3/19/15

Favorites lately


It's spring! And I'm ready for new things!

Back in the Day Bakery: Made with Love. This lovely cookbook just arrived on my doorstep yesterday and I can’t wait to cook from it. Their first cookbook is one of my absolute forever favorites that I always turn to when I want something to be delicious.

As I was searching for a picture of the book cover, I actually stumbled across the designer of the book  cover's web site. Her name is Emily Isabella (what a lovely name, btw) and her work is lovely too.

I've been thinking about book covers lately (shocker!) and thinking how little we know about the actual people who design the art for books. So many books are so enjoyable due to their ingenuity, and yet we know so little about them.

I've stumbled across two other visual artists this week that I love too:


Abstract art by Mark Lovejoy. It’s spring, and I love the riot of color! I just can't resist abstract art.



And I am now obsessed with Emma Block.  I stumbled across her work on Pinterest. So quirky and  evocative. All the things she puts in her work are things I love: bicycles, cafes, baths, Paris, flowers, books, pastries, and feminine romantic sensibilities.



On a deeper note, this is the thing I've read online this week that impacted me the most:
Negativity online: An essay inspired by over 200,000 comments on Design Sponge

This is just such a fascinating topic to me - so many layers here. I’ve struggled with feeling envy, inferiority, confusing what I really value in my own life - from what I see online.

I love beauty, beauty, beauty - in art, in homes, in food, in fashion, in parties, in words - and I love to see it online.

But I also love contentment. I love being happy, right where I am, right now! Being bombarded with visual perfection and high aspiring beauty on a daily basis gives me a bad case of “I-want-itis” and the dreaded blue “lesser-thans”.

I have my OWN triggers online - things that will send me into a spiral of intertwined rage and envy.  If I have to see just ONE more blog or web site talking about “cool moms” or “hip moms” - who seem to be women who are young, beautiful, effortlessly slim, wealthy, NY or LA stylish, designers, or owners of boutiques, etc. who are always doing something in the photo like jumping on a bed in their OH SO killer hiply decorated kids room, having a pillow fight with their adorable and super stylishly dressed child, while being dressed themselves in vintage Pucci, with their perfectly blown out beach waves bouncing in the air - well, I will just scream. (I’m looking at you, The Glow.)

I mean don’t we moms have enough to deal with, without saying “these moms are cool” leaving the implication that if you don’t meet up to their level, well, you’re not. Okay, okay. I’m 40 and I’m still worried about being cool. Pretty lame, huh? I am laughing (blackly) at myself.

Based on this rant, you might notice I might know a little something about the emotions that inspire people to leave negative comments on web sites. But I don’t. Not my thing. But it affects me in my own way. Emotional crap bombs I step into the moment I open up Bloglovin or Pinterest.

It’s getting me thinking, how do I get a little more space from all this, how do I guard my mind from the crap bomb? How do I build contentment, instead of dreaded discontent? (Maybe stop looking at The Glow, I don’t know!)

So much I could say on this, but I just love how thoughtful this article is.

p.s. Looking at The Glow, I want to judge, I want to envy, I feel my bile spilling over.  I think the photographs here are a little like boudoir portraits for motherhood - not really really real, more of a highly crafted and edited view. But with a little distance I could also say it's a portrait of one moment in time, of the beauty of motherhood, of that little golden fading moment that will not last forever, of a mother's love.

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