another lovely sunday to spend on the roof. just when i thought i was getting ready for the changing of the seasons, there’s a heat wave in northern california. it’s actually quite nice since i’ve been filling my head with inspiration from the new spring/summer 2010 collections that have been coming out. today i finally got to wear this lovely blue floral dress that i got from pearl snap vintage on etsy. she has such a lovely shop and most of her items are just my size! that’s one thing that i find really cool about buying vintage on etsy. do you ever find yourself going back to the shops who have models about your size? it takes some of the work out of it!

anyway, i am in love with this dress right now. it’s white and blue, just like fine china and i didn’t have to alter it one bit because it’s a junior’s dress! seriously, vintage junior’s dresses are the best because they already come in that perfect mini length and they often have the cute, girly details that i love, like peter pan collars. speaking of peter pan collars, i’m pretty sure i sported one almost every day of this week!

speaking of juniors, i just watched the made-for-tv movie, death of a cheerleader starring tori spelling and kellie martin. fun fact: the actor who plays the principal is also the same guy who plays john locke in lost! and now i just have a really strong urge to sit down with one of the best teen movies of all time: heathers! also starring one of the members of the cast of 90210. oh nostalgia!

oh i need a life!

so i had my saturday planned out: i knew that i was going to have a grand ol’ time at the vintage expo in san francisco.

but things change. i’m broke and spending money just isn’t an option right now, so instead i settled for an old dress which i’ve worn a million times before, and a nice drive through sunol with a stop in a local antique shop, and a leisurely drive up mt. diablo to enjoy the warm northern california weather with my true love, mr. garbee. it was quite a nice afternoon, i have to say.

we drove up to the tippy top of the mountain and had a look around. it was a little hazy in most directions, so we didn’t get a very good view of san francisco, but apparently, on a clear day you can see all the way to the farallon islands or the sierra nevada mountain range. we didn’t see that far on this particular day.

brendan rode his bike to the summit on his birthday a couple weeks ago. it’s 3,864 feet up in the sky. i think i’d like to try it myself once the weather cools off a little. i don’t see how all those cyclists were riding up in the heat of the day.

and then we rode back on down the other side of the mountain where we spotted a giant tarantula in the middle of the road, so we had to snap a few shots before we ran away, convinced that it would suck our blood!

brendan was too afraid to get his finger any closer in the shot. it actually started doing a scary dance when stuck his finger out like that.

la la la. i almost thought i wouldn’t get an outfit post in today because i don’t have a tripod anymore (i was borrowing one from a friend for a while) and i was waiting for my boyfriend to come home to snap a few pictures before it got dark (i hate flash). this is why i don’t have daily outfit posts and why i should buy my own tripod. silly me!

anyway, i just threw on something simple today, and i was struck by how plain i looked. i got really simple over the summer, and i think it’s high time i get a little bit more interesting now that the weather is changing! i’ve decided that what this outfit needs is a pair of tights! and i’m pretty sure this is the influence of the clothes horse. i’ve been really into reading rebecca’s blog lately and that girl is the queen of tights. she’s really gotten me thinking about all of the cool pairs i’m going to pick up for the fall now that the weather is back to chilly in the bay area.

let’s look at my wish list, shall we?

1. little heart tights. since those coveted betsey johnson’s aren’t around anymore, i went on a search and came across a comparable pair thanks to ringo, have a banana! though i suppose i may have been the last person in the world who hadn’t heard of tabio.

2. cream lace tights. i’ve wanted a pair ever since i saw this post on the sartorialist over a year ago. stuck with me.

3. my all-time favorite wolford merino wool tights. they’re expensive, but they’re virtually indestructible. i had my last pair for an entire year and they just barely got the tiniest little hole near the foot.

this weekend was poorly planned. for some reason, despite my expectations, the entire northern california coast was booked for camping reservations. out the window(!) to our spontaneous ideas.

instead, we opted for a lazy afternoon at the nicasio reservoir. incredibly, we managed to find a completely deserted lakeside coast, just off the side of the road in marin county. it’s amazing how little you have to drive to find the most beatiful views out there! we bought ourselves some delicious deli sammiches, chips, and beer, and that was our afternoon.

since we expected to find ourselves stopping in bass lake on the way to our anticipated campsite, i was equipped with my new bikini, purchased from a lovely woman off ebay who said she bought it in 1946! as you can see, i was less than excited to get my photo taken in it. haha!

oh, and there are more photos on my flickr. actually, there are almost always more photos up on there!

on a recent trip spent visiting estate sales and antique shops, my boyfriend (mr. garbee), found a silly little paperback book called “mysterious california” which outlines all of the mysterious and spooky locations of california. he became obsessed with it one afternoon, and after reading it cover to cover, decided that we should visit our first location: the rose hill cemetery, located about 40 minutes east of oakland.

so yesterday morning, we set out bright and early with coffee and muffins, and made our way out to the spot, filled with the anticipation of sighting the legendary “white witch,” the ghost of sarah norton, which is said to haunt the cemetary…

we got there and discovered that it was a part of a much larger regional preserve in the area, the black diamond mines regional preserve. the rose hill cemetery is all that’s left of the old mining town that used to be there. so we set off on a little uphill trek to visit the grounds. there were no ghosts and the little place has seen some tough times. apparently there was a lot of vandalism in the 70s and many of the headstones have been destroyed or stolen.

i really need to invest in a tripod…

i tried to catch my boyfriend on his lunch break to take pictures of my dress, but he could only snap a few before he left. we went to the back of the building where a vine was growing against a wall. the lighting was perfect and everything, but when i loaded the pictures onto the computer, i noticed that there were two big plastic trash cans in the frame that i couldn’t crop out. oops. i really need to stop relying on him during the week for this kind of stuff.

so it’s back inside again with the camera propped on top of a book propped on top of the couch. and the lighting is bad. but i was determined to do an outfit post today because i’ve never shown you this dress. a few years back, i became obsessed with these little 80’s jersey dresses. a lot of them are done in that “80’s does 50’s” style and they’re suuuper comfortable. but then one day i realized that jersey isn’t exactly the most forgiving of fabrics. it sorta clings to the body in a most unforgiving way. so i sold most of them, and kept only two. i just love the green vines with two little sparrows perched on each shoulder.

ok, and now i really need to get to sewing. i’m replacing modern buttons on a modern skirt with some vintage buttons and i have tons of dresses and skirts to hem! not to mention, i still haven’t figured out what to do with all of these feedsacks i have. my mom gave me a bunch of them a while back and i want to try sewing them into skirts and blouses. i need some of those vintage one-yard patterns!

so we celebrated memorial day yesterday in the good ol’ u.s. of a. as i’ve mentioned before, my little bro is visiting from southern california, so me and my beau decided to treat him to a little barbeque in tilden park! we made hamburgers seasoned with cumin and green onions and other delicious things and we packed up a cooler with pbr for our picnicing excursion. it was a lovely day, which was a very nice surpise after the freezing cold weekend! oh, schizophrenic bay area weather!

 

 

my brother (devin) found a polaroid camera at an estate sale over the weekend, but it has a strange habit of spitting out the last 4 pictures of the reel. not cool considering that polaroid film runs about $1 per photo. sigh. but we got a few good shots with it, because my camera battery was dead! also, sigh.in other news, i want a kitty! devin convinced me to take him to the animal shelters in the area, and while i can’t possibly accomodate a dog (but oh! i want one), i can manage a kitten. i want a teeny tiny black cat. though i’m not sure what my landlord will think of that.