suburbia update

happy new year!

i'll start from this week and go backwards...

still recovering from a weird chest cough/cold that seemed to come out of nowhere and thankfully has not spread to stuart or nia. stuart went back to work for the first time in weeks today leaving us ladies home. we've been in fancy dresses and ballerina costumes all day whipping up fruit smoothies and watching sesame street

NYE was super boring. we huddled up on the couch, the 3 of us watching "mulan", only intensifying nia's princess obsession and then i passed out at 9:30PM, completely bored by jenny mccarthy and ryan seacrest. 

christmas was awesome! we had to cancel our planned trip back to Wales for christmas due to ridiculous ticket prices. it's like the tickets knew how much, almost to the penny, we had in our savings account and wanted to play a joke. but we had a stellar time at home, just the 3 of us. nia's favorite presents: a tie between minnie light up high heel shoes and princess chapstick. 

i had a week of freelancing back at martha stewart. it was awesome!!!! i didn't realize how much i missed working. and an added bonus of seeing a bunch of sweet, familiar faces. thankfully, the subway map was still in tact in the back of my brain along with old favorite lunch spots on my old stomping ground. best lunch of the week: friedman's pulled pork sandwich with pickled red onion on a perfect brioche bun. 

           

we had nia's 2nd birthday bash the first weekend in december. she was thrilled at the idea of being 2 and loves a good party. plus, her birthday party was the first real event we've had at our new house. we'd be lying if we said we didn't love giving all of our guests tours.

we've had a bunch of fun events sprinkled in between too; our annual friends faux thanksgiving, which was down right delicious and so much fun hosting in our new house, a traditional pre-christmas date with our best buds that was chock full of cuteness, christmas cookie baking date with nia that resulted in 4+ dozen pink sprinkle clad tree and snowflakes cookies, and impromptu shopping trip to bryant park + columbus circle christmas markets to soak in the season. 

updates on the house...

1) we ordered a grown up couch. our very first grown up couch. EVER. big upgrade from our black velvet (horrendous is an understatenent) hand-me-down settes from wales, quintessential NYC apt IKEA futon, and the current pink tootsie roll couches. we're pretty excited. it was delivered yesterday and we are super happy with it!!!!

2) majority of our gutters and drain pipes are full of leaves and debris and are now almost all broken and about to burst due to expanding ice. lovely. stuart was hard at work yesterday tending to them with the help of A LOT of tools, a rickety old ladder that looked totally unsafe, hot water buckets and positive thinking. 

3) while stuarts been home for a bit he has done a zillion little projects around the house. awesome! includes but not limited to: creating shelves in old coat closet to convert to a linen closet, building shelves in bedroom closet to covert to a filing closet, painted the office (a kick ass chartreuse color - martha stewart "mimosa") and patched giant hole in the kitchen wall.  in short, things are really moving along! (pictures to follow soon!)

as a tease, it's pretty much these awesome shelves from the container store meets martha stewart mimosa paint color

  +   

4) we bought not one, not two, but three (amazing) dressers we found at consignment shops and on craigslist. one is gorgeous, refinished wood with pretty little carved handles. it's perfect and needs no updating. it feels so amazing to finally have the last box in our bedroom unpacked. the other two dressers just need a little tlc so i have a growing painting section in the basement that needs tending to this winter. one of the other two dressers is a tall, white french provincial dresser that just needs some serious de-stickering and a fresh coast of white. and the other i have a whole dresser design file to filter through of ideas. i'm thinking pink outside with light pink drawers and natural wood bead strand pulls? or maybe all lilac or mint? or covered head to toe in zigzags? (again, pictures to follow soon)

5) we had/have bat in the attic. well, i heard it one night when stuart was away at work and then the next night it had a repeat performance. we stayed up in bed for over an hour on our phones; stuart googling home remedies for bat repellant and me for bat noises on youtube to confirm our suspicions. suspicions confirmed, however,  UPDATE: we haven't heard it since. do bats hibernate?

6) we picked out a paint color for the wood paneled guest room and once the office is done (this week!!!) that is next on our project list. although, the painted wood paneling is really just a way to put a serious, more in-depth update on this room on hold for a few years. 

love and 58 degrees, 

L

(paint color source)

suburbia update: moving day!! (almost)

autumn greetings from suburbia! things are moving right along with our new house. 

stuart has been a painting maniac. he has painted every inch of the main floor and the past week has been making his way upstairs. this is quite a feat as the dinning room was a deep, dark maroon color (now a perfect shade of pink sea salt, same color as this envy worthy room, a mere 6 coats later) and every single window and door frame is flanked by at least 5 inches of molding. madness, i tell you, madness.

in the meantime we are trying to coordinate all of our new, kick-ass (via scratch and dent) appliances being delivered, gas line hook up, cable company, switching electric and water, oil delivery and our new garbage pick up schedule

(side note: getting your own giant garbage cans to bring to the bottom of the driveway felt oddly very grown up. maybe it's because we have a driveway)

the electricity sucking 50's fridge has been laid to rest and i swear it seems all the street lights now glow a little brighter. 

our sweet, old portuguese neighbor brought us a beautiful and huge fresh loaf of bread  the other day, as a little housewarming token. as we were showing him around the clean, freshly painted house and thanking him for the bread, he decided that would be a perfect time to literally block us down in the basement and try to convince us to convert and become jehovah witnesses. he slowly, in broken english, bombarded me with questions on the chapters of the bible and asked me how i pray. while biting my lip to keep from laughing out loud (mostly due to nerves by feeling trapped in my own basement) i shamelessly tried to deflect the questions onto stuart, the non-practicing watered down christian. but it seems the loosely practicing catholic who knows all of her prayers by heart was the better prey. 

...long episode short: stuart is still non-practicing anything and i am toying with the idea of ordering a giant virgin mary for the front yard. 

packing with a toddler is beyond difficult. there is a lot of climbing, missing items and unpacking. as a result, i have labeled more than half our boxes "MISC." my OCD self will be beyond frustrated when it comes to actual moving day and unpacking. my newest idea to help near-future frustrations is buying two different shades of duct tape to close the boxes. green taped boxes are for upstairs and purple is for downstairs. genius, no?!

we're also trying to organize actual moving day(s). we have all of our things from our queens apt in storage 2 counties away. the entire contents from our sparsely decorated 3 bedroom house in wales is in my moms closed in porch (can you say "hoarders") 

then, of course, we have all of the amazing buys of furniture pieces i've been collecting all 7 months from estate sales in my grandmothers garage. in addition we also have all of our current stuff and nia's stuff all over my moms 2,500 sq. ft. house. dispersed evenly, of course. 

not to mention all of the furniture pieces i've been collecting since i was 11 for my future house, waterford and china i bought when i was living abroad, shipped home and now in the basement. there are also plenty of childhood/school boxes from the attic. who saves all of their report cards? me! crazy. why you ask? who wouldn't save ones that note quote: "has demonstrated improved volume control in class". 

moving day 1 of 2 is tomorrow. i'll keep you posted

bathroom makeover

so, as you may or may not know, we JUST closed on our new house. first house. amazing house. charming house.

and although it is bursting with character and has amazing details throughout, we have 1.5 bathrooms that are bare bones and desperately need a makeover.

details: the downstairs bathroom is super small, has no floor, and is complete with just an old, smelly toilet and the tiny-est sink ever. odd pink tiling and bad 80's wallpaper, haf of which is down or ruined and patchy has to go.

we do however have a kick-ass clawfoot tub that we scored months ago that we are building the whole room on. it's gorgeous.

while i'll keep you hanging for actual pictures and a complete makeover recap (we haven't even decided on tiles yet) here are a few images for my ever-growing inspiration file.

wild over wild flowers

i'm somewhat obsessed with wild flowers. plus, they are just so quintessentially late summer time, no? so we went on a fun mini adventure yesterday to a pick-your-own wild flower farm.

there were dozens of varieties to choose from. rows and rows of bright + gorgeous colors. sunflowers taller than me. lots of sweet bees buzzing around. it was a perfect afternoon.

we picked over two buckets full for a mere $20 + $2 to keep the bucket to carry them home. suburbia highlight: WAY cheaper than a whole foods bundle. 

our picks of the day

suburbia - week nine. NINE!

although overall it has been easy + smooth, 10 weeks is certainly a long time to live with at home. enough said. 

my youngest brother is graduating college this month. we went up to see him + attend an award ceremony last thursday. after the ceremony there was a light reception. sweet! while in line for yummies everyone in front of me and behind me were raving about the sushi. "how fancy", "ooh wow, sushi!" "yum, this looks great" " i've never had sushi". i spied the white rice + dark seaweed from afar. my mouth started watering, preparing itself for a simple spicy tuna + avocado...

...yet, as i got closer i only saw green or orange in the middles. well folks, this is no sushi. it's cucumber. that's it. just cucumber. cucumber rolls and carrot. and not even juilenned carrots, just a fat chuck of giant carrot. not even any pickled ginger. i wanted to cry laugh out loud and tell these people they were not eating sushi. just vegetables. i also skipped the badly paired roasted pepper + gruyere quesadilla and opted for the coffee bar. I MISS NYC!!!!

we are just coming down off our wedding trio high. three gorgeous weddings in 3 fabulous places and everything was just perfect. we also just had our first ever extended trip away without nia. although we had moments of slight guilt and even more moments of missing her, we had a great time and did some much needed relaxing. 

to add chaos to our already jam-packed chaotic circumstance, my brother who just graduated also just moved back home. last night. that's six people in a four bedroom house. 

nia was temporarily taking over his room, but now that he is home, nia is back in with us. her dresser and diaper set up are in the dining room. crib in our room (did i mention our room here is 8' x 8' and barely fits our full bed + dresser??) and toys, clothes, shoes, and laundry are dispersed throughout the house. 

nia usually wakes up each morning doing a little talking and transitions to crying pretty fast, telling us to come get her. however, this morning she cried for a milli-second and then realized we were a mere 18 inches away and said "hi!"

after reading this i'm sure you'll realize how not-exciting things are here beyond the recent weddings. i mean, half of this email is about faux sushi. so please let me know of all/any fun adventures, trips, food experiences, and celeb spottings ASAP and stop me from my craigslist addiction of looking for the perfect dining chairs. 

love

L

suburbia - week (magnificent) seven

hmm.... what is new to update you on...

nia is becoming quite the little lady. she insists on wearing accessories to breakfast each morning. yesterday was her polka dot hairband + jean jacket and tuesday morning she pulled out her pink jellies. 

in other news, my moms neighbor, mr.mulford came over to help stuart figure out a plumbing dilemma in the main bathroom. 10 minutes later, problem solved and they were walking towards the front door when i heard mr.m say "nipple". not just once, not twice, but six times. "brass nipple, blah blah blah, nipple, blah, blah, nipple, blah blah nipple, nipple, nipple" i had to trap myself in the kitchen for fear i would burst out laughing like a giant 12 year old. when i confronted stuart, as i was curious how he managed to keep a straight face, he called me "totally immature". really? 

house shopping update: i currently have a shopping cart chock full of fun furniture, bedding and/or accessories on the following websites: CB2, west elm, restoration hardware, roost, medina, nova68, williams sonoma, wind + willow and (obvi) etsy. 

bank account update: we do not have enough money for everything in said shopping carts. c'est la vie

i'm clearly having withdrawal symptoms. monday nia + i met up with a girlfriend and her two kids to walk over the hudson on the newly restored railroad bridge which is now pedestrian-ized. it's beautiful up there. you can see far up + down the hudson, watch boats pass, the kids love watching the trains. there are a bunch of benches in the middle and strategically placed ice cream trucks at either end. however, i referred to it as the high line 5 times or more and i caught myself on the hunt for one of the sweet chaise lounge benches in front of the waterfall floor that sadly don't exist on the hudson walkway. 

i was also on the verge on tears knowing the brooklyn flea is back outdoors as of a weekend or two ago and i haven't been there yet. i'm totally craving mcclure's pickles. 

to offset my 5 borough withdrawal symptoms however, you may be envious to know that i went estate sale + garage sale shopping this past weekend. it was wonderful. there are not many things that can make me as happy as an arm full of old books and records or a killer sweater or skirt and oddles of costume jewelry from a good, ol' fashioned garage sale. 'tis the season. 

and how do you find a hair dresser here? there are no reviews to check. no livingsocial deals. and i'm surrounded by the typical upstate soccer mom types who all have the choppy 90's style/not-quite-a-bob/not-quite-a-pixie cut with bad roots, so can't really ask who they recommend because i am certainly not sporting that look over my current  odd gray hair peeking out and getting split ends. do i really pay $30 in gas and another $40+ for parking to drive almost 2 hours to go to my fabulous but overpriced LES stylist? 

with love, upstate sunshine and rocking my newly acquired $1 jacket, 

L

p.s. because i can't resist...

suburbia - installment 4 (actually week 6)

clearly i fell a little behind on our weekly updates. oops!

honestly, with nia running, jumping, climbing, falling, spilling, throwing, crying, screaming, coloring, drinking (milk + water, obvi!) bathing, rocking, digging, ripping, rolling, typing, and worming we have zero alone time. these update emails are just about the only emails we get a chance to write. 

today is our 6 year wedding anniversary. stuart is working today + i'm catching up on mass amounts of laundry. romance, certainly not. i did manage a sweet lunch of grilled cheese, string beans and strawberry + soy milk smoothies with nia and a leisurely 4 minute babble infused telephone conversation with stuart.  however, we got dressed up and went out last night to terrapin in rhinebeck (where we got married) to celebrate. i fell asleep on the car ride home at 10:30pm. i guess growing old together is happening NOW.

easter was fun + family filled. http://beevans.tumblr.com/  we did egg coloring good friday + sunday dinner at my aunts house, with the other 28 members of our family. this week i'm weeding out the leftover easter candy stockpiles by squishing the reese's eggs and deeming them "too messy to eat" and sending the rest off with stuart to work. 

my excitement levels for a house of our own has reached a new peak, and is obviously evident to everyone around me; the easter bunny left us 'this old house' and 'kitchen makeovers' magazines in our easter baskets. my "ideas + inspiration"  folder is so jam-packed that i had to create sub folders of 'cabinets', 'floors' and 'wall ideas'. and i'm afraid to sign into one kings lane for fear that i will max out our credit card. 

as mentioned in a previous update, the po'town galleria just got a new funky fresh sephora store. pretty nice having a nyc go-to make up store nearby. i left with two new make up brushes; one for blush and one for powder foundation. i decided to finally go beyond my staple liquid stick blush and whether it due to stress, country air or the fact that i kiss my baby a thousand times a day, my skin isn't as flawless as it used to be. bummer. 

love + terrific weather,

L

suburbia - week three

it's been just over a month upstate and we've gotten pretty cozy. 

there is definitely something (wonderful) to be said about living with your family. my mom loves pitching in for Nia's night time routine and is always a fresh burst of patience + energy with Nia when she gets home from work, which happens to be about when mine is worn thin from the day. 

I do get sad + miss the city A LOT. although i don't miss it as much as i thought i would (perhaps not having time to with a running + climbing toddler) with stuart away lately i still get cabin fever and crave my silly walks to starbucks, the thrift furniture store + CVS around the corner. i really appreciate my city girlfriends telling me there is not much going on even though the streets are bursting with spring fever, color, must-have clothes and new brunch spots. i know they must be lying.

my first overnight stay in the city this past weekend was pretty fabulous. it included a small handful of great girlfriends, wonderful catch ups over delicious cafe au laits, a sprinkling of good shopping that you just can't find anywhere else, sipping on overpriced fancy cocktails while taking in killer views, hot pink birthday celebrating, and a stellar + trendy breakfast spot where i didn't even notice i skipped out on a mimosa. it was the most refreshing weekend i have had in months. and the zarro's black + white cookies i always bring up for my family seemed a little more cool + novelty (and surely savored more) than usual. 

food. it is restaurant week here in the hudson valley this week so i think we are trying to go out somewhere friday. restaurant week up here, who knew?!  aside from restaurant week, i've been out a few times already and must admit the food is SO up to par. stuart + i were both dreading the food experience outside of the city. maybe it is anxiety about not being able to check it's write up on nymag? but we have been proved totally wrong. phew!

there has been really lovely weather here the past week. kinda scary how nice + warm, but we've been trying to take advantage. we've taken Nia out for plenty of bike rides, walks around the neighborhood and playing outside. but with nice weather come bugs. i'm sure i swallowed at least three when running the other night. gross-o-rama. 

this past week I offered to watch a "new" girlfriends two children for a few hours. the little boy is 4 and the little girl is 4 months. i loved that i could help out and Ben + Nia get along pretty well despite the age gap, but i also couldn't help seeing it as a test to see if i could actually handle three kiddos. the highlight of the afternoon: measuring, cooking and eating fruit + carrot stew (obvi with play food) with Ben while the girls slept. lowlight: infant Hannah crying with no quick remedy to soothe her and nia simultaneously tripping and falling on her face and therefore crying her super sad pain cry and having to hoist her up while holding the baby and actually not managing to calm either one of them down. i made sure to create an extra fancy dinner for my mom that night. and had 3 glasses of wine. 

and GREAT news....a sephora is opening in the ever-so-trashy poughkeepsie galleria. i can get back to my finding-the-perfect-mascara challenge. 

stay tuned, we may have more big news before next weeks update. 

LOVE

L 

suburbia - week two of almost bliss

week two and settling in pretty fast. 

update from last week; we didn't go to the movies and decided to head to bed a smidge past 8:30. it was one of the smartest decisions we've made in the past year. 

for those of you who don't know the short of it, we've been house hunting for a while as we rapidly outgrew our queens apartment. to save money for a down payment on a house (and hopefully a little extra for my dream couch and dining table) we decided to move in with my mom. this obviously makes for a variety of highlights and challenges. here are said highlights and challenges of this week. 

we made serious progress on clearing our boxes + things out of the hallway and dinning room. we stuart brought them up to the attic. however, i still have an entire box full of belts + bags that have no home. stuart suggested hanging them up on the side of a wardrobe that is against the wall. on one hook. i wouldn't be able to see them that way. do you think he was joking? does he know i have like 25+ belts? 

this week we celebrated Stuart's birthday. a nice, calm, lovely day spent strolling + dreaming in millbrook. we were so inspired but the ambiance and scenery, our minds wandered and we planned plenty of potential future parties for our future house. i already know what i want to serve, the decor and what to wear to each. invitations to follow. 

shocked to discover that bootleg movies make their way all the way outside the 5 boroughs. and good quality. courtesy of moms (obvi near criminal) friend we watched "the help" and "girl with a dragon tattoo"

they sell ronnybrook ice cream at the sweet, little local grocery store. poughkeepsie just scored major brownie points. they don't carry the butter pecan flavor, mind you, but the coffee is still delicious. i'm no longer desperate to get to their little outpost in chelsea market. 

running here is very refreshing (although i must admit i'm almost waiting to be bored because the sport of people watching cannot be done simultaneously) i pass maybe a handful of people each run. none of which are under the age of 50. i pass a plethora of farms. and zero bodegas and subways stops. 

stuart baby-proofed all of the kitchen cabinets. apparently, not everyone knows how to open them once the "locks" are on (including myself) so rather than learn how to bi-pass them, our family has managed to create a unique, no-communication system that encourages us to leave items that belong in each cabinet on the counter top above and wait till an able person can put them away. in just three days this has provided extreme entertainment, frustration (as all the locks must be faulty) and laughter. 

ooh and you must follow nia updates. her news would easily double the length of this email. pretty please. she's pretty hilarious. http://beevans.tumblr.com/

and the biggest PRO of this week: the dishwasher. there are only about 3 of you on this email that have the luxury of one in your apartments. the rest of you should be jealous. it's amazing. 

lots of love

L+S+N

au revoir new york city

greetings from upstate!

we packed up and moved out of our sweet, little Astoria apartment last thursday and trekked (and trucked) up to poughkeepsie

we are just settling in and still unpacking. our boxes still dominate space in the hallway and dinning room. 

nia is loving all the space to roam around and explore. 

amidst the anxiety of leaving NYC we are pretty excited about all of the fun adventures within our reach here in suburbia. on a daily basis i find myself making a pro's + con's list of living outside the city. here are some of my picks over the past few days...

PROS

grocery shopping

with a shopping cart is amazingly simple + easy. and then to only have to go as far as your car. I felt almost lazy. when we got home to unload the groceries, it was raining, yet we didn't even care because we pulled into the garage and stayed dry. 

laundry

quarter-free. i mean, technically we've already saved over $20. letting the clothes sit in the washer or dryer for 2 minutes or 2 hours after they are done makes no difference. be still my heart, they will still be there whenever I get to them.

access to grass

playing outside with nia is no longer a mini-expedition. no more stroller. no more needing to bring in-case-of-emergency snack, bottle + roosevelt. no more diaper bag. nothing is needed to go out the back door to get to the grass and play in the yard. maybe just the camera + sunglasses. we can go outside as many times a day as she wants rather than making the special 30 minutes journey to the park. 

neighbors

they are what feels like a million miles away. should the residents along Clover Hill be rapping along with Biggie Smalls or fighting over take-out orders; we can't hear it. smoking pot; we can't smell it seeping through our walls. stumbling home at 4AM; we're blissfully unaware. ignoring their barking dog; we don't know it. it's been beyond blissfully quiet. 

CONS

going out for a drink

last night I went out for a drink with a few girlfriends. the bar was jam-packed with local college students. the bar was right smack in the middle of a strip mall, along side a subway sandwich shop and one of the 3 local strip clubs. week 2 challenge: determined to find a nice wine bar. (I should mention we were all pretty appalled with the atmosphere and left our beers in favor of 10PM milkshakes at the diner)

magazines

I have yet to find someone who is equally excited about the March issue of Vanity Fair. I mean, come on, it's the Hollywood issue! 

starbucks

although I don't go on a daily basis, the nearest one is an 8 minute drive away verse the former 2 blocks. 

heat

it's currently about 7 degrees colder upstate than in Astoria. and the heat isn't included in the mortgage. 

tonight S + I are going out. we're thinking the movies. I'm anticipating movie-going to be on the PROS list. 

Love from suburbia,

L