goodbye march ...

every March for as long as i've lived up north, i take as much time as i can to go home to Florida and just chill with my family ... i am lucky enough to have 4 generations in my family with my beautiful 90-year-old maternal grandmother at the top of the family tree. and this year the addition of my adorable new niece, now 6 months old, made it especially fun. As an added bonus, March is always a great time to get out of New England - Florida gives me the light therapy recharge that i need to make it through the rest of the brown cold days until that long-awaited spring finally arrives in Massachusetts (April showers and May flowers is the truth up here - it's a long homestretch!).

so this year's trip, along with all of March, is now history. as always, it was a great trip - but this year we had huge swings in morale along the way: from the lowest lows (a vicious stomach flu for my daughter) to the highest highs (like that adorable baby niece) ... and did i mention that we drove this year? like in a car. i admit it's tough to make a 3,000 mile road trip with kids fit into 13 days, and this year's complications (the flu, the flat tire, ugh) were no help. but ... in spite of it all, my 2 wonderful daughters and i emerged as jedi road warriors. it helped that we've already logged thousands of miles together - we love the adventure of the open road, we love the time spent together (playing road games or giggling over funny stories), and we love to take time to stop in to see old friends in various places along the way ... and that makes all the difference. so in spite of it all, it was another great March for us lucky ladybugs!

the only price to pay for taking half the month the off is that the bills, the phone calls, and the emails don't stop - getting back to reality always seems so unfair!

over and out ...

This past week swallowed me right up ... have you ever had one of those weeks where your calendar was filled back to back to back with barely a chance to breathe in between? I've been having one of those weeks, filled with commitments one after the other after the other like the perfect storm - out of bed before 7 am for the last 10 days straight (including my one and only sleep-in Sunday, boooo), I'm exhausted - and so ready to get off the hamster wheel! At this point I'm less than 36 hours from heading south ... so it's time to shed the schedule, pack the bags, and start feeling lucky as a ladybug!

('juju' wheelie bag by dante beatrix)

It's a 2-week trip, so I won't be back to this computer until March 28 ... pure bliss! By then I hope to be recharged and ready to restart this blog with a bang - so until then ... xoxo

you can take the girl out of Florida ...

... but you definitely can't take the Florida out of the girl! And don't I know it by the time March arrives each year ... I just wasn't cut out for these New England winters. As for me, I was lucky enough to have been born and raised in Palm Beach County Florida - and not many people my age can say that they were born in South Florida ... I'm not even sure that the small pink hospital I was born in had an official maternity ward back in the day. What's more amazing, even my parents were old timers to Florida: my mother was born in Key West 64 years ago - so she's a true original.

Unless you knew it first hand, it might be hard to picture the Florida of my childhood because these days, South Florida has become so overgrown that even I hardly recognize it. What we considered to be the useless swamplands waaaaaay west of town beyond the miles of orange groves that flanked the empty 2-lane roads have now become overbuilt with 6-lane roads flanked by strip malls and box stores as far as the eye can see. A total transformation. But when I was little, there were no highways and no traffic - just lush tropical surroundings and a neighborhood dotted with a handful of charming bungalow style houses. The coconut palms seemed to grow sideways, so this is what the tree climbing of my childhood was like:

(photo courtesy of alexandra rita)

We kept gorgeous tropical parrots in an outdoor aviary ... macaws, an african grey, and even a toucan named Valentino. We had a green dune buggy to drive on the soft sandy beaches. And my father's mother even had a wild monkey that lived in the giant banyan tree by her bedroom window ... he loved to take treats right out of your hand. I remember the beauty of the bouganvilla plants that grew everywhere ...

(painting by Mary Ann Ohmit)

... and the smell of the gardenia flowers in the air at nighttime as well as the sound of the coconut palms as they swayed and creaked with the wind - it was a really magical way to grow up. I'll always treasure it not only because it was so unique but because for the most part, that 'old' historic Florida is gone these days ... but in spite of all the development, a handful of the original buildings and businesses in my little town by the ocean still exist and in spite of the decades that have passed there are even a few members of the oldest generation who still frequent the beach clubs in their vintage Lilly's ... and every time I'm there I still feel at home. And in just 10 more days, I'll be home again ... 10, 9, 8 ...

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!