It Was a Great Party!

August 19, 2016 mithra ballesteros

When my son and future daughter-in-law expressed their wish to elope to Yosemite and return home to Wisconsin for a backyard soirée, I couldn't have been more thrilled. My hubbie and I got married in my parents' backyard nearly thirty years ago. What an honor that my son felt our home would be the perfect place to celebrate their nuptials.

It was a boatload of work but the work was fun! It all went by too quickly. I'm ready to do it again. All I need is another bride and groom. Anyone? Anyone?

On the Hunt

August 12, 2016 mithra ballesteros

That's me in the photo, reclining on a mossy stone outcrop, binoculars at the ready to spot the next fabulous set of vintage china. Do you like my wading boots? You can't imagine the contortions I go through to get them off. Like Ross's leather pants.

Sailing and Solitude at Summer Camp

August 5, 2016 mithra ballesteros

This is the first summer in sixteen years that we did not send a child to Camp Miniwanca. Tomorrow is the closing ceremony at this idyllic retreat on the shores of Lake Michigan, and I only know this because my sisters' kids are there. That's my niece in the photo above. She got her skipper's certification in sailing this year, just like I did in the summer of 1977.

Looking back, I'm not sure which was harder - the first day of camp experienced as a child or the last day of camp experienced as an adult.

You Will Love This Book! From Mom to Me Again: a Review

July 29, 2016 mithra ballesteros

That's me in the hammock, inhaling a book that I'm hoping you will read too so we can all talk about it. It's titled From Mom to Me Again: How I Survived My First Empty-Nest Year and Reinvented the Rest of My Life by Melissa T. Shultz.

Before we get to the book, did you notice who else is in the hammock with me? Nary a soul. There is yet another mother bird in the garage with two babies in the nest she built atop the garage door engine, but as far as my human babies, they've flown elsewhere for the summer.

The Politics of Attraction: a Love Story

July 22, 2016 mithra ballesteros

You know that moment when you’re dating someone you really like and you come face-to-face with some bizarre relic from his or her childhood that you never saw coming? And that still holds sway in the present? At this point, you must make a choice. You can reach for the rose-colored glasses and accept Jeff's attendance at seventy-two Grateful Dead concerts as proof of his ability to really commit; you can convince yourself that Ellen’s collection of Virgin Mary candles is not in any way unholy; you can shrug off Chris’s bathtub full of floating Fisher Price Little People as innocent fun.

Or you can run.

Listen to My Mother!

July 15, 2016 mithra ballesteros

My mother. That's her in a Kurdish costume on a trip to Iran sometime in the 1970s. She is spunky. Fun. Curious. Outspoken. One-of-a-kind. In May, I read a short essay about her at the annual Listen to Your Mother show in Milwaukee.

Eleven Women in Green

July 8, 2016 mithra ballesteros

This photo appeared in Glamour Magazine on April 1, 1952. The eleven models clothed in varying shades of green strike poses of unstudied relaxation. Each woman is a separate entity but together, they create an impression of arrested action, like they are caught in a New York moment. In some ways, the set resembles a pre-war grande dame Upper East Side apartment stoop, complete with pigeons.

Before kids, I worked in fashion and we only ever shot one or two models at a time. It was never easy. So this photo floored me. Eleven models! Imagine trying to take test shots. And what about the complexity of the lighting? Every face is beautifully lit. And the details in the set amaze me. Look at the moss affixed to the door molding!

Party Time at the Old Citadel

July 1, 2016 mithra ballesteros

Hello! I just overheard a conversation between my son and a friend about this weekend's wedding shindig. He told his pal, "We're all working our asses off but we're turning this house into a party castle."

Rifle Paper Peonies but No Sandwich Loaf? Phew!

June 24, 2016 mithra ballesteros

My sisters kindly threw a bridal shower for my daughter-in-law last month. A bridal or baby shower in our family used to entail a godforsaken food substitute known as "sandwich loaf." My grandmother made the seven-layer abomination and passed down the recipe to my aunts who bought into the fantasy that sandwich loaf is something that people actually wish to chew and swallow. It is in fact an egregious invention requiring special bread sliced horizontally onto which you spread egg salad, ham or spam salad, chicken salad with a little gristle and bone for protein, chunks of green olives, sprigs of parsley, and soggy walnuts all encased in thick pasty cream cheese.

Babes in the Wood

June 17, 2016 mithra ballesteros

What a month. Needy babies everywhere! You might think I'm referring to the sons graduating (#2 and #4) or marrying (#1), but I'm talking about baby creatures in my yard.

In the shrubbery alongside our driveway, a mother duck built a nest and laid ten eggs. My neighbor and I fretted about the long distance to a water source but who are we to judge another mother's choices. My neighbor is up early and I'm up late, so we know everyone else's business, but somehow we missed the hatching of the ducklings because the nest is now empty. Well, not quite. There are three unhatched eggs just sitting there. Waiting.

For Goodness Sakes, a Marriage!

June 10, 2016 mithra ballesteros

On Sunday, my oldest son married his lovely Jane and I was not there.

My first-born child, the boy who tried to exit my uterus three months early, who caused me to go on bed rest just long enough to grow him into a nearly 10-pound behemoth and grow my own addiction to The People’s Court, and whose very large mass broke my tailbone during delivery, and whose young doctor misunderstood the difference between stitching my episiotomy and stitching close my anus, and whose overall departure left my nether regions so traumatized I was unable to sit for a month afterwards and had to nurse on my side like a mama pig. That son.

Busy Hands Equal a Bright Future

June 3, 2016 mithra ballesteros

Last weekend, we drove to Iowa to celebrate my nephew Graham's high school graduation. I want to share some photos of Graham's artwork. He is a talented ceramicist with an affinity for science. Or is he a talented scientist with an affinity for art? It doesn't matter. His future is bright and time will tell which direction he takes.

But it is worth delving into his earlier days. This boy, born with mad dexterity, struggled in grade school to sit still at his desk. He couldn't always control his impulses. He was the type of student who could have fallen through the cracks in a standardized system that sometimes fails kids who don't fit the mold. But he didn't.

Mad Men Picnic Style

May 27, 2016 mithra ballesteros

Have we changed the way we picnic? I recently watched an old Mad Men episode where the Draper family drives out into the country for a picnic lunch. The scene is exactly what you expect with a wicker hamper and a blanket. As they pack up to go home, Don tosses his empty beer can into the bushes and Betty flings the paper napkins and plates onto the grass, which made the internet really sad because no one likes a litterbug. But aside from the littering, has the art of eating on the grass changed?

Vladimir Putin and Peg: Part II

May 20, 2016 mithra ballesteros

Remember my friend Peg, the modern day pioneer woman with a crow named Vladimir Putin? If you missed the post, read it here. It is currently the most popular post I've ever published and is responsible for lots of new subscribers. (Hello!)

Peg adopted Vladimir Putin as a baby last spring and spent last summer and fall spoiling him. You can see from the photo collage (above) that poor Peg cannot get through a paragraph of Elizabeth Gilbert's most excellent novel A Signature for All Things without Vladimir vying for attention. Maybe he too wanted to read about Alma and her quim. (Look it up.)

C'mon In! A Peek Inside My Front Door

May 12, 2016 mithra ballesteros

I live in a saltbox colonial. When you come to my door, you will look for the doorbell. It isn't there. The man who built our house loved early American architecture. He incorporated many period-correct elements, like multiple fireplaces, wide-plank floors, and mullioned windows. But no overhead lights and no doorbells. I've always wanted to ask him why he stooped to include flushing toilets.

Mother Hen Matchmaker on the Loose

May 6, 2016 mithra ballesteros

Phew! It's done. I just completed my dating questionnaire, uploaded two flattering images, clicked 'profile complete', and am now anxiously awaiting my matches. Once I receive "today's harvest", as it's called, I will begin the process of swiping left or right. Please let me rise above my shallow nature and judge not on looks alone.

Because my son is depending on me as his new online matchmaker. A mother gone haywire, you wonder? Nah, I thought it would be funny.

Laura Ingalls Wilder's Illegitimate Irish Lovechild

April 29, 2016 mithra ballesteros

This week's post is about my friend Peg. As way of introduction, let's play "Five Truths and a Lie". In this game, you have to guess which statement about Peg is a lie. Ready? Here we go.

In 1975, Peg boarded a Greyhound bus by herself to spend the weekend at her brother's fraternity house at the University of Wisconsin. She was five.

The Secret Behind the Hardest Collection

April 21, 2016 mithra ballesteros

This collection took months to put together. Kris and I messed around with different frames. We tried chunky wood finials. A shiny orange vase. Worn baskets. I can't tell you how many iterations we attempted. Probably twenty. We got close a couple of times, but after stepping away for a day or so, we would come back, growl in frustration, and begin again.

The screenprint, titled "Winter Sun", is the work of Milwaukee artist Miriam K. Eaton who passed away in 2008. In 2013, I bought a large box of her prints and old posters without knowing much about her.

A Coywolf in Wisconsin

April 15, 2016 mithra ballesteros

On a cold and quiet school morning in February about ten years ago, I was toasting waffles when the phone rang. It was my next-door neighbor. She didn't usually call that early unless one of our kids had run away to her house. (Read that here.) Anyway, she told me that a wolf was attacking a deer under the treehouse in our backyard. I repeated her incredible message out loud to the four waffle-eaters sitting at the table.

Artists in the Family

April 8, 2016 mithra ballesteros

The couple in this photo are teacher and student. The photo was taken in the early 1950s. He looks like Salvador Dali with his pencil mustache, artsy beret, painter's smock and flamboyant tie. His lovely subject is dressed similarly and clutches a bouquet of paintbrushes. Their names are Hugo Martinez and Gisela Ballesteros and shortly after this photo was taken, they married. They have spent their lives in Bogotá, Colombia where they have dedicated themselves to the practice of art -- she as a painter and he as a sculptor.

Welcome! I'm Mithra (pronounced Mee-thra). I'm an interior stylist and a writer. I'm also a vintage and antiques lover. I have an online shop, Finder Not Keeper, where I sell my best finds. (That's a white lie. I keep the best finds.) Read more about me and the blog here.

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A few days back in the ‘Quon. All of February is the price I’m willing to fork over for one week in September.

Latest blog post about our new outdoor shower and the differences of opinion between this guy and his mother (me) on how it should be used. #linkinbio

Brainy, brave, kind, genuine, indefatigable, funny, patriotic, fair, hard working, gentle, strong, iconic.

Those aren’t my hands forming baguettes. But I took the pic. @heat_her_all_a_man has it down and I’m ready with my salted butter and honey. What do you eat with baguettes?

Surveying the herb garden after a good weeding session. Basil took a hit the last couple weeks but everything else is flourishing like summer lasts forever.

First restaurant account for @littlelaurentide! Also first time eating out since the snow was flying. Really really fun night. (Not to mention that building’s white with black trim paint color scheme is 💯)

Surprise lilies, also known as naked ladies, fit in well here at the farm for reasons we will let you ponder.

This is son #2, the farmer. Walter is working hard to turn this place into a sustainable organic farm. Follow us @littlelaurentide for the latest on how mother and son align, clash, argue, hug.

On the blog today, the newest bachelor at Little Laurentide. Will he draw viewers or is he a train wreck along the lines of Juan Pablo Galavis? Read the latest blog post to find out! Link in bio.

On the blog today: a tour of the best places on the farm to sit for a spell. And I write a bit about what it’s like to cohabit with a son who used to give me every kind of gray hair. He could teach a polar bear how to be grumpy and I could teach a grizzly bear how to be grumpy. It’s a new world for the two of us, farming together, and can you guess how it’s going??

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