My favorite show on TV right now is MAD MEN. I had been hearing about the show for years, but I finally bought season 1 on DVD so I could see for myself what all of the fuss was about. Now I get it! After one episode I was hooked. The show is that good. The acting, writing and wardrobe are soooooooo good and make the show an absolute pleasure to watch. Just when you thought it couldnt get any better, you can go back and watch each episode with commentary on the DVD, which gives you so much insight on the careful attention to detail that Matt Weiner (creator) and staff pay to each show. Brilliant Emmy winning costume designer Janie Bryant is launching a line for QVC out Sept 29th inspired by the series. I love the pieces, especially the bag! I have never wanted to wear vintage inspired clothes more than right now. I am loving all the new ladylike collections that seem to draw inspiration from Mad Men particularily Louis Vuitton’s new ad campaign. Absolutely gorgeous!
I am not a big sports fan but I do love to watch a good basketball game. Over the past few weeks all I seem to hear about is the free agency. It has become a sports version of a soap opera with rumors swirling from hour to hour over ESPN and the internet about where top players like Amare Stoudemire, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James may go and the details of the teams aggressive pitches to the players. The Knicks who have been waiting for this for years offered LeBron the max deal and his choice of two other top players to play alongside while the NJ Nets co owners, Jay Z and Russian Billionaire, Mikhail Prokhorov, also made a convincing pitch to LeBron. The teams and players are all waiting on LeBron James, the NBA’s most coveted free agent to decide where he is going to go so they can all decide what the next step for them will be. It seems LeBron holds all the cards. He will make his announcement about where he will go Thursday night at 9pm EST at a secret location. All the proceeds from the show will go the The Boys and Girls Club of America.
I would love to see him go to the Knicks and play alongside Stoudemire who just signed with the Knicks and David Lee, my favorite player. I have seen LeBron in NYC over the past few years and it’s widely known he was spotted checking out this GORGEOUS NYC townhouse formerly owned by Billy Joel. His broker said his biggest concern was “ceiling height” which doesn’t seem to be a problem here.
Glastonbury is the largest music fesival in the world. This year it was held in Pilton, Somerset, England at Worthy Farm. The lineup included Vampire Weekend, Muse, Snoop Dogg, Shakira, Norah Jones among many many others. These were some of my favorite looks from the festival.
People always ask me where to go when they visit NYC. The city is packed with so many great dining, shopping and entertainment options that it can be hard to decide where to go, so I wanted to narrow it down to a few of my very favorite places (see above). I also love to take a walk in Central Park, visit the MET (it’s a must see) and see a show (The Producers is my favorite) and I always remember to tell my friends to pack comfy shoes. My favorites for running around the city are my conversechuck taylors or my simple black ballet flats (and both pack light). What are your favorite NYC hangouts?
I have always loved the “Keep Calm and Carry On” saying. It’s kind of the story of my life. If only I could always “Keep Calm”. Anyway, I recently bought a small book with this saying on the cover. It’s full of inspirational quotes. I particularily loved this quote so I wanted to share it with you.
Recently while unpacking the boxes and boxes of books that I never had room to store in my Manhattan apartment, I came across a copy of A Short Guide to a Happy Life by Anna Quindlen. I started flipping through it thinking, “Happy Life tips are always a good thing to reread.” As I was reading, some of the authors words were so beautiful that I decided to jot them down and write them here for the “Other Stuff”. The author talks about how busily we move through life and how much beauty we miss in everyday things. Here are few excerpts:
“Get a life in which you notice the smell of Salt Water pushing itself on a breeze over the dunes.”
“How a red hawk circles over a pond and a stand of pines.”
“The way the melodies of a symphony rise and falls and disappears and rises again.”
“Look around at Azaleas making fuchsia starbursts in Spring.”
“[Look at] a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night.”
“Shut up, listen, laugh.”
“Keep still and be present.”
In honor of Mother’s Day, InStyle Magazine featured celebrities and their Mothers’ favorite recipes. While I usually cover what Zoe Saldana wore to her latest red carpet event, this is the “other stuff” in the Fashion and Other Stuff. I saved this recipe (one of Zoe and her mother’s favorites) because it looked delish, didn’t have any crazy ingredients I’d never find, was low calorie (or so it appears), healthy AND most importantly it’s one of the few recipes actually simple enough for me to want to cook. So for those of you who like to cook, but want it to be simple and easy, like me, enjoy!
Sometimes I love to stay in and spend the day organizing and cleaning. I always feel a huge sense of relief when my surroundings are organized. It’s an absolute nightmare for me when things are out of place because I’m such a scatterbrain anyway, that when things are a mess, I’m really lost. I am always buying magazines (mostly fashion), but also magazines relating to traveling, cooking and home decor. My absolute favorite home decor mag was Domino who is no longer (I miss you Domino); it offered practical yet fresh modern ways to arrange and decorate your space. For the last several years I have kept a book full of tear outs from great vacation spots, recipes, restaurants, salons and decorating ideas (i will be sharing the best of them on this blog). Several years ago, I tore out this page from House Beautiful. It was from “25 tips for organizing every room in your house”. I know some of them seem really obvious, but I still wanted to list them because they are so easy and have helped me tremendously. I would love to hear your comments about some of your favorite ways to organize.
Everytime I walk by Redbox, I am tempted to rent something. I usually try to refrain because it never costs me $1. I rent the movie, forget to take it back and end up paying for two weeks and then owning it. I had meant to see An Education starring Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard in the theatre after seeing the great reviews Yahoo users had given the movie. (I swear by those Yahoo user reviews. They are always right on.) Yahoo users gave this film an A- which is pretty much as good as a movie ever gets. I never made it to the theatre, so I gave in and rented it from Redbox (Yes, I never took it back and own it now). It was so good that while watching it, I actually turned to my husband several times and said “Can you believe how good this movie is?” He agreed it was good. Everything about it was good. The fashion was great, the writing, the acting, the chemistry, all of it! The best part is you can’t guess how it will end. I highly recommend this for your next movie night. Check out the trailer!
I recently spotted Chanel’s nail color shade, Particuliere, in Saks. It’s exactly the shade I’ve been searching for! I excitedly asked the saleswoman if they had that shade in stock and to my very pleasant surprise they had one bottle left!!! I couldn’t buy it quick enough and had my nails polished in Particuliere the following day. I’m getting tons of compliments on the color and think it’s the perfect taupe for spring. I finally have an alternative to my other all time favorite colors, Essie’s Limo-Scene and OPI’s Lincoln Park After Dark. While googling the color to find a great image of the bottle, I came across listings for the polish for sale with some asking up to $70 for a bottle! But I have a feeling that you can still find this shade in one of your local department stores and if not, others online were selling it for a more reasonable $24, which is still a lot for polish, but not so bad if it brings you the kind of happiness mine has for me.
