Monday 24 May 2010

Dear friends,

As you have noticed, I have been on and off blogging for a while. Mostly off, really. It is not a matter of time. I think I need some distance from what seems like a "to do". There are piles of half written posts and photos that I keep meaning to show you, and thoughts that remain unpublished. And time spent in front of the screen that is not productive in any way. And if I do not have something to say that I can pull myself together and formulate as I want to, I'd better keep silent.

I am therefore going into a voluntary blogging silence. A retreat into living the day.

I want you to know that you are in my heart and prayers.

Thank you for your friendship and all that it means to me.


love, Irene

Wednesday 19 May 2010

Springtime for all creatures

Kathrine


love, Irene

Monday 17 May 2010

Darling Frances Mayes

I have this ritual. Ever since I first read Bella Tuscany,Frances Mayes' first book on the sweet life in Tuscany, I make a point of going through it every year. It is absolutely my favorite book to ring in Spring.


In it, Ms. Mayes describes how she fell in love with and lovingly restored an old farm,  Bramasole, in the village of Cortona, Italy.





All this, sprinkled with lovely accounts of life in rural Tuscany.







I just found out that a new book by Frances Mayes, Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life


In it, her most recent Tuscan memoire, Mayes conducts readers through the gentle and sometimes violent and disruptive undulations of the seasons from winter to summer in her Tuscan home of Bramasole. Mayes and her husband, Ed, situated themselves even more firmly in Tuscany a few years ago when they discovered a falling-down stone cottage on a rugged slope and restored it as a second home. We follow Mayes as she forages for the prized amarini, cherries the size of five-caret rubies, which are bottled with alcohol and brought out in winter to spoon over polenta cake, pears, blackberries, asparagus, fennel flowers, and figs. We continue on our journey with her as she leads us in search of the great Renaissance artist Luca Signorelli from Cortona, where her new house lies. Mayes's affectionate and warm memoir vividly celebrates the lush abundance and charm of daily life in the Italian countryside.  
Ms. Mayes' narrative embraces the season. This is something I find particularly appealing. It makes the book easy to navigate and digest, while it stimulates your energetic appetite for every season's delights. A must read.

{Photo credits: "thyme goes by..." , Borgo di Vagli}



love, Irene

Sunday 16 May 2010

Pink Rome





 From our Spring trip to Rome. Rome is such an elegant lady!


love, Irene

White and Bright

Jordgubbar
Emmelines
Country Living


Lighten Up!


love, Irene

Saturday 15 May 2010

Super dolls house

Den gode feen
I promise you'll love this 80s dolls house! Click here to view!


love, Irene

Wednesday 12 May 2010

Patios

Landstil 
Lisbeth

Nib
Do you too feel the need for sunshine and good times?

love, Irene

Monday 10 May 2010

Pink Inspirations







May your week be filled with pink rose petals, tinting your world in peaceful, joyful, delicious pink.

love, Irene

Saturday 8 May 2010

Mothers and daughters



"I originally thought of photographing my mother’s clothes as a project exclusively for her, to help spark her memories from the past; she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The project worked; my mother and I looked together at the photographs I had taken and she would remember parts of her past.  In fact, some of the titles of these photographs are direct quotes from my mother; “This is the Really Good One” and “We did a Lot of Dancing”.
{ Jeannette Montgomery Barron : My Mother's Clothes via Paris Breakfasts. Read the Paris Breakfasts post on the book here. Ms. Barron's website here}




Happy Mother's Day


love, Irene

Thursday 6 May 2010

Blogging the ordinary

Lisbeth
I wonder:
Why do so many people want to document even the tiniest details of their lives? Why go to such great lengths to capture the right light, the right composition, the right shade?

Tea for Joy
And why do we love looking at those blogs and those pictures and not getting enough of them?
Is our world becoming such an ugly, scarey place that we want to save and share the memory of happy, normal days?

Villa von Krogh
Are we scared? Desperate? Or are we becoming more and more ecclectic? Humble about our lives or too proud of our posessions?

Tea for Joy

Are we opening up our eyes to the tiniest details and gifts of the ordinary that seems to slip like sand, like a ray of light?

love, Irene

Tuesday 4 May 2010

Closing down Sale

I have used Dear Dahlia stationery for quite some time in my personal correspondance. I liked the simple yet elegant feel and the lovely paper quality. Dear Dahlia is now closing down and offers its products at -60%. It is a great place to stock up on "social stationery" in great prices.


love, Irene

Clocks-Time- Spring


there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people
what toctic time it is for
tictic instance five toc minutes toc
past six tic


Spring is not regulated and does
not get out of order nor do
its hands a little jerking move
over numbers slowly


we do not
wind it up it has no weights
springs wheels inside of
its slender self no indeed dear
nothing of the kind.


(So,when kiss Spring comes
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss
lips because tic clocks toc don't make
a toctic difference
to kisskiss you and to
kiss me)


From dark to light...May time...optimism for the day...photos via Design Sponge, Oh Joy and Bo with words by e.e.cummings (9).

love, Irene

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