Weekend Vibes, Edition No. 126: The HVN Cherry Print Dress and “Me, and then Some.”

My Latest Snag: The HVN Cherry Print Dress.

I have been smitten with the retro-style shirtdresses from HVN forever, and I finally took the plunge with their discounted cherry-print dress (available in a different style for less here and here), seen above, and which I plan to style similarly, with my own Hermes Oran sandals and my own padded headband. Twinsies.

P.S. A couple of other fruit-print shirtdresses I love for a fraction of the price: this and this.

P.P.S. More discounted HVN here.

You’re Sooooo Popular: The Elegant Linen Dress.

The most popular items on the blog this week:

+This elegant linen dress, on sale!

+A $10 bodysuit you need.

+My new favorite dress from one of my new favorite labels.

+An inexpensive update to your Apple watch (great for exercisers).

+Doen dupe for $30.

+Pippa Holt vibes for way, way less.

+Cutest chinoiserie bench.

+The cutest dress for a little one.

#Turbothot: Me, and Then Some.

I apologize in advance for the heavy sampling from Mary Oliver over the next few weeks. I’ve already showcased a ton of her poetry across this blog (ahem and ahem), and now that I’m reading a second series of her essays (loved this one, too), she’s sure to be woven into the fabric for a good while now. She is unassumingly brilliant, and such a dutiful caretaker of language. In other words: much of what I aspire to in my own writing.

These caveats out of the way, I’ve been musing for a long while over this brief passage on her decision to build a small lean-to in her backyard one summer with a hammer, nails, and her own elbow grease:

“The work went slowly. The roof went on, was shingled with red cedar. I was a poet, but I was away for awhile from the loom of thought and formal language; I was playing. I was whimsical, absorbed, happy. Let me always be who I am, and then some.”

Let me always be who I am, and then some.

I love the notion that we are who we have defined ourselves to be — but that there is always space for growth and experiment and play. That there is a sturdy core to us — I am me wherever I go — but there are branches to explore, eaves to briefly occupy, small backyard huts to build in a fit of whimsy. We can be sixty-eight and decide to take up needlepoint for the first time, or thirty-two and trying on tennis for size. It reminded me of the value of hobbies and the rich learning that comes in the posture of the novitiate.

Today: make space for that added bit of you. Stretch into it.

Post-Scripts: New Mascara.

+Intrigued by this mascara. You know I’m always game to try a new one. Still using and loving this dramatic stuff on the daily.

+We are planning to purchase new glassware and everyday china after we move this fall (a lot of our pieces are now, a decade after their purchase for our wedding, showing wear and tear, and we have curiously lost about half of our pieces through accidents and the bizarre way in which we simply lose things over time) and these are at the top of my list.

+OK, this is a chic paper towel holder.

+I love a good Greek key pattern pillow.

+This popular dress is now available in a bunch of new fun colors.

+A great solution for chilling wine and making it easily self-serve at a backyard BBQ.

+My current Caspari cocktail napkin collection.

+I love these cork wedge sandals. They remind me of my beloved Alexandre Birman!

+This loose-fitting cami dress looks like just the kind of thing I want to live in during the evening hour.

+Been drinking a lot of palomas lately — THEY ARE SO GOOD. We use the recipe from this drink cookbook.