My Favourite Articles This Week
How Agatha Christie helped popularize surfing. So interesting! I don’t think of Agatha Christie as a surfer, but it turns out, she was an avid one!
How the history of shopping in the United States ended up turning American shoppers into total nightmares. A fascinating long read on company’s cost cutting and short staffing, the history of customer service, and how department stores accidentally created the concept of a shopper’s overarching entitlement.
This joyful video is so wonderful, it makes me a little teary so see something that feels so happy and irreverent and trusting in the curiosity and good of people- Stand Here for a Dance Party.
How to be less judgmental of yourself and others.
My Favourite Links This Week
If you have taken advantage of the last little bit of peach season and find yourself with a basket of peaches lingering around, this peach bread would be a delicious treat to keep the taste of the season around a little longer. Recipe can be found over here.
This shredded barbecue chicken casserole is a great dinner idea that can be used in a lot of different ways- over rice, in wrap to make a taco or a burrito, on nachos- all sorts of things! And it’s super easy to make, too. I skipped the fried onion bits, and it was delicious. Find the recipe right here.
I love this idea – painting a cheap cotton rug to suit your decor! Great steps to follow, and painter’s tape helps give the crisp lines. And if it fades, you can touch it up! Find the full DIY over here.
If you would love to have a fun pair of canvas shoes- says, decked out in florals or possibly in Pokémon characters (that’s what my kids would love!)- then this would be a really fun project. It’s all done with iron-on transfer paper, so you could print anything you would like on the iron on transfer paper, iron it on your shoes, spray a sealant, and voila! Custom sneakers! Find the full DIY right here.
Perhaps you are thinking you could use some storage baskets? This is a great pattern for crocheting your own big, rectangular storage baskets that would be great on shelves to hide clutter (or more accurately, my craft supplies and yarn!). Find the great tutorial on Ami’s blog, here.
I’ll be doing a longer post on it very soon, but I’ll be teaching a couple classes virtually in September, and I’d love it if you would join me! The two classes are How to Embroider on Your Knits, a full workshop with a custom design that we will be working with in the live workshop. And the other is How to Photograph Your Knits for Social Media– a workshop I used to love running in person that I’ll be trying out online for the first time ever! I’ll be blogging in more detail about both of these very soon, but in the meantime, you might want to snag a ticket!
Have a wonderfully relaxing and restorative weekend, friends.
xo Julie
Oh my Julie, this improv dance party just made my day! We so need to be together and have fun. Have a great week-end!
Just popped in two loaves of Peach bread when I sat down to read your blog. https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/peach-quick-bread/
It made me laugh to see that you had the same idea for using extra peaches. I’ll be freezing one and eating one soon.
Interesting that you post an article saying that American shoppers are total nightmares at the same time that you post an article talking about how to be less judgmental. Hmmm.
Absolutely! While I think the headline was clickbait-y, I found both articles to be really interesting. Especially for the historical perspective of how strong an impact department stores had on customer service, and how that has evolved into expectations. It was such a great read! But I think about it in terms of how I am as a shopper, what my expectations or assumptions are. And absolutely being less judgmental is so important, especially these days. I feel there is room for both- contemplating where we are at with our ideas about shopping and about being less judgmental of other people.
Wasn’t that just so wonderfully happy?! I watched it a bunch of times, and it brought my joy every single time!
Great minds think alike!! Thanks for the link, I’ll have to compare the recipes!