Book Haul!

So, our local used book store had a tent sale this week. Buddy Holly and I didn't have time to go until yesterday, so pickings were kind of slim. There was a lot of Danielle Steel, Tom Clancy, Star Trek, and *shudder* the Left Behind series. But I did find some great books! We had car problems at the beginning of the month, so I had to leave a few behind *weeps* but am delighted with my bounty.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
This was on my to-read list. I've never read Patchett but it was recommended by Christina of Reader of Fictions, so I bought it.


The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
I love The Poisonwood Bible, so I was on the lookout for any of Kingsolver's works. So glad I found one!


Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
On my to-read list. I've wanted to watch the movie for a long time but have been waiting to read the book first. I'm uber-excited to have gotten a 1945 Little, Brown and Company edition! U.S. First Edition for a dollar SCORE!


Wobegon Boy by Garrison Keillor
Garrison Keillor and The Prairie Home Companion make me happy but I had no idea he wrote books. I'm hoping this turns out funny ha-ha.


September by Rosamunde Pilcher
I totally chose this book because of it's name. September is my favorite month. I was born in September. September ushers in Autumn, the best of all seasons. As it turns out, this novel is set in Scotland, which is also in its favor. Let's hope it lives up to its name!


I had been hoping to find a copy of L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle; I've been searching for that book for quite some time. I think eventually I will give up and just order it online but not yet. I have it in my head that there will be this wonderful, meet-cute moment in a little antique shop or quiet, out of the way book store where I'll happen upon the perfect edition for the perfect price. I'm strange.

A few of my favorite things II

Welcome to the second installment of my favorite things!

Okay, so it's no secret that I am in love with pretty much anything vintage, uhm, except vintage treatment of women. Ahem, anyway, make-up, hair, clothes, I love, love, love historical, vintage, and retro style. There are some especially great retro hairstyles. My hair is too fine and too short to ever pull off a Gibson-girl pompadour but a few styles I can pull off are:

• Italian Hair Taping: This lady has a fantastic youtube channel. All her hair treatments are natural and no heat, so good for your hair. She does a lot of historical and literature-based styles.

• Anne Boelyn: I love how elegant this looks, while still being super simple. P.S. isn't her accent the darlingest?!

• Headband Wrap: This is my go-to when I want my hair to curl. I have very fine, straight, unrelenting hair. I don't use heat on my hair and curlers just never seem to work, my hair falls flat. Somehow, this method seems to stick. I love wrapping my hair up like this in the morning when it's wet - it has a 1920's kind of vibe  (especially with a colored or beaded headband) - and I have great curls by lunch.

I love all things macabre. With Autumn coming on, my heart turns to Daphne Du Maurier, Alfred Hitchcock, and episodes of Suspense and The Whistler. I love a good chill, not out and out horror and certainly not gore-porn but the kind of suspense that makes you glad you're inside when night begins to fall. But I adore silly scary too. The Haunted Mansion has always been my favorite attraction at Disney (followed closely by The Tower of Terror). I can recite the entire monologue of the Ghost Host and it's a dream of mine to one day own this costume via NeverBugCreations on Etsy:

I adore the Addams Family and was known as Wednesday to a number of my childhood friends' parents because I looked so much like Christina Ricci's incarnation of her. And, in potentially the darkest expression of my morbid humor, Edward Gorey. I love Edward Gorey. He's so damn dark and it is hilarious. Any man that can create an entire alphabet of children's gruesome deaths is okay in my book.


The Lizzie Bennet Diaries! I only recently came upon this remarkable and totally brilliant modern adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. Told through a series of vlogs and twitter/tumblr/pinterest accounts, we're following the classic Austen tale told with new voices and some new twists. So wonderful!

I saw this today and loved it so:

Web comics! Egads, I love web comics. My daily feed includes:

Book of Biff
Girls With Slingshots
Hark! A Vagrant
Maximumble
Minimumble
Ozy & Millie (even though it's completed)
Survivng the World
XKCD


Remember that whole vintage thing we were talking about at the beginning of this post (wow, that was forever ago, huh?)? Well, I love old architecture too, especially art deco. I'm in the midst of a novel and, in my research, learned about the World Theatre in Kearney, Nebraska. This old theatre sat empty for a number of years, run down and apparently haunted. It has been completely renovated and returned to its former retro glory. Since opening at the beginning of the Summer, their showings have included Grease, The Goonies, and The Princess Bride. I've never wanted to be in Nebraska more.


I love the Infinity wrap or the Octopus dress. Lots of people make/sell these but I found mine at CoralieBeatrix on Etsy. I love having one piece of clothing that can do the work of a hundred plus. So many pretty things can be done with this dress.

I love celebrities that aren't too famous for you. This seems to happen a lot in the nerd/fringe genres...or maybe that's just where my attention lies. I keep tabs on the likes of Nathan Fillion (who's big thing is making sure kids read) and Wil Wheaton (who, with his wife, is very active in animal rescue). And, my most recent fangirl moment, Mike Nelson, of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame, wished me a happy birthday!

I love unique perfumes. I'm not a fan of brand-anything really. I had the pleasure of creating my own perfume at the Molinard perfumery in Grasse, France and they keep the recipes on file, so you can have more made at any time. I am hoping to add these two to my collection in the future:

• Burning Leaves
• Paper Passion

Classic/Folk female vocalists. I like classical music well enough. I don't listen to it regularly but I enjoy some Philip Glass and Eric Copeland when they come around. But there is something about Celtic, folky, classical female vocalists that fill me up with happy. Maybe part of it is that some little dream inside me wants to be doing what they are. Enya's great, Celtic Woman is powerful, and Sarah Brightman has got some pipes but my heart belongs to Sissel Kyrkjebo and Hayley Westenra. For serious, these ladies can sing. Sissel is Norwegian and so my love for her is two-fold (I'm a fourth generation Norge) and Hayley is a BAMF kiwi, she gets props.

I feel like my list of favorite things is pretty girly. I'm going to attempt to make my next installment more manly. It will probably include brownies.

Sunday in New York

Another favorite movie during this crisp Autumn time is Sunday in New York. This 1963 sex comedy stars Jane Fonda as Eileen, who has taken a leave of absence from work to visit her brother in New York after being thrown over by boyfriend, Russ. The crux of the break up was Eileen's resistance to premarital relations and Russ isn't the first beau she's lost to her old-fashioned ideals. Eileen is convinced she's the last 22-year old virgin on Earth. Eileen's brother Adam, a philandering airline pilot, swears he himself is as virtuous and that her suppositions of commonplace immorality are all wrong. In the course of her first Sunday visiting, Eileen meet-cutes Mike (Rod Taylor) on a 5th Avenue bus. They spend the afternoon together and, after getting caught in a downpour, make a run back to brother Adam's apartment to dry off and have some hot drinks. It is during their afternoon's conversation that Eileen finds the negligee of one of Adam's girlfriends in the closet and she realizes his lie to her. Fired up by her brother's betrayal and tried of being protected, Eileen makes a pass at Mike, which he gladly accepts, until he realizes this is her first rod-eo (cowboy). Cut to the pair in bathrobes, Eileen on the couch crying and Mike stalking around the apartment, smoking like a chimney. A girl has to start somewhere but it's not going to be with him. While recovering from their failed seduction and Mike waxing eloquent that Eileen's a nice girl and should stay that way, Russ (boyfriend) appears and eagerly proposes to his berobed love, before turning to Mike and greeting him as Adam, presuming him to be Eileen's brother. Well, the ruse would work just fine, but, of course, actual-Adam now appears and has to be played off as a friend to fake-Adam-Mike. Actual-Adam is quick to pick up on the situation and none too happy at the idea of his sister alone in the apartment with a strange man. Farce ensues as the trio struggles with how to tell Russ about the mistaken identities without losing the marriage proposal.

Mistress Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

I'm no green thumb. My love for nature is strong for wild scapes and unkempt tangles, forests, overgrown gardens, and wildflower meadows. Bordered walks and garden beds are not my cup of tea. Don't get me wrong, gardens are beautiful and it is an art form to be able to effectively plan and maintain them. I especially love Japanese style gardens. But I am not particularly good at cultivation. I am not a horticulturalist, you might say. My mother is and all my knowledge of gardening comes from her and I yet rely heavily on her skill. Fall however, is my favorite time to garden because Fall gardening means bulbs and bulbs mean mostly easy to maintain perennials! Seriously, you take a bulb and you put it in the dirt and then in March or April you have flowers, for years. So easy. I love it. It's like a springtime surprise, especially because you've probably forgotten what you planted.

So anyway, I bought bulbs the other day to plant in the two planters on either side of our mailbox. They are currently chilling in the fridge (haha, get it, chilling because it's cold...but also because they're hanging out...and... okay...) because it's still in the 80s and bulbs need cool weather to put them to sleep for the winter. I bought some golden ducat daffodils, which are lovely. Everyone loves daffodils, they're the golden heralds of Spring. I also bought some Queen of the Night tulips, also known (incorrectly) as black tulips. Such a gorgeous plum color and I am very excited to meet them next spring. While the bulbs wait for a dip in the temperature, I will be digging up the hastas from the back yard and planting a Persian lilac. [Side note: did you know hasta is Latin for 'spear'? Hastas bloom purple buds at the tip of long, thin, stalks, somewhat akin to spears. Just fyi.] I adore lilacs and viburnum and flowers that give off delicious fragrance. I couldn't find a viburnum bush but will keep looking (I intend to replace a boxwood in the front with viburnum). So, the lilac is going in as soon as I find time to transplant it because I want it to develop some more root structure before winter. I started with one, I'm concerned it won't make it through the winter and it was $16. If it thrives, I'll get more next year.

Come spring I'm hoping to rip out yet another boxwood (I hate boxwood) and replace it with lavender and lambs ear, as well as a mint patch lining the driveway. If I could figure out a way of adding tiger lilies to this odd assortment of flowers, I would. Or bleeding hearts, so pretty. They don't have a scent but I always thought they should.

P.S. Just in case you don't know the rhyme:
Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
how does your garden grow?
With silver bells
and cockle shells
and pretty maids all in a row.

Kindred Seasons

It's October. When did that happen?

Saturday. That's when.