How To Run Your Life*: This is for you, Blackbird: MERRY COUCHMAS!

In which the author tells you how to run your life -- or at least how to make the most of the fun parts of it.

For instance, inside these pages you will learn how to weather a mortar attack in good spirits; how to avoid booking yourself on the Internet into a bed and breakfast full of twee quilts and dusty tchotkes; and how to plan a dinner party that will stun your guests with deliciousness and style and not destroy your will to live with the amount of work you have to do to pull it off.

These are things I know firsthand, and things people who know me often ask me about (though I usually just book them into bed and breakfasts myself -- identifying ruffled death traps is an acquired skill). I am almost always right about everything (food, style and travel-related, anyway, and often many other things) and if everyone would just do as I say, dinner would taste better, cupcakes would not be dry, your parties would be more fun (for you), and mortar attacks... well, they always suck. I can't do anything about them.

*except laundry. I can't manage my own laundry, much less yours.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

This is for you, Blackbird: MERRY COUCHMAS!

The above was a serious miracle of physics (and a large tip for the Restoration Hardware delivery guys, who were awesome). This 10 foot X 4 foot couch somehow maneuvered through 5 doorways, into a backyard, up a flight of steps and then pirouetted in a 12-foot room to face the fireplace.

Now to paint the floors, paint the bench, paint the dining room, move the club chairs into the back room, bring in the 9 foot table, move the cable, hang a light...