things charming me today: summer installment one

so.

there are things to be said about things.  jobs and trips and weddings and locations and books and sights and people.

but for now?

let’s talk about more charming things.  because it’s summer, and today it’s the longest day of the year, which provides ample time and sunlight to take in the things that charm the pants right off me.

*     *     *     *     *

milk [with dessert, of course] + the striped straws left over from the wedding.

beverages taste so much better to me out of straws.  i may or may not have purchased what can only be described as an adult “sippy cup”.  it’s plastic, with a plastic lid and plastic straw in the shape of the plastic starbucks cups, but reusable.  i may or may not insist on drinking every beverage out of it, and may or may not actually pout when i can’t.

my lucky husband.

on the dresser in my office sits mr. bunjamin franklin derose, a porcelain rabbit given to us by our good friend ryan and his wife courtney for our wedding.  [seriously, a great wedding present.]  mr. bunjamin gets rather warm in this heat, so he sits in front of the antique (yet working!) fan we snagged at the antique store warehouse planet the other day for $12.  seriously, have you seen the antique store on the corner of academy and constitution?  i think i got lost in there for a few weeks, and reinforcements had to be sent.

mr. bunjamin did need something to remind him of home, though, and the terrariums my mother and i built for the wedding centerpieces suit him just fine.  i’m hoping that our little love terrarium will fare better than most of the other plants i’ve systematically killed.

seeing this guy every day certainly charms me to my feet these days.  he’s cute!  and he builds things!  i said one day that we needed to have a cabinet for stuff in the bathroom, and several days, two doors procured from a yard sale and a short discussion later, do you know what i have?  a custom-built bathroom cabinet painted white, with shelves measured to fit all of my stuff.

i’ve called him the boy for years now, and i abhor every brevity-influenced version of the word husband, so i was pondering what i should call the boy now.  husboy?  YIKES.  my friend audrey suggested “boyband”.

hilarious.

this little lovely thing sits on our mantle.  i swear i was this close to putting “sponsored by etsy” on our wedding programs, for all the cute things i got for our wedding from there.  my cutetastic nephew carried our “fake” rings down the aisle on this.  did you have someone remember to buy fake rings to give to the ring bearer?  if you didn’t, i feel bad for you, because people like that RULE.  they really do.  well done, ashlee.

another awesome wedding present.  these owls guard the “currently reading” section of our vast library.  a Very Important Job.

you’ll forgive me that many of the things currently charming me are wedding/marriage-related, right?  i mean, i’ve been mrs. for about 2 weeks, so it makes sense.  forging right ahead then.  one of the questions i got asked the most at the wedding were about these spright little flowers.  where did they come from?  how peculiar?  what are their names?

for the record:

they are called craspedia or billy buttons or billy balls.

they came from ecuador.

i procured them from the internet machine for cheap.

they don’t smell the greatest, but they don’t smell the worst either.

they dry amazingly, thus my simple wedding bouquet lives on, guarded by the owls.

our friend sam, upon seeing them sitting in the bucket at my parent’s house before the wedding advised that “god must have invented these flowers exactly for your wedding.”

we love sam. and these flowers.  equally.  almost.

have i mentioned that our apartment has no drawers?  NO DRAWERS.  drawers? nyet.  as you can imagine, this presents a creative challenge regarding where to store things.  our spice rack was taking up valuable real estate on the counter, so my trusty handy boyband (yep, i went there) constructed this magnetic wall for our spicy storage.

on a piece of paper is the key for what spice is what until we can procure some labels.  if i lose that piece of paper, feel free to decline any dinner invitation at my house in the near future.

here’s another solution to our aforementioned kitchen sans drawers situation.  sebastian carefully looks over our new silverware in ceramic egg jars from ikea.  we went to seattle for our honeymoon, and since the boy had never experienced the wonderment of ikea (and we couldn’t wait until it comes to denver next year), we spent an afternoon wandering around the scandinavian superstore.  we snagged a few great treasures that we carefully packed to avoid an overweight luggage fee or shattered treasures.

the mustard peg board was inspired from mrs. julia child, who had this large pegboard with outlines of various pots and pans on it.  i’m trying to absorb her cooking prowess and spirit by association with her kitchen design.  i’ll let you know how it goes.

*     *     *     *    *