Style Wednesday: Does Buying Items for Fall Mean I Am Now Engaged in the dreaded "Pre-Fall Season"? And my Ruth outfit homage

We didn't do very much shopping whilst we were on our trip.

Mostly, we hit the gift shops of the museums we visited and picked up some things for for our kids.  They each got a bag of goodies, which they were thrilled about; it turns out that when Mum and Dad go away, the kids do just about as well present-wise as when they go along, too!

As you know, I am really working hard at purging my wardrobe so that I am left almost exclusively with clothing that I love, clothing that is comfortable and fits well, and clothing that represents the image that I want to project at this point in my life.

I have also decided that the things that look best on me are simpler on the top and more streamlined, which accommodates both the "girls" and having broader shoulder and narrow hips, and things that have a bit of a luxe feel about them - thank you A Well-Styled Life...  Knowing this is helping me make my choices and has enabled me to move some more things out of my closet.  I am also forcing myself to wear things (weather permitting!) and if I chafe at doing so, it means that they must find a new home elsewhere.

One thing on my list for fall was another pair of Cole Haan penny loafers, this time in a lovely saddle colour. The black patent ones I bought two summers ago have been a mainstay in my fall/winter wardrobe, so I really wanted another pair.  I was delighted to find a pair on sale in a Cole Haan shop during our travels. While in the store, I decided it would be lovely to find a matching purse (or a close facsimile to matching!). The women's purses were all on sale, but what really caught my eye was a very simple cross-body messenger bag in the men's section.  No - it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a larger hobo or satchel, but I love how streamlined it is and it will force me to buy a lovely little insert bag for my lipstick, etc.  The leather feels divine and it is really good quality!

These two items will get a lot of airplay this fall and their simplicity may seem a little dull to some, but are wonderful to me!

Casual, but I can see wearing them with the odd skirt as well..

I did stop into the J Crew store in Portland, Maine as we flew by.  The store was looking SAD.  It kind of reminded me of the morning after a big party: all you are left with is colourful confetti, a bit of a hot mess and you are looking at stuff and thinking "why did that look so great last night?"  Maybe it was me - it was 39C or 100F at the time!

However, as I came around the back, there was a monarch scarf!  I yelled (in my head!) "RUTH!" and immediately grabbed it, as I have always admired her in that scarf (and you know we have gotten to see it in lots of iterations!).  I managed to snag it for $12.  Yup.  $12.  Worth every penny!  :-)  Ruth, this outfit is for you!

However, this photo is not really TTL for colour, the following one better captures the colour:

but you can see that it is a lousy photo...


Oh well - I am feeling all southern hemisphere chic now!  What do you think, Ruth????

When I arrived home, an ebay purchase was waiting for me.  I had ordered the Tory Burch Midori skirt, which arrives, as advertised, new with tags.  What a lovely, classic skirt.  I can see wearing this a lot this fall, with both shoes and boots and I am now stalking the same navy coloured Tory Burch cardigan on ebay, though I will be buying nothing now for the next month.

what do you think?  I am thinking of styling it with a navy v neck or my flax or navy cashmere cardigans, but I would love ideas!

So yes, I am now officially buying for fall, now that the weather is +25... sigh....

And finally, we saw the baby:

I thought all looked great, but heartfelt kudos to Kate, who proudly showed her post-partum belly (we have all been there but so many starlets hide until theirs are gone now).  Good role-model, Miss Kate!

Having said that, i have the same belly 18 years after my last baby.  Hmmm - should I be worried....

Have a great Wednesday and stay safe out there!

Tuesday - Our new baby and more garden pics from the Mount

Well done Kate!

Whether one likes the Monarchy or is indifferent to it, I am sure all would want Kate to have a healthy baby!

I was thrilled to learn that she had a son, though would have been equally thrilled to hear she had had a daughter!

All went well and honestly, isn't that the most important thing?

For some of us of a certain age, we cannot help but think of another Mother 31 years ago...

I am sure Diana is very pleased....


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Since you all enjoyed the pictures from the Mount, thought I would share a few more pictures I took in the garden there:

I really feel that my house would be even better with a courtyard.  With stone walls.  Over which hydrangea could peek...

The walk through the woods to the Mount...

The grape shot.  I must have been thinking of wine..

These reminded me of magic wands...

I loved the hostas garden, all waves of lavender flowers...

It reminded me of my own small version...

Is there any garden that is not bettered by stone steps?  I can say that truthfully, since I do not have any and yet am desperate for some....

Lilies, looking very noble and upright...

The garden on the slope beside the house.

Grass steps!  Divine!

The thing about making a beautiful garden is that it is a supreme act of love.  You make something beautiful out of the wild, and unless you are so fortunate as to be a famous person (and thus have your gardens maintained after your death) or be followed by someone else who also loves a garden, you are acutely aware that all of your good deeds and care is but a fleeting moment in this time and place.  Maybe that makes it all the sweeter?

Of course our gardens are constantly evolving anyway; things die, others suddenly pop up unexpectedly, we marvel at the daily changes.  I love to visit gardens more than I love to visit the famous houses that go with them; somehow, for me, the garden is often the truest expression of the person within: do they like things simple?  do they like things wild? do they like things orderly?  Are they all slap-dash?  Is there a grand design or is life just happening?  It all makes me happy.  And the gardens need not be fancy for me.  I am even thrilled by a simple geranium in a pot on the steps or a mint pot on a deck in the big city.  It is life and it is good.

A few pics from my own garden, which is SO much wilder these days...

So today we celebrate all life, don't we?  The world's most famous baby; the baby born in some hut somewhere else that we will never know exists, but which is just as important; the life in nature.

Some days are good ones.  Some days are not.  But some days are also beautiful.

Have a great day and stay safe out there!

The Red Lion Inn

As you know, I often quote my Philosopher King, Yosemite Sam, who once famously said "I paid four bits to see the high-diving act and I'm a gonna see the high-diving act!".

Well I sort of felt like that about staying at the Red Lion Inn: "I was a-staying in the Berkshires and I was a-gonna stay at the Red Lion Inn."

Oh my gosh - I am glad I did.  It is lovely.

Built in 1773, it was originally a stagecoach inn.  

There are jogs and ill-thought-out-hallways everywhere and we had to walk through the pub to get to the lobby from our room, but it was AMAZING.

The Inn's website is chock-a-block with interesting information.  Of course, I was thrilled to find out that my own dear Teddy Roosevelt (along with other famous people) had stayed at the Inn.

Our room was good-sized:

A king-sized bed

A scary looking woman looking at you from over the gas fireplace, which, because it was 36C, we never turned on...

Lovely little bathroom with nice shower

only one chair and a tiny TV, but that is fine, because you want to be on the front porch with a drink anyway...

We ate at the restaurant both evenings we were there.  The menu was that good.

A little wine?  Don't mind if I do...

We had to have dessert and dessert wine - it would have been rude not to have...

A shot inside the dining room.

And Barry looking very dapper...

Do you think he is posing here???

The little bouquet on our table.

After dinner, we went for a walk with some fireflies and a couple of bats.  It was so hot.  Then we came back and settled ourselves out on the porch.

I was only drinking water by this time, Barry didn't want to make the waitress feel badly, so ordered the house Merlot...

When we left in the morning, I took a couple of shots, though it was so hot and humid, my lens kept steaming up!

Main Street before I wiped the lens..

...and after:

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Inn has been captured famously by Rockwell in this painting:

Which the town does a loving recreation of every Christmas:

I would be remiss if I did not mention one or two other little tidbits about the area around the Inn:

1) There is an amazing chocolate shoppe a couple of doors away and up a back alley.  You have to stop in there if you visit!

2) the original Alice's Restaurant is also a couple of doors down, though it is no longer called Alice's restaurant, which makes the line from Arlo Guthrie's song, Alice's Restaurant, even more poignant:

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Excepting Alice

Oh my gosh, I love that song!

I highly recommend this Inn - quintessential New England Inn experience and the staff were gracious and lovely and very attentive.  They kept wanting to pull down the covers, but Barry never let them in, though he did take their chocolates!

Have a great Monday and Stay Safe out there!

Sunday with Norman Rockwell and his art

Doesn't Sunday seem like the perfect day to visit Norman Rockwell?

When I think of Norman Rockwell I think of a kinder, gentler, time in America: Sunday dinners, Christmas mornings, family reunions.

I also think of the kitschy side of Norman Rockwell: the collector's plates, Christmas ornaments, etc.

So when we decided to go through Stockbridge, Massachusetts earlier this week, we decided it would be a good idea to visit the Norman Rockwell museum.

I am glad we did, as I realized that I did not know the real Norman Rockwell at all.

The size of the museum is perfect - the collection is good-sized, there are always two or three other interesting exhibits in-house, and is easily do-able in a couple of hours.  Some museums are so large that they overwhelm me and I have to take them in only small portions (The Met or The Louvre for example), others are much more manageable - like the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, and are like little jewel boxes to be savoured and enjoyed.

If you take the headphones for the audio tour, you are going to learn some interesting things about Norman Rockwell's work.  For example, there was always something cheeky or "off" in his paintings, despite their overall sense of being sweet or sentimental.

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It is hard to see in the picture above, but in this fellow's arms, he has a copy of the museum guidebook which shows the original, more staid painting.  Our hero is very interested in other parts of the painting (perhaps the technical aspect of the brushwork?) and the subject is suddenly quite flirty with him!

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Likewise, in the painting above, you see that the self-portrait that Rockwell is painting is a slightly idealized version of what he is actually looking at in the mirror.

What I did not know before I visited the museum was that Rockwell was a real social activist in his life, pushing America to its higher self through his illustrations.  In the 1960s when America was being torn apart by the civil rights movement, he waded in, depicting the victims of hatred as real, noble individuals, not different at all from the other "white" people that Rockwell had depicted on his covers of the Saturday Evening Post and Look magazines.

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The Museum takes a lot of time to show this work, since so much of America is more familiar with the more sentimental of Rockwell's works such as Christmas Homecoming.

The subject in this painting is the artist's oldest son, Jarvis Rockwell, who just happened to have an exhibit at the museum and was actually there working on the day we visited.

This was a fascinating exhibit.  Jarvis has taken action figures and toys from the last 30 years and used them in large three dimensional collages that speak to the story of culture and our children's lives and what we deem important and imaginative.  The highlight is a massive Mayan temple-like structure that is covered in hundred of these figures.  I got a chance to chat with Mr. Rockwell while he worked and we talked a lot about his use of these objects and it was really fascinating.  Well worth a visit - he had a similar exhibit at the MOMA a few years ago which was quite popular.  There was also a small exhibit of his older works from the 60s, 70s and 80s and it was interesting to see his art evolve.  There was one of those ugly tourist moments while I was chatting with him, as a loud blonde woman rushed in and said "JARVIS!  HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE GROWN UP WITH SUCH A FAMOUS FATHER?!!!"  I could see this talented artist wince - he is an old man now himself and has likely had this question asked of him every day of his life - and he just shrugged and said "it was complicated."  At which point she replied "MY LIFE TOO, JARVIS.  NOW I AM GOING TO SEE THE SNOW WHITE EXHIBIT."  And then she was gone.  And Jarvis and I went back to talking softly about his art.

Near the museum you can see Rockwell's studio, which was moved to the museum grounds after Rockwell's death:

The sculpture in the garden is by another of his sons, Peter Rockwell.

Inside the studio they have chosen to show what it looked like during an active period of Rockwell's life, in this case, 1960.

I highly recommend a visit to this museum if you are in the Berkshires.  I felt at the end of the visit that I better understood Rockwell the man and Rockwell the artist.  What more could you want from a museum than that?

I hope you have a wonderful Sunday!  I will be staking some plants today; we had a very violent storm here around 6:30 last evening - I have never experienced ANYTHING like it and apparently, there is evidence of a tornado about 30 KM away.  Not good, but thankfully no damage here.  Stay Safe out there!