Human beings are just not wired for change. It’s that simple. No matter how much we think we want it and are ready to take the plunge, the sweaty-palmed hand wringing over decisions large and small betrays our human need to avoid fear and uncertainty at any cost. I like to think of it as that primal instinct that has us running for the safety of our cave to curl up with our woobie blanket.

Chairs are one of those furniture items that always cost WAY more than you were thinking. I remember when my husband and I first moved in together and were struggling to furnish our apartment. Every chair we looked at was expensive and even the cheapest ones, when you multiplied them by 6, were out of our reach. So I got creative. I found a restaurant supply store on the Bowery where we scored eight old banquet chairs for $15 each and I stripped, stained, waxed and reupholstered them. This was my first foray into the real world of furniture pain and suffering.

I’m a knitter. I haven’t always been a knitter. It’s something I only recently learned to do when I was wandering in the career desert looking for my purpose. All of my self-help books said that I should follow any path that seemed interesting or made me curious, and being a crafty sort of girl I had to admit that knitting seemed like something that would be creative, fun, and cool.

Alignment, balance, proportion, harmony, call it what you will, it all has to do with a level of “rightness” that we, as humans, can somehow feel and recognize. One of my favorite examples of this is Leonardo DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man. Da Vinci basically used a now-famous drawing to show how the proportions of the human form have informed classical architecture for centuries and that the greatest buildings in history took their measurements from the size and scale of the human body. This would explain why we feel most comfortable in rooms that echo these perfect proportions. To me, it’s just our falling in line with nature and its love of alignment.

There are a few people in my life who I consider to be the poster children for thoughtfulness. These are people who regularly amaze and shame me in their ability to press pause in their incredibly busy lives to do something special for someone they care about. The funny thing is that these are also some of the busiest people I know and yet, they put their money where their mouth is –they make the time.

Let me say right up front that the right time to hire an interior designer is at the beginning of your project. That time when you are still trying to define your style, aren’t quite sure what you want or need, and definitely before you’ve started spending real money. Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of people try to go it alone and then realize that they are in way over their heads and I know exactly why.

When I was little one of my favorite things to do was to play “school” with my best friend. There was never any doubt about who was going to be teaching interior design – me – and she was always the perfect, eager student. Maybe it was because I was older, maybe it was because I was bossy, or maybe it was because I liked flipping the script and being the one who had the all the answers. Whatever it was, it was my first taste of sharing imminent wisdom from my whopping 6 years on the planet and I have to say, it felt really good.

Many years ago my husband and I were in an antique store in Westport, CT when we spotted an old, French, mustache club chair. It was a big, regal, show-stopping type of chair and while it was not cheap, we bought it anyway. Over the years it occupied a prime spot in our living room and it always seemed to be the chair that the first person in the door wanted to plop in and stay for the rest of the night. It had soft, buttery leather that you sank into and it cradled you with its welcoming wide arms. It just seemed to lure people into it.

I am an introvert married to an extrovert. Most of the time this is a good thing, and I know a lot of couples who have spent a LONG time in opposite-land and have figured out how to make it work. So it is no surprise that as my marriage slides into home plate for the 20th time, I find myself reflecting on our differences and wondering how we have managed to live together, in close quarters, for so long. Also known as - how have we not killed each other?

Let’s face it, we all have bad days. It’s been my observation that a bad day usually starts with my being totally narcissistic, finding some space and totally focused on myself. I suddenly feel that there’s a conspiracy against me and that everything is going wrong because I slept late, scrambled to get out the door, forgot something important at home and wound up behind every school bus or impaired driver in the county. It’s easy to see how it can escalate into a festival of “why me?” which just seems to continue throughout the day and fuel the growing pity party.