Preppy Love

L-R, T-B

Women's Authentic Original Two-Eye Boat Shoe, Whales by Enormous Champion at Heath Ceramics, Lands' End Canvas, Route 63 Canvas Leather Trim Bucket Bag, J. Crew Vintage Bateau, Kate Spade's Letterpress "Hello" Calling Cards via Crane's, Lacoste Polo Shirtdress, Ray-ban Aviators, Modern Monogram Stationery from Etsy, Mikimoto pearl stud earrings.

Ever since my trip to Boston I've been releasing my inner preppy. I grew up in the Midwest but had a strong sense of the prep aesthetic...mainly because I grew up in (Lake) Minnetonka where all things Muffy and Buffy were worshiped. I had monogram sweaters, Sperry Top-Siders (in both navy and brown), "duck" shoes from L.L.Bean, a "powder jacket", and pink and green Izod t-shirts that I proudly wore with the collar UP. This, and I made braided barettes for a little side income. I experimented in junior high (it was ugly...) and went back to my tried and trues in high school. Only then it was J.Crew and Ralph Lauren, and my uniform consisted of a men's oxford in plaid or chamois, and blue jeans.

My style has thankfully evolved past the full Muffy stage. I'm loving my West Coast punch bright colors and Palm Springs happy tunics with a little NorCal bohemian mixed in. Still though, to this day, I cannot walk by a sailor striped T without stopping. I still wear my Mikimoto pearl studs most days of the week, and I really love a good monogram. Admittedly, I nearly bought myself a new pair of boat shoes on the recent east coast trip. They'd look so cute with my dark blue skinny jeans and...almost. I may settle for the super chic and utilitarian bucket bag from the Lands' End Canvas collection--a special treat, in honor of my new job.

Planning Camp Athena

I've been working on the outline for next weekend's retreat with my gals from the Ax Collective...in the quest for some inspired material I came across fabulous camp crafts via Design*Sponge, which featured Derek and Lauren from The Curiosity Shoppe, one of my favorite online haunts. These images are ALL theirs...and I can't wait to forage some sticks and craft up some God's Eyes. Don't you think the leather wrap lanyards are way cooler than the old hard plastic ones?

Finally, for a bit more substance, I discovered this poem from one of my favorite authors:

For Strong Women

By Marge Piercy

A strong woman is a woman who is straining
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing "Boris Godunov."
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears in her nose.
A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why aren't you dead?
A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.
A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.
A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.
What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

22 Days

I received this gorgeous bouquet yesterday from my future employers...The New Children's Museum. Happy Mother's Day! Can you smell the lilacs from here? The scent fills our home still, and I'm nostalgic for my Midwestern childhood where backyards ran together like wavy green ribbons, rhubarb was foraged for homemade fruit leather and lilac bushes lined the back fence.

Here's to new beginnings...June 1, you're only 22 days away.

PS. Many of you know my favorite floral peeps, but this particular arrangement raised the bar. Well done Flower Child!