It's Hard To Chug Pinot

Cougar Town's reign of alcoholism continues.  This week: a group of home-owning adults in their 30s and 40s play quarters.  With wine.  In the first five minutes!

Funnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!

Weekend Projects: The Results

Remember how I was going to make a professional-looking herringbone pattern on our entryway wall? Remember how I thought such a project would be more or less effortless? Yeah that didn't happen. Turns out, painting takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r. Maybe later this week. We did, however, paint the living room!

I did "most of" it, as in covered the majority of the surface area, while Dan was studying yesterday. But because our ceilings are so high, Danno was stuck with the tedious, far-more time-consuming job of cutting in all around the top of the room, so I'll give him most of the credit. He put on a brave face.

However, all of the misery was worth it, as the living room looks AWESOME.

See where those pictures are (temporarily) artfully propped against the wall? That used to be a pile of DVDs and a useless table (below, right):

And the beigey color is so warm and inviting. Yes, I just used the phrase "warm and inviting" in public, and I meant it.

Hoopla. Yay. Still a work in progress, but I love it. I'll try and take some better pictures but I have the bedroom to get on with (Dan confidentially told me that he just can't wait to cut in more ceiling trim around the bedroom. The thought of working with pale yellow just gives him a thrill... oh wait that's a lie).

At least Carla's happy!

We should have stacks of books that we no longer want lying around all the time, shethinks.

Weekend Projects: The Entryway

I'm sorry my blog's turning into some kind of tome about my efforts to be Martha Stewart. But not sorry enough to stop! Hahahahahahahaha suckers. Anyway, Dan and I are going to PAINT OUR APARTMENT this weekend. But how could I stop at mere wall painting? I think for our entry way, which is small enough to carry something interesting, I will take a cue from this recent post on Design*Sponge.  I will tape off a deceptively simple pattern all over the wall, and then paint it in alternating colors.

And peel away the tape!

To reveal this fucking awesome professional "hey I'm a cool person" pattern!

I'll let you know if it actually works.

Source.

Cougar Town

Sue me, I kind of like Cougar Town.  My favorite part is how the show is so casual about every character being a wino.  Courtenay Cox'll just casually pour a glass of wine like this:

--and then say, "I don't understand how people say you get four glasses out of every bottle.  I only get two."  Ba-dum CHING.

In the most recent episode, she breaks out "Big Joe."

Sorry.  I take terrible screenshots.  In case you can't tell, that glass is the size of her head.

Thank you, Cougar Town, for making my occasional urge to drink a realllllllly big glass of wine and be like, I don't know why I'm so flushed, I only had one glass! seem normal.  Now go change your stupid title.

A Tale (Tail?) of Two Oscars

A lot of things make Willis a good boyfriend to Dan's sister Melanie. Being super nice to his girlfriend's sister-in-law, for one thing. But this past weekend he decided to take the cake - uh, literally - for her birthday party. By commissioning a cake in the shape of their dog.

Edible Oscar!

Oscar was delighted with his likeness

So was Melanie!

So delighted, in fact, that she lifted up the cake's doggy head and took a giant bite out of its face.

Sorry Oscar. But you were delicious!

Bookcase Nitpicking

I mentioned earlier that our living room's "greige-and-yellow" color scheme exists mostly in my mind. This is because: a) our walls are a beautiful dingy shade of "renter's white," and the only yellow things in the room are our desk-turned-dining table and a vase of slowly dying yellow mums. High on the success of painting our bookcase, I decided to pull a Lebowski and try to pull the room together, man.

Route: picture frames. I have a small collection of hideous picture frames that I picked up for free back in my NBC days - I believe they originally displayed Super Bowl pins. Since then, they've held family photos.

I figured I could jaundice these up with some yellow paint left over from a bedroom art project, a large yellow canvas that I tell everyone is an Ellsworth Kelly.

The immediate result was nasty and horrible.

Gross. My new friend primer to the rescue. I whipped around the frames with primer to give the paint something to grip and also to keep the burgundy fake-wood color from peeking through. Then I painted everything again with the yellow.

Much better, but a bit bright. I was going for a softer canary look. Also, acrylic paint dries matte, which can look chalky and also flake. So for the last coat, I mixed a bit of the yellow with white latex semi-gloss (leftover from painting a dresser).

Presto! After a painfully long drying process, I united the soft yellow frames with pictures of our beaming family and put it all with the shelf. The finishing touches: a gold-toned Tiffany bowl (wedding gift) and a treasured photo of Dan in his chubster days on the cover of Sport magazine on a lower shelf. We managed to trim down our book collection by 1/16th this weekend, allowing for other things to go on shelves. Dan and I are both very loathe to part with our reading material, so that was a big deal.

Greige and yellow! It's on its way!

Weekend Attempts at DIY Decorating

Recently, Dan and I went to our friends Red and Holly's apartment.  They've lived there for two minutes and it's 100% decorated, complete with coordinating paint colors, sentimental yet aesthetically interesting photos hung on the wall, in frames, and a full dining table.  Remember when Dan and I got around to buying a dining table as a Christmas gift to one another?  In June?  Right.  Well, Rolly (Hed?  Rolly?  Rolly.) have inspired us me: Dan and I are going to live like grown-ups.  For real this time.  So over the weekend I decided to make a dent in our hot mess of a living room.

I can't believe I'm actually showing you that.  I must feel really safe with you.

First up, paint.  Our furniture, being largely free or under $20, is reminiscent mostly of dorm room with a whiff of off-campus frat house.  Take our $12 Goodwill coffee table:

Not so bad on first glance, but get somewhat closer and you can see how banged up it is:

There was also Dan's bookshelf, which is fine but I'm guessing came from the side of the road.  

Ok I just asked Dan and actually it's from Staples.  But wherever they're from, these are not priceless antiques.  And you know what you can do with pieces that are not priceless antiques?  Anything!  A trip to the hardware store was in order for sandpaper, primer, poly seal, and paint.  I chose a "greige" shade tonally similar to our rug but several shades lighter (it's not quite as light as the photo).

And got to work.  First a good sanding to get rid of the shiny finish, followed by a quick coat of primer:

Followed by two thin and even coats of paint.

Ta da!  I think these will go smashingly with our room's greige-and-yellow color scheme.  This scheme currently exists mostly in my head but we're getting there.  Now we need someplace to put all of our DVDs...

Meghan and Dan: The Marrying: Part 2b (More Pictures!)

Ha, and you thought I was done with portraits... but I had to throw in some of Dennis's pictures.  Regular readers of the blog and, um... people who know me... know that I have a very tall friend named Dennis who loves meatballs, pretty people, and taking pictures.  So when my attractive family was all gathered outside for portraits, it was as if I had laid out a meatball smorgasbord for my eggfurious friend, and soon DK was happily snapping photos with his fancy camera.  Honestly, he got some of my favorite family pictures, because we're so relaxed and happy (and Photoshopped).  As a headshot photographer, Dennis's job is making people feel comfortable in front of the camera and it shows in his work, big-time.

So, here you go.  Some pictures of my happy family, old and new, looking relaxed and laugh-y.  Photos courtesy, naturally, of Dennis Kwan (who now does weddings.  Hint, hint).

I lurrrrrve this one.

I believe this one above is his pride and joy.  There used to be people in the background!  Thank you, Photoshop.  

Also I think the "walking bridesmaids" picture is going to become one of his signatures.  Check out the one he got at Katie's wedding while she was off shooting kissyface pictures with her new husband:

And finally, the epitome of serene bridal beauty:



Yup... that's me.

I Love Jeffrey Steingarten

"I never get to the Greenmarket in the morning. I think that it's bigoted of farmers to get up so early... So you get to the Greenmarket, and if you haven’t ordered ahead of time, people are sold out? That's wrong! I happen not to be a morning person, but I deserve to eat as much as a morning person deserves to eat. When you prick us, do we not bleed? Seriously."

Amanda Hesser is my favorite, but Jeffrey Steingarten is the best. And upon reading a week's worth of his food intake, I now better understand that essay about trying to illegally procure fen-phen.

Katie and Semmes Got Married!

The three day Katie-Gets-Married Extravaganza is at a close, and man was it a weekend. Old friends, new friends, a miraculously successful choreographed bridesmaid lip-synch, and a good ole New Orleans second line. As I danced along with the crowd, waving my dinner napkin in the air, I realized... everything was perfect. Congrats, you crazy kids.

(all photos by Scotty, except for the first one, a teaser shot from Katie's photographer Emin Kuliyev)

Dennis channels Flo-Rida.

Congratulations, my friends. I love you.