Sorting Through the Muchness -- August Edition...

salad image via sunday suppers

A while back I read a post on Even Cleveland that discussed the idea of sorting through "the muchness", and it just stuck with me...

Between all the lovely blogs and pinterest and twitter and magazines and catalogs I feel like I process an insane amount of stuff each month -- images, pretty things, thought-provoking things, information, snippets of information. So I thought it might be a good exercise if I regularly took the time to think about what's really resonating out of the muchness...what I'm really loving, using, thinking about endlessly.

It's not intended to be a lofty exercise (as underscored by the fact that one of the things I'm thinking about this month is lip balm), but I'm hoping it'll sort of force me to sort through all the clutter and settle in a bit on the things that, well...stuck.

And because you know how I love "the sharing", I thought it would be fun to create a little monthly series based on the 3-5 things that bubbled to the surface.

Here are my "August Things":

Simple Greens:
I am all about salad...I could eat it at every. single. meal. and usually prefer it jammed with nuts and cheese and any number of other sundry tasty bits. But in August, on three separate occasions, I was served a perfect salad that consisted of essentially just really good greens and some herbs (dill was key) tossed with a little homemade dressing (usually some combo of high quality balsamic vinegar, a little oil and some salt and pepper). The salads were game changers. And as such, I've been consuming lightly dressed greens non-stop (occasionally even at breakfast).

Clare Vivier Messenger:
Bryan bought me a navy CV messenger bag a few years ago for my birthday, but it had been out of rotation for a while... It resurfaced during the recent "great closet clean-out", and I proceeded to carry it exclusively the entire month of August... (It was equally at home on the streets of Manhattan and in Marfa's dusty dessert, which I think says something about a bag, yes?) I love this purse. I do.

Burt's Bees Lip Balm in Honeysuckle:
It's not lipstick or lip gloss. It's not fancy or goopy or shimmery or shiny. It's just a sort of simple, beigey lip balm. But I'm addicted to it.

Magazines:
After the folding of all the (seemingly) great ones (i.e. Gourmet, Cookie, Domino, Blueprint...), I was feeling pretty meh about magazines. They were just not doing it for me. But with all the flying I did this month, I ended up giving in and reading almost every single one on the newsstand, and friends... I think magazines are roaring back. Of specific note are Martha Stewart Living now helmed by former Cookie editor Pilar Guzmán (Cookie and Momfilter co-founder Yolanda Edwards is also at MSL now, so double bonus), Stefano Tonchi's W, Partners & Spade's re-branded Lucky, and Bon Appétit, which, under new editor Adam Rapoport, is starting to (almost) fill the void that the closing of Gourmet left in my heart (not to be overly dramatic of course ;-)

I'd love to know...was there anything that stood out for you guys in August? Any favorites you'd like to share?