Coming Up Roses

Another one of my stellar thrift finds from Wednesday's excursions. Flowered patterns never really interested me until this year, and the antique-couch-cover feeling of this print is absolutely perfect. To make it even better, it buttons all the way down the front and has pockets!

I made this tank out of a men's tee that was enormous on me, and am extremely satisfied with it.

"God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December."
James Matthew Barrie

I was fiddling around with the skirt on Thursday night and I came up with this.

This clutch is my all time favorite bag. I have no idea where it came from, but it has the most gorgeous bright orange silk lining. Sadly, I rarely get to use it because it doesn't fit very much and I tend to carry a million things with me.

Vintage rose patterned skirt, black Target skirt, handmade grey tank, vintage shoes, random clutch, gifted earrings

"There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted."
Henri Matisse

On an unrelated note, I picked up my first ever copy of Nylon yesterday and it was spectacular. Must subscribe!

MY JEOPARDY AUDITION IS TODAY AT THREE P.M. AND I AM FREAKING OUT. WISH ME LUCK!

The New Love Of My Life

This is the dress Luke most wonderfully gifted me with on Sunday.

It is shapeless and soft and breezy and perfect.

I plan on never taking it off.

This dress is the definition of my ideal summer wardrobe. I took these pictures on Memorial Day, it was the most glorious evening weather.

h&m dress, forever 21 sunnies, random peace sign necklace

view from the hotel window

the lazy bumblebee humming of jets beyond the
iron balcony reminds me that this paradise is
far from secluded - although the palm trees
that sway in a lazy merengue on the sloping
grass, looking oddly like
Marfan sufferers with their spindly trunks
and tufty heads, do make up quite
a picturesque foreground for
the smug silver blurs that smear a pastel
sunset into a glinting, endless stroke of
utopian light.

New love of my life + being barefoot + flowers + long shower + new face wash + cool spring twilight + pastel sky + poem that reminds me of California and spring = a perfect evening.

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I have returned!

The choir trip was... well, I hesitate to say fun. It was truly exhausting, with a few really fantastic and awesome moments.
The sleep depravity and disgustingly hot weather was made entirely worthwhile by...

... the fact that my select female chorus won best overall vocal group at the entire competition!

We were all so excited when they announced it. We jumped up screaming and clapping and hugging each other.
It felt so satisfying and wonderful.



When I speak of the most wonderful time of the year, I of course am talking about the annual book sale at the public library in my town.
Everyone in town donates all their old books, which are then amassed in the basement of the library, shoved into boxes, and available for you to sort through.
Everything costs between fifty cents and two dollars, and they always have the most insane selection of books. I mean, literally, thousands of books.

See my spoils above.
If you've read any of them, let me know what you think!

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Oedipus Plays by Sophocles
A Cup of Tea by Amy Ephron
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Requiem for a Lost Empire by Andrei Makine
The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd
Hotel Sarajevo by Jack Kersh
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Inferno by Dante
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass
Embers by Sandor Marai
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
two copies of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (one regular, one fancy and linen bound with illustrations)

I think I might love books more than I love anything else.



Except maybe for this vintage blazer Karla is wearing in her latest post.
I am in love with it.
Possibly the coolest item of clothing I have ever seen in my life.



A dress like this one from Forever 21 is at the top of my wishlist right now.
Strapless, flawlessly structured, with a big romantic floral print.

The photos I posted above (from weheartit) are so soft and lazy and balmy.
Like the weather right now, but much prettier.

A more substantial post will come soon, I promise. But right now I'm running on about fourteen hours of sleep in three days, my house is unbearably stuffy, and I have to write an essay for English even though I left my books and notes at school. Phenomenal.

Enjoy the last bit of your weekend!