Cult Object Test-Run: Lucas’ PaPaw Ointment
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Watermelon-Mint Tequila Granita
Yeah, that's what I thought you said.
You know how every single day is some National Holiday or another - National Tourism Day; National Oyster Day; National Candied Orange Peel Day (this actually exists; it's May 4th)? Well, Monday was National Watermelon Day. I know this because I'm on Instagram, and everyone was posting pictures of watermelons, and I couldn't figure out why, and then I realized: oh.
National Watermelon Day.
The Shirt(Dress)
Lately, Kendrick has been picking up items of my clothing, holding them out in front of himself, and asking me why I am putting something on my body that was clearly created for a person who is approximately three feet tall and four feet wide.
I don't really have a good explanation for this. ...They're comfortable? ...I enjoy the pillowcase look, generally?
Take this dress, for example. Sure, it looks a little like it was custom-made for The Phantom Tollbooth's Officer Shrift (very wide, very short), but oooh is it ever cozy. And sure, the length requires you to be constantly vigilant about things like gusts of winds and occasions requiring you to lift your arms above your head, but hey: I like living a little dangerously. (Also, let me acknowledge the fact that it appears that I am wearing a shirt without pants here - because I am aware that it does - by letting you know that it states on the website where said shirt is being sold that it is an actual dress. See? Right here, in the super-tiny, super-pale print wayyyy down there on the page under "Features.")
Gold Touch
You know what two of the most useful things I own are?
My tiny paintbrush, and my little pot of gold-leaf paint.
I'm serious: I use gold leaf on errything. I attack thrift-shop chairs with it, spruce up picture frames with it, accent flower pots with it. I even make tiny plastic-animal terrariums with it (really).
Fairies At The Faire
Alright, we're officially Ren Faire people.
If we hear about one, we are going.
This particular Renaissance Faire - held in downtown San Jose for one weekend only - we heard about last summer from a guy who came to fix the cabinet in our rental (and who called me 'milady' and actually bowed to me when he left). We considered going, and then realized that would mean wandering around a hot, dusty field one week prior to my due date and thought...eh. Mayhap (see what I did there?!) not the best idea.
Links & Love & Stuff
The other day, I posted about how closets in the real world (as opposed to blogger-world) do not have all matching hangers, because hangers are weird-expensive and the wire ones that the dry cleaner gives you are free...and then a reader told me about the skinny velvet hangers you can buy in packs of 25 at Ross, and now I am one of those people with a closet full of matching hangers. (The shame.)
Teeny-tiny moccasins with little palm leaves on them?!?!? Stop it.
My dear friend Gala's first book, Radical Self Love: A Guide to Loving Yourself and Living Your Dream, is available for one week more only over on Amazon. Gala lived through an eating disorder, battled depression, and struggled with her desire to find a career she loved, and came out the other side - and this book is geared towards helping readers do the same. The book is as lovely as she is.
The Post I Wish I’d Read Before Having My Second Child
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Six weeks after my daughter was born, an email landed in my inbox that sounded like it had come from the inside of my own head. A reader, J, wrote to me that she was pregnant with her second baby, and that she was excited, of course...but also scared. Scared of how her life was going to change - rewind from the calm of the toddler era to the madness of the infant period - and scared that her relationship with her first baby would be...not lost, but dimmed somehow. Pushed aside.
Her email was such a relief to me to receive, because I understood it completely. I had struggled so much with these fears myself and experienced such enormous guilt about them that...I guess it just helped to know that others felt exactly as I did.
The Spot
Oh, that's such a good spot.
One interesting thing (among many) about moving into a house that you've only ever seen on a computer screen: you don't really know what to bring. Will that lamp fit in the new place? How about that sofa? Where's that desk going to go?
You don't know, and so you guess. And in my case, I guessed wrong in the chair department. See, I happen to have really a lot of...I guess you'd call them "statement" chairs, if you were being fancy - just sort of one-of-a-kind, not-part-of-a-set chairs that I found, and loved, and went home with.
The Basics
Presenting: the perfect striped shirt (and perfect slouchy pants).
You know, I don't actually shop at J.Crew all that often. Because the problem is that I like pretty much everything they sell, but it's sort of expensive. So it's really best if I just steer clear.
But then every once in awhile I wear one of my much-loved wardrobe basics to death, and I think, oh...what the hell.
Celebrating, Family-Style
Look. At these. Munchkins.
Over the past few months I've been documenting my family travel resolutions with Alamo, and for my final post as one of the company's ambassadors we decided to throw a party to celebrate a year that's certainly seen its share of travel - and not "just" travel, but travel that's actively brought our family together, exposing us to places, people and experiences that we'll carry with us forever.
Way back in March I wrote about my resolution to travel consciously, to make sure my kids feel not like they're just "along for the ride," but are an actual part of the process. I wrote about creating a travel journal for our family - a travel journal that I started on our house-hunting trip to San Jose, and that we ended up taking with us across the entire country, filling with jotted-down memories and pasted-in whatevers - and how I hoped that it would remind us that travel isn't just a way to get from one place to another.
