Blog Loving Duality

I'd like to mention two radically different blogs that I have a strong affection for.

image from blogboard

1. Couture Millinery Atelier is the blog of, what I can tell, a sweet heart of a woman, Anya Caliendo. She's a Modiste, a hat designer, located in NYC, that just returned from several months of hat making in London! How exciting is that?

Her blog features wonderful pictures of design inspiration, images of hats in fashion history, and tales of her travels through the world of millinery. Her blog was on hiatus for the several months she just spent in London (why I didn't mention it sooner), but she's back now with more lovely pictures--right now of art photography of hat-clad woman in sumptuous Parisian flats.

Anya's "Plaza Hat"

http://www.couturemillinery.com/


2. A Parent's Life to Behold: Through Insanity and Bliss

It can be remarkable to reconnect with high school chums. Kim and I worked on our high school newspaper together, were both avid art nuts, and did a lot in our English department too. We also had a mess of mutual friends.

One of my favorite memories of her though comes from the day after a dance she went to at a rival Anchorage high school. She came back and reported to a few of us in Newspaper Class about meeting this boy that she danced with that was cute, and nice, and shy, and seemed to like her too. I remember even the image of her flipping her hair as she blushed so much she had to hide it behind her endlessly long brown locks. (My hair was always short till more recently, so someone having long, long hair stands out to me.) The most impressive thing about the story though is that now something like 18 years later they're still together. Her blog tells, in hilarious fashion, stories of her life as a parent, of home schooling their two kids, of life in the lower-48 (it's a big deal for us Alaska folks to survive 'down south'), and of the horror of flight to get back to Alaska. She also occasionally does friendly give-aways of various sorts.

One of Kim's kids SO excited about T-Day dinner

http://www.kimnfam.com/