Life seems to move at a lovely languid pace right now. May was hot, and now June has just barely cooled down from more hot weather. The hotter it gets, the slower I move, and simplicity becomes way more appealing. Watermelon for dinner? Yes please. Reading in bed under the fan? Indeed. Sundresses, escaping to the movies, grilled dinners that keep all the cooking-heat outside. That’s what summers are like at our house.

I went to an antique/vintage shop recently, one that I’ve visited many times before, but I’d never before been shopping while knowing I’m having a girl baby. So I made a beeline to the baby clothes, and found this:

A sweet little eyelet-trimmed cotton dress, and a wee little handknit sweater in the softest yarn you can imagine. They were a steal at $9 each. I folded and put them away like this, with the dress inside the sweater, and every so often I find myself wandering into the baby’s room (which right now is still just a collection of boxes) and taking out the dress and sweater, just to look and pet the sweater’s softness, and dream. I can’t wait until my little squirmy drooly wiggly adorable one is inside of it to hug and smother with kisses!

In other news, though we’re still waiting on an IKEA trip to fetch the all-important bookcases that will make our living room more homey and less a box-storage venue, we finally did receive our kitchen hutch. It is this one, from Target’s online-only catalog. I think I looked at exactly one million hutches and dining room storage thingys before I finally settled on this one. Much to our surprise, coming from Target, the construction quality is quite nice (once you get past the profanity-inducing assembly instructions). Here it is, all set up in our dining area, finally:

We left out the wine storage rack that was supposed to be inserted in the bottom middle compartment. As much as I love wine, I don’t think storing breakable bottles at perfect toddler pull-and-smash height is a good long-term solution. Instead I want to find some simple square baskets that will fit on each shelf and store toys, bibs, small tupperware, etc. (Also in this picture you can see our new bamboo roman shades, which I love.)

I’ve been unpacking our various pretty things (candles, decanters, vases, bowls) and trying out arrangements on the shelf and in the cupboards. It’s a work in progress — each time I come home from work and view it afresh, I find something that needs to be moved. Here is one last shot of what it looked like, one or two arrangements ago:

That’s all I have for now. Stay tuned, soon I hope to get some good work done in my workroom and report back on the planning for my possible-crazy letterpress birth announcement project!