Remember LL Bean’s Signature line? Super cute, right? Well, Land’s End is right up there too! Their new Canvas line is my favorite combination: classic with a hint of trendy.

{Tote}

{Trench}

{Top}

Adding to the must-bring-from-America list…which grows by the minute!

Ireland is having a very big week. Queen Elizabeth is arriving on Tuesday, and President Obama is arriving next week. Road closures, traffic, security, bomb scares, and Guards up the wazoo.

A few weeks ago, a local hotel put up 50 foot posters of both the Queen (this picture above) and President Obama. Three days later, the hotel removed the posters. Rumor has it, the hotel was getting death threats, and it wasn”t over President Obama.

{A little more information here from the Irish Times.}

Yesterday, driving through the City Centre, I saw an inflatable dinghy cruising the River Liffey with two Guards and two scuba divers. For weeks, the Civil Defense Explosive Division has been working overtime, disabling viable bombs all around the city.  The trash cans in the City Centre have been replaced with bins you can see into more easily, and suspected (or known) republican dissidents are being casino detained up to ten times a day under the XXX Act.

I couldn”t pretend to completely understand the complicated history and emotions wrapped up in this week”s visit by the Queen. What I do know is that the history is recent, for many people, the emotions are still very raw, and there will be a lot of people holding their breath until HRH gets back on her plane.

At which point I hope we”ll all look back on this week with pride, that the Irish stood tall and strong, and gracefully moved forward into a new era.

And once we”ve done that, we can switch right into swooning over President Obama. If the President is finding a tough crowd in America, he”ll enjoy a nice 24 hours of sheer celebrity in Ireland.

{love these teapot planters! not sure the source of the image, though. help?}

I”m not altogether sure I was such a big fan of this week gone by. Usually I get to Friday and think, yep, that was good, glad we did that. But this week? Not so much. It just never quite got off the ground.

I blame Monday, when work kept me out until 1am and I never quite recovered. In fact, by Thursday I was still in such a daze that I bonked my bike into a pole on the way to work. Not to worry, I wasn”t traveling very fast, so I”m fine, the bike”s fine, I just felt very silly. And then I felt that I would much rather turn the bike around, cycle home and crawl back into bed. It was that kind of week.

But the weekend will be different, I”m sure of it.

For starters, I”ve made plans to head to the Dublin play online pokies australia Interior Design & Art Fair, and if the stars align, I”ll be joined by this lovely lady!

In the meantime, these fun links have kept me going all week. Well, nearly.

Isn”t this a pretty collection?

Loving this site for skirt sewing tutorials that look remarkably easy!

Are these not the cutest shoes?

I am forever running out of ingredients or looking for equivalents when I”m baking. This and this will definitely help!

Isn”t this a pretty Ikea spruce-up DIY?

And I might be adding this smart idea to my kitchen must-haves list.

***

In case you missed it, here”s what we were up to over here on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Have a happy weekend!

Until I was about 20, I had only ever had eggs scrambled or hard boiled. And then I got over the ick factor and fell head over heels for runny eggs.

Yesterday I was cooking dinner for just me (progress!) and whipped up some veggies with tomato sauce and at the last minute, I cracked an egg into the skillet. It made all the difference.

Here”s my recipe (sans photo, apologies, but I”m still making friends with my new camera!) and a few more from around the web.

Veggies in Tomato Sauce with an Egg!

serves: one happy camper

1 onion, chopped
4 mushrooms, sliced
2 cups fresh spinach
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 cup tomato sauce (eeps! I used the stuff from the jar! don”t judge!)
1 egg
salt, pepper
grated parmesan for garnish

Cook the pokie machine onions and mushrooms in a saucepan on medium heat with a little olive oil until they”re softened. Add the spinach, salt, pepper and basil, and let it wilt. Add the tomato sauce and let it start to bubble. Make a hole in the middle of the veggies and crack in the egg. Let it cook on medium-low heat until the white of the egg is set. Serve over toast.

Now, here for a few by lovely chefs who are much better friends with their cameras. (Just give me a few weeks, I swear I”ll get there!)

{Smitten Kitchen”s Eggs in Tomato Sauce}

{Apricosa”s Baked Eggs with Tomato Sauce and Goat Cheese}

{And Baked Eggs over Israeli Couscous from Cater To Me}

Cycling home the other day, I spotted a lupine plant growing all alone in someone’s front garden. Not a very common flower to see in Dublin, but it made me so happy to have a little reminder of home.

{Can you tell we’re heading to Maine for a visit soon? Beware of more Maine-ish posts for the next few weeks, I get a little homesick once we book the flights!}

I couldn’t help but think of this book I loved growing up.

The story goes a little like this:

For those unfamiliar: the book is set in Maine and tells the story of Alice Rumphius, an old woman who (can you believe it?) was once a small girl. Young Alice tells her grandfather that when she grows up, she wants to travel the world and live by the sea, just like he had done. But he tells her that there is one more thing that she must also do, and that is “something to make the world more beautiful.”

So Alice goes off and sees the world and does many great things and then comes back to live in a house by the sea. All of her dreams realized, except that one — she still hasn’t figured out her way to make the world more beautiful. The story continues until Alice recognizes that the joy she gets from seeing beautiful flowers could be spread — literally — by spreading lupine seeds wherever she goes.

Growing up, I always liked to imagine that The Lupine Lady planted all the lupines we’d see in fields across the state. It’s such a romantic image, and a very noble take on leaving a legacy.

***

{little book summary from here}

I just discovered the new line of wedding decor accessories (that can conveniently be used for any occasion or just to decorate your home!) from BHLDN, Anthropologie’s wedding line.

Love these garlands, although I’m most tempted to DIY each of them, especially that driftwood garland. Would be so pretty hanging in the back garden!

And lusting after these beautiful backdrops. But lusting is all I will be doing. $2500 each! Yikes!

Or perhaps DIY-ing these too! I love a challenge!

{image from here}

I was on my own this past weekend for the second time in row. Between you and me? It was heavenly. That’ll just be our secret.

I had time to give our kitchen a good scrub, sprawl out across the whole bed, have a long brunch with a lovely sister-in-law, and mostly eat snack foods for meals without anyone judging or asking for a proper dinner.

When I graduated from college, Michael and I spent a year and a half apart. He was in Spain playing professional basketball (here) and I was back in Maine running a congressional campaign. I lived by myself in an apartment in the East End. We both had amazing beachy views, his was just gloriously warm all year round.

But here’s the dirty-little-secret part.  When I lived by myself, I almost never ate meals. On rare occasions, I went out to dinner or home to my parents’ house house for dinner. But mostly, I snacked. On what? Honey nut Chex, english muffins with peanut butter, grapefruits, M&M’s, sushi from the grocery store (I swear it’s not gross, they make it right there for you and they’re really Japanese), cucumbers (but only if I was feeling guilty about not eating any vegetables), Easy Mac, and chocolate ice cream.

I could say I was working really long campaign hours, and I always ended up in the grocery store at about 11pm and at that point cereal and ice cream was the fastest way out, but that would be a lame excuse. But those are just the foods I would hope to be stranded with on a desert island. I’m pretty sure I could survive on honey nut Chex alone.

Isn’t it strange to think about what you’d eat if no one was watching? Or if you had no food pyramid guilt? Ha!

Now, I’m married to a 6’4 basketball player who thinks a meal isn’t a meal unless it has meat and potatoes, even if the meal already includes pasta or rice. Did you notice my list up there included NO meat? And five of the eight on that list I can’t get in Ireland. Which is probably a good thing!

Long story short, we now eat real meals, and meat, and vegetables and fruit. It’s altogether healthier, but not nearly as much fun.

So I want to know, what do you eat when no one’s watching? Come on, dish!

{pretty picture from this nifty site. Don’t you just want to spend the whole weekend right on that deck?}

Here we are at Friday again. Holy wow do these weeks fly by quickly or what?!

I found a few cute bits around the interwebs this week and I’ve just got to share. Here goes!

Now really, how cute is this mini chef?

He’s be a great help baking these.

Then we serve them on this table.

Maybe in a garden like this.

{image from here}

I will wear this outfit.

You can wear these. Maybe these. Perhaps not together. But I’ll leave that up to you.

We’ll sit and have a good oul’ chat and catch up on this, this and this.

***

And did you see this, this, this, and this? You did? Oh good. Just checking.

Any good weekend plans? I’ll be cleaning (why does that never end?!), digging in the garden and playing with  my new camera! Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Michael and I made a big mistake last weekend. We went to look at a house. And by that I mean we snuck into the (huge, south-facing) back garden and oohed and ahhed.

While chances of owning said house are slim to none, it’s all we can talk about. It’s fun and miserable at the same time.

The best part? planning my dream kitchen! I never really make it too far past this point. I love thinking about kitchens with more than six square feet to work with.

For you today, I’ve narrowed it down to five ‘must-haves’ for my when-I-grow-up kitchen.

1. Islands

{image from here}

I love cooking and entertaining. What I don’t love? Doing it all on my own because the kitchen is too small to fit more than one person! A kitchen island will let me have friends or husbands keep me company while I cook.

2. Sinks

{image from here}

I grew up in a house with a giant slate sink and backsplash. I’m not wedded to slate, but I am wedded to giant. And I think I could be wedded to white ceramic.

3. Nooks

{image from here}

Aren’t breakfast nooks just so romantic? I think they help us celebrate mornings and I just love mornings. Especially bright, cheery, sunny ones like that photo!

4. Whites

{image from here}

Have you noticed a theme here? I think I will have to have a white kitchen, despite the fact that I have never met a smudgier person than my husband. And when I am complaining about gummy white cabinets, you can tell me my latest favorite saying: your choices create your challenges. Ha!

5. Windows

{image from here}

When Michael and I first got married, we had a deal: I cooked, he did dishes. At some point, right around when he started his master’s, that deal went out the window, and somehow I do way more dishes than I signed up for.

I’m getting used to dishes (I finally bought a pair of rubber gloves and it helps the ick factor!), but I think gazing out a window would make dishes way more pleasant.

***

What about you, dear readers? What are your dream kitchen must-haves? Or should I be jealous because you have your dream kitchen?