Several months ago I decided to invest in stepping up my apartment’s game and now I’m ready to tackle the incredibly small dining area. I’ve finally chosen a table, chairs/stools, the decor accents, and just now decided to paint one of the walls purple. Not a loud purple, but something soft and subtle. Soothing and calm – perhaps one of the plum-y options shown above. We’ll see how I do – wish me luck!

I’m going to a couple of parties this year and was told I needed to ‘slut it up’ a bit more than usual. Well, slutty nurse, slutty kitten, slutty bumble bee, etc. aren’t really my thing (in years past, I’ve been a zombie, jellyfish, elf, and part of a haunted forest), so I tried to think of other costumes that would make my friends happy (ie at least show my legs) without looking like a ho. And so I’m going as a flower, inspired by the Christian Dior Fall 2010 Couture collection and frilly pink peonies (my faves). I’ll be layering pink tutus, wearing leafy Valentino sandals that I’ve had for over 10 years but only worn 5 or 6 times, and plan on having too much fun with my hair (def incorporating cellophane) and wild makeup with falsies too! What will you be dressing up as?

I love love the holidays–especially Halloween and Christmas–and always go a bit overboard with my decorating. Right now, we have a screaming ghost that flies across the living room ceiling, a hanging skeleton, lots of cobwebs, spiders, crisp fall leaves, and glittery bones all around my house. And candles. Lot of candles (even more than usual). We also have gauzy ghosts drying, which we sculpted using cheese cloth and liquid starch last night. And I also just ordered D.L. & C.‘s large black skull candle and gold skull candle snuffer today (on gilt of course) after admiring them for years.

I keep meaning to create a list here of all the things I really want in the hopes of curbing my impulse purchases, so what better time to begin than now? Starting things off is Prada by Abrams Books, which I’ve wanted for a long time and just bought yesterday thanks to a sale on Gilt. Prada is and has always been one of my very favorite brands for more reasons that I care to list and it’s almost absurd that I’ve waited so long to snag the book.

About the book: Prada is the first book that documents three decades of ground-breaking fashion, architecture, film and art by the Prada company, including the work of the design studio and the workshop; extensive creative partnerships with photographers, designers, architects and film directors; and large scale architectural commissions, the Fondazione Prada, and the development of a new museum. Among the many features of this rich innovative book with its thousands of images are a photo-essay by renowned photographer Brigitte Lacombe, stills taken from short films documenting the craftsmanship of the factory, images of the unique fashion show environments, an overview of all Miuccia Prada’s collections with thumbnail pictures of 3,885 different “looks,” collages of the most influential shoe and bags, photographs of the final product on the runway, celebrated store designs in New York and Los Angeles by Rem Koolhaas/OMAand in Tokyo by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, a film collaboration with director Ridley Scott, Koolhaas’s radical “Prada Transformer” pavilion in Seoul, costume designs for a Japanese manga heroine, Prada found on the street and celebrities photographed on the red carpet, and blogs expressing the almost fanatical devotion of lovers of the brand…like me

From Vogue.com’s APT with LSD feature on Devon Radziwill. I’ve been wanting a good zebra skin for so long now that it hurts, and Devon just has layers of them on the floor of her living room loft. And her coffee table? Love. Sigh. Oh, and she happens to live on the same block as one of my favorite stores in the entire city – De Vera. One day, Casey, one day…