A Rainbow of J.Crew: Spring 2011

Images from style.com.

Have I ever mentioned that spring is my second-favorite season, after autumn? Sigh...

Looking forward.

I think I'm over summer. I mean, it's great and all, but I am ready for the smell of the seasons changing and layering clothes and taking cool evening walks and making roasted chicken  and vegetables and drinking a good malbec and listening to wistful songs of love and loss and never-quite-having:



The shoot for Dace's Fall 2010 line sure helps me get into that autumn mood:

All images by André Paul Pinces

Happy Holidays?

People are saying "Happy Holidays" already, seeing as how Thanksgiving is a mere week away, and Christmas music has been playing in Banana Republic and other stores for at least two or three weeks now.

Yet, as much as I love Charleston's balmy weather, it's totally throwing me off. To me, it feels like late September has lasted for over two months. Even though I'm already making realistic and fantasy Christmas wish lists, overall I feel completely in denial that Christmas is just over a month away.

Here are some things that are helping me get into the holiday spirit despite the mild weather:

• Anthropologie's Snow House, and the outfits that go in it.
• The song "All That I Want" by The Weepies...it's a Christmas song, but I secretly listen to it throughout the year because it's so sweet.
• Lake Champlain Chocolates' Aztec Hot Chocolate.
• Seeing my family...I used to visit them at least one weekend a month, but it's been over four months since I've seen them! Six days until they're here!
• Watching the Christmas decorations go up around downtown.

Oh, 2oo9, where have you gone? I feel like someone's holding down the fast-forward button on my life.

Autumn in the kitchen.

My kitchen was filled with autumn colors and savory smells last night.

Onions and leeks sautéing in butter.

Chopped butternut squash and carrots and a ripe tomato.

Butternut squash soup seasoned with curry and garam masala.

There are few things cozier than soup on a rainy autumn night.

Autumn 2009.

Yesterday, a day I was waiting for, passed and I didn't even get to comment on it because my internet was out. So, I'm going to pretend that the big event of yesterday actually happened today and say:

Happy First Day of Autumn!

• Start packing up your bathing suits and beach chairs.
• Bring out your worn-in riding boots, your soft scarves and your coats with a million buttons.
• Map out long walks with someone who tucks your hands into his coat pockets when they get cold.
• Go to every local coffee shop in town to test who makes the best hot chocolate.
• Get cooking: dig up recipes for roast chicken, savory soups, and warm apple tarts.
• Plan long movie nights for when the days get shorter.
• Wake up each morning to smell the air. Autumn smells like nothing else.
• Attempt to care about college football and allow yourself to be dragged to tailgate.
• Keep the windows open for as long as possible.
• Wake up early head to the farmers market. Squash, eggplant, carrots, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, figs, plums--all in season.
• Add an extra blanket to the bed--something colorful and warm.
• Drink tea: peach, chai, white, blackberry, peony, redbush--find your favorite.
• Take a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway (Include a picnic basket. This is a must.).
• Switch to autumn music: Fleet Foxes is the autumnest band I've ever heard.
  

Above all, enjoy this season full of change and all the feelings it stirs up. This is the only autumn of 2009 we'll ever have.

One week...

...until the start of autumn! I got made fun of for saying "autumn" instead of "fall," but while "fall" can mean many things, "autumn" can never be confused with anything else than what it is. Fireplace smoke, hot chocolate with cinnamon, brown riding boots, pale skin, knit hats, new beginnings.

I can't properly blog because my brain has been all tangled the past few days. Listen to Paolo Nutini sing about autumn instead.

It was 67 degrees this morning.

I have the strangest feeling. I know it's the changing of the seasons. Fall may well be my favorite season, because you can feel it happening. You feel the coolness, the slight undercurrent of change after the heavy heat of August summer in Charleston. There's a bevy of posts each year dedicated to my excitement for autumn, but this one feels particularly intense. I woke up this morning with a feeling of anticipation after a night of back-to-back wild and wonderful dreams. Something is about to happen and I'm excited that whatever it is will be ushered in with such a mysterious season. Autumn is smoky and smooth and crisp and curious. It's the season where people cover themselves in layers and scarves and their breath hangs visible in the air. It's the season where people hide behind masks for a night of mischief. It's a season for travel and learning new things and falling into piles of leaves.

I'm so jealous of people who have these well-organized theme blogs: design, decor, cooking, fashion. Simple. My blog ebbs and flows with rambling and movies and music and bits and pieces of this and that. It's somewhat like digging through my mind's junk drawer. Maybe my blog needs some direction. Maybe I need some direction. That's what this season is going to be for. Figuring it all out.

Found Magazine.

Heima.

When it's chilly outside like it is today in Charleston, I like mood music. I'd like to share some great chill-in-your-bones mood music with you:







Do you feel the Iceland in your bones yet?

Oh Winter, Where Have You Gone?

I just turned around and realized that tomorrow is the last day of 2008. The end of a long, complicated, sometimes wonderful and sometimes terrible year. I look forward to 2009.

I just got back to blogging but I'm already taking a break due to the New Year and the celebrations and friends it brings. Chandler and I are going to have a full house through the weekend.

I can't believe that Winter Solstice has passed and the days are getting longer. It already feels like Spring with these days in the high 60s, and those freakish days right before Christmas when we were 4 degrees from 80.

Paperwhites are blooming in the backyard...I wish I had a whole yard full, instead of the random patch that grows in the middle of the yard, as if they sprouted there on a whim.

Image from EasytoGrowBulbs.com

I want to plant a bunch of bulbs and give them as gifts next Christmas.

Anyway, with all these Spring sensations, it sometimes makes me lose track of the fact that it's still Winter for a few more months. In case you're having the same problem, I'll share something that always brings me back to a Winter mindset:

"White Winter Hymnal" by Fleet Foxes:

My Autumn Uniform

With autumn being such an exciting/inspiring season for me, you'd think that my outfits would be bursting with color. Not so. Here is a sample of my autumn uniform:


My Autumn Uniform by waitforthesignal

I need a little more spice in my life. Seriously.

Where do you add color in your fall wardrobes? I just have a deep attraction to gray and black that I obviously need to break up a bit more.

Autumn

"Autumn Leaves" by John Everett Millais, from Wikipedia.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core

~John Keats


Yesterday we finally turned off the air conditioning and slept with the windows open. We get to take a break from the recycled air until November or December, when we have to turn the heat on. There's something so refreshing about lying in bed with crisp breezes moving through the house. Poets often write about Autumn as a time of melancholy, but I think it's invigorating. It's a time of transition, of cool air and earlier dark nights after months of thick heat and bright light. The mosquitoes leave and nights on the porch (with a bottle of wine or cup of tea) become vital to ending a long day. Everywhere, we're embraced by every shade of yellow, orange, red and purple. (Can you tell that I'm excited about the season?) The feeling of transition kind of gets into my bones and makes me feel the overwhelming need to do something, whether it's a crafy project, or just hopping in the car and going to the mountains for the weekend.

I love the transitional seasons. I love its flurry of change and newness before winter settles around us.

Happy First Day of Autumn!

A Gift from Me to You.

[Just a note...the random intro is about 50 seconds long...so scroll to that for the good stuff.]

This song always makes me think of autumn--driving around the Blue Ridge Parkway, watching oranges, reds and purples blending into each other with every twist and turn of the car. Rolling down the windows, you'd smell campfires and feel perfectly comfortable in a sweater, with just enough crispness in the air to turn your nose a light pink.

I thought this was a suitable gift because autumn is only a few weeks away (though it's hard to believe for those of us still living in Charleston's 80-90 degree temperatures).

Let's pack in our last few weeks at the beach, then put away our bathing suits and stock up on hot cocoa, cardigans, and any article of plum-colored clothing.