Being Southern / Getting Settled Instagrams

1. Farmer's Market haul - I can only buy what I can carry
2. FM cantaloupe turns into this salad
3. That is a lemonade/beer on top of gnarly listings in that grocery store ad
4. Bonnie's booty is friendly with the tiger rug
5. I fixed my hair in a twisty-top Gwen Stefani-inspired knot
6. I'm jealous of this bumper but I didn't even have a car in '08

Fundraising Update

How's my fundraising going for the 5 Boro Bike Tour you ask? Remember, I'm riding as a charity team rider benefitting Planned Parenthood. The ride is May 6th and the tour is 40 miles but my transport to and from the start-line should put me at riding about 60 miles on that day. My daily commute is like... seven miles round-trip. I need to train a little bit. Even though it's not a speedy competition race, I'm going to be socializing through it, I think/hope.

I'm at about 40% of my goal of $750. I heard I got a donation directly to the PP website and that was such sweet news. I'm selling the necklaces I was on Martha Stewart presenting to raise the monies. Shop here if you want a really useful accessory that will get tons of compliments and inquiries. I seriously end up telling my whole life story when I wear one. "Where'd you get that?" Leads to "Oh my goodness you made that?" 
I support Planned Parenthood and I've been a volunteer on the PPNYC Activist Council for a little over a year. Mainly, I am a volunteer escort at the Manhattan clinic on a Saturday or two a month. That generally means I put on a smock and help the patients get past the protesters. (I went through training and there are guidelines and an awareness of rights,  and post-shift reports but generally, you get the idea.)

I'm actually blogging about this tonight because one of the prettiest, most popular patterns is selling out and I can't get more of this fabric. This is a heads-up if you have your eye on the Southwest Print.


But this one is gorgeous too. It's about the shade that Martha chose to keep for herself.


It was the best day ever. 

The necklace colors are kinda weird in this photo. I'm wearing Raspberry and she's wearing Plum. She totally loved me to deaf tho. 

The Craftiest Time of the Year

Saturday I went to the Martha Stewart Craft Sale at MSLO HQ and then I went to see Amy Sedaris again- this time at SpaceCraft in Brooklyn. Amy said she's seen me "Three times already" this week but this was only two. She's bad at math, or I have an imposter.

Sidenote:  I made a new friend and saved her from going to a dreaded basketball game in the ultra-dreaded Dirty Jerz with my husband, her boyfriend and other Duke alumni. New lovely friend is along for this whole crafty Saturday ride... She is a dermatologist and she blew my doors off by reminding me to use SPF on the backs of my hands! They're gonna show my age, so I need to put SPF on the hands. I often find myself hanging out with doctors but never the kind that tell me anything remotely useful. I love this girl!

OK- Now were at Martha's- I fall hard for Mixed-Media Christmas Trees. I like spice.
So cutest use of puff balls and screws on this tiny baby Christmas tree-

Those sharp, silver ornaments are freaking screws - I guess they are hotglued together. So cute! But sharp as shit. Moving on.

This flat tree is a great idea for New York City crazies just like me who live in teeny-tiny apartments and can't spare the space for a 3-D tree.


Martha Stewart's Head Quarter is really sleek and pretty and I've been there and written about it before but it's still fun special to go where she goes. To be in her space and try to sneak a peek at the work areas and her old modeling photos. Martha was a fashion/beauty model before she took over the world. It's true.

This is really bad to say, but my friend and I weren't tempted enough by the offerings to purchase anything, but we both stepped out of there with some fantastic ideas. There's a necklace that I can't wait to try to make myself. By myself. For myself.

Ooh! I also saw the make-up artist who did my make-up that time I was on Martha and I told my friend - because this was day 2 of her knowing me, "I'm about to possibly have a strange interaction with this woman" and then I went up to the make-up lady and geeked out! Like "You did my make-up when I was on Martha and it was one of the best experiences of my whole life. Not just being on Martha, I mean- just the make-up part was one of the best times of my life." And she did not remember me at all, and she was honest about that, but she was happy that I had such a good time and she wrote down her number in case I need her freelance services. Could happen.

And this is her from that day in 2007. I told her she explained her whole spread to me, and that I have a picture of it.


I realized it was getting close to time to get ourselves to Brooklyn to post up for the Amy Sedaris event at SpaceCraft. We took the train and showed up around 4:30 and they told us we couldn't come in til' 5. Dang! So we went across the street and ate kick-ass sandwiches at Papa Lima. OMG.



Emily joined us and we got in line but after sammich time, the line was a little scary because SpaceCraft is small, but we were behind a gang and a NY1 camera. Amy stood on a chair and did a quick demo.


During the Q & A - the questions from the audience weren't that great, in my opinion. It was more exciting when I asked her what she plans to sell at the BUST Craftacular Sunday and she busted me out for stalking her, listed what she's going to sell, then said I can only buy 1 thing. Liar!

Oh! She also said she wore a diff. dress because she knew I'd be there.

The Q & A wasn't going anywhere so she asked Paul Dinello a question about what he dressed up as for Halloween and he joined her in standing on a chair. He was beyond adorable/precious and that's the NY1 camera that's filming her for an upcoming special.


I have horrible photos because I want to be discrete and not be an asshole.

That NY1 Special better be an hour long, and they should have interviewed me.

My gang didn't buy books. Amy was signing at the other end of the big SpaceCraft craft table and they had a glitter-toothpick-marshmallow ornament crafting station set-up opposite Amy. We sat down and worked some magic.


We tricked Amy into posing with Emily. Har har!


The basketball slumber-party broke up and I had this hot new glitter marshmallow ornament from the Amy event so I was hot to put my my tree. My massive 3' tall tree with trashy but festive, fiber-optic tips.



I love these plastic flower light covers.


Oohs & Aaahhhhs!

Shrimp & Grits and all that Good Shi*

Today I did NOT ride the bike. I took my sewing machine on the BUS and then the SUBWAY and it completely sucked. I was nervous someone might bang into it and break off one of the plastic parts that poke out and it was h-e-a-v-y.

The great news is that it should be repaired tomorrow afternoon and I'll bring it home in a cab.

But I still got stuff done tonight. I made two no-sew tutus.
The black one will be for her cat look during the day, and she will add the purple one and corresponding belt for the witch look at night. She's going to be the most adorable witch ever.

I actually made the ends of the tulle flat or straight-across, but then cut them into angles after it was done. I think it looks prettier for the edges to be in angles. I hung it here on the coat rack and sort-of gave it a tutu "haircut" I also wanted the purple layer to be shorter so the black would peek out beneath it.


After work today I was walking through Bryant Park and they are ASSEMBLING THE ICE-SKATING RINK! Time is going by too fast! It was just summer-summer-summertime!



This cape is another button make-over piece. The cape was about $34.99 at TJ Maxx a while back. Maybe last October, but the buttons were shameful and I got these fancy ones for it which were about $30. It's still overall an affordable, nice piece. And it even has pockets.

I was able to be productive in part tonight, because we had shrimp & grits leftovers.
I cooked on the dollhouse oven last night.

This skillet looks HUGE on the tiny stovetop.


Of course it was a Martha Stewart recipe. And it was delicious.

Re: Following the Dots Around the City - Lichtenstein Art Tour on Bicycles with my Honey

Friday at work I found this NY Times article whispering in my ear that I should turn this into a daytime bicycle date for my huzzy and me. I was so impressed with myself with this fantastic idea, I got to work and took down the addresses and mapped it for bicycles. It felt like we biked miles and miles because it was tremendously hot for it being almost October, but here is our complete route:

Stop B was the Mitchell Innes-Nash Gallery in Chelsea
C was the Morgan Library & Museum
and D was the Leo Castelli Gallery not too far from our apartment

And here's the list of the galleries & museum, but not in the order in which we visited:

See my little quiz answers on the left? It's from my friend Amalia's "Which Teen Mom are You?" Quiz. I was equal parts Farrah & Catelynn, and that is a very accurate assessment of me. (I'm glamourous now like Farrah :) but I don't come from the most sophisticated home, and my mother and I did not have the best relationship.)

I think Woman in Bath was my favorite thing I saw all day, as in, that's me and I need her in my life/home. It wasn't a painting, it was at the Morgan Library and it was a drawing.

Starting out we rode across Central Park to get over to the Bike Super-Highway on the West Side.
I should have turned around and put not-jeans on, but I didn't.

We experienced riding on the West Side Highway Bike Path. It was superbusy b/c of the whole Saturday deal, but it's very nice.


It's even got double yellow stripes like a real highway for cars. Very cute.


We had a little breather before we went into the first gallery in Chelsea since were were hot, sweaty animals at this point.


Locked-up illegally. This little gallery street needs more bicycle racks or parking. We hated to do this, but we knew we wouldn't be in the gallery too long.




I biked this adventure in these shoes I got at Target in Raleigh last weekend. They were awesome!


Photo FAIL! I was trying to take BOTH OF US at a stop light.


We were on W. 26th Street and I recognized the Martha banners. I tried to re-create this old shot:


I did OK:




The Lichtenstein pieces at the Morgan were awesome, especially since we are Mad Men addicts and everything advertising-wise was more simple and visually pleasing in the design sense. The Morgan is the only stop on the tour where we had to pay, but it's a full-on museum and it was a full exhibit. It was only $12.

Good date!

Weekend Review

Running around the Jackie O' Reservoir in Central Park. This kind of pic is for PriorFatGirl who I L-O-V-E.

She encourages encouragement.

I like the "dark & moodiness" of this pic:


This is how Matt feels about taking a camera on a run and blogging about mundane daily events:


No married couple's weekend would be complete without a trip to the Home Depot. We planted some things on our terrace. I also scrubbed the terrace down like a Cinderella.


This pic happened fast, and it's super pretty:


This is a major cheap-o outfit. H&M Vest - $20, Dress from Marshall's - $12.99, Flip-flops from DUANE READE the drug store- $4.99.


Back to SATURDAY! I made this pasta dish. Martha suggested I make this per her badass iPhone app.


We did a picnic in Central Park. We had to sit near a fence to have something STRONG to tie Bonnie to and a few people stopped to look at us as if we were zoo animals. Bonnie is definitely a beast to gaze upon.


Here's the scene on beach towels.


Here we are and Matt is using a Lilly Pulitzer plastic cup!


That's my Eugenia Kim for Target hat. It got some random stranger compliments and discussions. Good, Productive weekend!

Martha Stewart Stitch Fest

I saw Queen Martha again at Stich Fest for her new book - The sewing craft encyclopedia. I thumbed through it quickly and do not think my bead necklace craft is in there. So unfortunate!

This is Martha's 71st book and the 4th Martha Stewart book to belong to my household. Nothing saves me as much as The Homekeeping Handbook. I'm going to have to buy another copy because mine is signed. I need to save the signed one for my bestest grand-daughter.

So the event was $30 and you got the book (retail $35) with the price of admission, plus a goody bag a the end.
It was open bar and I went straight from work. I was starving. I don't remember but I think I got pretty drunk.


There were so many older ladies I was worried about all of them boozing. It was reckless for me too because I was so hungry. Empty-stomach wasted is a bad form of school-night drunk. We were accosting the hors dourves girls as soon as they would appear from behind the curtain. One adorable elderly lady had her wine in one hand and her cane in the other.

There were vendor stations - people showing fancy sewing machines and crafts. None of it was too much my bag. Like, who will actually buy this? I think the appeal of this display was finding out how much this beast costs:


I did like the Gutermann thread display:





The space was really neat. It was in Chelsea. There's this event hall in the middle and offices/cubicles on the sides separated by a sheer curtain. We could see the worker bees working:


Back in the inner-working of offices and show-room type space, I spotted these old modeling photos of Martha.


She breezed through the event pretty early on- I was actually getting a drink at the bar, and she was really close, taking photos of the cute bar-tenders. She is so tall and strikingly beautiful. Her dope diamond studs were sparkling. Dazzling me.

This Craft was the most impressive thing:


Even cynical Matt should be impressed. I feel like I haven't seen him in a few days. I went to this Martha party, then last night I went to a birthday dinner and this morning I'm actually on a bus riding to Baltimore to see my cousins.

Here was my outfit:

I'm happy that my new job allows me to wear pretty much whatever I want. I'll keep it cute. Some of my boss-ladies dress very "White-woman chic" - I like.

I wish I had gotten a friend to go to the Martha event with me. I was a little lonely, but I did get approached by some staff. They were serving as little hostesses and they asked how I heard about the event (Martha's twitter) and I told some of them I had appeared on the show.

I saw Darcy Miller the Editor of Martha Stewart Weddings. She is beyond a little person. I thought I could kill Nicky Hilton with my bare hands because of her tininess but Darcy is that tiny but much shorter. You could put her in a duffle and steal her. Scary! Sometimes I'm glad I'm a "big person" as PF called me once.

I am very happy that I was able to tell her my feeling that Martha loves her "The Most" I didn't go on to say "She loves you more than she loves her own daughter, Alexis." But Darcy responded really cute and made me repeat it to a group of her co-workers nearby like a little parrot. I was happy to oblige.

This is them - I wasn't cool enough to ask Darcy to take a pic with me. That's my regret of the evening.

If Martha is my mother, Darcy is my sister.

Here's the loot of my goody-bag spread out on the bed... I was so drunk because I was STARVING at the end of the event that I was ravenously searching for a snack.

No snacks.

Look at what my animal/child has been doing during the day while we are at work- I swear to you I make the bed every day. Small spaces require it. And I have to walk on the bed to get my clothes out of the wardrobe and I trip if it's not loosely made.