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a slice of life

Favorite Things

four things | two

Last week, I started a new weekly series – Four Things.  These posts are for sharing four things – what I’m reading, watching, loving, and working on.  I hope these posts will be a nice place to drop the this-and-that sort of things that happen throughout the week and will be a source of encouragement and inspiration to you.  If you missed the first post, you can find it HERE Here are my four things for this week… what I’m reading I was looking around for a good book on identifying fossils, specifically on east coast beaches, and I found A Beachcomber’s Guide to Fossils.  I’ve been reading through it over the past couple of weeks to start training my eye for my next beachcombing excursion.  I told my mom I was doing research so I could win next spring’s shell collection contest, but I have a sneaking suspicion bits

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a slice of life

field trip | emporium antiques in Frederick, MD

Yesterday, I drove down to Frederick to meet Jodie of The Past Restored to drop off my oil paintings for the Lucketts Fall Market with her.  You can read about that spur-of-the-moment partnership HERE.  I had to pick Marshall up in a couple of hours, so instead of going home, I decided to poke around an antique store for a bit.  I shopped at Emporium Antiques years ago when I was an antique dealer, but I hadn’t been since moving back to the mid-Atlantic region.  I decided to spend my free time checking it out.  It was very much as I remember it, which was nice to see.  It always makes me sad when once wonderful antique stores fall into the decline of booths filled with NASCAR memorabilia, novelty candy, collectible shot glasses, and creepy dolls wearing a half-inch of dust.  Sometimes those stores can be awesome because you can

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a slice of life

four things | one

I used to share a monthly favorites post and stopped during our move because it became a little overwhelming!  Collecting my favorites through the month seemed more difficult in all of the upheaval and chaos of the move and renovations.  I am finding my stride again and realize I miss sharing my favorites.  I considered starting to share them again in the same format, but I decided to change it up and start something new.  Instead of sharing them monthly, I’ll share them weekly as four things – What I’m reading, what I’m watching, what I’m loving, and what I’m working on.  In this format, I can share things when they are fresh and in little bite-sized chunks for my readers.  So, here we go with the first Four Things… what I’m reading As I shared recently (in THIS POST), I typically read several books at one time, so in

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a slice of life

another mid-size try-on from Walmart

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Walmart.  As always, all words and opinions expressed in this post are honest and my own. I have already done a couple of Walmart try-ons recently, but when they asked me to do another, I was totally in!  Not only have I had a fun time shopping their fall collections, but I have also kept several pieces to add to my wardrobe and they are current favorites.  If you missed the other two try-ons, you can find them HERE and HERE.  I have lost almost 30 pounds so far this year, so my size is currently in flux.  While some of my clothes are getting baggy, I’m fitting back into old favorites.  But, I do need to add a few more pieces to round out my fall and winter wardrobe and I don’t want to spend a lot of money since I expect (hope)

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a slice of life

restoration home

Since I’ve been about as productive as a sack of potatoes, I don’t have new and exciting things to share.  Unfortunately, the dining room trim did not magically install itself and weeds did not pull themselves just because I willed them to go away.  New paintings didn’t appear on my drying shelves and blog posts did not manifest while I was binge-watching Wolf Hall.  But, I have made a good dent in my watch lists and fell down a Tudor-era rabbit hole in the process!  Since I know many of you love the same things I do, I thought I would recommend a show I’ve been enjoying – Restoration Home, available on Amazon Prime. I started watching it because of another show – Old World Homes on Max/Magnolia.  I watched the first episode and was completely charmed by the stories of how historic homes were saved and reclaimed as residences

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a slice of life

why I read multiple books at one time

As I’ve shared before, I pretty habitually have a stack of books sitting in my studio at any given time.  I try to stay tidy and keep the stack under control, but I keep adding to the stack and it gets comically high again.  Sometimes it’s because I’ve acquired new books and they’re in the stack waiting to be read.  Most of the time, however, I pull a few books off the shelf on subjects I want to digest and rotate through the stack when I have time to read.  I’ll grab a couple of books and look through them in the evenings or take one or two with me to an appointment.  Once I’m finished, I’ll put them away and inevitably add more.  When one stack starts to overflow into two, I’ll force myself to narrow it down so I have a reasonable book buffet to pick from.  In

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encouragement

redefining what it means to be bad at something

One theme that often comes up in e-mails, comments, and messages from blog readers and social media followers is being good at something.  I get all sorts of comments in that vein…  I’m not good at that.  I can’t do that.  I’m bad at that.  Is there anything you’re not good at?  That last question always makes me smile because, of course, I’m bad at a lot of things.  My typical answer is always “plenty.”  I just don’t write about those on the blog, make tutorials about them, or share about things totally out of my scope of abilities on social media.  Sharing my failures is very different than sharing something I’m bad at.  Sharing something I’m learning and growing in is also different than sharing something I’m bad at. I’ve actually given this a lot of thought, mostly in how I can offer encouragement to those who struggle to

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book reviews

Taschen Book Sale

One of my favorite publishers/booksellers, Taschen Books is having a huge sale, so even though I typically don’t post on the weekends, I thought I would share some of the titles in my own library that are on sale.  Their books are always a feast for the eyes with gorgeous photography, and high-quality paper, and many of their books are enormous coffee-table style books that I love pouring over.  They also have a huge selection of books on art and design.  Most of these books are 50% off, so it’s a pretty sweet sale for my fellow book-lovers…  (Just a warning before you go browsing – Taschen carries “adult books” as well and not all of the covers are censored.  I search specific categories to try to avoid those titles.) I bought The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries at Costco a few years ago and it is a little slice of

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I’m Marian, a painter, writer, and lover of all things creative. From art and antiques to home projects and everyday life, I share my journey in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own creativity and make beauty in the spaces you live.

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May 20th, 2026 at 1pm EST

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