Hidden In France

Vintage toys and muscle aches.

I started working out again. I was shamed into working out by the fabulous California weather, strong indicator that wearing-nothing season is in-like-omg- three weeks!

So my friend Claire and I decided to splurge and share the tough love of a personal trainer. To give you an indication of the lady's expectations I will tell you that she trains professional athletes for a living. Professional athlete and us. This is a nice change of pace for her because she doesn't usually get to hear whines, complaints and requests for water breaks. She must wonder why, if I hate sweating and panting so much, do I insist on paying her good money to make me do it.

I wonder that too.

She works us so hard that the muscle pain did not leave me between two sessions.  After the first session I couldn't go up and down stairs and my ab pain was so severe that I could not laugh without moaning at the same time.  This week it's the shoulders and the tush. I walk like one of those clowns with the big shoes and I go ouch, ouch when I get out of my car.  But it's worth it because:

I'M GOING TO LOOK SO HOT!

At least that's what she promises. Okay.  I definitely want to look hot.  It's on my list of 100 things to do before I die. I'm motivated now.

 

I love those vintage tin toys from sushipotparts via Designer's block . 

 

An (almost) white interior

No less than a post a day this week.  And I don't know how that's possible because i've been busy, taking on the writing of one, two, three and now five articles as I work on two screenplays.  The saying is " if you want something done, give it to a busy person to do. Damn right.

I could not resist posting these images.  I think I've posted them before. They have Hidden in France written all over it. The images were photographs by Bjarni b Jacobsen, but I want to know who the stylist is, because she or he makes my heart sings. *** update: here she is! her name is Kira, this is her house (except for the last picture on the right which remains a mystery) her website is full of awesome rugs and objects, check it out: kira-cph.com.

Via room service (in the exact order i'm ashamed to say) and another source I just lost, rats.

 ... 1 hour later...  Dementia is upon me.  Now I know I've posted these images before.  Double rats.

Winter color

Snow everywhere in the United States, to the exception of where I live of course.  I'm jealous.  It's been a rare weather in my life but each time I experienced it it felt utterly magical. Yeah, tell that to all the good people stranded in a blizzard at the moment. 

Pfff.. just to think of all this snow is about all I can take of white. Look at the colors I found on Inthing's flikr page. What a thril! You can find more color and vintage treasures on her blog.

Happy New Year with crayons

I love this picture, found here, via here.  

Now back to my sudoku (sorry but I'm a very busy person)

Another year bites the dust

What a good year this has been for our family.  I'm saying this while keeping my fingers tightly crossed and banging my forehead violently against wood because I'm more than ever waiting for the other shoe to drop.  With incredibly sad and difficult things happening everywhere, I find it shameful to celebrate... But truly the year was sweet, cozy, peaceful, abundant, serene for the most part, with the brunt of the drama being self-inflicted and most likely imaginary.

It wasn't all perfect.  2010 was also the year when I became middle-aged in looks, poundage and years. I'll try to remedy that in 2011. I just read someone's new years resolution on facebook and she made me laugh, she said this year, 'if anything tastes good, spit it out immediately'.  Well i'm not going to do that.  And I'm probably not going to botox myself stiff either.  What I will do, however, is coat all the mirrors in the house with a thin layer of olive oil. Problem solved.

I start the year with the college application madness behind us, and two school having already said yes to him (two out of two so far, the rest will be revealed in April), a younger son finally happy with his school and making new friends after a couple of lousy experiences, no less than three TV shows on the air produced by my husband which is totally cool, and new resolve to self-publish.  2011 will see the joys and heartaches of seeing my son off to college and becoming just three at home. I'm very scared of that and therapy to deal with it is on the horizon. Maybe this is why the year was so good.  It needed to be, because it was the last one of the kind.

So my resolution is to self publish.  Who am I kidding, I will never be published the regular way. I have not sent a single query to an agent since August. But the truth is, I'm not even sure I want and agent, or a publisher.  I've been reading a lot on the subject and everything points to self publishing: faster, easier, more control, more freedom, more outlets, more percentage.  The last vestige of delusion to abandon is the thought of my book as a physical representation of my ego, and let it become what it needs to be: a marketable product. 

My horoscope in today's  L.A. Times assures me that  "The substance of the stars shines through my every cell, and the light reaches to the far corner of the universe."  no effing way! I mean with this kind of prognosis in my favor (and by the way it is also relevant to all of you girlfriends born in May) how could I not succeed?

I wish you all a sweet new year.

PS: I'm thinking of calling my book Hidden in Paris. What do you think of that title? Have you ever chosen a book based on the title alone? I don't think I ever did.