Anthro in the house

I stopped into Anthropologie the other day at Harvard Square because their window display was too enticing to pass up.  I am a sucker for their homewares, and if I had more cabinet space, I would have really been in trouble. Good thing I live in a shoebox, right? RIGHT?!

Here are a few of my favorite things:

Bake by Numbers pie plate

I love the nod to Pantone on this cake plate.  It’s also fun enough to display on its own, though, I love pie, so it would be preferable to fill it with pie in my opinion. Apple pie. And yes, I’ll have it ala mode.

Colorful and delicate portuguese pottery nesting cups.  Love the scalloped edges. How sweet are these?

I love this vintage inspired kitchen scale. I could totally use one of these for weighing …stuff. Like the appropriate amount of Mike n’ Ikes to consume before I tuck into dessert (which naturally would be the pie I made in my Paint By Numbers Pie Plate).  I love a pie chaser after gobbling up Mike n’ Ikes.

You know what I love to drink while eating pie?  Milk! Or leche, as it cutely displays on this drinking glass along with other languages. I love leche! I love milk! I love these glasses. I want.

Anyone who knows me knows I like expensive soaps and the lovely caddies they come in.  These are definitely on my radar.  After all, they are pure and good. Just like me.

Fat Tuesday [Baked Chicken Tendaaahs]

Happy Fatty!  Actually, this Tuesday’s Fat Recipe is Skinny. As in Skinnytaste.com.  Have you heard of that website? My girl Haylen sent it to me, and I immediately found a simple recipe to make that was dee.lish! Basically, the blog consists of awesome recipes and she breaks down the calories, including Weight Watchers points.  I’m not on Weight Watchers, but hey, I did it once just to track my eating habits (which turns out, were horrendous), and I know I had something like 20 points a day, and this meal is 4 points total.  So yeah, it’s super yummy, and not something to feel guilty about when you are stuffed.  And Kase LOVED it. So here it is, peeps:

Baked Chicken Tendaaahs (That’s tenders for you non Mass folks out there)*

1 package Chicken Tenders

2 tsp olive oil

2 tbsp Grated Parmesan Cheese

2 tbsp Panko Breadcrumbs

6 tbsp Italian Seasoning Breadcrumbs

Olive oil Cooking Spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425°. Spray a baking sheet with olive oil spray.

Put the olive oil in one bowl and the breadcrumbs, panko and parmesan cheese in another.

Put chicken in the bowl with the olive oil and mix well so the olive oil evenly coats all of the chicken.

Place strips of chicken into breadcrumb mixture to coat, then on the baking sheet. Lightly spray the top with olive oil spray then bake 8 – 10 minutes. Turnover then cook another 4 – 5 minutes or until cooked though.

This is whatcha get:

I could have browned them a bit more, but ya know, I was starving, as per usual, so once the timer went off, I snatched those puppies out of the oven and snarfed them down.  Kase absolutely loved these and made me promise to make them again- the parmesan with the breadcrumbs is a definite upgrade from just using breadcrumbs alone, and I am not sure if it is the olive oil or it is baking them, but these tendahs were very very juicy and didn’t taste as “breaded” as when you use an egg yolk, which is an improvement in my book. Anyway, if you don’t believe me, you can read the reviews on her site.  Definitely make these.

*adapted from this recipe.

2 years later…

Kase and I love to travel- that’s no secret here on the blog.  But the sad fact of the matter is, the last time we went anywhere that required a passport was about two years ago.  Upon our return from Paris, we were surprised to learn we were preggers.  Boy, was I happy I didn’t know *that* when I was drinking French wines and stuffing my gullet with pates and unpasteurized cheeses. Oh and doing shots of limoncello with my newfound Italian BFFs on New Year’s Eve. But here we are almost two years and one expired passport later, and I am happy to report we have plans to leave the country over Christmas vacation.

And by we, I mean Kase and myself. You read that right- we are leaving the despot with his Grammie for an entire week so we can actually enjoy ourselves. Is that bad to say?  Well, too bad. It’s true. We’ve attempted to take him to the beach enough times in Maine that we have realized that swim diapers and baby suntan lotion and sand in baby crevices and babies beelining to the ocean don’t lend themselves to relaxation.  And don’t be jealous that I have a mother in law who is willing to watch our son for a week. She’s mine. You can’t have her. We’re pretty darn lucky.

Now that I could cross “family friendly” resorts off my list, we hemmed and hawed over where to go for our big fat relaxing vacation. We finally came back to Costa Rica.

Two years ago we vacationed in Nosara, Costa Rica- we wanted to find a sleepy little town and spend our mornings taking surfing lessons. Nosara was perfect. And the location provided the perfect mix for us as a couple- I love to laze around and relax by a pool, reading and being waited upon. Kase? Not so much.  But taking surfing lessons in the morning left us pooped out by 9am- and freeing us to laze around by the pool, drinking cocktails and eating Guac. Perfect.

Unfortunately, our little resort- the Harmony Hotel– is completely booked for the Christmas holiday. So we are heading to a different town this time, to the Pranamar Villas, but the activities will be the same- we’ll take some surfing lessons, maybe do a zipline, and definitely relax by the pool. I mean, really. Check out the pool:

The resort is made up of bungalows and villas, giving you a ton of privacy, but also your own deck, either overlooking the ocean, or the pool and grounds, which are gorgeous. I’ll be drinking some delicious cocktails out on that deck. Oh yeah.

I am so very excited for this trip. Too bad it’s about 6 months away. Exactly. For now, I’ll close with some more travel porn. Enjoy!

Pick Your Battles

My friend Haylen just sent me this amazing post from The Bloggess.  I can not only relate to such a “disagreement” shall we say (mine involves throw pillows and bath towels), but you could basically replace her and her husband’s names with my own and Kase’s….until the chicken.  Then she blows me out of the water with her awesomeness. But beware, Kase. Beware.

This morning I had a fight with Victor about towels. I can’t tell you the details because it wasn’t interesting enough to document at the time, but it was basically me telling Victor I needed to buy new bath towels, and Victor insisting that I NOT buy towels because I “just bought new towels“. Then I pointed out that the last towels I’d bought were hot pink beach towels, and he was all “EXACTLY” and then I hit my head against the wall for an hour.

Then Laura came to pick me up so we could go to the discount outlet together, and as Victor gave me a kiss goodbye he lovingly whispered, “You are not allowed to bring any more goddam towels in this house or I will strangle you“.   And that was exactly what I was still echoing through my head an hour later, when Laura and I stopped our shopping carts and stared up in confused, silent awe at a display of enormousmetal chickens, made from rusted oil drums.

Laura:  I think you need one of those.

me:  You’re joking, but they’re kind of horrifically awesome.

Laura: I’m not joking. We need to buy you one.

me:  The 5-foot tall one was $300, marked down to $100.  That’s like, $200 worth of chicken for free.

Laura:  You’d be crazy not to buy that.  I mean, look at it. IT’S FULL OF WHIMSY.

me:  Victor’d be pissed.

Laura:  Yup.

me:  But on the plus side?  It’s not towels.

Laura:  Yup.

me:  We will name him Henry.  Or Charlie.  Or O’Shannesy.

Laura:  Or Beyoncé.

me:  Or Beyoncé. Yes.  And when our friends are sad we can leave him at their front door to cheer them up.

Laura:  Exactly. It’ll be like, “You thought *yesterday* was bad?  Well, now you have a enormous metal chicken to deal with.  Perspective.  Now you have it.”

Then we flagged down a salesman, and we were all “What can you tell us about these chickens?”, as if we were in an art gallery, and not in a store that specializes in last years’ bathmats.  He didn’t know anything about them, but he said that they’d only only sold one and it was to a really drunk lady, and then Laura and I were all “SOLD.  All this chicken belongs to us now.”

Insert-inappropriate-cock-joke-here.

So he loaded it onto a trolley, but Beyoncé was surprisingly unstable, and the giant 5 foot metal chicken crashed over onto the floor.  And Laura and I were all “CHICKEN DOWN!  CLEAN-UP IN AISLE 3″ but he didn’t laugh.  Then the manager came to see what was causing all the commotion, and that’s when he found the very-conservative salesman unhappily struggling to right an enthusiastically pointy chicken which was almost as tall as he was.  The salesman was having a hard time, and he told everyone to stand back “because this chicken will cut you“, and at first I thought he meant it as a threat, like “That chicken has a shiv”, but turns out he just meant that all the chickens’ ends were sharp and rusty.  It was awesome, and Laura and I agreed that even if we got tetanus, this chicken had already paid for himself even before we got it in her truck.

Then we got to my house and quietly snuck the chicken up to my front door, rang the doorbell, and hid around the corner.

Knock-knock, motherfucker.

Victor opened the door and looked at the chicken in stunned silence for about 3 seconds.  Then he sighed, closed the door and walked away.

Laura:  What the fuck?  That’s it?  That’s the only reaction we get?

me:  That’s it. He’s a hard man to rattle.

Victor was surprisingly pissed that I’d “wasted money” on an enormous chicken, because apparently he couldn’t appreciate the hysterical value of a 5 foot chicken ringing the doorbell.  Then I said, “Well, at least it’s not towels” and apparently that was the wrong thing to say because that’s when Victor screamed and stormed off, but I knew he was locked in his office because I could hear him punching things in there.  Then I yelled through his door, “It’s an anniversary gift for you, asshole.  Two whole weeks early.  15 YEARS IS BIG METAL CHICKENS.”

Then he yelled that he wanted it gone, but I couldn’t move it myself, so instead I said okay and went to watch tv.  Then when the UPS guy came I hid, but he was all “Dude.  Nice chicken” and Victor yelled, “IT IS NOT A NICE CHICKEN”.  Which was probably very confusing to the UPS guy, who was just trying to be polite, Victor. Victor seemed more disgruntled than usual, so I finally dragged the chicken into the backyard and wedged it into a clump of trees so that it could scare the snakes away.  Then I came in and Victor angrily pulled me into his office so that I could see that I’d stationed Beyoncé directly in front of his only window.  And I was all “Exactly. YOU’RE WELCOME.”  I told him that he could move Beyoncé if he wanted to, but he totally hasn’t.  Probably because of all of the giant rocks I piled on Beyonce’s feet to dissuade burglars.  Or possibly because Beyoncé is growing on him.  Still, I can’t help but think that we wouldn’t even be having this argument if Beyoncé was towels.  Honestly, this whole chicken is really a lesson in picking your battles more carefully.  Plus, he’s awesome and I can’t stop giggling every time I look at him.  Beyoncé, that is.

Best. 15th anniversary. ever.

Now, I know, you will all start heading over to her blog instead of mine. And who can blame you? She is my idol. But don’t forget about me, kay? I like it when you visit.

Making the Bed

So you may remember my child slept in a closet? And then he didn’t?  Well, that left us with a closet. A closet with no shelving, mind you, but a closet nonetheless. Which we had to make functional again.  So we did.  Months ago. And I am a bad blogger, because I never shared that with you.

So we had the management office come back and install our shelves again, and we were able to move our clothes back into the closet. But first, we had to brainstorm about what to do with the items that were formerly in the Nurfice (office/nursery) such as the desk. Oh yeah, that.

We ultimately decided to dismantle the desk and use the filing cabinets as bedside tables, and move the dressers into the closet.  Remember where I got that idea?

Now to be honest, this all happened months ago.  But I kinda lost steam.  And then I noticed I never made the bed in the mornings and was always shutting the door to the closet because it was a disaster in there after we threw all our clothes onto the shelves.  Let’s just say it was not a restful place. I literally would walk in and shut off the lights and immediately go to sleep. That’s not good people. That means you don’t like the space. It means you hate it. Just sayin’.

So I finally got my act together, cleaned up the closet, made the bed, switched out some artwork and now? I really like it.  Wanna see?

Just a reminder of how it all looked before:

And now? It looks like this:

To break it down for you, I did a couple of things.  We kept all the same linens, but I replaced the “Sparrow” shams and added three large Euro pillows with plain white pillowslips from Ikea.  Easy Peasy. I then added my favorite color scheme to the room (grays, taupes and white) by mixing up some pillows I already had and adding in some new ones from Target.  Love that felt bow pillow!  Am I alone in thinking it’s cute? Oh well.

The other major change was to move the former bedside “tables” (really, Ikea Malm dressers) to the closet and replace those with the Pottery Barn Bedford file cabinets.  The Malm dressers were placed in the closet and add great storage and style to the closet. It almost looks like a custom built closet. But not.

Lastly, I switched out the too-small frames for other kinda too small frames above the bed. I printed out some black and white photos from our wedding and put those puppies in there. Free art is awesome. Free black and white professional photos? Even awesomer.

And for those of you out there who are into looking at other people’s closets? Here ya go:

Guys, I gotta tell ya. There is something about a well made bed and a clean organized closet. I head downstairs to the bedroom early now and read in bed at night. I like to spend time there. Which is a shame really. Because I have no desire to step outside of my air conditioned shangri-la to enjoy this:

Fat Tuesday [Peanut Noodle Salad]

Let’s try something new shall we? It’s called Cooking. Yes, I know, I love to eat. But I have a confession. Me no likey the cooking.  I blame the fact that I always assume that if I follow a recipe, it will end up being super delicious, and it always ends up okay, but not “it was so worth it to cook this myself rather than order this” kind of good. Know what I’m saying? I never have that issue with baked goods, which is why I love baking. But cooking? Not so much.

So in order to motivate myself to cook more meals at home, I am going to start a little thing called “Fat Tuesdays”.  These will consist of me sharing simple simple simple recipes I have tried out and which have gotten the seal of approval from the Man of the House (Kase, not Colin. Colin is the Despot of the House).

A couple of weekends ago, we had some friends over for a barbecue.  Except I felt like making it a little different, so we decided to call it a Tiki Barbecue and serve some food of that ilk.  Which meant I made some sweet and sour shrimp kebabs (skewers?), chicken satay and then a peanut noodle salad. I made a lot of it- for about 12-15 people- so we actually ate the leftovers on Saturday with my parents.  More good reviews.  So, I feel confident enough to share.

Peanut Noodle Salad

1 package of Udon Noodles (can be found in International Food Aisle)

1 bottles of Annie Chun Peanut Sauce  or if you like it spicier, try House of Siam Bankok Peanut Sauce (the noodles will drink up this sauce, so be prepared!)

Diced red pepper (or orange, or yellow, or hell, all three. why not)

Snow peas

1 Can Bean Sprouts (La Choy makes this)

Shredded carrot

Diced mango

1 package of stir fry chicken pieces

Directions:

Dice all vegetables (or drain from can) and place in large bowl, like so:

action shot!

Boil noodles for 4 minutes or according to package instructions. Remove from water and rinse thoroughly. Add to vegetables in bowl and add some peanut sauce (otherwise, the noodles will stick together like glue. No bueno). Toss to coat.

that's a whole lotta peanut sauce. now add more.

Cook chicken and when cooked, add Peanut sauce to brown.  Remove from pan and add to noodles.

Add remainder of bottle of peanut sauce and toss. No, I am not joking. Trust me.

Place in fridge to cool for 30 minutes.

I am far superior at eating than I am at food photography.

Eat. Then have seconds.

That’s it, Folks.  But trust- it gets pretty good reviews around these here parts.

Another day in the life with a despot…

 

Father’s Day Weekend via Instagram

I just got a seat on the Instagram Wagon, and now I am going to pretend I was all over that since the beginning.  Oh Instagram, I love you. What I love the most though? How quickly you upload to this blog. You win.

Anyhoodle, we had a great weekend celebrating Kase up at the beach. Here’s a snippet of our weekend in Instagram (Wilson- from Home Improvement -Style- my boys like to remain mysterious!):

We spent time opening much deserved gifts, visiting Kase’s alma mater, Colby, where we bought out the infant clothing section and Colin commandeered a stuffed animal,  reading on the porch and hitting the beach, which tires out the whole family and gets certain mamas sunburned (ouch).  We’re happy to be home but looking forward to spending a full week at the beach come July 4th.  There’s a parade, people, A PARADE!  With themes! Get excited.

Babycenter!

Much to my surprise, Colin’s closet nursery was featured over at Babycenter on Friday. A cool way to start the weekend off right, huh?  Check it out if you are interested! The writer also featured Bowie’s nursery from Ohdeedoh, which was the inspiration for Colin’s space.

Who’s Your Daddy?

Original Artwork by Colin. The drool stain on the lower left hand is the perfect finishing touch.

Colin has wrapped and decorated his presents and we are ready to pack up the car and head to Maine for the weekend where we will celebrate Kase’s first official Father’s Day on Sunday. He’s a pretty awesome dad, so it’s only fair we give him his propers one day a year.

What about my present for Kase you ask? He’s not my dad. 😉

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Mommy Profiling

The below is a great and hysterical article written by Teresa Strasser for Huffington Post. I think my fellow mamas will like it. She apparently also has a book out, titled “Exploiting My Baby…Because it’s Exploiting ME”.  God, SO TRUE!  Methinks I will have to check that out.  She is one funny chick. Thanks for the link, Catie!

Mom Profiling Is an Imperfect Science, but I Know Who You Are

Like forensics, mom profiling is not a perfect science, but I can narrow things down.

Because moms, I know you. In four seconds, I can accurately assess almost everything about you like a crime scene investigator knows which direction the pistol was pointed from the bloodstain pattern on the wall. It’s mom forensics, and after enough crime scenes, one mom can practically clock the velocity of another mom’s bullet.

If your daughter didn’t want her hair brushed this morning, I know it from the angle of the tangle. I know what company makes the purple plastic clip in her hair and the size socks she wears.

Okay mom on aisle nine, from the looks of your quilted Eddie Bauer grocery cart cover, I can tell that like me, you are a first-timer, extra paranoid about germs and guilty of registering for crap you didn’t need. Either that, or your kid gets sick often, which means she probably goes to daycare.

The mom with amazingly lean biceps at the yogurt store with her toddler in the late afternoon, well, not only is she a stay-at-home mom, her gym has free childcare.

She reads Us Weekly on the treadmill and watches anything on Bravo.

Cubes of fresh fruit or plastic containers of homemade pasta emerge at a birthday party? That mom’s child has an allergy to wheat or dairy, or the mom is a bit of a controlling, hippie, worrier who would rather vote for Newt Gingrich than let her baby eat pizza or cake. Sleep training is something she equates with waterboarding.

If a mother’s face features liquid eyeliner or any other complicated cosmetics situation, her kid has an easy temperament. That baby was hanging out in a Fisher-Price battery-operated swing for 20 minutes while mom shaded her lids.

Incredibly beautiful blond mom at baby music class who smiles at me extra big and for a fraction of a moment longer than the social norm? That lady is lonely. She’s an actress who has very few friends because she’s so pretty she makes insecure women uncomfortable. She will approach me and compliment my son’s old-school brown leather boots to break the ice. She will approach me because, perhaps unconsciously, she’s taped off the crime scene around me. She knows without knowing why that I’m lonely, too. And I’m approachable, because my diaper bag is tasteful, but has one broken zipper and an obvious Desitin smear.

With my gruesome metaphors about crime and blood, it may be lost that I’m talking about something nice, a connection to other moms based on this one, shared characteristic. Before I had a baby, moms were invisible to me.

They strolled right on by me and now, I can tell you that stroller is a Bob Revolution in plum with a swiveling front wheel. You paid the big bucks for that bad boy and the sidewalk around your house is craggy or you jog. There is a small chance either you or your husband has dabbled in mountain biking. You paid extra for the handlebar console, which means you can’t go anywhere without your coffee or you’re a chronic key loser. You are on maternity leave from a high-powered job.

If you are checking your phone at the park, but don’t seem to have a sense of urgency and have a dead look in your eyes, your husband is out of town and you’ve been on baby duty by yourself all week. You are bored.

Just as my toddler’s brain is soaking up knowledge and skills faster than he will for the rest of his life, I’m also a bit of a sponge, not because developmentally my brain is ready for action, but because in the last 20 months I’ve been exposed to so much new information that, despite myself, I can’t help but know things, and now that my mind has been bombarded with information and forced to process the difference between decorative and mesh crib bumpers, I understand the magnitude of minutiae. I can see through you like a glass bottle (you recycle, used cloth diapers).

By the way, mom whose pre-walker has lightly scuffed sneakers — I’m jealous. You obviously have a rich source of hand-me-downs.

-Teresa Strasser

Edited to add: Kase just got home and informed me I am the mom at the gym.  He then clarified it’s because I love to read Us Weekly and watch Bravo. Apparently, it ain’t got nothing to do with toned arms and biceps. My own arms are not lean nor are they toned and I would describe them at this time as “Skinny fat”. Actually, I would describe my whole body that way.

Identification, Schmidentification

WE'RE BAAAACK!

Alternate title: Bureaucracy sucks.

So we went back to Social Security yesterday, this time equipped with the proper marital paperwork.  The wait was a little longer due to the 800 Irish students applying for social security cards (and who kept calling bald eagles “Chickens”), but we finally were called in and I proudly handed over my paperwork, ready to have my name changed.  Except my out of state license was now expired. You can’t make this stuff up.  The kind lady at Social Security informed me I could head right on over to the DMV (another $10 cab ride), get a Massachusetts license in my maiden (current) name, and then come back and finish my paperwork to change to my married name.  I asked her, “Wouldn’t that mean I would have to go back to the DMV again to get a new license after I got my Social Security card with my married name?” She helpfully replied, “Yeah, so sorry”

So we headed over to the DMV, got a temporary license and now we wait. For my $100 license to come in the mail. Because my temporary license says very clearly in bright red lettering that it is not a valid identification. Which you need for a social security card. And after I get my social security card, I will get to pay another $25 to have replaced with a new license with my married name.  Which means they will print out a sticker and affix it to my license.  For $25. And that is all before I can apply for a new passport. Which is how this how thing started. Didn’t I tell you that?  Oh yeah, I am doing all this simply because I needed to update my passport and figured, “Heck, why don’t I take this as an opportunity to change my name?!”

UGGGH. I knew this would be a pain in the tootie. This is why I waited four years.  Too bad I waited an extra month too long, or the license wouldn’t have been an issue.

So I am looking for the silver lining here.  Usually I have a little mental folder of travel ideas stored away, but since I haven’t let my mind wander that way since the ol’ passport expired, I am out of ideas.  So fill me in: where should my little family head once I get all this sorted out (and get the despot a passport- oh shit.)?  Share your ideas or your own travel experiences!

It’s the silence that scares me…..

Yesterday, I was doing some stuff around the house when I realized things were nice and quiet.  Too quiet…….And then I found this little character in the corner, up to no good. No good at all.

Gotcha!

Time to get outta Dodge!

I didn't need to pay that bill anyway.

The Beauty Department

Have you all seen this new site? I assume yes, since I am always a little slow on the uptake and getting down with the latest and greatest.  But this site? Loving it.

This site was created by a makeup artist and hair stylist as well as a certain reality television starlet to demonstrate to regular reality people how to create those perfect beachy waves, or how to apply a winged tip with eyeliner.  Now, as someone who owns a curling iron, but uses it to straighten her hair, this is exciting. And it kind of reminds me of when I used to read Seventeen Magazine in grade school and those how to pages were always my favorite.

So do you recognize the reality television star?

It’s Snooki!  Just kidding. It’s LC- that’s Lauren Conrad to those of you not obsessed with Laguna Beach and The Hills, like I am. Er, was. (Sidenote funny story: When I first met my husband, I asked him to come over to put together some new furniture at my apartment, and that boy bought me “Laguna Beach: Season 2” to watch as we worked. I’m pretty sure that was the moment I fell in love.) I love her style, so I’ll be checking in on the site often. I hope she shows how to perfect the one rolling mascara teardrop for maximum effect. That might be useful for emotional bribery. Did I just write that??

Mantel Mix Up

I finally decided the mantel was looking a little sad.  And since bad moods are contagious, I attempted to mix things up and see if it improved its mood.  Remember, it looked like this:

A little boring, I know.  But since I can’t always depend on fresh flowers to do the job since the cat eats them, I had to think of an alternative.  Something simple, but something that could help fill the space and not look cluttery.  You know how I feel about clutter. And since the bookshelves were looking a little less than their best, I removed some frames from them and moved them over to the mantel:

I think I was afraid to add to the mantel because I didn’t want anything to take away from the photograph above the fireplace.  Yes, I know most people place mirrors there, and had I received this one, that sucker would have been outta there faster than you can say “wha???”, but alas, I did not receive such a mirror and so the photograph remains. It was actually a West Elm purchase, on sale for like $20 bucks or something.  I love it- it’s a self portrait of the photographer, called “Ten Seconds”.  Basically, he set the timer for 10 seconds and ran like hell up the hill and jumped at the top.  Take a closer look:

Can you not help but smile when you see that? I actually like it more for the explanation behind it, but I originally purchased it as a “sister photograph” if you will of another piece we own, called “Running Man” that Kase bought on a whim on the way home from work one night. I find that one a little depressing- it’s a businessman running down an alley. Probably to jump in front of a train or taxi. I don’t know. It depresses me.  So this was the perfect antidote.

Because I didn’t want to take away from the photograph, I decided to add simple black and silver frames to the mantel, and because I have OCD, they had to be symmetrical. I am sure Nate Berkus would come in and if not take them down immediately, would at least shake things up and make everything asymmetrical. And I would politely wait until he left and put them back. That is how OCD I am.

In other not-so-boring news (or even more boring news, depending on your perspective): Houston, we have a walker:

Yes, he is pushing around his dirty clothes. Now if he could just find the washing machine…..