Home

DIARY

Sitting In My Backyard, Thinking About Shutters

September 17, 2018

Fact: When life gets tough, kittens help.

Weirdly enough, I haven't been crying much about moving - the actual fact of leaving this house and going to another one. Don't get me wrong: I've been crying about other things - oh god, so much, to the point where I wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning and have to mainline six glasses of water because my body is fresh out of fluid - but about the house itself, I've tried to be relatively all-business, all-the-time.

I mean, we're in escrow. I have solar panel lease transfers to sign. Boxes to pack. Schools to notify. Children to keep safeguarded from everything that's swirling around them. We have to be out of this house in three weeks.

Eat

Cacio E Pepe (And Some Seething)

September 14, 2018

Me, ten million years ago.

Many things about me have changed over the years that I've been writing this blog. My interest in wearing high heels, for example. My waist size. My willingness to stay awake past the hour of 9PM.

One thing that has never, ever, ever changed - the tenet to which I have held steadfast, in vocal and furious opposition to any and all attempts to sway me:

Recipes

Thank Goodness For Ice Cream Cake

August 28, 2018

You know those Dairy Queen ice cream cakes with, like, rainbow clowns or whatever on them? I always wanted one when I was a kid, but Dairy Queens are in short supply in Manhattan, and my mother has an angel food birthday cake tradition, and so poor, poor young me never had ice cream cake.

I know; it's tragic.

It has, however, been more than rectified, because I now have two children and oh god, so many birthday parties to go to, which means I also have oh god, so much access to ice cream cake. The latest iteration in the Get Ice Cream Cake For Jordan mission: Erin made the thing that you see pictured above, and yup yup yup, it is absolutely as good as it looks, to the point where I insisted she take the leftovers home lest I start thinking that ice cream cake for breakfast (and lunch, and dinner) might be a good idea.

Home

Everything I Know About Selling and Buying Houses

August 22, 2018

(Almost) ready to go.

Here is why I think I am at least marginally qualified to put up a post about everything you need to know in order to buy or sell a house: Because as home-selling and home-buying processes go, I have been through it.

We're talking transcontinental trips involving viral gastroenteritis, hospital trips, and 19-hour plane delays. Bidding wars that we lost, and lost again, and then lost again and again and again. Last-minute sale cancellations that took place in front of an extremely large group of colleagues and/or actual people who were paying me to be a professional-type human being, many of whom thought that I had actually died because of the sound I made. Total, I-cannot-do-this-anymore, full-body-and-brain paralysis.

Before & After Renovations

How I Turned My Creepy, Claustrophobic Bathroom Into…This.

August 21, 2018

Wait until you see inside.

Awhile back, a reader wrote in to ask me an interesting question: How, she wondered, did I get past the intimidation factor of a redesign? How in the world was I confident enough in my vision to actually...you know...pull the trigger, and make it happen?

The short answer is, unfortunately, that I maintain a (possibly unfounded) belief that if something goes amiss, you can fix it. In other words: it's just a house. And it's just decor. And while obviously you should put a lot of thought into a major renovation before kicking it off, the worst thing that can happen is that you don't like it, and then you either do something else, or you live with it.

« Previous 1 … 19 20 21 22 23 … 321 Next »