11:30 PM: You know it’s a great Thanksgiving when everyone’s heavy-lidded, there’s still some Champagne left over for morning mimosas, and the dishes are (mostly) clean. This has been one long Thanksgiving day, but with relatively little drama, so much amazing food (that I was able to fully enjoy despite my recent oral surgery), and plenty of laughter, I wish it to continue to go on. Hasta X-Mas! xoxo

9:40 PM: Had an exhausting dance party with an almost 4-year-old. Put on my “Dance Party” mix and caused quite
the eruption of laughter when I realized what was happening and franticly scrambled across the room to change the track just as the first line of of Peaches’ “Fuck the Pain Away” started. If you’re not familiar, it goes: “Suckin’ on my titties…”

7:20 PM: Yes, I took a 5 hour break for eating and digesting enough to be able to move my fingers across the keyboard of my iPhone. Dinner was so good. And I was once again the last to leave the table. Stuffing=amazing.

My mom has the interwebs hooked to her TV, so we all spent tons of time giggling at funny cat videos. It all started when we were told about the “tens of thousands” of crows that fly over the new house everyday at sundown. When we questioned the claim, we were told to count the crows which led to “Counting Crows” which led to YouTube since no one could remember what they sang. Then the cat videos.

2:15 PM: My amma (grandmother) just arrived and the Tofurkey’s in the oven… Only problem is that we didn’t quite
time it right with the turkey and I think we’ll either be eating a Tofurkey with a cold center or everything else will have to wait for us. Whoops. I’m snacking on all the delicious hors d’ouvres but trying to save room for everything else… Especially stuffing! Why oh why do we only eat stuffing one day a year? It’s SO good… Maybe it’s best to only have it occasionally… Thoughts?

12:30 PM: Everything is still pretty mellow. No other guests have arrived yet, so we’re enjoying the QT with Mom. Truth be told, I’ve just dipped into my first glass of wine and am about to have a sneak preview of the pumpkin pie…

10:45 AM: We arrived around 9:30 and got a tour of the new house, which is quite beautiful. It’s 105 years old an has the most gorgeous original woodwork and lighting fixtures. They’ve been renovating like mad to get the place ready for today and it shows.

Breakfast at 5:30 means I feel like lunch right about now… Good thing there’s food all over the place.

7 AM: Ah, Connecticut. Such a small state on the map, but you always feel so looong. Lack of sleep is catching up with me, which wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t hurt so much to yawn… I had dental surgery on Monday and it seems to hurt more and more each day. Luckily it’s only one side of my mouth I can’t eat on, so Thanksgiving feast will still be enjoyed.

5 AM: Good morning, turkeys! Yup. It’s 5 AM and I’m awake… Barely. The plan is to hit the road in an hour in order to (hopefully) miss the worst of the day’s traffic. The beau and I are heading from our place in Brooklyn to Greenfield, Massachusetts for the first time this year (we’ve got someone caring for the kitties so they won’t be too lonely).

My mom sold her house in Northampton (where she had lived since 1992—right before I started the 7th grade) this summer and relocated half an hour north. So instead of 3 hours, it’s going to take us 3.5… If we manage to avoid the aforementioned traffic, that is. This will be our first visit to the new place and although I’m excited to see it, of course, it’ll be a little… different. Definitely at the stage of life where the definition of “home” becomes a bit more complicated and the question “Where are you from?” becomes more difficult to answer.

But back to this early Thanksgiving morning. I’m a planner, so we’re all packed, just got to wolf down some breakfast, hit the shower, grab the vegan food contributions (Tofurkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and various snacks), wine, and hit the deserted (wishful thinking!) road.

We have exciting news! We’re shaking things up at OMFGstyle.com: Coming this January, we’ll be releasing the first issue of OMFGstlye Magazine.

In the meantime, we will be slowing down publication in order to produce the best first issue we could imagine: In the spirit of Lonny, Rue, and Gifted, we’re going online magazine page-turning style up in this joint.

We will still have a blog section of the site, and articles will be catalogued and searchable as posts, so there will still be a traditional website feel to the site, but the main event will be the online magazine.

This change will allow us to attract advertisers and will increase our readership, as well as create an even better product.

Our new format offers some great (and affordable) advertising options for businesses and services looking to reach the stylish modern woman. We will be posting information on ad options on the site soon, but if in the meantime, if you’re interested in advertising with us, send our director of advertising operations an email: diana@OMFGstyle.com.

Do you have ideas for how we can make OMFGstyle Magazine the best online magazine in the universe? Please post in the comments!

And don’t worry… More info and updates will be coming your way soon!

Photo by Marchange on Flickr

While some people may be cringing with the cold, or with the ever-nearing holiday season, I am getting super-stoked for the holiday season!  I, like many of you, love this time of year because I get excited to make my  home a fun welcoming place and I love preparing both food and my home for holiday gatherings.

In my profession, I work with home goods: housewares, textiles, and everything in-between!  The home business booms around this time of year for the very reason that I like to buy fun home goods this time of year: people love to prepare for get-togethers with family and friends.

Take a look at some of my favorite websites for home items of great design and function.  Maybe you’ll find that perfect thing you’ve been looking to serve your homemade cheeseballs in; and, keep these sites in mind for holiday gifts as well!

1.  Bodum

Bodum is no big secret. Bodum has expanded to sell all over the place, including mid-to-high-end department stores, but I listed them first because I always enjoy their products’ design and functionality. Also, when I think of home entertaining, I immediately think of making coffee.  Check out the Brazil Set: a colorful 8-cup french press with four matching cups.  Great for entertaining, OR as a holiday gift!

2.  Greener Grass Design

Greener Grass Design’s mission statement is plain and simple: they want to provide interesting goods.  Boom.  GGD carries everything from bold barware, to playful pet-homes, to whimsical dishes, to charming trash bags.  And come on fellow squirrel-lovers, what home doesn’t need an adorable squirrel-shaped nut bowl?!

3.  The Curiosity Shoppe

The Shoppe always has some cutesy goods perfect for gift-giving, like a cheese board in the shape of France (ooh la la!), or these well-dressed napkins for your not-so-well-dressed family to jam in the necks of their T-shirts and look fancy.

4.  Reiko Kaneko

Let’s switch it up for a second and move beyond the entertaining items, and go straight to a purely holiday gifty item – because it’s just that damn special.  Based in the UK, Reiko Kaneko hand-crafts contemporary designs in bone china.  Their items are interesting and fun, like these cat and dog bone china Christmas tree ornaments. Hand-crafted people!

5.  Perch!

Perch is a small company (um, three people and a cat?) based in Brooklyn that produces home items that can perform double duty! A freeform basket can also be hung as a bird-feeder, a mason jar can be used as a vase or pitcher…you get the idea.  Whatever you use them for, their designs and products are beautiful, modern yet organic, and environmentally friendly.  Perfect for entertaining, or gift-giving!

Main Article Image features Perch! Rosette Vase

A lot of people like the idea of volunteering but when it comes down to actually doing it, life can easily get in the way. Work and school schedules may prevent you from committing to an organization long term or the idea of leaving your neighborhood in your free time is just too much to bear. Maybe you think you don’t have anything you can offer or that it may even be depressing. These are all reasonable worries but the beauty is, there are hundreds of things you can do and once you get started with an organization that is the right fit, you will most likely find it fulfilling and even fun. There are so many groups out there that really need your help, whether it’s just one hour, one afternoon or an evening a week. I’ll give you some examples of great organizations but my personal favorite is New York Cares. They just make it so damn easy to do so much good!

For example, in the listing of NY Cares current projects, the events include:  ’Bedtime Stories’ at the library while parents attend ESOL classes, ‘Culinary Explorers’ teaching children how to prepare healthy and tasty snacks, taking kids to the Bronx Zoo, building a garden shed for a community garden, planting flowers and bulbs at a park, soup kitchens, helping adult immigrants with basic computer skills, morning math games with 4th graders (perhaps the oldest age group I could actually help with math), English conversation partners with Arab-American families, walking dogs at the animal shelter, yoga classes for children with autism and other disabilities, photoshop tutorials, ‘Young Authors Club’ and perhaps most fun, ”Mad Scientists: Participate in hands-on science projects with real-world applications with middle school students from Girls Preparatory Charter School. Possible experiments include exploring the anatomy and growth of plants, testing the freezing temperature of ice cream, and examining your own DNA.” Um, yeah! That sounds awesome! The list goes on and on. There really is something for everyone!

I have volunteered as a dog walker, reading with kids in after school programs and most recently as a mural artist on New York Cares Day. This is a special city-wide volunteer day held every fall to revitalize our public schools. It has been such a fun and fulfilling project for me over the past two years and it always re-lights my spark to volunteer more. You never regret the time you spend, you can invite friends to help out (thanks again, guys!!) and you also meet really great people. The nicest thing about this organization in particular is you can volunteer as much or as little as you like. I’m a freelancer so I can never sign on to the 6 week commitments but I can commit to weekends and the random week day off. With so much flexibility and so many projects, you are bound to see something that calls your name.

You can check out volunteering opportunities with NY Cares plus more listings at NYC.gov and if you are outside of the NY metro area, try  VolunteerMatch.org or 1-800-volunteer.org as well. For holiday specific volunteer opportunities, you can go here.

Here are some other great organizations that could use your help if you are particularly fond of furry friends (and maybe your landlord isn’t):

Animal Haven

ASPCA

BARC

Bideawee

Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals

Give volunteering a shot because this Big Apple has plenty of people who could use your help and the internet / cable / your bed / _______ will still be there when you get home.

P.S. Here are some of the murals we painted on NY Cares Day 2009 & 2010!

For those of you youngsters lucky enough to have 20-20 vision, I envy the beautiful, fashionable sunglasses you can wear whenever you want. The one warning I’ll give you is that sometime in your mid-40s, you will most probably need glasses for reading—the loss of close-up vision eventually happens to all of us. When that day comes, there are many stores, like Anthropologie, that sell readers with cool frames.

For those of us who need some kind of corrective lenses in order to see where we’re going all the time, we constantly have choices to make. Do we wear what’s most comfortable, what looks the best, what we think will make the best impression? The answer, of course, is that it depends.

If, like me, you spend a lot of time working on a computer, glasses may work best for you most of the time. Turns out we blink our eyes less often when we look at the screen, which can cause them to get dry and bloodshot: uncomfortable and not a good look for anyone.

These days there are so many frame options that if you take some time you can find a pair—or more if you want to match them with your outfits—that look good. You might want to have someone with you when you try frames on so you don’t get railroaded into thinking the only ones that look good on you are the most expensive pair in the store. It’s good to have a pair of prescription sunglasses too if you can afford them.

Even after you’ve found glasses that look great, there are times when contacts may be a better choice. I like them for exercising, especially outdoors. If you ever tried skiing down a mountain on a snowy day with fogged up goggles that fit over your fogged up glasses or gone running and had to keep pushing your glasses up on your nose, you’ll know exactly what I mean—it just plain doesn’t work.

I also like wearing my contacts when I go to an event that requires being dressed up—somehow being dressed up and made up doesn’t go with glasses. Although for us mere mortals it makes sense to wear them if the alternative is not being able to see. I’m afraid the scene in the great old movie “How to Marry a Millionaire” where Marilyn Monroe gets on the wrong plane because she doesn’t want to wear her glasses, ends up sitting next to a nice man who wears glasses, insists she put hers on and falls in love with her when she does, is just what it sounds like—fiction.

Of course you could also get Lasik eye surgery. It’s not covered by most health insurance, so you’ll need to shell out a few thousand dollars, but everyone I know who’s had it is very happy.

And if you want to kill a little time and see how some glasses might look on you from the comfort of your home, try Glasses Direct’s Virtual Mirror:

You might not have the time, desire, or budget to go all out on a costume, but if you’re in the mood for dressing up for Halloween without a lot of effort, or if you’re just coming across this on October 30th, a printable mask could just be the right idea for you.

JHill Designs, one of my favorite print artists (click here to see her amazing flash card-inspired artwork), created these adorable animal masks, downloads are $3 each, or $8 for all three.

Sweet! Star Wars masks!

Want to tap into current events? Head on over the HuffPo for your Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rod Blagojevich, or Kanye West printable mask:

David Bowie or Jason, anyone?

Or maybe just a gross monster?

As you may have noticed, Halloween is an important holiday for New Yorkers, by which I mean an important excuse for excessive partying and debauchery. The annual Halloween Parade in the Village is an institution, and definitely worth checking out at least once in your life. But the huge crowds, the barricades and the occasionally freezing weather make the whole experience more stressful than fun, at least in my humble opinion. Here are a few other ways to celebrate the best holiday all year:

• Go to Nightmare: Superstitions, the best haunted house in New York. It’s expensive, yes, but it will make you scream like a little girl. Why is it so scary? Because the creepy crawlies and ghoulie ghouls will touch you… actually touch you! In the dark! And no one wants to be touched by a stranger.
• Also scary and full of inappropriate touching: the haunted corn maze at Schmitt Farms on Long Island. http://www.schmittfarms.com
• Go see the Misfits at Irving Plaza. Unfortunately it’s the Misfits without Glen Danzig, which is pretty lame, but it’s still Halloween appropriate.
• Or go see a Misfits cover band in a cemetery in Jersey City, which will be cheaper and definitely more fun. http://rockitdocket.blogspot.com/ Halloween is all about cover bands, and this event has quite a few: The Descendents, The Cramps, Motorhead, REM and even Neutral Milk Hotel… hmmm, that’s an odd choice.
• The World/Inferno Friendship Society, the original cabaret punk pioneers, play on Halloween almost every year. I have very fond, drunken memories of seeing them almost 10 years, on one of my first dates with my husband. Sigh. Now I feel old. Looks like the evening show is already sold out, so why not check out The Voluptuous Horror Of Karen Black at Santos’ Party House. Looks embarrassing fun. I hear they are pretty terrible live, but it’s more of a burlesque show than anything else. Also, I really like that “Alaska” song. It’s pretty catchy.
• Paint a pumpkin
• Make your own treats: Maple Pecan Popcorn, anyone? It’s simple to make and vegan when you replace the butter with non-dairy margarine.
• Bring it to a midnight screening of Poltergeist at the Landmark Sunshine movie theater.
• Last but not least, check out the premiere of The Walking Dead on Sunday night on AMC.
  Zombies! Oh gawd! I’m so excited. It looks better than the comic book.

Photo by John Althouse Cohen.

Yay! You’re adopting a cat! Your new feline friend will no doubt bring you much joy and laughter, benefit your health, and may even keep our feet warm on cold nights. But what do you need to give her to make her transition to your home a smooth one and ensure she’s happy and well taken care of? Reaching into my five-plus years of professional experience with animals and humans who devote their lives to the care of animals, as well as my lifetime of feline companionship, I’ve come up with the following comprehensive shopping list for you, the new cat-person, to take to your local store or hit the interwebs with to ensure Fluffy’s all taken care of from the get-go. Read on to see what you’ll need and why:

For under $10, the cost of a can of spray paint, you can make an otherwise boring tray (or most anything, really) look more expensive and/or fit with your décor.

• If the tray has a finish on it, sand it down lightly.
• Clean the tray by dusting it and wiping it down with a damp cloth. Allow it to dry completely.
• Go outside (no spray painting indoors, okay?) and lay down some rags underneath your project.
• Spray the tray with long, even strokes for as many coats as it takes to cover the whole thing, following the directions on the can.
• Allow to dry overnight if possible.
• Enjoy looking at your masterpiece!

I’ve also used spray paint (this time, gold) to make over an ugly wooden frame:

Before you buy something new, look at what you have and ask yourself: could this be better with a coat of new paint? For less time than the trip to the store and certainly less money than the cost of a new frame, tray, or what-have-you.

Mulled wine or glühwein or vin chaud: Whatever you like to call it, it’s delicious. I prefer glühwein because that’s the name they use in Berlin, where I first experienced this treat. It was late November, my BFF and I were there to visit my brother for the Thanksgiving holidays. It was FREEZING! Luckily for us, there were Winter Markts all over the place, loaded with stalls peddling hot cheese sammys, crepes, xmas gifts and glühwein. The glühwein stalls were packed with people huddled together, sipping their steamy glühweins, feeling the blood come back to their extremities. Of all the things I did in those ten days in Berlin, including visiting a fetish club (woah) and shakin’ it till 8 am to electropop, those moments huddled up with my gal pal sipping the ole’ glühwein willing my blocks of ice to turn back into toes, are by far my favorite. Whenever I warm this stuff up, I’m transported back. Luckily, it’s a snap to make and cheap too:

Glühwein
Makes about 4 glasses

1 bottle of cheapo red wine
1 med-large orange
4 cloves
4 cardamom pods
4 allspice pods
1 cinnamon stick
4 tbsps sugar
rum or amaretto (optional)

• Grab a pot
• Add the sugar and spices (if you want you can wrap the spices in a cheese cloth or a tea diffuser for easy removal)
• Zest the whole orange and add the zest to the pot (make sure to get the orange part but not the pith; ’tis bitter)
• Squeeze the juice from the orange and add that to the pot too
• Dump in the bottle of wine
• Simmer on low (no boiling) for at least 15 minutes (f you’re doing this for a party just multiply by whatever and keep the whole shebang on low on your teeniest burner all night)

• Ladle into whatever you’ve got handy: Coffee mugs, thick glassed old-fashioned glasses, wine glasses. Whatever works.
• The Germans offer this up with an optional shot of amaretto or rum. I like the rum, it cuts the sweetness a little but it’s not necessary. Unless you want to be drunk.
• You can garnish with an orange slice or peel if you wanna get schmancy.
• Now, put your coat and scarf on and go sip your hot beverage out in the cold. It’s an amazing toasty, cold-weather feeling. mmmmmm

Auf Wiedersehen!