do you ever wonder why?

Do you ever wonder why you do the things you do? Why you like the things you like? Why you own the things you own? I think about things such as these all the time. Perpetually. I'm always analyzing the whys of me. And I have come to figure out that I am a creature of comfort. Perhaps we all are really.

I look to my Pinterest boards often when I feel like I am in flux and when it comes down to it, I'm the me I have always been. Backtracking a smidge for ya, I keep thinking how when I moved into the new tiny casa, I wanted to embrace the white walls and clean things up a bit and I tried, I really did but as I have written before it all went to pieces when I reached for the froot-loopy colored towels eschewing the whites and greys. I wanted to have a grown-up looking apartment, after all I...we a-go-gos are officially IN our forties (gasp!) and I kept feeling the pull of the internet and its treasure chest of trends. Many of those trendy trends are quite pretty and while I still look for and collect ideas, I find that the clothing, styles, home items and such that I do like, are not liked because they are trendy but because they have meaning to me.

For example, wooden fruit crates and pallety bits of goodness. Sure they are trendy but I also grew up in a home full of beat up wood and the like. My mother stored her teacups in vintage pepsi and coke crates. That mix of pretty floral china with the splintery honey colored wood had IMPACT. My mother also had the greenest thumb east of the Tujunga wash. Our living room was a jungle of plant cuttings curling out of anything and everything from classic macrame plant hangers to vintage cookie jars to antique porcelain doll bodies. My favorite table full of plants was actually an enormous wooden spool much like this. So I think it is safe to say I come by it honestly though the mister often shakes his head when I come home with yet another beat up wooden box of sorts.

My favorite drinking vessels are jars. Jars are super trendy right now but I think they have good reason to be. I use jars because they remind me of home (we drank from peanut butter jars back then) and because the last of my favorite goldfish glasses is precariously on the edge of extinction. Jars are great...they have lids. I use them to drink out of, to store things and as the occasional cocktail shaker. Lest you think I am a jar snob, I'll have you know my favorites come from mr. a-go-go's almond butter. They are so much easier to clean and they are recycled!

What's with the return of the vinyl album? Don't get me wrong, I'm a girl who loves her vinyl but Im noticing more and more there appears ot be a new wave of vinyl hitting the homes of those much, much younger than I. Here in the tiny casa we have a wonky school-bus-yellow record rack that was picked up at a favorite thrift for two smackeroos! While most of our records are still in boxes (with a good many simply gone...donated? warped? sold?) we stuffed the bottom of the rack with a few favorites (more Queen and Sparks than I know what to do with) and topped the top with a school issued player that was gifted to us by the dapper boy a-go-go who is now a certified city boy (ahem...adult) living up in the bay area (I feel old). There is something that takes me back to my kooky highschool bedroom whenever I hear the scritchy-scratchy quality of a vinyl record rotating under the needle (cds were just making their debut when I was graduating highschool and man, I fought it, heels dug in and all).

I have to admit thay I am pleased with the popularity of decorating with vintage cameras. I have a hankering for those objects of art and can't seem to not pick them up when I come across them. While I do love a square format brownie or duaflex, my heart really sings when I find a chunky instamatic or the like from the 1970s. To me, that basic no nonsense camera shape is what a camera should look like. I was obsessed with our family camera as a kiddo and my mother had to hide it from me otherwise I would snap picture after picture of nothing more than my cat Popper in a doll's dress in my toy highchair. We also had a large Polaroid Land Camera that was used as a bookend for my mother's Reader's Digest Condensed Book collection. I loved opening it up to reveal the accordion action of the lens blooming outward. We never had film for it and I had no idea wjat is was at the time but I loved it, I did. I did not love picking up the rainbow of Reader's Digest Condensed Books as they toppled over everywhich way; me having absconded with their anchor.

Speaking of Reader's Digest Condensed Books, I love the look of old books, anything with printed patterns spread across the cover. I blame my mother's books, I do. Decorating with old books, whether or not I have read or plan to read the pages inside is another trend that I inherited from my mother. Even as a young girl, I would sneak away any pretty book to create a stack or display or perhaps staircase for my slinky to walk down.

Let's see...what else makes my heart sing and can be considered trendy? Hmmm...how about my slip collection? I use vintage slips as curtains in the dining area. They are pretty when the light filters in through the lacey-ness and are happy on display. I began wearing slips as outer clothing my senior year in high school. I never wore them as dresses, at least not then but I did wear them as skirts paired with funky patterned tights and combat boots, topped off with my favorite army sweater pilfered from my friend Heather who pilfered it from her dad. I had a sweet collection in all sorts of colors and at some point I stopped wearing them and then gave some away. I still have a few from back then and have been slowly adding more vintage finds to the mix. I may not be donning them with funky patterned tights and combat boots anymore (which reminds me, I think I need to find a pair of combat boots) but who knows, maybe someday I will and until then, they will hang in the windows as pretty pieces of lace and memories of my past.

Lastly, I think I make up the bed so much because lets face it, vintage linens are happy. I also tend to lean towards schlumping about in pajama bottoms and t-shirts so making the bed pretty has taken the place of making myself pretty. That's not to say I have given up all hope when it comes to myself but I do have to say I threw in the towel a few pounds ago and until I find a way to afford made-for-me basics I will play with pillowcases and hand-stitched duvet covers as I listen to my old lady eighties tunes and watch my favorite Doris Day flicks.

In your home, what are your favorite trends?