On being a 50's housewife.....

Recently I have been drawn to the fifties, cooking, aprons, baking, and other such nonsense. I have never been a great, or even good cook at that, but when my mother dearest mentioned wanting an apron and I began browsing, I was met with an onslaught of adorable and vintage inspired aprons. I knew immediately I must possess one. But, I was not sure I deserved such an apron, especially when I thought back to the fifties when the women who wore such garments were household masterminds. Their house (at least in my imagination and on the tele) were immaculate, their cooking superb, their husbands happy, and their children were well mannered and well groomed, all the while wearing a splendid pair of heels, and of course, a coordinating apron. So, with that in mind, I set out a few tests to see if I was a worth candidate for such a charming apron. Since I am neither a wife nor a mother (to humans, to dogs I am a mother) I figured my trials should revolve around the kitchen, cooking and baking to be exact, because as I mentioned before, neither of these are my strong suits. I decided I would attempt three recipes: the first was a pasta dish where I actually had to chop vegetable (fresh from the farmer’s market) and I had to peel and cook fresh garlic, for the first time ever. My next task was to make a quiche; my quiche of choice was a green chile, mushroom, onion, and blue cheese quiche. And last was my mission to bake something other than just a cake out of a box; so I made cake pops! All of the dishes were successful, and I will later be posting the recipes and how the actual experience of cooking went for me, because now my main focus is the prize of the apron! So I began browsing for my apron...

There was this adorable cupcake inspired one from Flirty Aprons

Or this black and white gingham with red accents, which is a very classic option, from Vintage Aprons

And my last choice was a white and teal, slightly krafty style apron, from Anthropolgie

I decided on the last one, not because it was the cutest, because they were pretty much tied in my book, but because of convenience. I went down to the store and took it home instead of waiting to have one shipped! I was just that excited.

That got me thinking about other inspiration from that era, and how I can incorporate the awesomeness of vintage style, home and fashion, into my daily life. Here are a few pictures of what I would like to be like as a mom and wife, perhaps not quite so naughty, or perhaps that naughty, one never knows….

I mean, that picture up there is just so frigging adorable.

I loved the idea of this picture,

My modernized version of this would be me, in a retro-inspired kitchen with appliances from
Big Chill
My ideal kitchen would look something like this

or this, sans the red paint,

And I could be wearing something this stunning

With my hair up like this

Or for a more modern version, without the poof....

Ahhh, it seems like a dream to have that kind of kitchen, to look that elegant while cooking, and to maintain such a high standard of flawlessness without turning into a wretched, wicked Stepford wife...

Book Review: Anthropology of an American Girl

Let us begin with the NPR book review, and then we can end with my version of a book review.

A Beguiling Book Debuts For The Second Time
by JESSA CRISPIN

May 26, 2010
Bloated. Self-indulgent. Clichéd. These are the common traps of self-published books, those that never make it into the hands of a gimlet-eyed editor, someone willing to sacrifice pretty prose for the sake of the overall work. In 2003, Hilary Thayer Hamann published her novel Anthropology of an American Girl through her own press. It became something of a sleeper success, and seven years later, it is now being reprinted by the Random House imprint Spiegel & Grau. Clocking in at 624 pages and covering a few years in the life of teenager Eveline Auerbach in closeup detail, it suffers from all of the problems that can befall the self-published.
And yet there is something so beguiling, so charming about the book. At first you might reject it like a sugary pop song, but you will find yourself singing along a few days later. Anthropology is so very, very long, and yet it continues to beckon after you think you've finished with it. It becomes ensnared in that Twilight-esque trap of having every male character inexplicably and compulsively in love with its heroine, and yet her reveries on teenage love and lust are so authentic, you don't lose your patience.
It's Eveline's voice — equal parts pretentious and poetic, bratty and poignant, wise and naive — that saves the book. It captures exactly the thought processes of an introspective teenage girl. Her worldview is sharp and dead-on. On seeing her absent father at graduation: "It depressed me somewhat to be faced with my DNA like that." On femininity: "Girls are truly game as soldiers, with the brave things they do to their bodies and the harsh conditions they are able to tolerate." On being a teenage girl: "When you're fourteen, pretty much everything puts you in a difficult predicament."
Evie doesn't do much — she joins drama club, she falls in love, she outgrows high school friends — but her dry wit and keen sense of observation make her a fine companion. Likewise, Anthropology isn't a masterpiece, but it is addictive reading. Hamann inhabits the skin of a teenage girl so accurately, so effortlessly, it's a bit of a relief she has found her way into the book world. (Six-hundred-page epics about the inner lives of teenage girls are not generally considered marketable, unless there's a vampire involved.) If Hamann can accomplish this on her own, it'll be amazing to see what she can do with a little help.

Ok, now it’s my turn. With that kind of intriguing and subtly seductive review, what budding, new book club wouldn’t choose this book as their inaugural selection? Well, the book club I am in did chose this as our first read, and we were sorely disappointed.
The first three sentences of the NPR review nailed this book: bloated, self-indulgent, and clichéd are all adjectives that describe this book precisely. The book is a long-winded, verbose piece of work. Some of the ladies in the book club weren’t even sure if the book had an editor. Yes, the protagonist uses flowery speech and paragraphs loaded with metaphors. And yes, Eveline’s voice, her voice is bratty, ego-centric, and most definitely pretentious. She has very few, if any redeeming qualities, yet every male in the book falls madly for her, it’s utterly inexplicable. That is the one part of this book that is similar to Twilight, as Bella also has limited endearing qualities, yet two amazing guys fall deeply in love with her, reasons unknown. Evie’s principal issue is that the man she is head over heels for has left, I guess that is also a commonality with Bella. I get it, as a teenage girl, or young twenty-something, love lost is a major gloom cloud looming over your world. Evie becomes excessively mournful, somber, and self-loathing.

As for the length of the book, the NPR review states that the pages beckon you despite its wordiness. I disagree. It was a struggle for me to get through this book. I do not see a need for it to exceed 400 pages.

I will switch gears and end on the positives. Evie does experience a broken heart, and I think that is something we can all relate to. I remember having thoughts that I couldn’t imagine my life without this person or that person (the difference between Evie and myself is that I moved on and she remains stagnant in her miserable funk). So the book does have a few aspects that one can relate to.
The best part of the book for me involved the funeral that took place. I have attached below an excerpt that was moving to me, I believe this is where Hamann is poetic and introspective and provocative, and I am somewhat saddened that the book in its entirety wasn’t this moving and romantic. This was the most thought provoking portion of the book, and I am content knowing that at least some part of this book was worth reading. **Spoiler alert: See below for an excerpt from the funeral, if you haven’t read the book and plan on reading it this will reveal part of the story.**

Hamann, Hilary Thayer. Anthropology of an American Girl. Constable & Robinson Limited, 2011.

Summer Wreath

My neighbor has a wreath on her door, and I got jealous. So, of course I wanted to make one of my own instead of buying one. My inspiration was found thru other wonderful bloggers:

I then went to my local craft store, and got ribbon, a green 12 inch styrofoam wreath, tissue paper, floral wire, and pins (to secure ribbon to wreath).

I chose a baby blue ribbon and a sheer lime for an overlay (5 yards will suffice). I wrapped the blue around the wreath using a dab of glue and a pin to secure the ribbon, and then went over the blue ribbon with the sheer lime ribbon, my results looked like this:

Then I made my tissue poms, with the help of the almighty Martha Stewart.


Martha Stewart Pom Poms


I used the napkin holder version, but instead of putting my flowers on napkins they adorned my lovely wreath.

Then I added a vibrant yellow ribbon as a hanger and finally dressed my front door with this rather energetic wreath.

Enjoy!

Summer inspired nails

So I have gotten two manicures in my whole life. The first time I think was for prom, and the other time was for a wedding. I hated them both. But I do enjoy a pedicure every now and then. In the between time I will usually do my own nails, and am often bored with the mundane nude, red, or pink nail colors. I like to make my nails interesting, as interesting as I can with my limited ability to paint nails without painting my whole hand. I did this diagonal design once before and got a lot of compliments and questions about how I achieved such a look. *Side note story* Once high school I did my eye shadow a little funky, I put a pastel pink on the outer corners and a pastel yellow on the inner corner of the eyelid. A girl on my track team asked how I did it, and I answered, "I put one color over here (pointing the outside of my eye), and the other color over here (pointing to the inside of my eye)." She later became one of my best friends and told me that was a rather rude way to tell her about my eye shadow, so I am dedicating this "how to" to Shonda.
1) Inspiration. I found mine in summer flowers and I have been drawn to purple and green together recently, so that is where my inspiration came from.
2) I got all my supplies ready. I needed the base color, a bright green, my top color, which was a chrome purple (you remember when chrome nail polish was cool in 2001?), and I also decided to add sparkles to my nails b/c I love glitter. You will also need a top coat, and I need Q-tips and nail polish remover for my mess-ups. You will also need tape which is not pictured.
3) I paint my base coat. Wait until completely dried before moving on to the next step.
4) Put tape on nails in a diagonal direction, and then paint next color on top of base coat, using the tape to keep the edges straight.
5) My next step was to wait until the chrome purple was dried and then to apply the glitter coat, if you aren't applying a glitter coat (or something similar) then you can skip this step.
6)Wait until all polish is dried and remove tape slowly.
7)You should apply a top coat after you remove the tape.
8) Lastly, clean up your nails and fingers by dipping your Q-tip in nail polish remover and touching up as necessary.
ENJOY! You should (or could, hopefully) have beautiful nails!