A 70th Birthday Outing at Longfellow's Wayside Inn

Care for a Coow Woow anyone?

If you are so inclined, you can swing by Longfellow's Wayside Inn and try one. It's allegedly the first ever mixed drink! Think white rum and brandy - it packs a major punch.  

My mother chose Longfellow's Wayside Inn as the celebration spot for the big seven-zero. It is the country's oldest operating inn and the grounds have a chapel, barn, old school house and grist mill. It made for a pretty wonderful early summer day. 

Casual Friday

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4th of July Style Guide: BBQ and Fireworks

4th of July is just around the corner! 

Here's to a day full of sand, sun, booze, hot dogs, family, friends and love. And here's a sweet get up to enjoy the festivities in.

a. Modcloth backpack

b. Rayban Clubmaster's

c. J. Crew cropped tunic

d. H&M short shorts

e. Modcloth Birkenstocks

f. J. Crew printed scarf 

Closet to Cupboard: Red

a: Snazzy cap

b: Cherry red dish rack

c: Retro style bento box

d: Red lace strapless cocktail dress

e: Spectacular spectacles

f: Boom box butter dish

Home Made: Four Ingredient Pineapple-Colada Sorbet

Yum.

During the summer I love a fresh, creamy treat that cools me right from the inside out. This sorbet is a tropical island in a tiny cup. Pour some dark, sweet rum over the top and this treat would be pushed right over the edge.

Pineapples, coconut, and lime. 

Goodness.

This yummy summer dessert only requires four ingredients:

1 Whole, Fresh Pineapple

1/2 Cup Coconut Milk

1/4 Cup Sugar

The Juice of 1/2 of a Lime

Full Recipe After the Jump

The Look For Less

01. H&M cable-knit sweater

02. Topshop handbag

03. Baja babe belt

04. H&M chino shorts

Casual Friday - J. CREW Edition!

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On Happiness

Hap·pi·ness (noun): The state of being happy.

Synonyms: pleasure, contentment, satisfaction, cheerfulness, merriment, gaiety, joy, joyfulness, joviality, jollity, glee, delight, good spirits, lightheartedness, well-being, enjoyment.

People talk about happiness a lot. In fact, it’s even in our Declaration of Independence. The very document that declared us no longer part of the British Empire speaks of happiness. If you look on Pinterest for some inspirational mantras, happiness is all over those pretty pictures and graphics.

But, I’ve been thinking …should we really focus on happiness so much? Should we really spend our lives pursuing happiness?  What about feeling loss, grief, disappointment and anger? What about feeling courage, fear, and rage? Isn’t the combination of all of those things, with happiness, what makes us all unique? Isn’t it that combination which gives each and every one of us depth, grace and wonder? Rather than focusing on happiness, can’t we focus on completeness?

The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be. – Oprah Winfrey 

I recently lost my dog. She was my best friend and closest confidant for the past eleven years of my life. Not waking up to her sweet, loving face every morning was devastating.  After she passed, one of the more interesting parts of this whole experience for me was people’s reaction to my grief and sadness. I even had one friend tell me to just “be happy” and that everything would be ok. While that person had no ill will or any intentions of making me feel bad, it maddened me. I thought to myself, “Well, of course I want to be happy. But, I feel sad. Does that make me a negative person?” My emotions soon began to include negative feelings about myself – “Maybe she is right? I should just be happy. I have a lot of other things to be thankful for. There must be something wrong with me.”

And let me tell you…that’s one dangerous path to walk down.

I think if we continue to perpetuate a singular focus on happiness we will deprive ourselves of emotional and spiritual growth. Instead, if we focus on completeness, we will in the end achieve happiness through a more authentic and natural experience.  That realization lifted a majorly-heavy invisible weight of my shoulders. 

What a relief.

xxM

Closet to Cupboard: Yellow!

Purse // Flatware // Berry Holder // Blouse // Dress // Wine Stopper

Why Work Friends Kick Ass

That right there readers is a big fishbowl. A big fishbowl of alcohol. And those people there with me (I'm the one in the black and white stripes) are a few of my very best work friends. Growing up I always had a really close knit group of girl friends (don't get me started on the "guy's girls"- i'll leave that for another day). We shared everything with each other. Literally everything - sex stories, love stories, mom stories, underwear, and anything else a person could share. I was close with these ladies through elementary school, high school, college and all the way through to today. 

When I first started working, I had a very strict "no work friends" policy. I felt odd sharing details about my personal life and what I liked to do outside of work. It just seemed... unprofessional and inappropriate. I guess it is the Bostonian puritan in me. That lasted for about four years into my professional career until one specific event happened. It was the departure of a coworker. Somebody that I admired, respected and cared a lot about.  

When this person left the company I wrote them a letter expressing my appreciation and thanking them for everything they taught me, everything they stood for and everything they were. To my surprise, dismay and embarrassment - the response was "Wow - I had no idea you even liked me".

whomp whomp.

And that, my friends, was a turning point.

I vowed from that moment on to, first, make sure people know when I admire them and care for them and second, to make sure that I open up a bit more to the people I work with every day.

Now, I have some of the best work friends a girl could ask for and here are some reasons why having work friends is bee's knees.

1. They understand exactly how stressful work really is. They really, genuinely do.

2. They have experienced, first hand,  the lunch thief.

3. You spend literally eight hours a day with them. Some days, that is  seriously more time than I spend with my husband. 

4. You work with them professionally and get to know them personally - that is a pretty well rounded relationship.

5. Laughter is the best stress reliever I know. Having people to just stop and laugh with during the day is completely necessary to survival.

6. Being part of a team and having camaraderie is pretty rad. How is that for engagement?

xx M

Vacation Style: Martha's Vineyard

It's almost upon us! Summer is almost here. 

Thank. The. Heavens.

Fruity drinks, salty air, rooftop decks, endless nights and... new outfits, of course! And you know what that means? My very first vacation style guide of summer 2014. I will start with my absolute favorite place to vacation in all of New England: Martha's Vineyard. 

Growing up my family and me would spend two awesome weeks in the Vineyard every single summer. Mom and Pop would rent a vacation house and cram as many people in as possible. Some of my absolute favorite memories come from those weeks in the Vineyard. The atmosphere is laid back, beachy and very New England - think the Kennedy's and your favorite granola-ish farmer's market combined. 

Here are my top 5 things to do and places to see:

1. Grab an ice cream at Mad Martha's!!! I saw Jacqueline Kennedy there once...AND.. Mr. M proposed to me right outside the Vineyard Haven location!

2. Take a dip in South Beach. I always spot seals right offshore. Careful of the waves, though. I had a tragic bikini loss incident there a few years back. 

3. Grab a bus out to Aquinnah and take gander at the nudies. Yep - you heard me right. Martha's Vineyard has one of the only nude beaches left in the country! Oh, and also check out the clay cliffs. They are pretty spectacular.   

4. Watch the very first JAWS film...and then go to the beach at night. I dare you. Did you know JAWS was filmed there? It was! You can even see the JAWS house where the captain lived on the road from Oak Bluffs to Edgartown.

5. Take a ride on the Oak Bluffs Flying Horses Carousel. I spent more hours riding around on this carousel than i'd like to admit. By the end of the second vacation week, I was a gold ring professional. 

Cheers to a summer filled of fashion, fun and love.

A // B // C // D // E // F // G

Casual Friday

Shirt // Shorts // Hat // Sunnies // Shoes

A Book to Read: The Goldfinch

I was an English major in college. I'm sure that horrifies some of you due to the quality of my grammar. I send my deepest apologies to each and every one of my college professors.

I didn't choose English because I wanted a career writing or teaching. I chose the subject of English simply because I love a good book. I love a book at wakes up your imagination and touches a place deep in your soul that only a book can do.

A truly good book allows two magical worlds to collide - that of the author and the reader. The author composes a symphony of words that illuminate every single page. The reader molds, colors, and conducts that symphony with singular and personal eyes. One single book can resonate and touch any number of people in so many different ways because of that beautiful collision.

The Goldfinch is one of those books.

Closet to Cupboard: Tribal

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Father's Day Gift Guide!!

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Delicious Ambiguity

Surprisingly, this post is going to be about yoga. Please do your very best to bear with me while I get there.

I am a big Saturday Night Live fan. Therefore, I am also a Gilda Radner fan. Any chick that is funny, goofy, intelligent and soulful is one that I would most definitely like to chill with. Gilda was an exceptionally insightful woman and I think of this quote when I think of her,

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.

Delicious Ambiguity.” 

Delicious ambiguity terrifies me. I spend the majority of my existence waiting for one shoe to drop and doing every single thing in power to try and stop the flipping shoe from inevitably dropping.

It's exhausting. I am so tired I am literally falling asleep as I write this. I hope you aren't as well.

Over the past two years I have learned just how accurate Gilda's words are. Two years of events, goodbye's and losses and I am still, to this very moment, trying to control things. Still trying to wrap my arms around things that I have no business putting my arms anywhere near.

And this is where yoga comes in. Sweaty, challenging, peaceful yoga. Boom.

The past three weeks have been particularly hard. I won't get into all of the sob-filled details but I've desperately needed to stop. Just stop, be in the moment and appreciate what I have right now. Working in an extremely faced paced, high stress office all day doesn't really lend itself to moments of zen. That is why I decided to purchase myself a 12 class card to a local yoga studio.

Why yoga?

Well, I have taken yoga classes before and the one thing I can recall from the classes is that all I can think about during class is what is going on in class at that very moment.

"Don't fall"
"Breathe"
Don't fall"
"Breathe"

That is my "mantra" for about 90 minutes. I can literally do nothing but focus on the now. Focus on the drop of sweat hitting my mat or the searing pain in my bum muscle that I didn't know existed. My mind doesn't wander to the unanswered text messages or the empty spot on my couch. It stays in the yoga studio room and participates in each and every moment.

This same laser focus can be... and I hope will be... transferred outside the studio, off the mat. And I am hoping practicing yoga can help me get there. Get to a place of "Radner-ness". Delicious Ambiguity.

xx M

Casual Friday

Tshirt // Pants // Kicks

Travel Diary: Kaua'i

This past weekend I took a day trip up to the beautiful coast of Maine to enjoy the early summer weather with my husband and my parents. As we crossed into Cape Neddick we stopped for a late lunch at a small restaurant that hugged the very edge of a salt water marsh. We perched ourselves on the roof deck and, as we sat under the sun and felt the cool, salty ocean breeze on our skin; my husband and I began to talk about our recent trip to Hawaii. That discussion lead to further conversation about all the places I'd love to visit. Places like Thailand, Argentina, Peru, Brazil and Italy. Places like Mexico, South Africa and New Zealand! My mother interrupted, as she typically does, and said "In your entire life, I have never heard you speak about anything as passionately as you do about travel. I think it might be the only thing you actually love". As I was brushing off the typical complimentary-insult I get from her, she began to tell a story about my childhood. According to her, when I was about seven years old my parents took me to the top of the Skylon Tower in Niagara Falls. And, at the top, as we ate dinner in this great big revolving pod, I pushed my face against the glass and said "My gosh. Look how beautiful. I love to travel. I can't wait to see the world". 

Well, she may be right. Travelling is like a love story. And I do love a great love story. Our conversation made me recall one my my favorite quotes in a book. The book is Eat, Pray, Love and the author is, of course, Elizabeth Gilbert:

"Traveling is the great true love of my life... I am loyal and constant in my love of travel. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless newborn baby - I just don't care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it's mine. Because it looks exactly like me."

To this very moment I identify so much with that passage and seven year old awe-struck Mimi spills out everywhere. That is how I felt in Kaua'i. That is how I felt as I held tightly to the catamaran railings as we bounced up and down in the small waves,  rounded the mountains and glimpsed the wild, rugged and beautiful Nepali coast for the very first time. It's in those moments where I feel truly at home. 

Closet to Cupboard: Boho

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Friends of the Opposite Sex

Can men and women be friends? This is such an age old question and has popped up in so many conversation's I've been having lately. I am a 31 year old married, successful woman. I have male coworkers and acquaintances that I speak with every single day. Yet, I feel like there is still an active dialog about whether or not real, true friendship can occur. 

If you ask my husband this question, the answer is no.

Me: "Mr. M, can a man and a woman be friends? Like, real friends? Best friends?"

Mr. M: "Trust me. No man wants to be just your friend. They just don't."

Me: "Hmph"

When I was young, I had many male friends. These were guys that I didn't want a romantic relationship with at all and they didn't want relationships with me. As I got older, married and pushed ahead in my career; almost all of these old relationships dwindled away. Poof. Gone. 

Why, I wondered. Why wouldn't a man come to love and appreciate my hilarious sense of humor and charming wit in a friendly way. It is my wrinkles? My diamond ring? My trendy new bob haircut? 

Sex. Sex is why. 

But..does sex really always get in the way, though? Really?

When I was writing this post I came across a really interesting article published in the New York Times. The author spoke about popular culture fueling the male and female friendship fire. This article was written two years ago. As I racked my brain to think of a television show or movie that successfully demonstrated male and female platonic friendship - I couldn't!

In fact, my favorite shows are the ones that have an epic-ally wonderful friendship that turns into love. Who doesn't want to see Mindy and Danny together? We live in such a progressive society. It simply surprises me that friends between the sexes is still something that isn't really prevalent. What are your thoughts? Can men and women be close friends? Will sex always get in the way?