Happy Midsummer Holiday

Read about Sweden's lively midsummer holiday, here, via the Swedish Embassy in Washington, DC. Giulia is up to no good, we can tell, so back on feline watch. Thank you to Olga for this beautiful photograph of a Swedish field of gold. GG's editor has written a little more about midsummer mysteries, here.

ciao-festive-meow/GGCM

Bouquets of Yellow Mimosa on International Women's Day

To all our friends--near & far--on International Women's Day! We are reduced to using last year's illustration but we are no less sincere in our good wishes. For an Italian-American-living-in-Italy perspective, please visit one of our favorite blogs, Bleeding Espresso.

ciao-meow & baci! GG & her editor

Sunflower

We have some on our table & are very grateful. Would that we were somewhere in France or Italy in fields of sunflowers, so maybe you should call us ingrates. Possibly have won an auction at Made4Aid (a small vintage embroidered tablecloth). Not sure but we'll let everyone know how it turns out tomorrow.

ciao-meow/GGCM

[thank you again to photographer D Sharon Pruitt for her Free for all Creative Commons on Flickr]

Daisies from GG

A bouquet of daisies, a summer offering to our readers. We wish we could hand-deliver them. If you are a non-commercial site, you should check out D Sharon Pruitt's Creative Commons flickr set. She's so generous. GG's Tootsie-Frootsie birthday ice cream cone is from there, too. Here is what Sharon says on her site:

"My photos that have a creative commons license and are free for everyone to download, edit, alter and use as long as you give me, "D Sharon Pruitt" credit as the original owner of the photo. Have fun and enjoy!"

We are enjoying & hope you do, too.

(Pssst...don't forget to visit at least one of the human rights organizations here. GG's a bit impatient about this issue. Please, for our sake, please. You've no idea--or do you?--what it's like to be at the mercy of a redheaded cat in a snit.)

ciao-meow/the mgmt

Yellow Mimosa - Week's End

We wish International Women's Day (March 8, Sunday this year) was celebrated in the U.S. as it is overseas...particularly in Italy. Everything we read says that men give women yellow mimosa flowers...but our experience is that women also give yellow mimosa to their female friends & relatives. Some years ago, when March 8 also fell on a Sunday, we raced around an unnaturally quiet Roman neighborhood, desperate to buy a bouquet to take to a friend's luncheon (having just arrived from Naples & running late). We finally found a flower shop with mimosa bunches. At the end of the encounter (for every such purchase is a social event in Italy, especially the South), the flower seller presented GG's editor with a bunch for herself with a hearty, "Auguri, bella!" And no, he was not being devilish. Just festive!

Have a great weekend & ciao-auguri-meow to our friends & sisters!

(photograph from Deirdré Straughan's blog Countries Beginning with I)

Centerpieces for tough times

Real Simple has some lovely ideas for 60-second centerpieces. Go here to see the slideshow. We are taken aback by some prices quoted. There is a nice idea for carnations (again!) in a wooden bowl. We've done something similar with a terracotta bowl & one need not purchase eight bunches of carnations--that is not inexpensive. Use these as guides, only. Galvanized tin buckets & other containers are available at hardware stores, at IKEA (& possibly already in your possession). Pine cones are outside lying on the ground...run out & pick up lots of different kinds (as available). Purchasing them is a last resort. Have fun!

bisou,
GG's editor

Blue Belle, Buttercup, Paperwhites, & Greta

From Kitchen Table Studio on Etsy. There are so many lovely items & the artist is from Northern Virginia (in GG Central's region). Everything is well priced & made from already-existing materials. The seller has uniformly excellent feedback & at least one person in Ireland is very happy with the shipping policy, so that's no problem. We just might break our no-purchase rule before the year is out. Very tempting.

Julia Child Rose

The Julia Child floribunda rose is featured on the blog A Brush With Color. GG highly recommends stopping by to view the lovely watercolors & photographs by the painter Suzanne Smith in North Carolina. Even if you don't have time to read her entertaining & insightful posts, it's a lovely "place" to stop in for a daily beauty treat. The photo is from Rose Gallery Forum, Garden Web.