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

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'!

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...

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

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

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...

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!

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.....