the laundry

if you really want to indulge, go out there and get yourself a bottle of le labo's rose 31 detergent. it is beyond divine and it will make wearing a white tee, slipping into sheets, drying off with a towel, etc. more lovely than you could ever imagine. trust me. 

my mother has been using this stuff for years, so whenever i travel back to connecticut, i am overly eager to bring my laundry along with me. but this weekend, she got me a bottle of my very own (merci, merci, merci!), so i guess this means i can pack a bit lighter from now on for a weekend home.

pretty simple

gems in my jewelry box,

and ranunculuses by my bed.

hey

i've got sunshine on a cloudy day.

sweetly

i am twenty five.

rosey

i like to walk the length of my street from the east village to the west. even though i've lived in the west village before, and even though it's only a mile away from my apartment now, it seems like a world away. and so it makes for the perfect walk at night with ben. but last night we switched it up and walked east down my street to avenue d with the specific goal of seeing rats. rats love alphabet city and i love (seeing) rats. very new york. anyway, we saw three. it probably would have been more but we stopped paying attention.

ben waited on my stoop and i came downstairs wearing a navy sweatshirt, even though it must have been 90 degrees outside. i'm bad at gauging the temperature (especially if i am inside with an air conditioner) and i was immediately hot when i walked outside. anyway, he brought me the most beautiful pink rose and i carried it on our walk. it was romantical. i love when ben brings me flowers. i have every single one he has ever given to me. i should probably learn how to dry flowers properly because most look like sad, shriveled-up things. regardless.

the third night that ben and i saw each other, after we met in january, it was snowing and probably 10 degrees outside. we decided to just stay in my warm apartment and sing along to records, but i told him that he had to also bring a sweet treat with him. he came over with the best cookies in the entire world (tate's) which we both have a love for, and flowers. i knew he was the man for me. flowers on an ordinary night.

marigold

a peek inside my new apartment

my dreamy junior one bedroom in the east village.
i lovelovelove living here.

chocolate brown, peach, cream and red.

an exposed brick wall with tons of floral.

obviously.

truth and beauty

i have said this over and over again. but, i am just wild over pale shades of carnations.

faux

sometimes i forget to explore the different neighborhoods of new york and i woke up this morning realizing that i hadn't been to chinatown lately, a quick five blocks away. i was also in desperate need of a little present for myself. i tried to find a statue or some stickers or a key chain, but all i came across was fairly expensive jewelry and knock-off perfumes. so i picked up some seriously charming faux roses for $1.08, a perfect addition to my bedpost!

all in the golden afternoon

farmers market zinnias
june 19, 2010
milford, connecticut

the secret garden

green space is, obviously, very limited in manhattan. so i was especially excited to see that there was a community garden near my new apartment. right on the corner of houston/bowery. it is surrounded by a tall iron fence and a few weeks ago, the gate was open when i passed by. so i stepped into the garden. magical! there were little pathways and hidden benches, hanging vines, chirping birds and bright colors. i am now imagining that there was a stream but i don't actually think that's possible? anyway, i read a sign saying that the garden is looking for volunteers to care for it and i vowed that i would be there in my overalls that saturday.

the next night, emily and i were strolling and i saw that the land was completely bulldozed. everything uprooted and only dirt remained. i was confused! outraged! sad! i felt this way for a while and told everyone i saw for the next few days how unfortunate this was.

but it turned out that i was mistaken. and that i was really looking at an identical (but empty) plot of land a block away on houston/2nd avenue. le sigh. always funny, the process of getting your bearings straight when you're living in a new neighborhood.

fleur

a rainbow of roses, divine!

ranunculus

it was slightly strange because i thought all friday about how nice a bouquet of ranunculuses would be on my windowsill. and i don't normally see them around, and maybe it was because they were on my mind, but there they were in the shop. i picked up the most lovely bunch. layer upon layer of soft and dainty petals. and they are nice sitting on my windowsill, just as i thought they would be. especially since i spent a lot of time in my apartment this weekend. i was not tough enough to face the chilly weather! i thought winter was over? 

chrysanthemum

what sweet beauty there is in my spider mum!

flora

the flora of new york city; sidewalk roses.

beauty and truth

as much as i write about flowers, and as many photographs as i take of them, the truth is that they are never as beautiful as they actually are.

and i really appreciate that. flowers are something to be experienced. each time i get a new bouquet, i always take a flower out of its arrangement and just stare at it for a while and observe.

in bloom

my godetias are in bloom and they are so lovely, i had to share.

deciding

last night, i couldn't decide between buying godetias,

or hydrangeas.

and so i got both.

beautiful, aren't they? the godetias are lovely already, but they will be even more so when they bloom and the hydrangeas are just perfect beside my bed. it is very, very important to me to have fresh flowers in my bedroom.

lavender

on sleepy days like this, i dream of the day i spent in a lavender field this summer in norfolk, england.

fields and fields of the most beautiful shade of purple. and, of course, the fragrance of the flowers! i took a few stalks of lavender and lavandin back to new york with me and they smell exactly how they did as when i gathered them in july. 

carnation, revisited

i am having quite the affaire de coeur with carnations! i can not get enough of these beautiful flowers. we just moved into our new apartment, and i bought another bunch to put atop my dresser. i have heard it before that these are the "poor man's flower." and my friends have reiterated this as i have gone on and on about how much i adore them. but, i am simply baffled by this! who is to say that one flower, or anything grown in nature, is superior over the other? how could one put a price or weight on such a thing? shame on whoever has said this. i find such great beauty in their petite and scalloped petals, in their sweet fragrance. i gaze at them every time i pass by and am just delighted by their loveliness and grace.

carnation

i picked up a few bunches of dainty carnations to put beside my bed. 

pink, peach and yellow. i love, love, love them and they make me smile when i see them in the morning.