Nate Berkus Show

It's all about small spaces on small budgets! 
This Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 the latest Nate Berkus Show will be aired at NBC at 2pm New York time. Check your listings.
For this episode Nate teamed up with the popular design magazine, DWELL, for their annual small space issue and helps them solve America's toughest small space dilemmas.
A few selected pieces will be used to create little space miracles.
Among the items will be:

   A Rug (unifies small space to create illusion of size) --From FLOR tiles.

  Two occasional tables (they serve double duty) --  from IKEA 

   Marimekko pillows (pattern draws eye into room) - MARIMEKKO from Crate &   Barrel.


And of course there will be more, the studio audience, as always, will have many surprises and give aways awaiting them!

Click image to enlarge: 

I am a fan of his show and his affordable and clean lines! Go, have a look! It looks like super fun!



PS: And don't forget to look at my children's book recommendations here! The holidays are just around the corner....





Image through Nate Berkus Show, items above via websites.

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Winter?

Reading the forecast there was snow mentioned.... End of October, are you kidding?!

I think I will need something  for the season!

What do you think? And the place to go with it...

Or this?

And I love this!

From the Milli Collection. And the equally incredible timeless Stephen Gambrel! You can find it here and here!

To see some of the winter weather around here check out my other site! It's rather hard to believe!

All images via Milli collection and Stephen Gambrel websites.

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New treasures

I scored two lovely treasures. I found a beautiful tea pot and a lovely silver tray for the holidays!  My source for many hunts is Etsy and you can easily follow me there. 
From Falcon and Finch came both: The tea pot looked like nothing much upon first seeing it, but I loved the shape.


This is what I'd gotten:

And the result after some really hard polishing: On the bottom it reads 1883 
B. Rogers Comp. silver on copper 1200. And silver shiny it is now. The two dark parts on the handle seem to be bakelite.

The Reed and Barton silver tray was already beautiful, I just gave it a once over and voila! Perfectly ready for coming parties!

A little green next to it....

Right at my window!
And here one more look at the tray and tea pot!

I just love it!

PS: Don't forget to check out my House and Living part, where my latest post is all about recommendations for children's and teen books! Think holidays!

Have a wonderful last October weekend! Halloween is coming too! 


: )







First image FalconandFinch, last four by V.Zlotkowski

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Reading, writing and living

I can't say that fall lends itself more to reading then any other season for me. Although the notion sounds romantic, with days shortening and the fireplace beckoning.
There is not more time than on long summer days, beach side. Or snow covered winter afternoons, when others go skiing. Reading has been for decades on top of my priorities. It's what I do. My family will attest to it. And the dirt under the sofa as well.
I am also a survivor through reading. For books have always helped me cope. And imagine.

I have begun writing too, which now takes the other half of my time, after I care for my family. And read. I have become more reclusive, turn away from much entertainment and hole myself up, happily.
It's a strange state of affairs. I still can't fully think of myself as a writer.
But writing I do.

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I picked up a writer's magazine yesterday, showing a sad and painfully thin Joan Didion on it's cover.
I have read her haunting account of her husband's death in  'The Year Of Magical Thinking'. A book which filled me likewise with sadness and hope.

Joan Didion

She has an extraordinary eye for reality. Her essays have interested me more then her other writing, telling me of an America from the 6o's and 70's I never knew.
Now she has written a new memoir, about loosing her daughter. The book is called 'Blue Nights'. It will be out this November.
So many of my own fears and feelings, I imagine, will be touched.

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It reminded me also of the writer Isabelle Allende's daughter Paula and her untimely  death at age 28 and Allende's subsequent book with the same name.
I always fear the loss of any of my four children, a fear, parents experience at many given challenges to let go. And yet, mercifully, we rarely experience the death of a child in our days, thanks to the advances in medicine and our daily awareness of luring danger. (I am aware that it is not so in many parts of the world until today)
When it happens, it seems, we are struck harder. Although I think of it as a misconception, since neither the mass death of children through epidemics or common childhood deceases could surely have had anyone getting used to it. Nor the death of a single child. Maybe hardened. I can see why mothers hardly smiled in pictures of long ago. How many of them experienced terrible losses?
Of course there are other ways of loosing children. Through divorce or alcohol, drugs or neglect.
Having experienced it myself I know what millions of divorced parents feel. Also as a child, coming from a family where divorce would have been a better choice for so many reasons.
So much is touched and broken open again.
Yet there is hope for me, all my children are well and my husband sitting next to me.
I am writing and filling in the pains of years past with my own magical thinking, my
writing and memories. I capture them and make them obey to the demands of my soul.

I

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There are other books which have given me a chance to think back to experiences I tried to come to terms with, the oddness I felt as a child, the not belonging, my teen years living with an abusive, alcoholic father and a weak, depressed mother.
Just a few days ago I finished reading Jennifer Haigh's novel 'Faith'. A book about keeping or loosing faith in people, a family under extraordinary circumstances. A book through our book club, which I liked against my previous thoughts.


A few days ago a 20 year old boy from our neighborhood was found dead on the street.  A suicidal overdose after a short career of alcohol and drug abuse, a young mind criminalized through his habits, coming from a 'dysfunctional' family and what must have been unimaginable hopelessness and loneliness. I did not know the boy, nor his family, but it did not let me sleep. I kept thinking about him and his missed life.


And again I am pushing myself to think positive, stay optimistic and hopeful. Against doubt and the dark walls, which sometimes build themselves up around me.
These are the moments, when I feel the most connected to life, when I feel my soul intact and guiding me towards the future, my dreams and the one's of my husband and children. Where I see what's possible and what I still can do!
I am a reader.
I am a writer.
I am alive.

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