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Publication Date: Friday, June 04, 2004 'Nesting: It's a Chick Thing"
'Nesting: It's a Chick Thing"
(June 04, 2004) Authors to launch sassy approach to domestic arts
by Kathy Cordova
Move over, Martha.
The chicks are coming to town with a sassy new approach to the domestic arts for "smart, stylish women who have better things to do than polish the silver."
"It's time for a post-perfection revolution," chirps Pleasanton's chick extraordinaire Ame Mahler Beanland. She is co-author of the new book "Nesting: It's a Chick Thing: 100 Tales, 1,000 tips and Endless Inspiration for Chicks Who Seriously Play House and Garden."
Unlike the daunting domestic divas of the past, Beanland says, "The Chick philosophy is more about spirit and attitude than technique. It's about finding your own voice, a personal style that is comfortable. It's about strutting your stuff without being concerned about keeping up with a trend or doing something perfectly. We say after reading this book you won't have a perfect house, but you'll be in good company."
Beanland and her co-author, Boston's Emily Miles Terry, are hatching their playful perspective on making a home, at Towne Center Books on June 10 where they will launch "Nesting" on a 30-city national book tour. Over the past month Beanland, her chick pals and volunteers have been busy painting, decorating and generally sprucing up the store in preparation for the big event. "It will be grand!" promises owner Judy Wheeler-Ditter.
Nesting is Beanland's third book and her second collaboration with Terry in the "Chick" series, which originated with the best-selling "It's a Chick Thing: Celebrating the Wild Side of Women's Friendships."
While girlfriends are high on the pecking order for Beanland, it's clear that nesting is her true passion. She is tickled pink as she flutters through her recently remodeled downtown Pleasanton home, pointing out the pumpkin-shaped chandelier in her 3-year-old daughter Grace's room or the hill in the back yard she plans to terrace with lavender and rosemary. True to her eclectic spirit, her own nest is feathered with flea market finds, Internet bargains, and pieces from small local shops.
Beanland has an evangelistic zeal about helping women to discover their own sense of style and to be playful and joyous in their domestic lives.
"It's more about decorating from the inside out than the outside in," says Beanland. "You know what you like. We want to help you pay attention to that inner voice, and give you confidence to translate those likes and dislikes into confident choices."
And what if that inner voice whispers a yearning for a velvet painting of Elvis?
"Then you'd better have a velvet painting of Elvis on your wall," Beanland responds, without a moment's hesitation.
Nesting is divided into four sections:
¥ Decorating (Feathering Your Nest)
¥ Entertaining (Flocking Together)
¥ Cooking (Chicks and Chow) and
¥ Gardening (Chicks and Hoes).
The book is full of practical hints (36 inches is the ideal distance between the bottom of a light fixture and the top of a dining room table); inspiring quotes (the ultimate comfort zone is within); how-to pieces (hosting a pink poker party!); and fun stories from women as diverse as Ellen DeGeneres, Ms. Stewart herself, and Pleasanton residents Cameron Sullivan and Katie Thompson.
"My Barbie Dream House" reveals the origins of Beanland's distinctive sense of style. As the story goes, the mortgage on Barbie's manse was a little too steep for the family budget, so her mother convinced her that "only bored and boring little girls needed to have their mothers shell out good money for pink plastic boxes."
"That is how my Barbie came to stiffly inhabit a cardboard box decorated with quilting scraps, duct tape and buttons," says Beanland. "I was a 9-year-old recycling, shabby-chic-ing, trash-to-treasure genius."
The experience taught her the important lesson that "dream houses don't come prepackaged and neatly stacked on shelves. They unfold slowly, with faith, effort and the help of good friends."
So how does a busy writer, wife and mother hen find the time to create her own dream house?
"You have to realize that nesting is not about competing with your neighbors or trying to be perfect. You have to make up your mind not to get too stressed, and relax about it," says Beanland. "The whole point of all the home and gardening magazines and lifestyle books is to convince us that we have to have The Next Big Thing.
"But until you find that peace within yourself you'll never be satisfied. Our advice is to ditch the fear, toss the rulebook, and do what feels good and expresses your unique style."
Flock with the Chicks
What: National launch of "Nesting: It's a Chick Thing"
Who: Authors Ame Mahler Beanland and Emily Miles Terry
Where: Towne Center Books, 555 Main St.
When: 7-9 p.m., Thursday, June 10
Celebration: Brief talk, prizes, chocolate and plenty of pink champagne
Special: Eleven downtown merchants are participating in "Chicks Night Out" from 5-9 p.m. June 10 with special prizes, drawings and discounts.
More information: 846-8826
Nesty little tips
¥ A good house is never done: Keep your house vibrant by changing things when the spirit moves you and allowing your personal style to evolve.
¥ Be touchy-feely: Give each room a touchstone, a soul-some special item, color or quality that represents something you love and cherish.
¥ Start a ritual: Be it a traditional holiday party or a Mardi Gras masquerade ball, find an occasion to celebrate annually.
¥ Strive for a good time, not a perfect time: Guests won't remember that your napkins rings didn't match, but they will recall how you remembered they loved Italian sodas and chocolate cake.
¥ Only one high-maintenance dish per meal: If you want to try a complicated recipe, pick one per menu and make sure the rest of what you cook is simple.
¥ Lie, cheat and steal: Do whatever it takes to simplify a recipe. Read them carefully beforehand and strategize to simplify.
¥ Grow something wild and unruly: Plant lettuces among your flower beds, line a walkway with teacup saucers, grow pumpkins in a vacant lot, plant tomatoes in a window box.
¥ Hunt and gather a bouquet every day: Even in the dead of winter, bring an evergreen sprig or a branch of berries or some new flowering bulbs into your nest.
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