We are officially People Who Scoot.
(P.S. If you're in the market for a kickboard: this one is Kendrick's, this one is Indy's, and this one is Goldie's - and hers is especially cool, because the seat/toybox comes off and the handlebars can be moved up, so it works from 18 months all the way through age 5.)
Look at this gloriousness.
Confession: I totally went into this experiment expecting to end up writing a post about (another) epic baking fail. Because when I saw this recipe in People Magazine and noted that it contained exactly two ingredients - neither of which were butter or flour - I did not see how, exactly, the result would be brownies. I mean, maybe there are bakers out there who are more talented than me (all of them) who can work this kind of magic, but what I was picturing ending up with was basically Nutella Soup. Or maybe Blackened Husk Of Nutella. Something along those lines.
But not only did this 20-minute project result in brownies...it resulted in the best brownies that I have ever had in my life. They are better than my beloved Duncan Hines Family-Size Fudge Brownie Mix, and that is not a thing that I ever thought that I would say about any edible item on the planet. The best part is the taste, obviously - just sweet enough, with a hint of hazelnut - but what sets them apart from other brownies is the texture: so light it's almost spongy, almost like a mousse.
I took this photo on Valentine's Day 2011, the last Valentine's Day of our just-us-two family. I had just found out I was pregnant maybe three days earlier, and put on a tight minidress because I thought maybe I wouldn't get many chances to wear that particular item in the coming months (spoiler: literally never wore the thing again). But I wanted to post a little "Happy Valentine's Day!" photo on RG and was paranoid that somebody would notice my five-weeks-pregnant "bump" (you don't have a bump at five weeks pregnant), so I put on a leather jacket and leaned forward into the camera and tried to be all sneaky about it.
I was SO HAPPY. You can see it in that picture, I think.
We were broke and it was cold and Kendrick had to stay a little late at work, so we decided to just meet at Gino's, a little Italian place - really more of a pizzeria - down the street for dinner. We sat at a cozy corner table and ate baked ziti and drank Diet Cokes and talked about our baby-to-be (still, at that point, a secret virtually nobody but the two of us and our doctor knew) and I felt like I was floating.
{ All photos by Indy }
New discovery: Dolores Park, in San Francisco, is the best. Apparently everybody but me already knew this, because when we went by (bottle of rose and roast beef sandwiches from Bi-Rite Market in tow) there were eighty bazillion people there, laying on blankets in the sun, listening to music, playing with their dogs, and generally being all happy and sunny and friendly and great.
When we were walking up to the park Kendrick and I were talking about how it's felt to live near a city that doesn't really feel like ours - New York was so familiar to me; I knew every single corner and turn and secret spot, and San Francisco feels like a mystery. And likely one that we won't ever solve, because the reality is that we really can only make it in every once in awhile, on weekends; traffic just makes more frequent trips completely miserable. It'd be nice to pop up for dinner. That's not happening.
Click over to I Want To Be Her for a fun interview in which I talk my five favorite finds of the moment, including the best-smelling candle ON THE PLANET (I mean that), footwear that I surprised myself by wearing quite literally into the ground, and the ultimate tired-eyes pick-me-up.
Here is the blouse that will absolutely make your spring/summer wardrobe. (It is expensive. It might just be worth it.)
"To be honest, a peek inside my mind most days would probably look like X-Wings and TIE Fighters," responded every husband in the world. (Mom's Bedtime Doodle Shows The Thoughts Of A Multi-Tasker, via Today.)
Remember these books?!?! Hello #nostalgia.
On Saturday morning, I did a reading of a few Roger Hargreaves books to benefit Milk & Bookies and the Boys & Girls Club of America - the children who came to the reading brought books to be distributed to the local club. Similar readings were held at Gap locations all over the country that day because the store just released a collection of (adoooooorable) Little Miss and Mr. Man-themed clothing. They tricked out the events with little thematic cookies and coloring stations and such, and it was all kinds of cute and just the best way to start a weekend ever.
I'm not pregnant. Just figured it was a good idea to get that one out there right off the bat, since the fact that I'm thinking about baby names - and this 2014 photo - may lead you to believe otherwise.
Awhile back I posted my Top 10 Favorite Baby Names for Boys and Top 10 Favorite Baby Names for Girls, and in the months since I have had a stunning number of friends either get pregnant or give birth. As a result, the subject is one I've done a lot of chatting about lately, so I thought I'd add to those lists...mostly because MAN are baby names ever fun to talk about.
5 MORE FAVORITE BABY NAMES FOR GIRLS
Vintage us (and Lucy) in our 2009 apartment.
Last night I was hunting around on RG for an old recipe - because the Superbowl is on Sunday and a couple of friends who are actually into football are coming over, so now I'm feeling all inspired to do something...I don't know, thematic. Football-y. As it turns out, the number of recipes related in any way whatsoever to football on Ramshackle Glam is zero - shocker, I know - but that's not the point.
See ya.
I bought my Ikea Malm dresser - you know, the one you also own (or perhaps just used to own if you are better than I am at replacing college furniture with grownup furniture) - thirteen years ago. Since the day my father first assembled it in my West Hollywood apartment (because my skill at Ikea assembly begins and ends with these chairs), it has been driven across the country twice, and lived in six different homes.
I think it has, as Ms. Kondo would say, "fulfilled its function." (And yes, I'm totally still going with my KonMari-ing; did the lingerie drawers the other night and said good-bye to a massive bag of stuff, including pretty much everything that I got from my bachelorette party because...let's just say that strappy, garter-y squares of lace are not in my vocabulary at the moment.)
Today in Things That I Do That Make Very Little Sense: I take enormous, completely unfounded pride in our orange tree (you know, the one that I freaked out over when we first arrived at our new home).
When people come over, I announce to them, "Would you like an orange? Because we grow them ourselves. Did I mention that they're DELICIOUS?" I send people baskets of oranges and write "From our backyard!" on twee little cards. I make orange-flavored cakes, and make sure that anyone who's eating one is aware that it all that lovely orange-y flavor came from my very own oranges that are mine and that exist because I MADE IT SO. (I'm aware that this is obnoxious, and also that orange-growing is hardly cause for national celebration in California, but whatever, I'm from New York City and in New York City oranges are born in supermarkets, so this is all very thrilling to me.)
Let us now be absolutely clear: I had virtually nothing to do with the fact that this particular tree produces oranges, delicious or otherwise. In fact, I tried extremely hard via a refusal to water it (thanks partially to drought-related water restrictions but mostly to my own forgetfulness) to make sure that it never produced fruit again, and yet it persevered. It would be more accurate for me to take pride in the fact that my orange tree absolutely refuses to die.
