"If one had but a single glance to give the world, one should gaze on Istanbul."

-- Alphonse de Lamartine, French poet and politician who visited Istanbul during his travels to the Orient

Oh I so agree.

Spring/summer project:

Image from Newsweek.com Budget Travel

Who Wants to Be WOMAN SHOPS GLOBE?

Me! Me! Me!

As a former step-grandma once asked, while riding an escalator in a huge shopping mall, "why do we have to want?"

I suppose it keeps us humans moving forward.

Right now I'm moving forward through my zip code's Comcast cable listings to find the Sundance Channel. I'm up to channel 500 and ain't found nuthin' yet! I want to watch MAN SHOPS GLOBE.

... here, it's channel 505. Which is easy to remember because one HBO channel here is 550. I miss having under 100 channels. Things were easier to find.

So back to Grandma Louise's question. Why would I want to be WOMAN SHOPS GLOBE? Isn't there enough available here? Actually right now I am tentatively planning a whirlwind 24-48 hour trip before December 31 to rack up miles to maintain elite flying status, and the trip would include some fabric shopping in a very grand bazaar. A place I've wanted to visit for so long.

Why do I have to want to go there?

While we're wanting, actually, we can overlook what we have. I have already been a WOMAN SHOPS GLOBE several times and am grateful for the amazing experiences that I never expected to have ... the aisles of the treasure-filled Chatuchak Market in Bangkok ... gorgeous vegetables, some I didn't recognize but sure tasted good, at the Saturday market in Greve-in-Chianti in Tuscany ... all the stimulating colors and fabric textures in Nalli sari shop in Chennai, India ...

Yeah, I am lucky and blessed and have lived a bit of being a woman shopping the globe. But still, I always want more. Always want more. It's not about the stuff. I actually don't buy much. It's about the sights, sounds, smells, walking in the midst of foreign languages, the challenge of figuring how to communicate and act where things are so different. I am more alive in these places.

When I buy, I buy to remember. I look about me now and see the fabrics that remind of these adventures ... the snippet of fabric covering a journal with writings about stories a driver in Cambodia told us about the Khmer Rouge, the silk throw from a nice shopkeeper in Kerala who discussed spices with us, the curtains made with fabric from ... um, actually, Arlington Heights, Illinois. But sometimes traveling 10 miles down a road around here is an adventure too!

It's important to open eyes to all adventures around us. And even if I never had the opportunity to get another stamp in my passport again, it's important to realize that sometimes, we really may have been that which we still seek.

Why Do We Have To Want?

Why do we have to want??? That's a question that a step-grandmother I had for a brief time asked many years ago, as we scaled the escalator overlooking the expanse of stores at one of Michigan's largest malls.

Around the same time, a roommate asked me a similar question. Why couldn't I be happy with what I had, why did I always have to want more? Huh?!? It was an odd question. Because at the time I was in the first year of starting a career, eating Campbell's tomato soup for lunch (and noting each time the price increased by a few cents), living with all hand-me-down furniture, watching a hand-me-down b&w TV with only 4 clear channels and no this wasn't 1976 this was approx 1990-1991! Why WOULDN'T someone want more?

The thing is, now I do have so much more. I've been places in the world, I have nice furniture and nice clothes and a nice house and nice gardens (average car though, don't believe in putting tons of money into a depreciating thing that rusts), I got a taste for the finest softest chevre with sauvignon blanc ... and yet, I still want more. Want to see more places, want a stone farmhouse in Tuscany where I can plant more gardens, and eat even fresher cheese and the best wine without sulfites ...

I believe this is what propels me forward through the days, even if I don't get. It keeps me moving.

Sometimes given the opportunity, I don't take advantage ... I want but I don't get. Sometimes I forget about these fleeting wants. Other times, I wake up when it's too late, and see the picture in my mind of perfectly round polished turquoise beads, mostly green-blue with delicate brown marbling, all strung into a necklance sized for a petite neck, hung in a case among a jumble of Tibetan jewelry in the visual extravaganza that is Habeeb Mullick & Son, established in 1890 in Darjeeling, India. I picture how good it would look peeking out from under a linen shirt with jeans and these shoes:

Google gives the chance to make this fading image a reality. Consider this one, from an online shop of Tibetan jewelry:

Of course I could always call the nice shopkeeper from Habeeb Mullick & Son and say, "I just want one more thing ..."

So, why are we driven to want?

India Obsessions

Soon I will be far away from the master bath fiasco, marveling at another result of natural stone. Actually, a few! Some man-made, some made by nature ... the Taj Mahal, the Himalayas ...

But for now I must sew the fun prints and dresses that I rarely wear in my everyday working woman Midwestern life. Sneak peak ...


Common threads ... paisley, flowers, beige, brown, black, gray, but with punches of color ... so I can swap the pieces of the SWAP. Pack less, more room for shopping ...

Wall Jewelry

Just when you think you have an obsession beat, you go to the mailbox. I didn't find a ticket to the funny farm in there, but a stroll down Grandin Road, thus renewing a recurring obsession. A big wall in our living room needs art. There is art that I love on it right now -- long rectangular silk Lao textiles hanging from old wooden looms. We found these in Chiang Mai, Thailand years ago and so there is a story to them. As with many things in our home, looking at them reminds us of travels and people we met and places we've been. But our little b&w cat, Chaai, doesn't like the navy textile. He rips it down. I hang it up. He rips it down. It sits for awhile on the coffeetable, folded into submission. Until I figure Chaai guy has forgotten that he hates this textile. So I hang it up. He rips it down. Before the day is out. I won't win this war. It's a good textile too -- the back is almost as fine as the front, much better quality than most textiles in the Chiang Mai Night Market. And it cost accordingly. Each time Chaai pulls it, his nails and the wooden loom snag it. (and no, I will not declaw him for that)

So I may soon put the Lao textiles in a protection program, and now searching for something more indestructible. Our living room has dark chocolate brown leather, deep orange, golds and greens. Smidgens of deep red. Not like a 70s style, more like Indian-Thai-Japan-Burma-Laos-China style.

These collections from Grandin Road would work well:

I've obsessed previously over many similar pieces by Patricia:

Check out the links. Check out the prices. A year ago one of these may have been on the wall as fast as the Brown Truck could get there. But in these days and times, we must challenge ourselves.

Etsy options from thepaintedlily:

$14 -- find thrifty frames and you have the look for less. You can even put a collection together from thepaintedlily:

And what about scrapbooking papers? They're the perfect size to put a framed collection together, or decoupage them on canvas. For a buck or less each, you can't go wrong. Find square frames to get the complete look and you can always paint the frames if the color or finish isn't quite right. If you can't find square frames, scrapbook paper is infinitely croppable.

I'm eyeing these Italian Scrapbour papers, found in a New Zealand scrapbook store because they're hard to find in the U.S.:

Mix them with 7 gypsies papers, new 2009 releases:

I may likely go the scrapbook paper route, with some type of finish on them to make them look painted and slightly crackled and distressed. Like they were from a great aunt's travels -- you know, the eccentric one who never married, and no one was quite sure where she got all her money to travel so freely but she sure was charming with the men -- and then one day I found the art in a dusty box in her attic and she let me have them. And no, I don't have a great aunt like that. That's probably residual creativity spilling over from last night's bottle of sauvignon blanc.

Oh So Giddy About Style For A Good Deal

So I surfed around Antiques by Zaar for a bit after referring to them below. Someday I will be overcome with my Chinese furniture obsession and will purchase from them. That is inevitable! For now, this table caught my eye:

I love it, and I already have two under our living room windows. It's a perfect spot for plants, and of course for cats. But I wouldn't pay well over $1,000 for a real vintage or antique table and then expose it to cat claws. With the tables being under windows, cats are on them every day. Just the other day, I saw our newest little guy, Chaai, hanging by his claws on our Chinese writing table because he tried to jump on it and missed a bit. But I wasn't fazed. Why? Because we got our Chinese writing tables for $100 each! We took pictures of Chinese writing tables on our most recent trip to Thailand a few years ago, and we made a special side trip to Baan Tawai, just south of Chiang Mai. Years ago on our first trip to Thailand, we tread carefully through one of those very expensive shopping centers by The Oriental. We loved what we saw, but could not afford it. It's the kind of place where you watch your elbows and you look behind you before you back up. Can't afford to pay for anything inadvertently broken! A woman in one of the shops told us to go to Baan Tawai, where everything is "cheap cheap cheap." That year we spent much time in Chiang Mai (why we were there so long is another story, and a long one, for another time, let's just say it involved visiting the U.S. Embassy many times, and sitting under John Ashcroft's picture made me shudder) and we did a little shopping in Baan Tawai. Her words "cheap cheap cheap" were correct and we've never forgotten them.

So a few years ago we were in Chiang Mai again, and we were prepared with plans and pictures of furniture we wanted to make. I read the book The Treasures and Pleasures of Thailand -- I recommend this book for anyone shopping in Thailand. While the authors are higher-end shoppers, the tips and strategies they share are right-on and appropriate for shopping in any environment there. For example, during our first visit in Chiang Mai, our hotel arranged a minivan and shopping guide to take us to Baan Tawai. They kept speeding past places we wanted to visit, and stopping at crappy shops. We didn't understand at first. But after our last stop of the day when something overcame us and somehow we walked out of a shop with over $150 worth of gifty things we really didn't want (and that was a lot of Baht in 2001), and we saw the guide settling with the shop owner, we finally got it. The next day, we asked the tuk tuk driver who hung around outside our hotel to take us to Baan Celadon for our big dinnerware purchase. He played chess outside with his daughter while we loaded up on celadon plates and bowls, and I think all our boxes weighed more than the tuk tuk and the four people in it! It was a precarious ride back to the hotel.

The Treasures and Pleasures of Thailand book recommends you do your research, be prepared, and travel on your own. So in 2005 we decided to not be dependent on others and we rented a car. We had plans to make and purchase quite a bit, and ultimately the car rental saved us money because we could negotiate better. We had many things made for us, including reproduction Chinese writing desks just like the photo above. Each was $100, made of teak and finished with a very dark espresso stain. They have the slimmest drawers. We didn't bargain the business owner down much, instead we emphasized that we wanted old wood, well-seasoned wood, and we were willing to pay for quality. The shop did an excellent job. We took measurements and pictures with us, and they made the tables to the exact measurements we wanted. They included all the details in the photos. The tables have cracked just a little over the past few years in the adjustment from Thailand's humidity to our dryer Illinois air, especially in winter. But it just makes them look older, and that's OK.

Another great Thailand shopping resource are Nancy Chandler maps for Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

Here is our gorgeous girl Seesa, a bluepoint Siamese Snowshoe, lounging on one of the tables.

Things I Covet Right Now

Well I have been irresponsible. But what did I say yesterday -- it's an obsession. What would an obsession be without some irresponsibility thrown in. It's after midnight. And yet, I have found online a few things that have been stuck in my mind for awhile:

It'll Cost Nothing to Dream & Everything Not To -- Saw it in Z Gallerie at the mall. Perfect for our sunroom wall! As it has only one solid wall (the rest, windows) and it is completely undecorated. It is begging for something inspiring on summer days spent out there:

Search "vintage test tube rack" on eBay to see another coveted item. I am watching several and just may bid on one like this on eBay:

Why??? Because on most of my trips, I've collected dirt.

Bear with me here. There is a connection. I have dirt of all colors -- sage green and grainy from the Continental Divide in New Mexico and deep red and sandy from the Turqoise Trail in New Mexico. I scooped dirt at the base of a grapevine at the Cennatoio winery in Tuscany as a remembrance of one of my favorite chianti classicos and vin santos. I took sand from the beach in Chennai, India. Who knows the source of that sand as it was collected after The Tsunami. It has joined a bottle of sand from a less exotic place, Daytona Beach in Florida. I scraped dirt from a well-trodden spot for picture-taking outside Angkor Wat in Cambodia, near the moat. Sometimes when traveling, I forget about my dirt-collecting habit. I forget to pack something to keep the dirt. This happened at Angkor Wat. How can I visit there, a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and not come back with physical evidence? I felt panic rise and was ready to just dump sand in a pocket of my shorts and worry about it later. Then, I turn around, and there on the ground before me is a plastic film cannister. Right there. It was like someone put it there for me just before I turned around. Maybe someone did. In these digital days, how often do you find film cannisters anymore? So I scraped the dry dirt nearby, too trodden with tourists to have any sacred Angkor remnants. But, dusk was falling and we couldn't go back into the temple. I'm not sure I should have taken dirt from within there anyway.

So why am I talking dirt? The dirt is in a cabinet in a hodge-podge of containers, some the original makeshift containers I used on vacation. I want to display the dirt in the test tubes. With vintage-style labels. Surely there are appropriate label supplies in the scrapbook paper collection I'm building at a ridiculously and dangerously fast pace. I always envisioned the dirt in a Dean & Deluca style test tube spice rack and it would make an interesting contrast:

But now I'm seeing something wood and vintage as more appropriate for my current style. Can't wait to acquire just the right test tube set and get started! Whenever the idea finally happens, after over a decade of planning it, it must be placed far far away from the kitchen for obvious reasons!

The final coveted thing that COULD and SHOULD be near the kitchen is this wall hung wine bottle opener, seen at NapaStyle catalog:

I almost hit the "buy" trigger numerous times. But couldn't bring myself to pay the price. A few months ago, we were walking through the village of Panzano in Tuscany, through an outdoor market. An antiques vendor had nearly this exact wall-mounted bottle opener for 35 Euro. I wanted wanted wanted it. Hubby, not so much. We left it to instead enjoy one of the best 2.5-hour lunches ever under the spreading branches of a fig tree, overlooking the Tuscan countryside. During that time, someone else took my wall-mounted bottle opener home. How could they?!? The rest of our vacation was spent inquiring about wall-mounted bottle openers in various establishments. Nothing. No more. I know I can always get it at NapaStyle. But it could have been had for 35 Euro. So, I hold out, but for what ...