vita's Profile

I don't actually like lamingtons that much - ate too many stale ones when I was little - but thinking about them makes me homesick!

Happily, New Yorkers can indeed find fresh and fluffy lamingtons at the Down Under Bakery pie shop in Brooklyn, along with other baked sweet treats and a full range of traditional meat and veggie pies. Also, you can order them for delivery. Yum!

http://www.dubpies.com/

Hilarious. My four year old did this spontaneously to one of the trees in our garden, over the weekend. Sans hot glue, thank goodness.

Absolutely gorgeous. The whole aesthetic - light, plants, wood, books, natural and industrial materials and colours - reminds me of Kettle's Yard in Cambridge. What a pleasure to see such carefully wrought beauty.

Oh, but it can be amazing. I once visited an artist in Japan who had a similar arrangement - a separate structure housing the private bedroom with bathroom, and a walk across a courtyard to rejoin the rest of the house (kitchen, public space, art studio, spare rooms). She was eloquent and convincing about the idea that walking through the open air was exactly the right way to begin and end her day - in fact she was happiest when it was a rainy day or the very rare snowy day. And it was a lovely, lovely space.

Agreed about the proposed design completely ruining the charm of the garden, though.

Ditto Oven Mitzie. Where does one find such a beautiful object?

What's the name of the paint colour? It's fabulous - and I know that any kind of blue is counter-intuitive for a food-related room, but this must be like dining in a Tiffany box. I can picture James Stewart and Ingrid Bergman popping in for dinner.

Actually, with that in mind, check out the film Indiscreet. Her apartment has a wall that might be the same colour, I'm not sure, but it is covered with a grid of framed pictures in a dozen different jewel colours. It's way OTT but also completely gorgeous.

Maureen said it - do you own your stuff, or does your stuff own you?

And/or is it that you somehow yearn to be owned, because it addresses a half-formed wish of some sort? As a semi-recovering magazinoholic myself -- stacks of Bust and Cottage Living -- I often wonder what is it that I'm really trying to get when I buy (and especially when I keep) certain magazines. Is it the knowledge inside them (and ptoo is right that it's largely the same from one year to the next, and others are right that it's all online anyway)? Is it the "feeling" that I too could be glamorously fashionable/ perfectly informed and in touch/ swankily decorated/ the ultimate kitchen goddess/ whatever image the given magazine is trying to sell?

And if so, how exactly will a stack of paper make that happen?

When the pile of magazines takes up as much -- or more -- space in your home than you do, maybe it's time to figure out what the need is that you're trying to answer. Can you haul your desires back from the magazines themselves and back into yourself? Can you then own and act on those desires without literary scaffolding?

I want to kiss ptoo's partner who paid a dollar a magazine - brilliant strategy! Because as I see it, it's not just about desires and hoarding, it's about money too... After a while, these magazines we buy turn out to have bought us -- square footage in our homes, precious creative real estate in our brains, and a fairly large hole in the budget.

See if you can quietly calculate what you paid to own these magazines, and add in what you have paid to move them around with you so far. Seriously, do the numbers. Even if these are subscriptions, I see several hundred dollars in cash sitting there in that picture, maybe a thousand. Maybe more.

I bet you can think of a better use for that money. The design course you secretly hanker to take. The one or two pieces of couture you would love to own. A gorgeous piece of art. A trip to somewhere to clear your mind. A donation to your fabourite charity. e-Baying the collectibles will free up some cash. Donating the rest to people who would love to drop $5 on a glossy mag but can't afford to will free up space and lighten your heart.

Then see what happens when you seek both creative inspiration and down-time solace from the world around you -- rather than the world as edited, sponsored, framed and cynically funnelled towards the demographic that you just happen to fall into...

Shoshin. Beginner's Mind. You might like it.