The Preppy Islander

For the Modern-Preppy...some sentimental missing of Preppy-Traditions-Past

2012-01-22T22:51:00.000-08:00

Calling card image from Wikimedia Commons. Mine... I'd have to hand to you...

For a Modern-Preppy's lifestyle, there remains an almost overwhelming abundance of things, services, experiences, choices and such readily available 24/7 however, there are a few once-cherished elements of the past within traditional preppy lifestyles which this particular preppy does indeed miss including:

Non-tickey-tackey neighborhood Tea Rooms where ladies gathered for serene afternoon repasts.

The beautiful boutique-like stores of Smith and Hawkin, Waverly, Laura Ashley...perusing around them was such a pleasure...

Full-service gas stations where attendants even hand-swept out your car's floor mats.

Elevator attendants in department stores who wore uniforms and seemed so serious.

Wearing short white gloves and pretty hats to church every Sunday, not just at Easter.

Men wearing sharp hats with their suits and many sporting bow ties during the day too.

Being handed other people's calling cards... I still make use of mine which is such fun when people think you're handing them your business card instead.

People answering their house phone with, "This is the ____ (insert last name) residence, ____ (first name) speaking..."

Personal bookplates pasted inside the front covers of books friends passed around to share.

Using dumb-waiters, laundry chutes and actual bell pulls in one's house.

Putting charges "on account" by simply saying-so at the yacht club, city club, country club when one could easily do so as a really young child without being questioned at all by the staff.

Long, deep and hot-water-heat-holding bath tubs in expansive, small-tiled bathrooms.

The smell of pipes being smoked leisurely...how, where and when did that go away?

Those wooden-sided station wagons; gosh we had ours for so many years.

Actual letters and cards received in the mail, some with sealing wax stamps on the back.

And so forth n' so on. It's fun to think back to what once-was in appreciation of what it was to experience within a lifetime even if not for a complete lifetime. So much more of this kinda' stuff to list here but now tonight's insomnia is ebbing so, time to post this and head off to slumber.

A Preppy's Winter-into-Spring Guide

2012-01-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

Placing a bit of Spring within Winter days... Pretty and Preppy-practical
(painting: Girl Arranging Flowers by W.M.Paxton - Brooklyn Museum)

This time of year right after the New Year, it seems that Southern Preppies most especially get hints of Spring within our winter days which tease us just as (no doubt) we'll yet still be experiencing actual winterish weather with cold rainy and windy days remaining ahead of us.

There ARE ways however to put a little Spring into our Winter days while not freezing oneself: less wearing Sperry Topsider flipflop sandals and more layering with pastel-hued pashminas.

The following list is an idea-guide for us all to utilize as desired when so... desiring... Spring:

Layer with a pashmina shawl/scarf in a rose, lavender, celadon green, ivory hue

For the gentlemen, wear a pastel-hued dress shirt or tie underneath suits, sports coats

Pot an Orchid or Spring bulbs into a white ceramic or porcelain cache pot

Tie a piece of silky pastel-colored ribbon onto your pearl strand and/or pearl bracelet

Put a white or ivory lightweight spread or throw folded at the end of the bed

Enjoy candle scents like rose, freesia, hyacinth, lilly of the valley, peony and such

Likewise, enjoy these scents in body lotions, perfume and long leisurely bubble baths

Get thyself to a warm and tropical island destination asap or...

Get to a local Day Spa or create a spa in your bathroom with indulgent tropical products

Peruse through picturesque garden books and tropical travel destination/lifestyle books

Plan your garden, pottager garden, potted plantscape

Perch small pots of herbs on your kitchen windowsills or plant some of these from seed

Keep flowers abundant within the house but group in baskets, simple clear glass vases

Listen to the lightness of Japanese Flute music cds

Watch the film Enchanted April to vicariously get-away from winter's chill through it

Organize your boating, golf, tennis, fly fishing etc equipment for warmer months ahead

Go ahead, get that shorter haircut then wear chandelier earrings n' wrapped scarves with it

Switch much of a basic black or dark navy wardrobe over to using more light gray pieces

Wear a little sparkle but keep it light and airy as opposed to past holiday season's big-bling

Lighten occasional meals to being large salads, omelettes, cheese-cracker-berries trays

Add-in citrus fruit pieces, mint sprigs, cucumber slices to your usual fridge water pitcher

Occasionally replace red wine paired with an entree' for a fruity white wine with dessert

Switch needlepoint to petit point, oils to watercolors, pottery to jewelry-making for awhile

A little bit of bright or buttery yellow added in an outfit, room, atmosphere goes a long way

De-clutter, streamline and reorganize areas to further create light/air/space around you

There's so many festive-fun ways we can bring a "Springy-step" into our new year journeying without totally disregarding winter for what it is and its own aspects of delight.

Have fun with this list and post-over some of your own ideas as well if you'd like......... Best, L.

New Year's Eve outing... enjoying some old family-roots at turning of a new year

2012-01-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

Posing at my great-great-great-great-great-aunt's portrait...then...

...later visiting her grave. Family history fun on New Year's Eve day!

This New Year's Eve celebrating, James and I decided to "go out" for a celebratory lunch on what was a very pretty day here in Savannah and then spend the evening-in instead of our usual out and about glavanting at parties n' such before the ball drops at midnight.

I really enjoyed this more laid-back holiday for us and was pleasantly-surprised when our lunch out consisted of going to the historic Olde Pink House for a delightful meal and.... sitting in the upstair's dining room within which one of my ancestor's portraits is featured over the mantle.

Esther Wylly Habersham is my great-great-great-great-great-aunt. I'm directly descended from one of her brothers and the reason why her portrait is in this restaurant is because she was the regal mistress of this house after it was built for her by her husband, James Habersham Jr. back in the 1789 on land-grant property he had in-town. Its current use as an elegant restaurant is such a pleasure to see and experience.

It was fun to pose by Esther's portrait and then head over to the Colonial Cemetary to visit again her graveside. My family on both sides is so fortunate to have ancestors, and immediate family, eternally resting in such beautiful spots as the Colonial Cemetary and Bonaventure Cemetary.

So a New Year's turning which encompases old family-history? "So-Savannah" isn't it?! ;)

Preppy Inspiration from... The Royal Tenebaums

2012-01-08T11:57:00.000-08:00

Preppy style-inspirations can come from films like The Royal Tenenbaums And create lifestyle-stylized-collages on style blogger's websites

But one little Preppy was a' wearing some of this long before the fim

and is tickled to see her childhood style featured in such a great film!

(Above images are credited: movieimagesources .com; polyvore .com; my late mother's camera; Film Comment magazine)

Old-School Preppy Fashion Inspiration:

Margo's "Preppy-Pathos" fashion styling in the film The Royal Tenenbaums is an odd inspiration perhaps for this new year but I find myself craving the wearing-of Lacoste' polo tops and knit dresses, cutting my blond hair back into a bob and rustling around the makeup drawer in my bedroom's vanity table for some black eyeliner. I'd switch the old fur coat for a well-worn trench coat with this being the warmer South and me not being a fur-wearer though I have inherited a few coats n' stoles from my mother and grandmothers. I'm also not a smoker nor depressed but I hope to keep on losing a few pounds and be sporting a leaner profile like the character Margo's (aka a pre-GOOP Gwyneth Paltrow)with now being-back to eating healthy half-portions post a very festive, and festive-foods-everywhere, holiday season.

This is one of my all-time favorite movies and it's on television this afternoon as I wait to watch some football playoffs.....

To me, this film is kind of like, "Faulkner goes to Manhattan and finds some Southern Gothic-ness up there to write about."

The striking settings indoors n' out, satirical atmosphere, snippets of Preppy-childhood elements, generous dollops of eccentricity amid layered family-dynamics and subtleties of sophistication amid the ruins and then rebirth of this cast of true-characters keeps me re watching this movie and continually enjoying it.

Hmmm.... time to search for eyeliner at least before the next football game commences.......

Happy New Year everyone and Happy Preppy Inspiration wherever we all find it!

Christmas Glow... quiet evenings around the carriage house

2011-12-05T20:39:00.000-08:00

The glow of a Christmas Tree is lovely in the long winter nights...

...and Christmas-themed Tablescapes can be such delights...

...as is a cozy fireside sprinkled with doses of glowing candlelight.

Christmas Glow... A little sentiment for my readers

2011-12-05T19:12:00.000-08:00

Wishing my readers peace and heavenly-joy this holiday season: angelic picture circa mid 1970's in Georgia. Yes, I was part of the cast for a live outdoor manger scene long ago... ;)

Tis the Season for You

'Tis the season to be jolly...and feel so cheerful with a belly full of laughs.

Tis the season to celebrate today, toast the future and honor the past.

Tis the season to embrace the joy and the jingle bells and those church bells ringing.

Tis the season to hug loved ones, give charitably and let loose with some carol singing.

Tis the season to seek peaceful moments amid all the fun revelry.

Tis the season to be introspective, grateful, worshipful and feel life's sweet brevity.

Tis the season, so make it yours...

...truly and oh so wonderfully this year and evermore.

Sending out a little Christmas poem to my readers this 2011 Holiday Season with all the best wishes for a wonderful celebration this month to you and yours! Best as always, Lachlan

The Glow of Christmas... elegant holiday scented candles both by and for Preppies

2011-11-28T20:15:00.000-08:00

Preppy-candle Perfection by Ralph Lauren...but of course...

L'Object has THE most elegant candle containers imaginable!

One of my all-time favorite timeless candle profferings: Rigaud, ahh.

Michel candles are easy to find and easy on the nose with their scents...

Seriously-elegant and yet evocative of nature from Michael Aram

India Hicks gives island lifestyles effortless elan- so coral chic!

Silvered pagoda-style is oh, so Charlotte Moss indeed- love this!

Christmas and candles just go oh, so well together don't they?

We've safely taken them off of our Christmas trees (thankfully) as delightful as those effusive Victorians found them to be with bringing fir trees to the forefront of holiday celebration decor'.

Now candles glow on our mantelpieces, sideboards, windowsills and are liberally scattered around various tables- dining tables, coffee tables, bedside tables, kitchen tables and such. My favorite is having a single scented candle glowing away on the entrance hall's table to greet family, friends and guests with...ahh, how lovely... especially as the nights get darker so much earlier this time of year.

Scented candles are wonderful hostess gifts, stocking stuffers and the "just a little something" circes Preppy ladies especially enjoy gifting one another with throughout the holiday season.

As any Preppy's nose knows, there's scented candles and then there's scented candles.

Other folks favor scents such as Country Cinnamon Apple and Winter Memory Melody whereas Preppies favor scents titled Persimmon, Amaryllis, Frasier Fir and Cypres. The closer to the actual scent authenticity and the further away from Norman Rockwellesque Americana-verbage is definitely the better within Preppydom. As well, the further from the look of a glass Mason jar indicates which candles are found within Preppy homes and darling little gift bags.

Beautiful scents emanating from elegantly traditional containers, or even traditional with a twist kind of containers, are definitely perfectly Preppy candles!

Above are images of a few of my favorite candles to light and enjoy along with some new versions from lifestyle designers who are totally getting-it-right with not only clothing, accessories and shoes as well as home furnishings but also...with candles too!

Happy Holiday Season everyone and enjoy the glow of candles these winter months of 2011...

Thanksgiving and Preppies...Tradition indeed from menus to wardrobes to quite memorable memories

2011-11-24T15:31:00.000-08:00

Quick snap-shot before heading out, for the first time to Thanksgiving Dinner at... a restaurant! Wearing what probably 90% of other Preppy ladies are wearing today: old cashmere sweater twinset, long plaid wool skirt, tassled loafer-pumps with coordinating belt and strands of pearls but of course.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This autumn has been so incredibly-busy, much more than usual, that I am truly thankful for one day to have completely "off" from all the varieties of work and responsibility within my own small life's goings-on. Wheh...

And I am also thankful for you, dear readers, who have been with me from the beginning of this blog to the newest regular-reader who just emailed me last week; as always, I so appreciate each and every one of you and hope that today you are enjoying a peaceful, restful holiday as well!

Thanksgiving and Preppy go hand-in-hand don't they? It's essentially one of the few holidays left which has remained mostly "traditional" in its annual manifestations however off-track they now are from the first Americana meal of thanksgiving, i.e. travel, turkey on the menu, family and friends around, parades and football on the television, most places closed, themed hues of orange, gold and brown plus candles lit on the table and large porcelain platters put into use.

And...the same recipes used over and over again...Preppies are not foodie innovators for the most part as we all know. Preppies actually really aren't foodies at all for the most part and so, the rare ones who are must get a tad bit disappointed with the traditional (read "dull" on my family's part) Thanksgiving meal year after year. Hence, this is one of the reasons that during my married life of 20 years now, I have only cooked one complete meal by myself for Thanksgiving Day. It shocked my husband and father and frankly me as well. It was a "one hit wonder" that's for sure! And a wonder that it was edible at all.

Years ago, my mother, aunts, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, great-great-grandmothers and so forth and so on had terrific help in the kitchen with serving and clean-up for holidays and also for actually every day's mealtime needs until my immediate family moved up-north during the late1970's resulting in our having assistance around the house being downscaled to mother's two maids coming-in twice a week. All of a sudden, our meals were anything dumped out of cans, slapped into sandwiches or microwaved from freezer boxes unless Dad took us out to eat.

Turkeys for our holiday fare once up north were hysterical productions with my late mother attempting to cook them herself. One had bare patches from the pieces of bread she'd slapped on its side after reading somewhere that this was a great way to cook a turkey. Huh? Another time, she placed a turkey into a brown paper bag which was soaked in water but still proceeded to smoke up our kitchen...yet another sure idea from some magazine or not-well-tested cookbook.

All of us kids just wanted to go out somewhere for Thanksgiving Dinner and call it a day.

Which James and I did today. Which was wonderful to do with us having a nice, quiet just-us Thanksgiving here in Savannah this year. We went to a beautiful buffet that melded all the traditional menu items with the more-gourmet, left a nice tip for our waitress and took pre and post meal walks all around the historic district on a very beautiful autumn afternoon.

We really enjoyed staying within our neighborhood today which was another wonderful dimension of this particular Thanksgiving with having no-traveling-hassles...there were just enough tourists, SCAD students with their parents and assorted locals with or without their dogs, bicycles, assorted being-outside-accessories out and about to make the streets and park squares in the historic district feel lively and yet still neighborly.

As we strolled through one of the squares after our meal, an old guy dressed in Santa-red togs sitting on a wrought iron park bench was playing the most elementary of tunes such as Old MacDonald Had A Farm, Mary Had A Little Lamb, Chopsticks sweetly on a flute and...

...it was quirky, unexpected, charming and such a delightful ending note flourish on a Savannah Thanksgiving afternoon...

Again, wishing a very Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Farmstead Foraying: more Preppy Autumn Pleasantries

2011-10-23T14:44:00.000-07:00

Autumn afternoons are perfect times for leisurely country-roading and...
...local farmstead-foraying for a bounty of delightful delicacies including...
...old fashioned soda to sip when back onto those country roads heading to...
...my uncle's riverside farm for further outdoors-enjoying with my favorite guy!

The cool crisp days during Autumn Season are always so perfect to get oneself out into especially when they're paired with stunning blue skies overhead!

It's an incredibly rare day when things align to where James and I actually have a "free day-off" together...whenever this happens, we take full advantage of it. Recently one of these beautiful fall days this month found us driving along the country-roads of coastal South Carolina's marsh edges ending up within the still-cute areas of Bluffton. Old Bluffton as our local friends call it.

Bales of hay, pumpkins, sunflowers and tractors were decorating galore' the landscape down one of the rural roads we were driving along. James and I stopped by the most-festive of these small local farmsteads and happily stocked up on their offerings of fresh produce, gourmet canned goods and some old fashioned bottles of orange-flavored Nehi soda. I snapped a couple of pictures while James finished putting a bag of seed corn into the back of his truck he had also purchased and it just felt like... the-perfect-autumn-day.

I have been missing our usual kitchen gardening out on the island with now being mainly here in downtown Savannah. Purchasing herbs, peppers, sunflowers and such from the great markets nested within the historic district still isn't anything like actually growing these myself in our raised beds set out near the island's waterline marshes off our yard. Juggling two garden areas just wasn't possible this year while hopping back into a busy career and dashing between two home locations trying to transition, continue caregiving etc. So I let the island's kitchen garden take a rest after its early-spring production. Awaiting this next spring is an expansion of the in-town courtyard garden. The gradual transformation of our carriage houses' plain courtyard garden area into more of a garden ensues potted-gardening structuring which will eventually include some herbs and possibly heirloom tomatoes, peppers and such.

Looking forward towards our retirement years, James and I are contemplating moving full time onto his family farm and dabbling in some gentleman-farming. Right now out there in the almost middle-of-nowhere-midstate-South-Carolina it's acres n' acres of soybeans, cotton and trees. We envision re-building the farmhouse again in the middle of a cluster of stately pecan trees and having a large area for organic gardening whose excess we could can into gourmet-goodies, cut into bountiful bouquets and even bake for selling at a local roadside stand or the local farmer's market. The proceeds would go to charity and the process of all of this would keep us happily busy and out of trouble in our 70's and maybe even beyond as we age out of our life span.

We're aiming to still be productive in our old age if our ole' bodies allow this to be so...less shuffle boarding on cruise ships and more shucking corn for whipping up into upscale salsas for sale ;) You know me, it'll won't be painted wooden country roosters n' raffia stylin' but rather toile' fabric lining willow baskets with french wired ribbon styling and elegant labels and so forth n' so on...

But until then, farming for me will remain decidedly within kitchen garden parameters unless...

...we're being more city-mouse at the moment like now and so it's "farming via country roads".

Prairie-Preppy...the Pleasantries of Autumn Sunflowers

2011-10-11T17:11:00.000-07:00

Huge sunflowers are so-festive this time of year and...
...there's something odd-but-enchanting about their peculiar scent.

Everyone's familiar with this iconic Vincent van Gogh painting however...

...in my humble opinion, this study he did of sunflowers is much more incredible.
Inspired by images of sunflowers, I began to dabble away...
...and watercolored my own little simple-study of sunflowers, what fun!
Watercolor dabbling and spicy tea sipping provides a pleasant autumn evening.

It's kinda' fun during the autumn months to go a bit more "rustic", a tad "rural" with a dash of "prairie romantic" thrown in for good measure: small county fair attending, old-barn building antiquing, farmers' market foraying, sipping spiced cider from a pottery mug and of course...indulging in lots of bright, big ole' sunflowers!

I was at the grocers the other evening and just couldn't pass these sunflowers by...

Have enjoyed having them in the carriage house here and one rainy evening, I decided to do a watercolor study of them- happily painting away to the quiet hush of gentle rain coming down outside the windows. I lit a scented candle, tucked a comfortable little pillow between the small of my back and an upright chair at the table in the living room and just dabbled to my delight.

Lately it's been raining a lot in Savannah which I've been really, really loving. Any other setting, yes, it may indeed get quite tedious to have days and days of rain but here where the Spanish moss drips rain droplets down onto the curvy eaves of Victorian homes and then puddles them onto the sloping expanses of brick steps while mixing this all in with the scented greens, florals and dirt aromas of a tiny courtyard garden...well, now that's actually been downright delightful!

I also valued the rains we experienced out on the island where one could watch storms approach from across the marsh towards the house and then pass along on out into the ocean. Out there I felt invigorated with being literally and proverbially out in the middle of the rain's moving landscape whereas here I feel cozily cloistered within our tucked-back pied a terre' setting.

It's been an incredibly-busy autumn with both James and my careers and so the quiet rainy evenings we can spend at home have been wonderfully restorative.

My wellies are dripping on the floor, the umbrella's leaning against the door, some sunflowers are in a pitcher by the art easel while in the kitchen cinnamon spice tea is seeping as above our roof the skies continue weeping and so... all is sooo very-right in my Savannah Autumnal World.......

...........here's hoping that all of my blog readers are experiencing a wonderful autumn as well :)

A Preppy's Autumn 2011 Stylin'...the classics with a dash of luxurious shine

2011-09-25T17:08:00.000-07:00

Jones New York puts the new shiny-sheen perfectly into tweed
Shine, sculpture and deep neutrals add the-pretty to Burberry's neo Preppy
As always, Ralph Lauren gets-it completely right...the look, the lifestyling...

This autumn styling season relegates those thick boxy plaid flannel shirts and heavy tall leather riding boots we old school Preppies love to clunk around in to...well just clunking around the more rustic areas of the countryside as Fall Fashion"s classic staples have gone so wonderfully elegant this season.

Plaid flannel and wool tartans, cashmere cardigans and leather belts, denim and courderoy and all the fabrications of cooler weather classics have been elegantly reinterpreted oh so very prettily!

Shiny detailing such as metallic-sheen leather and the sparkle of a smattering of tiny bugle beads lend a going-out-for-the-evening excitement to the usually more staid wardrobe pieces like cardigan sweaters, high-heeled pumps and thin wool shawls. Animal prints are muted, neutrals are deep and rich, leathers are supple and the overall contexting is all about luxurious comfort. Tall boots have sculpted heels while the calf line is lean, molded to the skin. Blouses are silk shantung. Tweeds have silvery threads intertwined in the woven fabric. It's very day-into-evening without being tacky or too over the top. Finally fall fashions are getting the lighter, more feminine side of pretty that sometimes seems completely relegated to spring's wardrobe stylings.

I really like this direction...the Return To Preppy-Pretty Without Being Patronizing....

...how refreshing, how completely comfortable! How perfect for Fall: this year and every year.

Savannah Swish...some more spottings of it out n' about town

2011-09-18T19:06:00.000-07:00

Savannah Swish is quite delish at an artsy cafe' with retro-leanings which is...
...the wonderful Gallery Espresso! Such indoor and outdoor high stylin'...
...as well as spotting it while antiquing in our neighborhood...and while...
...happening upon an awesome band at a retro-bar where even...
...the ladies room is high-styling. Totally impressed me ;)

A little spot here, a dash of it there...

Savannah Swish sightings have been such fun to come across as I settle-in to life around this historic downtown area.

Above are a few more photos of this delightful traditional-meets-retro styling! Enjoy....

Savannah Swish...Southern styling with a modish-retro twist

2011-09-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

Growing up in n' around Savannah and then returning frequently, for years and years and yes, years...the overall style was and still is traditional. Traditional with a "capital T". Tradition makes a Preppy's heart happy that's for sure.

Nothing much new was added-in to the styling parameters around here in my earlier Savannah days excepting the fun, bright patterns of purveyors such as Lilly Pulitzer and Vera Bradley. My first bikini was a Lilly one and my mother started me out on the "Black Walnut" Vera Bradley pattern of which I still have several pieces and pull out each autumn to enjoy using. That was bold-stuff back then... the swirls n' swishes of these distinctive prints! Now they're par-for-the-Preppy-course around here, Beaufort, Charleston and other southern coastal spots.

My style-eye's so used to these now that they're akin to plaids, polka dots and pinstripes.

However, there's a new fresh pattering in-town I've noticed crop up around these parts lately. It's not one particular styling or brand, it's more of a movement.

Some would call it retro but I like to think of it as, Savannah Swish!

It's a dollop of Artsy-Retro added into the traditionalism that's so Savannah. It's undoubtedly majorly influenced by the predominance of SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design. It's funky, fresh and pure fun. It's not really my style but I sure can appreciate it when I see it.

Savannah Swish is...kinda' Betty Boop meets Scarlett O'Hara!

Scarlett O'Hara on a good day that is. The flirty side of her rather than the manipulative one.

The flirty flounces of Forties kitchen colors and Fifties kitschy patterns n' prints and Sixties psychedelic graphic designs and Seventies haute hippy all collide together in a riot of lifestyle offerings ranging from refrigerator magnets to cocktail dresses to garden sculptures and beyond.

The colors are bright and bold. The designs are noteworthy. The feel is whimsical yet artsy.

It even translates into a street-scene vignette like the one I walked by today just off of Chippewa Square: a bright red mod designed scooter parked near an old wall and flanked by garden urns showcasing a simple flowering of white vinca. I snapped the picture above and smiled...

...I may have returned home to a whole lotta' tradition but I'm also discovering new things too!

P.S. when I have more time out n' about town, I'll add more pics of Savannah Swish styling ;)

Preppy Past Times...the pursuit is decidedly not towards perfection

2011-09-08T18:33:00.000-07:00

Happily reunited with my grandfather's violin at the carriage house tonight!

My violins have been out on the island during our move-transitioning. Here I am caught-on-camera playing away a few years ago looking more serious than I ever am...

...since I've always played "just for the fun of it" since I was a young girl...

Ahhh, to pleasurably pass the time away with leisurely past times....

Playing around on stringed instruments, both the violin and viola, has been one of my favorite past times since I was in fourth grade. It's been over 30 years now with my screeching-away formally within an orchestra and informally with being a trio consisting of me, my mother and my younger brother and just happily alone in the living rooms out on a mountainside, an island and now here in a small Savannah carriage house.

I've never been too-serious about my violin playing but maybe it's because I'm a Preppy.

Yuppies (Young Urban Professionals) work hard and play hard, BOBO's (Bohemian Bourgeois) work hard and play hard but try not to look like it and Preppies, well us Preppies may or may not work, may or may not work all tooo hard and as for playing...

...well, let's put it this way, if you see what looks to be a dyed-in-the-100%-wool Preppy trying too hard while they're playing...then they're probably a Preppy Poser rather than a real Preppy.

Real Preppies are from WASP-stock or attitude where leisurely pursuits are just that, leisurely.

There's no trying to fit-in, there's no trying to prove anything or become a professional by perfectionist proficiency with Preppies.

If one's naturally talented in something that's one thing altogether but this doggedly striving to perfect one's game so to speak simply isn't within a true Preppy's cultural vernacular.

To some degree this has hindered present day Preppies as to predominating within today's culture of constant pursuit towards innovation, improvising, investing and ipo's n' such but heck, we're really all about generation after generation of "capital-T tradition" over change and the predominance of trust funds do foster a bit of complacency amongst us. Preppy millionaires yes, Preppy billionaires...not so much. Preppies eschew any 5-minutes-of-fame for the most part and think that our generations-old lifestyle becoming part of a purveyed lifestyle trend for the masses truly misses the whole point of what the definition and distillation of all-things-Preppy really is.... quite oxymoronic indeed!

We may have smart phones yes, but we're for the most part driving older cars, wearing even older cardigan sweaters and have no desires to turn our past times into mega-media-merchandising empires. Try as she might, Martha Stewart is not an authentic Preppy...sorry. Alexandria Stoddard is however and though I don't know the background of Charlotte Moss, just the way she cultivates her designs and presents her stylized proferrings as well as her personal self hood strongly suggests a patrician kind of Preppyness. There's an ease to the luxuriously-limited design worlds and lifestyles of Stoddard and Moss that has never been present in all that constitutes Martha Stewart's vastness, bless her ever-striving heart.

Yes, I'd like my decor'-inspirations and decorators to always be Preppies but I'd like my architect, contractors and plumbers to be decidedly non-Prep.

I'd like my florist to be Preppy but my jeweler, hair stylist, auto-mechanic and any surgeon needed in the future to be also decidedly non-Prep. This being said, some surgeons as well as airline pilots, bankers, lawyers, professors etc. are true Preppies who have an innate talent for doing excellent work and truly enjoy having careers however these kind of Preppies are fewer than the majority-Preps out there in the world.

I am in a true minority within my family n' close friends as to being a Preppy female who enjoys managing people, projects and products; whose few years of being a stay-at-home-wife about drove her crazy even with doing a ton of volunteer work and having plenty of writing projects going on until she could segway her "free time" into a graduate degree, wheh. Now that this ole' gal has returned to her business management career, I am so much happier a person and only would add-in working on a doctorate as any further addition into my life. However, the various pastimes I enjoy such as string instrument playing, watercolor painting, needlework, jewelry making, fly fishing and kayaking and skiing and yoga stretching along with gardening, well.........

..........you'll find me relaxing and laughing because leisure is always Preppy-leisurely with me ;)

Society-soap...Town and Country's fun blowing-of-bubbles at hotel soap theory

2011-09-07T06:10:00.000-07:00

Soap Bubbles... an oil painting by Charles Joshua Chaplin (1825-1891)

Every month my subscription to Town and Country magazine provides delightfully relaxed sittings of reading (with a cup of tea alongside) a bevvy of witty writing as well as gleaning the latest wearable fashion information, being inspired by the beautiful page after page of photographed interiors and seeing new ideas for current and future gardening projects I find myself mulling over.

Last month's and this month's issues have been especially fun to read with the addition of a series they're titling, "What The Rich Love To Steal." Hilarious!

The first article is all about hotel soaps. My favorite line in this tongue-in-cheek essay (titled, A Slippery Soap) as to the syndrome now recognized as HSS, Hotel Soap Syndrome is the recognition that, "They are a madeleine for the groomed set, a sensory magic carpet to a time out of time." The author, Vanessa Friedman, does a wonderful job of peering into this purveying for the posh. I laughed throughout it because though I'm not a collector of soaps so to speak, I will throw into my airport regulation-sized ziplock plastic bag half-used hotel amenities such as shampoo, conditioner, mouthwash and definitely those cute little containers of hand/body lotion.

It's part Scottish-ingrained frugality on my part with wanting to not waste things and thus bringing them back with me to complete the use of them when returned home and part... well, partly I guess my desire for extending the experience-feel of staying amid the various truly-lovely hotels n' resorts I've been fortunate to enjoy spending some time around.

Some places I've returned to because I enjoy them so much like the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan and the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Scottsdale. Other places are within a group of well-run hotels and resorts...James and I particularly like the Hyatt properties around the globe for consistency, high level of service and simple-elegant design n' decor for the most part. Then there are stand-alone classics like The Grove Park Inn and The Homestead: two timelessly elegant places where their spas still rank at the top of any spas I've ever experienced!

James and I agree that where we stay is as much importance as where we're traveling around.

We can budget with the best but of course however... as for travel experiences, we try to stay at the best the area we're within offers or close to it. Sometimes it's fun for us to try-out a smaller boutique hotel like we did when in London a couple of years ago: it was right on Trafalgar Square and super-modern. Not "us" but a blast to be in for a long weekend together we enacted at the last minute. Other times, like the week we spent in Paris, it was well-worth staying in a drop-dead elegant place flanked by Tiffany's, Cartier', Louis Vuitton and other fine purveyors not to mention amazing art galleries, gardens, restaurants, petite' cafes, boutique-styles bakeries with the best madeleines and so forth and so on.

This past spring we took off for two weeks and took our kayaks, fishing rods and snorkeling gear with us down to the Florida Keys: dividing time between Key Largo and Key West. I still have some of the half-used hotel amenities from that vacation and am now using them up here in the Savannah carriage house. The tropical scented lotion evokes key-laced sun, sand and sea bliss.

For some reason, it's the lotions which connotate memories the most for me. I enjoy this...

...soaps? Who needs soaps when a small, neat tube of hand lotion will suffice?

Ahh, the lingering pleasantries of hotel toiletries! Just gotta' laugh at ourselves because yes indeed, it IS sometimes the smallest of things which are indeed ever so impactful in life!

A Green Marble and White Fluted-Wood Coincidence...

2011-09-05T17:13:00.000-07:00

Mother and Daddy off to a Holiday party circa 1960's Savannah

I am obviously thrilled to find an Easter basket circa 1970's Savannah

...and thrilled to find another similar fireplace in Savannah circa 2000's

It's funny when something just "hits you" that should have perhaps been quite obvious from the beginning...

...take a look at one of my childhood's fireplaces in these pictures and then take a look at the fireplace in the carriage house here, hmmm.

Hmmm....home....ahhh.....

Carriage House Living...Savannah Stylin'!

2011-09-04T17:35:00.000-07:00

Carriage House styling: little flourishes make big impacts as with this urn...

...and a simple, balanced mantle-scape on a corner marbled fireplace...

...as well as tucking-in a reading nook at one end of the living room...

...and seeing that a pretty bedroom just needs a little something-else like...

...creating a Parisian-influenced tableau in a tiny spot inbetween closets...

...and using the rest of the plaid french wired ribbon to top a tropical print!

There's definitely a different kind of lifestyle atmosphere going on when going from a rustic, remote island house tucked away by the water down amongst woods to...living in a busy, eclectic section of Savannah's historic Victorian District where tourists, SCAD students, long-time locals, passerbys on bicycles and Vespa scooters and such daily intermingle.

I LOVE this...! I also loved being out on a tiny SC Lowcountry island as well for so many years (and we plan to keep a portion of the acres we were on as a spot to build a second-home-cottage on one day) but full time living out there was a long commute for my husband and was getting a bit retiree-ish feeling for me when, still in my early 40's, I am desiring to be out n' about more.

And so when this past spring an opportunity came up for me to jump right back into my old management career with the necessity for a Savannah-relocation...well, it took me oh, about 1.5 seconds to say "yes"! After a few months of commuting back and forth, here we are now: full time residents of my old childhood n' onwards stomping-grounds. What fun!

Not finding right away what we're looking for as to purchasing a new house, James and I decided to rent in a fun n' funky part of the historic area for a year thus using our pied a' terre as a base of operations for exploration into yet more houses n' areas to look into in the coming year. I didn't want to have to be dealing with an entire house during this time even with renting and apartments seemed too small so it was quite fortunate that we found this darling carriage house!

It's tucked-away behind a big Victorian house set back on a quieter side street and yet we walk down sidewalks less than 500 yards from our place to enjoy restaurants and antique shops. SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) students are everywhere, old local guys congregate at the nearby classic ole' barbershop and the aging hippies in a dilapidated Victorian house on the corner no doubt go to the acupuncture place in a 60's-modern-retro look building on the next corner. I really like the vibrancy and diversity of this neighborhood within the city we're in...

It's been fun this week to move some of our household items into the carriage house and start getting all set-up in it.

Decorating, gardening, entertaining and just plain ole' relaxing will be a bit different within this new environment here but already I have sooo enjoyed having a house guest over, puttering around with potted plants in our courtyard and hanging curtains, embellishing paintings by topping off some of them with big bows of french wired ribbon and alla' that good stuff!

Here's to pied a' terre carriage house living...a petite vignette lifestyle to enjoy while it lasts ;)

A Savannah Southern Belle Returns... Home...

2011-09-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

Why yes, it's sweet iced tea all year long here...in about every restaurant...

...and Savannah River sea-salt breezes blowing non-stop...

...and beautiful parks n' squares n' tucked-away gardens all about town...

...and Leopold's icecream my parents used to eat as teenagers on date nights...

...and returning to worship at the church my ancestors helped build...

It's official...James and I moved into a darling carriage house in the Victorian District of Savannah last weekend and are already so enjoying our new home and...my return home!

I can't begin to express how wonderful it is to be in a city where around almost every turn in-town and out on the nearby islands there's a pleasant memory waiting from my childhood, teenage years, college years and ongoing adulthood years. Both sides of my family have been around these parts for generations, my two sets of grandparents were best friends and I still have a bevvy of aunts, uncles, cousins to the 'enth degree living here so my own adulthood return to become a resident in the historic district this month feels, well, completely natural.

I pass by, just minutes from our carriage house, the Presbyterian church where my great-grandfather was the minister and a few blocks over is another church which earlier ancestors funded its building and where our various family members have attended generation after generation. I shop at the Cottage Shop just down from our place where, during my debutante season, many little gifts from family and family friends were awaiting pickup. I bop around Daffin Park where my one of my grandfathers used to walk us little grandkids over to from his house for hours of play. I eat in the Olde Pink House restaurant which one of my ancestors built for his wife as a home back in the 1700's then my grandfather used as his business office almost 200 years later before selling it and where my mother and I had our last meal together in Savannah many years ago. I look into the glittering jewelry cases of Levy's Jewelers feeling my grandmothers by my side and I remember Broughton Street when it was filled with wig shops back in the 1970's. I grocery shop where we'd stop into from time to time if on this side of town and on the other side of town, I work in not only the very first mall I grew-up going to but also the very first major department store I ever experienced! Shopping for school, church and party dresses with my mother began at Lad n' Lassie and then moved over to Fines when I got old enough and of course we also purchased at the mall as well. Sunday lunches at the Oglethorpe Club, long afternoons being obnoxious kids bumming around the pools at the Savannah Yacht Club and joy-riding my uncle's boats off of Tybee Island with my older brother and our equally-young cousins....and so forth n' so on and on... so many, many wonderful Savannah-living memories!

Already we're making more good memories, James and I, with living here all of, oh a week ;)

Life is indeed circular in so many ways, God is indeed good and family is indeed a tie that binds! We may not be here forever but for now, returning to Savannah with my husband, my career and my heart full of gratefulness as to how life can wonderously change...wow, it"s amazing!

Coming Up in the Next Post: "Carriage House Living...Savannah Stylin'"

Autumn in August...this Preppy's Wish-List for the Upcoming Fall Season

2011-08-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

Autumn last year in Australia was incredibly lovely... I sooo loved it, ahh

Ah, Autumn....or August I guess though with all of the Fall Fashion Season merchandise coming into stores now, it is making this huge-fan-of-fall-months rather quite wistful lately.

To me, the first day that there's finally a crisp cool feeling in the air is super exciting. It takes a very long time down here in the south for that to actually happen but when it does, oh my!

Today I've had autumn on my mind as we were coordinating product placement around my department and seeing what-all came in on the truck earlier. Pretty, so pretty is everything...

Mentally I began to muse over an Autumn Wish-List as I drove home tonight and thought I'd share it here. I know that most of this is wishful-thinking this particular autumn season as we're still trying to move and are so tied-up within this process but you never ever know sometimes and, at the very least, I'll have a list to go on from this year forward so here 'tis a beginning:

A fireplace again: how I absolutely miss a fireplace to sit beside enjoying a nice glass of port

Strolling along some picturesque small town in New England when the leaves are turning

A decadently-authentic German meal

Strand of gold-tone pearls and stud earrings to match

Returning to our ole' Park City to ski at Deer Valley with our Utah friends n' former neighbors

Regular off-season meandering along the sand beach walks

Heading back to school...the next round will be for the PhD pursuit

Meeting-up with girlfriends for lunch and super-early Christmas shopping on main street

A new pair of leather English riding boots

Fly fishing the Davidson River once again with James and this time wearing my new waders

Making over-sized with various-glazes n' toppings caramel apples

Planting the winter garden and potting pansies, ivy and kale a' plenty

Visiting art museums, galleries and so forth then having a hot chocolate in a cafe' nearby

Exiting from an orchestra concert all bundled-up

Exiting a jazz club not needing to be bundled-up because I'm plenty warm from lotsa' wine

Having the perfect plum-toned lipstick

The room is cold, wind and rain are outside the windows and I'm in bed reading a good book

Beginning to collect a wardrobe of cashmere socks, ahh, so cozy indeed

Finding, finally, the perfect chili: not too hot, not too heavy and not heartburn-inducing

Hours and hours in an old bookstore with no spending-limit

Ah, yes...Autumn! Here's to cooler days and more layering and many more lovin-life-times...

Preppy Hunters and Bubba Hunters: a comparison and contrast frivolity

2011-08-08T18:24:00.000-07:00

The Preppy Hunter's Sporting Stag: most likely featured on a family crest, a family crest ring or a family's generations-old hunting lodge's house stationary

With hunting season on the horizon...and autumn coming into store aisles if not into the air yet...

...I've been musing, with a lot of suppressed chuckling, about the differencing nuances between Southern Lowcountry Preppy Hunters and the Good Ole' Bubba-Boy n' Cracker-Chick Hunters.

Without much more ado, here's a humorous contrasting between these two very different lifestyles:

Preppy Hunters: serve their venison in medallions drizzled with a port and blackberry reduction

Bubba Hunters: servin' up venison burgers dripping with ketchup and splashed with beer

Preppy Hunters: ask which chilled wine or how much sweet iced tea you'd like with your meal

Bubba Hunters: throw you a canned beer

Preppy Hunters: climb up into a well-designed and well-rigged deer stand in the tree

Bubba Hunters: balance on some boards their grandpa nailed up years ago in a tree

Preppy Hunters: utilize top of the line suppliers and sporting goods purveyors

Bubba Hunters: Walmart's specials- where else? Oh yeah, there's the Feed n' Seed place too...

Preppy Hunters: have one mounted deer head up over their lake house's carved wood mantle

Bubba Hunters: have more than one room whose walls are covered with deer heads of seasons past

Preppy Hunters: stay warm with sips of amber liquid from their sterling flask tucked in a pocket

Bubba Hunters: stay warm with gulps of beer... from cans... one after another after another... oops

Preppy Hunters: one shot, one kill and usually one kill per single hunting session

Bubba Hunters: can go up to several shots and be several kills

Preppy Hunters: conserve their wearing of cammo-prints to actual hunting hours

Bubba Hunters: wear their cammo constantly

Preppy Hunters: drive back into hunting areas in old trucks which are farm and/or second vehicles

Bubba Hunters: drive back into hunting areas in old trucks

Preppy Hunters: look quite outdoorsey-sporty in their hunting togs and toting their hunting rifles

Bubba Hunters: look frankly quite Deliverance-disturbing at times in their attire n' guns

Preppy Hunters: house decor' style is traditional-elegant influenced with family antiques

Bubba Hunters: house's interior decorations are supplied by sporting goods housewares kitsch

and...so forth and so on! Hope you all got a laugh outta' this and feel free to post-reply some contrasts of your own: I'll put them up here as long as they're all in good clean fun.........

Preppies, Hunting, Family Farms and alla' that good-stuff...

2011-08-08T15:41:00.001-07:00

Coming soon to a family-farm field n' woodscape somewhere in South Carolina...

...when this autumn's hunting season commences... a Preppy Hunter and...

...his wife who thinks she can hang-out in her Barbour coat and Burberry scarf...

...but is soon heavily-influenced to transform into the Hunter's Hunting-Pardner...

Just the other day I was informed by my always-keep-Lachlan-in-the-loop husband that, "hunting season is approaching."

Oh yes and oh my. Now we soon commence into the routine of if he's not working or commuting to work or in church on the Sundays he's home...he's...out hunting.

I may see James again on Christmas Day and then again at the end of HUNTING SEASON ;)

Lowcountry Southern Preppies hunt, yes sir and ye ma'am. The men, the women as well as the boys and the girls who are old enough to sit or move quietly and of course hoist a gun n' be a steady-shot.

It's a lifestyle and life-focus for many folks out there and though the non-Preppy crew definitely outnumbers the Preppies, you'll espy the Prepster decked-out in camouflage every now and then. I grew up within the realm of avid bird hunters but recently with living out here on an island heavily populated with deer, I've been a' sittin' in one of our deer stands with James each season. Our extra freezer is filled with venison and it IS a delight to eat knowing that our island's deer population is also being kept healthy and fairly population-controlled. We have a family-rule never to shoot young does, young does with fawns or young bucks. Part of being a Preppy is, "being sporting" about things and honoring what you are engaging with and within. It's the same way with our fly fishing: catch and release. We "release" many, many a deer from our gun sights and so far, at least for me... I've yet to have my first deer-kill... I've let many deer go on from my sights with absolutely no regrets. One day maybe I'll have "my first deer" but I am in no rush to do so. Just sitting up in the deer stand quietly with James is enough.

Being out on the island sitting up in a deer stand I do enjoy to a degree however... after hearing that James ran across not one but TWO rattlesnakes and seeing a picture he took of one a' them recently out on the family farm in mid-state SC well, needless to say, I'm not too keen on heading out to sit in the deer stand out there. Least not to move out there lock stock and barrel (double-entendre' here for a chuckle) to the farm completely. Nothing but acres n' acres of fields and more acres of fields with now definitely rattlesnakes in 'em?? Ah, hummm, yeah I'll "pass" on that, haha!

But I'm not sure if I'll get to pass completely on another hunting season coming around. I may be stuck again sitting for hours up in a deer stand on many of one-a'-my-days-off sporting camo and sitting really, really still. Well, there's worse things to be sure but sitting absolutely still and quiet is quite the Zen practice for me. Gosh, James sure seems to enjoy the total peace and quiet afforded in the setting of being out within nature alongside his deer stand in a tree sitting wife ;)

Black and White Preppy Stylin' for Men...Leave it to Ralph Lauren!

2011-08-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

The absolute Black and White Preppy-stylin' for men by Ralph Lauren...

...always perfectly appropriate yet fun like this great button-down and...

...a mod for the modern man complete look like this is...wow...

...along with an alligator and sterling belt I'd sooo borrow big time! Ah...

...but I couldn't borrow these equally-great driving mocs unfortunately!

Decade after decade, Ralph Lauren has been a Preppy bastion of style direction for the modern Prep.

Ever appropriate, it's always a bit of cosmopolitan tweaking, a quirkier twist of layering or an unusual English-inspired combining of colors and textures that gives the Preppy in Ralph Lauren a never-dull or dated look.

What Kate Spade's doing for Black and White with women's clothing styling, Ralph Lauren's doing for men's attire.

The photos above highlight the great, very modern re-thinking of Black and White pieces and total looks available this late summer and early fall season which any male Preppy can easily add into his wardrobe and every Preppy female will no doubt want to borrow.....

The NEW Black and White... Kate Spade super-stylin'...

2011-07-31T13:06:00.000-07:00

Kate Spade's modern-rose print trench coat-top is perfection... as is...
...this black n' white printed fitted blazer paired with jeans...and...
...probably the perfect rendering of a platform pump...ahh...
...accessory-ready as well with this beautiful, classic bangle...and...
...don't forget an elegantly-whimsical Kate Spade creative handbag...
...along with this super-stylish computer bag plus...
...even for the home...black and white patterned fine china: love it!!!

Recently I have been living out of suitcases... being in between the island house, the cottage and a few hotel rooms now as I've begun my new job and we've begun transitioning from a tiny island off the coast of South Carolina to eventually living somewhere in or around the Savannah area.

We may keep the island house but for now are concentrating on finding something in Savannah. My uncle's a long-time realtor in Savannah and has been showing us places both on and right-near the water in the very picturesque Isle of Hope and Coffee Bluff areas: near to my work and James' commuting back and forth from the airport. Plus, our kind of lifestyling as well....

To keep simplified during all of this transitioning, I've limited my work wardrobe to basically black, white and cream-hued clothing pieces and shoes. Adding-in pearls and a few shiny-silver jewelry pieces has rounded out what"s-easy-for-work-and-keeping-easily-packed.

Being such a huge Kate Spade fan, it was pleasantly surprising to see while perusing through her latest offerings both in the store I work with and also online...a strong trend for Black and White styling that's anything but boring... SO super chic with an interplay of retro-whimsy...LOVE IT!!!

Hmmm.... I may, just may hafta' add a piece of this into my work wardrobing sometime soon!

THE Preppy-Sporty Hairstyle... 1970's and 80's...

2011-07-27T06:19:00.001-07:00

One of my deb portraits with the "iconic" Dorothy/Di hair styling

And...going a tad bit shorter with it for the Cotillion Ball that winter in Savannah (pictured here with my brothers Wylly and James III)

Sporting a middle-ground version of it for cheerleading season

After I posted my Add-a-Beads post, both here and on Facebook I received a lot of comments about the ole' Dorothy Hamill morphing into Princess Di stacked-bob which was the uber-Preppy Sporty Hairstyle for the decades of the 1970's and 1980's...

It got me to wondering IF that as well is trending-back? Hmm. We'll see I guess...

Here are two pictures of me with that hairstyle back in my senior year of high school, circa 1986.

I had that style for years n' years and how knows, maybe one day I'll try it again ;)

Preppin'-Out...the Stepford Wives Stylin' back in the 70's

2011-07-27T06:01:00.000-07:00

Fairly-tame version of the Preppy Stepford Look... me at piano recital

Ready for another recital and looking a bit more Stepfordish...

...and here's the full-look which the ladies in the picture next...

...would sooo go grocery shopping with me in a version of, heh heh!

Remember the Stepford Wives movie?

That brilliant and disturbing dark humored original 1975 film version?

I absolutely loved that and have a dvd of it plus the kooky Disneyfied-remake as well.

Well...in packing-up things around our island house here, I ran across several photos of my Stepford-Wives fashion styling with some pics taken of me in those looong twirled n' ruffled n' patterned n' bowed maxi-dresses which the movie made popular.

Here are a few pictures of me in 'em before a few piano and viola recitals back in the late 1970's: Stepford-Stylin'...what a hoot!

Not quite the more subtle Ralph Lauren Preppied-Boho look of late but definitely super-styling amidst those upscale suburban enclaves we lived in during the 70's and 80's both in Georgia and when we moved up-North.

Finally, there's a picture as well from the film itself with all those maxi-dresses showcased!

Stepford-Stylin'.... pretty Preppy circa 1970's Suburban Stylin'....

Add-A-Beads...a Preppy Necessity that's coming back into Style

2011-07-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

Preppy Add-a-Beads... mid-1980's Highschooler Stylin'...

Preppy Add-a-Beads early 1980's Junior Higher styling...

Every female Preppy worth-her-Preppy-salt back in the 1980's had either an Add-a-Bead necklace or an Add-a-Pearl necklace "going-on".... i.e. being added to by their mother, aunts, grandmothers as a new bead or pearl or two would show-up in Christmas stockings and in the piles of Birthday gifting loot.

I was fortunate to have both which was wonderful.

I ran across just the other day these two school photos showing my growing Add-a-Bead gold necklace. They also showcase how Preppy Clothing evolutionized from being super-singular in the early-80's with the yoked pink ski-sweater on top of multiple-layering and a very Dorothy Hamill/Princess Di hair cut with absolutely no makeup on to... the more subtle adaptation of Preppy by the mid-80's with a paler pink linen coat-top, cream turtleneck, a more fashion-forward short hair-do and some makeup wearing beyond Chapstick.

Preppy can be a costumed-thing or it can be more gently-absorbed into a modern styling and I guess (aside from my Lilly Pulitzer and madras-pieces worn mainly while on-vacation) you can probably figure-out which way I tend to "express my Preppy upbringing" within my lifestyle :)

I still wear quite often the completed Add-a-Pearl choker necklace but I need to go and dig into my jewelry boxes to pull out once again my ole' Add-a-Bead gold necklace and begin enjoying wearing it once more....

Happy Memories of growing up Happily Preppy!

P.S: when I do find it, I'll post an updated-picture here of wearing my Add-a-Beads 25 years later

Croquet Day.... such Stylin' Preppy-fun!

2011-06-28T17:44:00.000-07:00

The old-fashioned elegance of a springtime's croquet-playing

Tents, check... mallets set up, check... sporty roadsters, check...

Your's truly found her dream-car: a classic MG roadster from the 1930's

Every dyed-in-the-wool or dyed-in-seersucker Preppy relishes any chance to get decked out in white linen and seersucker, pack up an elegant lunch or tea repast and tap away with croquet mallets in the late spring sunshine....

At least this particular Preppy did earlier this spring!

What a truly fun afternoon it was enjoying a croquet tournament that was uber-tres' elegant. I loved every minute of it and am inspired to have a classic croquet set one day soon for enjoyable times spent out on our lawn as well.

Above are a few of the wonderful photos from that delightful afternoon... ah, croquet!

Busy, busy and all-good but still such a busy Spring into Summer

2011-06-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

Busy...and all good-busy but boy, am I one tired Lowcountry Preppy this Spring

Hello everyone: my readers, my passers-by and the friends and family on Facebook who read this as it streams into there from this blog site....

I hope you all have been having a wonderful Spring into Summer season as have I :)

It's been so much fun and so very festive that I haven't posted as many blog posts as I usually do but I hope to get back to doing so in the next little while.

This warming-months season of 2011 I've been super-busy with work, inundated with projects around both the house and the grounds here, helping out with a myriad of charitable and social events, volunteering around church, catching up with friends over lunch hours and lingering dinners and so for and so on....

Thank goodness for our 10 day Florida Keys getaway: we needed that relaxing "breather" both before and after it that's for sure.

And so soon I'll do some fun blogging about islander parties, croquet playing, summer fashions, Lowcountry cuisine, decorating for hot n' humid months and the like but for now...

...off I dash once again. Today's "busy" is driving James back to the Savannah Airport this afternoon then heading back into town for evening church service, delivering some baby presents, going out to dinner with good friends, swinging by the grocery store afterwards then when finally back at home, setting out my work outfits for this next coming week plus writing some more bills to mail out before heading to work early tomorrow morning... and I thought Sundays were to be a day of rest ;)

Crazy For Coral...the Preppy's "Answer-to-Orange"

2011-05-16T20:23:00.001-07:00

Ah, coral...first you start out with this biblot from Halcyon Days...

...then add a cute tunic-top motif key fob from Tory Burch and...

...find you can't resist these estate earrings from Ross Simmons...

...or this great handbag from, but of course, Kate Spade which...

...pairs up perfectly with these sandals from Brooks Brothers that...

...finish off this shift dress available through Gumps, ah coral!

This season it's a sea of coral out there... coral hued-orange... a stylish color that's both fun and elegantly-appropriate as we go from late Spring on into Summer's warmer, humid tropical days.

Last month while down in Key West I so enjoyed snorkeling around a coral reef, ah coral!

Last Sunday as I was reading the Scripture lesson in church, I glanced up and saw a sea of coral out in the pews. Now, us conservative Episcopalians will from time to time have a bright color or two and even a Lilly Pulitzer print popping up among parishioners however, this bevvy of brights in the various shading of coral was unusual. Very pretty indeed! I too had a coral-hued dress on in the form of bright coral flowers set out onto a light champagne silk background with the structured shift dress I sported. What fun...

This season there are a lot of fun little "pops" of coral-colored wardrobe pieces and accessories as well as jewelry to add into one's wardrobe. Above in the pictures I've highlighted just a few of some of my favorites available out there by Preppy purveyors.

Enjoy a dash of coral this summer!

Writing...Anyhow, Anywhere, Anytime...

2011-05-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

Writing can be facilitated anywhere...like on this hammock by the sea...

...as well as including sketching-inspirations in a travel sketchbook.

Writing can be structured such as within this library cubby...

...or the un-structured propped-up on my lap in bed with computer gig.

From a comfortable sofa in a cottage by the sea most recently to...

...a cottage's fireplace-side back in ski bummin' days...ah, writing!

Earlier this evening I got to thinking about writing while...writing.

Recently I have put back into my weekly schedule once again assigned-times for me to take my little net book computer plus writing files, papers n' scribbles n' such on into our small local library and SIT MYSELF DOWN to concentrate on writing!

It's funny in a way that the non-fiction writing I do whether professionally as with the aviation column I write every month (and the other columns I used to write plus articles during a sideline freelance career I enjoyed pre-grad school) and but of course with this blog, well, it just flows offa' me. I can sit down at the computer here and in a flash it seems, get these finished. However....

....with my fictional creative writing projects such as a short story collection I've been working on for oh, over a decade now....the writing seems to take f.o.r.e.v.e.r... not the ideas or the outlines but the actual writing process.

Hence the "dates" I've penciled-in, no, have written in ink into my daytimer.

I did this very same thing while working on my master's thesis project in the midst of a full course load during the last semester in graduate school. The class work I found easy enough to do at home but this thesis work wasn't getting done as fast, and frankly as well, as it should have been. So I tromped off to our library to force myself to have no distractions while working on it. And it worked out great (graduated with straight A's, wheh) so here I am again sitting in a little cubby at the back of our library.

These library-times ground me whereas so much of my writing has been toted-around.

Over the two decades I've been writing more than just papers-for-school, it's been kinda' funny how ongoing writing projects can be dragged around and odd times "found" to do them within.

From tucking index cards and a pen into the inside pocket of my fly fishing waders to dragging around my various journals on trips plus into the woods on hikes and off to the beach to using my work lunch breaks to scribble away for less than an hour... somehow, somewhere the writing's found a way to get itself accomplished.

Lately, with the wonderful tool of the cute little netbook computer James surprised me with as a gift, it's been even easier to chug along with this short story collection.

I always begin all of my writing by actually using a pen to put ink onto actual paper: non-fiction and fiction; paid and just-for-fun; scholarly attempts and attempts at humor; so forth and so on. I like to use plain white paper and a black fine-line rollerball pen so that the writing just flows. Flowing even into doodles at times but nothing restrictive with the initial process of writing for me. As the writing progresses along, then comes the "first edit" of typing it into a Word document. I let it sit a bit and then revisit to rewrite, do another round of editing and such. Writing's a process within which each individual writer needs to find his or her unique pathway for navigating the journeying and enjoying it as well.

There are two things that I hate to see happen to writers out there who are taking waaay too much advice and not just simply taking pen to paper: trying to "write" in some particular way someone else is and also losing their personal "voice". There's a lot of bad writing out there, there's a lot of good writing out there and there's a lot of mediocre writing out there; it'll all shake out as it is ultimately destined to do so it's far better to write as-yourself than to try to imitate another's writing. History proves as well that the popular, well-published writers of each year, each decade, every century that passes by humankind are not necessarily the lasting-literary-greats. So many incredible writers and poets were not even recognized within their own lifetimes or even within the century in which they lived so just keep to it and keep your day job as well.

(Yes, yes...lovely to utilize basic grammer, sentence structure and alla' that but if from time to time or for enabeling your own writing voice these truisms need to be flexed then by all means do that. Don't butcher the understanding of universal language but rather blend it into your own conversing-by-literature, conversing-by-blog, conversing-by-poetry and so on.)

Well, you may not need to keep your day job perhaps but for me at least, it's the times I am busiest within my work, family, home-life, social-life, volunteerism and other responsibilities and activities that I find I get a lot of writing accomplished. I have enacted for myself writing retreats as well as not worked a job or jobs at all for awhile but I write best it seems when I'm challenged to find places and times to squeeze it in. Whatever works eh?

All this from a non-English major...actually from a History and Political Science undergrad double-major, Humanities masters degree, former business manager, current fashion show producer, longtime fly fishing fanatic, ski bum and such who doesn't wear floppy poet's blouses, doesn't quote Chaucer and doesn't think that there is one sole writerly-look or writerly-lifestyle anyway. Just write!

Just write wherever you can, whenever you can and however you can.

One of my favorite things in life is to "run across" a blog, article, poetry chapbook, novella, scholarly tome and so forth which has been written by someone I either have no idea who they are or seem to be non-discovered writers. It's both refreshing and fascinating.

So please...just...write...and share your work with our shared world...............

Hats off...to the older Royal generation!

2011-05-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

Sophie's got wonderfully-fashionable, royally-regal royal wedding style!

Something the younger-royals could definitely use a lesson on...obviously

Camilla's showing elegant restraint with her own turn of fashion-forward

The Queen is always, of course, pitch-perfect even in bright yellow....

As for the Middletons? Perfectly-proper, polished and downright regal

Hats off to the older generation of England's royals? Yes indeed!

Amazing enough, aside from Princess Anne (bless her decidedly unstylish heart) the elder royal women really showed some great classic hat style at The Royal Wedding while the younger generation's princessey gals...oh my, oh wow, oh ugh.

The younger royals were (I guess) trying to be more fashion-forward than usual in such a public setting as their generation's royal wedding was with its worldwide coverage but alas, unfortunately so many times this kinda' styling really ends up just being a buncha' fashion-foibles going on!

Unflattering into downright fascicle were the hat choices of Beatrice, Eugenie and Zara. One could make the argument that these hats added high-fashion into the usually quite traditional and staid "per usual" royal attire choices but they were just simply plain ole' tacky hats. That these young ladies are the daughters of Fergie and Anne who both continue to struggle along the road of personal style, well there's little surprise then about this eh?! So let's simply call it like it is however.......

......on the other hand, the hat choices of Sophie, Camilla and the latest royal in-laws, the refreshingly middle class Middletons, were not only elegant but also nicely fashionable.

My top-choice for Best Hat/Fascinator: the choice of Sophie, Countess of Wessex

My top-choice for Worst Hat/Fascinator: the choice of Princess Beatrice

My top advice for the young royal ladies is to actually take some actual-style fashion cues from some of their elders and yes, I never, ever thought I'd ever be saying, er actually typing this!

Kentucky Derby Hattin'...and Mint Julip Sippin'

2011-05-07T19:36:00.000-07:00

Start with a festive floral-strewn hat on a bright, sunny afternoon...

...add-in hat-wearin' friends with their mint juleps at hand...

...and top with jockey-jersey inspired cookies ='s one GREAT Derby party!

What a really fun day today was with going over to a girlfriend's house to enjoy a wonderful Kentucky Derby Party with a bunch of great folks!

Both the women and even the men delighted in wearing hats, sipping mint juleps, snacking on incredible party foods and cheering our horses on...the hostess and host did a truly magnificent job... every detail was utterly perfect and the atmosphere such fun for everyone.

Above are a few of the party-pics snapped with my Blackberry which show that yes, indeed, Americans too can wear festive hats as much as those English wedding-goers do, haha! No one sported a "fascinator" however. It seems flowers in the hair or tucked behind an ear we can enact with style but those odd growth-looking things sprouting from the heads and even the front of foreheads like alien attachments, er... us Yanks will just leave those to um, Princesses Eugenie, Beatrice and their bunch.

May "hats be back" in style once again, yes indeed!

If India Hicks and Lilly Pulitzer co-designed a hotel room...

2011-04-30T18:31:00.000-07:00

Ready to move into this tropically-stylish yet still-elegantly modern room:

An India Hicks with dashes of Lilly Pulitzer kinda' hotel room....fun!

Two balconies facing the ocean makes this twice-as-nice to hang around

Your's-truly putting her Preppy self right on into the setting here....

...and not wanting to leave this spa-like bathroom either, ahh, so nice...

If the lifestyle design houses of India Hicks and Lilly Pulitzer designed a hotel room together I think that it may have turned out to be something akin to the wonderful room James and I stayed in at the Hyatt Resort in Key West...

We really enjoyed the vibe of this room with its two balconies looking out onto the harbor!

Our room was a combination of classic-elegant minimalism touched with a cool modern elan' such as India Hicks designs inspire while also dolloped with the casual fun tropical brights rendered in whimsical prints which is of course the long-standing styling mantra of Lilly Pulitzer.

What is pitch perfect for one island life styling may not be for another's...however, for the environs of Key West, this style combination was just utterly perfect!

Key Westie-Preppie...yes, there's Plenty of Prep around Key West

2011-04-30T17:13:00.000-07:00

Key West stylin' can be so lovely and.... actually quite Preppy as well!

Darling cottages abound in Key West's historic district...ahh...

Lilly Pulitzer store across from our resort? Perfect for this Lilly P wearer

And being on a double-masted sailboat...a perfectly-Preppy day indeed!

The words "Key West" and "Preppy" are rarely used together...at least in any sentence I've ever heard. Key West has a reputation for being a bit of a wild child: the rowdy black sheep rebellious teenager existing within the family of islands which sit off the east coast of the United States.

I traveled down there expecting a bit of wildness and was of course rewarded with seeing this as James and I strolled down into the historic district on our way to Blue Heaven, a famous funky-vibed restaurant. We happened upon The Conch Republic's parade complete with parading pirates, various men with less than a loincloth on, drunk people attempting to ride their bikes and one really great reggae' singer performing on a float. The transvestites were a dolled-up with some belting out songs in various bars along our routes. The tiny dogs being walked all around were better-dressed than most of the tourists and but of course, there were roosters everywhere. Oh, yes, the sightings of festively-funky Key West abounded.

But what surprised me more than all of that were the sightings of Pleasantly-Preppy Key Westy!

It started right off with espying a large Lilly Pulitzer store just across from our Hyatt Resort digs. Alright!!! Preppy Tropical Wear-a-rama... As well, there were many lovely other clothing and household decor' boutiques, upscale art studios, nice jewelry stores, European-fel cafe's, day spas and such to be found around town. Admittedly these more Preppy spots were tucked in amidst all the tacky-tourist shops, lingerie boutiques, tattoo and piercing places, loud bars and more guided-tours storefronts than you could shake a stick at but that they were to be actually found was a nice surprise to this ole' Preppy wandering around the historic area.

And speaking of historic, oh wow, the Key West classic-inspired architecture here is stunning!

Any cottage, pick a cottage....move me right on in.....

From the deep porches with their detailed scroll work, long-shuttered windows, some metal roofing here n' there, light colors, vibrant-hued flowered gardens, embellishments of old brick, weathered metalwork and vines stretching along columns, gates, fences and latticework- from the tiniest of cottages to expansive large houses and other grand buildings, any Preppy's heart would indeed skip a beat passing by these elegant yet not ostentatious places.

Other Preppy touches found around Key West included classic nautical artifacts, real-use boating items and inspired decor' as well as the actual sailboats themselves which gently bob in the harbors. Bicycles with large straw baskets on the front of them, large dogs, bouquets wrapped-up in paper with ribbon ties, pearls galore' and European coffee and pastries and on and on... such pretty bits of Preppy here and there and actually, almost everywhere.

What fun to espy touches of the Preppy lifestyling all around Key West- especially when one wasn't expecting it!

Preppy Packing for the Keys...oops, one suitcase is one too many!

2011-04-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

Oops! This Preppy has to pare-down her Florida Keys trip packing pronto!

Yes, even the jewelry gets pared down, sigh. The following photos are of some of the outfits gathered together from the limited space a roll-aboard and matching satchel allows for clothes n' shoes:

Bikini, coverup big-shirt, cute sandals, Hemingway book, room key...ready!

Another swimsuit with its coordinating sarong plus great bag n' sandals

Preppy-plaid swimsuit top paired with old comfy shorts n' Sperry flip-flops

Working RL Polo jean shorts with an Ann Taylor sweater-top n' pearls

Basic black soft knits with my fave Jones NY linen blouse-top

Khaki cargo-style travel skirt by Royal Robbins is soooo coool, ahh

Tropically-inspired dressing up dress for day into evening wearability! Various other look combinations and a few other clothing pieces aren't shown here but you get the idea....

Imagine my acute dismay when James informed me that um, we didn't have room for my suitcase this trip and I'd have to pack for 10 days in the Florida Keys using just my roll-aboard and its matching satchel bag....what????

I was literally all packed up and ready to go when he came inside from hitching up our kayak trailer to his truck after putting into the truck's back seat area various fishing, kayaking and snorkeling gear. I was shell shocked for a moment until I went down myself to the truck, looked inside and realized that, wow, even getting down to my two typical carry-on pieces I always fly with was going to be a spacial challenge. Drat!

Well, long story short, I DID manage to pare down to the barest of necessities for this trip, which aside from my fishing togs, have managed to be comfortable and casual-enough for the Keys while remaining a bit stylish all the same. Basically living-in swimsuits since we've been here has helped "stretch" my wardrobe for going out to eat and bummin' around places other than the beaches or pool areas.

Last year while spending a few weeks out in Hawaii, James told me that I was far too dressy which I was, yes, but I'm usually dressier-than-most anyway. I like dressing up...so sue me ;) This trip I guess I'm casual-enough since I haven't heard any comments to the contrary, haha.

This not however the lightest I've ever packed for traveling...that honor goes to the long weekend James and I spent in London a couple of years ago where, yes indeed, in the still cold months of early spring I toted only a mid-sized backpack as my luggage! It worked out okay but that probably won't happen again. I DO like to wear more than two outfits heavily layered n' accessorized and have more than one pair of tall leather riding boots as footwear options. But as for the fitted trench coat paired with a soft scarf and thin leather gloves: those were teriffic!

Thankfully, here in the Florida Keys, a whole less layering is needed aside from bikini coverups.

And so five days down and five more to go and... I think I'll actually make-it outfit wise, wheh!

A Preppy in...Key Largo...

2011-04-27T06:27:00.000-07:00

Preppy cover-ups (clothing n' a floral arbor) shield from Key Largo's sun

Preppy kayaking-action going on amidst the mangroved channels

Spotting a Preppy fishing off a tiny-key's shores accessed by kayak

A happy-Preppy snorkeler...hard to beat the super-clear waters here

...OR the finally lazing-away in a beachside hammock, ahhh...bliss....

There's trips, there's traveling, there's taking vacations and then there's taking an actual-vacation...which is what James and I have finally done, an actual-vacation.

We've vacated the premises of one island for the parameters of other islands further south of us packing very little aside from our snorkeling gear, fishing rods and kayaks. Nothing has been on the agenda at all so far except for "being in the water" and this has been total bliss!

The past two months of our work lives have been literally crazy... James has been doing his usual mostly away from home flying trips while I've been so busy with work projects and events that it's been a real challenge to not run my hours every week into overtime. About every night I don't have something else going on after work, I've come back home to do a little housework, help Dad out a bit, give Kanon a short walk or throw the ball with him and then have fallen into bed exhausted. Both James and I were literally running on our internal exhaust fumes.....

So our decision to choose an actual-vacation over our usual Spring Trip exploring a city or two around Europe was an easy one: it was time to rest, relax and renew our inner-batteries!

So....we've been out here in the Florida Keys...

This is definitely not, in general, a "Preppy Place" to be sure but it's been a lot of fun!

We're staying in Preppy places however: The Hilton Resort on Key Largo and the Hyatt Resort on Key West. This Hilton's been nicely understated yet is still elegant in a nature-vibed sort of way. The interiors here, exteriors and beaches plus pool are all clean-lined and simple and, despite a full-house over the Easter weekend, seem uncrowded and fairly quiet. Our room's kind of like being in a small bungalow: modern, light, breezy and expansive. We've enjoyed this stay here so much that we extended it by cancelling other reservations we had with an actual beach side cottage on another key. Tomorrow we're heading on to the Hyatt on Key West.

We've brought our Preppy activity-apparatuses with us by lugging our fishing gear, snorkeling stuff and kayaks down here on our kayak trailer. Preppy folks, as we all know, are sporty-folks. Yes, we'll sit around the pool a bit but we'll also soon being doing laps in it. Yes, we'll lay out on the beach for awhile but then we'll also head out to snorkel the rest of the afternoon away. Yes we'll lazily kayak through a mangrove swamp's channels but then of course we're also casting away with our fishing rods as well.

We've brought our Preppy appetites with us enjoying fresh seafood, fresh fruits and other simple dishes along with a drink or two. As usual, I'm more-prep food wise with my preference for plain, simple foods while James is the much more adventurous one trying all the spicy and unusual fare available out here on the keys. Last night we went to an upscale seafood buffet where I indulged in various fish, shrimp, crab dishes as well as ate probably way too many conch fritters than I should have then topped it all off with a key lime piece of pie. Today, after that big food-spree, I'm back to fruit n' more fruit and lots of water.

We've brought our Preppy clothes with us though actually very, very little of these with only bringing one roll-aboard piece of luggage apiece. The bulk of our attire is of course swimsuits, swimsuit cover-ups and well-worn fishing togs. I've included one cute tropical-islandy long gauzy cotton festive-print dress for dining out on Key West and a lightweight button down shirt and khaki pants for James for the same occasion. Otherwise we've left the resort so far in Polo shirts, khaki walking shorts and our Sperry flip-flops and, funny enough, have been some of the neatest-looking tourists around. When we've actually left the premises here....

This is Day 5 of our 10-Day-Vacay.

We both feel that doing an actual-vacation like this was a great decision. It's kind of ironic that, while living out on a tiny, quiet island ourselves, we still lead very busy and high-pressured lives thus occasionally needing to vacate our own premises in order to get some rest n' relaxation. However, we do appreciate the times we can stand out in our yard and look off into a picturesque horizon after hopping out of our cars at the end of a long workday. We also appreciate the ability to kayak right off the yard as well as take long walks through our woods and putter around the garden a bit as well. Times out in our hammock by the marsh or sitting on one of the two porches are treasured too however...there's always things like housework, household projects, working on our computers, assorted chores, errands and such in the background which call out to us...but not here in the Florida Keys.

Here in the Keys we're relaxing to a degree that's just not possible on the island-back-home......

Roses and roses... Outdoor, Indoor and a little bit o' Legacy

2011-04-09T21:27:00.000-07:00

Roses greeting me on the steps as I return from a long day at work

Gosh, mother's roses are beautiful...so old-fashioned and sentimental

Gathering some of them up is a wonderful "pausing" in the early evening

Yes, indeed, do "stop and smell the roses" from time to time...

...then place them around the house for some indoor enjoyment as well.

Ah, roses....it's really hard to dislike roses even after one has been nicked by the thorns of roses time after time after...time.

I have aways loved roses and have noticed them since I can remember but I never grew them myself until living in the first house of our early-married-life years back in North Carolina. James and I put in rose bushes there and had them potted into large containers as well gracing our patio in the back yard. Pretty and pretty darn profuse with their bloomings throughout the years, those rose bushes.

Out here on this island, I maintain my late mother's rose garden.

It's a tiny one and very casual. It's set at the base of our double stairs which leads up to the front door. It's backed by morning glory vines while lantana carpets its space and includes a simple pedestal birdbath sitting in the middle. It's quite lovely and reminds me of mother every day.

Since she planted everything in this little rose garden spot, I am determined to keep it exactly as it is...primarily red roses or red-orange roses with some light pink ones thrown in as well.

This week, after last week's drenching rains, it has decided to not only bloom but to BLOOM!

The photos above are ones I took early yesterday evening after coming in from work. Well, after coming in from orchestrating and mc'ing an in-store kids fashion show with 30 child models on a Saturday afternoon, wheh. This event was a lot of fun but also a big expansion of energy n' enthusiasm which afterwards definitely needed some inner-refueling and so I commenced my usual "spending time outside in the garden".

Soft, cool ocean breezes were catching the nose of our dog sitting out on the porch with me after we ambled about. These breezes drifted my way the scent of the nearby roses- catching me up within its deliciousness. Too heavenly to ignore! I plucked myself off my porch perch going to get the clippers out of my trusty wooden garden trug and then commenced to clip a few roses to bring inside and further enjoy.

Sometimes we do indeed need to literally, "stop and smell the roses," while sometimes as well someone actually does. "promise...a rose garden."

May your days ahead lend you roses or at the very least, a tinge of rose...through rose colored glasses.

Snapshots from a Southern Wedding...20 Years Ago

2011-04-05T20:39:00.000-07:00

Here comes the bride...

Here poses her handsome Groom...

Here they are having so much fun at their wedding!

Here they are taking their wedding vows as the sun sets at 7:30 p.m.

Here's the BEST bridesmaids a bride could wish for!

Here's the partaking of a southern pound cake wedding cake, yum.

Here's confetti and streamers being tossed their way as they...

...take their leave by horse drawn carriage at midnight- 20 years ago today.

Later on today....since it's just turned midnight...much later on today I am taking James to a surprise-location for spending the day n' night near where we live for his anniversary gift. Lunch, dinner, a midnight-snack small picnic basket I've packed and just plain ole' relaxin'-around is on tap for celebrating our 20th Anniversary.

We jumped-the-gun on weeks in Paris and Hawaii last year which, in retrospect, was actually the year to do those trips since this spring's seen my back problems linger and it's very difficult for me to travel now least not fly for hours at a time. At the end of this month we're heading down to Key West for awhile so that'll be great but as for tomorrow, I thought that "playing laid-back tourist" around our cute historic downtown area would be a lot of fun and so little stress.

Hope you enjoyed these wedding pictures of us looking soooo young all those years ago.....such fun to pull them out again and have such wonderful memories of April 6th, 1991!

20 Years Ago...2 Preppies...One Wonderful Marriage

2011-04-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

Here we are...us old "married folks" happily out here on an island because...

...waaay back in 1989, two Southern Preppy History-geeks fell in love...

...and happily tied-the-knot on April 6th, 1991(now 20 years ago)...

...commencing on a life-journeying that was different from the "typical"...

...with never a dull moment from NC to UT to now an island offa' SC...

This Wednesday...20 years ago...at 7:30 p.m. in the evening...

...James and I were married!

It's hard to believe that 2 whole decades have already come-around within our married life at this point in time, wow. 22 years ago we met through, yes, our college's History Honor Society, Phi Alpha Theta and six months later we were engaged. James popped the question just before my sorority's ball and so we had a candlelight ceremony right then n' there in the ballroom once all my sisters and their dates had finished arriving. What's it like to have a whole lotta' Chi Omega's engulf you with hugs and smiles and well-wishes and excited screams just after your girlfriend, er finance', blows out the candlelight's candle? Well, ask James ;) Half stayed on the ballroom floor surrounding me and the other half swarmed the table where James and some of the other guys sat in complete amazement in witnessing a traditional sorority-rite of passage usually reserved for enacting within our house on Sorority Row. However, it's not one a' those secret-things of fraternity/sorority life so it was fine to be doing this "right then, right there".

A year later, we had the proverbial "huge Southern wedding": white tie dress, a southern pound cake with rolled fondant icing, pearls galore', white roses n' tulips n' ivy n' all but....up in Milwaukee....due to family medical logistics for a parent and partly due to the fact that from my junior high days onwards, we had been living up North and loved our dear friends there too! Both James and my southern families attended and it was such a good time had by all.

We began our married life in Charlotte, NC as typical Preppy-Yuppies then happily decamped out to the mountainside of Park City, UT to be ski-bum/fly-fishing bums and now are back in these Lowcountry environs on an island off the coast of South Carolina...living a life I like to call Simple Yet Elegant, as in a refined drenched-in-Southern version of simple living. It's been a very interesting 20 years of marriage n' living n' lifestyling that's for sure!

We've carried our Southern Preppy penchants n' preferences which were born n' bred into us throughout our life journeying: both as a married couple and as singles. When I met James, I knew that we had a common bond and cultural-vernacular we both well understood.

We've been fortunate to have such a fun friendship with one another as well as a good marriage.

Here's to the previous 20 years and to 20 more years n' beyond.....James, you're the best!!!!!

Wishing my readers as well the experience of a wonderful relationship throughout the years :)

Finally...a spot of Family-Zen-Time after so much "Busy"...ahh!

2011-04-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

Combining some Zen-time with Family-time out on our island last night...

My-boys on the dock...can you find ole' Kanon amidst the tree fringe?

I toast this moment of beachy "just-being" with what's left of my wine

Busy is usually seen as "good" but sometimes busy is just, well, plain ole' busy.

Last month was far too busy than I would have liked it to have been that's for sure. In our post-modern, globalized and Internet-integrated world now everything's so interconnected that the proverbial Work Life Balance is truly difficult to seek maintaining actual balance within...

And I'm not complaining at all about this since so much of what makes my life, my family's life and probably your life too of course is a whole lotta' good and/or productive busy-ness. Last month I was overwhelmed with lots of good things going on: work, writing, volunteer work and charity gala's, church, times with friends, household organization projects, back rehab and wonderful yoga sessions, a weekend with my aunt and uncle out on another island etc etc. And there were also less-fun things going on as well, having to be dealt with also. March was BUSY!

However, one of the great lessons life has taught me along the journeying of it is that we can indeed pull-back, re-shift or just snatch some batches of "Zen-time" in the midst of all our busy days, weeks, months and years. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort and planning and other times, it simply is an awareness we tap into right-now and facilitate like.......yesterday evening.

Last night after coming home from work, James and I quickly changed our clothes to what we call our Coosaw-casual togs, put our dog in the truck with us and headed over to another side of this island to walk along the beach and watch the sunset drop behind the marsh and far tree line with a friend and his dog as well. We all had our glasses of wine in hand and lingered over those plus lingered within the warm breezes coming off the ocean water. Kanon and Cotton blissfully played and explored as only big ole' dogs can do as we humans chatted and walked along behind them. It was the calm-moment at the week's end that we all so very much needed.

Sometimes it feels like, whether out on an island or living within a big city or suburb, there are simply not enough times like these: these Zen-like moments of peace, calm and "just being" happening in our daily lives.

Since moving here into this lowcountry island environment taking on the very stressful duty of caregiving for my late mother and now helping out with my father n' running two households, I've actively tried to instill more of this "stillness" within my schedule, within our days being spent here but some months such as last month literally take me fully up into its busy swirl.

However, when the planned, unplanned or just-now-happening moments of blissful being DO happen, they are all the more delightful it seems when they haven't been happening much lately......

Here's hoping you too enjoy some "just being" times in the near future!

The Gardening Awaits... Pretty n' Preppy Painterly Inspirations

2011-03-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

Gardening-anticipation...almost as nice as the actual act of gardening...

...and the additional joys of "being in" the garden as well...however...

...our kitchen garden out here on the island is still in-winter-mode...

(The above paintings were gleaned from the Wikimedia Commons site)

Ahh... today out here on this island the temperature was 84 degrees and it was so bright blue skies n' sunny, gosh! Um, hmm, IS this actually the month of March still? Wow...

Every March that comes around, I so very much want to get out there and get gardening!

Every March or early April I'm so thankful that I didn't. Why? Because inevitably there's some last-minute frost or late deep drop in the temperatures or battering burst of wind that would have wrecked havoc with my tender plantings, barely-up seedlings and whatever else I planted out there in the raised beds of our kitchen garden which features a bed for herbs, a bed for vegetables, a bed for cutting flowers and a variety of tomatoes in large pots scattered around.

While the kitchen garden tends to need a fair amount of tending, conversly, the small rose garden my late mother planted always does best when I actually do very little to it; I just trim back the winter's deadening and let it come back to life as it will. Bushes of red and pink roses are grounded by lantana that gives a riotious burst of yellow and adds its bevvy of butterfly groupies to the more staid and formalized roses framing a concrete bird bath backed by the front double stairway's morning glory vines. I have left my mother's simple but effective rose bed design intact for obviously sentimental reasons.

Each stage of Spring comes around diligently on our island showcasing beautifully nature's internal clockwork: the marsh turns from its wintery rust hues into vibrant greens, the trumpet and confederate vines begin to give pops of color among the trees and roadsides, muscadine grapes leaves have a deeper green tinge to them and the flowers, oh the flowers... commence...

Soon, soon I'll be picking up the trowel and gently pushing the old wheelbarrow around but until then, I can look at inspiring paintings of gardens and dream that one day maybe I'll have a garden just a tiny bit like these perhaps...or more likely I'll just have these small sections to keep tending amidst this lawn, woods and marsh fringe. Small yes, but pleasant and quite full and quite fulfilling in their own ways.

Daffodil-hues...Spring 2011's Offerings Perfect for Preppies

2011-03-09T19:31:00.000-08:00

Cheerful, casual bold yellow is trending "hot n' sunny" this Spring...

A yellow tie from Vineyard Vines brightens a button-down shirt

Throw on a great yellow-hued hat from Orvis anytime, anywhere

Smiles abound in a delightful yellow child's cardigan from Lilly Pulitzer

Let's not forget the dogs in Ralph Lauren's Polo offering for them

Brighten your wake-up day via this L.L.Bean alarm clock

Brighten up someone else's day with a Cranes note in bold coloring

Set a casually-cheerful table with Fiesta available at Belk

Splash yellow brightening around a room inspired by Southern Living

Ah... bold, bright and cheerful yellow....how wonderful to see it pop up this Spring season not just outdoors with the daffodils but also with the latest fun fashion, decor' and other product offerings for these coming warmer weather months of 2011.

Personally, I'm a light, buttery yellow kinda' gal but this current bright yellow is a lot of fun!

I would so wear this elegant yet still-can-be-casual in a way dress offering from Kate Spade that begins the pictorial above! In fact, I'd wear everything in the current website front page of Kate Spade's website...check it out and you'll get a whole lotta' bold yellow inspiration.

Have fun with focusing this trend in a casual, daily-living type of way!

Besides having daffodils in your yard and in vases within the house, why not enjoy this fresh vibrant yellow trend in a variety of other ways?

Sometimes pictures do indeed speak louder than words, thus the pictoral gallery above is for your Spring 2011 Bold Yellow Trending Perusal.....

On Daffodils...One Preppy's Musings

2011-03-08T19:18:00.000-08:00

Pretty Miss Daffy-down-Dilly of the children's daffodil nursery rhyme

So enjoying bouquets of daffodils here on the island this spring

Two Springs Ago... daffodils by Westminster Abbey in London and...

...last Spring, daffodils foreground, the Eiffel Tower in the background

Lachlan enjoying floral-elegance Parisian styled... tres' jolie, oui?!

And again in Paris- right down from our hotel, so daffodil pretty

This past Saturday: island daffodils for a community fundraiser party

Could there be any better harbinger of early Spring than the cheery sunlight-bright and whimsically trumpet-like daffodil?

Heralding the warming of weather, daffodils have ever-captured the imagination of painters, poets, photographers, children's book illustrators, fashion designers and textile designers and interior designers and jewelry designers and porcelain designers and...so forth and so on.

Daffodils are a solid part of what I think of as the creative-life ethos. Things pretty, things artistic, things uniquely designed and inspiring. Even their scent is distinctive: hard to describe but a lot less floral-ly than other spring flowers.

There hasn't been a time in my life when I haven't really adored the delightful daffodil.

My earliest memory of being conscious of daffodils was an illustration of a pretty lady named "Daffy-down-Dilly" in a children's' nursery rhyme book we had. The rhyme went like this: Daffy-down-Dilly/Has come to town/With a yellow petticoat/And a pretty green gown/Daffy-down-Dilly.

Later on, much later on, I would go on into adulthood having my own gardens surrounding cottages (three so far: NC, UT and now here in SC) into which I planted and continue to plant various bulbs. Out in Park City, Utah on a steep mountainside, I had (so far) the most daffodils. Both in the small yard of our tiny restored miner's cottage and across the way in a grassy lot. I also enjoy potting them for indoors winter blooming.

The late great interior designer Eleanor McMillan Brown declared that every room should have some yellow in it and I concur wholeheartedly!

In North Carolina, we not only had a buttery yellow master bedroom and bath bordered with glossy white wood molding trim, we also had our cottage house's exterior painted yellow flanked by a white Victorian columned n' curlicued-trim porch. Viva yellow....yes....

Endearing daffodils further into my personal psyche' was the poem, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth. Unforgettable are his last lines, "And then my heart with pleasure fills/And dances with the daffodils."

But also in his first stanza are the verses, "When at once I saw a crowd,/A host of golden daffodils;/Beside the lake, beneath the trees,/Fluttering and dancing in the breeze" which so reminds me of the above picture from James and my jaunt over to London two springs ago where we were walking along a park near Westminster Abbey and seemingly-suddenly were treated to a dazzling spread of daffodils across the already brilliant green lawn which is so indicative of English parks.

Another trip to England, a few years earlier with my late mother, found me enjoying the picturesque Lake District with her where we stopped by Wordsworth's cottage and may have even walked along the very pathway wherein he was inspired to write this poem as he took a walk with his sister one day back in 1804.

Last spring, James and I spent a week thoroughly enjoying Paris. The only flowering happening then was forsythia bushes and loads of daffodils.....very lovely against the soft gray skies, architecturally-trimmed dark green boxwood bushes and the black ironwork that is structuring this iconic city of light. I always enjoy the bareness of winter and early spring: the simplicity and honesty of such distillment contrasted to the plethora of imagery, layering and colors which is later spring on into summer and autumn. All seasons are wonderful but there is something about Early-Spring that's both quietly restive to me and yet oddly inspiring as well.

Also inspiring is how the daffodil flower can be both casual-elegant and utterly-elegant.

The best way to describe this is to talk about two of the pictures above: one is of an arrangement example from a wonderful fundraiser which a community volunteer group I belong to just did via a party by the marsh- daffodils plunked into large glass Mason canning jars weighted by gilded oyster shells. The other is from one of my Paris trip pictures- a huge ornate urn dripping with daffodils. Both lovely, and such very different ways in which daffodils can be enjoyed.

Ah, so please do enjoy the daffodils of this springtime....I literally can't get enough of them!

On Orchids...One Preppy's Musings

2011-03-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

A cascade of orchid reblooms... so pretty in the living room

This orchid decided to rebloom last night much to my surprised delight

Two dormant orchids waiting on the windowsill...ready to get their sun-fill

Ah, orchids... the most elegant of houseplants, the most interesting of things growing within a glassed conservatory, the most unique plant to stumble upon in the wild... at least in this particular Preppy's opinion.

I've always been a big fan of orchids set down in a porcelain cache pot and put near a window.

One of the first things I did after moving into my husband's house he had purchased while in college was, as Mrs. Ivy, to procure and place a few orchids around that cottage's interior. Twelve years later, I put these orchids and a couple more into the back of my sports utility vehicle, along with some other plants, to drive from North Carolina all the way out to Park City, Utah. They moved-in with us into a darling restored miner's cottage perched there below a resort's ski runs and above the town's main street. One particular orchid which I had placed on a table by one of the two large windows in the front of the cottage kept reblooming and reblooming- such a happy camper.

In the rush to, within a week's notice, leave my life on the mountain to go with two suitcases in hand back to this island in order to help out my mother who passed away five weeks later, I did find a quick moment to take this particular orchid two houses down to a friend's for safe-keeping.

Months later, as I was then helping out my father here after my mother's passing with his household and own health issues, I finally returned to Utah to find out that......sigh.....my friend's dog had jumped up on the cabinet where she had placed my orchid, turn it out of its container and....partially eaten it.

Such an unnecessary demise for such a wonderful orchid.

A wonderful orchid....book...is The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean. It's a fascinating story and a nice change-up from all of the usual how-to books on orchids.

Orchids add so much to the interiors of places n' spaces and they're fairly easy to maintain. It's when they go dormant for awhile that many people think the plant's dead and toss it away. What a shame. All it needs is to be tucked away in a darkened, but not dark, area of the house and watered and...eventually it'll bloom on back into the pretty pageant of color and design that it is..... I let mine rest for a bit when they go dormant and then coax them back into blooming a couple of months later by placing them back into or near the big dining room window where warmth from the slanted afternoon sun does its work as well as my work with more frequent watering at that point.

The above photos are of some of the orchids I have here which rebloom time after time. They are all several years old at this point. What fun it is to see them rebloom again and again and again!

One day on down the timeline of my life, I may start a Save the Orchids non-profit organization where me and a few volunteers accept people's finished-blooming-for-now orchids to save them from being throw away into the trash or dump heap. We'll bring them to my dream house which is essentially a rambeling cottage with an elegant small English steel and glass conservatory attached to it in the back near the herb and kitchen garden area. In this conservatory will be rows of tables with copper liners and gravel to set the potted orchids onto. We'll keep track of the orchid-owners and alert them when their orchid reblooms. They can come pick it up or choose to donate it to a hospital, classroom etc or let it stay there among its fellow orchids.

Doesn't this sound like a good idea?

Ah, orchids....always such natural grace and beauty amongst us....indoors and outside as well.

Gearing-up for Fun n' Festively-Preppy Weddings...

2011-02-26T16:21:00.000-08:00

Preppies happily mix work with pleasure...gracious wedding events style

Preppies delight in finding their style featured... in a wedding magazine

Preppies can find a Lowcountry or Beachy-casual wedding dress at...

...Lilly Pulitzer where there's also pink n' green wedding guest frocks

Preppies can do wedding top hats and Kate Middleton feather caps (How much fun is this photo booth rental? One of the vendor-items at today's local wedding event show! Hadta' check it out during a break...but of course)

The season's gearing up folks....post the holiday debutante' season there always comes, but of course, the Wedding Season fast on the heels of Valentines!

After having been a bridesmaid more times than I can remember, having had my own big white tie formal wedding, having been in the country club wedding hostess arena for years and now working special events and fashion shows for a national retailer who has a huge focus on all-things-Bridal n' so utterly beautifully southern, well.... it's quite obvious that I indeed really do enjoy all these Wedding Seasons year after year. They're primarily spring and autumn based seasons; that being said, however, year-round there's always a lot of wedding inspirations within the fashion, home decor', floral, catering and other related industries.

This year we've been having such a blast with wedding events: our Spring Engagement Party kicked-off this current wedding season and today we were at a local Bridal Showcase where we had a table stacked with wondrous wedding things and information plus I produced the fashion show. Well, actually two fashion shows: since this was a long-afternoon event, the organizers wanted a repeat of the show to catch the bevvy of brides and their wedding party attendants, grooms, parents and such who were coming in towards the latter part of the day. I didn't mind at all doing the fashion show's coordinating and commentating twice in one afternoon- no problem and what fun!

Being an individual who's a hopeless romantic, loves all things beautiful, adores flowers and has enjoyed her own happy state of matrimony for (as of this coming April) 20 years so far n' so good.... I really, really like the planning of weddings, the going-to weddings and the lovely things n' people of weddings however...I'm through with being-in weddings. Now in my 40's, I've been there and done that with being in bridal parties but I just sooo love being a guest! The dressier the wedding, oh, the more fun I have in getting ready to go to it.

One thing I've noticed over the past three decades of my lifetime where weddings have so very much been in my world n' worldview is how wonderfully personalized they are becoming. It's a trending that I warmly welcome as brides and grooms and sometimes even entire families can tweak their wedding theme, focus, details and so forth as to what means the most to them. Weddings have gone beyond the basics of choosing the month, the colors and the flowers. Weddings now include personalization down to the typeset font desired for the embroidered monograms stitched into the backs of reception chairs' linen coverings! It's amazing what-all can be so uniquely personalized and after this afternoon's perusing of the bevvy of vendors in the show's big exhibit hall between my fashion shows, I'm even more amazed at the level of individualism a wedding can now have and so elegantly express- wow.

Of course, anything relating to Elegant, Elegantly-Preppy or just Outright-Preppy always catches my eye. Imagine my smile then when I opened the latest issue of a great wedding magazine, Charleston Weddings where on pages 100 and 101 there's a theme photo and idea spread for "True Prep"...yes, alrighty then! LOVE IT!

This particular wedding-focused publication has definitely proven quite well its title's byline of: the essential guide for every Lowcountry bride. It is one absolutely gorgeous magazine and by nature of all things Lowcountry, Charleston Weddings exudes prettily-Preppy on about every single one of its pages including the advertising. I save my issues of this for floral arrangements and entertaining inspiration but also in the hopes that when James and I reach our 25th Anniversary in five years, that we'll throw an elegant party out by the marsh celebrating all things romantic.....

It's such a personal pleasure within my daily living experience when an area of living that I personally really enjoy as an individual also is an ongoing work area within my career.

Do what you love and I'd add, "...within all the lovely" to the fortunate work-experiences I've experienced within the wedding industry throughout the years. Viva romantic love, ahhh!

Blog Tagging...5 Things I Can't Live Without

2011-02-21T15:51:00.000-08:00

My Bible...this one's a pretty Preppy-ish one indeed...

My Passport...have passport, will totally-travel! To Paris last spring...

Gardening... in all the ways that I possibly can...here, our kitchen garden

Dobermans...loyal, devoted and truly sweet companions...

Girlfriends...true treasures and the only "sisters" I'll ever have...

Thank you to LC from Walking in High Cotton, http://www.lcinnc.blogspot.com/ for tagging me with the 5 Things You Can't Live Without...

It has been a lot of fun to see what-all people are posting up to include within this...

Since many bloggers have done the very practical daily items they can't live without like cell phones, handbags, water bottles, computers, lipsticks and such, I decided to frame my response posting towards the theory that if these particular five things were taken away from my experience with the living of life, that as a result, I'd seriously fail-to-thrive. (Aside from the obvious food, water, shelter, clothing, family etc of course...that goes without saying eh?)

Without further ado, here are my 5 things I simply now can't live without from the photos above:

My Bible. This one is an amazingly-Preppy pink, green and fun floral leather NIV I found in our church's bookstore a couple of years ago. It cheerily sits on my bedside table and I don't underline or take notes in it like my other Bibles so it remains a very "fresh read" for whenever I just want to pick it up and peruse through it....Psalms, Proverbs and the Old Testament prophets are some of my favorite books to just read leisurely. So far, I've read through the Bible three times and have been in numerous Bible Studies and ever n' always, there's something directly life-applicable for me within its wisdom. My spirituality is completely central to my life.

My Passport. I have been a traveling-gal since the minute my parents let me begin to leave home to go to sleepovers, to vacation with my girlfriends' families, to go to camp, to head off to college over a thousand miles away and to travel internationally. So far, I've now traipsed around over 30 countries and have gone through 4 passports. Last year James and I had a blast going to Paris, Toronto and out to Hawaii for two weeks. Every other year I head down to Australia to visit family n' friends for a month. One of my favorite places to visit has been Austria where I'm dyin' to take James and have managed to get myself there three times so far. I can't imagine not being able to travel but when I'm too old or feeble for it anymore, at least there'll be many many great travel-memories and photos to enjoy from those times-past.

My Gardening. This is another very-central-to-who-I-am thing I don't think I could live without. James jokes that even if I was living in a mud hut with a dirt floor, there'd be some kind of green thing growing, flower blooming even if it was dandelions...this is very true. Flowers and things-green really nourish my soul. Even before I had my own house and yard, gardens n' kitchen gardens I would be dragging houseplants all around with me from my childhood room to a few in college dorm rooms. Once married and in my first home, boy howdy, did this penchant for plants really begin to bloom! Interspersed within my bevvy of traditional houseplants are the orchids I cultivate, the bulbs I pack into pots to bloom off-season, the herbs I enjoy adding scent on sunny windowsills and various flowering small plants. Outside currently it's a big ole' 5-acre area out here on this island that I enjoy keeping fairly woodsy as well as have a small rose garden bed, a three-raised bed mid-sized kitchen garden with vegetables/herbs/cutting flowers and then assorted flower pots n' planters scattered around on porches and by the brick fire pit marshside sitting area as well. My dream-house is actually an English Conservatory "house" attached or detached to whatever final cottage James and I retire in ;)

My Doberman. It has been such a joy and truly an honor to be the "mother" of our late beloved Duchess and now for our current sweet fella' Kanon. Dobermans are such wonderful dogs who are loyal and incredibly family-oriented all the while independent in a good way, super observant, of elegant stature and just plain ole' fun! I never dreamed of having a doberman as a pet until James surprised me with Duchess many years ago...literally surprised me and I haven't looked back since. I may still at some point in my life also bring into our family an English Springer Spaniel, Boykin Spaniel or King Charles Spaniel, the kind of dog I'd like to have as well but for now, I simply can't imagine my life ever not including a Doberman within it.

My Girlfriends. Being the only-girl of my generation...yes, in my life it's been brothers and boy cousins and also...having the closest female blood-relative now to me being my 10 year old niece Amelia, gosh do I really cherish my girlfriend "sisters" and sister-in-laws. It's so great having females of my age, or thereabouts, whom I can laugh with, cry with, joke with, shop with, ski with, sit out on the beach with and alla' that good stuff. When my mother passed away seven years ago, so many of my girlfriends literally moved-mountains to be with me on her funeral day. Two even flew down from Wisconsin in time to make the funeral here in Beaufort, drove down to Bonaventure in Savannah for the burial then stayed over until late into night at our house back out here on the island even though they had an early flight out of the Savannah Airport the next morning and one had her infant daughter with her as well...now those are sisters indeed! I treasure my girlfriends from near, from far, from childhood now on into my mid-adulthood, from family, from friendship, from career, from church, from blogging and so on and so forth and heck, from just ole, "gosh, she seems neat...I'd like to get to know her better". You guys, er gals, are the BEST!

And so, those are my 5 Things I Can't Live Without for your perusal...

Please feel free to reply post with your own listing if you wish...

Pansies can indeed be Perfectly Preppy

2011-02-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

Pondering planting pansies on a pretty winter afternoon...

Kanon gives the pansies a sniff-test and they are "approved"

Hanging-pansies cheer up the dulled winter vines on the porch

Our doberman basks in, and guards, the pansies on the porch...

Pansies and pillows add softening to the marsh pit's seating area

A big bumble bee snoozes away perched on a pansy, bzzz...zzz

Sweet-faced pansies and assorted violas are not the flowers that come immediately to mind for me as being uber-Preppy as the likes of heirloom roses, peonies and orchids in porcelain cache pots automatically do. Pansies can be quite "pedestrian" when they're used in municipal building landscaping beds or set out into small, pathetic little rows much too near a house's perimeter shrubbery.

However, when tucked into planters, decorative pots and cottage window boxes with some ivy vines and moss trimming, pansies become much much Preppier and add such delightful cheer year-round but especially so in the midst of winter.

Another nice way to utilize pansies is to use them as a colorful rimming around decorative green n' purpled cabbage within kitchen gardens and also yes, in container planting as well.

This past weekend, the various planters out at the island house really needed some refreshing. It's far too early to put out the casual wildflowers and flowering vines that I like to add into these floral groupings on our front porch, near the garage and also out by the marsh side firepit area. We have warm weather and blue sunny skies at the moment out here but there's always, always another cold spell that hits us before April finally brings warmth-consistency. And so, a few flats of pansies fit the bill perfectly.

It was a wonderful lazy-ish Saturday afternoon then for my dog Kanon and I as he supervised my refreshing of the planters. Under a brilliant blue sky and in the mid-70's with a gentle ocean breeze, this created the perfect setting to enjoy getting my hands into pansies n' potting soil.

We took our time with lotsa' sitting around, Kanon rolling around in the grass and even a bumblebee thwarting our finishing up one planter pot as he buzzed onto a pansy and then spent the afternoon seemingly snoozing away on it in the sunshine...

What a wonderful respite kind of day and activity in the midst of this winter!

Even if you can't plant or refresh with pansies where you live, putting a dollar's worth 6-pack of them into a terracotta pot and perching it on your kitchen windowsill will certainly add a cheerful touch within what has been for many folks, a very long, cold, snowy or rainy wintertime indeed.

Bring on the pansies and bring a bit of floral sweetness into your wintertime days....

21st Century Postmodern June Cleaver-ism: The New Domesticity

2011-02-18T18:17:00.000-08:00

June Cleaver would so understand...in her pearls of wisdom...

...this at-home Neo-Dior new-look but she'd be surprised...

...to see it going out the door for outside the home work as well!

Between girlfriends' posts on blogs, Facebook and emails... it seems there's a New Domesticity about...

Preppies and non-Preppies alike are not relegating themselves to being "only career women", "just staying at home" or "mainly ladies who lunch...and play tennis" anymore. Everyone seems to not only be rejecting all too simple-labeling of themselves and their lifestyles but also to honestly be actual multi-faceted women.

Suffice it to say, I really like this trending. The 21st Century Woman can no longer be labeled!

We are much more than just what we "do", who we "care for" and what we're "interested in".

After doing a very non-scientific research polling of my girlfriends and female acquaintances, it looks like most of the women I know who are aged about late 20's to mid-50's are faceted in the following way: either working full time, part-time or have a sideline that brings in money; caring also for children, parents/grandparents and/or a bevy of dogs, horses and such; either in graduate school, going back to school or doing some kind of additional learning, certification; do some sort of church, community, children's'-events, civic clubs or other type of volunteering; is actively interested in something like athletics/fitness, the arts, gardening, book clubs and such; is fashionable to some degree no matter what's the personal styling; is married or is in a serious relationship or is really looking for a serious relationship; leans towards some form of domesticity.

This last facet of the 21st Century Woman fascinates me....

June Cleaver would be chuckling to herself by this point in time after her 1950's all-things-domestic heyday was "rejected" by the Mods, the Hippies, the Career Girl and Working Woman arising in the late 1970's and dressing like their male counterparts by the 80's, the Punks, the Yuppies, the Slackers, the Laura Ashley Romantics and the Nouveau-Preppies, the Grungers, the Tree Huggers and today's Yoga Moms, Super Have-it-All Women, and so on and so forth.

For despite all of the incarnations a woman of today may choose to style herself and her life from, despite all of the ready-made products out there now and the multitude of service providers available at any one's beck n' call, despite graduate degrees and business awards and playing power politics as well as any man...many, many women still find such valued reward in tending hands-on to their particular versions of hearth n' home.

I know so many women who truly enjoy the domestic arts of baking, cooking, sewing, knitting, needlepoint, houseplants, gardening etc as well as actually wanting to sweep, wipe down counters, set the table and so on. And the majority of these are not full time stay-at-home folks.

One of my ole' college buddies is a great example of this: a full time career woman who juggles her job and assorted community n' church activities with raising her children and spending time with her husband all the while running regularly and...cooking up a storm. I always enjoy seeing her picture-postings of what she terms "food porn" on Facebook. Beautiful baked goods, delicious looking lasagnas and gourmet fish dishes, very pretty appetizers and on n' on.....

June Cleaver would not only be proud, she'd be gobsmacked!

Another college buddy and fellow sorority sister of mine has her graduate degree in science and has translated this into a homesteading project which blends science, environmentalism, gardening, art, blogging and a learning center with also tending to her family and coordinating her husband's art work gallery pieces n' shows as well.

June Cleaver would not only be impressed, she'd be intrigued!

My own adult life path has seen seemingly-contrasting multi-facets within it over the past twenty years involving a business management career on local, district and corporate levels along with a professional writing career as well having written a fashion column, aviation columns and now this blog, producing fashion shows and merchandising for three different retailers, one graduate degree down and one left to go, caregiving for family members, decorating and tending to four homes so far, a penchant for needlepoint and puttering around the house, cultivating way too many houseplants n' orchids and working now my third kitchen-herb raised bed garden and of course fly fishing n' skiing as much as possible all the while traveling to now over thirty different countries.

June Cleaver would go, dang girl!

The 21st Century Woman can indeed still wear her pearls, Dior full-skirts with short coat tops and heels all the while baking away in her kitchen, running the local charity sale, running the kids around, running a business, running a business meeting and heck, running the world.

Sometimes yes, we literally can't do it all, period, or do it all at one time but we all can do most all of the choices that are important to us...

Hillary Clinton's quip about just staying home and "baking cookies" was so 20th Century wasn't it? In this 21st Century you bet that indeed we can bake cookies no matter what our daily life involves and what's more, we can actually really enjoy doing this too!

Island Evenings...wintertime, springtime, anytime

2011-02-15T17:04:00.000-08:00

On the dock with the dogs... a typical evening on our island...

Jump out the jeep...into the yard and...enjoy the sunset over the water

One of the nicest things about living out here on a quiet island in the Lowcountry is the returning-to-it in the evenings after busy days of work, errands, being out with friends and such....

It takes two bridges and driving across another island to reach our tiny two-laned bridge and cross over onto this island. Some folks "in town" think that we're soooo far out here but honestly, the about 15 to 20 minute drive it takes me to get home from town is far less driving time than it used to take me to drive across Charlotte, NC for some errand or other activity when we lived there.

From the bridge, our small locals-marina and a few docks can be seen in the midst of the shaggy fringe of trees which rims the island. Wonderfully wooded and completely residential, this place is such a refuge from the condo-resort-cafe-convenience store-golfing commercialized islands that surround us. Our atmosphere and reality is the complete opposite of a Hilton Head, Fripp or Kiawah. All islands are nice but of course; we're just the pear it seems in the midst of a lotta' apples n' oranges out there.

Our typical evenings out here are different as well. Many are the impromptu dock parties, marsh side firepit gatherings and community oyster roasts: thrown together in an utterly simple way, they are a far cry from catered events and gourmet deli proferrings. But for me, best of all are the quiet evenings...

Standing out by the marsh in our yard watching the sun set and the tide come in is so like a spa-moment of relaxing "ahhh" after just driving up from a busy day in town. Tonight I snapped the picture above minutes after stepping out of our jeep. The colors of the sunset weren't really quite captured within this picture but I can attempt to describe the wondrous rose and lavender hues streaked with an oranged-pink overlaying undertones of slate blue: so stunning!

Another favorite evening "just doing nothing around the island" is when James and I take our dog Kanon over to the beach here. Many times we walk by one of our friends' houses and pick up their dog, Kanon's good buddy Cotton to join us as well as her owners if they're in the mood for a jaunt down the long dock and then out onto the beach. The first photo here on this post is one such evening recently that we enjoyed together.

Later this winter-into-spring, Kanon and I (and sometimes James as well) will be enjoying evenings weeding and watering our kitchen and herb garden beds by the marsh. As long as the sea breezes lightly blow keeping those pesky no-see-ums gnats at bay, getting around to some garden chores as the sun begins to set will be quite pleasurable as always.

Cross over the bridge, hop out of the car and....there's ever the island-evening-ahead....

And Speaking of "Following" blogs...here's what I follow

2011-02-11T13:23:00.000-08:00

Woman at Computer...blogging and following blogs: a PostModern portrait

Speaking of "Following" blogs...

On my blog's sidebar area, the blogs which I follow and check-in on from time to time and...occasionally post comments here n' there to... are listed under the My Blog Favorites section. (These are listed quite randomly, in no particular order and they all are definitely "favorites" :)

After perusing through tons and tons of the blogs existing out there which are related to Preppy, Southern Preppy, Aesthetics, Lifestyling, Gardening, Literature n' Art n' Fashion n' Culture-in-general and other such categories as these, I made a decision to continually fine-tune edit down to what were the most (to me personally and perhaps to my blog's readers as well) interesting, edifying, positive-toned, better-written and fairly frequently written-posted as well as having a touch of information/history/personal expression coming through about the author themselves but definitely not in any way being waaay-too-much-information if you know what I mean like how those tell all, show all blogs out there can (embarrassingly Jerry-Springer-like) be....and so I continue to be somewhat choosy as to what I read and as to what I recommend others checking into...

What's really great is when close friends of mine begin to set up and write their own blogs- how very exciting!

Here's one that's just out of the starting gates this week: http://www.guardnplanet.blogspot.com/

I am all-for gardening inspiration and information as anyone knows who has followed my blog along as I post here n' there about what's blooming out n'about on this island. My girlfriend's blog is about such things as well as including topics relating to Homesteading, Community Cooperatives, Art and such...really really neat and I hope that we all can both encourage and enjoy her blogging.

(The above graphic art image is credited to Wikimedia Commons)

Okay, getting back-out-there into the blogsphere and again, thank you my Followers! Best, Lachlan

Thank You so very much to my blog's Followers!

2011-02-11T12:20:00.000-08:00

The Preppy Islander's Blog Followers are a sophisticated, well-dressed bunch!

WOW... it's wonderful to see now that there's 50 people following this blog :) Thank you so very much to my Followers who've signed-up to follow with me along this journeying of mine into all things Southern Lowcountry Preppy and then some...

I truly appreciate your interest, your post comments and the friendships n' support that my fellow bloggers and I give one other within this virtual realm of blogging.

What started out as a response to my wearing of a Preppy madras skirt to our island's annual Fourth of July Parade has turned into one of the greatest pleasures of my adult life...musing, researching and then writing about what it is to be a Southern Preppy living on a barrier island out here in the South Carolina Lowcountry culture. It has also been such fun to reminisce about my southern upbringing and the socio-cultural parameters which have shaped, and still do shape, my life. As well, I've tried to bring into this blog current Preppy information, fashions, news and musings which relate to our shared "here and now" life experiencing...

Each year as this blog grows and finds its way, I'm trying to post more frequently as well as sequence posts for a general scattering of musings, information and interests which will hopefully keep my Followers and other readers feeling that when they check out this blog every so often, there's always something which they personally can find relatable, enjoyable and amusing to look at and read through.

I am always welcome to your suggestions n' ideas and please do send them in...

Oh, and any time you want to reference this blog within your own blog, add it to your own favorites blog listing and just feel like passing it on to like-minded friends, please feel free to do so: I'm all about sharing all-things Preppy, pretty and positive around within our global blogsphere...

One of the things I can promise you all is that I am not going to commercialize this blog into one with lots of advertising in the sidebar, too many "look what you can buy" posts, constant here's another blogger's convention info link or such things like that. Mine's not consumerism-focused or professional-blogger tooled, it's rather an extension of my creative writing, sharing my very personal life-expression that's going on as well being overall a lot more cultural-creative driven.

Thank you all again and happy blog-reading, blog-posting and blog-writing out there, Lachlan

A Preppy's Car Interior... Ya' just can't hide the-Preppy!

2011-02-09T22:25:00.000-08:00

Pink and Green is on the scene...of a car's interior!

I really had to laugh the other day... sometimes ya' just can't "hide the-Preppy" of yourself when it comes to the day to day living tableaus which define a person even when they're not conscious of this until, like I was, a Preppy setting caught my eye as I was getting out of the car yesterday.

Reaching into the passenger side of my car to get my water bottle and the shoes I use for physical therapy sessions lately with my back, I was struck with how the individual items I was ready to take out were so obviously Preppy. So it was a quick click of my cell phone's camera, a chuckle at myself and eventually, this blog post.

Hmm, this seems kinda' like it was when our family moved up north to Wisconsin for awhile for Dad's career and certain words I'd say would betray my Georgia-girl true roots and so likewise these few items are saying "Preppy" visually:

Glaring-white are my Tretorns but of course! I've worn this particular brand of tennis shoe since my junior high days of both playing tennis very-badly and also being a cheerleader. Replacement versions of these always-all-white Tretorns have followed me through high school cheerleading, college sorority days and on into adulthood. One of my favorite ways to wear these shoes are being paired up with kacki shorts, a white Ralph Lauren polo shirt, my short pearl necklace and smaller-sized pearl stud earrings and.....a deep, late summer tan to be sure.....

Next up visually perhaps is the quite-bright floral Vera Bradley fabric paperback book cover that's perched atop a Veranda magazine and our local fun-freebie lifestyle paper I pick up either at the grocers or our tiny local library. I have two of these Vera Bradley book covers: one's this particular one for spring/summer and the other one's more autumn/winter color toned. I've given these as presents to many girlfriends and wish that the company was still making them.

Finally, there's my "L" monogrammed water bottle that is my go-to hydration each day. Every morning I refresh the water in it and every night I take it back into the house to rinse out...a very practical and pretty answer to the plastic-bottles dilemma. When you put water into something like this from a water filter pitcher that's chilling in the refrigerator, simplicity reigns.

Oh isn't it all too true? Once a Preppy, ever always a Preppy?

Peer into the interior of a car upon occasion it seems......

February's Friviolities... Preppy, Pretty and Practical

2011-02-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

A tableau of fine n' fun friviolities gathered this month to enjoy....

Where the calla lilly bulbs have been adding to the atmosphere here...

Remember my post about Cheerful Cash...the hundred dollars I am limiting myself to spending for just-for-fun fancies each month of this year? (See Spring Pretty and Pretty Thrifty Too! Perfectly Pretty from the Saturday, January 22 post)

Well, here's a snapshot of this month's "February's Friviolities": 8 days and $80.00 in so far.

It's funny that last month, it was towards the end that I cheerfully spent the budgeted cash fun-money and it only totaled up to $70.00...obviously each month will be different.

This month's tally so far is the following:

A great no-name-brand Trench Coat in a tuliped-purple hue that I wish I would have had with me while in Paris last spring! It has a detachable liner and hood and since I literally live in smart, structured lightweight jackets here in the late winter and early spring, this is a savvy buy at thirty whole dollars after the sale price plus my employee discount-yes, score!

Tucked in the trench coat's arm is a book I found at our small, locally-owned bookstore here in town which looks quiet interesting and for two dollars, why not? It's "Deep In The Familiar- Four Life Rythems" by Joan Cannon Borton. The author is a Benedictine oblate who leads workshops on writing and spirituality and if she's anything akin to one of my favorite writers within this genre', Kathleen Norris, then this'll be a very well spent two bucks indeed.

Placed on top of the book is an elegant Sterling Pin/Pendant that I've been espying in one of our local antique stores since December. Very vine scrolled n' intertwined William Morris styled, I can see me wearing this a lot since I like bright, bold silver pieces and do wear pins plus can pop this on a strand of smaller-sized pearls, my sterling necklace loop or a velvet band...tres' chic.

Set out next to the trench coat's sleeve is a large bottle of Cherry Blossom & Almond Oil moisturizing body wash by pure & natural. Having just used-up the body wash I already had this morning in the shower, I needed some anyway and this will be wonderful with it being moisturizing for the wintertime plus organic, biodegradable and in 100% recyclable packaging.

Right next to that are two O.P.I. nail polishes enclosed in the adorable glass cupcake display stand which I bought to set beside my plain glass cake stand in the baking-spot I have here in the kitchen. I really don't like cooking at all but I loooove to bake and so, for nine dollars, it's gracing our countertops now. The nail polishes are so spring-fun in my usual lighter ballet-pink tones I wear in this newest shade, "It's A Girl!" and then the funkier, deep orchid hue, "Pompeii Purple".

Finally, brightening up my interiors lately are these calla lilly bulbs now blooming so nicely- this group is in a small opaque glass floral urn I picked up at one of our local charity thrift shops for a whole dollar. Thank goodness for potted bulbs this winter!

And so that's the recap and though I only have twenty dollars left this month (if I so choose to use it) my cheerful cash friviolity so far will definitely be a lasting niceity throughout the month.

Preppy, Pretty and Practical...well mostly practical-ish... I'm likin' this cheerful cash project!

Spring Fashion 2011: Preppy Menswear goes BRIGHT

2011-02-07T16:18:00.000-08:00

Spring 2011 Preppy Mens' "Brights" begin with...an Orvis shirt...

...and include a pair of chinos from Brooks Brothers as well as...

...the fresh "New Linen Shirt" so casual-classic from Vineyard Vines and...

...don't forget a Polo polo but of course in a rich, bold hue...

...and heck, a pair of swim sport shorts from L.L.Bean in orange too!

Combining in madras all-three of this season's brights is a Ben Silver tie.

Also, for a dash of wit, a needlepoint belt from Murray's Toggery Shop.

And...tah dah...a final pop of bold color via Sperry's "Bahama" topsiders....

The focus it seems for Preppy Men this coming Spring into Summer is glaringly obvious...as in lots of very eye catching "Brights"! WOW....

Many bright color tones are prevalent within the wardrobe offerings for the upcoming warmer seasons ahead regarding menswear although it looks like brighter hues of blue, orange and yellow are grabbing the spotlight.

As any Preppy knows all so well, nothing compliments bright tones like a good tan!

I just love it when my James gets tanner and tanner as he's out on the water kayaking and fishing away in between flying planes around. I've been buying him a whole lotta' bright-toned togs to coordinate with his spring/summer/autumn tan skin especially since we returned to the islander environs of the SC Lowcountry here and can happily indulge in wearing tropical-inspired Preppy Brights about year-round. From his beloved fishing shirts to his button-down oxfords to belts and ties, James has dashes of bright hues that I really enjoy seeing him wear.

One of the most recent fresh new trendings for menswear that I hope to purchase and add into James' wardrobe which I think will be great for all Preppy Menfolk to purchase this spring is the "new Casual Linen Shirt"! Less formalized than its stalwart predecessor, the proverbial classic Linen Shirt with its long sleeves and starched-stiff collar, this much more casual styling is just the ticket for topping spring and summer's lighter fabric slacks, shorts, jeans and swimsuits for easy yet still elegant wear. It's not often that one of the great old classics of menswear get nicely tweaked like this wherein a new classic arises for Preppy males to take note of, but I think that we do indeed have quite a catch with this...and I've included a really fun bright blue checked version of it in the above picture from Vineyard Vines' Spring 2011 offerings collection to illustrate how it can be found in not only solid tones but also checked, striped and such.

Go Bright this Spring guys....and don't forget to tan wisely with sunscreen when the weather warms up and you're all out there fishing, sailing, golfing, grilling steaks by the pool and such....

Spring Fashion 2011: Subtle Pleating is Perfectly Preppy

2011-02-06T19:24:00.000-08:00

So pretty, so Preppy and so perfectly "pleats for Spring 2011"... Talbots

Pleats at the bodice with a Lilly Pulitzer blouse this spring...

Vineyard Vines offers up this sweet skirt with pleating at the waist

Pleats add to tassles add to white leather for a Brooks Brothers' spring

A pleated tote from Vera Bradley- such subtle pleating indeed... Pleating effects with a bow-cuff bracelet offered by Kate Spade

Amid all of the various Spring 2011 Collection trends n' trinkets sprouting up recently, one of the small but quite potent details I find most pleasing and perfectly fitting into the landscape of All Things Preppy is the subtle pleating defining many items this coming season...

Subtle pleating is pretty, feminine, quietly statementing and perfect for the mostly classic-tailoring so loved and so well-worn by Preppies everywhere.

It's the in-between embellishment that middles absolutely tailored and on the other side of the spectrum, ruffles. I absolutely loved the flat, French-inspired ruffles from last spring's fashion offerings and will certainly keep using the pieces I purchased with that trending last year for years to come since they're romantically classic. As will be with this subtle pleating...

Enjoy adding in this spring's fashion offerings to the wonderful wardrobe I know you all have....

Spring 2011 Fashion: How to Prep, How not to Prep

2011-02-06T15:00:00.000-08:00

A Spring 2001 "Look" that's soooo incredibly Preppy-Don't!

A Spring 2011 "Look" that's a definite Preppy-Do!

Likewise for women...a Spring 2011 "Look" that's such a Preppy-Not!

And here's a Spring 2001 "Look" that's perfectly-Preppy indeed!

(The above photos are from Brooks Brothers and Lilly Pulitzers' Spring 2011 Collections)

So far, so good....everything I've seen so far for this Spring's 2011 fashion trends has been pretty, polished and a whole lot of it is wonderfully Preppy!

But there's Preppy and then there's, um, well, an interpretation of Preppy that's anything but!

Oh my, even the stalwarts of all-things-perfectly-Preppy can go amiss when they're trying to be a bit more fashion-forward, quirky, cutesy and all those other kind of descriptives that can become all too comical indeed as these "Not To Do" photos above showcase all too well.

Can you believe that these "Not To Do" photos are actually from the current Spring 2011 Collections of Brooks Brother's menswear and Lilly Pullitzer's womenswear? Shocking at first and then disappointing but thankfully, the other two photos of perfectly-Preppy looks are also from the same purveyors so we'll forgive them a slip-up every now and then. Thank goodness it's a rare enaction of "every now and then"!

The first photo of a menswear look just goes waaaay too caricature-Preppy to be believable. Too many all-too-distinctive Preppyfied elements are in play here and the result is quite garish indeed. Any real Preppy well knows that when one wears such an obvious wardrobe item as these pink whale-motif pants are, every other piece of this outfit should go "neutral" in deference to the bold statement these pants are making. Obviously, with this er, Spring Look from Brooks Brothers, it's just simply, and horribly, about piling on the statements galore'! This is wannabe/tourist Prep and no true Prep would be caught dead or alive wearing such a garish ensemble.......

However, from the same Brooks Brothers collection comes the photo just below which is exactly what a real Preppy male would put together this spring: clean, classic and with subtle undertones but still exuding Preppy to those who understand, and actually live our cultural vernacular.

As well, the photo duo above from Lilly Pulitzer illustrates how to spot the crucial difference between what is a messy, ill-suited and clashing interpretation of using a bold print for Spring within a woman's wardrobe as contrasted to a perfectly polished styling that is Preppy-pleasing.

One thing that so many Preppy wannabees don't realize is that, barring typical teenage angst and their all too typical protestations generation after generation, no true Preppy would purposefully go around looking disheveled in public. Now while busily gardening, when out on one's sailboat, walking along the beach, layering-up for a dove hunt, yes those are reasons for not being perfectly neat but otherwise, no. Yes, us Preppies do wear bold colors and layered patterns but this er, look is no look at all, it's just what looks to be some college student who woke up and threw on whatever was on her dorm floor before brushing her hair, hmmm. Pass!

In contrast, the other look from Lilly Pulitzer conveys the polished, proper and perfectly layered while wearing a bold print savvy we all expect from our fellow Preppies.

This Spring and every spring for us Preppies is not about over-kill or messy-fying our Preppy fashion classics, not at all.

It's all about enjoying the pretty and the handsome palette of springlike color tones, fabrications and tailoring and but of course, always being the true Preppies that we are.......

*Coming up....... an overview of the Spring 2011 Trends that work well into Preppy Wardrobing*

Monograms...Preppy Personalization Perfection!

2011-01-24T20:21:00.000-08:00

Preppy-happy: A combination pearls and sterling monogram necklace!

Preppy comfy: a monogrammed pillow on the cottage's bed.

Preppy-practical: a marketing-tote kept handily by the door and...

also Preppy-practical, a tote-around-town refillable water bottle.

Oh, what dyed-in-the-wool Preppy doesn't just love monograms?!

The first monogrammed item I remember being truly-mine aside from my small sterling baby cup was a neat stationary set my aunt gave me one Christmas long ago when I was in the pre-teen stage of my life. It was the early 1980's and all-things-Preppy was trending hot as fire during then which, for my Preppy family, provided us with yet more things available out there fitting in oh so well with our lifestyle. I just loved, loved this pink and cream tiny-floral print stationary set embellished with SLC in a simple engraving at the top and the cards and envelopes contained in a matching folder that tied with a pink grosgrain ribbon.

Throughout the years to follow into the current present, some of my very favorite presents have been the ones which a thoughtful family member or friend had monogrammed for me.

On one of James' trips flying folks around in one a' those commercial jets of the airline he's with, he had an overnight stay up in Maine. He returned from there with a surprise present for me- what fun! A what a perfect present it was to receive and has been since to enjoy using....a large L.L.Bean white canvas tote bag with a blue crab print on it and my monogram above the crab. I keep it over on the island and during the summer, I keep it in my little Jeep stocked with some of my beach-bummin' paraphernalia since, on a whim and within two minutes on the island or fifteen minutes out to the great state park we have here, I can be out enjoying a beach.

Here are some pictures of monogrammed items that are "so me" beyond the monogram :) Especially the amazing sterling and pearl necklace that my dear girlfriend gave me this Christmas! Oh my! This was one of the best surprise gifts I've ever received...along with James' of course....I am surrounded by such thoughtful people and do indeed count my blessings. I soooo love this necklace and wear it a ton...and receive a ton of compliments on it whenever I do. And the gift of this gift is the person behind it and the big-sister-little-sister relationship we share supporting, encouraging and just having a lot of fun around one another.

Monogrammed gifts are such a treat and I hope that you've been treated in this way too :)

Wintering Around Our Beach... place and purposing much like a canvas to paint

2011-01-23T15:13:00.000-08:00

Seaside inspirations from a thrift-shoppe' bargain painting...

And...the reality of our beach...ahh, a serene canvas indeed!

Almost anytime is great for some good ole' "beach time" that's for sure and so this week I headed out to both our tiny island's beach and also to a state park's beach just 15 minutes away.

There was a sunny, 60 degree warmth break in our unusually-for-us cold, foggy and yes actually barely snowing recent winter weather here on the coast of South Carolina and so, seizing the day Carpe' Diem spirit most enthusiastically, I headed out first to the state park's beach and then ended the day with James and our dog Kanon out on our island's small, secluded beach. Well, secluded from non-islanders but not secluded from James, our friend Robbie, his dog Cotton, our dog Kanon and me ;)

I do so value how a beach can be a neutral-canvas upon which to paint the experience you desire upon it. When I am by myself, it's definitely a canvased atmosphere much like a J. M. W. Turner painting where the focus is on sparsity and a blurred kind of self-introspection. The times I'm figuratively painting something akin to this are the beach days where I'll take one of my creative writing projects out there with me. Sometimes I even take a good book but mostly, if I'm not writing, I just want to stare out towards the ocean's horizon line and let my mind either begin to still itself or wander lazily along some proverbial trail among the sand dunes... expanding its journeying or narrowing the pathway but always going along at a leisurely pace.

Other beach times are ones in which it's me and a close girlfriend taking a picnic lunch, our beach chairs and wide-brimmed straw hats along with plenty of sunscreen. Creating a tableau of female figures, brighter pretty color tones and constantly wavering lines much like a Chagall painting. We used to bring books and magazines or even some needlework but have dropped those by the wayside at this point. We never get to these; instead we chat and chat and chat some more. Gabbing and laughing away sitting in our chairs, lying on our towels, wading into the surf and bobbing in the ocean waters.

And finally, there are the times out and about on the beach that are so "active" and busy which are either when I'm out with James, out with James and Kanon, out with James, Kanon and friends or out with a large group of friends. I've run, jumped, thrown Frisbees, played soccer, body surfed and plain ole' goofed-around during those fun days. Dogs or no dogs, we all wear ourselves completely out by the time the time's up and/or the sun sets. If we extend our evenings, we usually go back to some one's house or yard and gather 'round a fireplace, marshside fire pit or in a sunroom to linger longer together. These times seem like Tintoretto or Peter Paul Reubens paintings where everyone's busy, busy all over a larger canvas.

The painting above is one that always inspires me to get out onto our beaches here more often.

I found it at a charity thrift shop we have here in town which has a bit more upscale donations than the usual second-hand stores. I go in occasionally to peruse and at times purchase items like books, ceramic and porcelain cache pots n' vases to put orchids and bulbs in, baskets, some odd pieces of sterling when I espy it and maybe a piece of art or er, a fun piece of artistic-intent.

Sitting flat on a table was this painting which was almost covered up by other items. I picked it up, it made me smile thinking about how much it mirrors our beaches here, I turned it over and saw three dollars on its price tag...three, as in 3 dollars? I took it to the counter and asked if the price was 3 or 30 dollars since maybe there was a zero missing on the tag somewhere but no, it was three dollars and was sold- sold to me.

The photo underneath my bargain acrylic painting set in a wooden frame is from this week's beach day: a similar kind of view towards the ocean waters from a sea dunes and sea oats vantage point.

Off-season, On-season.....beach times are always good times aren't they?

Spring Pretty and Pretty Thrifty too! Perfectly Preppy...

2011-01-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

Spring's prettiness is slowly coming into the cottage here...

Spring's influence in celadon green tones on the computer n' notebook

Fascinating reading for this Winter into Spring & into the rest of the year

This Winter I am eagerly anticipating Spring...what with actual snowfall early this morning here along the coast of southern South Carolina...for us, this has been quite a chilly winter indeed!

This winter I have also really enjoyed reading a book that I purchased after seeing a couple of good reviews about it: We Have Met The Enemy- Self-Control in an Age of Excess by Daniel Akst. Great food-for-thought and the cover with the doughnut-bomb is too too apt, love it!

I enjoy reading any book about society, culture, economics and the virtues of thrift and this one is definitely a read well worth undertaking. Akst now ranks up there to me with several other current authors within this genre styling including Juliet Schor, David Shi, Barbara Ehrenreich and Bill McKibben. But above all, I'm enjoying his book especially, most especially, as the author incorporates a whole lot of great quotes and theories from many of my favorite philosophers about self-control, discernment, editing ourselves and "enoughness"...

And so, with feeling "enoughness" myself lately as to various things like my wardrobe, books, plants, bibelots, decorative items for the house and cottage and such...I've decided to do an experiment this year and limit myself to $100.00 a month Cheerful Cash where this is the anything-extra fund beyond the usual bills, savings, tithing, investments, charitable contributions, garden supplies and such however... yes, this'll be a fun-fund, but also somewhat practical, purposeful....somewhat ;)

Here towards the end of this month, I'm up to $70.00 spent so far and it's all Pretty Springy Preppy in anticipation of the season to come and amazingly...excepting a computer-cover and a magazine, everything was on Clearance! Last Season-who cares?! We're Preppies, we don't "do" the "latest" 24/7, we mostly wear the "classics" season after season, year after year and...decade after decade. Generation after generation of use actually when it comes to things like pearls, cashmere twin sets, tweed blazers, summer houses and so forth.

Of course I don't have to spend one hundred dollars every month for sheer fancy and frivolity. If I don't spend that or up to that then that'll be just fine as well. The point is to enjoy some sort of monetary self-discipline this year within the "extras" category which usually with me isn't limited, monitored or even thought about really um, to be completely honest.

This hundred dollars spending limit was inspired by McKibben's book, Hundred Dollar Holiday.

From the photos above, the break-down of frivolity so far in January has been:

A Japonesque-design computer cover from Skinit.com ordered online.

Bandelino strappy-heeled metallic hued pumps

Ralph Lauren silk scarf in my favorite tropical-brights for Spring and Summer wear galore'

Lilly Pulitzer's Squeeze scent...super-delicious, yes I've already spritzed it

Babkgaard orange leather plaid-stitched paperweight since I actually use these in the office

Pure Style Outdoors book that's absolutely wondrous and very garden-rooms inspirational

The Spring Fashion edition of Marie Claire magazine for, er, fashion trend research but of course

Oh, and the small green notebook next to my Japonesqued-computer? That's where I'll keep track of my monthly fun-fund expenditures and this'll also serve as a journaling of what all strikes my fancy as this year moves along.....should be interesting to chronicle...

Enoughness-experiencing this year with little dashes of cheer n' frivolity.......I'm ready for it!

Preppy Air...Commercial Flying Extraordinaire!

2011-01-21T08:16:00.000-08:00

Preppy Air... where the look and the experience is in a class unto itself! (British Airways circa late 1980's-1990's uniform picture is from an amazing website: uniformfreak.com ...please check it out- lotsa' fun!)

Welcome to Preppy Air...we hope you enjoy your flight experience with us so please go ahead and relax those wing back chair seats to a comfortable reclining position, adjust your mini-library personal reading lamp and we'll have your drink order from the in-house bar brought to your seat as soon as possible. Thank you for flying today the Preppy-Way!

Ahhh, wouldn't that be truly wonderful? A commercial airline just for Preppies and those non-Preps wanting to be like us or just be hanging around with us?

I think today's world may indeed need a new airline such as this to come about...commercial travel unfortunately has declined in decorum and even now, it is possible to be in Business or First Class and sitting next to an alcohol-breathed, sweat-smelling, overly loud and uncouth individual decked out in his wife-beater-styled tank top, ratty jeans and tennis shoes that smell as rank as his breath. He must have missed his bus and decided to fly since the fares are now so-cheap and the new-normal is that almost anything-goes with proletariat passengers crowding ever-smaller rows of seats on the packed planes. Air travel has come to the masses and masses of people out there who have no idea how to dress themselves and address being within the general public in ways of just plain ole' politeness in all its actions and enactions. It's a shame really that our post modern world has devolved rather than evolved with the personal standards of everyday people out there within the public realm. The People of Walmart have taken to the air! (Have you ever seen that web site's pictures- it's so bad that I either cry from laughter or cry from dismay whenever I see what some real-folks actually do wear to Walmart) But I digress and need to get back to the more pleasant thoughts pertaining to Preppy Air.....and so...

Dress codes would apply to passengers where neat, presentable, appropriate length and coverage would be determined upon check-in. Any individuals who show up sporting tank tops only on-top, too-short or too-much-cleavage clothing items, bizarre' outfits in general will be refused boarding passes until they come back in decent, Preppy Air approved attire.

Conduct codes will also be enforced meaning no overtly weird-acting individuals, badly-behaving children, fighting families or much-too-drunk folks need even try to get on board one of Preppy Air's flights or hang around the gate areas. Preppy Air's airport attendants and security would be top notch and work quietly and quickly to rid the rest of us of such undesirable goings-on. It would be a privilege to fly Preppy Air, not a right and these two code-conditions stated outright in the ticket-purchasing process. Non-Preps are of course welcome to fly with Preppies however, a certain level of personal decorum is expected and enforced for all passengers 24/7 and 365 days a year- no exceptions.

Some aspects about Preppy Air would indeed be understood right off the bat such as:

The food would be plain fare, the non-alcoholic drinks basic standards but the bar offerings extensive and featuring many top-shelf brands. No Star-Chef menu offerings on Preppy Air just plain ole' fare much like one's own house-cook or one's Mother, when need be, would make and thus a typical dinner entree' for Adults: baked chicken breast over wild rice with a side of asparagus lightly lemoned and one hard roll; a typical entree' for Children: Campbell's' tomato or chicken noodle soup with a grilled cheese sandwich. In-flight snacks would be things like small bowls of assorted nuts, cheese and fruit plates and choices like the following: either Yankee-Preppy Cheese on Ritz crackers or Southern-Preppy Cheese Straws. However, food choice options to be kept at a minimal since Preppies eat whatever's put down in front of them and pay it no-attention.

Crew uniforms would be designed by the teaming-up of Brooks Brothers, Ralph Lauren and Kate Spade: navy blazers, khaki trousers and/or straight skirts at the knee, various brightly-hued button down shirts, quality cordovan plain leather belts and loafers- higher heeled loafer pumps an option for the female flight attendants, Ascot knotted scarves in plaids, stripes, paisleys, toiles' and for summer, a tropical-toned madras print. Hair and makeup styled in the classic tones of Grace Kelley and Cary Grant looks while jewelry kept to pearls, wedding rings and/or a family crest ring or school ring with the occasional gold charm bracelet or silver large monogrammed cuff bracelet for women and for men, just a family crest ring or school ring.

A special Lilly-Pulitzer styled aircraft line could be done for Preppies flying back n' forth to Palm Beach, Key West, the Bahamas and various Caribbean islands. Bright oranges with color-shots of hot pink and lime green along with bold, tropical florals and stripes would be that signature look for the planes and crew alike.

And the crew itself...pilots would all have their MBA's and childhood schooling in English Riding, flight attendants would know at least one other language than English preferably French plus have Art History degrees and a general knowledge pertaining to fine wines, sailing and be large dog fans but of course while gate and ticket agents would have a degree in Psychology and have memorized Emily Post's etiquette book during their job training.

And then the other features of Preppy Air which inculcate the ethos and vernacular of "Preppy":

The airplane exteriors for Preppy Air as well as its logo, print ads and such would be in navy blue with thin edging lines of gold and kelly green plus having a small-sized crest appropriately displayed with Garamond type-set lettering spelling out underneath it, "Preppy Air...Flying with Class: first class standards and experience are our daily standards and your flight experience."

Cabin interiors would be carpeted in Oriental or Berber rug runners; well-spaced rows of large elegant wing back chairs that convert to lay-flat beds upholstered in either subtle plaid, chintz or toile' fabrications and not matching but nicely coordinating; tray tables would be in mahogany wood; walls wallpapered in a cream on light buttery yellow striping; high ceilings and plenty of overhead storage for the Hartmann carry-ons and L.L.Bean canvas tote bags but of course.

Cabin bathrooms would be a bit larger in space than typical commercial airplane bathrooms and feature beadboard walls, porcelain farmhouse style sinks, mellow lighting and toiletry products by Caswell-Massey.

Magazine offerings would include such glossies as Town and Country, Sailing, Skiing, Traditional Home, Travel and Leisure, Kiplingers, W, The Robb Report, Coastal Living and so forth. No in-house magazine but Safety Brochures printed on Cranes cream stationary.

Overhead music would pipe-in relaxing classical and jazz upon boarding but have wake-up tunes on overnight flights' early morning arrivals featuring Preppy party favorites like the B-52's, etc. Soft, subtle lavender scents would be piped-into the cabin as the evening wanes on and then, early morning arrivals/departures would have brisk lemon scenting spritzed for a second.

Large dogs traveling with their owners would have their own cabin towards the rear of the plane featuring a "room" to roam within having comfortable sofas, dog beds, lots of dog toys, a personal water bowl and food bowl spot for each dog and a bathroom who's door automatically slides open when a dog approaches it. Flight attendants in this area would pamper said dogs and their owners be allowed to visit them as much as they wanted after take-off and before landing. Other animals like cats, birds and such would travel as all animals do on other airlines... small dogs may travel in dog-bag-handbags with their owners but are generally not encouraged on flights: Preppy flight attendants and passengers prefer them to be back with the rest of the non-Prep animals in baggage especially those pesky ones that yip in sharp, high-pitched barks.

And finally but just as important, all airport terminal waiting areas for Preppy Air would look like Father's club interior and have ticketing agents similar to club attendants and waiters: quiet, elegant and unobtrusive. Flights would be announced in moderate tones and moderate sound levels not from an overhead speaker but by an airline employee walking around and speaking to all assembled there plus offering to take drink orders pre-boarding and passing out glossy, Preppy-oriented magazines as well as The Wall Street Journal to those passengers desiring them. The full-experience of Preppy Air would be a class act from start to finish.

Ahhh.....an ever-galavanting-about-in-airplanes Preppy can dream can't she?

Maybe my husband and I should start up such an airline as this with James being a commercial pilot with an MBA and me having a business management background, fashion background and MA plus the two of us being Born-To Preppies, hmmm. It's something to think about.... start-up funding and trust funds have been wasted on ideas much worse, er, as fantastical as this.

Preppy Air! Preppies flying other Preppies around in a Preppy setting. Pretty Preppy-licious!!!

A Winter's Morning Silence...the virtues of a foggy day

2011-01-19T08:09:00.000-08:00

Winter's silence enveloping the marsh side waters of our cottage...

Walking out to the dock, my footsteps were the "sound" this morning...

A foggy, quiet day can be calming, contemplative and oh so pretty...

There are many things James and I enjoy and truly appreciate with being here in the South Carolina Lowcountry with both living out on a tiny barrier island sparsely populated and also having an in-town cottage facing out towards a marsh waterway...access to nature is one thing, privacy and yet also having great neighbors nearby is another and silence, ah silence, is very much to me another cherish attribute to the life we're living right now.

Many days and nights are wondrously silent barring the chirps, rustling and rambling of "nature's goings on" from time to time and the usual exuberant spring chorus of our tree frog population which makes itself loudly, but comically, known for a few weeks when the weather turns warmer.

However, the days and nights when a blanket of misty fog rolls itself down onto our waters as well as the marsh side and woods surrounding us.....ah, that's when I enjoy silence the most!

This morning has been one of those cherished calmed, stilled, silenced times I've basked within.

After a very early morning's work with inventory going on at the store, I returned to the cottage here and walked out to the dock in order to bask in the foggy-silence awhile.

Many writers and poets have written some prose, poetry and pithy statements regarding silence that I'd like to share with you along with these pictures taken of my quiet morning earlier today:

From Paula Huston's fascinating book, The Holy Way- Practices for a simple life, "...I had to learn how to seek out and refresh myself in the pools of silence that lay hidden along the pathway of my noisy daily round."

And Madeleine L'Engle writes that, "...when I went on my first retreat I slipped into silence as though into the cool waters of the sea. We need both for our full development; the joy of the sense of sound; and the equally great joy of its absence."

Here's some food for quiet thought: "When we make room for silence we make room for ourselves...Silence invites the unknown, the untamed, the wild, the shy, the unfathomable - that which rarely has the chance to surface within us." - Gunilla Norris

And for the more practical, prudent minded..."Right speech comes out of silence." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

And of course, poetry alludes to silence in its own quieted, white-noise, negative space kind of way:

This evening stillness...

Just the ruined cowbell

Found by the pasture gate. - Jewell

How quiet-

At the bottom of the lake

peaks of clouds. -Issa

The winter storm

Hides in the bamboo

And becomes silent. - Basho

on a post

near the edge of a brook

a crow

utterly still

in the stillness of high noon - Mori Ogai

There is a beautiful mystery within fog, snowfall, rain and other times and events which "still" us to some degree in the midst of our busy and oh so noisy lives. I like this quote from Albert Einstein which points out that, "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious."

Those are my non-silent-now thoughts about silence and a morning spent enjoying the fog set out within the marsh waters by the cottage. Maybe you haven't been sitting out within the damp fog surrounding your dock, maybe you're enjoying time by a fireplace or a window as the snow falls, rain drops or maybe you're "stuck" somehow in some way having to still-yourself...however your silence comes, I hope that to some degree, you can happily dwell within it for awhile....

Preppy Foodie...one "show" the Food Network may want to pass on

2011-01-15T14:40:00.000-08:00

Ahh, a little bit of Haagen-Daz....always such a perfectly Preppy treat!

A Prepster's in-town cottage's fridge: pretty basic, boring but healthy-ish

Preppy work-snack: going healthy since martini-lunches are now archaic.

Today I trotted off to the grocers... eventually one must re-supply the pantry, fridge and such...

Grocery shopping is for me almost akin to a trip to the dentist- I am not a person who loves to wander through the produce section, gaze upon the glass-protected shelves stocked full of deli options or even steer my cart towards the smells and bread-basketed decor' of the store's in-house pseudo bakery. I am much like my father in that...have a list, grab a cart and work quickly through the aisles.

Perhaps one of the Preppiest things about me is that, frankly, I am "not interested much" in food. Now, yes, I do (you bet) get hungry and eat food on a regular basis and obviously am not the startlingly-skinny of certain movie industry starlets, runway models and various members of royalty who are young, in love and constantly monitored as to their fashion, hair-do's and dress size. No, I eat a' plenty and when I do, it's more towards healthy-options though I am hardly one of those Yoga-Moms who get quite militant in their vegetarianism, organic-obsessions and raw food, pure food, slow food and localized food stringent life quantifiers.

Yes, I do like to buy fresh, local and the-least-chemicaled-possible but I do not make it a big issue, a universal absolute or something toward the application of personal postmodern sainthood. I leave that to others.

I grew up in a family who paid scant attention to food. When we lived in Georgia, our house, my grandparents' houses, other family members' houses and our friends households as well all had fulltime cooks. No, not fulltime family foodies who loved to be in the kitchen whipping up something and no, not professional chefs either but actual regular ole' hired cooks who doled out our 3 Square Meals a Day in the manner of 1970's and earlier-styled Southern Cooking...that we all didn't die early deaths of butter or bacon fat grease overdosing is a miracle! That all of us kids were skinny things looking like we actually needed some more butter on our toast was a funny outcome indeed from the food we consumed set down before us day after day.

IF my mother, grandmothers, aunts n' such actually HAD to make a meal for some odd reason, it was literally an opening-of-cans debacle' with toast or some cheese toast burning included in...

When we moved up-north, we left that lifestyle behind and from then on dinner was always a choice in my family of one of two options: more Campbell's cans of soup and cheese toast slightly burned on the edges OR "your father's coming home in a minute and we're going out to dinner"...so saith my mother who'd be getting dressed for it after her long tiring afternoon of playing away some Mozart, Bach and so forth on either her piano or on her organ in our living room still attired in her dressing gown and robe. My northern friends thought it a riot to see her like that if we popped into my house on school-day afternoons in the farmhouse my parents were busily restoring whenever the renovation-mood hit my mother but in my Deep South vernacular, well, this was just er, normal. Didn't every one's mothers lounge around like that? My late mother did "do real estate and estate sales consulting" for a few years while I was in high school and thus was up fairly early and dressed for work but that wasn't a chapter in her adult life which lasted for very long. It was like playing-at-normal before once again going Deep-South-Faulkneresque as the true roots of her upbringing pulled her back into the Spanish Moss shaded depths of what it means for born-Southerners to live-under-the-Live-Oaks.... but anyway.... I'm digressing a bit, and so....back to the food tales storytelling.

It was about 3 years after James and I had married that on one of our trips up to Wisconsin to see my parents before Dad retired and they moved back South, my mother attempted to cook a meal for us. Now, my James is from a family where everyone loooooves to create in the kitchen and is appropriately talented as such with the most lovely of culinary cuisine outcomes. He's from a long line of Preppies who are Culinary: rare but true. They do exist but much like Preppies who will Buy and Wear Chanel couture, they're exceptions to the general rules within the basic parameters of Preppyhood. And so, James soldiered-on through this big-deal-meal in my parent's dining room that evening and started to sincerely understand why, for his wife Lachlan, while I truly enjoy fine food and delicious meals, I'm just not really drawn to food, meals, wine, wandering around in the grocers and such as he is..........

If such a thing as a perfectly-pitched plated meal IS placed right in front of me, I sooo enjoy it of course but if not, I'm perfectly fine with weeks and weeks of simple salads, cheese toast and soups, cheese slice sandwiches or what I like to "make" most: a turkey or chicken wrap with lotsa' fresh veggies and lettuce in it n' a tad of mayo or Ranch dressing- yum.

In the midst of alla' this, I do have an occasional sweet tooth that pops up every now and then and if I let myself, I'd err a bit in the potent sweet forms of petite fours, cup cakes, beignettes and thick-slab slices of chocolate cake! And that wouldn't be healthy or wise or keep me fitting into the fashions I love so... I've learned how to deal with this: keep a pint of Haagen-Dazs super chocolate ice cream like the one pictured above in my freezer. I am not a huge ice cream eater and so this pint will last me a good month and take-care-of the occasional chocolate craving that has me eating just one spoonful of this late at night and being satisfied.

Preppies like Haagen-Dazs, oh yes! It came onto the better-ice cream-scene long before Ben and Jerry's and doesn't have that we're so righteous saving the world superiority which can get harder to swallow than the Chunkey Monkey's fudge chunks and bits of walnuts. I'm all for giving back, making right, doing what we can and alla' that but heck, sometimes just sometimes I want to indulge in pure sweet tooth decadence without being reminded of my civic n' global duty.

That being said....sometime later this evening you'll know where I'll be....over here at the cottage with that Chocolate Chocolate Chip pint in-hand and a spoon perched to dig out a delicious bit of it! And that would be the most exciting moment of this Preppy's "foodie moment" this weekend and why....I don't think there will ever be something like Pink and Green in the Kitchen showing up in new programming for the Food Network any time soon ;)

Bright Spots in the midst of this cold, cold winter... Johnny Jump-Ups n' Such

2011-01-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

Winter's flowers hanging-tough in the midst of freezing rainy days....

Outdoor flowers peering into the window at cozy houseplants inside....

Simple but winter-hearty are the planters over at the cottage....

This afternoon I went over to the cottage for the first time in two weeks... I had been missing my little serenity-spot and finally am "mobile" once again with being able to drive a car now that my back's on the mend. I didn't know what to expect after our freezing temperatures, freezing rain conditions as of late but I was so pleasantly surprised to see the Pansies and Johnny Jump-ups actually doing just fine within the few casual planters I have set out over here on the front porch.

I got a kick outta' the oranged-hued ones seeming to peer into the glass french doors of the porch at the cozy, warm houseplants, potted bulbs and an orchid I have clustered in one of the corners of the kitchen. It seemed a bit of outdoor envy at the obvious indoor advantages.

The ivy vines were a little worse for wear and the porch and its steps covered with dead leaves, spanish moss clumps and even a small tree branch stuck between a house wall and one of the garden chairs..... so I picked up as I could, swept a little bit and loved the puttering around outside the cottage despite the cold temperatures today and the rapidly waning sunshine.

Like so many of our sunsets, tonight's was a delicate pink- it was absolutely delightful watching it from the porch expand over the marsh and water beyond. SO nice to have a little break from the rain for the moment.

Rain's once again in the forecast as are cold temperatures but some flowers are hanging-tough ;)

Sometimes it IS the "Little Things"....

2011-01-11T19:41:00.000-08:00

So little, so pretty....but what's inside is always so impactful....

...2 of my favorite pictures I carry with me literally wherever I go....

The doldrums of a very cold, icy and snow-dumped-on January can get to folks and this is nothing to be ashamed of especially when so many of us are house-bound with colds, other illnesses, ancy children on snow-days and even blown-out back discs...

Unless you're living in a ski town and able to get outside to take advantage of all of this winter's snowfall (yes, you my dear friends and former neighbors out there so luckily in Park City, UT), a colder than usual winter month like this one is turning out to be can be quite, well, challenging.

Tomorrow I am going to brave the cold temps here and actually drive a car for the first time in weeks. I am anxious to get back over to our in-town cottage and then hopefully the next day, drive the five minutes commute to my fun part-time job and work a couple of hours over there.

Relegating one's world to a bedroom, to the corner of one's bedside where a small table is stacked with books, magazines, hand lotion, water in plastic tumblers capped off with a top and bendable straw for ease of drinking and such gets....small, very small and yet sometimes it indeed IS the "little things" that make a huge difference in where we are and how we are dealing with being where we are....

For me here, one of the nicest small-but-big things has been the beautiful bouquet of roses James brought me yesterday. They're blooming-out now so full n' lush and the scent has been soothingly reminiscent of gardening days past and yet to come. It's always so amazing to me how much flowers or a potted flowering plant can add into both an atmosphere and one's own psyche'. He grabbed this at the grocer's and it has made such a wonderful impact indeed.

Another small thing that I keep nearby year-round is the flat, paper picture frame which was once my Grandmother Wylly's and now I enjoy using. I keep in it two of my very favorite photos and will probably be peering at these in some nursing home on down the line: both are of James and my 2 truly magical years of being ski-bums out in Utah. One picture is us posing in front of the mountain pass beyond which perches our beloved miner's cottage on the sloped streets in Park City's historic district. The other photo is of James and I after we climbed up Double-Arch in Utah's Arches National Park out there in the desert lands of Moab. Still to this day, we count those two all-too-brief years as our happiest married-life adulthood years together. Of course we're having a nice time now and enjoying the present with one another and are glad to be here in our home-grounds of the Deep South but there'll always be something-magical about our Utah time.... just opening this up and looking at the pictures makes me smile.

Our world can be all too easily a landscape of "bigger is better", "grander gestures are greater" and "lots is preferred over just a little" but I disagree to a degree....me a lover of cottages, small poetry books, petite four cakes, strands of simple pearls, a single bloom in a silver bud vase, a kiss on the forehead, a door opened and held, sporty roadster cars, a bottle of wine shared, a postcard in the mail, a hug, a steaming mug of tea and so many, many gestures done to someone or done to oneself that speak the language of "Little Things...big of impact and large of meaning."

Here's to you treating yourself and the ones you care about and care literally for with something little and yet oh, so wonderfully lit with largess this month- best to everyone, Lachlan

India Hicks...Island Living inspiration of a more Tropical sort

2011-01-10T22:21:00.000-08:00

Needing a tropical-inspired sunny-sky virtual reality break lately.....?

Ah, then, here's an island "tropical-clime getaway" drawn from the pages of India Hicks' book...

India Hicks' interiors are as always, gracious, elegant and "real-life-scaped".

Even her line with Crabtree and Evelyn is oh, so elegantly understated...

Thank you India for being a cheerful inspiration to us all this winter month...

All over the globe there are a myriad of ways in which "island living" is interpreted, imagined and inspired...

...here off the coast of South Carolina, it is a Deep South Coastal-driven "Lowcountry" style that hopefully a few of my blog posts have illustrated somewhat thoroughly for readers in not only decor' and dress descriptives but also history, social setting, gardening, cultural aspects, cuisine and so forth. Out in Hawaii, it is another kind of styling for islanders of course, over off the coast of Scotland, still another rendition and in the Caribbean, still another and so it goes around our world.

I find wonderful inspiration within just about any ole' island I either visit myself or visit virtually via others' experiences, films, books and so forth and one of my favorite ways is to "visit" via a well-written and photographed interior design book.

India Hicks' "Island Life" is one of my all-time favorites and this legendary designer, (descended from another legendary designer as well as English royalty) is as well one of my favorite individuals to see out within the public sphere mainly due to the very casual, laid-back yet still so proper and elegant bearing she exudes. Yes, she's stunningly beautiful, incredibly talented, well-pedigreed and no doubt has advantages to her life galore' and yet... there's a beautiful naturalness and calm to her that fits right on into what us-islanders like to term, "island living" or, "living on island time." Days and nights graced with the tides, starlight and the gentle rustle of palms....at its best of course. Like anything in life as we know it, there's always flip-sides to any shiny copper coin but with her book and the actual life she leads as a residential islander in tropical climes, India Hicks can bring us all some much-needed warmer weather joy as we peruse a few pages from her book, her island house and her life...

India Hicks' well-edited eye reminds us that yes, actually less-is-more when it is rendered from within parameters consisting of: classical styling, scattering around well-loved items many of which are obvious sentimental pieces and family photographs, an indoor-outdoor approach to daily living, graciousness enacted through simple luxuries being available to owners and guests alike, utilizing natural elements within one's decor' and bringing a sunny demeanor into one's atmosphere.

In the previous post, I talked about bringing in more "sunny yellow" into my room, my current situation of convalescing and I must remember that this is also very much a part of what "island living" is all about as well even when it's winter, a wet and gray and cold winter, here off the coast of South Carolina............

A Touch of Yellow... accd' to Eleanor McMillen Brown and...me

2011-01-10T13:33:00.000-08:00

Rosey-wishes DO come true when wishing for a touch of cheerful yellow today :)

Forget the subtle nature of butter creme...this is a Bright Yellow crave! (as in Van Gogh's delightful "Still Life Majolica with Wildflowers" from the Wikimedia Commons site)

On such a gray, rainy and bland winter's day as is today...I've been thinking about yellow!

Not my usual preferential hue of yellow which can best be described perhaps as a soft butter creme: more lightly-sitting as would be a glaze rather than a thicker paint pigment- that's the kind of yellow I adore and always enjoy having about me. No, the yellow I think I'm viscerally craving right now in this weather and within the kind of health challenge I've been dealing lately with is....bright, bold, in-your-face yellow!

Tennis ball yellow, Lily Pulitzer print yellow, lemonade yellow, L.L.Bean rain slicker yellow, Hunter wellie boots yellow, deviled egg yellow, lemon square bars yellow, large citrine cocktail ring yellow, Kate Spade leather handbag yellow, potted daffodils and tulips yellow....yes, those kinds of bright, cheerful, pretty yellows indeed.

One of my all-time favorite lifestyle quotes is from American interior design maven, the late Eleanor McMillen Brown's quip (and universal truism to be sure) that, "Every room needs a touch of yellow."

Every room, every life does indeed need a touch of cheerful yellow, I so agree !

Growing up, my mother dictated what my "room of my own" looked like and it was beautiful in each house we lived in from Georgia up to Wisconsin and even to the guest bedroom out here on this SC lowcountry island she set up for me since I came down here once a month to visit when James and I were still living in North Carolina pre our UT ski-bum years and....it was always in the tones of a rosy pink, subtle greens and cream with but of course the dark English antiques in mahogany, walnut woods and ever a four-poster bed that seems to be as part of my life as my own set of teeth are- a permanent fixture! (My childhood bed, only a full-size and not a queen, is now designated as one of our guest bedroom beds so it's still very much happily-still-around as they'd say. I'll will it to a niece...it can follow her around then...)

And so I loved, and still with the guest bedroom here, very much enjoy this pretty blend of Preppy meets English Country House meets Southern Belle' in the Garden kind of decor styling. Pretty, timeless and so restive...how many a bedroom should be.

However, as to the first "grown-up bedroom" I ever had, well the master bedroom of James and my little cottage-house in North Carolina was immediately...painted yellow! All the walls and even the attached master bath were swathed in a richer hue of yellow than I usually gravitated towards and our first married-life comforter set to fit the married-life four-poster Tobacco Leaf bed we bought and fitted out with a queen size mattress was Ralph Lauren's "Evelyn" pattern. Remember that one? Yes, soooo yellow with the bunches of roses n' blue ribbon patterning scattered all over it :) Oh, yellow!

This bedroom had a large bay window at one end of it where I tucked my writing desk and chair nearby and put a large but low chest of drawers in front of it to "filter" so much of that bright sunlight streaming past the curtains on into our very-yellow room. It looked out onto one of my garden areas where I had placed a tall wooden birdhouse which was painted white and had a mellowing copper-roof: a busy place for a family of birds I loved seeing flit in and out and out n' about. A water birch tree provided the dappled sunlight n' shade to one side which further diluted the sun's glare however....we did indeed have quite a sunny master bedroom all those years ago and to this day, I still get cheered-up thinking about it.

And so then......maybe that's why today I am craving a bit of bright yellow while lying here in this rose pink, soft greens and cream room with it's proverbial four-poster bed and dark wood antique bureaus, side tables and such....a window's sashes opened up to watch the rain pour down from the grayed skies above my beloved marsh and woods being blurred beyond the rain's movements and the one lone palmetto tree I can espy from my bed-perch looking so lonely standing there drenched through......

James went to the grocer's today and maybe, just maybe, he'll return bearing something bright yellow to brighten up this day for me. I'd love a bouquet of hothouse tulips perhaps or a small potted arrangement of daffodils but heck, even a couple of lemons that I could plunk into one of our pink china bowls would be stellar! I'd sit it to the side of my bedside table and just drink-in the color's cheerfulness.

A spot of bright yellow in the winter time is just as refreshing as a cool sip of lemonade is within the heat of the summer so here's three cheers to....yes....yellow!

UPDATE: Beautiful roses are what James brought me back! So pretty yellow with the tips edged in pink- what a sweet, sweet treat and they're now on the bureau across from the bed facing me so that I can thoroughly-delight in this "spot of yellow"- YEA JAMES! (see first picture above)

Winter Hours delight with Potted Spring Flowers...

2011-01-08T14:50:00.000-08:00

A dose of Spring's poetry within the wintery days of January.... (painting by Augusta Innes Withers, c1793 courteousy of Wikimedia Commons)

Usually at this time of year in early January, I have taken down and stored all the Christmas decorations as well as a bit of New Year's sparkle decor' and am happy to let the quiet, elegantly-spareness of winter's bareness settle in to both the landscape and my psyche' with...one exception.

Clusters of blooming potted bulbs now set about the house are always welcomed reminders, such cheery harbingers of another springtime to come....

As a bevy of garden and seed catalogues begin to sprout up in our mailbox post in the new year, I usually find myself puttering away here in the island house's down stair's lattice room where my potting shed area has become dusty and stilled with an air of benign neglect. Movement and a bit of magic however return to its atmosphere as I pull out various old and new pots, bags of small sized garden stone, bags of potting moss and of course begin to scoop down into one of the large potting soil bags I keep in an antique white enamel child's bath on its tall risers my late mother found in a local antique shop and never put to use. It had been tucked away to the side of her art studio holding old boxes of stuff until I recommissioned it to be an active part of my gardening facilitation's. The potting soil bag it houses now "bathes" spring bulbs being placed into pots every wintertime.

I keep potted bulbs simple and direct for each winter's interior enjoyment: easy, casual clusters of classics such as daffodils, hibiscus, crocus, tulips and such with usually a slower-evolving holiday leftover hanging around like one of this year's er, more stubborn amaryllis over at the in-town cottage. What a laggard has turned out to be. This one's determined to be a Valentine's surprise it seems! Well, so be it...we'll enjoy it then...

If I was of the style bent towards the grand, the showy, the outward extravagance that seems to still permeate much of today's upgrading of one's lifestyle showmanship (now termed Passing-By The Joneses instead of merely keeping up with them) spotted in books, glossy magazines, television shows and various neighborhoods around then perhaps I'd enact something like what I espied in Paris last spring along the Place' Vendome right by our hotel: huge Edwardian urns almost as tall as me with a round-ball clipped boxwood bush in each surrounded by potted daffodils spilling lushly over the brims of the urns. Breath taking, oh yes, and sooo pitch perfect elegant in the early spring grayed-tones of Paris but out here.... well, such things of beauty would seem comic at best, totally inappropriate at worst.

I've always been in wonderment to see homes and their lawns/grounds/gardens not "appropriate" to one another... especially long after someone's moved in and lived in them for awhile. But that's my own quirky observation and I well- realize that standard developer-contractor landscaping has become an American urban, suburban and small town institution.

Back to here where I live, said house, cottage and their surrounds are kept simple because frankly, the buildings themselves are simple. More simple actually than I'd like since I'm more of an English Cottage typa' girl who loves sloping eaves, small-pained but tall n' wide windows, stonework, slatted boards, bricking and ivy vine trailing along windowsills and door frames. However, we are no where near the point of either the timing or the desire for our "dream home" or heck, even a close-enough-house we'd hafta' spend a lot of time, effort and money on.

Maybe one day, but for now I'd rather be keeping it simple n' easy for awhile....taking into consideration my bad back, ongoing elder caregiving, our non-office-hour careers and the mass amount of actual nature existing right out our front n' back doors awaiting our presence fishing, kayaking, rambling around woods, walking along the marsh, beach and such....

This week James helped me out tremendously by not only taking down the holiday decor' but also repotting some houseplants and so maybe tomorrow or the next day or sometime soon we can get at least a couple more pots potted-up with spring bulbs and perched onto windowsills :)

Anyone who has a bulb, has spring. - Anonymous

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. - Rainer Maria Rilke

I'm ready to keep putting little doses of poetry around my house spaces this month, how about you? Happy wintertime everyone and happy spring-to-come glimpsing about as well!