Bathroom Before And After (And Lesson Learned)
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A Peculiar Thing
The below is an excerpt from Ramshackle Glam. I wanted to share it on the site because it explores a topic that I've touched upon a lot here - the anxiety that I felt during my pregnancy, and in the weeks after giving birth - but that I felt like I never really got to the bottom of until I wrote this essay.
(Read the full book on your Kindle here.)
Early on in my pregnancy, when I was busy tying myself up in knots about things like strollers and closets and finding room for bottle drying racks on our nonexistent countertop, one of the things I actually didn’t worry a ton about, oddly enough, was . . . the baby. I just kind of figured he’d be okay. I mean, of course I went to all my doctor’s appointments, ate decently well, and avoided the stuff you’re supposed to avoid, but mostly I just sort of got on with it and trusted that everything would turn out fine. He’d be born, and be loved and happy and ours, and our little family would roll on into wherever it was we were headed.
Springy Fresh (…And Laundry Tips I Promise You Don’t Already Know)
Having a washing machine about twenty feet away from me at all times has got to be one of my absolute favorite things about living in a house. In our old apartment, whenever an “incident” arose with one of the many small creatures who live with us (I’ll leave the specifics to your imagination), it required the lugging of very heavy bags to a local laundromat, where I was then forced to sit for hours, all the while hoping that my laundry didn’t end up getting chewed up and spat out by a machine-gone-rogue.
On set with Snuggle and the Small family in New Jersey
When we have an incident nowadays? Oh my goodness, so much easier to deal with. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about our tough night that involved the ferrying of many, many loads of laundry up and down the stairs. It was the night just before I shot one of the segments on laundry tips and tricks for Snuggle’s "Smell The Snifference" six-part series on The Better Show (so, as an aside, if I look slightly exhausted during one or two of the segments…that would be why), and in a very fortuitous coincidence I had just received a couple of packages of Snuggle’s newest product – their Snuggle Scent Boosters – the day before to try out for myself.
Get Cropped
It's not quiiite shorts weather yet (almost!), but for these gorgeous spring days full-length jeans just feel too…wintry. I'm kind of over them (as you might have be able to tell based on the fact that I've been cuffing every pair of jeans I own for a solid month).
To the rescue: the perfect pair of crops.
I've been wearing Old Navy's Rockstar jeans for a couple of years now - they're the perfect skinnies with just a little stretch, come in every color imaginable, and are phenomenally affordable - and now they're available in a spring-perfect cropped length.
Slow Cooker BBQ Brisket
Did you know that slow-cookers aren't just for heavy, wintry meals? It's true.
As an example: you don't always want to actually barbecue when you have a barbecue. Or at least I don't. Sometimes you want to eat outdoors off of paper plates, but you don't want a hamburger, or a hot dog, or maybe you're out of propane and don't feel like running to Home Depot, or maybe you're just in the mood for something…else.
Brisket is so good. And slow-cookers make eating it so easy. Seriously, what this meal involves is: 1) put things in slow cooker; 2) put slow-cooked things in bun. Done. (I added some broccoli because I felt like it was important to show that I made an effort to include greenery, but honestly: potato salad is probably a better addition here.)
Sunnies For You, Sunnies For Mama
Now you know the sunglasses I love lately…but if you're looking for a pair to love for yourself, some suggestions (a few of which would also make excellent Mother’s Day gifts) are above.
Also, Sunglass Hut has a tool up right now where you can live-shop for sunglasses with your mother, using face recognition technology to virtually try on different styles. Too adorable.
So Into You
{ Ray-Ban Sunglasses; Sanctuary Button-Down (similar); Ann Taylor Parachute Pants (similar) }
You may have noticed that I kind of like my sunglasses. I always have, mostly because sunglasses mean you can be lazy about things like putting on mascara and still look pretty good running out of the house in the morning…but since my son arrived I do not go without them.
You know how some women are super into shoes, and buy pair after pair after pair? I’m not really a shoe person (mostly because I will definitely screw them up, and if they were expensive that will make me sad)…but sunglasses?
A Stroll Down Memory Lane: YooHoo Chocolate Drink Commercial (1998)
I've posted old commercials that I shot back in the '90s before just for fun…but today I found this clip, and now I need to show it to you, because it's kind of awesome.
I was just talking with a friend about advertising and slightly-ahead-of-their-time campaigns that don't work particularly well because audiences don't "get" them (even though they would in just a few years, or even months), and in the course of this conversation I mentioned a YooHoo commercial I shot many, many years ago. The commercial was part of a larger campaign that never got a ton of screen-time because it referenced things like threesomes (my commercial) and cults (this commercial, starring Tammy Lynn Michaels, who later became Melissa Etheridge's wife). And while threesomes and cults are hardly eyebrow-raisers now, back in the '90s I guess people were kind of weirded out by sexual innuendo in their soft-drink commercials, and this series didn't do particularly well with focus groups.
But that's not the point of this post.
The point of this post is that I couldn't remember what, exactly, happened in the commercial, and so I went hunting for it, and:
This Might Actually Be The Coolest Thing In The World
Our stroller (the one I stressed and stressed and stressed about buying all those years ago) sort of died.
It still works, technically…it's just that after three years of being trucked up and down flights of stairs, smushed into car trunks, and sat on by dogs and humans, it's seen better days.
Enter: this crazy thing. My life doesn't usually include marvels of technology, mostly because I am completely hopeless at figuring out things like…well, like assembly in general, but I need to tell you how ridiculous-intuitive and amazing this stroller is. Besides the fact that it makes me feel like I'm parenting in the movie Total Recall, putting it together was like the virtual opposite of putting together anything that I've ever gotten from Ikea. As in: I could do it. And I didn't cry.
Weekend Snapshots: Formals & Flowers Edition
Something that's kind of a bummer about Kendrick going to a relatively far-away business school: it limits how much we can get involved in the community there as a couple. I've heard from friends whose husbands or wives have attended business school that it's a really great community - all the partners hang out together, there's a fun social scene, et cetera et cetera - but logistically it's just not really possible for me to hire a babysitter and truck up to Yale for nighttime events all that often.
But for a Spring Formal? Babysitter. Mostly because I haven't been to a school dance in about a decade, and I need some Kesha in my life.
