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I'll take Manhattan, with a little help from my friends!

Hey, guess where we're going in October? This adorable poster by Julie Mercier is a teensy hint. Yes... New York City! We are going to the Big Apple in honor of a milestone anniversary we just celebrated. The best part is that our kids and their sig-o's are coming, too! I am so excited, I haven't been to New York in a looooong time. Because of that I am asking for your help. Pretty please I desperately need suggestions for:

• Hotels - the place we stayed before on the Upper West Side just got converted to condos (boo) but we are open to any place that is in a fun area. Not too fun if you know what I mean, we'd like to get some sleep at night.
• Restaurants - We're not really super trendy fancy sorts, we like classic eateries that have been around for ages and have old souls (and really great food).
• And - Anything else you think is something special that shouldn't be missed!

Although it is still really hot here, I can already tell from the changing light that Fall is on the way. It's still far away for us here in Texas, but to help me get through the next few weeks, I started an Autumn Pinterest board that already has some gorgeous images in it. Oh, and I made one about New York City, too.

Thanks in advance, I need all the help I can get!

Cheers,

Jenny

New England Part III and some spooky stuff

These are the last of the photos of our trip (do I hear a groan of relief? Yes, and it came from me) Is there anything worse than being subjected to someone else's vacation pics? Don't answer that. I'll zip through the main bits then get right to the spooky stuff.

So we have made it down to the Boston area, the top pic is a lovely church somewhere on Mass Ave between Lexington (where we stayed for the first two days), Somerset (where Katy lives) and Boston (where... um... Boston is). We drove that road at least a couple dozen times, I swear. In the Boston area we did highbrow stuff like the DeCordova Sculpture Museum, above. We experienced fine dining at the Flatbread/Bowling Lanes in Somerset...

Visited the Walter Gropius house near Concord (snapped this through the window).

And wandered around Beacon Hill. Now that was a beautiful area! Rather hilly for my flatlander legs, though.

More of those sorts of pics are over in my flickr stream if you are keen to see more. But onward to my favorite part! We visited Sleepy Hollow Cemetery last year, and with the trees looking so pretty we just had to make the trip to Concord again... for breakfast at the old Concord Inn but mainly to see this beautiful place...

Is there any place more hauntingly beautiful than an old cemetery in the Autumn? My camera (my iPhone actually) took on a life of its own. So many wonderfully spooky headstones, like this one with a pointing hand...

And this small, enigmatic one...

And of course the famous ones, like Louisa May Alcott.

and of course Henry Thoreau. People leave the most interesting talismans...

One more pic, since its almost Halloween and these are so apropos...

More Halloweenishness for you... I put up the full sequence of The Thirteen Nights of Halloween on my web site, so you can go all the way through to the finale without having to wait until Halloween! Click here.

And I have a confession... the last few weeks, despite the fact that my house is decorated for Halloween, I've been steadily working on Christmas stuff! I can promise you some neat new patterns and other holiday goodies coming up soon!

Cheers,

Jenny

New England Part II

Oh my, I am so far behind! After I wrote that last post, I came down with absolutely the worst cold I've ever had. It was sheer misery. I feel like I lost a couple of weeks to it, so now I have to run and play catchup. Here is an abbreviated pictorial of the reat of the trip, so I can move along to Halloweeny and Christmassy stuff!

So... from Lenox we worked our way up to North Adams via Stockbridge, Mass. I loved Stockbridge, it was the quintessential New England village of my dreams.

We sloshed through Stockbridge to see the Norman Rockwell Museum which was fantastic. I had no idea his paintings were so big! Who knew? And I totally am coveting the press he had in his studio...

We lunched in the ancient tavern in the Red Lion Inn, devouring the most amazing chicken pie creations. Soooo good. Too dark to take photos, though.

Then we meandered up to North Adams and took in Mass MoCA - the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, which was truly incredible. But, no pics allowed, so you'll just have to visit it for yourself. I recommend it highly. We stayed in the Porches, a row of Victorian houses renovated into a kitschy hotel.

Unfortunately, the first few days really were so wet that we didn't get to see much of the foliage, and everything was pretty waterlogged. But once we hit Vermont it finally cleared, and we saw the brilliant color we hoped for.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to witness this display every year. We stayed in the Woodstock Inn which was a luxurious splurge for us. Exploring Woodstock was so much fun. We had dinner in the pub, and breakfast at the Mountain Creamery in town. It was like walking around in a postcard.

The next day we drove through New Hampshire on the way down to Boston, and I'm sorry Vermont, but New Hampshire won the most gorgeous scenery competition. It was so beautiful, I think I left my heart somewhere in those golden woods. Sigh.

So this brings us up to the time we spent in Boston. I'll do brief recap post about that part tomorrow and then I can tie a bow on it! There are lots more pics in my flickr set if you want to take a peek!

Cheers,

Jenny

New England Part I

Here we are, back from our little jaunt around New England. My grand plan to blog from the road didn't quite pan out as well as expected. There were just too many glitches with blogging from my iphone, from only being able to do one image per post, and the images displaying too large, to not getting a proper cell signal. Oh well, we're home now so I'll do my blogging from the comfort of my studio.

We started from Hartford, CT. It was raining for the first couple of days, which made for a beautiful and somewhat meloncholy drive through the tiny villages along the back roads of western Connecticut and Massachusetts. We stopped somewhere in the Berkshires to snap photos of the white clapboard church above, which looked a moody grey in the drizzle. There was also the mandatory drive across a covered bridge in Kent...

Still, it was cozy in our rented little suv, listening to eclectic choral music.

Our first night was spent in Lenox, Mass at the Garden Gables Inn. It was a truly lovely inn, a classic New Engand bed and breakfast with beautiful period decor and gracious hosts. The grounds were lusciously landscaped, the color vivid in the rain. I took lots of photos while gracefully (I'm sure) balancing my little Cath Kidston umbrella overhead.

Lots of pumpkins and berries and cherries everywhere you looked. A feast for the eyes! And breakfast was a maple-syrupy-fantastic feast as well, which we enjoyed while watching the chef wander out into the yard and harvest herbs from the little garden patch. So civilized and utterly charming.

Tomorrow, Part II... where it continues to rain but we don't mind!

Cheers,

Jenny