Here they are at last – the professional photos of my beautiful new home in the California desert! We did a relatively small renovation and, as I have mentioned before, furnished and accessorized with vintage finds – we had an absolute blast! Scroll through the gallery below to see the rather dramatic before and after shots.
My sincere thanks to the incomparable Robert Bailey of Robert Bailey Interiors for his masterful talent and loving generosity. I am SO excited to go down to California for the winter season with my beloved Jack Russell Terrier and partake in sunshine, hiking and poolside margaritas…
To enjoy all the photos of my Palm Springs renovation, click here.
Enjoy!
JS
I have never been much of a vintage kind of girl. The truth is that while I am very environmentally aware, I love new things and I am an incorrigible consumer…and so it has been rather cathartic and selfishly vindicating to discover the absolute joy, excitement and extreme creativity that comes from furnishing a home, almost in it’s entirety, with used furniture and accessories.
In my ideal world, we would do all we could to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. I realize that I am far from living my own ideal but I have recycling down pat and now I am one step closer by embracing the “Reuse” part of the environmental slogan. I have a long way to go when it comes to “Reducing” but awareness is always the first step toward making meaningful change.
The photo above is of the den in my new home in California and everything in the picture was acquired at local consignment stores. I cherish this incredible collection!
I encourage you, my readers, to give vintage a try…it does not mean that you have to embrace ancient antiques, a cottage-y look or an old-fashioned interior. You can still achieve a modern, contemporary or minimalist look, albeit somewhat eclectic. Oh and if you love art and design, check out www.1stdibs.com where thousands of beautiful used items from centuries past and present are for sale from all over the world. I warn you though…you may well become addicted!
Happy Hunting!
JS
My birthday is always an important event in my life and I think that the reason is that it is a fabulous excuse for a party in celebration of friendship.
My birthday this year has been a 4 day weekend in Palm Springs with a phenomenal group of people whom I adore. Let’s face it, what’s better than 4 days of fun, sun, champagne, laughter, love, understanding and friendship? Friends, old and new, flew in to celebrate with me and I am so grateful for their loyalty, commitment and love!
I picked the quote above in celebration of friends and lovers past and present… I figured I must be doing something right because my first email on my birthday was from my ex-spouse, my first text was from my ex-boyfriend and my first phone call was from my ex-lover! Despite broken hearts and adjusted dreams, we are able to put our egos aside and go forward with love and respect – How cool is that?! Yes, they have all crossed the path of my destiny and left a positive mark forever.
To the incredible friends who joined me this weekend, I say thank you and I love and cherish you all. To my readers I say, take matters into your own hands when your birthday approaches and organize a house party with those who’s company you enjoy – at the very least, provide the venue and the inspiration!
Scroll through the gallery above and enjoy the photos of friendship and fun.
“A friend is one who knows you and loves you all the same!”
~ Elbert Hubbard
Cheers to great friends!
JS
“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.”
~ Paulo Coelho
Now this – an email that was sent to me in response to “Love Lust and Lunacy”:
“Beyond sad and pathetic. Please get off your self created pedestal. What a sad,empty, trivial and shallow existence…” And it goes on…
YOWZA! I realized that when I put my stories “out there” that I was opening myself up to criticism and indiscriminate judgement so I did plenty of soul-searching and studying on the subject. I have to say that the realization that those who spend their days in judgement of others are merely reflecting how they feel about themselves has been immensely powerful. As Wayne Dyer says, “Judging others does not define them – it defines you.”
I have always worn my life on my sleeve and done it with good humor. Any negative scenarios that arise from living this way have been FAR outweighed by the positive – miraculous “coincidences”, remarkable opportunities and an extraordinary life thus far. And for all, I am extremely grateful.
In my endless studying of great self-development authors and speakers, I have come to the conclusion that absolute nirvana lies in complete self-awareness and self-love. Something that I have to work on daily but I believe that being absolutely self-assured and completely comfortable with who we are inside, leads to a life of freedom. What others say or do no longer affects us. We find the good in all situations and we are able to face life and opportunities without fear. We take full responsibility for our past, present and future.
So go forth into the world dear readers and strive for absolute self awareness and self-love. You will no longer feel the need to judge others. You will no longer feel the need to blame others and you will no longer find endless reasons to be offended.
Your journey will bring happiness and freedom!
Sending love and strength,
JS
P.S. Thanks to my critic for inspiring this week’s posting…
Vancouver
November 2009
If you are going somewhere to meet up with your married lover, it might as well be Las Vegas. I was in the cab heading to the airport here in Vancouver last Wednesday and I thought to myself, “I’ve done a few crazy things in my life and this is right up there.” I smiled. So sue me. There’s still no agreement reached in my supposed separation and I was on my way to Vegas to meet up with my lover whose wife of 30 years thinks he’s on a boy’s trip.
Well so much for not engaging in a full-blown affair. Here I am, knee deep in it. Being back at the ranch after my explosive 48 hours in the city was difficult. Whenever I thought about Bentley I took in a short, sharp breath that ran icy cold all the way down to my toes and afterwards the sensation was as though I’d experienced a mild electric shock. I felt neurotic and like a cat on a hot tin roof. Each day felt like a week and I was willing them away ‘til I could get back to the city to be with him.
I have to be completely honest and say that while I view myself as a relatively secure individual, being in the arms of my lover at this moment in my life, brings me immense comfort. He cherishes me, adores me and asks what he can do to help me. During this tumultuous time, I still feel so unsettled. Life as I know it has taken a 180, I struggle with bouts of intense insecurity and fear of my uncertain future.
At times like this I have always grabbed life by the balls and taken all the necessary action to kill the uncertainty and move forward. What makes this extraordinary time different is Ferrari’s reluctance to face the inevitable. He will not agree to sit down with me and negotiate a settlement despite the fact that we are now living apart completely. He says that his decision is still not final. Mine is, but that does not seem to resonate with him. And so, I sit in limbo — a very foreign place for the likes of me.
Bentley professes his adoration and I love hearing that he wants me and visualizes a future with me. Naturally it appeals to my ego and current insecurities at this moment in time. However despite my immediate vulnerability I have told him in no uncertain terms that he would be making a grave mistake if he left his wife for me.
I have asked him to promise me that he will not include me in whatever decision he makes regarding his own life and future. I have told him that if he shows up at my doorstep one night with a suitcase, I will ask him to leave the following day. I will NOT be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. I need and I want to live alone.
Bentley has agreed to my terms but I think hope springs eternal in the soul of a man in lust. Now he wanted to take me away – away from my dark and dreary temporary abode in the city, away from the stress of limbo and away from my uncertainty for a few days. Yes, we were going to Vegas to forget about it all. We were going to Vegas to be together for 24 hours a day. We were going to Vegas to have breakfast and dinner together, to fall asleep together and to wake up together. These are things that we had not been able to do together yet. Such is the nature of an affair.
Vegas is so contradictory to who I am – I don’t drink to excess, don’t gamble and have never done drugs. I am a nature lover, an aesthetically driven minimalist, an environmentally conscious greeny and a self-professed style critic – and yet, I love the place. I love it despite the badly dressed masses, the plethora of fake shit and the cigarette smoke. I love the great restaurants, the shopping, the fabulous shows and above all, I love it for the same reason that I love Mexico, the freedom that comes from a certain lawlessness appeals to the Third World Child still left in me.
I hate cigarette smoke and yet I like the fact that there is no law against it in Vegas. People can walk around swigging from bottles of beer or hard liquor – some stroll the strip with plastic guitars filled with potions that swing from their necks or giant plastic bongs filled with blue or green poison. Hookers and johns can do business freely and seemingly without judgment, beautiful women dance topless in both tasteful and tasteless shows. It’s tacky, crazy and free and I love it. I think I want to get married there once in my life!
I arrived at the Bellagio and saw my lover, Mr. Bentley standing by the lobby entrance. I almost ordered the cabbie to take me straight back to the airport. Bentley was dressed in a golf shirt complete with shark logo above the left pec, pleated khaki shorts and Teva- like sandals. Shit, I am shallow but I can’t help myself. I am aesthetically attracted and motivated and I had to do everything in my power to look beyond the tragic ensemble. Who can explain chemistry?! Despite the initial fashion shock, I was feeling excited, surprisingly not nervous and somehow confident that the trip, our first together, would not disappoint.
*Stay tuned for Part II of Chapter 2…*