What's been going on in my life this month and a VSS check-in

Yesterday marked exactly five months since my last birthday. It's staggering how quickly time flies, one month tumbling into the next, life a series of moments and emotions, smiles, highs, lows and memories. I'd hoped to get a new outfit post up this week, but there was no way that was going to happen as the days progressed.

This month has been - and will continue to be - staggeringly busy. The most jam packed, hectic one of 2015, topping even October, and while there will be outfit posts as the weeks progress, again, there was just no way for one to be squeezed in at present. Soon though, including a couple of stellar holiday season dresses that I can't wait to show you guys!

Since getting back from Vancouver last week, I've been crazy busy both vintage Vintage Secret Santa happenings, as well as packing up and shipping out a ton of wonderful Etsy shop orders that have been pouring in recently. I had some requests from blog readers for such to cover payday today, so I've extended the 25% off VSS coupon code there until tomorrow.

If you'd like to purchase anything for your VSS match, yourself, or someone else, you can take 25% off all orders when you use the coupon code VSS25 at checkout until December 12th.
 
Keeping pace with those happenings has been the holiday season itself, which as we all know, usually only gets busier and busier as the 25th draws nearer!

Also, before the end of the month, as a small business owner I need to file my Canadian PST and GST tax reports, which essentially means doing all of my 2015 taxes (in order to generate the precise numbers for each) this month, too. Not exactly what one wants to be dealing with for several days during Christmastime, but it must be done, so no sense in bemoaning it too much.
 
Further on top of those things - and very exciting - Tony and I recently decided that the time had come to get a new (be actually brand new or just slightly use) car. Our current one - which was actually our first car ever - was bought secondhand for a stellar deal back in early 2012 and has served us well for nearly four years now.

However, for a myriad of reasons, it's no longer the best fit for our current lifestyle (a big one being that we need a great deal more room than it provides, including for Annie, our energetic 65+ lbs dog, as well as for when we travel and for when I sell in person at vintage shows) and so this month we've been pouring our a lot of time, thought and energy into researching, test driving, and hunting for our next vehicle.

{The models – and prices! – might change, but the act of buying a car remains much the same as it did back when this photo was taken around the start of the 1950s. Vintage auto dealership image source.}

 
We haven't found "the one" yet, but we're getting closer and are both incredibly excited about this prospect. We've needed a bigger vehicle for ages and knowing that one will soon be ours is giving me some much needed pep to get through these crazy busy weeks!
 
Back, for a moment, to the VSS. For those taking part in this year's Vintage Secret Santa, 100% of the match emails were sent out to all participants by the (PST) morning hours of December 2nd. If you have not yet seen your email in your inbox (it should have been there about 1.5 weeks ago now), please check your spam (a lot of users who signed up with a Hotmail email are having their VSS messages land in their spam filters for some unknown reason - maybe Hotmail isn't in a festive mood this year ), deleted message, and archived message folders going back to November 30th.
 
If you don't see your VSS match email in any of those spots, please contact me by email right away and I get your match info out to you again. There's less than two weeks to go now until Christmas and if you signed up for the VSS, it's very important that you honour your commitment and mail out a gift to your match, who, just like yourself, is no doubt excited for, and expecting to receive, a festive gift as part of this fun online gift swap.
 
Definitely lots going on this month on our for sure, which is great! I've also been giving a lot of thought to the direction of my blog, my wardrobe, my social media accounts, and many other important aspects of my life and work as we head into 2016, so I've got oodles on my (vintage china) plate right now and am seriously excited to see how it will all play out in the coming year.
 
I hope that you're each having a terrific December and that, hopefully, yours is at least a bit less harried than mine!
 
Have an awesome weekend and countdown to Christmas, my dears!!!

Flickr Favourites: June 27, 2013

{Rowntree's Fruit Gums advertisement ~ totallymystified}

{Bliss ~ riekhavoc}

{Cadillac 1953 Vintage Automobile Car Advertisement ~ Christian Montone}

{Chivers Jellies advertisement ~ totallymystified}

{Yellow ribbon ~ Katarina 2353}

{Florida Bathing Beauties Postcard ~ StevenM_61}

{Yellow Balloons ~ frank3.0}

{1950s riot of flowers print dress ~ Small Earth Vintage}

{Yellow Rose ~ spr0cket}

{French's Canary & Parakeet Food Ad, 1954 ~ alsis35}

{All images above are from Flickr. To learn more about a specific image, please click on its title to be taken to its respective Flickr page.}

♥ ♥ ♥

Late June, ahhh, how I absolutely adore this time of the year. In my mind, I'm whipped back to the atmosphere that permeated this part of the month as a youngster, when school was just on the cusp of wrapping up, the local lakes were starting to become warm enough to swim in again, and "birthday season" (a sixteen day stretch between June 24th and July 10th when both mine and my little brother's birthday's fall) was in high gear.

These days are bathed in sunshine so gorgeous it deserves to be called opulent, the start of sauna warm nights full of diamond laced skies, lemonade by the gallon full, Motown music (my parents always played it during the summer when I was child and I've carried on the tradition ever since), gauzy sundresses, and the kind of languid early summer afternoons you wish with all your might could last until the very last moment of time.

More often than not, it is the tail end of June and the start of July that stand as my favourite days of summer, and I suspect this year will be just the same. Each moment of this season has its own special brand of sizzling magic, but there's just something about the brand new days of summer that make me love it with an unending passion.

I'm eager for summer - the start, middle and end one and all - and the sun drenched memories that I know lay ahead. Picnics aplenty, fantastically juicy peaches, golden sands so warm they rival burning coals, Canada Day fireworks, and as many yard sales as I can possibly get to.

This is a season of abundance and pleasure, which holds timeless favourites and oodles of new discoveries in its folds, and that promises to delight, entertain and instill joy in one's soul from the very first to the very last moment.

Vintage 365: The 1957 Chevy, a beautiful classic car for the ages

✯ Day 57 of Vintage 365 ✯

 

It's rather funny, though I've not yet owned a single car in my twenty six years of life, I've long had a deeply rooted interest in automobiles - particularly those from the mid-twentieth century (natch!). Do I profess to be an expert - alla Top Gear (adore that show!!!) - no, not in the slightest, but there's something about certain cars that makes my pulse quicken, my eyes twinkle, and my imagination go wild (as I lose myself in a daydream about owning said vehicles).

From Ford's Model T to the Honda Clarity (a car which, I strongly believe will change the world of automotive forever - and for the better), over the span of the last 115 years the world has been transformed beyond measure by cars, and along the way some of those hulking, powerful, useful machines have looked rather gorgeous in the process of providing the invaluable service of "horse-less transportation".

Certain cars are icons of their age (think the Chrysler G-70 Roadster of the late 20s and 30s, or the Pontiac GTO of the 60s - both vastly different cars but ones that are no less embedded in eras they hail from), and when I think of the 1950s few automobiles jump out at me more than the 1957 Chevy.

Officially launched in September 1956, the 1957 Chevrolet was one of the most purchased models of it's time, and remains vastly popular with classic car collectors today. It's hard to pin down exactly why I adore the '57 Chevy, but I think it has to do with the fact that it was one of the first vintage cars I can remember seeing as a child. Much like poodle skirts, jukeboxes, Elvis, and saddle shoes, the 1957 Chevy spoke for an era that, even as a young child, I already felt undeniably tied to - and in love with.

{Vintage 1957 Chevy ad, featuring a darling couple and their energetic dachshund, via the site Beautiful Life.}

 

On this, the 57th day of the Vintage 355 series, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate the beauty, coolness and timeless allure of the 1957 Chevy (which just happens to be one of my all-time favourite cars). This auto was sleek, yet solid; it had panache to spare, was roomy, delightfully alluring and downright fantastic (not to mention that it was the first Chevy to offer the option of fuel-injection).

The '57 Chevy is a juxtaposition of sorts. On the one hand it was clean-cut and wholesome, perfect for the Cleaver family, and yet (especially in the years that followed) it became a very popular model for hotrods and customization (giving it a daring, Brando-would-have-approved vibe, too).

It's sharp lines, marvelous tail fins, curvaceous top, and perfect dose of metal (chrome) exterior work all cumulate to make this one of the most memorable, and visually appealing, cars of the decade - and if, you ask, me of all time.