored ones or those with colored threads, because I can bleach the dickens out of the all-white ones. They come out clean and glowing. And because they're made with linen--or a cotton/linen blend--they last like crazy. I have linens that date from the 1950s, and they still look terrific.

These linens are in their pre-washed, pre-bleached phase, just the way I bought them.

Junk shops, resale shops, and yard sales are good places to scout for vintage linens. Sometimes, like these, they need some TLC to bring them bleach away the years and bring them back to their beauty.

But they're worth it. I just adore the way old linens look and feel when they're brought back to life.

Apparently, so does Mu Shu.

Reclaiming a Roadside Offering

Recently I cleaned out our outside storage room and put a lot of castoffs on the curb, hoping folks would take them away. There were broken patio chairs, an old stroller--that sort of stuff.

Everything got carted off. All but this one thing:

It's a sort of a glorified hurricane lamp, I guess. I used to put a pillar candle inside it and use it outdoors on summer nights. It was pretty once, but then the plastic panels got all yellowed and one of them just died. But it did have a sweet bird on top:

I realized the ugly plastic panels were the problem.

And maybe a little overall grubbiness:

So I hauled it back from off the curb, pulled off (and tossed) all the plastic panels, and gave the thing a good cleanup:

Then I set it on the front porch next to a new fern in an old pot, on top of a cute old sideboard I bought for very little cash and painted a couple shades of periwinkle blue:

The hurricane lamp-turned-decorative-object looks so much better now!

And I think that little bird on the top is smiling.

First Day of School

Lots of people right now are posting on FaceBook their "first-day-of-school" photos of their children. They're all so darling. We took those pictures, too. Our tradition was to pose each child in front of the car that took them to school. 

So this is my Lovely Daughter #1, through the years. First day of grade school:

First day of junior high:

Argh! I can't find first day of high school or college!

But here's the first day of medical school:

And, because she knew I'd love it, she had The Boyfriend take a photo on her first day of work as a medical doctor:

In front of the hospital-run bus that drove her to the hospital. Now I'd better find some photos of my other kids doing the same, or they'll kill me!

Happy first days of school, everyone.