back.

back from vacation. back from the land of the sparkling lake. back to reality.

many blogs to catch up on. but first a shower and some food.

it's good to be home.

rereading.

while at the library recently, i picked up an interesting set of essays called rereadings. in each essay a writer revisits a book they have loved. having always enjoyed rereading, for the sake of pleasure more than to gain new insight from the text, i am excited to dig into the book. not long after discovering rereadings, i came across an article in newsweek on the pleasures of rereading. in explaining why he finds pleasure in rereading the same books time and again, author David Gates writes: "They fill me with the voices of people I know, thousands of them—many times the number in that old Dickens print—the real and the imagined, the living and the dead. Heaven may be like this eventually, but why wait around when it's right here, right now?"

some might say that rereading is a waste of time, especially when there are so many books out there to still be enjoyed. but Gates states that rereading is tantomount to finding a piece of heaven here on earth. in some ways, i agree with him. for awhile i would reread the nanny diairies each summer. in one way i was reconnecting with characters i had come to love over time... like a little reunion with old friends. at the same time i was also connecting them to my life that summer. a life that had changed since the last time i cracked open those pages. each summer i brought a new perspective to the story, simply because i was in a new place in my life. for me that's just one of the benefits of rereading. i'll be honest though, sometimes rereading fails me. i try to reconnect with a book i loved the first time i read it... but the magic is lost. sometimes you just can't go back.

so do you believe in rereading? if so, what do you reread? i'd love to hear about your favorite books.

a peak inside j.crew.

pretty j.crew dresses, perfect for summer

winter, spring, summer or fall... every season is perfection when you're dressed in j.crew. okay maybe that's a bit over the top, but everyone loves j.crew today. i've loved the store, known for its classic fashions, since i bought my perfect sky blue high school graduation dress there nearly ten years ago... needless to say i'm glad to see it getting the love it deserves.

already this week i've had the pleasure of finding two articles on the people responsible for j.crew's current resurgance in popularity. via a tweet from simple|pretty i found this piece from cbs sunday morning on ceo Mickey Drexler. i love this quote: "a special color, a special this, that creates a detail... so, you know, it's a small detail, but everything we do is a detail." while i think you can see this in just about all their clothing, this season's floral trend has gone above and beyond. from the silk embroidery on this t-shirt to the lovely corsage detailing the shoulder of this tee... each piece has that extra something that really elevates your look.

and my lovely friend elicia was kind enough to email me this piece from the huffington post on creative director, jenna lyons. jenna's picks are something i look forward to each month. i enjoy seeing how she combines elements and appreciate her details on those certain items we all just must buy.

peaking behind the scenes of j.crew... what a great way to start the week.

too busy living life.

today i was too busy living life to blog. a random stop to check in with a friend turned into a night of celebrating. celebrating new beginnings with raspberry mojitos and martinis... gelato in the backyard... and of course a game of loaded questions.

i had great plans for today's post... but they will have to wait for another day.

a few links for the night-

demo from ingrid michaelson that i'm loving.

collection of great links from marta.

inspiration for bike riders everywhere.

a favorite peek into the daily lives of others.

habit is a simple collection of daily photos collected by various women to reflect the habits of their daily life. in their welcome the creators share that-

in some small way, we are hoping to capture the collective life of a community of women who are artists and writers, photographers and bloggers, mothers and sisters and daughters and granddaughters, and thinkers and seers and wonderers.

i definitely believe that they achieve this goal. i enjoy seeing the collection each morning pop up in my google reader. it inspires me to capture a bit more my own daily habits. as this quote suggests, there is certainly something to be celebrated in these moments that make up our life.

Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.

Gertrude Stein