Happy Weekend!

I love this hand drawn map, from Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers. What a cool idea. I lived in the artsy, busy and bookish neighborhoods of NYC during my tenure there, never the “stylish” according to this New Yorker, but I may beg to differ.

Happy Weekend dear readers.  I hope you all are off to some exciting adventures. My mom is heading into town as my hubby heads to Istanbul. He’s working on a ballet there so he’ll be gone for over a week, thankfully CiCi (aka my mom) is hightailing it east. What would we do without our moms!

We are closing on our house next week (fingers crossed) and then we’re going to … Release the Kraken. We’re tearing down walls, repainting, staining and refinishing the floors and completely gutting and creating an entirely new kitchen (yay!). There are a million things I want to do this house. Every room is just so wrong right now and desperately cries out to be fixed but budget dictates that I must exercise some serious patience with her (my house, that is). I am the type of person that likes to tackle everything all at once, I can’t stand to leave things undone, but I don’t much have a choice here and will have to channel my inner Zen-ness.

In the meantime, I can’t wait to start scouring flea markets, vintage stores and craigslist to round out my decor. Stay tuned next week as I’ll be posting BEFORE pictures of Miss Virginie (after our dear newfound home state of course) along with some mood boards with a slew of ideas for design. I’m trying really hard to curb my enthusiasm for a California late-mid century house and respect the fact that Miss Virginie is of course a Virginia native with an unfortunate Colonial-ish vibe. Now, I pretty much hate anything Colonial, so you can bet that those ridiculous faux columns embracing the front door will be first to go. Inside, she’s a blank slate so I can really do anything but feel like I need to keep reminding myself that I’m in Virginia and not Laurel Canyon.

I would love your thoughts! We haven’t done a big reno project since our New York apartment and I’ve never done a kitchen, I’m pretty psyched.

What are you all up to this weekend? I’m going to hang with the kiddos and CiCi and watch Tina and Amy light it up on the Globes- my favorite awards show of the year, no one really takes it that seriously and everyone’s just drunk and happy, really the best kind of awards- and those two ladies kill me, they can get away with anything.

What I’m Drinking This Weekend:

I’m sticking with Southern France. My post this week about the Languedoc made me nostalgic for that part of the world, so I think I’ll try this inexpensive bottle from the Cotes du Rhone. Tasting note to follow. I once heard a Somm say that you really could never go too wrong with a bottle of Cotes du Rhone, but I would have to disagree with that as I have gone very wrong indeed. Let’s hope this one is promising, especially since it’s $12.

And maybe this ode to Maggie Smith: the Dowager Countess Cocktail for my Downton Abbey viewing.

A Few Things:

The Northern Lights- I have got to get to Iceland to see this fantastical sight. Anna Watson Carl’s posts about her recent trip to see the galactic display, are so inspiring. And this hotel blows my mind.

15 30-Minute Meals from the gals at A Beautiful Mess.

Crafty Winter Activities for the kiddos from Handmade Charlotte.

A True Artist- this is so sweet.

This looks amazing. Big Thornbirds fan- totally looking forward to this.

CBK, “the Original Gwyneth?”, I don’t know what do you think? I know that I love me some CBK, looking through these photos is kind of fabulous and makes me so nostalgic for the late 90s.

Cin Cin ya’ll! Have a great weekend.

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