The bar I recently set up and motherblogger is mentioned in the Time’s Home section in a story about the super fun bar cart trend. Unfortunately, the wrong url was printed in the story, but they fixed it online.

When Maria, the reporter for the Times was interviewing me, I realized that I received a bar cart one Christmas from Santa. I had forgotten about it, but while we were talking I remembered coming downstairs one Christmas morning to find an orange plastic cart with metal trim and bright shiny wheels decked out with a tea set and glasses. The mod tangerine plastic gleamed next to the tree lights and even though I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t even know a present this chic existed in child size— it was a wildly reassuring gift. The cart was my mother’s way of saying to me, I know who you want to be and who you will become. That summer I was voted clumsiest camper at Camp Chinqueka, but by giving me that cart, my mom was telling me that I could also be Grace Kelly.

My mom is still that kind of gift giver and she manages to surprise me every Christmas. When I was in college I was too controlling and specific about what I wanted so she stopped taking risks and I received lots of gift cards. It was what I had asked for, but when I’d open the little card it felt like our connection was diffused into an institutionalized transaction. Parent = Shopping spree at Anthropologie. It made me feel like a favorite neice, not her daughter and her gifts had been her unique way of mothering me.

So I stopped telling her what I wanted for Christmas because I didn’t want checklist gifts. I wanted her imagination. And it worked. In the years since, she has given me a vintage Tutu from a performance of Sleeping Beauty; a limited edition of The Flair book; a fur scarf; a set of Leeds china. This year she gave me a ruffled purse. Where I’ll use it, I have no idea, but it’s her way of saying, you need this as much as a new pair of yoga pants. All her gifts are her way of guiding my taste while boosting my confidence to be who I wanted to be in a way that only she can.

When my mom gives me advice, sometimes I can hear the worry in her voice. Her gifts, however, are clear they all say I believe in you. And often enough, her presents are ideas of myself that  haven’t even occurred to me. So it was funny to realize, that while Maria was interviewing me, I had said I set up the bar because I was having two parties and I didn’t want anyone crowding up our tiny kitchen, but I really set it up because I wanted to have that life that she whispered into my ear when I was seven on Christmas morning.

To celebrate we went into the city and took the boys to the Temple of Dendur and Damien Hirst’s Shark at the Met and then had and early dinner at Ruby Foos. The boys were wide-eyed and soaked in the “all the guys wearing ninja hats” which was what Dashiell called guys in ski masks, the construction, the dogs, the hot dog stands, and the architecture.  It was all  seamless and dreamy until we naively decided to go to Toys R Us in Times Square. The sidewalks were narrowed because the police barriers had already been set up for tomorrow night we ended up getting stuck in a human traffic jam in front of the Charmin Insta-potties. A woman dressed up as a roll of toilet paper helped us carry Dashiell’s stroller over the barriers so we could wiggle out of the crushing crowd and walk more freely in the street. Our reward: The same crowd was in Toys R Us. Thankfully the boys picked out Air Hawks pretty quickly because there was not a Lego set to be had and we were able to get the hell out of there. I was hoping the crowds weren’t going to turn the boys off to another day trip and David assured me that it wouldn’t. But as we inched towards the George Washington Bridge, Conrad sighed and said. “I wished we lived in the middle of nowhere.”

Dashiell and Conrad, December 30, 2009

Conrad and Me December 30, 2003

While pointing for W’s Reading List I came across this chic tidbit:

What does Marc Jacobs bring to the beach in St. Barths?

A Birkin, naturally. Via huffpo

Merry Christmas to my house. Thank you honey. It’s perfect.

File under totally uncessary but still worth fantasizing about. This Hayworth Shelf in melon by Serena & Lily is the kind of thing I’ll furnish my office in heaven with.

The December issue of House Beautiful featured home bars and inspired me to set one up, especially because I’m having a dinner party for friends Christmas week and then hosting family on Christmas Day. The bar is my way of hoping to shoo guests away from gathering in the kitchen.  Normally, I like kitchen parties, but our kitchen is small and not the prettiest room in the house and  it’s just going to stress me out if everyone ends up in there. Ta da: my solution:

The tray is over 90 year’s old and it was given to my husband’s great grandmother from his great grandfather as a “push present” when his grandmother was born so she could have breakfast in bed. The lamps are from Pier 1 and were $30 each! The crystal decanter was a wedding gift. When I opened it as a 27 year-old newlywedI burst out laughing, certain I’d never have a use for something as formal as that. What a difference a decade plus can make.

The wall needs something, so I’m going to ask David for this convex mirror from West Elm for Christmas. I’ve had my eye on it for a while because I thought it would be fun to hang a starburst mirror over our canopy bed. But now that the bar is set up, if I get it, I most likely put it here.

None of the lamps I bought for the guest room worked out. They were too big for a bedside table so I ended up heading back to Home Goods that Sunday and returning four out of the six I bought. That said, two worked out really well in the living room.

And that’s my favorite part of decor club, seeing how things work out spontaneously. I went out for the guest room and came back redoing my living room. Plus, I got these lamps for $40 each at HG. Later that week I saw pretty much the exact same lamp at on sale in a local shop by Le Jardin, a furnishing company I covet (below), marked down from $550 to $239.

Am I right or am I right?

Some women have book clubs, but my friends and I have decided to start a decor club.

First rule of Decor Club: Talk about Decor Club.

Second rule of Decor Club: Never talk about Decor Club with your husband. He’ll just start asking questions that start with “How” and end with “much” that take all the fun out of your ingenious plans even if  they are based on going to Ikea and buying those Lack tables that are reduced to $7.99!

Decor club doesn’t require formal meetings we just email, text and talk about our latest   rearragement brainstorm, wallpaper obsession or can-you-believe-this-was-on-sale discovery whenever we have one. Case in point, knowing that my mother was spending the night with us for Christmas Eve (the first time she has decided to stay at our house and not in a hotel) I wanted to tweak our guest room so that she’d be comfortable enough to consider doing it again next year. First task: lamp shopping for bedside tables.

Home Goods was having a sale.

For me, turning forty was an emotional roller coaster that’s why I figured the best way to celebrate my big day would to be screaming my head off on Space Mountain in the Magic Kingdom. But even better than getting to go to Disney for my birthday, I also got to write about it for More. com. Check out the story here.

If you’re stumped for a memorable way to celebrate a big event in your life and you like amusement parks, warm weather and overpaying for ice cream, I highly recommend Disney. The trip was relentlessly fun. Even sleeping was fun. Seriously, my family and I never need to have fun together again.

The Cut has reported that H&M is going to open home stores. I pray that they’ll use the same marketing strategy of using superstar designers create mini-cult collections for their interiors. First on my list: Oly Studio for H&M. The other day, under the momentary spell of getting a freelance check in the mail, I said to myself, “You know what? I’m 40 and enough of this WestElm/Ikea/HomeGoods decorating trifecta. I’m going to buy the lamps I really want.” So I searched for the Oly Pipa lamp (below) and was ready to splurge when I saw that it was $849.

Honestly I can’t think of anything more boring than finding a gorgeous thing at a prohibitive price. But if anyone were to be able to make home furnishings interesting, it should be H&M.