Long long ago, in a Galaxy far far away… no wait… wrong story. Long long ago, when your dear Pippa was just a Pepita (Ok, I could drive) my father asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I told him that I wanted a gun. Yes, I did. A shotgun. A Remington 1100 to be exact. (Stay with me…)

The look on his face was priceless. A man who spent his entire life hunting had his moment. He beamed. He chuckled. And he replied “SURE!”. It would be an understatement to say that he was ecstatic. He got right on the case and found me a pristine 1100 and with a smile from ear to ear presented it to me on my birthday, ribbons and wrapping and a gun cleaning kit to boot. The look on my face was absolute and utter delight. I had my very own shotgun.

If I haven’t lost you yet in a fit of anger and a sudden disdain for me due to your stance on gun control then keep reading. Because, you see, this was a massive experience for me. This has nothing to do with politics. I will probably not ever post about politics because you believe what you believe, and I believe what I believe, and I have no intention of telling you what that is, it’s my business and yours respectively. But, I like to hunt birds. In the wild. But, mostly we shoot little orange discs (Clays) that fly like birds at mach 6 past me and away from me and most of the time I can hit them.

And while I am FAR from Annie Oakley, you could say with ease that YES, I CAN hit the broad side of a barn (my husband and father can attest, ’cause I actually did hit my father in law’s barn one day) and I love it. Some of my favorite days in the history of ME have been at the skeet or trap range with my Dad. In the switchgrass side by side with my husband, our dogs, my very very dear late father in law and the rustle of pheasants being flushed.

One of the few things that as an event planner I have ALWAYS wanted to do was to host a beautiful post shoot dinner in the woods. As a Chef one of the things that I have always wanted to do was host a beautiful post shoot dinner in the woods. This is it. Falling leaves, flickering candles, exhausted from a crisp day and a well earned dinner afield.

Here at Witzend we are very lucky to have no shortage of woods, making it the ideal spot for my dream to come true. So while my father in law is looking down on this table from Heaven wondering where his bottle of Famous Grouse is, the rest of us are laughing and recalling a day of hits and misses, dogs run amuck, and wondering who is going to take the Gator all the way back to the house to fetch another case bottle of wine.

This is fall at Witzend my friends. And, if you are still along for the ride, then you have learned a little more about me and are possibly inspired to fill up your own Suburban to the gills and take things further afield. Trust me, it’s worth it.

XOXO
Pippa

P.S. Love my cute little Acorn place card holders pictured above? Me too! They are the easiest thing you could ever make and I posted a little tutorial here so you can up your autumn table “game” CLICK HERE

Oh crud…. you are here and now I have to throw down some crazy random facts about myself to appease your curiosity…. that’s OK. Truthfully, it is currently Monday night as I sit down to write this. I suddenly realized yesterday that blog post day was fast approaching and I didn’t have anything on “paper”… Since I’m a fly by the seat of my pants kinda girl, I decided on digging up some fun facts to help you get to know me a little better. I mean that’s what friends do, right?

Trust me when I say that there is NO shortage of dirt… I know I’m not alone on this, (Ahem… you know who you are) we are all onions peeling back layers (and maybe hoping not to rot in a dark cabinet… or is that just the forgotten depths of MY pantry?) Anywho, you are here, and here you go my sweet inquiring minds… Shhh, we’ll keep these little tidbits our secret…

 

| I USED TO BE A CAT BURGLAR |

No, not really… at least not in this life. I DO however believe in past lives and am COMPLETELY convinced that I ran a highly successful burglary ring that specialized in pinching fine gems and masterpieces, sneaking into museums and castles then belaying out of windows in the dead of night, escaping highly technical security systems only to speed away via a snappy Porsche 356 – wearing a skin tight cat suit of course (Trust me, my rear view must have been FABULOUS back then) … where I would have put said Masterpieces in such a zippy car is another topic as,  I have no idea. But seriously… I have this crazy weird obsession that may be just my love of suspense movies with a touch of Kelly / Hepburn / Theron / Zeta-Jones infatuations thrown in but nonetheless… there is inescapably something way back there. The only problem is that realistically in my mind I dream of “To Catch a Thief”, “Thomas Crown Affair”, “How to Steal A Million” and “Ocean’s Eleven” (and Twelve-duh) the the actual situation was probably a bit more along the lines of “A Fish Called Wanda” or “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”. Regardless, I think I need a code name. Hmmm…

| PHOBIA #45 |

No, I’m not really phobic (except for snakes and high heights) but I do get crazy creeped out about swimming in the open ocean. WHAT!? I know, I know … I sailed the world for 4 years and basically circumnavigated the globe (twice) but I just could never seem to get past the secrets of the deep. Maybe it was seeing the sharks feeding at the back of the boat in Vanuatu, or having an eel (too much like snakes) surprise me at the Bitter End. Just know that you will find me within 10 strokes of the boat happily waiting for a fluffy towel and a cocktail. I can be such a chicken. P.S… this pic is NOT me snorkeling… because duh, I don’t snorkel, and my A$$ looks nowhere as fab as this… AND I think that guy is in a Speedo, not sure, but if he is, I probably would’t know him.

| HIPPIE CHILD |

I was a uber Hippie in College. Yep… Dreadlocks down to my rear, VW bus driving (it was named ‘Aurora’), clothing making, pot dealing, Grateful Dead following kinda stinker that you can probably attribute every grey hair on my mother’s head to. I drew the line at wearing Patchouli (ewww) or bartering fatty burritos… Instead I peddled hand rolled Sushi and knew how to change my own spark plugs (if you have ever owned a VW you know that this is a highly valuable and oft utilized skill). And NO, you will never see a picture because let’s be real… there are some times of our lives that we are all very thankful for a lack of digital photography and social media. Whew.

| HAWAII FIVE OH-NO |

I have been to 49 of the 50 states and all inhabited territories. You can just chalk me up to being a road trip kinda girl (I get it from my mother). Here is the kicker, I am only missing Hawaii. Seriously, Pippa… HAWAII!? That’s like, the FIRST place on everyone’s to go-list… I mean above Guam (been there), and definitely above places like Branson, Missouri (done that, don’t ask). I’ll get there some day, and when I do trust me when I say that I will be ALL over the lava flows, coconut bras,  umbrella drinks and sandy toes. Sometimes it’s better to save the best for last. P.S… how cool is this hand lettered vintage map from Truly Yours Design Co.??

| CURLY HAIR DON’T CARE |

True confession… I have curly hair. WHAAAAAT!? You are saying to yourself? Yep… unless you catch me fresh out of the Witzend (or any) pool you will only ever see me with straight hair because, I hate it. Why? What’s wrong with curls you say!? NOTHING, As long as they are yours. The gist is this… I didn’t actually grow up with curly hair.. it was pin straight my whole life. And THEN (reference above dreadlock reference) I had to (wink wink) cut my hair very short after college. And those new tresses grew in CURLY! ARGH!!!!! This wouldn’t be such a bad thing, as a child I dreamed of having curly hair, so you would think that I would be happy to finally get my wish? Yeah, no. Give me Julia Roberts’ hair- awesome, Meg Ryan’s cute and oh so famous LOB? Sure. Heck, I would even try out Shakira’s mane. But mine is more like Kelly McGillis’ in Top Gun if Kelly McGillis was somewhere windy with 98% humidity, didn’t have her waves professionally tousled before each beachy hot stuff sex bomb scene and then wandered through an electromagnetic field. So take a good look friends. You probably won’t be seeing this kind of reveal too often from my camp.

So there you have it… you are no doubt mind blown and can’t imagine spending the last 3 minutes it took you to breeze through this post doing anything else, am I right? I bet you were hoping for tablescapes and recipes? Don’t worry, there will be plenty of those too.

For the record, it is a VERY weird exercise sitting down to jot down things that maybe even your close friends may not know. In truth it is actually pretty fun, and I highly recommend it. Because just when you think your life has become routine, it is good to take a quick look back and inside for the parts that make you unique.

Have a wonderful week my dear friends. Go forth and be YOU… a conglomeration of random facts and cool experiences.

XO,

Pippa

 

We live at Witzend. Literally. EVERY DANG DAY.

It’s true… we named our house Witzend. It wasn’t a hard decision really, what name to choose – it just flowed… flowed from our lips hourly, sometimes under clenched teeth, a lot of times with me standing in the middle of a room with hands on hips near tears, sometimes at the top of my lungs while watching our littlest Witzend Wee one flip over another piece of furniture (he used to do that… seriously), it flowed like a varsity pour of Pinot at the strike of 5pm, and still does, just less frequently.

Last week we celebrated our 5th anniversary living in our house. A lot has changed, and a lot has stayed the same. The boys were little pint-sized terrors when we moved in, the house was a beasty wreck that was far from a home and, every single contractor and inspector that we had over to assess the project list looked at us with pity and wonderment… “why did you pick THIS house?” “you must be CRAZY” and “I don’t see it…” but we had a vision, we could see past the waist high weeds and tangled woods, defunct pool, graffiti covered bathrooms and out-buildings, the snarled and only half working low voltage electrical system and the façade with 5 different finishes. Yes… FIVE… more on that another day.

The gist is this… While we have made a dent in the projects on our novella level to do list, we have made living here in our bastardized Cape style house a labor of love. Most of it is aesthetics or, as we say, “Lipstick” (on a Pig)… or Bandaids… or Window Dressing but, no matter what we joke about calling it, things change and get a little bit better a little at a time. That’s what is most important, Right?

Every drop of sweat spent clearing out the woods, cleaning up the previous owners trash piles, whacking back stands of overgrown Bamboo forests (the ONLY time I don’t like Bamboo btw), and slapping paint on every surface we can reach with a ladder we are SLOWLY turning a house that resembles a defunct country club (minus a flagpole and valet parking) into something we can consider a home. I mean… it’s ours. I looked at 65 (!!!) houses and we picked THIS one. Which also sometimes translates into “we only have ourselves to blame”.

So, while we may still be dealing with the gross beige wall to wall carpet (with 2 dogs, and 2 boys… you can tell how THAT’S going for us), drop ceilings, a pool that still needs to be re-tiled and the exterior still has those 5 finishes… its just what we do. We live at Witzend and do it proudly. ‘Cause our neighbors seem to like us, it is the perfect place to raise our boys, ideal for killer parties, it is never boring and if we didn’t live here then what would we have to complain about?

When we invite you over for cocktails just be warned. The invitation MAY not always be a beautifully styled table or artfully constructed meal. It may come with the caveat that the firepit of the evening may actually be a bonfire of yard junk in the woods, or that you will be handed a paintbrush or cordless drill and asked to “just come check something out quickly” with me, and you should know that you will never see the same house twice – it is ALWAYS changing.

So welcome to WITZEND my friends… you are now along for a virtual ride and are all honorary card carrying members of “Club Witzend” (the bar is always open by the way).

Cheers to milestones, fall decor and never ending project lists. I hope that despite the somberness of the daily news it will be a wonderful weekend at your own home with those who you love and love you in return.

P.S. If you want to see some creep-tastic, unedited “before” sweat equity pics of Witzend? Click here but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Xo,

Pippa