Birthday Bonanza!

Every once in a while, I have a birthday! This year it was on February 12, and I had a great weekend!

It started with a party for thedarkcave, whose birthday this year was also in February! There was a special Roomba cake, which was not only life-like, but also delicious!

There was also everybody’s favorite time – presents-time!

Thedarkcave got lots of cool presents, and even a special-edition, hand-drawn Roomba race card (from yours truly):

The next day it was time for my most favorite time – spa-time!

Just picture me in that hot tub under the waterfall, and you can get a sense of how I spent my birthday. If you ever have a spare small fortune, might I recommend a relaxing trip to The Lodge at Woodloch , which is maybe the greatest place on earth!

Whenever my birthday is next year, I hope it’s just as fun!

 

Saturday! Saturday!

Well, it’s Saturday – again. This Saturday is a particularly fun one – I’m going to a cookie exchange party, and I get to hang out with thedarkcave and all of his roombas.

Here are some of the cookies I made:

These are browned butter cardamom cookies, and I can’t wait to eat some!

This is one of the roombas that is visiting today:

It’s from thedarkcave’s personal collection!

Hope you all have a great Saturday, too!

 

 

 

A Room With A View

What’s the most important thing when looking for a new house? The old saying is “location, location, location” – but what if there were houses you loved in a less-than-ideal location? What would you be willing to sacrifice for an amazing house?

For instance, would these amazing, giant windows with Hudson River views be worth a commute that involved a bus to a train to a subway?

Maybe, maybe.

There’s also a great back yard, a deck off two of the upstairs bedroom, and a sunroom. There’s a lot to like – if only you’re willing to deal with the commute. Definitely something to think about…

992 Rt 9W, Nyack NY

 

Baker’s Dozen

I don’t know about you, but I have a tradition where I buy myself one nice Christmas present a year – a little “thank you” to myself for keeping it together another year. This year, I went a little overboard and bought:

The Ankarsrum Assistent – Sweden’s fanciest mixer! I could have just bought the standard KitchenAid mixer that everyone has, but if you know me, you know that was never really an option once this Swedish beauty made itself known.

So, having spent a small fortune on a stand mixer, I figure I really need to make sure I use it – a lot!  I’ve already made some cookies, and a cardamom cake, but the most exciting thing I’ve made so far is…

This beautiful, delicious loaf of bread! I’ve never even attempted to make bread before, so I was so excited that I got something edible on my first try! I’m glad I took a chance and tried something new – because the reward was delicious bread!

Next up on my baking adventure will be Cardamom Rolls, which Ken and I became obsessed with when we visited Stockholm a few years ago – I hope they turn out as well as my bread experiment!

 

A Chair A Day…

So – you may or may not know – but I kind of have this thing where I can’t stop buying chairs:

Takeshi Nii “NY” Folding Rocker, Chair, and Ottoman via Etsy

I scored this whole set on Etsy (well – really on Instagram, but is the world ready to hear about shopping on Instagram? I’ll save that for another post) for a great price! It’s like – I didn’t start out the day looking to buy chairs, but when a set from your Dream List of Chairs (which everyone has, right?) pops up for a steal, you have to buy them. And then when they arrive, you have to figure out how to restore them.

Normally I would do the whole restoration process myself, whether or not any part of it was beyond my (limited?) skill set, but this time I decided to hire a little help. I sent the covers out to be remade in a new heavyweight canvas; I’ll still polish up the chrome and wood myself (in the bathtub, as all professionals do.)

I can’t wait to see them put back together again, all shiny and newly upholstered! They’re going to be so awesome!

And maybe they’ll fill the chair-shaped hole in my heart for a little while…until the next chair tosses a coy wink from that magical intersection of affordability, desire, and timing and, well…you know…

 

Never say never again!

Well – I guess a few things have happened since I last left off here on the internets a few weeks… I mean, a few five years ago (!), but while I have bought a few chairs, and gotten married, and bought an apartment, and moved to Westchester – what I really want to bring everyone up to speed on is a laptop. That someone else bought. That’s right internet – I’m back, and you’re welcome.

Maybe you’ve heard of a company called Dell? They used to have stores based on cows:

Or maybe that was different computer brand in the 90’s? So hard to keep them all straight!

So, Dell was making computers (possibly influenced by cows) – and at the same time, two people were going to school in NJ:

As we all steadily became further and further ensconced in the grip of the “computer age”, Michael and Christine realized that in order to do well in graduate school, they needed to purchase a laptop – and purchase one they did:

The Dell Inspiron 5160! Was it the greatest laptop of all time? Did it ensure that they successfully finished school and turn into the productive members of society they are today? We can only assume the answer is yes.

But, as in all things, the 90’s soon ended, and the world began to be taken over by another new force in computing (not related to cows, as far as we know):

The Apple MacBook. So long, Dell! It was nice knowing you! We’ll never see you again!

 

Or will we?

Sometimes a person has a dream. Maybe that dream is to collect all the chairs, or all the laptops, or all the video game systems. And maybe everyone else doesn’t believe in that dream – maybe they say “HA! You cannot collect ALL the things.” But deep down you know – you can. One day you can have that Saarinen Womb Chair or that Sega DreamCast if you spend enough time on Ebay and Craigslist – if you really believe!

If the Dell Inspiron can come back to us – even though it’s very slow, and the back of the screen is broken off, and it runs Windows XP (shudder) – can’t we all dare to dream?

*** This is a sponsored post in conjunction with thefinkedfilmsdotcom but all opinions and language are my own ***

Shoes! Or, Thank you, Michelle Yee!

People like to complain about Facebook – and sure, it has its problems (updates you don’t care about, random friend requests, the general anxiety of over-sharing) but it has its upsides, too, like when a friend you don’t normally talk to that often sees a flyer for a Rachel Comey sample sale and she posts it on your wall. Thereby resulting in you casually ducking out of work for 45 minutes on a Thursday afternoon to score these babies at 60% off…

Rachel Comey Colden Shoes (link shows alternate colorway) via Rachel Comey sample sale

These will be my wedding shoes, although it’s going to be mighty tough to not wear them beforehand – they are going to be so awesome with tights and shorts for fall!

Thanks again, Michelle!

 

Long time, no blog…

So……..

You might remember me saying something about a new job or something. 3 months ago. Obviously, I’ve been very busy!

But I thought some of you out there (if you’re still out there) might be interested in catching up – maybe, for instance, you’d like to hear about wedding planning?

Invitations

I went back and forth for a while on what to do about invitations…

Meadow Suite via Bella Figura

Should I be reasonable and just order perfectly-nice-but-not-very-special invitations from random-internet-printing-company? Should I spend a fortune and go with letterpress? Should I try and make my own?

If you know me, you know I went with the letterpress. Hint: if you get one in the mail, please frame it.

Flowers

Here’s a little sneak peak of what our flowers are going to look like…

Moodboard via my florist

Let’s not even talk about words like “moodboard” and “florist.” I’m not quite sure who I think I am – let’s just say that my awesome boss has an awesome friend who happens to make awesome floral arrangements…

Cake

The cake will be delicious, and will have flowers from Saipua on it, which is all I really wanted – it will be two tiers, not three, but this is as close as I could find on the Baked website.

Three-tiered Cake via Baked 

Ours will be a little more moody – gray piping, darker flowers. Moody, like you always dreamed your wedding would be.

See what happens when we don’t chat? I get all kinds of planning done! Still more to do, but I’m working on it…kind of…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A question…

You guys remember my wedding dress, right? Ok, so the question is, can I wear these shoes with it?

Rachel Comey shoes via Anthropologie

What I’m really asking is, can I justify buying these really, really expensive shoes by wearing them to my wedding? Oh, and also wearing them all summer. But primarily, for the wedding. But also, all summer long.

Rachel Comey, why are your shoes so expensive??

Can’t a man walk down the street without being offered a job?

If you were going to have a more-fancy job in the near future, wouldn’t you like a fancy new bag? I thought you might. How about…

J.W. Hulme Excursion Chaperon Bag via La Garconne

I’d pay attention to the person carrying that bag, for sure. You could dress like a hobo and carry that thing, and people would still take you seriously.

Maybe you want a little more of a casual messenger-style, but in a still serious fabrication?

A.P.C Two Pocket Leather Bag via Totokaelo

Or maybe you and your new bag can only be together in fantasy-land…

PS 1 Large Leather Bag via Proenza Schouler

I’ll probably just use my backpack for all the new crap I have to carry around. 😉