Love Notes

Next week is a very garden club centric week for me -  we have our Alexandria house and garden tour on Saturday (info here), flower arranging at all the houses on Friday (one of my favorite days of the year), and on Sunday, I'll be on a 7 a.m. train to NYC for the Garden Club of America's annual meeting, (not to mention this week's garden club related zoom meetings.   If you know me, you know I'm not a fan of zoom meetings.)  

And all my  MCD goodies will be at the Spring Marketplace at the Atheneum in Alexandria on Saturday - my ace ambassadresses Marianne and Susan will be pinch hitting for me while I'm on garden tour hostess duty that day.  Come say hello.

So I'm trying a little something different for today's note.  Last month's revisit to Gilligan's Island was a hit (here), so in a similar vein, today we'll be joining the March sisters as they move to Manhattan.   Do you remember these lovely characters?  Four sisters, each with unique facets, strengths and weaknesses.  READ MORE

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There's a distinct kind of magic that unfurls in December.  The holidays unleash a bustle and disco ball shimmer and our world spins faster.   Lucky (or crazy) me took two days off last week for a girl twirl with two friends around NYC - arguably our country's own Capital of Christmas.   

I felt the magic the moment I stepped off the train.   

Tuesday's 34 degree temps and steady rain did nothing to dampen the spirits of our merry band of travelers.   We started with a late lunch at BG, (high praise for the roasted chicken salad and the truffle chicken pot pie), and while the rain carried on outside, seven floors of Bergdorf's beckoned.  Fourth floor shoes murmured, "Come hither";  the seventh floor Christmas shop dazzled and flickered.   The first floor was dressed to the nines as a full-on white snowy forest (more on that below).  As has become our tradition, the three of us had our picture taken with Bergdorf's Santa.  (It was good of Santa, not so good of us.)   READ MORE

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I started out thinking today's note should be set to Ella Fitzgerald singing "Autumn in New York" ... and yet before I knew it, Nina Simone was crooning "Feeling Good" in my ear (so good!), fast forward forty minutes (which flew by) and I had created this playlist, neatly bookended by the two songbirds.  In my mind's eye, I'm picturing it as a soundtrack for a Nancy Meyers movie with you as the protagonist ... camera pans as you stroll through Central Park (or along your favorite hometown walking route) ... the director calls for a zoom in as you pause to kick a few leaf piles, and a red maple drifts up toward the clouds.  What is our lovely protagonist (YOU) thinking in that moment?  What is she longing for?  Where would her story lead, if she dared to write the next scene herself?  READ  MORE

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