Home Life
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The zucchini that ate my cottage house
Is there a Guinness Book of World Records authority in the house, because today I must tell tale of a zucchini that attempted to eat mine. It started, as I’m sure all good stories do, with the Herculean task of hauling hundreds of pounds of dirt up a hill to my mother’s garden to a just-constructed planter box that would soon be filled with said dirt and a variety of vegetable seeds. What I didn’t know about this dirt was that it was composed of magical properties the likes of which result in killer zucchini. Were I a more studious reader of Greek epics, I probably would have seen that…
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Happy New Year: 2018
We sat on the couch, watching Netflix, bundled under thick blankets my sister knit us, sharing red wine and eating Hershey’s chocolate kisses. The clock ticked at its reliable rate toward midnight. I had a slight head cold. Before long — tick tick tick — we turned on the cable and watched as the glowing, sparkly orb in New York City dropped to mark a new year: 2018. We toasted with sparkling apple cider — the purchasing of proper champagne having escaped our to-do list — and shortly thereafter, we turned in to bed. Wishing you all a joyful, peaceful and inspirational new year. May 2018 be a grand adventure. …
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A bouquet of orange roses
Sometimes a bouquet of orange roses is just a bouquet of orange roses. And sometimes, if you look a little closer, I think you might find a bouquet of orange roses is actually a magical little land all its own. I love investigating the world with my trusty camera in hand. With such a companion you can transform a (slightly) cluttered corner of your living room into a little floral studio. Just add a truly unassuming rose bouquet to the mix and you’re good to go. Happy exploring, friends. SIGNED, anya elise
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The Not-At-All Definitive Guide to Jane Austen Films
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when your husband leaves town for 8 days, you should ferret out every Jane Austen movie adaptation possible and rank them according to style, casting, overall feel, and that special, indescribable little pop that makes a film worth returning to year after year. And so I did. I should begin with a disclaimer that these rankings are 100 percent subjective, 110 percent silly, and 125 percent based on nothing more than my own zany mood, which was left to its own devices for 8 days straight, so you know, be warned, fair visitors. I should also say that even with that disclaimer, I…
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Climbing Roses
I am a sucker for flowers. Any time I enter a grocery store, I have to stop and quite literally smell the roses. I usually restrain myself from stocking my entire basket with florals — one has to watch the budget after all — but it is certainly a struggle. So it’s always a delight when surprise flowers show up on my doorstep, as happened last week when my very kind landlady left us a small vase of climbing roses she pruned from her garden. It seems to me my landlady was a professional florist in another life, because her garden-harvested floral arrangements are always perfection. She’s sweet and thoughtful, and…
