We love the 90s: Angelina + Liv

Posted on January 31, 2012
Filed Under Everything Else | 8 Comments

A few weeks ago, a good friend threw herself a middle school dance-themed 30th birthday. There were bottles of ! perfume, mixtapes featuring Julianna Hatfield and the My So-Called Life theme, babydoll dresses, and possibly best of all, stacks of early 90s fashion mags from the collection of a person with a more severe magazine-hoarding problem than mine. There is a lesson to be learned here, and that is this: there was a time – that’d be 1992 – when Liv Tyler was on the cover of Seventeen (age 15!) and Angelina Jolie was hawking prom dresses (and looking just as EFFING AMAZING as she does now). Also, never throw away magazines.

Are you ready for this?:

I love the ninetieeees (oh yes…there WILL be more).

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A favorite bag

Posted on January 24, 2012
Filed Under Everything Else | 2 Comments

I found this amazing antique bag at a Goodwill a few years ago and I always get compliments when I wear it out. Not exactly Goodwill pricing, but here is an identical-looking one on eBay.

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Boots, BBQ, and a self-indulgent gun shot

Posted on January 10, 2012
Filed Under Everything Else, Inspiration | 1 Comment

My vacation in Austin included dancing with gentlemanly strangers with boot-scootin’ skills at The Broken Spoke, a silver-lame-masked bartender at The White Horse in East Austin, coveting objects new and vintage, for men and women, at Stag and Uncommon Objects along South Congress, and more meat than a person should consume in a day, let alone one midday meal at The Saltlick on the way out to the Hill Country, where I stayed at a friend’s family ranch called Broken Foot. It got its name more than 20 years ago, when the owner was clearing trees alone on the property and fell some thirty feet, shattering his foot. He crawled to the (stick-shift!) truck and drove himself to the hospital 30 minutes away. There was wide-open space, laidback but luxurious hospitality, gun-shooting with same expert-shot owner, impromptu dance parties til 4 am, firepits, and the offer to return – and put the “work” back in work, something I feel missing in my daily life – for July peach season. I’ve still got dust on my boots and Austin in my heart.

{Avenue Barber Shop on South Congress]

{Uncommon Objects}

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Austin!

Posted on December 27, 2011
Filed Under Everything Else, Inspiration | 1 Comment

{photo by torgy2k]

I fly out for Austin, TX Thursday morning, where I’ll divide the time between the city and a house in the Hill Country. I’ve been doing a little internet research, including listening to “The Road Goes on Forever” by Robert Earl Keen (who sort of reminds me of “I’m Good Now” by Bob Schneider) and tunes by tortured troubadour Townes Van Zandt, who, as it turns out, I’d already been listening to without realizing (Steve Earl, Willie Nelson, the Cowboy Junkies – To Live’s To Fly! – Bob Dylan and oh, like everyone else has covered him).

All the more fitting that I return to check out ‘Ann’ at the Kennedy Center! In terms of what to pack, I’m not sure yet. Except for my Tony Lama boots, which are all oiled up and ready to go. I feel like I somehow need to pay homage to the “Keep Austin Weird” motto and pack something bizarre…

Any Austin must-do/see/eat/buy recommendations? Sounds like South Congress is the way to go for vintage and shopping generally (though this Roadhouse Rags sounds like an experience). Lustre Pearl looks like a good time. We might try out The Salt Lick on the way out of town. Let me know your favorite spots!

I’ll be back tomorrow eve (while I pack!) to announce the winner of the ‘Ann’ tickets. Thanks for all the email comments – it’s so fun to hear from you all, and there have been some awesome, and lengthy, inspirations.

For now, I leave you with Townes, Ke$ha style:

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Sofa Sob Story

Posted on December 11, 2011
Filed Under Everything Else, Inspiration | 3 Comments

Something super sad just happened, and it’s called I Just Found My Dream Sofa on Craigslist and Someone Else Got to it First. Insult to injury: all three pieces were for $100.

If any of you lovelies come across something ohh, just like this, please email me and I will forever be indebted.

Can’t believe this is not mine. SHIT.

Just went out and bought cookie dough,
Rachel

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GUESS What’s Under Here

Posted on August 17, 2011
Filed Under Everything Else | 4 Comments

There’s a newish GUESS store on F Street near Metro Center, which somehow didn’t blip on my radar til I walked past the other day. Whenever I come across the brand, I always think back to the time when, as a fashion-starved teenager growing up in Southwest Virginia, I was shopping at Sam’s Club with my parents, and showed my mom a t-shirt I wanted – black, with the brand-name “GUESS” embroidered across the chest (I know, I know). “Guess?” she said, “As in, ‘guess what’s under here?’” That was the end of that conversation.

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