Relish (ing)

Angry Irene sky. We got seriously dumped on rain wise in Clintondale but the wind didn't kick as hard as we thought. James and I had power all Sunday long and I sprinted out of bed in the morning and started prepping THE MOVE.

We've been going back and forth on the yellow wall. I had the paint, Farrow and Ball's Citron, a recommendation from an interior design friend, the lovely Polly of Lewis Interiors.

I guess we just didn't know if it was going to be right. But we got brave. Well, I got brave, this is actually Zombie-James who is under my control painting. (He loves the wall now but would never admit it to the dudes...)

After this was dry we took the bed apart and moved it.

I just stopped by IKEA on my way to work today and picked up two of these night stands:

Next was the dresser and closets.

Hers.

And his.

And as on cue around 6.30pm - the power went out. We were well prepared and had been nursing romantic notions of card playing by candle light but when an invite came in via text to go hang out with the neighbors we jumped at the opportunity. They had power and booze.

Saturday night was our first night in the SUITE. It felt like sleeping in a hotel. I've lived in some small apartments but I've still never been this close to the bathroom. Wow. And the bathroom. OH MY the bathroom. 

It's so big and so sexy and so close to my bed and sosososo DONE! 

Mr Bones is here to make you feel good about yourself every morning when you look in the mirror and wonder how you  managed to age ten years overnight. AT LEAST you're in better shape than him.

Next up were drapes and shades. Rosemary had 3 pairs of these draperies so we used 2 pairs as is for this wall. 

And from the 3rd pair and for the east wall she sewed these gorgeous Roman shades. Peeeerfect.

We'll be putting the finishing touches on this room here and there but it feels pretty much done already. It's our new bedroom. It's been over 1 1/2 years in the making. Since James first put that sledgehammer through that green wall on New Years eve with guests arriving in an hour. Just a quick reminder...

The only "problem" now is that we have TOO much space. Rooms galore. When James comes in the house and calls "where are you" I don't know what to answer him anymore. 

Finishing the upstairs is giving a superboost to getting the downstairs done as well. Blue room is next!!! And then on to the outside.

Speaking of outside... We took breaks here and there to enjoy the crazy gorgeous post hurricane weather on Monday and at one point we had 4 humming birds buzzing around the feeder. 

These three ladies were fighting over one poor dude. I think he ended up leaving first. 

I've had it with these pushy broads. I'm going home to mom.

The trumpet vine is still blooming and is still attracting hungry hummers.

...and mustard

My sister has been asking for the mustard and here it finally is!


It got so very busy and somehow I haven't been up to Clintondale in over a month. Apparently is was very hot the last time I was here. This picture of cold cucumber dill soup has been hanging around my desktop since then. 

And I must have become temporarily possessed by a housewife from the 50's because there is also a picture of home baked WHITE BREAD lingering on the desktop. Hmmmm...

The recipe is Julia Childs' and I will link rather than write it out!

I managed to have only 2 days off between then and now and those were spent trying to relax in the city. Where we also have a life and a home. Sometimes we forget and then a day off there seems like a vacation. We go to the movies - Tree of Life finally. Pure flippin poetry! (The bad reviews of this movie are amazing entertainment though. Stories of people walking out during the birth of the world sequence... Either you are a fundamentalist idiot with blinders or you hate beautiful things (????). But on the other hand non spiritualists also hate this movie for being too preachy... Make up your minds, people. Or let's just all agree on the fact that you were bored and YOU DIDN'T get it! EVERYTHING is in there. Love, loss, redemption, forgiveness... and almost without saying a word. Go on Mr. Malick. Go on.) And eat Korean BBQ. And quiche and baguette and Croque Monsieur at a happenstance French joint in the Lower East Side, La French Diner. And get a haircut. By a kinda scary but sweet hairdresser named Honey, who was from Yemen. She could talk!!!





But she could also cut hair! I LOVE IT!!!


So quickly - what HAVE I been doing with my time? When I last left here I had just come back from an awesome crazy cool week in Schenectady. What, you say? That is not possible. Well, if you are working on Derek Cianfrance's new movie you will say differently. Not a dull moment, ladies and gents. It's Ryan Gosling's playground and he will surprise you!

This is me in ONE of the moving vehicles from that week. An ATV with the camera rigged on it that was going VERY FAST through the woods following a stunt motorcycle. Sometimes. I love my job.

Then off to Wisconsin for more B roll for Alex Gibney's new project.

Somewhere in the middle I shot a dance film with my friend Rich. He's a choreographer with a lot of great vision and we had 2 intense days of shooting. 

Screen capture from our Central Park day. Amy and Andrea are our talented dancers!

Then some futuristic madness about robots taking over the world for the Discovery Channel. This lovely photo of our minimal crew was taken by Amie LeeKing.

Then I quit coffee and I feel like a million bucks.

AND THEN. Out of the blue, my good friend Kate hooked me up with my dream job. I am doing stills on an untitled movie starring Guy Pearce (who needs NO introduction in my book) and Amy Ryan. (We know her as Beadie from the Wire, but you may know her as Holly Flax from The Office, either way she's flippin dynamite!). At the helm is director Drake Doremus, who's last film Like Crazy did muy bueno at this year's Sundance. Check out the trailer! It doesn't feel like a job to have to take pictures of Guy Pearce all day long but it is. And it's mine! 


12 days in to the movie we had already filmed through an earthquake and now here is IRENE! There was just no filming through Irene. She was going to put us all on hold. I feel bad of course, but on the hush hush I couldn't be more thrilled about a 3 day weekend. While I've been cuckoooo crazy with work James has been finishing up the bedroom and bathroom and this weekend it's finally here!!! Power or no power.

We came up yesterday morning, both mega mega tired, but before sleep - prepare for the worst. James hooked up the genny and I went food shopping. We filled up water buckets and got the flash lights out. Secretly we are wishing for a power outage. We haven't used that genny yet (since we bought it in the winter storm of 2010) and playing cards by candle light and eating PB and J's sounds aaaaaaaallright in my book. 

Woke up Sunday morning and the downpour IS ON! I checked the basement and there is minimal wetness right now. I'm sorry to say our neighbors are not as lucky. And I shouldn't speak too soon, the rain is showing NO SIGN of slowing down. So far the wind, which is our worst enemy with all of our old trees, has not been so bad yet.

The first fatality. There goes my flip flop.

Truck passing by Tom's house on Maple Ave.

The project with burying our power lines is done, the landscaping is another story (I'm just gonna say that Irene will turn our yard in to the greatest most spectacular mud wrestling field in the Hudson Valley. Come on over!!!)  but talk about superb timing! We've sat and watched our trees sway over the lines in the tiniest gusts and Irene will have no mercy when it comes to old gran daddy Sugar Maple. 

Brave little bugger in the rain!

I fell off the wagon this morning and had a cup of coffee so now the only real hurricane is me and here I go. MOVING DAY!!! 


To be continued...

Ketchup

The summer is just sprinting away and I need to document some major events. First, there was Sweden...

I was home for 5 glorious weeks, the longest in about 10 years. Which meant I could partake in croquette and in celebrating grandma Annalisa's 95th birthday.

Grand dame!

Cuzins! BTW, Anna is conducting a contest on her blog where you can win a homemade bracelet.

Click here to enter!

I even got to visit one of Kajsa's markets. Yeah markets are a blast! We love links and here is one to an interior design article in our local news paper featuring Goat Valley. It's in Swedish but click on the little thumbnail picture and there are 10 or so photos to look at. Goooooorge.

Cool dudes go to markets too. My uncle Perra and step grandson Kevin.

Usually it's family that brings me to the homeland but this time was a little different. I went over to shoot a short film called Orangeriet, The Conservatory. Like us on Facebook! The Conservatory is a lovely creepy horror film that takes place in a remote run down mansion in rural Sweden. The original screenplay is by Sarah Bergmark Elfgren and it's directed by Lovisa Inserra.

We shot most of the film in a mansion 40 minutes outside Stockholm. This wonderfully disheveled house was the perfect setting for our little gothic adventure.

We had an amazing crew and a super talented cast, little money and less time. So it was hard. It was intense. And it was superbly awesome. Wrapping the short was only mild relief though since we had simultaneously been prepping an even more ambitious project. A 2 day musicvideo extravaganza concert party shortfilm. The details are still so hush hush that I will return with more when I can show the goodies. Cause goodies they are. So happy. So so happy.

I came back to the States quite exhausted. 

Arriving in Clintondale to see my whole yard dug up (on purpose) was only more overwhelming so thank gawd we had this planned.

Off to the Vineyard for a week for us. Actually the first few days were rainy and gray and we welcomed that more than sun and beach. We relaxed and played games in Rosemary's lovely screenhouse, ate wonderful seafood and slept in. On day 3 we changed gears as friends came over from Boston. The weather looked up and we took off to Aquinna for some beaching. Friends left and family arrived. James' 2 sisters with kids, all in from California.

Susan, Rosemary, Donna and James!

Nephew and niece and niece and nephew. Gabe, Sophia, Sarah and Jack. 

More games, more beaching and more seafood. What else could you ask for? It was an absolutely amazing trip. Recharged we went back to Clintondale. I finally felt ready to face the mess.

Bob is digging trenches for our new electrical lines. We are burying them to the cottage and we are pulling power to the barn.

So many positives to this huge project, one of them being taking photos of our view without having to photoshop out the damn power lines. That's hours saved right there folks.

This is our old pole that is kind of an eyesore right in front of the dining room window.

New pole out by the street and out of the way.

Most of this ugly stuff is going on in the back. The front is looking good. It's quite amazing how many people stop by and tell us nice things. If I'm out in the yard it's almost a guarantee. It's so lovely and encouraging. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed and think there's no end in sight to our fixing up but wonderful passer-byers, blog readers, friends and family all put it in to perspective for us. Thank you!

Hosta update!

Happy happy Hydrangeas have been joined by one of my sister's ceramic all year round blooms.

We have not yet moved in to the renovated part of the house. With me gone and James doing a TV show on Long Island things have fallen behind. 

All the doors are in upstairs though. It's looking mighty busy and looking at this picture we just decided to paint all the hinges white.

All the trim is in upstairs and downstairs. The arch came out lovely and we went simple on all the baseboards. All will be navy in the end except the doors which will be white.

We picked up our lovely drapes that Rosemary sewed when we visited the Vineyard. I had to take them for a test ride, of course. Looking goooooood.

We also came home with this game board, another beauty from Rosemary. Kind of completes this corner of the dining room.