I’m not even going to show you a photo of our old front door. It was green and ugly and had no glass. When we started this latest remodeling project, the contractor said that he thought the door was fine–it just needed to be painted. He didn’t seem to notice that it belonged on a …Read More

I’m desperate for a pickle fork. When I mentioned this on Twitter recently, a woman responded with shock: “How can you call yourself a southern girl if you don’t own a pickle fork?” It’s true. Pickle forks come with proper sets of silver, and preferably come to you handed down from a grandmother named Gammy. …Read More

Love this water bottle for hiking and taking walks. When the water is all gone, I can roll it up, stick it in my pocket, and refill it later. I agree with the reviews that say the water can taste a wee bit plasticky when it heats up, but it’s a small trade-off for total …Read More

I miss living in Virginia the most in springtime. At dusk, I could look out into the woods and see  dogwood blossoms that seemed to float, untethered, among the trees. Some blossoms were delicate pink, and some were an ethereal, pure white. Spring is springing here in Southern Illinois. There’s a single dogwood tree out …Read More

Given that I’ve had such a busy work and play week, I’m stunned to find that I didn’t jot off a little something for a regular post. Goodness, here it is S.O.S. already. I have rice cooking issues. While I won’t say we eat a lot of rice, it is a staple in our house–particularly …Read More

 (photo by Taylor Kennedy) When my daughter Nora was small, she and I took a lot of short trips together. We started out when she was just a few months old, driving the five or so hours from Lewisburg, WV to Poquoson, VA, where my parents lived. Then there was a truly disastrous trip to …Read More

I was torn between highlighting two of my favorite Audrey Hepburn/Breakfast at Tiffany’s* shiny objects. But since I no longer regularly use a long, slim, elegant cigarette holder (and no longer smoke cigarettes, for that matter), I decided to go with that symbol of late-sleeping decadence, the sleep mask. Here’s Audrey/Holly in hers–So adorable! I …Read More

Visiting my parents’ house is like staying at a luxury hotel/model home where you might have to make your own bed, but the sheets are yummy-fresh, the food is fabulous, the bathrooms are spotless, the company is scintillating and there’s always some new, shiny object to keep life from getting dull. I always hate to …Read More

I’m not sure why I’m so surprised to find that my second Shiny Object Saturday subject is another home labor-saving device.  It probably has much to do with my being born under the sun sign Cancer. (Did anyone else devour this book as a teenager?) We’re reputed to be homebodies, and I think I am, …Read More

Did you ever buy something and just fall in love with it immediately? That’s exactly how I felt when I bought Pinckney a Keurig one-cup coffee maker for his office for Christmas. It was so cute, so compact, so…sensible. We frequently spend big bucks on coffee at Panera. We rarely make pots of coffee at …Read More