I have this thing with wine corks. To anyone who has spent more than ten to fifteen minutes around me, this should come as no great surprise. After a lifetime of hording them (that's a lot of corks, y'all), I had this epiphany tonight. So here's a little diatribe about the things we keep and the things we give away, and the way decorating can sometimes blend with warm memories to make a house a home. . So, I have this tendency to impulsively grab wine corks from dinners, gatherings and ... View Post
801 Eleventh Street
We pulled through town and turned off the main thoroughfare, crossing the railroad tracks as we’ve always done and driving up the hill. . As it has for well over a century, the little old house sat there stoically as life moved on around it. Surrounded by streets on all three sides, it is its own little island fortress in the heart of a small town in Arkansas. Mena was incorporated in 1896, and the little old house witnessed the vast majority of the town’s ebbing and flowing as it soldiered on ... View Post
In Defense Of The Blurry Ones
At a recent holiday gathering, my eleven year old temporarily owned an array of miscellaneous items during a white elephant exchange. Before it was swiped away by a family member, she examined her spoils and found an unused disposable camera. In an effort to identify the strange item, she read the packaging and still appeared completely perplexed. Several children of the 70s and 80s tried to explain to my little millennial that there was a time when people used cameras with film in them, and ... View Post
Bike Love
I am elated to introduce my new/old bike: Isn't she a beauty? I am literally beside myself with excitement. She came to me by way of my cousin Kimberly, an aspiring writer with an intriguing YA novel in the works. She spends a lot of her spare time at Renew, a consignment store in Springdale run by her church as an outreach program. It's a thriving shop with a litany of great selections, and it opened during a time that consignment shops were really beginning to thrive in northwest Arkansas. ... View Post
The National Geographic Magazine c. 1929
I mentioned before in this post about bookshelf stalking that I have a trove of my Grandmother Lay's National Geographic magazines alongside our 1950s Encyclopedia Brittanica collection. As much as I work to follow my muse Bea Johnson's "zero waste" philosophy of holding onto fewer things, I also have a penchant for interesting vintage mementos. Forty eight of the National Geographics date from 1930 to 1978, but it is this 49th that is my favorite. Published November 1929, it ... View Post
On Ducks, Bonnets & Gingham Dresses
I love this framed print reminiscent of Holly Hobbie illustrations (which I, of course, searched to find official history and links - the character debuted in 1967 - and found very little, meaning I'm now curious and likely to rant more about this in the future). It was a gift from my Mom when Ainsley was born, and it reminds us both of photos of Sophie when she was little and we had backyard ducks. Here's a little piece about that time in our lives: The Short Tails of Two Ducks. Around ... View Post
