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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Marthas and Simples and Pottery Barns, Oh My!

I finally did it. I have saved every single Martha Stewart Living, Pottery Barn and Real Simple from the past six years. And now they are in perfect order.

Well, Martha got cut from my mail box A-List a few years ago, when she was in prison and the magazine really, really took a hit in the excellence department. I think Martha's probably back with a vengeance now, but, I'm not missing her enough to come back. I can read it at the library any time, oh, and she puts anything useful and good on the Internet anyway, so I'm not convinced I need a hard copy.

And so to get to the point, I always just had them saved in boxes, in no particular order and Jim lovingly lugged them around through five moves.

I know everything's logged online these days, but I love them too much. I needed to be able to get my hands on them...someday.

Last week I finally got legit and sorted them by month and year, and season. There are now four nice bins (I had them anyway, leftover things I didn't need after our move), sorted into groups of winter, spring, summer, and fall. This way, each season I can go back to them and get fresh ideas I may not have had inspiration or need for in the past, as I prepare for the coming months of cooking, decorating and homekeeping.

They used to be tucked away, heavy boxes under a bunch of other heavy boxes in the basement. Now, they are out in the open, spines out for clear reading and I adore it. Yeah, a picture of what they look like would have been personally rewarding, but, I forgot to take one and I have a limited amount of time before the girls are done cleaning up their stuff. You get me. But, can't you just see it in your imagination? Breathtaking. Now once a season if I want I can spend some time leafing and thinking and planning, which is just what I did last week, and it was great. It was so exhilarating that when I finished for fall, I dove into Christmas too. When I find some inspiration, I rip that baby out. Then I organize them, either to the kitchen, recipes ready to be tried out or ideas for random projects ready to be used, or to the decorating binder, which I hope to show you later this week.

Recipes that might have seemed intimidating to me several years ago seem beautiful and simple now.

And projects I didn't care about then might just be a long-lost "good thing" waiting to happen.

So I got it together, and I'm feeling fine.

7 comments:

Elizabeth Byler Younts said...

just looking at the photos of food...looks positively delectible!

Andrea@Sgt and Mrs Hub said...

I have a deep affinity for stacks of magazines. I have (had) piles of magazines, mostly Pottery Barn and Cooking Light. Though, with this latest move, I did give the heave ho to a bunch of the older ones. I wish now that I hadn't. I miss them! They were kind of like old friends to me :)

I have binders for my recipes - a decorating one is a great idea! The one I made for my wedding saved my life and a bit of my sanity!! I kept it for my girls to leaf through someday.

-Andrea

Lisa said...

Wow! Althought I share your love of Pottery Barn & such, I am feeling on top of it if the latest catalog is on our dusted-off coffee table. You need to come & organize my life!

Tarrah said...

Way to go! I love magazines and used to have a ton of them also. I had Martha's, pottery barn, and Cooking Light. I have gotten rid of them all since the moves but wish I could have saved them all for future times. Because your righ, a recipe or decorating idea in the past might be just what I'm looking for now.

Your going to have to keep sharing wonderful ideas with us :)

Jenn Boerger said...

I love magazines too, but I just never make the time to look at them again, so mine have been passed on to others. Sounds like you had fun, though, and I'm so glad to hear you now have a reliable and accessable place to get some inspiration!

Kimberly said...

I had an entire drawer filled to the brim with magazines, mostly PB and Southern Living. It was so heavy you could barely open it. But I recently decided to clean it out and then our recycling bin was so heavy you could barely move it. After 4 yrs of collection and no looking back I had to let go. But I do love a good magazine and project.

You are so cute, I love all of your ideas. And you don't just have then you actually act on them. Now that is amazing!

Unknown said...

That is so sweet. I kwym about getting hands on! Even if you can find stuff on line it is NICE to just be able to flip through.