Remember the project I mentioned last week, in which I was planning to use my favorite color of the moment (and one of my favorite colors ever) to create the effect of a Jadeite bowl come to life?
Presenting: my Office-To-Nursery Makeover.
I am utterly obsessed with Hint Water.
Have you ever tried it? It's delicious in a way that makes no sense, considering that it's just water that tastes ever-so-vaguely like an ever-so-vague flavor (such as blackberry, watermelon, grapefruit, or - my favorite - cucumber).
The only problem with Hint Water is that it exists only in stores, and sometimes I am home at 10PM and my son is in bed and I all of a sudden realize: need Hint Water. Now.
This weekend marked the first day of summer…and the last summer weekend of the year that we'll spend on the East Coast (we don't get back until Labor Day Weekend).
It's just the two of us at the moment - Kendrick started work in SF a couple of weeks ago - so Indy and I spent the days walking in the woods, going to farmer's markets, driving up the Saw Mill, picking raspberries, looking at sheep and horses and baby chicks (!) at Stone Barns (they're still there for a couple more weeks if you want to plan a day trip), and making trips to the pool and the playground and the pool and the playground and the pool. (Lots of pools and playgrounds this weekend.) On Sunday night, my mom and dad came up to say goodbye and eat mussels and sweet corn in the backyard.
After they left, I cried. And I'm crying a little while writing this. It's not because I'm not looking forward to it - I am; I'm excited about seeing Kendrick, and the Pacific Ocean, and the day trips we'll be able to take, and at this point the big, headache-y logistical issues (like my doctor and insurance plan, our rental car, Indy's day camp, all the records that had to be secured and printed out and sent to the appropriate parties) have pretty much been worked out.
{ Old Navy Vest; Everlane Tote }
We have a jicama!
(I swear, my favorite thing about pregnancy may be the random fruit and vegetable comparisons. A jicama?! I don't even know what a jicama looks like. But I'm sure it's very cute.)
So Perricone MD (makers of wonderful skincare products) just came out with their first makeup line, and while I can't speak for the line as a whole (haven't tried most of it)...the lipstick? Also wonderful.
It's called "No Lipstick Lipstick," smells like vanilla, and is really more of a tinted balm than a "lipstick." It's similar to Fresh's Sugar Rose Lip Treatment, but I may actually like it even better - it's just a perfect not-too-bubble-gum color, sheer while still feeling substantial, and oh my goodness, the scent.
I love my Instax camera (we don't actually use it much because the film is so expensive, a little over a dollar per shot - but we took photos with it every once in awhile to commemorate the last pregnancy, and are doing it again).
Now this is a hot swimsuit.
Into right now: The Chic Wife's brand-new site - Kris is such a fun, positive presence on the Internet, and I love her thoughts on everything from The Mean Internet to Having A Lot, But Not "Having It All" (co-sign, co-sign) to banana-pudding cupcakes (I, too, have lots of thoughts about banana-pudding cupcakes). Also, she has the cutest dogs I have ever seen in my life, and I mean that. They are gremlins.
It is so weird doing all the last-minute baby prep things that I thought I'd be doing actually at the last minute…right now.
One Type A-ish thing that I did before Indy arrived: I took on all those annoying, time-consuming projects that really have to get done at some point but definitely are not going to get done in the presence of a newborn. Like backing up my computer and organizing my millions of photos; compiling a list of addresses to send out birth announcements; cleaning out the pantry. Stuff so boring that it makes me want to cry…but that won't even register on the scale of possible undertakings for a good six (ok, twelve) months post-baby-arrival.
Getting all these tasks done in advance ended up being such an enormous mind-settler the first time around that I decided to do the same thing before Goldie gets here.
Which means I'm doing them - all of them - this week. While packing and finalizing ten million pieces of paperwork that need to get to California before we do and doing book edits. And not sleeping, but that's OK; I'll sleep later, when my children are teenagers and I have at long last figured out how to explain to my dogs that "sunrise" does not translate to "time to begin maniacally licking Jordan's leg and barking at walls."
I do not lust over sneakers. Ever.
I buy them only when I have to, and manage to only "have to" once every decade or so.
I will make an exception for these. (They're a men's style, so you'd have to go down two sizes…or you could just get the equally cute women's version. I'm pretty into that grey/orange/blue combo, though.)
OK, so this stuff (sent to me ℅ as part of an earlier post)? Is PHENOMENAL. So phenomenal that it deserves its very own mini-feature.
I set out a few cans of The Honest Co.’s Bug Spray for my friends to use during my backyard Sprinkle (more on this bizarre and kind of great Baby Shower Lite idea here), and there was collective agreement on its general phenomenalness. The adults loved it, and the kids were more or less indifferent to it (which is basically a miracle, because small children and spray-on products are tantrums waiting to happen).
Why am I bestowing such grand praise upon bug spray, of all things? Because it’s made from bug-repelling essential oils rather than chemicals (I’ve always hated how chemical-y most drugstore bug sprays seem, and always feel iffy about spraying them on my son), so it’s a hypoallergenic, paraben- and DEET-free way to handle the fact that we live next to an extremely buggy lake (sigh). Also, the scent is lovely and citrus-y, and smells more like a perfume called “Camping” than like actual bug spray, so I found myself reapplying it “just because” (as opposed to what I usually do with bug spray, which is apply it on while performing a misery-dance that involves keeping my face out of the mist at all costs).
When you think “warm-weather recipe” you may think “grill”…but there are ways to make dinner feel light and fresh and summery without breaking out the barbecue.
Mussels, for example. Make some mussels.
I love ordering mussels with white wine and garlic in restaurants and have wanted to try my hand at making the dish myself for years and years, but never have, mostly because they seemed…intimidating. But the other day, I went to the farmer’s market and started chatting with a fisherman who was sitting next to a big ice bucket filled with mussels that he’d just caught an hour earlier, and: hello, opportunity. So I bought two pounds, and asked him to suggest a recipe.
