So, That Happened

The other day I was sitting on the sofa with my leg slung over the arm simultaneously watching NCIS, flippin' through my new Coastal Living Magazine, and munchin' on some Bugles - multi-tasking equals power, people!  The Bugles that I hadn't eaten yet were perched on the tips of my fingers posing as Lee Press-on Nails, when, all of sudden, like out of nowhere comes da Hubbs and little did I know, but I was about to have one of those, "I -love-you-you-are-perfect-now-change" conversations.

Da Hubbs walks in and sits on the floor beside the couch and says, "I'm gonna do some sit ups . . . . You want to join me?"  I said, "No," and continued, "I have crossed and uncrossed my legs several times this afternoon and I'm pretty sure that move is classified as an intermediate to advanced yoga workout . . . . it's true, I heard it on Oprah!"  "U-huh . . ."  he grunted.  Then, I followed with, "I'm doing my Kegel exercises right now anyway."  "Kegel exercises?" he questioned. "Yeah, you know I'm flexing my pelvic muscles . . . . Like internally like . . . . .  Its supposed to strengthen my core,"  I said, as I ran my Bugle adorned fingers over my stomach region.  The Hubbs kinda shot me a sideways kinda look and said, "Okay, well it doesn't look like you're doing anything but having a snack.  "That's the beauty of this particular exercise," I shot back, "you can do them anywhere, without anyone knowing!"  So every time he looked over at me, while he was counting out his sit-ups, I would kinda scrunch up my face and tilt my head heaven-ward and squeeze my right eye shut to imitate physical exertion.  To be honest, I mostly just looked like a was about to sneeze or like a bee had flown up my nose - either that or like I was constipated and needed some of that yogurt that Jamie Lee Curtis eats.

I felt like I had escaped the "Fitness Forest" unscathed and could breathe easy. But I was wrong, because 20 minutes later he decided to go for a jog and invited me along.  I had to go this time cuz when he asked me I was caught in the act of polishing off a Haagen-Dazs Bar.  As we ran, I was trying to keep up and look all in shape and junk, when I got a huge stitch in my side and had to come to a screeching halt on the trail.  The Hubbs started jogging in place while trying to encourage me to push through it and continue.  What I wanted to say was, "Listen up, Triscuit, I'm fairly sure I dropped my uterus back there, and all this sweating is making my mid-life acne worse, not to mention that, at this precise, moment my underwear is wedged up somewhere close to my cerebellum - so back off!!"  What I did do was a little different - all that I really could think to do at that moment was throw up or cry, but I couldn't decide which one to do first.  I decided I should throw up first and get out of the way so when the uncontrollable sobs and snubbing started, I wouldn't suffer from a 1960s-rock-star-type-death.

I have to tell you, barf really comes in handy when you are trying to get out of doing stuff - just ask my Mom or my 1st grade teacher!  Da Hubbs just wrapped an arm around me and told me to hang on and quickly took me home and tucked me into bed and handed me my magazine and got me a Diet Dr. Pepper.

That's it . . . that is my big segue into this month's episode of "SO, THAT HAPPENED AND NOW LOOK WHAT I FOUND IN COASTAL LIVING."

No, really, look what I found! 

One feature I was particularly taken by was the piece by Steele Thomas Marcoux on Manhattan Beach designer, Jill Johnson, and her labor of love.  She converted a 1922 one-bedroom shack into a four-bedroom beach bungalow, nearly doubling the cottage’s size without enlarging its original footprint.  Johnson shares how she remade a rental mess into her dream cottage, one room at a time.

I'm all inspired now . . . where's that paint brush?!

Photos courtesy Coastal Living and Grey Crawford.
 
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I Lurve You!

The year was 1991 and I had fallen in love.  I had graduated from college, acquired my first real job in a design firm, gotten fired from said job, and was back working in retail until I could find another graphics design position.  I was living out my life in terms of romance, egged on by alot of hormones and pheromones.  My newly-found LOVE was a young attorney in the DA's office.  He was very different than the arty, free-spirited liberal guys I was usually drawn to.  He wore suits and ties and had a great checkbook-wallet-type thingy he kept in the breast pocket of his suit coat, just like I imagined Carry Grant might have.  (And yes, I get how ironic it is that I was taken by where he kept his cash - can you say pre-nup?!)  He was a conservative, a Catholic, and could deliver a mean voir dire .  He could, I figured, write a brief or an amendment to the Constitution instead of composing a song about me - to spell out what I meant to him and how he had never met anyone like me and couldn't imagine living his life without me.  VAIN you say? - absolutely, positively - but I was young and ME and what you thought about ME was my favorite topic of conversation.

Our first Valentine's Day spent together, we drove to a restaurant in the adjacent state and had a marvelous dinner, sipped on grown-up drinks and told each other stories about our families, our past relationships and our shoe sizes. (Wha?????)  On the drive home I became intoxicated with the feelings that I was experiencing and said really loudly and with kind of a speech impediment, "I LURVE YOU!"  It was at that moment that my LOVE turned and looked at me and smiled . . . . . . . . insert cricket sounds . . . . . . . tumble weeds rolling around . . . . . only the sound of the car on the road . . . not a word . . . . . and definitely not the words I was longing to hear.  It was at that moment that I was seized with an irrational need to fling myself over the bridge we were driving over.  What I wanted to do was throw him down, stick a knee in his chest while assaulting him with a tourette-syndrome-like tirade, using every cuss word I could think to rant.  But, I didn't.  The mood in the car was anything but romantic after that point and I was filled with resentment and anger... and a lot of urine - I'd forgotten to pee before we left the restaurant! 

But, here's what I did do . . .

I finally broke the silence with something along the lines of "What the #@$% is wrong with you?  When someone says that they love you, you just DON'T SMILE!!!  You say something back, preferably the same thing . . . . verbatum to be precise, only with a "too" at the end of it!!!!!"

We had meet 2 years prior to that night at a party that I was at with my then current boyfriend-type person.  When my LOVE walked in the door our eyes locked on each other and I asked my boyfriend in a kinda short of breathe like manner, "WHO IS THAT?"  Bad move - I'm aware - of course the boyfriend was offended and blurted out that, "Oh that's So-and-so and he pretty much hates women!"  "You mean, he prefers men?" I shot back.  "No, no, no he's just gotten out of a really awful relationship" said the boyfriend.

Fast-forward 2 years and I'm at a club dancing with friends.  I look up and see my LOVE staring at me with a drink in one hand and the other hand in his jeans pocket.  He's staring and staring and staring some more.  Finally, I got fed up and made a bee-line over to him and asked, "So, are you going to stare at me all night, or are you going to talk to me?"  And, it's at this point that his oratory skills acquired from his career in law came to their full potential with the most romantic thing I've heard, "Errrr . . . .uuuhhhhh . . . . . mmmmmm . . .eerrr . . . . gulp."  I mean seriously, he had me at "Errr", don'cha know!  Later that evening, we checked each other for tonsils and began what has turned into a fantastic 19-year adventure together.

And I made you endure that story to tell you this one and to go "on the record" about how time and age changes one's attitudes toward romance.  This story begins with my little sister,  Pauli.  She is a marvelous cook, she's also a vegan and exercises and generally eats bark and pretty much ranks in the "super hero" division of mother to her two little boys.  The other day we were visiting about our plans for Valentines day.  She was planning a dinner with a menu that consisted of grilled shrimp salad, scallop chowder with Pernod and Thyme and grilled kebabs with guava BBQ sauce.  Frankly, after a few minutes of hearing this, I was feeling like my planned dinner of Pringles, Altoids, and Cheddar Whizzy shot straight out of the can into our mouths, lacked a little something.

So, of course I said, "say who? . . . what the . . . where did all that come from?"  "My Coastal Living,"  she said, "it came in the mail the other day and those recipes were in there - it's their annual islands issue."  So, of course I rushed home and pulled mine out of the mailbox and immediately turned to the "It's Five O'clock Somewhere" article and found a ton of new booze recipes to increase the whole island bartender vibe I'm throwin' out these days.  They were sharing cocktails from islands around the world, like Bali, Fiji, Nantucket, Capri and Mauritius.

I also got really inspired by their piece on "The Prettiest Island Rooms."  They have pulled together some of their favorite tropics-inspired rooms into one super slide show.  You can go to Coastal Living.com and see it here.

 

 

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Going Coastal Instead of Postal

So, here I sit tapping away at my keyboard while stuffin' my cake-hole with sugar cookies and dreaming of a white Christmas - but if the white runs out, I'll drink the red - HA! I sleigh me! - get it "sleigh" instead of "slay!" Obviously, I've found my Christmas "Spirit" or shall I say, "Spirits?" I have to be honest here and let you know I'm good for at least another 5 or 6 more puns, so brace yourselves! In the last 48 hours, I've gone from zero to "freaking-festive" in like, no time flat. As those of you who read my last post know, I have had an extremely hard time this year getting hyped for the holiday season. It's been like an episode of the "True Tales from the Grinchy-Humbuggity Club" around here, but no longer. I'm practically Cindy Lou Who and all the citizens of Whoville put together, only with extra "Ya-hoo-door-ray" on the side.

It might be the "happy pills" talking here, but I reckon my newly-found merriment is due to a combination of several different events. To begin with, I was serenaded into a "right jolly old soul" by my childrens' holiday choir concerts this week. Additional factors helped as well, namely . . . . A little booze . . . . The onset of chilly temperatures . . . . A little more booze . . . . . And the arrival my of my Coastal Living. I've been flipping through it's pages and have been inspired to not only to deck the halls, but throw a party after the decking, cook for said shindig, and become a little bit more cocktail-savvy as a bartender. I even found a solution to a few hard to buy for friends in the 50 Coastal Finds Under $50 pages. And, if you will indulge me, I'd like to share some photos that are sure to increase your serotonin and "Ya-hoo-door-ray" levels . . . . Cuz, that's me . . . . I'm a giver!



I was inspired to get creative with my displays. Here they had a groovy idea for those without a fireplace. They cleverly hung Christmas stockings on an old cherry-picking ladder and suggested that when the china’s taking up table space, display holiday cards in a glass cabinet. I've also decided I NEED that cabinet!



Christmas is at my house this year, which droves of family all needing a place to sleep. Naturally, I loved this idea of outfitting extra spaces with coastal touches like nautical ornaments, tiny spruces in red pots decorating the coffee table, along with swags of garland - so happy and bright!



I am quite enamored with the beachcomber ideas. Beach finds can be used anywhere, for example, to trim the tree or front door, or even decorate wrapped gifts. The idea of using a large sea star at the top of the wreath instead of a bow gives me tons of ideas for my front door. Tons of other great ideas can be found here.



At my shindig, I plan on spreading the love with these crowd-pleasing appetizers. I'm thinkin' the smoked salmon and fingerling potatoes look mighty tasty and the peppered pancetta-wrapped shrimp look yummerific, as well! You can find both recipes here and here.



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Finding My "Happy Place"

The past few weeks I have felt like I was diagonally parked in a parallel universe. I have had a series of weeks in which everything has gone perfectly wrong. For instance, I am apparently incapable of operating the United States Postal Service - i.e. I sent birthday presents to a couple of friends . . . YAY! . . . . Sent both presents to one address . . . BOO! My soccer Mom van's check engine light came on, luckily I was right in front of a service station that could fix it . . . YAY and WHEW! . . . the repair clocked in somewhere around $1200 . . . . BOO! And, to make things completely unbearable, my "happy pill" Rx needed renewing, which meant I had to have an office visit, but didn't have the time or the inclination to show up for that gig. So, I decided to see if I could bypass that with a tragic sounding phone call explaining the lack of time and the broken ride, yada, yada, yada.

When I’m on the phone with my doctor, the pressure’s on to convince her that I’m not really a "happy pill" junky. To accomplish this, I decided to go with my “business-sounding-I'm really-not-a wack-job-voice” which is a cross between an impersonation of my Mom and the queen of England. It sounded a little something like this;

" . . . aaah Doc, here’s the deal . . . I’m not in my "happy place" right now . . . I don’t have any more medication, and I’m due for an office visit and, uhmm . . . I was thinkin' we could just bypass the office visit and maybe you could just call in the refill? . . . . cuz, rubbing my blanky against my cheek and sucking my thumb isn't really working anymore . . . . and my family is getting a bit afraid, they kinda have that 3 little pigs look about them and I'll give you 2 guesses who I'M CAST AS!"

My doctor heard my alarmingly “Joan-Crawford-no-wire-hangers” tone and knew she had to take action, thank goodness . . . . She called my pharmacy and renewed it without an office visit . . . YAY! . . . I pulled up to the pharmacy drive through and wouldn't ya know it . . . they were closed . . . BOO!

Luckily, the November issue of Coastal Living was waiting in the mail yesterday, serving as a delightful distraction. A glass of wine, a good long soak in the bath with my magazine, and I was all inspired and returned to my "just-a-bubble-and-a-half-above-anxiety" level. Coastal Living's 2009 Idea House in Seawatch at Sunset Harbor, a new development near Southport, North Carolina, is simply marvelous and was just the escape I was looking for! The greens and grays chosen by interior designer Phillip Sides for the master suite, are especially enticing, as are the rest of the rest of the design team's contributions including builder Mark Saunders Luxury Homes, and architect Sam Guidry. The Cape Cod-inspired look with its gambrel roofs and cedar-shake shingle siding has a gi-normous 5,800 sq. feet with three levels and 14 beds, a downstairs rec room, a top level sleeping porch, and outdoor kitchen and deck. All of which has views of native loblolly pines, live oaks, and marsh grasses that back up to Mercer Mill Creek and more than 20 miles of nature trails for walking, running, or biking. I think the words I'm looking for are YOOWZA! and SIGN ME UP! You can watch all of the video tours of the house here.

The Idea house is open for tours through November 29th and proceeds from the tour ticket will benefit The Boys and Girls Homes of North-Carolina. Tickets can be purchased for $10 at the door or online here.






Another of the many pieces that transported me to a happier place was the piece on Emmy Award-winning, Sherry Bilsing's California bungalow. The TV writer of Friends and The New Adventures of Old Christine, asked designer Jackie Terrell to stage her real-life family home with vintage finds, and inject a little color, while still maintaining the kid-friendly style. The bungalow that she shares with her husband and son is new, but was built to look decades old. It is sandwiched between L.A. and the ocean in Santa Monica, California, with views of The Santa Monica pier from the master bedroom. Sherry’s penchant for vintage style and her sense of humor were interpreted quite well by Jackie by using schoolhouse-looking things, like the glass-shade pendant lamps, maps, and globes from different eras. More photos and info can be found here.





Aaaah . . . . Now that's better, my universe is making a little more sense . . .

Photos courtesy Coastal Living, photographers Tria Giovan, Dominique Vorillon and stylists Heather Chadduck and Char Hatch Langos

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