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Living Room Reveal!

I have been working my little tucchus off these last couple of weeks getting the new place in order, and I can't wait any longer: I need to start doing some room reveals, even if they're not perfect-perfect. (Which, of course, nothing ever is - especially in a house with oh god, so many children and cats and pillows that will not stay in the spot where I put them.)

The extent to which our living room - as distinct from the family room, where we keep the TV and thus my offspring - came together was such a surprise to meSee, when I moved into my last house I realized that I'd vastly underestimated just how large it was - it was easily twice the size of our place in San Jose. What that meant was that I had multiple completely unfurnished - and kind of enormous - rooms, and so I ended up buying furniture on a much bigger scale than I ever have before. That Ikea couch, for example - you know, the one that I had recovered? It is a BOAT.

When I toured this house before moving in, the formal living room - where that couch-boat would have to live for reasons I'll explain at a later date - struck me as kinda small, or at least too small for that couch. But I figured...you know, we're not in a couch-buying moment right now. So I'd just make it work.

Eat

An Instant Pot Trial By Fire

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I have been dying for an Instant Pot. But only because everyone on the Internets told me I should be dying for an Instant Pot; I didn't even know what these things do, exactly. Aren't they just...crockpots? ...Sort of?

Apparently Instant Pots cook meals in a fraction of the time you'd expect...but, as I completely do not understand the science behind pressure-cooking, it is very hard for me to believe that a meal that should ordinarily take eight hours to cook can take half an hour. That's some magic shit right there.

Eat

It’s A Very Ramshackle Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving weekend, I shall be moving. I shall not, therefore, be hosting anything other than the dust bunnies that have apparently been living underneath my couch all this time.

I will, however, be making - and eating beaucoup quantities of - turkey, because my friend Margo and I have decided to do Thanksgiving together (at her place, obviously). Kendrick and the kids are coming, and I'm so excited - I just want a day of eating and football games playing in the background and skateboarding in the driveway and family.

It will be a very Ramshackle Thanksgiving. And I mean that in the best possible way. Cheers to breaking the rules, making it work, and finding joy in the moment.

Entertaining

Just A Few Lovely Fall Fragrances

Ulli x Kahina Giving Beauty Candle

A friend of mine once stopped by without warning, and entered my house only to point at the candle I had burning on my desk. "You," she said, "are the only person I know who actually lights candles when you're just sitting at home by yourself."

That cannot be true. ...Doesn't everybody keep candles lit at all times?

DIARY

Still There

I've had many summers that felt like little jewelboxes of time, sweet and slow - the one we spent living in temporary housing while we waited for our daughter to be born comes to mind - but there was one that was wonderful in a completely different way than all the others.

It was the summer after Kendrick and I moved from our tiny Hell's Kitchen place to our slightly-less-tiny Upper East Side apartment. The summer that I quit my office job, and started writing for a living (well, that was the plan, in any case). The summer that we were working out how to be married and wondering how in the world we were going to pay our rent and trying to figure out what we wanted to be when we grew up...but it was so exciting. The sheer possibility of it all. We were children standing on the edge of adulthood, thinking about jumping.

We had a little crew that summer. Stephen and Dave, of course - we had rooftop cocktails with them most nights, Lucy whizzing in circles around us while we watched the setting sun light up all that silver paint. Francesca was living in the city then, just a few blocks away, and a few of Kendrick's other friends from college lived at various points along the 6 line. We'd all go out to terrible bars and drink terrible drinks and stay up far too late, because we were still so young, and it still felt like bad choices were a life imperative.