Tuesday 27 September 2011

Fall in Love: Vintage

Wow! It's Tuesday! 
 Time to let you know what I love about Fall this week.
Well, this week I felt a little nostalgic.
I am in the mood for fine vintage pillowcases
fragrant from wash and air dried
 woolen handicrafts
and paisley scarves
and lovely vintage paintings
in rich reds and yellows.













{All images : Etsy. Click on pictures to view source.}


I hope your Autumn is lovely!





Big




love, Irene

Wednesday 21 September 2011

Fall in Love-The Rustic of it

 Rustic chic is everywjere I look this season.
There are clothes and there are interiors and patterns all over the place.
I really like this look. It is comfortable, artistic and feminine in an individualistic way. 






Toast is an original in village chic photography. 
I actually save their catalogues
cause they're full of visual stories that are works of art.


I like the raw simplicity of this look.




And there is more.


Lovely, loveliest for Autumn.
Get a book, a cup of tea and cozy up in there!

Rich blue armchair.
Look at those rugs. There are plenty of those in this part of Greece.
So e-mail me if you need some :)

I like yellow. It never fails to add a tone of cheer.
Oh and Liberty prints, please!

Heaven for me and DH!

Our first home in Greece was very rustic, eventhough it was in the center of Athens.
Our curtains were just like these ones. Where they are now, I cannot remember!

Just perfect

Dear Santa,
...


I can happily see myself in this outfit.
Very me.

This image is so feminine and the model so gracious.
Next to mothering I cannot think of a more feminine task than that of needlework.

The other day I was talking with a customer. He bought a bed and matresses from us over the last couple of years and we got to talk a little bit. He is a doctor and he came back to Greece from Belgium where he was working full time, with his wife and infant daughters. He is really pissed off and thinks of going back to Belgium, only he fears the hussle of the move just under two years after he left, and wonders if he will find a job again. "You'll never know if you don't ask", I told him. (Sometimes I wonder if I am not chasing my customers away. But I can't stand seeing people unhappy). He knew we came from Athens, but to soften his anger, I told him that I originally came over from England, where I was working part time in Adult Education and was doing research for the British Museum. "What?" he said, "why do that? Are you nuts?"  "Only as nuts as you", I'd have liked to say, but I did not :/ "I was love smitten, and wanted to start a family in my parents' land", I said. Yes, looking back it was a silly thing to do, but, if I knew then what I know now...Oh well... There. One day soon we might find refuge in our old family home, shared by three families with not the best of relationships at all times, and I may have to confine myself to a room with plenty of books and old rugs, drinking mountain tea and raising chicken. Now, if I learn to weave!..


image credits:
Top half : Toast
Bottm half: Anthropologie 


Linking to

 

Big

that tricked me into loving Autumn this year
Thank you, Heather!

love, Irene

September days


As I type the air is fresh and full of the after the rain quietness.
Last night we got our first real rain complete with lightenings. 
What a spectacle!


In the past couple of weeks I have been spending two afternoons per week 
 in our son's soccer practice. 
It is a cluster of peace and relaxation.
Watching him play
seeing him happy with his pals
hmm
nothing like a soccer game for boys!


I seat next to my husband and read my book. 
The header above reads:
Beginning of the Autumn


There are other parents, too, mostly dads, and they watch eagerly. 
Or they talk about their jobs and the new taxes that the vultures in power are throwing over our heads.


But I am shutting out their voices 
and for those little moments 
I'm a child again
watching football
and reading a story book on happiness.


Life stands still
and though Fall is here
I focus on 
life
and it is painted pink and green
focusing on the good stuff

I hope your life comes in the most beautiful colours.

Happilly linking to
Photobucket
love, Irene

Tuesday 13 September 2011

Fall in Love-The feeling of it

I have always loved Fall. 
 Being an only child, Fall meant the company of my friends at school, 
the return of my Scout meetings 
and my Greek dance classes. 
What a joy! 
Besides, I loved stationery, the fresh ink on my new books, tidying up my desk, and wearing my new uniform.
With my kids came the resentment of Fall.
 In recent years I felt a little sad when Fall came. It meant the end of the summer months, and most of all the time we spent together on vacation, camping and just being with each other as a familly.
It meant long hours at work and haste at home
and not seeing each other ide of our daily chores and routines.

 This year though I kind of welcome
The Autumn.
Though the winters here are notoriously foggy and rainy,
after 14 years in this part of the world, and after much resenting it,
I decided you either go on and change location,
 or just be,
cause there is no point spending one more year of your life hating what you cannot/will not  change, aka the dreaded depressing weather.
Cause there are people all around us
people who left here for Athens a decade ago and now are fleeing back from fear, unemployment and criminality
people who got sick or childless or widowed
people who had to close down their lifelong businesses.
And though we may one day
close down our shop and have to move back to Athens and criminality and cement blocks,
right now we are right here
and we see each other more than we would if we stayed in a big city.
And besides,
I write to you
and you read
and we kind of
...
sort of
...
like each other
and share our dreams, our tastes and visions,
 and all that we love and cherish in this world
and really,
right now
that is all that matters.






Linking to the lovely

and

Big
 
 


 
love, Irene

Friday 9 September 2011

Off...to new schools


Today is the beginning of a new chapter in our children's school life. 
After much thought and debate 
after some secret conversations 
while I changed from work clothes to lunch clothes 
after phone calls between me and my eldest, 
-me at the shop, she at home-
we pushed through with our decision to take the kids off private schools,
English and Greek,
and enroll them to the public school system.


Our decision wasn't an easy one.
Most of my readers are not familiar with teachers going on strike for a month or more,
or with kids barricading themselves in their schools aided by anarchist extremists and destroying everything on the way to the revolution...
You may not be familiar with schools startng on September 10th 
and not having books to work from until November
or not having a science teacher till Christmas.



For all those reasons
and because we don't really have much help since our parents live hundreds of miles away,
we found it necessary to send the kids to private schools 
where a bus collects them in the morning and brings them home in the early afternoon 
and most of the work is done in the classroom.

However
we have grown increasingly disillusioned with the kids' schools.
J changed school half way through the year, this year,
and we found out that most students getting into College get private tuition, 
whether they go to a private school or a state run one.

Add to this the current financial
{ahem}
restraints
and we had to make up our minds about whether getting the kids into the real world was for us at this moment.
Cause mind you, having to drive them to and fro school, having to read with them their lessons and, well, parenting them in their new wilder environment, while we need all of our energy keeping our business afloat,  is not an easy thing to contemplate.

We prayed alot, and deep in my heart I believed that God would give us the answers. 
A thread of events unfolded in the past week, leading us into being confident in our decision. 
We hope and pray for times when we will enjoy our time with the kids more, when they wll appreciate their free time, and when they will grow up into more confident and self-sufficient people.



P.S. My 10 year old boy washed his own football uniform tonight. Must be agood sign!


love, Irene

Thursday 8 September 2011

Summer some more

On Wednesday we got the first of the Autumn rain. 
 I got the first photos of yellow and orange. 
 But wait, not yet. 
 Let's feast on some pink and green sorbet some more.










Enjoy September!

P.S. Hope you like the new look. I'd love a Turtle, but the bird will have to do :)

love, Irene

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