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Feels Like Home
I’m thrilled to have the talented blogger and decorator Doreen Creede from Style Maniac guest posting today on Glossing Over It about interior design. Decor is something I admire and enjoy, but I don’t have any background in it, so I was thrilled when Doreen agreed to say a few words about her own approach to a designing a room: Candlelight glows against the soft brass of my vintage coffee table; its mirrored surface gleams with glasses of garnet wine, platters of creamy goat cheese, and bowls of savory sundried tomatoes. Shoes have been kicked off, pillows smushed behind backs, lights dimmed low, music turned up high. Flames lick against…
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Natural Beauty
My guest blog post lat week for Wisconsin Public Television’s Engage Wisconsin site was about natural personal care products. In the article, I discussed the ingredients and chemical byproducts that are the most harmful to our health and to the environment. I thought it would be fun today, as a follow-up, to share with you some of my favorite natural body products. Badger Sleep Balm. I rub this stuff on my lips just before bed each night. It helps me from getting chapped skin in the winter, but mostly I just love the calming lavender and bergamot fragrance. I’m so attached to this stuff, I bring a tin with me…
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Vintage Vixen
I have not been posting as frequently in the last couple of weeks because I’ve been working like a crazed woman on my second novel, Gently Used. The novel tells the story of a fictional vintage clothing store, the women who work and shop there, and the garments that come through the door. It is loads of fun to write, and whenever I get blocked, I do research on vintage fashion, which has led me to some fun discoveries online. A recent search for 1950’s ball gowns led me to the Etsy store of Timeless Vixen, a vintage shop based out of Beverly Hills. The shop carries an impressive range…
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Scotch Tasting for Beginners
When I’m not blogging or writing, my day job is lawyering. And lawyers and scotch go together like… Denny Crane and cigars. I’ve never enjoyed scotch, or any type of whiskey for that matter, but I figured that, like golf, I might as well give it a real try before I put it in the column of “Things I Don’t Like.” That column already includes Running, Insomnia, and People Who Say “Irregardless.” I recently attended a single malt scotch tasting at the The Malt House in Madison. Scotch, for those novices like me, is malt whisky that was produced in Scotland. Scotland has 89 operational malt whisky distilleries. “Single malt”…
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Pairing Drinks with Halloween Candy
Halloween is upon us and, with it, bags and bags of grocery store sweets. Whether you swipe Fun Size Snickers from your kids’ plastic pumpkins or you scarf down the leftovers you bought for trick-or-treaters, chances are you’ll be indulging in some candy. And if you’re looking for an adult beverage to go with that candy, look no further. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups go great with beer. Although some might suggest a heavier brew, like Lake Louie’s Warped Speed Scotch Ale, these sweet and slightly salty little peanut butter cups also would go great with a light, caramely ale, like Furthmore’s Proper. In Food Network Magazine, restaurateur Tom Geniesse of…
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Glossing Over It Has A New Home
Glossing Over It has a new home. One more suited to the lifestyle to which she’s grown accustomed. It looks like this: Just kidding. That’s the home of fashion designer Trina Turk in Palm Springs, as photographed in Town & Country. What I really meant is that the Glossing Over It blog has a new home on the interwebs, meaning I’ve changed my blog address. So make a note of it, and change your bookmarks, blogrolls, and links. Because my new web address is…get ready for it… If you forget and go to my old address, susangloss.com/blog, don’t fret. The door will not be slammed in your face. You’ll be…
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Green Beer
No, I’m not talking about the dyed stuff you drink on St. Patty’s Day. I’m blogging today about the benefits of buying locally-sourced and locally-brewed beer, over at Wisconsin Public Television’s Engage Wisconsin website. Luckily, where I live in Wisconsin, we have a lot of good options. You probably do, too. What are your favorite local beers where you live?
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Geek Culture (and Couture)
If any of you happened to stumble upon my blog yesterday, you may have been greeted, not with pictures and posts as usual, but by hostile gibberish that looked like this: Parent directory wp-content wp-admin wp-includes No, that was not supposed to be an experimental concrete poem. In a fit of what can only be described as temporary insanity caused by too much time online, I decided that would try to move my blog to a new web address. By myself. I can’t explain why I decided to do this without the assistance of a professional. I can only say that I was motivated by a surge of geeky empowerment…
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Bread Baking for Dummies
I love bread. And I’ve become a bit of a snob about it, too, because I’m spoiled by friends and family members who are fantastic bakers (which also happens to be my mom’s maiden name…go figure). But here’s the thing: I’m really, really busy. Between blogging and writing and working and occasionally getting up from the computer to stretch my legs, I don’t have much time left over for proofing yeast and kneading dough. Luckily, my friend Maya gave me this super easy, fix-it-and-forget-it recipe for bread. Similar recipes have been featured on the New York Times’ Minimalist column and the always-gorgeous Smitten Kitchen blog. The only hitch is that…
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The Thrill of the Hunt
Vintage stuff seems to be the theme of the week for me. On Tuesday I guest blogged over at StyleManiac about why I love old clothes, and today my weekly article over at Wisconsin Public Television’s Engage Wisconsin site is about the environmental impact of the clothing industry, and how buying items secondhand can help reduce that impact. What I didn’t mention in either of those articles, though, is that another factor underlying my love of vintage things, besides the stories behind them and the recycling aspect, is a more primal notion–the thrill of the hunt. It’s satisfying to find the proverbial diamond in the rough: a pair of unworn…
a blog on fiction, fashion, food + family