Happy Holidays

and welcome to the Winter Solstice! May your year be full of light and happiness.

photo by Paul Croes, via iiiinspired

r.i.p Ryder

I am so sad to report we have lost our beautiful "tiger dog" to aggressive bone cancer, the most common cause of death for retired racing greyhounds. What makes it most difficult is that it was only about a month from the time we first noticed a limp and took him to the vet to where he was clearly suffering despite heavy pain medication. Even though he was only with us for two years, he's left a very big greyhound-shaped hole in our hearts. Our household is a much sadder place these days.

I haven't had any time at all to think about this blog, and if I did, I'd be whinging about my 3 jobs and how much I'm working/how little money I'm making/ yadda yadda yadda.

Ok, got that out of the way. Bottom line is, I'm healthy (knock wood, of course) and not bored. Lots of gratitude for that.

Ryder stole ds's childhood hat the other day:

Which reminds me just little of this:

And, thanks to the brilliant and lovely blackbird, I have an new (old) favorite:

and a new (new) favorite (but watch it at blackbird for full effect):

How have I been around so long and not known about MessyNessy ("Blogging on the offbeat, the unique, and the chic")?? I have fallen deep into a gorgeous rabbit hole of charming storefronts, tiny little backstreet shops, funky cafes... well, just take a look.

From 20 of the most charming little shopfronts:

or, 10 places to have un cafe in Paris:

I can vouch for this one, I spent a delightful afternoon here with my kids a few years ago.

Or, The Lost Art of Hotel Luggage Labels?

I am, as they say, ensorcelled.

Some interesting links  I've found lately (I've been putting some on the Quotidienne FB page, but not everyone sees them):

✚The Spring-Autumn Project by the artist Qozop, who switched the outfits of younger/older pairs of relatives in a really lovely photo montage. There is also a nice article by Amanda Lee Koe about the exhibit.

source: qozop.com, via the improvised life

✚35 profiles of fabulous gentlewomen.

Sofie Gråbøl in The Gentlewoman.

✚17 Feel-Good French Films you should stream on Netflix (via French Girl in Seattle)

The Taste of Others

✚Terrific blog post by Garance Doré about women/ageing/fashion and how the problems is not one-sided. Who is imposing standards on whom? Sales go down when clothing is shown on older models. How do we get ourselves out of this particular feedback loop?

✚Everyone seems to be talking about T Magazine's essay about Phoebe Philo and "Quiet Power Dressing" (I had kind of hoped that "power dressing" was dead and buried, but apparently not).

Old Movie Love

I just couldn't resist posting this video from gizmodo about Criterion Films. They're doing such amazing work restoring movies, and this is all about one of my favorites, Hitchcock's 1940 Foreign Correspondent.

they were in the process of restoring Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 espionage thriller,Foreign Correspondent. In the video above, Kline talks about how the first step in the process is tracking down the negative, or a print, that is in decent condition. In this case, that meant going to the Library of Congress, which had the original negative of the film.