Holiday MashUp: where I lure you in with an abundance of sparkly Christmas stuff, but then discuss the prevalence of luxury-home blogs.
Hey there! If you’re here for the sparkly stuff? Welcome!
This blog is TOTALLY ALL ABOUT SPARKLY STUFF.
If you’re here for my mind-bogglingly amazing writing skills? Also, welcome.
I don’t break them out as often as the disco balls, but when I do, it’s fantastic.
When we moved here, all of a sudden I was tasked with juggling the design of renovating an entire house.
Which, objectively? Does not seem that hard… It already had walls and floors and rooms. So what is there to really design?
Obviously, this is stupid and speaks to my absolute dearth of knowledge about anything house-related.
After our move, and my self-appointment as captain of incessant decision-making… It didn’t take long for me to morph into someone who spent ALL their free time looking at house-stuff on the internet. Which? In case you didn’t know? There is a lot of it.
Somewhere in that immersion, I discovered blogs.
A good blog is like finding the exact friend you need right at that moment… Someone who WANTS to hear all about grout width.
If blogs provided free drinks, no one would ever leave.
And eventually, I had the same thought nine-million other people have had:
I should write a blog!
You have this realization in a gauzy, epiphany-like state. Where you marvel at how OBVIOUS it is. But fail to comprehend just how equally obvious it was to the other nine-million people who have already beaten you to the punch.
Despite the fact that my favorite blogs were like reading something that could have come out of my own head? I immediately abandoned the idea of writing about anything real.
I wanted one of those luxe lifestyle blogs.
I wanted a header that depicted my lavishly-decorated Christmas mantel.
I wanted to showcase my nineteen live Christmas trees… strung with antique mercury glass ornaments… and talk about making bows from ribbon, woven from silk thread, dating from the Ming dynasty.
I wanted to bemoan the difficulty of choosing a Molteni range over a La Cornue.
Despite the fact that I do not think chevron is important, or believe that anything equestrian-related belongs in your home.
Despite the fact that I cannot imagine the posturing involved in reupholstering your sofa with antique linen recovered from the basement of an Irish convent.
Despite the fact that I do not wear Tory Burch, or kitten heels, or Capri pants, or wax my eyebrows, or drive a Mercedes, or vacation in Palm Beach?
Despite all of that…
That’s exactly what I planned for my blog—to join the ranks of the perfectly-coiffed.
Something about that lush, hyper-decorated corner of the internet sets off my competition-alarm like nothing else.
I will be Slim Paley meets Velvet and Linen. I will do it all with ease and panache. I do not need your hairstylist or your private plane or your English country house.
I can collect more inspiration pictures, feature more marble countertops, show you more overstuffed, overpriced, overdone interiors. Show you more dried flowers, antique light fixtures, rustic carriage houses, reclaimed coffee tables …
I will do ALL of that.
TONIGHT.
I will take over the internet in no time at all.
I will be Diana Vreeland meets Architectural Digest meets Dorothy Parker.
I will stop dressing like a homeless person. I will throw away my old sweatpants and ratty t-shirts and wear Kate Spade at all times, even at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning.
Except—oh my God. Do you have any idea how many other people have already thought of that? Why are there SO MANY other blogs? Don’t you people have anything better to do?
No matter. Some perverse personality trait of mine is where I get an idea. And don’t bother to stop and think whether it’s good/reasonable/feasible.
I take to my projects with single-minded craziness. It doesn’t matter what it is. If you need something done with precision and perfection and tiny useless details. And you don’t mind waiting twelve times longer than I said it would take me? And maybe in the end I bail on you because it’s just too much for me? I am your person.
For about three months, I toiled under the delusion that soon, everyone on the internet was going to find me. Quickly. And that I’d better be prepared for the incoming hordes.
Because that’s how it works—all you need is an idea, and a blog. And then Home Depot comes to your house and gives you a giant banner advertisement and a crown… and boots Young House Love off their advertising pedestal and replaces them with you—an older, not-nearly-as-cute couple. Who is way more irritable and on the verge of project-induced divorce.
This was pretty exciting to me… I have been waiting to be famous since I was three.
I mean, I’ve totally neglected to learn to sing. Or act. Or build microchips. Or marry the Prime Minister of France. Or get giant breast implants. Or write a book. Or commit any nefarious crimes. Or develop an Elvis-impersonation act.
Which has kind of worried me in the last few years… Crossing the threshold to thirty, without having a hit single or sleeping with Channing Tatum was eye-opening. How had I failed to do the really important things in life?
But I guess it wasn’t really THAT eye-opening since I made it another five years before realizing that I was officially no longer on the list where somehow you just randomly get famous. I think the cutoff is thirty-two.
So I was incredibly relieved that FINALLY, the heavens had revealed my true destiny. Because, you know, SO MANY bloggers have gained fame and accolade. And Pulitzers and ticker-tape parades. And gold bars and a knighthood. And also a mansion where I do not have to vacuum my own rugs.
Thank you, God. I hate vacuuming so much.
So I got busy. Really busy. With my blog… my new project. My new dedication.
I texted Slim Paley: you’d better just pack it in, lady… there’s a newer, slimmer, paler blogger in town.
I sat in front of my computer and rubbed my hands together and got started.
And? It turns out that I can’t even muster the mental-energy to tell you where I got my bathroom sink faucets. Let alone feature someone else’s vintage luggage collection.
Or care about a million-dollar kitchen that’s already been featured ten-thousand other places because the entire thing, including the trash can, is made out of pure marble.
However? I could write you a ten-page essay on the ways that a house remodel becomes an extreme, marriage Petri dish.
I could also write you a ten-page essay on how much I love my cat… which you can look forward to, at some point in the future.
In fact, I could write endlessly about any of the following:
• The boy I almost married.
• The time my best friend and I had an eye-clawing fight over a man with a ponytail.
• How recently, I was scammed out of $200.
Not due to some sophisticated legerdemain, on the scammer’s part. But due solely to my own eagerness to believe the unbelievable. Plowing past red-flag after red-flag after red-flag.
And how, in my ongoing efforts to add idiocy on top of idiocy and never think anything through… I gave him extra, to reward the almost unbelievable turn of events.
But you know what? I cannot tell you HOW MUCH EASIER it would be: to feature some dream kitchen/private stone quarry/parking-garage-for-appliances-that-cost-more-than-a-car.
And? You know what else? That is what people are looking for: marble kitchens. Also marble bathrooms. Probably also marble doghouses.
You know what people are not searching for? Yes. Correct. This. Right here.
The rough draft of this post is now clocking in at 9 pages. Not double spaced.
Do you have any idea of the energy it takes to:
A-write 9 pages about a topic that is not even remotely search-engine friendly, so that maybe a few people will read it?
B- edit those pages down to no more than five, so that the few people who DO read it, do not abandon you halfway through?
C- apply some element of writing 101 where you have a plot, an arc, a beginning, a conclusion?
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I AM DOING HERE PEOPLE?
This is work. And? I hate it. This is not why I started a blog. AT ALL.
Where is my fame? Where is my fortune? Where are my 100,000 visitors per day?
WHERE ARE YOU???
I’ll tell you where you are—you’re out there googling Christmas craft projects.
see all my holiday decorations & Christmas house tour
August 17, 2013 @ 2:03 am
I am over from “Southern Hospitality” who recommended your blog. I love your writing and signed up for updates. If you had left comments and links on any blogs that I had read I would have found you well before this. But I am glad I got here. 🙂
November 18, 2013 @ 2:20 pm
Dear heavens, I adore you and this post. BTW, I found you in Pinterest! That alone says you are famous. You have made it. Jealous. I have never had a post from my blog pinned. Of course that could be because Google+ ate 5 !@#$ing years of my photos some time in the early part of last year, or the fact that I haven’t blogged since January. That was one of my posts about our cruise last year (Italy, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Greece), so that MUST be pin worthy, right? Also, I’m freaking hilarious. True story. After Google+ (curse you Google+ <-said in the voice of Dr. Doffenschmirtz from Phineas and Ferb-go ahead try it, it's much funnier that way) ate 5 years of photos (the cruise photos are there though), I kind of lost my blogging mojo. Also James Bond (not his real name) was in Afghanistan for a year, and I just couldn't bring myself to be peppy and awesome (though I am as a general rule) on the interwebs. Plus, I was busy homeschooling Indy (also not his real name) , chasing Han Solo (seriously, I did not name my kid Han Solo, no matter how hard Indy lobbied for it) around the house, and traveling Europe (we lived there at the time) to post my gorgeous home (just typing that makes me laugh) and all the fabulous Pinterest inspired projects I completed with absolutely no mess and not one cuss word. FYI, I did do most of it (though not the sands of Egypt or the Acropolis) in heels (usually 3"+). Cause that's how I roll. Booyah!
Seriously though, your blog is awesome and hilarious and real, which is much more inspiring than all those perfect bogs that set up unrealistic expectations that only make people feel bad that their house isn't show quality at all time. With an 11 year old and a 2 year old, that is just never happening in my house.
Oh, wait, I just realized, I write fan fiction (so far only for a Sci Fi show-despite the heels I'm a bit geeky) and get loads of reviews and comments there. Suck it photo eating Google+! I'm semi-famous on fan fiction.net.
BTW, I'm sad that the cut off for bloggy fame is 32. I turned 40 this year. Boo. Still, I'm rocking 40. Ah well, since my main goals in life have always been to be well coifed and well shod, I guess I'm not doing too bad. Is it too early to drink wine? Yeah, 11 am. Damn.
November 18, 2013 @ 5:56 pm
Oh, I forgot to add, that I actually do have a collection of vintage suitcases, including 2 that were used by a young Jewish couple to flee the Nazi’s in 1939.
November 21, 2013 @ 9:29 am
I know this post was from 2012, but in the spirit of stimulating my holiday senses, I saved it to read it again every close to the holidays season… you know… kind of like watching ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE or A CHRISTMAS STORY
so thank you for this post, the disco balls, the glitter, the mirrors, your wedding video and pics
and to all a good night
November 21, 2013 @ 9:33 am
you really truly made my day. xoxo.
November 21, 2013 @ 12:24 pm
Victoria! You are famous to ME, girl! I tell anyone who will listen about your blog. I swear I feel like I live *RIGHT* inside your psyche- I am a hoarder, too (of vintage-only, to add a obscure-factor of ten) Christmas decorations… and then, to add insult to injury, I compulsively organize them into vintage cookie tins. At least you took yours out in a timely fashion. I may never find mine again underneath the piles of camping gear and my typewriter collection. Funny thing- I actually KNOW how to make a bow, buts that’s because I worked under the thumb of a tyrannical flower shop owner in my young days. Every other craft? Is lost to me five minutes in. I get exhausted just thinking about where I’ve stashed the glue gun. And yet – and yet, for this is the dark side of this hoarding/impatience disease- I am the most frugal woman in the world and won’t PAY for a completed craft. Like, if I see a centerpiece smartly designed out of a dried log with sprinklings of fake leaves and paper mache mushrooms and maybe some moss? I’ll sneer at it and huff “I can MAKE that. Why would I pay for it?” And so I don’t buy it. But do I come home and make it? No. (see previous bit about being exhausted about the IDEA of rustling up the supplies.) And so my table goes undecorated one more year. Kudos to you for your follow through. And for your superb writing. I am a HUGE fan.
November 26, 2013 @ 10:51 am
I love your writing! You always make me laugh and keep it real. Don’t ever stop! You are famous in this house!
November 26, 2013 @ 11:42 am
Ha ha, I came here **right after** catching up on Velvet and Linen! 🙂 Seriously. You are right up there in the ranks. Love Slim Paley too. One can dream! I did a post a few years ago about grout width. It is really important! Lots of people visit it too. I thought I was really anal while writing that post but thankfully by no means not the only one. I LOVE LOVE this mass of disco balls! Must get some. The lights on the walls should keep my cats entertained! Geez even reading your blog makes me think in short thoughts and jump from thing to thing here. Uh, that’s a compliment.
November 26, 2013 @ 2:35 pm
I love you. I love you.
Don’t leave!!!!!
From your winter out there, to my summer down here in New Zealand….I will follow you! (You know the song … don’t you ….there isn’t a mountain tooooo high, a river so deeeeeep” etc. )
So here I am sweltering in 26* degrees C (can’t find the degree thingy on the keyboard) laughing my head off at your TOTALLY AMAZING blog!
WE have bar-b-cue for Christmas dinner down here …at the beach! It’s gorgeous! Six weeks holiday, lying in the sun, swimming, jet skiing … all in a bikini. (well that part’s not actually true of me, 61 year old bod … but it is the season for wishes and please Santa … just another 10 pounds off before the day!!!)
So Victoria, ANY time you are in NZ, my home is yours.
Rozi
November 29, 2013 @ 12:55 pm
I just found your blog from pinterest and I love, love, love it. You crack me up!! When I grow up, I would like to be able write like you, but alas, I am grown up, but I will keep trying my hand at writing. I have thought about blogging, but it would be about my gardening and pest control. If anyone wants to know how to get rid of ants, gophers and voles, I am your girl.
I will definitely be following you on your journey. Thanks for taking the time to write and to entertain us at the same time.
December 2, 2013 @ 3:29 pm
Love this to death. But not in a creepy way.
December 2, 2013 @ 4:28 pm
I always read your blog, but today I somehow ended up on this post and thought … I need disco balls for my front porch. Thank you for sharing 🙂
December 9, 2013 @ 9:56 am
Geez. I can’t believe I got through the whole thing…. ;}
December 9, 2013 @ 10:24 am
I’m so jealous that I didn’t think of the disco balls…wait…I’m also jealous that I don’t have a front porch! Near NYC and front porches aren’t that common! Looks great. I just make my own wreath with left over tree branch from our xmas tree. I put gold glitter on pine cones to make it sparkle…might have to do disco balls next year! Thanks…and keep on blogging.
December 9, 2013 @ 10:43 am
I waited and waited to decorate my front porch. I knew you would have the end-all design but I had a deadline so I did it over the weekend. I am now on the lookout for disco balls on the after-Christmas clearance rack. Although, they would be pretty spectacular for New Years, right?
December 9, 2013 @ 10:50 am
Your post is a birthday gift to me today. Happy birthday to me, one of your more mature (in age) readers and fans. Never will be mature in my brain, which works much like yours even after all this time. I get crazy thoughts about projects and what I can accomplish, despite having had to abandon many of those in the past. Everyone is telling me now to let go of my “stuff” because we’ve downsized. I am having a really hard time with that…..left brain says yes, right brain screams no, no!
Your blog could also be categorized under mental health counseling.
I will be happy to throw you a ticker tape parade or whatever you want.
This is the best gift for today. Thank you, VEB!
December 9, 2013 @ 10:56 am
I have three things to say to you
1. I believe every single thing you say except that you don’t wax your brows! I don’t wax mine often but they are light and scruffy and look unkept where as yours are perfect! How do you do it? Maybe you could do a tutorial? Or start another blog on fashion and beauty?
2. Have you ever gone on ESTATE SALES.NET ? YOu put in your zip it it lists all the estate sales nearby. I spent my day yesterday forgetting the fact that I have 4 kids who are expecting Christmas in 2 weeks at an estate sale oogling over overpriced teacups.
3. You are the Bunny Williams of Disco Balls. You should definately write a book about your house like she did!
December 9, 2013 @ 11:15 am
Victoria, you are officially my idol. If I weren’t afraid of blinding the firefighters who use my street as a cut-through on a regular basis, I would hang disco balls on the porch of my 1922 Bungalow in a hot minute. LOVE THEM, but public safety comes first. Alas.
In the interest of full disclosure, though? If I didn’t have my eyebrows waxed, I’d look like Frida Kahlo inside of two weeks. Please don’t judge.
I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us in 2014! Merry Christmas to you and yours, including Elvis.
December 10, 2013 @ 1:18 pm
We Are Here!!! Love your blog and sense of humor. Wishing we were neighbors. A very Merry Christmas from me and Matrix, my fun loving Yorkie!
December 21, 2013 @ 7:58 am
In the words of ELF (while twirling and tossing hat in air)– “I’m in love! I’m in Love! I’m in love! … and I don’t care who knows it!” You made me smile in the middle of my own stressed out effort to “win” Christmas today. Yay!
August 27, 2014 @ 7:23 pm
You got me. You are great. And now I wanna go out and buy glitter balls. Fabulous.