You Know what I hate??!

No! I dont hate these super funny and delicious sumo babies. I want to eat them.
But anywho, just recently, some random lady I overheard on the street triggered a very common and obnoxious pet peeve of mine. And this one is a baby pet peeve. Now, I don't have children, but I do have common sense.

My annoyance comes from overhearing someone asking a mom on the street, "Oh, what a cute baby! How old is he?" Which to the mom replies, "He's 33 months."
Really?! Really?! He's 33 months?! That's just plain ridiculous. Your baby is almost
3 years old. Just stop with the month thing.

At what point do you stop referring to your babies age in month? I mean, people don't have time to sit there and decipher what 33 months means in years. Why are you asking people to do math to figure out your baby's real age? And no one is asking (or cares, unless they are related to you) how developed your child is or if he can read Latin or change their own poopy diaper. All people want to know is how old, in years preferably, is your baby.

And to be honest, 11 months should be the cut off. Because once that baby is a year old, there no need for "my baby is 14 months." No, your baby is still technically in the 1 year range. Stop being so douchy. Oh, and it really bothers me when they cross the 2 year range and i constantly hear "hes 23 months. oh, she just turned 26 months." I want to punch them in the face. The only time that baby age in months should be allowed is on clothing store hangers. And not because I like it, but because you cant really fit "1 year old" "2 year old" "1 year and a half" on the top of the hanger in small fine black print.

Just to get some maternal back up, I called my bff Vivi, who is 16 weeks, ahem, I mean 4 months pregnant (this was her joke) with her first child. So I vent to her and she starts to laugh, which is a good sign, and obviously so, she says she agrees with my observation. She thinks its totally idiotic when parents throw months at you when it comes to the baby aging process instead of just giving you a number. Its like "oh, so now you want me to work at figuring out how old your baby is?!"

I mean, I don't walk around telling people that I'm 348 months old. That would just be weird and completely toolish of me. So don't do the same to your baby. I'm sure if that baby could talk, he/she would say "no fool! I'm not 33 months old. What do I look like to you, a math equation?!"

Here's to you. Here's to me.

Kathy.

Boudoir Bargains.

My Goodness! Its been 3 weeks since I last blogged and I was feeling the withdrawals. I can't even imagine what you, my 19 loyal readers, were feeling because of my literary absence??! I suppose you can compare that feeling to what a drug addict feels when he's being weened off the pipe. But don't worry. I'm back and I have your daily fix! Amen.

So lets talk about my bedroom and latest bargain purchase. Seriously, I just saved a whole bunch of money on my car insurance. No, just kidding. But I did save a ton of money on my new bedding. I am not embarrassed to say that I am the bed in a bag queen. I love it. Its easy, budget friendly, and stylish. I have graduated from basic bed in a bags to more fancy dancy ones but even I still can't deny that there is an element of cheap in them. I'm growing up now, so that means my bedding has to grow up too. Granted, my most recent boho inspired bed in a bag, was reduced to $75 from over $300. That's very de la high. But it was time to retire it for many reasons. 1) I'm over it. 2) Ive had it for over 3 years and 3) My dog, Ito, likes to hump the accent pillows and so has left big holes on all four corners of each sham and it looks distasteful to say the least. So, my hunt for the perfect bedding began.

Ill spare you all the in between details of Internet searching, home section field trips, and even cutting and pasting from catalogs. So fast forward to the day I received the fall Pottery Barn catalog. I was instantly in love. I had to have the Wells Palampore Bedding Collection. It was perfect. I'm usually not a flower fan but this was perfectly done. It had a vintage feel to it with dusty shades of blue, gold, brown, coral, green, and cream. It was going to tie my whole room together.
Then I looked at the price. Yikes. Como si yo fuera millonaria and I had diddy dollars to throw around! The bedding was going to cost me over $300. That's like, 5 bottles of good champagne! I was not loving that price. It was completely out of my budget. Instead of superficially feeling sorry for myself I had a brilliant idea, bc that's what I do, I have brilliant ideas. Pottery Barn outlet! Hello!

So I went to Coco, batted my lashes, and asked him to drive me labor day weekend to Riverhead (which is almost 2 hours away from the city) so that I could go to the outlets and check out the bedding scene at PB. He actually agreed but he had a specific request, "Can we not get another bed in a bag? I hate those.". Wow. It looks like a created a monster.

Outlets were a bit of a madhouse but not overwhelming and not to sound like a total snob, but the higher end outlet stores tend to be less crowded than your typical Charlotte Russe, Aeropostale, and Nike town outlets. Different clientele all together. So we browsed around the bedding section. Coco even found it necessary to try out all the beddings on display and say "Look babe. this was feels soo good. I love it." Um yeah, only you aren't the one paying for it. Lets keep looking. So I turn the corner, and I just couldnt believe my eyes. Wells Palampore at the outlets?! I must be hallucinating bc this collection is the current merchandise available at the stores now. Coco was sold. I was sold. I was going to save money. A lot of it! So I picked up a duvet (which I'm sure had an imperfectly aligned button which I'm sure is the reason this particular piece made it to the outlets), 2 European shams, 2 standard shams. And guess how much this pretty young thing saved??!!! Over $150!!!!
Mission accomplished! What a great feeling to save big and on good quality no less.

As soon as we got home, we were like 2 kids in a candy store. We went straight to the bedroom and put our new bed together. Coco even helped with the duvet like the good husband that he is. I find it hysterical. I said to Coco "Babe, remember the days when you were like a super guido and you couldn't wait to go to pastillero all niters in the city??? Look at you now! All you care about is rushing home to get your new purchase on our bed. How times have changed." And for the better.

Here's to you. Here's to me.

Kata

And the Award for Best DIY project goes to...

So for those that know me, I am not the "do it yourself" kind of girl. I'm more the "pay somebody to do it because I don't want to deal with it" chick. This drives Coco crazy because he hates when I throw my Diddy dollars around for things like, painting a wall, putting up curtains, and possibly even hammering a nail. I kid, I kid. Its not far fetched, but thankfully, he steps in for much of the heavy lifting in our apartment. Anyways, I am very proud to say that I have recently undertaken some DIY projects to incorporate in our home, or even update a look, and I have to say, I'm impressed.

I love our apartment! That's not to say it hasn't gone through several incarnations, colors, style, and furniture (lots of these on impulse because of moi) as I find my true design personality. Coco is the more "let's think this out" voice in our marriage. I, on the other hand, am the "i want this now and I need to have it. It'll be great". You see where am I going with this. Example: Despite Coco's affirmative "No's", I went ahead and painted our guestroom in hot pink because I had a vision of a pink and orange room. It was an eye sore. It had a very short life span.

I wanted to prove to myself and to the naysayers, that I can certainly put my laziness and overwhelming feelings of design aside and do something small to build my creative confidence. My first task was to turn some boring dark wood coffee and console table into vibrant pieces for my living area. I made a trip to Home Depot, loaded up on paints and sand paper (how very HGTV of me!)and successfully transformed the coffee table and console into two very "new" distinctive barn yard red colored accent furniture pieces. I gave myself a nice pat on the back. I also gave my neighbors a nice view of my skillz since I felt it appropriate to paint them on my roof deck in my bra. To add a little character, I stopped at Anthropologie and replaced the knobs with some beautifully detailed hardware. Gorgy!

Now back to what this blog is REALLY about (see pic above). My photo wall. I love, actually I adore, photos. I'm that girl that has a camera in her purse and takes photographs of everything because I love memories. So I had this vision for my hallway wall over my mirrored console table, that I wanted to do a mix and match of old and new frames, mirrors, etc. Something eclectic and vintage looking. Once I brought myself down from a mini panic attack of feeling overwhelmed and not knowing where to begin or in making my vision a reality, I slapped myself out of it and began my process. In the recent fall catalog for Pottery Barn, I fell in love with this fabulous dark wood frame with a natural burlap interior. Stunning and it had such a "used" feel to it. It became the focal point of the mall and also the most expensive item I purchased. To capture that vintage, "lived in" feeling I desperately wanted, I hit up some amazing flea markets and thrift stores in the city. At the Hell's Kitchen flea market, I picked up a couple of old frames, all of them no more than $5 and a bronze painted $10 mirror. So far so good. Its happening! That same day, I rode out to Rhinebeck, New York for a shoot and decided to hit up a local Estate sale in this quaint, All American town. And I am so happy I did! I picked up two french colonial style prints in white frames for $5! Two for $5. Bananas! But my favorite purchase was actually a small caricature of a woman's profile dating from the early 1900's. With caricatures being all the rage now in design and people paying hundreds of dollars for a replica, I scored an authentic one for $5. Granted, it was very fragile. But nothing a frame store couldn't restore. It adds so much character and really tells a story. That's what this wall is- one big story. I found a great city sketch (looks like it could be a town in Germany) at a small thrift store on the Upper East Side. My last key additions to this wall were two old photographs I picked up at an antique gallery by my apartment months ago. They are actually from Mexico City and depict two curvy topless women posing in Gatsby-esque garb. They are sepia and very sexually glamorous. Now once my frame acquisition was complete, (added a couple of regular 4x6 or 5x7 frames from Crate and Barrel or from my basement), I took them to the frame store to get the backs refinished and had one of the flea market frames turned into another mirror! I kept surprising myself more and more and honestly thought I could become the female Nate Berkus and be on Oprah's show. A little bit of a paja mental, pero you never know, right?!

Enter Coco, stage left, with a hammer and some nails, and we began to bring my vision to life. Did I mention I had several old photographs of Coco's grandparents in Queens from the 40's and used them in several of the frames? Including his grandmother's cheerleading photo. It really added sentimental significance to this little portion of our home and design. After 15-20 minutes of measuring, and me telling Coco what to do, the wall was complete! We both stood back, took it in and I was left in shock. The good kind of shock. Even Coco said to me "You did a good job, babe.". My goodness! The sense of pride I had in myself just burst out of me. I was so proud. I did it. All by myself. I stepped outside of the box, put my laziness in my back pocket, and proved to myself that with some patience, time, and research, I could do just about anything! I smell more DIY projects in our future. My apartment is a space of endless opportunities.

Of course, I'm still willing to pay for any form of hard labor. It is ME we are talking about!

Here's to you. Here's to me.

Kathy.