St Francis animal blessing

The Townhouse

This townhouse is very likely to be our new home before Christmas.
We've had the place in Lake Isabella for sale for the last two years. The real estate market in Michigan cooled dramatically about the time we put the house on the market. January of this year was the worst month ever for the local Realtors association, and sales this year are 9 percent below last year -- which were about 20 percent below the year before.
But we've struck a deal with the builder of this new townhouse in town. It's fairly complex, but it pretty much guarantees we'll get the money out of the house in Lake Is and get into this brand-new place.
The kids like it. It overlooks a large park, they each get rooms about the size of our current kitchen, and it's nice enough to do some good entertaining.
If all goes right, we'll be telling stories about moving before too long.

Paris Fashion Week SS08 Wrapup I

Paris! Exciting week this is. I know some of you aren't fans of fashion shows (or the posts) but I really do need to blog about the shows to let my brain sort out what trends will be coming up. Besides, sometimes it's nice to just stare at pretty clothes...

Balenciaga

Ah, the show we've all been waiting for. This season is all about the flower prints on Balenciaga's bold silhouette. Truth is, when you first look at them, you're going to think that Ghesquière simply draped old, colourful curtain cloth onto the models to form that Balenciaga silhouette.

Gosh, everything is so luxurious. Look at the bold prints and colours, and that amazing silk!

SO pretty. Obviously I have no plans to wear huge shoulder tops/ dresses come spring, and yes, they are not your everyday silhouette, but the more I see this collection the more I love it!

The show ended with some plainer, but no less structured and brilliant clothes.

Karl Lagerfeld

I'm usually so-and-so on Karl Lagerfeld's collections, but I really like this one.

These clothes are young, edgy with a hint of elegance.

I love how sweet yet edgy Vlada (left) looks in the black and white outfit. And I really want the white outfit in the middle. I still can't tell if it's a dress or a top plus skirt. The oufit is so simple, yet with subtle details. Notice that there is more than one material used (esp the top part.) These clothes have motivated me to check out Karl's collection next time I'm in a high-end department store.

Valentino

This Valentino show made all the headlines because it's the Valentino's final ready-to-wear show.

The show was filled with his signature elegant dresses.

Such pretty black and white dresses. Can you imagine, you can buy one of these and still wear them every year onwards and they'll not go out of style.

In the usual Valentino fashion, the last few dramatic dresses had lot of frills and layers. The next thing everyone would be intersted in is what direction Valentino's sucessor's would take the House to.

Image credit: http://www.style.com/