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Reiki-ing Leaves & #SpreadTheKindness Link Up #300
I tried to be all punny and cute with my title but I think I might have failed. Although Archie is sitting next to me on the couch while I am writing this post and he laughed out loud when I typed it. So maybe my pun was a success after all. I guess it really all depends on your perspective. Perspective is such an interesting thing, isn’t it? Sometimes we get locked into tunnel vision and simply cannot see or even imagine a different perspective, but there are literally an unlimited number of perspectives in the world. Like our fingerprints, our perspectives are also completely unique to us. Our…
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A Wabi-Sabi Worldview & Link Up On the Edge #320
Decades ago, I was introduced to the Japanese art of kintsugi, which is the practice of repairing broken pottery with a lacquer made of powdered gold, silver, or platinum. It is similar to the maki-e technique, which is a Japanese lacquer decoration used in all sorts of mediums from paintings to vases to decorative boxes and other trinkets. Kintsugi (“golden joinery”) or kintsukuroi (“golden repair”) is not just a practical art form for repairing damaged pottery, it is also a philosophy which views breakage and repair as an important part of the history of an object. The philosophy of kintsugi highlights rather than disguises where damage has occurred. By filling…
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The Magnificent 8 with a Western Flair
We are back with our quarterly collaboration of 8 magnificent ladies showcasing personal style that spans the generations. The Magnificent 8 is a collaboration among 8 style bloggers, each in a different age bracket, ranging from 20’s to 80’s. The mission of this collaboration is to show you just how ageless style is, how we can each dress however we’d like and in ways that make us feel fabulous. There are no age restrictions on style. So wear what you want, when you want, add a smile, and strut your style with confidence. Every quarter we choose a theme and we each create an outfit that suits our own personal tastes…
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We Heart Halloween (Tim Burton Style) & Your Own Twist Link Up #49
Four years ago, Monica and I launched this new fun style challenge series which began with our Halloween looks. Every year since 2018 our October theme has been Halloween costumes, making this our fifth Halloween collaboration. In that very first Your Own Twist post, we both styled our Halloween looks separately without consulting one another and ended up both creating fashion icon costumes. I portrayed Iris Apfel while Monica went with Audrey Hepburn. For our 2019 Halloween collaboration, we again created our looks separately and both ended up wearing giant unicorn heads. That coincidence really made us laugh! The following year in 2020, our looks were not as in sync…
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The Thrifty Six in Autumn Outerwear
This month’s theme for the Thrifty Six was chosen by Lucy and she went with the seasonally appropriate topic of autumn outerwear. Outerwear, meaning coats, jackets, or other garments that you would wear on top of your outfit, is probably the most thrifted category of items in my wardrobe. I live in a place where we experience winter-like temperatures for approximately 9-10 months out of the year. So over the course of a decade living here, I have managed to amass quite an extensive outerwear collection. When you combine the local weather with menopausal cold flashes, this girl needs all the warmth I can get from October through June. I…
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The Thrifty Six are Inspired by Travel
For this month’s Thrifty Six challenge, Jane chose a fun theme to bring the summer season to a close…Outfits Inspired by Travel. We went traveling on lots of little weekend trips this summer, kicking off the season with a weekend of Festival Camping at Smoked Country Jam in June, followed by a weekend trip at the end of July that included a day in Burlington, Vermont, followed by a day in Lake Placid, New York, where we visited the John Brown Farm and Olympic Stadium. Our final summer trip was a weekend in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in mid-August to deliver a graduation gift and have brunch with my sister. For the…
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All About Hats & Your Own Twist Link Up #48
If you haven’t noticed by now, I kind of have a thing for hats (and of course, kimonos…but that you surely knew already). So for September’s Your Own Twist with Monica of Jersey Girl, Texan Heart, we decided to focus our styling efforts on hats. About Your Own Twist Your Own Twist is a monthly link party hosted by Monica of Jersey Girl, Texan Heart and me on the third Thursday of every month with the goal of inspiring some of our friends to get creative with personal style. The idea behind this collaboration is to take one common piece or theme and style it our own way with our own twist…Monica and…
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Thrifty Finds & Your Own Twist Link Up #47
I know I talk frequently about the benefits of thrift shopping. But I can’t help myself. It has been a lifelong passion of mine and I seem to grow even more devoted to my focus on a preloved wardrobe with each passing year. I do still buy new clothing at retail prices because I have an addiction and I struggle to resist all the cute new things that are released into the fashion market every season. At this point in my life, I certainly have enough clothing in my wardrobe to never need to buy anything new ever again. So recently I have been only indulging my shopping whims if…
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The Thrifty Six in Jumpsuits
It was Grace’s turn to choose a style theme for August’s thrifty collaboration where 6 international fashion lovers join together to show you how to be stylish on a budget while also doing something good for our planet. Tossed away clothing drastically contributes to our landfill problem while the overproduction of clothing required to sustain our throw-away culture dramatically impacts our climate change issue. Too many clothes, and too many new clothes in particular, are a real problem. I am just as bad as any other consumer who has fallen prey to the fast fashion monsters. It is an addiction that retailers tapped into a few generations back and they…
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Random Friday Stuff & Link Up On the Edge #306
Y’all, it has been a super crazy week and I am completely wiped out. Ralph wanted to participate in Clayton’s Theater Week which is a week long summer theater program for children ages 5-16 held at the beautiful Clayton Opera House in Clayton, New York, situated on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. The opera house is just one block from the Harbor Hotel where I just attended a wedding wearing this same kimono. I was really excited when Ralph expressed an interest in something other than video games and quickly signed him up for stage crew before he changed his mind. The Young People’s Theater of Clayton is…
