Friday Favourites

books.

i love books!

i love reading. 

I've always been a bit of a book purist & refused to get any kind of E-Reader. I prefer to feel the book pages and hold a real book in my hands as I read. 

My book collection is by far one of my prized possessions.

While the movers were still bringing in boxes I started unpacking my books and lining them on the shelves. I was just so happy to be reunited with my books! 

Even though I will always consider myself a true book purist, I am starting to contemplate getting an e-reader. 

GASP!!

I know.

Me?! With an E-Reader?!

What am I thinking!?

I will still buy real books when I can, but it makes sense. I have the bookshelf pictured full of books, plus another 2 that I share with Jeremy's books. I really don't have the room to store them. There is no room for another bookshelf in the house we currently live in so I'll have to be a bit creative. In our last house I used to line them up on the windowsills, but this house doesn't have windowsills big enough to hold any books.

Also, with our lifestyle, we travel a lot. We travel to see family, we like to go on vacations, and as our last move proved, we can be separated from our belongings for a long time! I was separated from my books for 5 long months, and during that time I purchased 17 books. (That's how much I read!!) 17 books takes up a lot of space when you have limited room in your suitcases!

So it just makes sense for me to get an E-Reader. Just for the convenience.

Maybe I'll ask for one for my birthday this summer.

Any thoughts?

Anyone have an E-Reader? 

What kind do you have, and what do you love/hate about it?

Jer has a nook colour & I think I'll probably get one as well, but I'm wondering what everyone else thinks?

Words I live by!

x Jen

Reading

"What you read when you don't have to determines what you will be when you can't help it."

-Oscar Wilde

What are you reading these days? Do you have any recommendations?

If you do, please share with me!

A Few Of My Favorite Things

I like old things. 

Vintage. Antique.

 Two great words to describe my style & taste.

When I go to thrift stores or antique shops I like to browse to see what they have to offer, but there are a few choice items that I try to keep an eye out for.

Things like:

Matryoshka Dolls

Vintage Tea Tins

Books (particularly old versions of Jane Austen novels)

Women's Handkerchiefs

Old Suitcases

& 

Tea Cups

A few stacks of my hankies. I still need to frame a bunch of them, sew others onto some bunting, and I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest.

A few of my favorites all spread out.

The pretty lady on the right is huge. The bearded man on the left is the average size of the largest matryoshka doll, so the beautiful Christmas doll is about 12 inches tall!!

Some more of my beauties. Note the little doggy in the bottom right-hand corner? He's a little cutie I named Basil. He's a toy from the 1930's & I rescued him off a dusty shelf in the corner of an antique mall.

It's a MATRYOSHKA PARTY!

A few of my tea tins hanging out on my dresser. (Also pictured: vintage souvenir Dutch clogs, my Great-Grandma's yellow tea pot with a tiny matching cup, a fake candle with the Eiffel Tower on it, a vintage tin tray on top of a bigger vintage tray both covered in my jewelry, and a piggy bank from Target.)

Another little tin nestled into a cozy section of my dresser. (Also pictured: blue vase I rescued from a dirty old thrift store, a tea cup & saucer that weren't made for each other, but I decided that they belonged together anyway, my Grandpa's old jewelry box, a spool of vintage fabric ribbon, and Dutch clogs the last time I was in the Netherlands.)

I was going to put off posting pictures of this great find until Friday so I could do a 'Great Find Friday' post, but I just couldn't help myself! I went to the local Antique Mall here in Monterey to have a little retail therapy after my dear friend, Melissa, left this morning on her big move back to the East Coast. I went to the corner where my favorite seller displays her items when I noticed on a little roll-top desk a few books sat. The first one I picked up:

Emerson's Poems!!

I adore the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

His philosophies on life are brilliant, and if you've never read anything by him you need to go hit up Borders before it closes & get a copy of 'Nature' or any collection of his essays and poems.

So I looked through this book & fell in love.

It was printed in either the 1880's or 1890's, the seller thinks (there is no print date inside the book at all.) & you can tell it was well-loved by it's previous owner, but it is still in excellent condition!