Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesty, above the fruited P*L*A*I*NNNN ...
America America God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea
How was your fourth? It's unlike me to not lean heavily into any holiday, let alone our wonderful nation's 250th. I can barely type the words to America the Beautiful* without shedding a tear. Those words have always turned on the faucet for me, even before we sung it at my father's memorial service. And I've already decided that we'll be singing it at mine some day too.
Yet over the last few weeks, I've been so busy running from place to place, I've barely had time to noodle over how to wear the stars and stripes and favorite ways to serve hot dogs and watermelon - which are secretly two of my favorite foods. (If you're craving a deeper dive into what the Fourth of July means to me, you'll find it here).
My fourth was actually a different kind of red white & blue - I returned in the wee hours of July 3rd from Brittany. READ MORE
Posts tagged: france
Coral Sands Summer Part II 6/15/26
Turns out I had so many bits of coral dancing in my head last week, I decided to split them into two notes instead of one. Let's pick up where we last left off, and step lively into our parade of the prettiest shades of pink into coral into sherbet-y orange.
Remember me nattering on about the joy of walking into a manicure appointment with my new Rose Baltique nail polish from Hermès (a splurgy gift from a dear friend)?* Naturally, a hunt soon ensued to find a signature shade to paint my summer toes. My vision: the perfect coral-y pink, not too mauve, not too orange, not too neon. Wouldn't you know that I came up blank, after multiple trips to CVS, Walgreens and even Duane Reade? Expanding my horizons, I hit the internet, where I found this dream-manifested-into-reality shade from Chanel: Première Dame. Well, that wasn't quite the term I was envisioning to describe the look I was going for, so I decided I better check it out in person. As I was in NYC two weeks ago for garden club meetings, I was determined to squeeze in a quick visit to the Chanel boutique on 57th Street. And, as I happily trotted up to the signature black doors in my best garden club lady outfit, I was greeted by, "Do you have an appointment?" Wait, what? READ MORE