catching up

 dear diary,

long time no write.  for several reasons actually.  in no particular order i have simply been busy living my life.  a life more flawed and exciting and unsettled and painful and privileged than i ever would have dreamed possible.  ive truly been busy living life.  then there is the fact that i am profoundly private and shy, and the whole concept of sharing my style and my life is always a stretch for me.  add on top of that a couple of people/bloggers who copy me and plagiarize so blatantly it takes my breath away.  yes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but my blog is my personal outlet.  it is real and authentic, and i do not make a penny for it.  its purely a hobby, and to think there are people out there who use my words and copy my pictures and style and make money with their blog and books. it is simply disgusting to me.

it made me so sad and frustrated i didn't think i would ever blog again.  i mean, why should i create and share my posts, and do all the work for actual professional bloggers and designers?

so i stopped.  but i am back. and ready to expose my plagiarizers if nescessary.  i will be watching.

so spring is here, and life continues to be tumultuous and beautiful and sensual and painful at times.

brooklyn still has me in its grasp.  yep.

been house hunting.

ready to let go of the pennsylvania bolthole.  maybe.

we will see.

feeling like sharing some style inspiration and a tidbit or two tonight.

so anyway.

love my streetzies black cat slippers.  i wear them with everything

homemade vanilla bean panna cotta

my style  kind of...

 love this so much.  found this on pearl lowes instagram, and i am in love...

easter was quiet but nice 

 went to the oddities flea market at the brooklyn bazaar in greenpoint a few weeks ago.   a fun trippy time filled with goths and counterculture creatures.

the corpse reviver at the house of wax bar

 lunch in bergdorfs basement

 homemade schnitzel

the house i wanted to live in for the rest of my life...

waited and looked for two years and finally found my dream.  called the bank.  made a bid.  had an intense anxiety attack of epic proportions and withdrew my offer before i could come to my senses.  i will regret letting this one get away for the rest of my life.  never have i been in a house so perfect for me.  ever.  weeping now actually.

the house i want to sell in pennsylvania.  tried another shade of pink and failed again.

bowood

love this look.  already missing coat season.  preparing to be brooklyns number one mosquito victim as the warm weather and bare legs begin...

dreaming of house of hackney babylon

i officially quit trying with pink.  done.

so far the new year

is full of beauty and optimism. 

 though i didn't really realize i'd made any resolutions.  

new year

well hello there friends.  greetings from brooklyn.  i hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break, though i suspect most had more festivity than i did!  so christmas came quietly this year for me.  no complaints other than the snow forecast changed and stood me up.  and chase had some health problems which strangely always seem to happen around the holidays.  so other than two trips to the doggie emergency room, i had a quiet stress free christmas.  but it didn't feel like christmas.  is that the catch i wonder?  is christmas supposed to be stressful?  full of mess and chaos and worry about finding the right christmas gifts, and shredded wrapping paper and drama and overeating and bloating?  hmmm, i wonder.  cause this year i had a pleasant, non holiday.  yep.  hmmm.  its like it never happened.

so anyway i had a nice drive to the little house in pennsylvania.  got that little tree.  put it up in ten minutes flat.

baked two dozen cookies and a gingerbread bundt cake, and yes did have christmas eve at the local chinese restaurant.  nice.  odd.

and then there was chase.  poor little guy.  he was having breathing problems and then started dragging his back legs around, so off we went to the doggie emergency clinic.  we came back seven hours later with lots of drugs, and a much more comfortable boy.  but he is 13 and a half, but i guess i just can't bring myself to call him an old man!  so my boy has a collapsing trachea and possibly esophageal paralysis, and most likely had a vascular episode or a stroke, but i am told he worked it out.  a very confusing diagnosis, and i am researching these issues as we speak, but he sure doesn't act his age.  or frail for that matter.   next night he felt so good, we ventured outside at bedtime, and as i stood out there in the backyard in my red plaid flannel pajamas, enjoying my glass of wine, sans coat i might add, because the weather was unfortunately waaaayyy too balmy and springlike for my christmas tastes, he started to grumble and rumble and snort back behind the trees and bushes.  long story short, i was in that shadowey blackened treeline shouting and kicking and thrashing and saving my baby from a raccoon or a possum or stray cat.  who knows what it was, cause i couldn't see it, but i kicked its behind thats for sure.  to the soundtrack of wind and far off trains and tinkling wind chimes.  anyway chase trotted out of the hedges with a red bloodied snout and i was shaking like a leaf and so i wrapped my baby up tight in a towel and headed off once more to the emergency clinic.  yet again.  they cleaned him up, and he got a rabies booster shot , and he is just fine.  a miracle i didn't get a dui for speeding under the influence of red wine, so that was about it for the drama portion of my christmas.

my birthday is on the 30th, and it was a non event as usual.  i drove to target to get some things pretending to hold my daughters hand.  yep.  it worked.  close your eyes and visualize the person you are grieving and remember the feel of their hug or their hand.  then i drove back to the city, with a car full of treats and necessities from target and treated myself to a birthday cake pop at a truck stop starbucks on the turnpike.

i wandered to my favorite store in the afternoon of new years eve, and wandered out with two dresses, one blouse, a skirt and a pair of purple mary janes.  then i wandered across broome street to the gourmet garage for cheese and bread and pelligrino and chocolate.

enjoying all of my anna sui gorgeousness 

 it was new years eve and all, then i jumped on the a train and made my way back for a rainy quiet new years eve at home. 

 i hung out at home and listened to lucinda williams and nirvana and then crawled into bed before midnight, and caught up with several friends via text.  

you know its funny.  i am grateful for the nice things i have in my life.  my newfound health after a couple years of strain.  my dog. etc.  but i really think the word "grateful" is so over used.  i think people throw it out there as a bargaining chip these days.  as if saying it will temper any bad forces in life.  like a plea for a cosmic life raft.  or eating an avocado.  sometimes life stinks.  period.  and no amount of saying you are grateful will turn it around.  sometimes you just have to face facts, and put your head down, and snarl at your life and your tragedies and face them straight on.  last year i was not grateful.  nope.  it was horrible.  and confusing, and you never heard me fake gratitude here on the perfect life brooklyn .  no.  never.  i had moments of peace.  i had lots of introspection.  i always had a sweet puppy who loved me and sustained me and slept glued to my side at night.  but last year was one for the books.  and now i am honestly truly grateful that it is over.  i survived it.  i learned.  i grew.  this year is already better.  i gathered up my courage and am venturing back to a career i had many years ago.  i moved.  i have my sweet baby chase.  i have my health and my dignity intact and am pretty sure this year is already a good one.  no.  its already a great one.

wishing everyone a wonderful beautiful bright and shiny new year.   here is to a wonderful 2019!

love,  cynthia  xoxo

christmas in the empty nest

so as i said before, i am planning to celebrate a lovely christmas this year.  a very very very lovely one.

so i think i mentioned earlier that i keep my holidays separate, and i don't rush the seasons.  no tree up at the thanksgiving table, no take down on the 26th.  i still don't even have a tree up, mostly because i won't be here in new york for christmas and i don't want to transport a tree to the wilds of pennsylvania.  i do have some pomander balls and poinsettias and candles scattered around the apartment, and i spent a lovely day or two watching christmas movies, and decorating sugar cookies to my hearts content with a dear friend at her connecticut farmhouse which was so cozy and festive i simply could not believe it.  so fortified with the yuletide spirit, i march onward to my own domestic holiday with glee.

 so now i am so inspired and truly can't wait for christmas. i'm glad i still have so much to look forward to.  i am not christmassed out.  i ran some errands in manhattan today, and was stunned buy the lack of crowds.  everyone seems to be done with their christmas shopping i suppose.  i have not even begun.

i am still recovering and restructuring from last years fiasco when i sat and wept with fear after being stood up for christmas and so i need to create all new traditions, and i shall.  the rough plan is to stay here in brooklyn till saturday.  drive to pennsylvania to my little house early in the morning.  chop down a tree in the snow.  preferably a little one.  off kilter and spare.  then i'm going to drag it home and put the wet little thing in a stand and towel it off (it will be snowing) and decorate the rangy little sprig on sunday.  maybe with gumdrops.  and popcorn.  silver icicles too!  also going to decorate the house with tons of ribbons and holly and evergreen cut fresh from outside.  then i will tie on my apron and pull out the trusty kitchen aid, and bake.

baking list:

gingerbread 

peanut butter blossoms
russian teacakes

on christmas eve i believe i will go to my local chinese restaurant for dinner.

then after dinner i shall draw a hot bath, have a stiff drink, put on my prettiest silk jammies, douse myself with fifi chachnil, light a million candles, hang chases tiny little stocking, put out cookies and a cup of milk for santa, because of course i will...and carrots for the reindeer. sleep like a baby surrounded by soft miniasscule fairy lights and keep the tv on with a christmas story looping.
 i shall wake up to fresh snow, hug chase, make coffee,  scramble some eggs, listen to music, cause i'm not sick of it yet, and then build a roaring fire in the fireplace and sit and watch the snow fall cause where i'm going, there is a white christmas in the forecast.  yes i am dreaming of a white christmas.



peace  xx

no holiday stress here

bah humbug?  no.  not at all.  it is the season of hope and renewal here in my world.  yes, last year christmas was traumatic, and life was upside down and now it still kind of is but no matter.  i'm determined.  a happy holiday is within my grasp.  i am optimistic and cautious for the remainder of the calendar year.

yes.  i am cautiously optimistic.  as they say. 

so right before thanksgiving i moved out of my apartment in brooklyn.  ive never ever been a good mover and had been there years, but...

it was time

so im taking it day by day

hoping for no bumps in the road

fingers crossed no drama

homesickness be damned

so i'm going to do a couple things here.  i'm going to throw on my high heeled bunny shoes, and i'm going to bake some cookies.  cause these lemon ones look really really really good, and i'm going to watch a christmas story on christmas eve over and over, and i'm going to get a tree.  yep.  simple goals.

christmas facts

some truths i hold dear:

 its the most wonderful time of the year 

 there is no place like home for the holidays 

 it is better to give than to receive

it is not just for children

it IS too commercial

a white christmas is aways preferable

pink is the new red

mistletoe is just kind of dumb
santa shops at target

clove and orange just might be the scent of heaven

angels are among us

i believe

xx

a little bit o christmas prep...

thanksgiving was one for the books.  the house has been tidied, and stocked, and is ready and waiting for the christmas visit...

xx