Anniversary Night

Me (waking up with a start and glancing at the clock): Get up! It's 5:35! You have 10 minutes to get out of the house
Him (jumping out of bed): #%*!.
Me (a couple of minutes later, actually awake enough to look at the clock and process information): Did you check the time?
Him: No!
Me: It's 2:37, not 5:37.
Him (pulling off socks and shirt): #%*!

I'm surprised we're still married.

Party Animals*

How do you celebrate Squirrel Appreciation Day?


Take one warm and welcoming home


that has a squirrel touch


or two


add a comfy place to rest


and let your friends go nuts!

*Squirrels celebrate by appreciating each other - late January is full-on mating season for the Sciuridae family!

Nuts!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Perfect Day

Also known as best birthday ever, or the BIG DAY of FUN! Featuring copious amounts of champagne, starting with a Mimosa (Buck’s Fizz ) in bed, followed by


cards and prezzies, and more Mimosa. From far away, via Amazon, came cds and DVDs and is that a new camera? Oh, joy. Now I can annoy every one sending high resolution photos that will clog their email boxes forever. Such fun.
Wait, what's in the package? No, not the economic stimulus salvation package, the red one with the gold bow right there in the photo.


It's a fantabulously gorgeous necklace. The Guy done good.


Phone calls and messages, and flowers from family abroad.


The Guy made Duck Frittata for lunch. There was more Champagne. Afterwards I played around with the new camera.
Part II of fun continued in the city, all timed and planned perfectly by The Guy with none of the memory lapses that dogged past celebrations:
Cocktails at Hotel Iroquois.
Dinner at db Bistro Moderne, Foie gras, Diver Scallops, "Mont Blanc" and a half bottle of Chassagne-Montrachet.
Speed the Plow at The Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
Post-theater champagne cocktail. And then home. We played Perfect Day because it was.
P.S. The big day of fun continues. A big thank you to whoever sent the balloon and flowers in the top shot. They arrived this morning, anonymously!

Tulips

Part of yesterday's Big Day of Fun. Click'em to embiggen.

Double Celebration

In February I posted a photo of fireworks with the news that The Cool House had a big birthday to celebrate. I promised a fortieth birthday party, to be held in June because the blueprints for the house date from that month. In the usual way of things here that date got pushed and shoved back until a couple of weeks ago when I realized that Halloween had passed and nothing has been done. At this time of year we are usually planning to celebrate the winter solstice with a few friends, so I thought as we're already planning special food and decorating the home why not ratchet up the festivities and toast the anniversary of Beach House's 40 years as well?


Of course an event this important requires a certain amount of preparation. Before we decorate for the holidays we clean the house thoroughly. This will be the last thorough dusting and scrubbing that some spots will see until the holiday ornaments are put away and the greenery is burnt on January 5th, so I want it to be as good as it can be. We wash the windows so they sparkle to reflect the candlelight at night and let as much natural light in as possible during the day. Once all the housework is done and the guest rooms are ready for partygoers who want to stay over we can start making the house warm and welcoming.


For the solstice, we have a yule log that, at nightfall, becomes a roaring fire and we gather lots of greenery from the conifers in the yard to make wreaths for the front door and exterior lights and a saddle for the mailbox. I place branches of holly and fir into tall vases, and lay juniper branches and more holly on the fireplace surround and credenzas. To make the greenery stand out I add citrus fruits, lemons, limes, satsumas and tangerines, or naartjies, as The Guy calls them, and votive candles. I push cloves into oranges and pile them up throughout the house, and heap more cloves and lightly crushed cinnamon sticks under candles in votives, which makes the house smell great.


And what's a holiday party without scrumptious rich cakes and puddings made with dried fruit and brandy; cookies with butter, spiced with ginger cinnamon and nutmeg, and Stollen? Not only do they taste great but the enticing smell permeates the whole house. We'll toast the winter, and the house, with champagne, dark Trappist ales from Belgium and gluhwein. If all goes well we may even sing a few wassailing songs, too.


This year the party will be more important than ever; we will celebrate not only midwinter but the serendipity that brought us to Beach House, this wonderful creation that has been a home for forty years and provides us endless delight in its uniquely modern design.

Double Celebration: Winter Solstice/40th Anniversary has been entered in the "Home for the Holidays Contest", run in conjunction with Right@Home. This post was written for Houseblogs.net as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by SC Johnson’s Right@Home.

40th House Anniversary

It didn't hit me until I opened the New York magazine this morning but our house will be 40 in June. At least the blueprints that Andrew Geller drew up are dated June 1968. This is so exciting. We have to celebrate!
Any cool, swinging-sixties ideas how?

Happy New Year

Tapas
Originally uploaded by modernemama

Tapas 2007

We are giving up food and alcohol for the New Year so here's a photo from the holiday celebrations to remind us what tapas looked like.
Enjoy!