Paris Day 1, Evening stroll

An evening stroll down this beautiful street, Rue Cler, was in order our first night to find the butcher shop. Very close to our apartment, it affords many delights from bakeries, boutiques, cafes, and fruit stands. The street is very active and exciting with bustling patrons, fresh baguettes in hand. Sometimes we make several trips a day down this cobblestone street and I never tire of the walk.

This is just one of our favorite stops...really, for a fresh baguette, but you can see the temptations!

These miniature confections draw one in and are tempting any time of night or day! I guess you can see why I was diligently trying to loose 10 lbs prior to my trip....hopefully, the many miles of walking the next few days will make up for my failure. At least one pastry a day is definitely on the "to do" list. Never mind the cheeses, jams, crepes, sandwiches on fresh baguettes, chocolates, fine chocolate drinks, Italian gellatos (for real!), macaroons...it's a pretty limitless array. Oh dear.


We finally made it to the butcher shop, our true destination. All manner of fine cuts of meat were on display. We went for lamb for Sunday dinner, but I couldn't help but snap this shot of a pheasant, talons and all!

How stylish this row of fancy oils seemed.

I'll have to tell you that it certainly makes for a wonderful visit to have your own personal interpreter and guide. All the better that it's my darling daughter, Michelle!

Still here!

Good grief! My last week has been a crazy one to say the least. After a quick long weekend to Charlotte to celebrate the first birthday of my granddaughter Fiona (and her father, Timm), an overnight trip to Charleston for a day of work at my favorite project of all times (!), a long 13 hour drive back home, a 12 hour day of work getting ready for the blowout sale at Black-eyed Susan, followed by three more 12 hour days of selling, recovering, selling, recovering, selling and finally re-merchandising the entire store.....well, I'd say that's been one crazy long week.



(How would you like to be the "guest of honor" helping me, enter stage right: Linda)? Other than freshly pressed 600 count sheets, there wasn't a whole lot of perks in this trip! But, thanks to my stylish and hard working friend and Chief Financial Officer, we survived and the store is now fully engulfed in the spirit of Fall.

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  Long trip.


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  BIG sale.


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  New windows.


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  New merchandise.


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  Tired crew.


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  Come see the magic.

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  Blogging catchup is next....

Redemtion!

12:30 am. Bread out of the oven and I'm off to bed!

Remember my bread debacle last fall---same bread, disaster! I posted how I saved the day by breaking it into pieces when it would not come out of the pan! So, here's the real beauty! Susan's sheepherder's bread, oh so good. I'm having a small dinner party Saturday night and this will be on the menu, in perfect form...this time!

Just to give you the scale of this loaf, it is baked in a dutch oven. It is about 13" in diameter and 14-15" tall! It's a showstopper,and best of all, it will feed at least 20 people! I guess you could call it "stylish bread"!

When time permits, I'll be happy to pass along the recipe if there is any interest. It's a keeper in my family.

Happy to have redeemed myself from the last attempt!

Passionate about Historic Beauty

For those followers who are from the 13 countries not from our surrownding Bucks County, Pa, we are known for wondrous, historic homes with centuries of history in their back yards.

I must say that it was one of the most wonderful things about moving to the East from the Rockies--historic beauties aplenty! It's really hard to give up this kind of architecture once you become accustomed to it.

Last week, my assistant and I visited this historic landmark in Lower Makefield, Pa. Check out this date!


We decided that each home of this era should come with a pedigree of sorts, a guest list of the important dignitaries who slept here, poets who wrote here, women who toiled here. The grounds were beautiful, the rose gardens and stone pumphouse. I do love historic properties. Of course, I could just imagine that it would be the perfect bed and breakfast!


In this photo, note the shutters on the first and second floor are two different colors. This is a true historic mark. I love the white shutters against the Bucks County Stone. And oh, those dormer windows!


Projects like this just make my heart sing. Beautiful Bucks County, Pa.

A closer look

I wanted to give you a closer look at the designer room walls, after the tape was pulled off! While there, measuring for the draperies , I snapped a few shots of the room to document the great effect.

This is the wall adjacent to the mantle wall, painted black! Note the painted ceiling, same color as the lighter stripe. One of my trademarks, painted ceilings. Yes!

And this is the wall looking into the dining room. Pardon all the mess! My blue tape is there for the cleanup, ladder and assorted chairs.....but overall, I really like the effect! More to come, but I can't promise what when I'll be able to add to the report, as this week is the final move week for the new design studio. How in the world both of these monumental projects happened at the same time....obviously, I left my head somewhere else...

Wish me luck!