She sheds seashells by the she shore.

Well, it's been a hot minute since I've been here but Springtime is Busytime at the Ranch.  I went on some work trips, had a quick trip to Nashville, went to Miami for a design show and didn't get sunburned - SUCCESS.  I did sweat through my first outfit of the year and it's only May... thanks, Florida.  But I got so many damn shells from the beach Florida should start paying me to haul away their junk.  

You should follow me on Instagram - I 'gram way more than I blog!

Wait, you can take shells from the beach, right?!  It's not illegal like taking plants from a national park, right? 

*mails shells back to Florida*

And after years of traveling I've FINALLY made a permanent toiletry bag so I can grab and go - SUCCESS.  All hail the tiniest of eye cream containers!  I'm adulting all over the damn place.  It's like a bukkake of responsible decisions around here.

When I wasn't jetsetting all over the Southeast region I've been doing never-ending amounts of yardwork.  This month is just so damn sweaty!  I'm reaching the end of my giant bush removal project (for this season) so I'll post some updates on that soon.  It looks... unimpressive for the amount of bitching I've been doing.

So what happened during all this tiny shampoo organizing and endless hole digging?  The Mad Men finale which I'm a season behind on so no spoilers, Janet Jackson announced a new album and tour (!), blackhead-removing videos are my new obsession and favorite lullaby and SHE SHEDS.  

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She sheds are the hot new alliteration all over the websites your mom reads.  It's the lady version of man caves... in case women were feeling left out of the home decor world?  I read some hot take about "gendered spaces" but I could only get three sentences in before I lost all interest in living life.

She sheds seem like nothing other than a catchy blog post name for the cute spaces in a lot of Pinterest folders.  I think we can attribute all of it to that NYT cottage way back when - remember this shabby chic Victorian cottage that induced much eye-rolling (probably from this blogger too?).

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I don't really care anything about the concept of 'she sheds' and somehow just having a discussion about it feels like a women's studies class led by Mike Huckabee so let's just agree to let people of all genders drink wine while knitting dreamcatchers or brewing craft root beer in whatever small outdoorsy space they need.  End of discussion.

Of course, I like my own personal space so much I live alone in my own house.  IT'S THE ULTIMATE SHE SHED!

As a general rule, I'm very pro-shed.  Where I come from, 'behind the shed' is where you smoke for the first time, get fingerbanged or bury a body.  All are glorious rites of passage no matter which one you choose.  As an adult (thanks to my tween rite of passage, you guess which one), I find sheds very useful for all my dirty, dirty tools. Except for the gross barn I had removed last year...

And that's kinda the problem... sheds are gross (see above about numerous amounts of vaginal fluids and corpses) and are like poisonous hotboxes filled with all manner of critters.  I know what lives in a shed outside and it ain't ruffles.  It's spiders.  

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Just some giant open walls for maximum spider passage directly into your BED.  

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And if you want to have a potting shed and paint it pastel well then I hope the Lordt blesses you with a maid and a clue because obviously you've never potted a thing in your life.  My potting shed - because yeah I want one - would be made entirely of black rubber and metal so I can hose it down.  And it has air conditioning.  And a sink... ok it's just a small house filled with piles of dirt that I don't have to clean up.

Seems the UK has a huge shed movement but they are taking it to a whole other level: pub sheds!  Those squirrelly Brits also have a contest for the best sheds and they do not disappoint:

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This urban bike shed is the winner of the best eco shed and it looks delightful.  Bet the British sheds are actual places to sit and have tea and probably not the prisoner of war shed like mine was...

I can definitely get behind this modern shed more than I can that lace and chicken fuckery above.  To each his own I guess.  I mean, she own...

But since this is my blog I get to feature the sheds/greenhouse/unattainable cottages I like.  .

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So let's shed this bitch

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Shed to the max.

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 Shed is bae.

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This glass shed of silence is adorable and I would like it very much.

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I could practically live in this one...

I lost the source...??

This one looks like it really came from a Home Depot kit and I approve.  Home Depot hobbit.  Of course, you could grow vines over a laundry crate and I'd try to rent it on Airbnb.

San Francisco's General Store by On A Hazy Morning

A single room is nice.  Small space for potting but you could also just sit alone with a chair and shut the door.  No judgment.

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This counts as a shed. I bet getting fingerbanged behind this turns you into a fairy.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Man

This half-shed, half-greenhouse is my favorite because he gives you the plans!  How super.  It's a great gardening blog too.

But don't forget the most important part of the yard: Charlemagne.

Unknown.  I probably blogged it before anyway...

Cat shed.  

Just kidding I'd make her hang out in the she shed and kill the rodents that are nesting in my daybed.

I'll probably be blogging light this summer (I don't have a blog shed) but I'll try not to let a month go in between.  That's just rude.

Hope your May was delightful!  Hope it was in a shed.

UPDATE: After I published this post about eleventeenfifty shed articles came across my dash/stream/pins within a few hours which lets me know we all got shed brains right now.  But this one was worth adding.  It's technically a playhouse but I'm saying it's a shed... 

See the whole cute place at Rue

WITH A SLIDE.  All other sheds are moot.

I'm just excited I used 'proboscis' in a sentence!

Grab your passports, sauce guzzlers, and let's take an architectural field trip!  It is a long way away.  Bring extra sauce for hydration.

I really have no idea what 'sauce' is in this scenario.

Regardless, welcome to Ethiopia!   Specifically the Southwest corner.  Here's a map cuz if you're like me (a dumb American) you don't know where that is.  But we should because very nice buildings are happening there.

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I am died.  The Dorze people are known for their distinctive dwellings that are completely unique to them and pretty fuckawesome.  That is a technical term I pulled Arch Daily.

More great travel pics at Line Shape Color

They are also known for having the best weaving in Ethiopia so right now the Dorze are batting a thousand for the design team.  I'm not even on the field in regards to such complicated design activities so I'm waving my giant foam finger for them.

The buildings are made of basket-woven shell of bamboo and then finished with 'false banana' leaves.  Fake bananers be good for sumthin.

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Who doesn't love a process shot?!  I'm a little blown away by the amount of leaves that are involved.  Fortunately there aren't any windows to work around.

Here  Separate partitions for the animals, I believe.

The entire structure is surprisingly large measuring about 25-30 feet tall.  Based on my calculations that's about seven square miles of leaves.  The reason they are designed so tall is for more than just a great chandelier.  The walls sit directly on the ground and termites eat the building from the floor up.

You'd think this would create massive structural problems but in fact it just causes the homes to get shorter.  They start out so tall so they can shrink over decades.  That's right, they build in their own aging solution.  The homes get shorter and cuter over time.  It's like they're the Benjamin Buttons of architecture!

And they do last decades - sometimes up to 100 years.  If the termite problem does get overwhelming or they want a new view the entire building can even be moved with the help of some friendly neighbors and lots of rope.

Here I love the landscaping around the perimeter of the homes too. Perfection.

But damn, the termites seem friendlier in Africa, right?  I have to get termite treatments every eight years so my house doesn't cave in on itself and leave me in dust but in Africa you have decades.  DECADES.  Africa might have killer bees but we have asshole termites.

My favorite part about the structures is that they have a very anthropomorphic quality.  Once you see the face you can't UNsee it.

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The "eyes" are the air vents and also release the smoke from the cooking/heating fire.  The "nose" acts as the entrance vestibule and can be very large (like the very first picture) and then as the entire structure shrinks the nose gets smaller and they cut the doorway larger.  

I found out that the "face" does have an explanation that's not just related to function, however.  This region of Ethiopia used to have lots of elephants so the homes pay homage to them with their grey skin and large proboscis.  AND NOW I LOVE THEM EVEN MORE.  

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You can't UNsee it now either!  Look at its wittle head!  

I'm not sure if that little anecdote is true or something they just tell the white people taking pictures but I love so it's true.

And you better get in your elephant love now because I heard Tim Burton is going to be directing a new Dumbo so get ready for Johnny Depp to piss all over your childhood.  Childhood memories of hysterical sobbing over that movie but whatever.

After you finish writing an angry letter to Disney, I highly recommend you take a look at this video tour of a Dorze home for a more complete picture.  The guide shows his grandfather's 92-year-old home in case you thought I was lying about their ages.

However, I should admit I have weird feelings about getting a tour of a home currently inhabited by people.  People who are just outside the door...  Is it just me?

Now, I'm guilty of stopping in the road and taking a picture of someone's home and I'm blogging about the Dorze so maybe I shouldn't be the moral compass here.  But are these little tours just catering to rich tourists or maybe it's like some version of colonial Williamsburg except not colonial but CURRENT?  Or are the people that open up their homes to tourists the design bloggers of Ethiopia?  Maybe they WANT to show off their houses.  

I'm not saying I don't want to see them but I am aware that I saw pictures of the same two structures (three pictures up) over and over again.  I'm not sure I know the correct answer to these questions and maybe I should pull out my books on vernacular architecture more than once a decade.  *cough*  I was almost smart in college...

Regardless, I hope tourists are absolutely throwing money at them for every last bit of their beautiful weaving.

Now I feel kinda uncomfortable about the implications of vernacular architectural tourism so let's look at some more baby elephants until we are obliviously comfortable again!

Baby elephants welcome in my home anytime!

Bleak is beautiful

Despite the fact that people think this blog is snarky (Is it?  I was going for delightful self-loathing.), I generally try to find the good in all things.  I'm a regular Lil Miss Sunshine Butt.  I burned the rice?  Mmmhh smokey grains!  Lost my keys?  A good reminder to slow down.  Hangnail so ornery it goes to my elbow?  The blood lets me know I'm alive!

And although I've been blessed with an abundant posterior, even this Sunshine Butt isn't big enough for this month.  I'm kicking ass with my "New Year's Resolutions" but I think we can all agree that this month is cold, wet, dark and generally fucking miserable.

January is an asshole.

Paris, Quentin de Briey pin

There ain't a damn holiday within sight and every time I see a piece of glitter leftover from Christmas I clutch it to my chest and remember the good times.  

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I eat a lot of plain Irish oatmeal.

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I forgot what the sun looks like.  You'd think my big Sunshine Butt would hold large reserves of Vitamin D but you'd be wrong.  I'm so listless I just perambulate around like a drunk slug.  Do slugs perambulate around?  I think they do in January.

Sigh... It's bleak out there y'all.  But I'm trying to see that bleak is beautiful.  

San Bernadino Ossuary, Milan by Adam Silver

Yes, those are skulls.

So I've collected all of the greyest, coldest, harshest things that have been elevated to beautiful so we can get through this month of misery.  We'll make dirty snow an art form, yet.

Rachel Dein

Then we can all say we're miserable for the sake of art.  

Or the sake of an online mood board.  

I feel even bleaker now.

Stromkajen Ferry Terminals in Stockholm via Dwell

I am OBSESSED with this space and picture.  It's bleakness gives me strength.

Andy Torres here

I can do all things through bleak who strengthens me.  That and full skirts.

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I'm finding myself celebrating the bleakitude of some fine traditional details and architecture this month.

La Coulee Verte, Paris here

The few times I've been fortunate enough to go to Europe has been in January which is the worst month to go anywhere other than the Equator.  But I'm IN EUROPE which was pretty fucking amazing for a hillbilly.  So I think now I associate January with frigid self-guided architectural walking tours where I don't speak the language and get lost a lot but have wonderful experiences anyway.

Remember last year I went to Germany and it was bleak and frigid and I still did amazing things there, right?!

From my trip last year. I think this is an art museum. I didn't actually reread my post...

See, it ain't all bad!  Just pretend you're in Europe and not instead building up the courage to get outside and start your car in the mornings.

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It's best to blend in to your surroundings.  European camouflage.  I'm pretty sure I practically scream "HI I'M AMERICAN AND LIKE PIZZA ROLLS" wherever I go because I'm the whitiest, roundiest and blondiest Applebee's-looking waitress that continent has ever seen.

I mean, I try to wear cool sneakers but I think it's just in my pheromones.  I smell like cheap gas and a glaring lack culture.

La Chateau de La Celle via Art of the Room

Maybe if I TRY to be more bleak I'll blend in better. 

I'll aim for sad Applebee's waitress next time I travel.  Aren't they all?

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My apologies, that was a cheap shot at hard-working people in the food service industry and I haven't been to an Applebee's in many years.  

But I've been to more Applebee's restaurants than castles so...

Eltz Castle in Germany here

A bleak castle could DEFINITELY make my January better.  Next year?

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I love this litttle shadowbox (?) so much I can't see straight.

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Honestly, this goth castle is probably good in July too.  It's my personal princess castle.

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Cologne Cathedral in Germany by Guy Sargent here

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Ok frankly all of these places I'd like to winter, spring, summer and fall in.

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It's vaguely bleak but also friendly.  I'm feeling better about January already!

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Welp, this place is going on my winter bucket list.  So carving.  Much fairytale.

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The Louvre here

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Now that I'm looking at all these pictures I think it's just the same Instagram filter...  I bet these things were from someone's iPhone in AUGUST.  I feel betrayed.

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Betrayed and bleak again.

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I'll add forlorn into the mix to round out the assortment.

Stay beautifully bleak, my friends.  Maybe visit an Applebee's and tip well.