A funny poster, vintage quilts, rare nasturtium seeds
plus a great romance novel and my father's easy pork rib recipe...
I'm so happy to be here, writing to you. I'm sitting in the 'sunroom' in our new house. The former owners had an enormous hot tub in this room, and while the hot tub is long gone, I find that I do my best creative work here. Maybe the years of their relaxation created good energy. I like to think so.
It's 17 degrees outside, and the wind is gusting. I can see the hydrangea heads, now dried puffs, nodding in the wind. We didn't clean up the garden this fall to provide insects with a place to overwinter. With every sway of the hydrangea head, I think of biodiversity and how the ecosystem will thrive in the spring. On to my week: all I read, saw, ate, and bought!
What I Read
I enjoyed discovering writer Anna Pompilio. Her substack is full of wisdom and great essays on all sorts of things I often think about (third spaces, managing your dopamine). I particularly liked this one on Personal Style: A Methodology It's Not Dead, We're Just Overwhelmed. This Exercise Can Help (Seriously.) Something I miss most about living in an urban setting is seeing the kaleidoscope of personal styles on the streets. I realized, belatedly, that fashion is a language we speak. I also read Emma Lord's The Break Up Pact, which articulates a certain kind of intense love you have for a high school crush and then fully realizes what reconnecting with that crush might look like when you are older and wiser—10/10 recommend. Plus, there is a funny meet-cute having to do with going viral!
Design Notes
A. These burgundy nasturtium seeds from RareSeeds.com tempted me to start seeds later this winter, something I've never felt I could take on! But for these beauties, I'd buy a grow light! 🤣
B. I'm genuinely in love with this fabric from Rapture & Wright. Samples arrived this week from the UK, and I have pinned them up in my bathroom window as a cafe curtain. I'm debating which color to use—the green or the brown!
C. This removable wallpaper, scanned from vintage quilts (using the pattern known as "log cabin"), checks multiple boxes for me and would be so fun in a cozy reading nook. The pattern originated in the 1860s when women sewed clothing scraps into quilts as fundraisers for Civil War army veterans. Here is one of my favorite examples in the Metropolitan Museum's collection.
Kitchen Notes
We spent the week between Christmas and New Year's in North Carolina with my parents, who are superb home cooks. My father has perfected home-cooked pork baby back ribs - which have always intimidated me. It's hands off, and the ribs melt in your mouth. As I was drafting this, in a moment of synchronicity, he emailed me the recipe:
D. The rub!
E. The sauce! My parents and I are sensitive to salt (high blood pressure runs in the family), and this BBQ sauce has the lowest sodium we've found! And my not-sensitive-to-salt teenage son loves it!
F. This pan was the sleeper hit under the Christmas tree - it's truly easy to clean and makes excellent scrambled eggs.
Found Objects
G. This downloadable Etsy poster made me laugh, and now I am headed to Staples to print it out!
H. These ‘Eisenhower Priorities Matrix Pads’ pads from Levenger are a massive help to my ADHD brain - sorting tasks into four quadrants -important+urgent (ie school forms), important+not urgent (ie creative projects with no firm deadline), not important+urgent (buy goat cheese for that dinner recipe tonight) and not important and not urgent - which I typically use as a “brain dump” section to clear my mind before work or bed. I start and end my day with this pad!
I. Did you hear about the potential quad-demic? I swear by these simple Handzies wipes to keep little (and big) hands clean (with soap and water!)
It goes without saying, but the fires in LA were never far from my mind this week. Anne Helen Peterson has rounded up a thoughtful list of ways to help.
From the Design Scouting Archives (2009-2020!)
