In heaven everything is fine

Ladies and gents, I'm way excited to let you know that The Big Heist, the Etsy shop my friend Shannon and I run (and I have been sorely neglecting since the Vintage Bazaar) will have a booth at Heaven Gallery's Vintage Heaven this Sunday (here's a little interview with us) in Wicker Park!

The event goes down on Saturday too, but we'll be there all monster-truck-rally-style on SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! Well, I can't say we'll be there. Sadly, I have to go out of town for work, but Shan is going to hold down the fort.

She's great. So great, in fact, she was patient enough to go wedding dress shopping with me yesterday. Whereupon we discovered that I am not an Ultimate Bride and I should just go with the first dress I tried on that I liked in the first store I visited over the weekend. I hope if I post pictures here after the fact you all aren't thinking, "Uch. She shoulda looked longer. Who does she think she is? Stevie Nicks in that thing? What's going on with those dolman sleeves?" We shall seeee.

Anyway, come say hi if you're around! It looks like a lot of the other vendors will be selling some seriously amazing vintage clothing, so maybe it's for the best (cash flow-wise) that I'm not around all that awesomeness. We have lots of new housewares that aren't up in the shop yet (this is the spot for you if you're looking for bell jars. I'm going through an intense cloche phase these days).

Wet blanket

Ok, so if you happen to stop by my house these days, it looks like a museum shop and an old lady's basement just exploded and had trinket babies everywhere. Amassing work samples + pulling out all the business for the bazaar + little wadded up paper towels covered in Goo Gone = a whole lot of chaos jammed into 1,000 square feet. And oh! The boxes! Our entire back hallway is waist deep in boxes. I have half a mind to give them to the guy who lives in under the viaduct down the street, but he's had one too many trashcan fire get out of control this winter. On this point I'm serious. The whole right side of the underpass is now sooty black, and I smell like a campfire every time I pass through. I'm afraid someone's bound to get hurt, whether it's Mr. Resident, some tragic Metra riders or some innocent Urban Remains shoppers.

Anywhoodle, in prepping for the bazaar, I attempted to take two boiled-wool blankets to the drycleaner last night, so they would be all clean and fresh for their (potential) new homes. The lovely lady working (shout out to Wicker Park Cleaners) helpfully informed me that I could wash the blankets in my very! own! machine! The trick is to use lukewarm then cold water and let the machine fill up with soap and water before adding the blanket.



Thanks, buddy! Such a great moneymaking tip. BUT. And there always is a pretty big one, isn't there? I have to hang them up to line dry, which means I'll be adding wet animal smell to the lovely melange of crap I have going on right now. Lemons to lemonade: Will it be a dietary aid?

Welp, the first blanket is set to come out of the washer right now. If anyone's interested, I can provide updates on shrinkage and/or stinkage.

* If it has to look like a shop, these pictures are what I really, really wish my house looked like maintenant (via Design*Sponge).

Take it away, Lionel!*

Thanks for the times that you've given me/ The memories are all in my mind/
And now that we've come to the end of our rainbow/
There's something I must say out loud type on my blog...

You're once,


Twice,


Three times a lady


And I love you. (imagine me whispering this part) I love you.

Ok, that wasn't creepy at all.

I'm just musing here that I'd really like some portraits** to hang up in my house. A friend of mine has these awesome, huge portraits of her mom and her aunt astride horses that she won't hang up because she's afraid she'll scare off any boys that come to her apartment. Ugh so jealous. Those would be up in my kitchen or somewhere awesome in a heartbeat.

Maybe I can pry this Carly Simon-esque 70s-era painting of my mom from my grandma one of these days (yes, that is Mrs. Hans Johansen herself).

* Last night, I watched a documentary that included commentary from a Dr. Lionel Tiger. Holy awesome name! See? He's real!
** To Marc: Not so fast. Paintings of sad clowns don't count.

Bonus round

Isn't it the best when you buy something at an estate sale/thrift shop/rummage sale, take it home and find an extra treat inside? And I'm not talking about old wadded up Kleenex.


I found this confettidazzly coin purse tucked away in the pocket of a suitcase I picked up a few weeks ago.

Oh, how I wish it were clutch size...

I just like how he's always leaning. Against stuff. He leans great.

DWTF, ROTFLMAO, sparkly vampires, Party in the USA, Delia's catalog, GoGurt (or whatever teens these days eat. It's probably not Activia.), Fallout Boy*!

I am honest-to-god crossing state lines to pick up this bank of lockers for my adult-lady house. $40. I know I'm a grownup because my teen self would have spent that money on ugly chokers from Express, some baby barrettes and a thrift-store flannel shirt to go with my waffle-weave babydoll dress. Hurl.

Like, what is my damage? Things I've purchased/acquired in an unconscious effort to turn my house into a high school:
- Four globes of varying sizes
- Two large chalkboards made from old windows
- Vintage schoolbooks (1 math, 1 biology, 1 English grammar)
- A button maker (for creating spirit buttons for all of the jock loves in my life)
- Multiple locker bins
- One pull-down map of Kentucky
- One metal detector (just seeing if you're paying attention)

Regardless, I'm still pretty excited about this find (as always, thanks Craigslist!). We're in desperate need for a place to store our winter coats/boots/ panda ski masks. But I don't know if I'm so jazzed about the "bright, sporty blue" it's painted.

Anyone have any suggestions on new colors for my lockers? Of course the inside of my locker will be plastered with pictures of Zac Efron. (He's still "dreamy," right kids?)

In an ideal world, these would be all rusty and Army green. But then again, in an ideal world, I'd come home to find Jordan Catalano** leaning up against them...

So are we thinking hot pink and houndstooth? Canary yellow? Industrial gray? Or do I have to figure out what the house mascot is first?

* This is humiliating, but I just Googled "What bands do teens like?" to get this one.
** I will also accept Daniel Desario in this scenario

It's a giveaway

As I mentioned last week, my good friend Shannon I have just opened an Etsy shop to sell vintage goods: The Big Heist. (for those who are wondering, we got the name from a jazzy Henry Mancini song)

In honor of the launch, I'm giving one of my estate sale treasures away:


NUTTY THE SQUIRREL.

He's an adorable ceramic squirrel. Sitting on a giant walnut. That HOLDS STUFF. You're thinking that you need him in your life pronto, aren't you?

We're both super new at this (the selling, not the buying. oh god, not the buying), so any suggestions on what you'd like to see in the shop are gold to us (or walnuts to Nutty).

Leave a comment telling me how you'd use Nutty or what kind of vintage wares you look for when shopping, and I'll randomly pick a winner next Monday at 6 p.m. Central. Don't forget to leave me a way to get in touch.

Go nuts!

Back at the ranch...

Plants are taking over my house!

It's gotten cold enough to bring in all of the plants from outside. Well, any that the mangy squirrels in my neighborhood didn't eat. Bastards.


They also like to taunt the cats.

I'm realizing I have some BIG plants and not much natural light, so most of them are crowded around the one south-facing window in the living room like Dickensian street urchins begging for more gruel.


Hey! Let's be real cool and throw some in an old suitcase.


Have succulents, will travel.

More in the rarely-photographed office.


It's cozy but cave-like in there.

Will these plants make it to spring? Seriously, I don't know. I'm thinking about sending some of them to Indiana to live with grandma for a while. Unless anyone in Chicago wants to be a plant foster parent...

Couch prowling

Raar!


Operation: Turn my couch in to a terrifying yet Grandma-approved lounging spot is right on schedule.

Again, in all its glory

If you want to sing out, sing out

Harold and Maude is my favorite movie in the whole wide world. I watched it for the first time about five years ago and immediately went out and bought the DVD. I never do this. That's what Netflix is for, right?

I historically hate romantic comedies. They're just goofy and usually short on the comedy part. Just a few weeks ago, I watched Sleepless in Seattle for the first time. Ugh. Imagine me making a raspberry noise and giving the double thumbs down. Soooo corny. This makes no sense because I'm a big old softie and get all weepy at the drop of a hat. I misted up last Saturday night at dinner with my parents while talking about the evils of Wal-Mart.

Related: Thanks A LOT Museum of Science and Industry Omnimax movie about the Great Lakes for making me want to cry like a baby over an old, stinky fish.

Ok, maybe that one was hormones.

Anyway, what I think I like about H&M (the real H&M) is that it feels authentic. And dark. And maybe a little bit weird. I mean, you've got a death-obsessed 20-year-old-guy who falls for a septuagenarian Holocaust survivor who lives in an abandoned train car and makes wooden sculptures that look like vajays. What's not to love? Add an all Cat Stevens soundtrack to the mix, and I'm hooked like that sturgeon in the Great Lakes movie. (sniff, sniff)*

I got to thinking about H&M earlier this week when I read this article about director Hal Ashby on Slate. It kind of bags on the movie, but I started poking around the Net (starring Sandra Bullock) and lo and behold, many others are WAY into this movie. It's inspiring all sorts of people, including:

(hold up. you have to imagine me reading this like a scrolling list of community college courses)


Decorators!



Puppeteers!


Architects!


Jaguar/hearse enthusiasts! (what a dreamy demographic)


Wes Anderson!



Designers!

aaaand painters.

Since I'm not a total nut, I'll just take the Belgian poster.


Ok ok. And the French t-shirt.

*Seeing has how the movie was about a 50-year-old man who loved and was tracking a 120-year-old female fish who had survived the environmental Holocaust that was the Industrial Revolution, the two stories are not entirely unrelated....excuse me. I need a moment. Anybody got a hankie?