Change

Everybody is talking about change.  

But some people are afraid.  Thoughts about the tanking economy are paralyzing.   Some may try to convince you that you can't afford to revitalize your surroundings.

But what if it's less about purchasing power and more about alternative sources?  A change in perspective?

Why not start by changing color?

Look at the color wheel.  One great way to choose a color scheme is to pick a favorite color or a color of a large piece of furniture that you know you won't be able to afford to replac now and then go across the color wheel to find it's opposite, it's complement.  This will be your theme, your color scheme.  Though before, it was easy for you to sit in your room and knit-pick on 

differences, from now on, you are going to concentrate on unifying atttributes.  Let's get excited about facing challenges!  If you go to a paint store and pick out sample cards that have these colors, you can bring them around with you as you choose accessories for your new room.  I like to start by going to Sally or Conway's and go directly to the linens:  sheets, curtains, table cloths.  All of these provide huge amounts of fabrics to work with.  If I'm still searching, I go to the garment district.  Those fabric stores can be intimidating, but make sure they don't say wholesale only.  Paron Fabrics on 40th St. has reasonable prices and not-too-snobby salesclerks.   In my bedroom, I mixed sheets and pillow cases I found at Sally that seemed incongruous (celebrate diversity!) except they all fit into my unifying color scheme:  Blue and yellow with white as my neutral.  (always a fresh choice)  I chose these two colors from the antique map print pictured here.  The headboard was a Ted-and-Leenya project from plywood we found on the street cut to size wrapped in what was left of a navy blue duvet that Maya chewed in her puppy days.  See, she's a designer, too!  The trivets are a collection from my Mother and the matching lamps were made by Ted's father.  I made a bedskirt cut on a bias from a sheet matching the second pillows from the top.  Curtains in the bedroom are white with a valance draped from fabric matching the long roll pillow.  

(see my earlier post entitled The Gene)  Curtain tips:  Use the lines in your wood or tile floor to cut 90 degree angles in material for curtains.  Hem them after they are hung, just like a skirt.

Now, some of us want to cling to our white walls.  We've had white for a long time.  We know what white is like.  Choosing a different bold color for the walls can seem scary and it's hard to look at a small sample card and really imagine what it will look like on an entire wall.   Though it seemed like a dark bold choice, I knew I wanted Colorado Sky Blue on our bedroom walls, a reminder of home.  In our living room, we painted terra cotta (our 2 main colors are purple, chosen because of the one nice piece of furniture I owned already, the couch I purchased during Cabaret days, and terra cotta) but on a large surface, it looked too orange for us.  We bought a smaller can of brick brown paint, added one part water to one part paint and after loosely applying it with a roller, wiped it off with a ripped up towel.  It was much easier than sponging.  The more we wiped, the more the walls looked like they were covered in rich suede.  And don't we all wish that we had money to add beautiful crown molding?  My answer to this is tape right under the ceiling with wide masking tape so that you're leaving a white strip.  Leave the baseboards white as well.  This gives the illusion of molding and adds a fresh pop of white and you don't have to "cut" into a popcorn ceiling when you're painting.  

It's time for a change.  Don't let fear or the country's financial woes stop you.  Go bold with color in a completely new way.  Yes we can!

Favorite Wines for Under Ten Dollars

It's going to be a long 8 days.  

Let's weather the remaining week of this never-ending campaign together by sharing our favorite inexpensive wines!  I don't claim to be a wine connoiseur by any stretch, but I do drink a lot of wine, especially when I'm nervous about the future of this Country that we call home.  

Here are some of my favorites:

REDS:

Bogle Vineyards Merlot 

Altos

Avalon

Monkey Puzzle from Chile

  Eyzaguirre Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile (in a little burlap sack)

  Yellow Tale

  Charles Shaw from Trader Joes (Three Buck Chuck)

El Gato Negro

WHITES:

Marques de Caceres, Spanish Wine

Indaba Chenin Blanc

Please feel free to add your favorites in comments on this post:

Poll

There are so many polls out there now. It's easy to get confused with the differing numbers.  But now, results are in: The poll I posted last week showed that 61% of readers of whatwouldleenyado.blogspot.net polled wanted to have more adventures! 

It is interesting to watch the news these days.  As we might expect, people are consuming less, searching for bargains.  In these dire economic times, it seems that the decades of living on credit is over.  People don't feel they can travel or eat out as much.  So I say, come to the light!  Why not make inexpensive living an art form?

Ted and I have been having adventures the entire seven years we've been together and about 50 percent of those years have been economically tight.  By some definitions, even dire.  But tough times have never stopped us from having romantic dates and exploring this city that has become our home.      

First, Central Park.  Worth an entire post by itself!  It has taken  me years of adventuring, but I know my way around this huge park like the back of my hand and still I find new pockets of natural beauty and quirky surprises.  The zoo alone, despite it's size, is well worth a day's visit.  It costs a mere eight dollars for adult admission and you can spend hours in front of the ant exhibit, the snow monkeys,  the penguins and the polar bears.  This biological gem is beautifully designed and it's good  to be reminded about fragile ecosystems all over the world.  Though Tavern on the Green and the restaurant at the boat pond are higher priced menus to avoid, visiting a deli before entering the park can buy you a picnic lunch or dinner that can be enjoyed on Sheep's Meadow (no dogs allowed...) or at the Bethesda Fountain  or while waiting in line for free tickets to  Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theater.  Skating in the winter is cheaper and more spacious in Central Park than at Rockefeller Center and once after a heavy snow, Ted, Maya and I even went sledding above the softball fields!  

Skip chain restaurants.  They are tourist traps and more expensive than in other parts of the country.  But the biggest reason to walk that block or two farther West or East, depending on where you are, is that there are thousands of amazing places to get food from any part of the world, and of course, ordering it to be brought to your apartment is nothing short of a miracle.  Better yet, call and then pick it up yourself to save on delivery tips.  Now, thanks to Ted's sister Peg and her husband Stu, we were able to celebrate an early anniversary once at One if by Land, Two if by Sea down in the West Village.  The service itself was astounding, and I'd never experienced a tasting menu before!  But when we don't have two hundred and fifty dollars to spend on an evening out, we eat at some of our favorite restaurants that have no liquor license.  This means that we can bring our own bottle of wine with us for under ten dollars (like Bogle Merlot), saving almost half the normal bill to eat out.   6th St. in the East Village is lined with  half a dozen Indian Restaurants with this setup.  (My cousin Molly introduced me to this

phenomenon years ago!  Thanks, Molly!)  Chili Thai on 9th Avenue is also in this category, featuring creative and fresh fusion dishes.

One of the best thing to have happened to NYC in the past 5 years is the completion and connection of the bike path that stretches from South Street Sea Port all the way up to the Little Red Light House under the George Washington Bridge.  Adventures along this path include free kayaking on three of the piers in Clinton and the Upper West Side, lunch or dinner at the 79th Street Boat Basin (bring your dog and your bike!), happy hour at the Frying Pan  , a resurrected sunken ship on Pier 66 at 26th Street, and free concerts in the summer.  And why not take a ferry?  Just being on the water and getting different views of the New York Skyline are well worth the low fares.  Ted and I once picked up some takeout  at one of our favorite inexpensive Indian Restaurants, paired it with a bottle of wine from the corner wine store, and parked ourselves at the little built-in table and swivel stools on our very own mini pier on the newly renovated Riverside Park South.  The sun was setting and we had the best river-view in the city while feasting on Indian cuisine!  And all for under forty dollars!

Riding across the George Washington Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge are fantastic adventures that are completely free.  Once accross the GWB, riding up the Palisades puts you suddenly on a low traffic road with  a view of only the river and lots of trees. And in the fall, what a wonderful way to leaf peep for the cost of your picnic lunch!  If you don't have your own bike, bike rental is available all over Manhattan.  You can even rent tandem bikes near the Intrepid museum on Pier 86.  

All of this adventure for a low low price... and without burning oil or adding to pollution!  (not to mention getting a workout!)  Renaissance Girls never miss a chance to multitask.

Sarah Palin

I started my blog too late!

Alas, the Republican Vice Presidential Candidate didn't know about big city values and how we Renaissance Girls stay in style while keeping on a low budget!  

I mean, I love how her stylists updated her hair,  but if she would have read my blog, she would have been able to turn that $150,000 price tag on her campaign wardrobe into more like $5,000.  I'm not suggesting redistribution of wealth or anything, but McCain is talking spending freeze so let's get serious, my friends.  

Okay, if shopping for a Vice Presidential candidate, I might actually skip the thrift stores and 99 cent stores, but I would start at places like Target, H & M, and Old Navy so that we'd save the campaign as much money as possible to tackle important issues like breaking our addiction to foreign oil and researching alternative energy sources that would reduce our carbon emissions.  This is where I'd find wardrobe staples and basics.  If I were her campaign shopper, I'd go to DSW Shoe Warehouse and Payless and I'd take the time to find bargains that appear current and expensive so that I could spend money elsewhere, like finding a way to make  healthcare affordable to all Americans.  And she does have a limo and a private jet. Expensive shoes are wasted on her as she's not navigating city streets and subway stairs.  If I still couldn't find the right power suits at these starter stores, I'd go to Century 21, Filene's Basement, and TJ Maxx where there are plenty of designer clothes to mix and match.  I'd still have money left to figure out how to attract better teachers to our educational system without adding more of a tax burden on the middle class.  If I was still missing, say, evening wear for fund raising galas, in a pinch I'd move up to the sale racks at Lord & Taylor and Macy's, but I don't think I'd have to go that far.  I would never even pass by Neiman Marcus, Tiffany's or Bloomingdales.  The Economy is too fragile.  Foreign diplomacy is needed more than ever.   Children are starving here on American soil. 

Like Sybil Sage said about me (How sweet!  Thanks, Sybil!) in a recent comment on my post about the Coat Sale, Sarah Palin really could look great in anything anyway.  Dressing her is not brain surgery.  And don't middle class hockey Moms and New York artists have one thing in common:  a limited budget? Governor Palin, it's okay to look to New Yorkers for what could be considered patriotic advice.  We grow good American people here in our big cities.

Divawear

It was my Barbies who served as my first dress design clients.  I still have those early creations somewhere, all packed together in a little-girl flowered suitcase:  Tiny metalic tube dresses, evening gowns that involved head removal to get them on... My first human-sized garment designed without a pattern was a Hallowe'en Costume for my first Highschool Party.  I went as a princess in a flowing green-polyester-curtain gown, complete with a matching cone hat.  My Dad even said, why don't you start designing clothes for yourself?  

My relationship with my Mom's 1934  Singer "Feather Weight" (I sew on it still) was rocky at first. I  went through a lot of the scrap fabric that was piled in ragged cardboard boxes in our basement and yards of thread before I learned to thread the machine correctly and adjust the tension and stitch length for each project:   knit, denim, or naugahyde.  I followed patterns first, practicing sewing basics and techniques.

  But eventually, at my Senior College vocal recital and on the opening night of my first Broadway show (pictured here with Natasha Richardson at the Cabaret opening) I wore gowns of my own design.    I named my "line" after my fellow college vocal students' affectionate term for wonderfully gaudy and oversized wardrobes of Star Opera Singers:  Divawear.

So it was only fitting that my wedding dress would be made out of a tablecloth and a sheet.  Okay, it wasn't any ordinary table cloth.  

And it wasn't  just because of our limited budget (9,000 dollars for everything).   After the love of my life proposed to me in a Canadian Bay, my Mother pulled a bag out of the bottom of her linen closet.  In it was an exquisite linen table cloth salvaged from the house of my Great Grandmother.  Mom suggested that I use it to make my wedding dress and my first worry was that I'd be destroying a family heirloom.   But I packed it in my suitcase back to New York and when Ted and I finally found the perfect location for our special day, I set to work.  I was acting in a new play at American Repertory Theater in Boston at the time and brought my little Feather Weight back to my cast housing with me.  As I am wont to do, I started doodling at rehearsal and came up with a sketch of my dream gown.  But since much of the tablecloth was handmade lace, I needed an under dress.  I didn't know the Boston fabric scene but DID know how to find TJ Maxx and Marshall's and so I headed for downtown.   I bought a 600 count cotton king-sized sheet set for 30 dollars that was almost the exact shade of ivory as the antique table cloth.  I knew that

I'd never be able to find modern linen that had the same  movement and flow as the tablecloth and this sheet set had an almost satin finish.  It would look beautiful through the lace.  I thought through my design and decided that the only other thing I needed were snaps, beading, and matching thread.  Between rehearsals and performances at ART, I began to sew.  The great thing about having an entire sheet set is that not only did I have plenty of material for mistakes, but I had pillowcases for storage and transport.  But making the first cut into the tablecloth proved an emotional moment and after much procrastination and careful measurements, I gritted my teeth and closed the scissors into the linen.  I was committed!

I ended up hand-sewing much of it as I find hand-sewing to be easier and more precise for delicate work.  I sewed tiny fake pearls  into translucent sequins onto the just the upper bodice.  I wanted something sexy AND traditional, ornate AND subtle all at the same time.  What is more expressive of you as a bride than something you designed yourself?  

When Mom and Dad came a week before the wedding to help with setup,  Mom put the finishing touches (a hem & ivory tassles) on what was left of the table cloth to make a shawl/sash that I wore draped over my arms (a veil felt too artificial for me) and I found ivory espadrilles (I knew I'd be walking down the aisle on a lawn) at DSW that I then decorated with scrap lace and pearls.  My darling new sister-in-law, Marie, (a future guest blogger!) designed and made me the most exquisite pearl grape-cluster earrings and matching bracelet.  And last but not least, my cousins Kim and Kris  pinned fabric flowers into my hair and my fellow renaissance girls Penny and Elizabeth taped me into my dress! (thank you, Topstick, double sided tape!  A fashion-secret must...)  But unlike my Barbie dolls, I was able to put it my gown on without removing my head!

It took months of gradual designing, but after all, I was stitching generations of my mothers and grandmothers into my wedding dress.  As I sat and sewed, I thought about what it meant that I was getting married, what it meant for all of us as women over generations.  I even quilted my Great Grandmother's monogram in a prominent place on the front of the underskirt.  Did she ever dream about a life that her great-granddaughter might lead in New York City? 

I hope you have found your own "line", in what you choose to wear out into the world each morning.  Express your own inner Diva!

 

Renaissance Girl

There is a time in everyone's life when they call on their inner super hero.

One of my dearest friend's apartment was lost in a fire last year and as I stood on the threshold of what was left of his life, I felt more helpless  than I ever had before.  What could I do?  I'm just one friend.  I closed my eyes and made a wish:  if only I had a superpower.

And it was then that Renaissance Girl was born.

Stronger than an executive who could throw thousands of dollars around with the waggle of a pen, I power-walked uptown about five blocks to a 99 cent store to purchase ten large plastic/fabric zipper plaid bags with handles for $1.99 each (to store any salvagables) and a small spiral notebook with a package of five ballpoint pens (lists for the insurance company).

Then it was on to Sally.  We had thirty minutes before we had to be back at work and faster than a New York City taxi I ran to my "second closet" to purchase what would serve as my friend's entire wardrobe until he could even determine if he had any clothes  left besides those he was wearing that day.  This was a tall order as my friend is a stylish gay urbanite and really only steps out of the door in things that are the latest in fashion, but able to spot lower rise pants and the cute Western shirts at a glance, I knew I had been preparing for this moment for my entire life.

I headed first for the men's shirt aisle and kept his size always in the forefront of my mind.  Zap!  I knew that comfort and washability were going to factor in heavily in the next couple  weeks of his life.  I grabbed a long sleeved Tee in a faded maroon and an oversized fleece in grey (the temperature in his now windowless apartment was sub zero).  Pow!  Then it was on to the slacks rack where I found some khakis (flat front, of course) and even some Lucky brand Jeans (from two seasons ago, but hey!  Desperate times call for desperate measures...).   Kaboom!  Thirty dollars and fifty seven cents later, I ran back to meet him at his new storage locker that his amazing boyfriend was helping him open (a fellow superhero!) and we made it back to rehearsal just in time.

Three days later, though,  there did come a  moment of reckoning when I realized as we stood hovering over the hole that was once his floor, sifting through the blackened wreckage that had remnants of what all of a sudden felt like MY memoirs, MY belongings, that I realized I could go no further.  I was not really a super hero after all and he had to go on without me.   

I am happy to report that my friend has his life back together as much as can be expected.  He has a fabulous new apartment in the same neighborhood and incredibly, much of his belongings were salvaged after all.  I guess in the end, if we have our health, our wits, and our friends, we are trully rich after all, superpowers or no.

The Shoe Doctor

If you live in New York, chances are you have developed a relationship with the shoe repair man. I just dropped off three pairs of boots and deposited 60 dollars, with 40 due on receipt and I wondered, is it really worth it?

It's not unlike dropping your dog off at the vet. "You'll polish them up real good before I pick them up? These ARE beautiful boots, aren't they? I've put a lot of miles on these...". I know he doesn't really care, but he pretends, like a faithful bartender. "Yeah, I was playing with my band last weekend at this crazy Long Beach Irish Festival and the sole just fell off! I was flapping around like Donald Duck for like two hours. I had to wrap a used guitar string around it just to get home! You should have seen it..." The shoe repair man nods at the appropriate moments as he marks the wounds in my boots for surgery. I hand over the money and the thought does occur to me, guiltily, that I could probably find another slammin' pair of cowboy boots at Beacon's Closet in Williamsburg for $30.

In the end, though, it is better to fix up beloved boots that never go out of style than to fill landfills with slightly worn items and burn energy on production of new products. Sometimes, it's worth it.

And me and the Shoe Guy, we got a thing goin' on.