Decorating Styles vs Comfort

I have no quarrel with decorating magazines--in fact, I subscribe to a passel of them. It's just that generally speaking, their styles don't fit in with my way of life and we're both comfortable with that.


Mary Randoph Carter is my kind of comfort maven. In her own house she fearlessly incorporates her favorite old fabrics, tattered books, bits of scruffy old furniture and textiles into a melange that spells comfort to her family and welcome to her friends.

In this book, she displays homes of people who put comfort and life style before fashion and what they accomplish is an art form in itself.


Here's a perfect example of a cosy inviting corner to think your thoughts or read your book.




More formal but comfortable are the houses shown in English Home magazine; soon the decorators will close in and take away the fun but in the meantime, enjoy. In many of the houses the high chair is on display in the kitchen and the dogs have comfortable beds everywhere.



English Home describes this delightful hodge-podge as the cloak room. I hope there's a lock on the door, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I still have to ask after I glance through Architectural digest, if you have several houses or pieds de terre all over the world, wouldn't it be a lot easier to just rent a hotel suite?

Just asking.

Winter Gifts

Winter presented itself this way yesterday; a perfect blue cast over everything along with a mild temperature.
The sight from my kitchen garden door the other day was not as magical; more of wild snow fight nature was having with itself.
This morning a perfect gift was left at my doorstep, a small, perfect leaf.
A first promise of spring.

Taking Winter a Day At A time

This was the view during the big storm the other day. The worst of it passed us by, and my grateful thanks to the storm gods.

I wage a continuous battle with depression during the winter months, and surprisingly, March is the worst month.
The best defence is my habit as a used- book junkie; I've collected an arsenal of favorites to get me through.

My mainstays are three authors that I cherish:

Janet Evanovich is worth her weight in doughnuts on a freezing day. Any day will do actually. I am guaranteed a few deep-from-the-boots roars of laughter.
There is a troubling side effect--those aforementioned doughnuts. Her Stephanie Plum character is a junk foodie and I'm not far behind, so my junk input increase while I'm immersed in Stephanie's adventures.

Ross Thomas is a different kettle of fish. He is the sleek marlin type. He's been dead a few years and his work endures. Witty, wry and intelligent fiction with a political background. Lovely.

Another can't- do-without is Robert B. Parker, who died last year and I felt deep pangs of loss. His Spenser novels are delightful and he slyly slips in an English lesson or two while he's at it.

At first I believed the onset of winter was a good time to hunker down to read, "War and Peace," but trust me, it's a downer.

So there you are. today I am reading number 10 in the Stephanie Plum series and spring is on the horizon--okay, still quite far away but we're gaining on it and I have a delicious pile of books yet to re-read.

Along with the odd garden catalogue.