Love at First Sight

I fell in love this weekend.  It was very exciting.  And as a Southern girl, this is very hard to admit but I fell in love with New York.  I know everyone else loves it but I just didn't see myself doing that.  But I did and there is no going back. 

For the past couple of years, Debby Schuh, a teacher in the scrapbook world would post on her blog about her weekends in NY (she lives in Buffalo) and we all marveled at the pics and places, and asking her repeatedly, to take me with you!  Well, this weekend, she did.  26 of us and it was a blast and damn near perfection.  I'm exhausted from walking 8000 miles this weekend and my camera was on the fritz so I only have a few hundred photos.  Luckily, my pals Sandy and Wendy took photos and Marsha's hubby photographer came along with us.  But don't think of Marsha as a good influence on me... first, telling me where the B&H Photo store was (near Macy's).  I didn't even realize they were IN NY - I bought my Canon 40D from them, along with my lenses.  Secondly, they convinced me to buy my Ipad this weekend (an apple in the big apple of course) - why wait?  Made total sense, and I'm so glad I did.  It is fantastic.

I'm still writing in my envelope journal and I haven't unpacked but I am going to share one of our site visits.  Sunday morning we started off at Balthazar's in SOHO for brunch and it was fantastic.  I split my breakfast with my new pal, Lisa - she had berry waffles and I had salmon and poached eggs.  Afterwards, we made our way to the MoMA store, right across the street and to Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic.  It was perfection... I fell in love with each little bit in the store and took a picture of all that I could... The frou frou prom dresses, the inspiration board, the petticoat light fixture, the large crucifix and sacred hearts.  I could have stayed all day and I would love to own the Grand Chaise or large squishy chair.  It just looked so comfortable, inviting and simply beautiful fabric.  I bought a napkin with a silver crown - silly probably to some but I had to have it and I wanted the card and bags... to add to my scrapbook.  Also in the store were several Coronation (Queen Elizabeth June 1953) mugs and memorabilia, which made me happy as I have several pieces myself.  So many of our crew had gone into Sabon and purchased something, so we made our way over a couple of blocks to experience it ourselves.  They have a beautiful large round ... er, guess you would call it a sink but you stand and wash your hands with their sweet smelling soap (Patchouli Lavender Vanilla) and scrub with sea salts from the Dead Sea and then of course, lotions to smooth it all out.  Well, let me tell you, I have enough lotions and potions to sink a boat, I don't need any more so I thought, nice try - not going to buy into it.  But it did make my hands super silky.  So I picked up some soap shavings that smell just like my  grandma's rose scent...  That was all I was going to contribute to this hi-jinks.  And now, I totally regret it and I'm calling up tomorrow to order the soap and scrub and lotion.  And I may get some face cream too!  It was just that amazing.  I took a bath with the rose soap and it was so wonderful.  I have to have some of that!
I'm going to go unpack a bit...I'm exhausted.  Thanks for all the kind comments about Silver Bella.  I am home for the next month and so looking forward to settling in.  I will post more about the trip and Silver Bella after I've gotten some rest.  Thanks for stopping by.