If you liked the images in today's Pinterest post - and I'm assuming you probably do, because Pinterest says they are perfect and Pinterest is always right - I poked around on the Internet to find some similar furnishings, each and every one of which I am presently lusting after in a big way.
(Absolute favorite piece is that southwestern CB2 rug. Augggggh love it.)
Pinterest's primary function in my life is to make me realize that I am wildly inadequate in virtually every area of my existence. Mostly in my ability to artfully light and photograph my dinner, but I have also learned that many, many things about me are lacking, from my nail polish application skills to my window treatments to the fact that I persist in buying Ben & Jerry's rather than churning my own mixed-berry frozen yogurt in a crate that I hand-crafted from toothpicks, pom poms and dreams.
But another thing that Pinterest has taught me is actually quite a lot about home decor. I've always been a big believer in letting your freak flag fly when it comes to your home, filling it up with things that aren't just "pretty," but remind you of the places and people and things you love the most - that have actual stories - but still: sometimes it helps to take a step back, examine what's around you, and look for the simple little fixes that can make an enormous difference.
Let's discuss.
There are a lot of nice things about the digital age, and the age of digital cameras in particular. As examples: you get to take twenty million photographs of your child’s first year of life, and don’t have to pay to get all those photos developed in order to find the single group shot in which everyone’s eyes are open and no one looks like they’ve been awake for 60 hours straight. You can send your mom pictures of your trip to the beach while you still have your feet planted in the sand. Several years’ worth of family photos take up no more space in your house than the three inches required to store an external hard drive.
But the albums. I never get over how much I miss having actual, hold-them-in-your-hands albums to page through. There’s just something about them that’s romantic; that makes those memories you captured feel…I don’t know, more alive, somehow.
My parents-in-law have especially lamented the fact that they don’t have many hard copies of photos of us and the kids, and so for Christmas I decided to make them an album of some favorite shots from the past few years using Canon’s hdAlbum service. I’ve thought about trying out a program like this from time to time, but have always been a little intimidated by the process. But you guys? It was SO EASY. And SO FUN.
I prefer my kale in sweatshirt form, thanks. (You can get one of your own here.)
No matter how many hours you spent on the phone with Comcast today (oh, was that just me?), this cocktail tray is here to remind you that at least at the end of it all there was wine.
Anthropologie is having a Winter Tag Sale and it's really good. (I love this shawled cashmere wrap and these Citizens of Humanity overalls. And on the home decor front, these dipped sisal baskets.) Take an extra 25% off of sale prices using code TAGTIME.
Discovery: I really, really like caviar. But I do not like very much of it, because as delicious as it is, it's also fish eggs, and my psyche can only handle eating so many unhatched fish babies. So when we opened our little tin of caviar on New Year's Eve, despite the fact that there were only maybe two big tablespoons' worth of eggs in it, we only ended up eating about half.
I figured that was fine; we'd just eat the rest later, but then Francesca and I were talking about caviar on the phone while I was driving around running errands (we don't usually talk about things like caviar, I promise; I'm not quite sure how this happened) and she googled "how long does caviar last" for me, and it turns out it's fine when it's all sealed away in a jar, but once you open it you better get on it.
So I went home and got on it.
I go to the nail salon only when absolutely, positively, horrifyingly necessary. It's just not my favorite thing to do; it takes so freaking long. And it's expensive, especially if you get gel pedicures (which I do so as to lengthen the amount of time that passes before I have to make a return trip). And there is always the possibility certainty that I will fall asleep leaning back in my chair with my mouth hanging open and start snoring, because parenthood has turned me into a borderline narcoleptic. But after our Ohio week, my nails were an actual emergency situation, so on Saturday I asked Kendrick if he minded watching the kids for a couple of hours while I ran off to make them less frightening and gollum-ish.
And then Kendrick said one of my favorite things I've ever heard him say:
My feeling is that when you spend the day traveling across the country with two children and a husband with a broken foot for the second time in under a week, and all four of you have recently recuperated from the stomach flu, and oh yes, it's New Year's Eve, you should probably get naked on the plane. So I did.
(If you missed the video from leg one of our epic journey, it's here.)
In our hotel room, about one hour before shit got real.
You may have noticed (or, I don't know, maybe not) that I haven't been posting about what we've been up to during our Ohio trip this week. There is a very, very good reason for this.
As a prelude, let me give you a sampling of the texts I got from girlfriends who were on the receiving end of updates as to exactly how exceptionally badly our week has been going.
Before I lay this bombshell on you, you might want to prepare yourself.
Ready to be blown away?
...Ready?
It REALLY sucks to fly across the country with two small children and a husband with a broken foot.
