the winds they were a-blowin' ...

How I wish that the picturesque look of fresh fallen snow could last forever ... sadly, that winter wonderland look is fleeting - even our poor snowman knew it as he melted forward under the winter sun just one day after being built:

All of the beautiful snow in this photo melted within days, and last night the wild winds came to town. We're in an old New England town just north of Boston and we're not just on the Atlantic coast, we're surrounded by water on 3 sides, a peninsula. A northeast wind is the toughest - it comes right off the open ocean and bears down on us with a churned up sea - add in those huge New England tides (about a 12 foot swing) and you can get quite a mess. This photo was taken right around the corner - and the tide is not at full high:

(this photo courtesy of christine m)

So as you can see, in our town we don't exactly welcome a "Nor'easter", as the locals call it. And last night's Nor'easter was no different - it was a crazy night with wind gusts that literally shook the house. As you can imagine from the photo above, the ocean pounded the coast so hard it sounded like thunder and today coastal roads had to be closed for two hours at high tide, almost a given with any Nor'easter around here. Here's what we woke up to around the neighborhood:

We were really lucky to have no real damage at our house, but the cleanup is underway all over town ... and after this storm I'm so glad to be just 2 weeks away from a vacation to my native South Florida, a place I still call home. Bring it on!

the design habit ...

Although many of my favorite blogs share the common thread of home design, it's only an interest for me, one of a handful of things I never get bored of ... like Target, HGTV, Ben & Jerry's, and my new SLR camera. To accommodate this particular interest, I keep a huge binder stuffed with ideas: pages torn from design mags, dozens of paint chips, fabric samples, etc ... I started my design binder the year I was engaged, so I hit the ground running as a newlywed and first-time home owner, bursting with energy and ideas. I couldn't wait to put together a real "home", with personal touches and style way beyond the limitations of renting apartments all those years before ... the binder came busting to life inside our beautiful 1800 sq foot colonial. It was a dream of curb appeal, over 75 years old when we bought it, and bursting with 1920's charm, see for yourself ...

Charming on the outside, but this beautiful dream house was really stuck in the 1980's on the inside (think vertical blinds and pastel shag carpet, I cringe just to write it). All the better we said. We bought the house and had a great time with the renovations - we rolled up our sleeves, threw the shag carpeting out a 2nd floor window, and totally made it our own ... I never took photos of the process, so there's not much more I can show from those blissful days on Birch Street. But I took photos when we did it all over again a few years later with our current home - so in the coming months I'd love to post some of those fun transformations. I hope you'll stay tuned ...

my beloved iris ...

This is the 'irreverent' Iris Apfel, and if you don't already know who she is, you should ...

(photo courtesy of PEM press release)

In short, she is a style doyenne. Not only that, she is as vivacious as anyone I know ... and she's 88 years old! I had the good fortune to attend a small format speaking engagement with she and her husband Carl (61 years of marriage, we should all be so lucky!) in my South Florida hometown about 2 years ago and let me tell you, she is incredible - so witty and engaging! I found myself hanging on her every word - a truly delightful woman, sharp as a tack, and what an amazing life and legacy ... she left quite an impression on me.

I live in a neighboring town to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA and you can only imagine my delight when last Fall I discovered that an entire Iris Apfel show was opening in the PEM's 3rd floor galleries ... over 80 ensembles were on display as of October 17. Needless to say, I was there in pretty short order and the exhibit did not disappoint! Had I been blogging then, that day would have translated into a post bursting with her wow factor. Sadly, the show recently ended (February 7 was the last day), but the Boston Globe wrote a wonderful story about it here - it's worth a read and includes a must-watch 4-minute video in which Iris herself talks about her life and the path that brought her to this point. The PEM also posted a transcript of a fun interview with her that can be found here. She's a true original ...

the target habit ...

ok, so this one's more like a full-blown addiction than a habit ... Target is truly one of my all-time favorite stores. Who wouldn't love a place where you can buy all of your basic grocery and drugstore needs and also accessorize your entire home and wardrobe?! Their business model is pure genius as they provide super affordable knock-offs from literally every designer I love! They have knock-offs under their own label that mimic the designs of Pottery Barn Kids, Mini-Boden, and Gap Kids ... and then there are the alliances they make with designers like Isaac Mizrahi, Liz Lange maternity, Proenza Schouler, Thomas O'Brien, Paul Frank, Shabby Chic, and Thomasville furniture - to name a handful!

Well, I just about passed out last Sunday when I was flipping through my March issue of Elle Decor and came across a small blurb that mentioned that Target's next partnership will be with Liberty of London (be still my beating heart!). This photo was provided as the tease ...

Uh, hello?!?! A Liberty of London BICYCLE?! My heart beats ever faster ... how cute is that bike?! The complete Liberty of London line will be released in stores on March 14, so I set out yesterday to look for some sneak peeks online but couldn't find a thing ... until ... I was checking in at a friend's blog late last night and found an entire post dedicated to the subject - with photos!! Thank god for you, Marisa!! Marisa's longtime blog is called Stylebeat and the link to the Liberty post is right here. Hope you enjoy the sneak peek as much as I did - look out, Target, on March 14 it's gonna be like the running of the brides at the Filene's wedding gown sale ... and I plan to be right there in the mix fighting for my Liberty goodies! Wahooooo!

the camera habit ...

One of my long-time interests has been photography. It may have started back in high school when I took a 4-week mini course - that was back in the dark room days when we printed our own photos in sinks full of chemicals and hung them to dry, hard to imagine nowadays. By college, I had a beloved Nikon 35 mm film camera with a 17x200 mm zoom lens - it was never more than an arm's length away from me and for years I took pictures of everything around me: kids, animals, architectural details, nature, you name it. But somewhere around my mid 20's, life got busy and that beloved Nikon was in it's case more than it was out - and by the time I was 30, the photography world had shifted to digital and I felt like my hobby had passed me by. Fast forward a decade and momma's back in action ...

Throughout my 30's, all I ever did with our nice camera was a once/year portrait session of our kids to be used for our Christmas card. Each year I'd play with the settings or use a different lens ... and sure enough my old camera mojo came back: I started getting great results and our Christmas card photo was getting better each year. It got to the point where this past Fall I decided to get an SLR camera of my very own - no more joint custody! It's a Canon Rebel xsi and it was love at first sight ... by Christmas I was asking Santa for extra lenses and the Rebel's been attached to my eye ever since. I guess old habits really do die hard. Look out world ...

sunday!

I love Sunday mornings - it's my one morning each week to sleep a little later, make pancakes in my pj's, and when I'm really lucky on a cold winter Sunday like today I get to catch up on my favorite indulgences! In the wintertime, this involves spending a lazy morning reading through my favorite design mags ...



... and watching tivo-ed design shows like HGTV's Sarah's House or Bravo's Flipping Out and TLC's Moving Up. Of course, my beloved Domino magazine folded about a year ago (*sniff, RIP), so it was right around that time that I started to trade the magazines for the laptop, expanding my list of favorite blogs to fill the Domino void (see aforementioned potato chip reference!) ... so all in all, Sunday mornings are a real treat for me - from the pancake and syrup combo to the tivo and laptop combo, I love 'em!

how wii spent our saturday ...

Being in New England, there are many many families in our town who live a second life all winter long ... life on the ski slopes.

(illustration courtesy of Paula Becker)

From where I stand, a Florida native who knows precious little about skiing, it seems exhausting ... they pack up the roof racks and tailgates and head up north to Maine or NH every Friday after school lets out. Instead of sleeping in on Saturdays, most of these families start just as early as if it were a school morning - in a way I suppose it is a school morning because their kids are committed to season-long ski schools every Saturday. I have to say ... I just don't get it! The planning, the gear (my god the gear!), the commute, the physical demands of skiing, I'd be a wreck if this were my routine!

Conveniently, we're more of the once-a-year philosophy. We just want for the kids to be able to ski with a reasonable amount of confidence - we are in New England after all. That way, as they're growing up, they'll be able to participate if and when an opportunity might arise. We've just recently returned from our annual ski trip - a 3-day, 3-night 'refresher weekend' just a few hours north in Maine. If nothing else, it's a great chance for us to be away from the daily grind and enjoy board games and hot chocolate by the fire after a long day of casual runs with each other on the slopes ... our littlest led the charge ...

It was a really great trip this year, we're feeling lucky as can be to have had the opportunity. But from now on, it's back to reality ... no more slopeside condos, steaming swimming pools, or freshly groomed snow. From now on, this is what skiing will look like for us ...

Wii love to ski this way - no schlepping required! Knock yourselves out, cutie pies!

frrrrrrozen ...

so this is what my front yard looks like in february ...


... and what better way to spend a freezing day then to have some frozen hot chocolate from my one of my favorite stops in NYC, Serendipity. They post a picture of their "real" frozen hot chocolate on their website - it's their signature treat, served in a giant glass bowl with many straws ... it's an absolute must whenever I'm in New York! But for when you don't have that luxury, they sell packages of their frozen hot chocolate mix ... basically just powder, milk, and ice in a blender and voila:

Yum, it soooooo did not disappoint ... enjoy!

so ... why start blogging?

So it turns out that reading blogs can be addictive! It all started when I got to know Erin Gates and her fabulous blog Elements of Style. She and I did some volunteer work together in 08/09 for our former high school in Connecticut. Being eleven years younger, Erin was a fun breath of fresh air - I enjoyed getting to know her and checking her design blog quickly became my daily treat in the Fall of '08 ... she has great style and her posts are very personable, like hearing stories from an old girlfriend. Our birthdays are one day after the other (well, ok, 11 years and a day) and her post about turning 30 last August is a great example of her relate-ability ... addictive indeed.

But, like potato chips, I soon realized that you couldn't have just one blog ... within a few months I found Erika at Urban Grace and of course within an hour I found her twin sister Darby's blog Fly Through Our Window and by last summer I was hooked on Simply Seleta too. Once I started juggling four blogs as my daily treat, my bookmarks grew exponentially because then I started to get to know the "family" of people who check in and comment at these blogs and they all seemed to have blogs of their own ... great blogs that dish about all my favorite interests: home renovations and decor, photography, life with kids, the list goes on. Over this winter, I even stumbled across a couple of wonderful design blogs from folks who are literally right in my backyard: Shelter and Katy Elliott. And talk about close to home ... imagine my surprise when I came across the design blog of a friend and neighbor (and designer extraordinaire) Molly Frey who lives just a few doors down the street! Soon after that, I stumbled upon another local friend's blog, Gabi of Tickled Pink Design. Gabi's adorable son and my daughter have been classmates throughout elementary school - she's one of those super creative moms who juggles it all so of course her blog got bookmarked right away too. By the New Year, I was up to about 8 daily blogs and checking in with at least 15 more on the weekends - talk about a guilty pleasure, these blogs feed all of my interests in one sitting - how delicious! I've been able to find answers about everything from paint colors to recipes- from wide angle lenses to crafts with the kids ... and everything in between. Who knew?!

So that's the loooong answer as to what led me here ... it's been a slippery slope since that first blog (thank you, Erin!) - stay tuned ...
xoxo

what will it become ...

more or less what i envision for this blog is simply a way to vent and share - from the mundane to the exciting, it will be a fun way track my crazy life ... mostly as a mother, but also as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend, as a wife, as a teacher, the list goes on. since i am all of these things and more, i haven't quite found the right clever words to summarize who i am in just a couple of crafty sentences (that daunting space in the right column marked "about me"). i'll get to that that later ... for now, the task at hand: what will it become? i'm excited by the idea that this blog will become my cyber-footprint ... a virtual scrapbook ... the ultimate narrative ... a legacy really. very cool ...