Purple Suede Handbag and other Lovelies

I found one again.... a wonderful purple suede Kenneth Cole handbag. Only problem is that the fashion authorities seem to have decided that no one who can't afford to pay over $300 should have a perfectly sized handbag in this glorious color. Also found this great assortment in Marie Claire. Love the knit dress - very Scandinavian - and the cuffs and the bag and the sweater vest which looks like something I could knit out of all the leftover yarn I have.... If I had the time. The skirt is much too 60's for me - looks like someone found all the 40 year old dashikis and figured that the current generation would never know the difference. Always wondered what happened to all of these.

Sunday with the Brams

Adam, Margot and the kids came over for the first time in several months and we celebrated Margot's 40th birthday. I made my famous raspberry peach pie which everyone enjoyed and we sat out on the deck and enjoyed the cool breezy sunny day. Naomi and Reed's immediate reaction to the pie was that they didn't want any but they quickly changed their minds as you can see below.

We gave Margot a lovely brown, grey and beige pearl necklace that she and Naomi are admiring here. Naomi had just lost a front tooth and was showing her gap off to everyone. Like her aunt, she is getting some of her teeth in right in front of her baby teeth, so getting them out is painful.

Adam and Naomi are getting ready to go in this picture. Of course Dad gave Adam a bottle of wine and Naomi is holding a huge bag of ribbon remnants that I got at the ribbon outlet for $5 and her precious lamb puppet that I got her at the Panto two years ago. She announced that she wouldn't mind living here for a while.

Philadelphia Fall Fashion

Looking through a Phila fall fashion magazine last night with local designers ...
Love this coat

And the handbag and the dress in the lower right corner.

Shopping Therapy

Yesterday morning I was at Wills Eye Hospital with a very nice Neurological Opthalmologist who was
trying to determine why I was having intermittent blindness in my right eye. He concluded that it was a rare case of my IOP – intraocular eye pressure – spiking which was cutting off the blood flow to my optic nerve. It is under control with new eye drops right now but there is no guarantee it won’t happen again and the next time it could be permanent. He did teach me a method of ocular massage that I can use to reduce my eye pressure if it ever happens again, which was worth the cost of the whole visit.

After I left Wills, I walked the 10 blocks up Walnut Street to my office with a huge headache, blinded by the brightness of the sun hitting my dilated pupils and feeling emotionally bruised by the whole experience. After walking 8 blocks, I staggered into Cole Haan, sweaty (it was about 95 outside) and semi-blind and allowed myself to be persuaded to purchase a lovely grey leather handbag that I never would have bought if I was in my right mind. I won’t mention the price (after the 20% discount), but it is very nice so I will keep it.

Here it is, fashionably paired with my new grey skinny leg J Crew corduroy jeans, my new purple longsleeved T, my three year-old grey herringbone vest and my 20 year old fedora. It all makes me feel a bit better, but I am still sad.

More Jam

I have had a lot of fresh fruit staring at me this weekend- still do. The raspberries are coming in like crazy and the Finnens left us a bushel of peaches. Plus the seedless concord grapes are perfection. Made peach- raspberry jam last night.

Long's Park Craft Fair

Yesterday my husband and I went to the Long's Park Craft Fair, west of Lancaster. This is a very high quality fair, on a par with the Philadelphia Museum Craft Fair, but they allow paintings. Unfortunately, the exhibitors were down by about 50% from last year. Don't know why - economy or just that the Lancaster area doesn't attract the clientele they are aiming for. After snapping a couple of pictures, I found that you aren't allowed to take photos, so this is one of the few I got.... And my husband bought me a lovely pair of enameled earrings that I was admiring as a suprize present!