It’s Friday, so you know what that means: musings from my future husband, ID Collection’s Jim Williamson. I would say, “Happy New Year,” but it is almost the middle of January, and I am still recovering from that miserable stomach funk that was going around. So basically I’m not that happy. And while I was recovering, I was already flipping through February 2012 issues, which only served to taunt me at how far behind I am.
But there was a plus side: I was able to accomplish a Gwyneth Paltrow-free cleanse and actually lose a few holidays pounds. I know. Gross. I don’t recommend it.
Speaking of pounds, I tried baking a lemon pound cake (which felt like it weighed many pounds) for Christmas Eve. It’s been awhile since I’ve baked or made anything other than toast. The cake looked and smelled great—at least that’s what the guys repairing my chimney said as that chipped away tons of stucco on to my already pitiful plants. (It doesn’t matter how much paper they put down, there’s always a mess.) But later, as I cut the cake, I could tell is was dryer than my wit. (Which some have compared to a tumbleweed blowing across a very parched landscape.) I couldn’t hide my disappointment, so we hid the cake under (lots of) fresh cream and candied Italian cherries, which our friends in Malibu turned us on to. ( I really love typing the word “Malibu.”) We also served three bottles of homemade limoncello. Trust me, after three bottles, no one cared about the cake, which we later repurposed to help that stucco set.
Moving on to things that are happy like gardens, spring, people who aren’t me, and this fabric. Specifically, this Giverny—a modern classic—brought to us by those talented folks in Switzerland at Creation Baumann. It’s modern because it is printed via a digital heat transfer process, and it’s classic because of the floral motif. I could go on and on about the symbolic myth inducing motifs of gardens… Boring! To me, this is just a beautiful fabric that looks like it has been hand-painted. I like that is it’s semi-transparent. So when you look out the window, it’s almost like looking out on to your own garden—only it’s prettier and it has no weeds. I also like the use of the metallic threads in the ground cloth. It gives it a slight shimmer and also adds volume. Heck, you can even mold this fabric into different shapes. I prefer to just give it a good ol’ crunch so it doesn’t look all pristine and perfect.
Anyway,whether you are trying to recapture that blue ribbon cake recipe or you’re picking tiny pieces of stucco out of the plants, I hope you all have a very happy Friday!
