Mad for Max: Kitsch at Capacity

Skirt: Wild Fable, Target; Shoes: Jessica Simpson Collection, DSW

Pink Petals Necklace

Bag: ModCloth; Sunglasses: Wild Fable, Target

Bow: Art Class, Target

Armed with charm(s).  

Dress: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's

Crafty Confection Necklace

Bag: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's

Cherry clip: Wild Fable, Target; Sunglasses: Kohl's

Nature's emeralds. 

Shoes: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's

Dress: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's

Bag: Betsey Johnson

Puff Piece Necklace

Yellow necklace: So, Kohl's; Belt: Belt is Cool, Amazon

Bunched up buttercup.

Shoes: Sugar, Kohl's

Sunglasses: Amazon; My Little Pony clips: Dolls Kill

When it comes to super-sized style, maxi dresses and excessive accessories make for a kitsch-tastic combo.  I'm talking about maximalism, the aesthetic that flouts the old-school edict of taking one thing off before leaving the house and instead adding five more.  I remember being excited when I found out that it was a thing.  Deep down, I'd always known it was okay to look like a try-hard Christmas tree.  So, it's with unabashed enthusiasm that I share these fits.  Stacking the flair is not only fun but functional because I like to have things to look at throughout the day.  It's why the idea of a uniform -- by which I mean anything from a school-issued skirt and blouse to a pants suit -- sends me into, to quote Anne of Green Gables, "the depths of despair."

That said, Anne, with her love of whimsy and pretty things, would've been a maximalist of the first order.

Flowering Trees and Sparkling Seas: The Power of Prince Edward Island

You know how you read a book and it turns out to be bad?  And then you read another book, and that one's bad too?  And they're both so bad that you want to forget about them and most certainly not blog about the experience?  Well, that's what happened to me last week.  So I turned to a tome that could never let me down: The Landscapes of Anne of Green Gables.

In this pictorial treasury, creative writing professor Catherine Reid highlights the life and times of Anne of Green Gables author L. M. Montgomery.  Which was a delight and a comfort to me because Anne of Green Gables is my favorite book.  Reid weaves passages from Montgomery's -- scratch that, Maud's -- books and journals with photographs of her beloved Prince Edward Island in a way that makes you feel like you're there.  Unmatched in its unkempt beauty, this smallest of the Canadian provinces beats at the heart of Maud's classic novel.  Anyone who's read and been changed by Anne of Green Gables knows that it's Anne's connection to the natural world that makes her story so special.  For this eleven-year-old orphan, every earthly thing brims with whimsy.  Flowers are friends, forests are haunted, and brooks always mind their manners.  Humans have failed Anne for so long that she turns to nature for strength and solace.  And the same was true for her creator.

Although not an orphan, Maud was raised by her grandparents and suffered from a series of hardships, including depression.  Writing about rainbowed skies, ice crystal-cast woods, and rioting gardens -- and a girl who wouldn't let life beat her -- transported her to a more welcoming world.  Even the title of her most famous book showcases the color of nature, rebirth, and second chances.

The other night, I was crafting and re-watching You've Got Mail, which is a movie I thought I didn't like (random, I know, but stay with me), when I was struck by the scene where Meg Ryan's Kathleen Kelly is closing her bookshop for good.  One customer tells her that Kathleen's mother, who owned the shop before her, sold her a copy of Anne of Green Gables and advised her to read it with a box of tissues.  Then the woman starts sobbing, and Kathleen produces some Kleenex.  By that point, the movie was already growing on me (due in no small part to Kathleen's confession that daisies are the friendliest flower), but that cinched it.  Because anyone who understands Anne -- from Kathleen Kelly to Nora Ephron to that crying customer -- can't be all that bad.

And Reid, to use Maud’s own parlance, tops this list as a true kindred spirit.  Her love and reverence for Maud and Anne radiate from every page of her heartfelt tribute. 

In Anne of Green Gables, Anne famously says, "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."  And although, as you know, I'm no fan of fall, I appreciate the sentiment.  

Because I'm so glad to live in world where there's Anne and Maud and Prince Edward Island.    

Sometimes the Gables are Greener: Little Orphan Anne's Odyssey

Last week, I finished reading Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson.  It'd been on my bookshelf since Christmas, and I'd been avoiding it.  It's not that I thought I wouldn't like it.  It's that I knew this prequel to Anne of Green Gables would challenge me and everything I knew about Anne.  I felt a little like this when I read Marilla of Green Gables, too.  But finding out about Anne's past was an entirely different kettle of fish.  As you know, L. M. Montgomery's eight-volume series about the little redhead who could is very special to me.  It got me through my tween years, which might sound weird because, unlike Anne, I grew up with two loving parents.  Still, I didn't fit in at school, and somehow Anne spoke to me.  I felt a kinship with this girl who loved big words and pretty clothes and felt like she didn't belong.

Nevertheless, my curiosity got the best of me, and I finally opened Before Green Gables.  And it was worth it.  The whole novel is based on a conversation between Marilla and Anne when Anne arrives in Avonlea:

' "Were those women -- Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Hammond -- good to you?"  asked Marilla, looking at Anne out of the corner of her eye.

"O-o-o-h," faltered Anne.  Her sensitive little face suddenly flushed scarlet and embarrassment sat on her brow.  "Oh, they meant to be -- I know they meant to be just as good and kind as possible.  And when people mean to be good to you, you don't mind very much when they're not quite -- always.  They had a good deal to worry them, you know.  It's very trying to have a drunken husband, you see; and it must be very trying to have twins three times in succession, don't you think?  But I feel sure they meant to be good to me."

Marilla asked no more questions.  Anne gave herself up to a silent rapture over the shore road and Marilla guided the sorrel abstractedly while she pondered deeply.  Pity was suddenly stirring in her heart for the child.  What a starved, unloved life she had had -- a life of drudgery and poverty and neglect; for Marilla was shrewd enough to read between the lines of Anne's history and divine the truth.  No wonder she had been so delighted at the prospect of a real home." (41)

The way that Budge Wilson (such a curious name!) weaves this information into a new narrative draws you right in.  She starts with the death of Anne's adoring schoolteacher parents in an epidemic (creepy in these current times, no?) when Anne is only three months old.  Then she follows Anne to two foster homes where, starting at five years old, she's forced to clean diapers, carry pails of water, and cook.  Wilson tells the story of women with too many children and not enough money, showing us a world far removed from the charmed and charming sphere of Avonlea.  Wilson's ability to reveal this dark underbelly of Anne Shirley's life while maintaining Anne's sunny spirit lends depth to Anne's character.  Yet even Anne struggles with demons, and she reaches a turning point when she meets the Egg Man, or as she eventually comes to call him, the Words Man.  He sets her on the path to self preservation through imagination.

' "Anne," Mr. Johnson said, quietly and firmly, "listen to me.  Imagining things is not wicked.  It's good.  It's what makes people write books and paint pictures and make music.  It means pretending things.  Go on doing it.  Don't, for heaven's sake, stop, even if Mrs. Thomas gets cross.  It can often rescue you from the depths of sadness."' (137)

There were times when I felt that this hardship and heartbreak were at war with the Anne of my childhood.  But by the end of the book, I realized that the opposite was true, that all of the trials had made Anne tougher without making her rougher, creating a foundation for the strength she would need to chase the life that she wanted.

Anne, of course, finds her way through the woods (literally and figuratively, as both of her foster homes are deep in the forest), even if she first ends up in an orphanage.  There she falls prey to a mean girl who almost destroys her trust in people forever.  But then she finds out that a fine lady is coming to adopt a hard worker -- ironically, by way of one of the mean girl's schemes -- and scrubs like she's never scrubbed before.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Anne gets adopted, and the mean girl is left behind.   

Revenge fantasies rarely come sweeter.

Ultimately, Before Green Gables is about hope.  It shows that if you hang in there, you'll be rewarded.  It's a beautiful book, and I'm better for having read it.  But now that it's done, I'm ready for something lighter.

Like a nice, cheerful murder mystery.

Putting My Love Up on the Shelf: From Canada to Singapore With Detours in Between

That's right, Georgia Satellites, I'm putting what I love up on a shelf.  But then you're probably copacetic with that, as books aren't the same as a V-card.

For some time now, I've been on the hunt for a bookshelf for my craft room.  I wanted something sturdy yet unusual but sadly kept coming up empty.  Well, it turns out that the ideal piece was hiding in my own bedroom!  Unbeknownst to me, a regal relic of a crown molding-adorned shelf was tucked behind the dresser -- which is just the sort of surprise you get when you're married to a painter/contractor.  I loved it and had only one request: could the husband paint it yellow?  Not only did he oblige; he added a candy pink stripe!  The result is Greek revival meets Easter.  Which is to say wonderful.

Once the shelf was up, it was time for the best part: loading it with books!  I chose titles by authors ranging from L. M. Montgomery (O, Canada!) to Kevin Kwan (see you in Singapore), with a world of other worlds in between.  I've always found the L. M. Montgomerys to be especially beautiful, even if Anne of Ingleside has faded from yellow to cream.  But in a way, their careworn spines are even comelier now because they show how much I've loved them.  Kind of like The Velveteen Rabbit.  (Which is, ironically, not on this shelf.  Note to self: order from Amazon.)  Anyway, as I auditioned each book to add, I asked myself one simple question: Did I enjoy reading it?  This may sound like a no-brainer, but there's a huge difference between books I enjoy and books I tolerate.  Books I enjoy either support my worldview or turn it on its head, which is a fancy way of saying that they make an impression.  Books that I tolerate are more meh.  Yet like bad pizza, they have their value.  Because even mediocre books give the gift of escape, weaving a parallel universe with their albeit often subpar yet lulling word rhythms.

So, here's to books, the good, the bad, and the fugly.  And to my personal literary rainbow.  I love to look at it while I'm making things.

Which is more than I can say for the Satellites' mullets.

Green Queen: Mistress Marilla

I've always been suspicious of prequels, sequels, and alternate versions of classic books written by people other than the original authors.  It's why I passed on the not-Margaret Mitchell's Scarlett and the not-Daphne du Maurier's Mrs. de Winter.  Although I do recall watching the Scarlett miniseries on TV as a kid with my mom and sister.  Remember network miniseries?  And Sunday night movies?  If not, then picture a Lifetime movie airing on CBS every Sunday after "Murder, She Wrote."  Oh, '80s and '90s, you made cheesy melodrama worth staying up for.  Even if that cheese, much like its lactose-laden inspiration, gave us nightmares.  (If my mother is reading this, then I feel honor-bound to say that not one of those soaps stirred up bad dreams.  That was just a bit of hyperbole.  It takes more than a wedge of Gouda and Judith Light whaling on her husband to mess with my sleep.)

Yet despite -- or because of, I'm not quite sure which -- my eternal love for Anne of Green Gables, I gave Marilla of Green Gables a chance (which you probably saw coming a mile away, given the wide berth I gave Meg & Jo).  Written by Sarah McCoy instead of L. M. Montgomery, this prequel is Marilla Cuthbert's origin story.  Known to grown-up little girls and book lovers the world over, Marilla is the iconic, no-nonsense closet softie who gives Anne Shirley a home.  She's middle-aged when we meet her, a gray-haired spinster living with her bachelor brother on the family farm in Avonlea.  She's proper, she's stern, she's set in her ways, and she's downright disgruntled when the orphanage sends her a wisp of a girl instead of a strapping boy to work her farm.  At first.  But her kind heart lets the endearingly eccentric Anne stay, forging a bond that will change them forever.

Still, one can't help but wonder: Just how did Marilla end up alone in the first place?  Sarah McCoy explores this question, using it for the foundation for her irresistible novel.  She shows us Avonlea as it was forty years before Anne ever set foot there.  It's a more austere, pioneery sort of place than the fairy tale land we see through Anne's eyes.  But it honors the spirit of Montgomery's magic, its seemingly simple descriptions of small town life seeping into the soul.

Marilla of Green Gables starts in 1837 and ends in 1860.  At the start, thirteen-year-old Marilla is the daughter of modest, hardworking people.  Her older brother Matthew is painfully shy, and none of the Cuthberts are demonstrative.  But they love each other deeply even if they seldom say so.  Still, Marilla feels her reserve melt away when she starts spending time with handsome John Blythe.

"They sat together under a canopy of meadow grasses and a sky of spun sugar.  Marilla's heart still beat fast from the dance.  John's did too.  She felt the pulse in his fingertips.  From the magazines she'd read, she thought she'd feel embarrassed or ashamed to be holding a boy's hand.  The same way she felt holding the pages of the romance quarterlies.  But she didn't.  She only felt John: simple, solid, and true." (110)

Wait.  Hold up.  Blythe, do you say?  As in Gilbert Blythe, Anne Shirley's one true love and husband?  Yes!  Apparently, in Anne of Green Gables, Marilla tells Anne that people used to call John her beau.  But I'd forgotten that.  Not so for McCoy.  This brief but telling revelation sparked her need to write this book and get to the bottom of what happened between John and Marilla to cause Marilla to end up -- to use the term of the time --an old maid.  McCoy draws upon the themes of pride, duty, and the passage of time that influence the plots in so many of Montgomery's novels.  At times, McCoy's writing is so like Lucy Maude's it's as if the late author herself is writing through her.  One marked difference, though, is the prominence of historical events and -- but, of course -- feminism.  McCoy takes us on a sometimes somber journey that encompasses Canada's fight to split from Mother Britain as well as the American Civil War.  At one point, Marilla witnesses the public hanging of some "radicals" and is horrified by the way the onlookers laugh:

"They were too young to understand that life is ephemeral while death is permanent.  These weren't her children or children of Avonlea, and yet they pained her.  Like a tendon tethered to splintered bone." (198)

Marilla's own Aunt Izzy, a dressmaker in Charlottetown, offers her home as a safe house for runaway slaves.  Marilla is proud, reflecting that her aunt couldn't have made such a difference if she'd stayed in Avonlea and married a local boy as planned.  Instead, she uses her talent with needle and thread to offer refuge:

"Their costumes were their salvation, transformative as Cinderella on the night of the ball, and Izzy was their fairy godmother."  (238)

McCoy also examines what it means to be a wife and mother, and it isn't always as idyllic as the Avonlea of old would have us believe.  Poverty, farm chores, and mouths to feed conspire to create a life that is oftentimes drudgery.  Women are discouraged from speaking their minds, and many succumb to sickness and even death as a result of childbirth.  Still, Marilla of Green Gables needs to be told because it speaks its own truth and sets the stage for everything that comes after it.  If Marilla and John had married, then there would never have been an Anne or a Gilbert.  It's because they didn't that Anne and Gilbert come into the world, cross paths in Avonlea, and fall in love.  Which is the way it's supposed to be.  Like Marilla and John 2.0.  But not.  And that's the bittersweet part, I guess.

So, you see, I had no choice but to read Marilla of Green Gables.  Even if I eschewed Scarlett and Mrs. de Winter.  Because I'm a fool for an origin story.

And because I never loved Gone with the Wind or Rebecca the way that I've always I loved Anne.

Page Match: Ann With a Tee vs. Anne of Green Cables

I Heart Howlite Necklace

 Mesa Medallion Necklace

Triple Horn Unicorn Necklace

Olivia Octopus Necklace 

There are a lot of Ann's out there in pop culture, some great and some questionable.  But the best and brightest to me is Anne from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables.  This starry-eyed, red-headed orphan's boundless imagination and sunny sweet spirit won her the hearts of everyone on Prince Edward Island.  My aunt gave me the boxed set one year for Christmas.  (See below; and yes, in volume one, Anne is defaced -- literally, by peeling paper in her facial region.  If that doesn't say much-loved, obsessively-read childhood favorite, then I don't know what does.)  As soon as I started reading the first book, I was hooked.  Anne's charming personality -- and Montgomery's heart-breakingly beautiful prose -- cast a fairy tale spell over what was an otherwise ordinary Canadian town.  That world and its everyday magic was what inspired me to start keeping a journal.  I was so eager to capture everything, to jot down every sun-dappled street, cherished new dress, and wonderfully weird thought until it became something better than it was in my mind.  This went double for the bad stuff -- once I put my worries on the page, they always seemed suddenly smaller.  So, I loved Anne for her colorfulness and her courage.  Also because she insisted that people spell her name with its proper "e."  Which I found especially funny because I always got annoyed when people inserted a superfluous "e" in Tracy.

So, if the "great" Ann is Anne of Green Gables, then who's the "questionable" one?  Why, women's fashion retailer Ann Taylor (and for the sake of this post, its more affordable offshoot, Ann Taylor Loft).  For those who don't know, this chain is a bastion of sensibly stylish apparel for no-nonsense women and as such has been the butt of many a movie and TV show joke:

This is 40: Leslie Mann's Debbie laments turning the big 4-oh by whining, "I don't want to start shopping at Chico's and Ann Taylor!"  'Nuf said.

"Girls": Season 1: A job interviewer gives Marnie's suit the stink eye and asks, "Where does one even buy an outfit like that?," to which Marnie flatly replies, "Ann Taylor."  A few seasons later: Shoshanna interviews for a job at Ann Taylor (corporate office, no sweater folding for this one) and it's going gangbusters until she passes because she wants something bigger and better.  Her bravado leads to a dead-end job in Japan, which kind of makes Ann the one that got away in this story.  Moving on.

What's Your Number?: Anna Faris's recently fired Ally uses an Ann Taylor gift card to buy a new interview suit (Ms. Taylor, it seems, always has a seat at the job hustling table).  However, unlike with Shoshanna, it's the Ann Taylor avenue that's the dead end because Ally's true destiny is making clay figurines.  Score one for team crafty!

Instant Family: Rose Byrne's Ellie deals with a foster daughter who tests her by making a crack about her old lady sweater, causing an outraged Ellie to protest, "This is from Ann Taylor!"  Sorry, Ellie, but the kid knows her stuff.

So there you have it. Ann Taylor, bastion of boring, er, sensibly stylish apparel.  A hip and free-wheeling fashionista such as myself wouldn't be caught dead wearing so much as a pair of socks from there, right?  Well, almost.

I actually have three Ann Taylor Loft garments in my wardrobe: two tops (above) that I bought eons ago and a cardigan (also above) that I picked up at an outlet in Nashville last year.  The tops aren't even Ann Taylor brand, but rather the cute and bucolic-sounding Daisy and Clover.  My favorite thing about them is that they're flattering -- so take that, sensible!  My favorite thing about the cardi is the sperm whales.  Upon seeing it out for the photo, the husband asked, "Did you put the octopus necklace with the sperm whale sweater because of their iconic yin and yang battle for the sea?"  To which I replied, "Shell, yeah."  (And yes, he really talks like that, which just goes to show we were made for each other.)

So, if that's it for Ann, then what's up with this hunter-hued sweater?  Straight out of Arizona Jeans country, this classic dream weaver serves as a backdrop for my Triple Horn Unicorn Necklace to represent -- who else? -- our girl Anne of Green Gables.  Because nothing says whimsy and wonder like one (or three) of these mystical beasts.  I've always loved unicorns (obvi).  And I think that lots of other girls and women (and/or boys and men, hey, I'm not here to judge) do too because they represent both childhood comfort and the sometimes uncomfortable idea of the fantastic and far-out unknown.

Anne with an "e," blink once if you agree.  What's that?  I have to replace volume one first because you can't blink and also might be coming down with age-related macular degeneration?  Fair enough.  I'll put in a word with Santa.  And also maybe that aunt.

Something New and Sparkly: In Honor of Noel and Liam

Aqua Oasis Corsage Necklace

Top: Rewind, Kohl's

Skirt: Necessary Objects, Annie Sez

Shoes: Not Rated, DSW

Bag: Chinese Laundry, JCPenney

The title of this post would probably make more sense if I explained that I initially planned to call this piece the Marigold Magic Corsage Necklace, on account of the jaunty yellow flower.  I couldn't help but think of Anne of Green Gables author L. M. Montgomery's other book, Magic for Marigold, and planned to title the post that way.  Satisfied that I'd knocked that one out, I rested on my laurels (er, marigolds) -- until I realized that this necklace is mostly a bluish-green.  So it was back to the drawing board to come up with a new color-appropriate name.  Out popped Aqua Oasis, bringing to mind the band of bickering British brothers.  I like their music well enough (despite their bickering), so I went with it, and the Aqua Oasis Corsage Necklace was born.  Sorry, Marigold.  Better luck next time.