Latest Posts

Eat

All-American Berries

June 22, 2015

Oh, these are so cute. And so easy. And so festive I can hardly even stand it. Full disclosure: I don't love them with the vehemence that I love my Chocolate Salted Strawberries, but the adorableness factor compensates for the fact that they include milk chocolate's sad cousin, white chocolate.

We had a little pool party for some friends on Saturday, and I used it as an opportunity to play around with some summery recipe ideas I've been meaning to try, and let me tell you: these were quite the hit. More easy, party-friendly dishes coming up, so if you're planning a Fourth of July get-together stay tuned - totally got you covered. But you can go ahead and start with these, because they are Oh So American.

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Makeup & Beauty

Toiletries For Tripping

June 19, 2015

Oh, you sillies, not that kind of tripping. This ain't no Burning Man blog (although full disclosure: I have a couple of friends trying to convince us to go next year, but ehhhh I dunno, I feel a little jumping-on-the-bandwagon-ten-years-late-and-after-massive-commodification, ya know? Also it sounds kind of fun. And dusty).

No no: we're talking road tripping.

See, before we embarked on our journey (for which I had to pack not only for the two weeks of actual cross-country driving, but for the week we spent being displaced prior to our departure, and for the week of I-have-no-idea-where-anything-I-own-is after our arrival), I put a lot of thought into packing. I tried to streamline everywhere I could, packing the bare minimum so that we wouldn't be overloaded...but when it came to toiletries?

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Recipes

Pea And Pesto Crostini

June 18, 2015
sandwich crostini pesto pea mozzarella

OK, confession: I LOVE Sandra Lee. I'm basing said love on the only two facts that I know about her, which are as follows:

1. Girlfriend does not cook without a glass of wine in hand;

2. Girlfriend also does not cook when cooking is not necessary.

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Makeup & Beauty

Weird Product Test-Run: Amopé Electronic Foot File

June 18, 2015
how to heal dry cracked feet

Goodness, do I ever have ugly feet.

I know they don't look all that ugly in this photo; that's because I surrounded them with my cute new floors to distract you (and also because I used FaceTune to spruce 'em up a bit before posting this shot, ssh; no but seriously, nobody needs to see those things in their un-retouched state).

I'm belaboring this point because we're not really talking run-of-the-mill ugly feet (as most feet are); we're talking a disaster. Partially because I can't remember the last time a pedicure was on the menu, but mostly because my crazy-dry skin (you know, the that I've whined about here over and over and over) makes itself extra-special apparent on my feet, resulting in actual, Grand Canyon-style cracks (it's as attractive and comfortable as it sounds). I'm willing to ignore a lot of things, but for-real holes in my feet? Nothankyou.

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Lifestyle

In A Day

June 17, 2015

The past week has been spent adjusting. (And painting walls and installing lights and putting things up and pulling things down and ripping tape off of boxes that appear to be multiplying like mogwais while we sleep and trying to find somewhere, anywhere, that will feed us Thai food and oh right, my final book edit is due on Friday, nbd...but mostly adjusting.)

What's presented an interesting challenge - and one that I didn't expect - is that both Indy and Goldie have changed a lot almost overnight (or at least that's how it feels), and so while we figure out all the things you have to figure out when you move to a new place, we're also having to figure out how to adjust to our kids' newfound needs. Goldie used to sleep what felt like all day long; suddenly she's dropped down to one nap, with maybe a little bonus rest in the early evening. She moves now. A lot. Basically, she's like tiny, extremely cute and very awake lightning.

With Indy, it's more of a situational shift; his school out here doesn't start for another couple of weeks, and even when school does start, we don't have the regular routine set up out here that we had back at home, with lessons on this day and playdates on that day and...you know, stuff to do.

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Decor

The Easy Decor Trick You Didn’t Know

June 16, 2015
hot pink deer head white faux taxidermy yucca tree

...Or at least I didn't know it until I read this post. It's something that I was doing before at least semi-intuitively, but consciously paying attention to this tiny fix is such an easy way to instantly give a room a more polished feel.

Basically, forget about centering art on a wall, and pay more attention to orienting it around the furniture. (This doesn't necessarily mean always placing it dead center above a major piece of furniture - although it could - but rather just thinking about the art as it relates to the way you've arranged the pieces in your room.)

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My Looks

Le Vibe

June 15, 2015

Santa Cruz, CA

What you are seeing here is - apart from Kendrick's graduation - the first time I've gotten actually dressed (meaning, selected things from my closet that were things I actually wanted to wear, rather than just opening a box, going "that looks fine and marginally clean" and getting on with it) in about a month.

It was fun.

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Lifestyle

The Good Dad

June 14, 2015

...Or, more accurately, the best dad.

Father's Day is always a tough one. I mean, seriously...how many ties and belts can you buy a guy? For this Father's Day, I wanted to get Kendrick a present that he could use, you know? And, more specifically, use to do something he's wanted to do for a long time, but has never really had the time for: getting outside and just going. For the past couple of years he's spent all of his time either in class or driving back and forth between Yale and our place, and I know he'd love to make being outdoors a real part of his everyday, and so I thought I'd get him something to inspire him to do just that.

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