Black Friday

I don't know if it was a food hangover from the Thansgiving dinner or what but I woke up feeling miserable today. Thank god for medication, because I had promised to take my daughter out for Black Friday shopping, and my sister-in-law had invited us for dinner. I put together an outfit to carry me through both activities, combining some old and new favorites, and the over-the-knee boots that officially broke my shopping strike... 

Kirna Zabete tunic top, Lulu Bravo cashmere cardigan, Costco tights, and Target boots. 

The outer layer was my new Aerie scarf and my old fur west, with Fendi bag. 

Happy Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for, and I do count my blessings every day, not just on Thanksgiving. I love the Thanksgiving holiday, and it's a big deal in our house.  Here's our menu (not including a few chef's specials!) Happy Thanksgiving! 

 

The Night Before Thanksgiving

The house is clean, groceries purchased, and the turkey is brining in the fridge. We are ready for the marathon cooking session, the long dinner and the resulting food coma tomorrow. 

My self imposed shopping strike was breached today. I had to go to the mall for some jazz dance shoes for my daughter, but then one thing led to another, and I came back with a scarf and a couple of other little things. I've seen these plaid scarves on some blogs and on Pinterest and have been salivating after one. So when I found this one at Aerie today, I had to buy it... 

It was the perfect thing to keep me warm this cold and rainy night on our movie outing. (We saw the Hunger Games: Mockingjay movie.) I paired my plaid scarf with my Barbour jacket, BR jeans, and melissa rain booties. This scarf is like a security blanket. A new favorite, most likely. 

The Right Focus

I love the Holiday season, but it can get a bit stressful. So in this holiday season I will try to slow down and remember that the right focus is everything. It is the key to happiness and peace of mind. Here's my memory aid: 

Focus less on what you've acquired and more on what you've accomplished. 

Focus less on what you own, and more on those you love. 

Focus less on how to impress, and more on how to be kind. 

Focus less on what you know, and more on what you can learn. 

Focus less on what you have to do, and more on what you want to do. 

There's still a lot of wood to be chopped before year end, but I'm hoping with the right focus I'll stay sane. 

The Tween Birthday

My tween wanted to celebrate her 12th birthday by taking friends out for dinner. Choosing the restaurant was not an easy task, but she finally settled on Bar Frites, which is one of our favorite restaurants close to home. It was a good choice - the staff was very nice with the tween customers and  they enjoyed dining out on their own (even though we sat with the little girls on a table near by). As we were leaving, another group arrived, a dozen girls, around 15 or 16 year old, in their high heels and little dresses, to celebrate another birthday. So I guess that is the thing to do from here on end... It is interesting to be a mother of a tween. My daughter is literally teetering between the childhood and teenage years. Sometimes anxious about peer pressure, and curious about adult things, and sometimes happy playing tag on the playground. I hope she never loses the child in her totally... 

Favorite Outfit

The fall 2014 favorite outfit was this one consisting of the BR sweater, worn with a Missoni scarf, Alexis Bittar necklace, H&M jeans and Ecote boots.

The Black Mask

It's delightful and a little terrifying to be a mother of a tween.. You get little glimpses of how it's going to be when she turns teen, but it's not fully there yet. I've forgotten to post the birthday pictures. Maybe I'll get around to it now that I realized they're missing. Anyway, I spent one night last week with these two serious super heroes who couldn't smile because the mask would have come off. Luckily the rest of the sleepover was not this serious. Just serious girl stuff with Project Runway All Stars and Master Chef Jr. on the telly...

Omega Block

Last year it was the polar vortex, this year is the Omega Block, but whatever you call it, the result is the same. It's getting cold. Since I don't feel like breaking out my heavy guns yet, I'm trying to come up with ideas for layering. I copied a great layering idea yesterday from the "Beverly Like Hills" blog (I found her blog somewhere where she was labeled as "Fashion over Forty" and even though I'm not crazy about these types of labels, I love her style and have been following her blog for a little while. I guess in the blogosphere where most fashion blogs are published by twenty-somethings, these labels come handy). Anyway, she combined a leather jacket with a cape. So I decided to layer my leather jacket with a poncho and it was a super warm and comfy combination.

Michael Kors Jacket and Poncho, Banana Republic jeans, Fendi bag and Madden Girl shoes. All old from my closet. 

Better Late than Never

Oops, life happened and I never had a chance to post these Halloween pictures. It's almost too late now, but since this blog serves partly as my photo diary, here goes...

Decorating for Halloween

ok, here we go with the Halloween photos... warning: there will be lots of them... but it's going to take me a while to sort through them so it will be a bit of piecemeal here on the blog. 

We always decorate a little bit for Halloween. Nothing huge, but a few fun touches here and there. 

Sweater Weather 3

This continues the sweater weather posts, even though I actually had something else in mind. 

I may have mentioned this, but I’m quite the fan of steaks. Let’s level-set here first though. In everyday life I hardly ever eat red meat, and we never cook with red meat at home. So it’s somewhat of a rare (no pun intended) treat for me. And then when I do eat a steak, I expect it to be really good. Well, does anyone expect a bad one? Anyway, I’ve been known to get really mad if it’s not superb, ha! 

Since I’m quite particular about my steaks, I only order them in places where I’m guaranteed to get a good a steak (although, you should know, there are no guarantees in this life). My very top choice of a steak restaurant is the Capital Grille located downtown. It’s  a chain restaurant, but only that one location is recommended (the rest are average). 

So last week, when a very old friend of mine from Stockholm came to visit New York with her husband, and had Peter Luger on her list of restaurants they wanted to try, I picked it over the other choices, including Gramercy Tavern (which, by the way, is a great restaurant and well worth a visit, except that I will never be able to get my husband to go there again after he got violently ill from there (and now you’ll never go either! Though you should!). 

Peter Luger happens to be one of the favorite restaurants of my husband too, so it was a win-win. I had been there a couple of times, but it’s been a while so I had kind of forgotten about it. It is not a fancy restaurant, and they don’t serve fancy foods. The size of their steak is about half a cow. They only take cash as payment. 

The point of this story is that if you are in New York, and if you like steaks, you should definitely make the trip to Williamsburg in Brooklyn where it’s located, and have the rib steak. It was out of this world. One of the best steaks I’ve ever had. And that’s saying a lot, coming from me.

Another sweater and skirt combo, straight from work to dinner. 

Over the bridge and far away. 

Peter Luger is nothing to photograph, but this building across the street was pretty. 

'Tis the Season

It’s that time of year when you never know what to expect weather-wise. You see everything on the New York City streets from t-shirt and shorts to full on down coats. It could be perfectly nice and warm in the morning, but totally freezing and blustery in the evening. I’m always cold and hate the feeling, so most of the time I dress in layers. I am totally in love with my Armani wool coat, and it seems to go perfect with this season. You’ll probably hate it after a few more posts like this ;-) And talk about seasons – the mother of all seasons is almost here, i.e. the “Holiday”, i.e. the Christmas Season. Loving it! Although I have to hustle here on the blog to get my Halloween pictures in before Thanksgiving pictures before Christmas….