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Decor

A Little House Tour (Two Years Later)

August 30, 2017

Riccione Multicolor Umbrellas, by Gray Malin

Let me take you back to an era many, many moons ago. The Supreme Court had just affirmed same-sex marriage, a record-breaking 195 countries had signed on to endorse the Paris agreement (including the U.S.! Imagine!), and "athleisure" had become a word that people actually used in casual conversation.

Another thing that happened around that time: Our family drove up to a California ranch house that we'd only ever seen in photos, and right there on our brand-new porch, waiting patiently for us, was a housewarming gift: A print of a San Francisco nude beach taken by my all-time favorite photographer, Gray Malin. It took us many days (and months, and years) to wind our way through the process of making that funny little ranch house our own, but one thing that happened on Day One was that the nude beach print went right up on our dining room wall. Once it was hung, I laid down on the floor with a cup of warm champagne and looked at it for awhile - the waves swirling up onto the sand; the rainbow of striped beach blankets; the many, many naked butts - wondering what what was to come.

Entertaining

Labor Day Weekend Suggestion: Make S’Mores Shots

August 30, 2017

You are seeing this correctly: it is a s'more. And a shot. More specifically, it is a shot made out of a s'more. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that these are the easiest things to consume - they require a sort of nibble/sip maneuver that takes a bit of practice - but oh, they are worth the work.

Decor

I Have Been Blessed By The Etsy Gods

August 29, 2017

Wheeeeeeeeeee

When I bought our new couches, my primary concern (besides the fact that they're...you know...white) was the fact that they're also small. They're muuuuuch better-proportioned for our living room, but still: they really just amount to a loveseat and an armchair. It turns out that they're actually super comfortable and totally work for us - those wide arms make them feel much bigger than they are - but prior to discovering this I made the executive decision that our living room needed an enormous, smooshy addition to soften the blow of losing our enormous, smooshy Couch Boat.

It was then that I remembered The Beanbag. The Restoration Hardware beanbag, to be exact. I'd seen someone post about it - or maybe a pop-up ad? I can't remember - and ever since then it had been flitting around on the edges of my mind as a completely ludicrous obsession. You would be correct in thinking that only a crazy person would spend a thousand dollars (yes, you read that right: we're talking about Restoration Hardware here, remember) on a beanbag. But LOOK AT IT.

Makeup & Beauty

Miracle Water

August 28, 2017

At the end of May, I turned 36 years old. I suppose you could still say I’m in my “mid-30s,” but 40 (40!) is so close I can almost touch it, and I have a feeling I’m going to blink and it’ll have arrived, complete with all the wonderful and terrible things that come with for-real middle age (wisdom, wrinkles, and so on).

I’m not a big believer in resolutions because to me resolutions are basically just ways to siphon guilt directly into your brain, but on my birthday, I decided I wanted to make some changes to how I treat myself (which is historically not especially well, as both my best friend and my therapist could tell you; they certainly tell me all the time). Even I can resolve to do something small - anything - to care for myself every day. A few minutes of meditation. A playdate with my children where no phones are invited along. The permission to take a few minutes each morning and night to care for my skin. Vitamins.

My skin has been a trouble area for me for the past couple of years; I’ve written about this extensively. I’ve tried various strategies to handle the one-two punch of having some parts of my face be broken-out and red, while others are Sahara-level dry, and what I’m finding is that for me, there is no one-size-fits-all solution: the only constant is that I have to pay attention to what’s going on with my skin; how it feels today.

Lifestyle

Now THIS Is How You Camp

August 28, 2017

Remember last time we went camping? With the terrifying park ranger and the iron gate removing us from society and the rattlesnakes?

This weekend was not like that.

So here's what I'm going to recommend to you: Know someone who owns a permanent campground, and who will invite you along to partake in it. Because my friend Alisa's family has a spot in Mendocino County that they keep set up all summer long, complete with decks, a full kitchen (complete with granite countertops, a 3-burner stove, and a stainless steel sink), a bar, a table to fit twelve with a gazebo and cozy chairs, and a 1970s trailer with seriously amazing wallpaper. I'm also going to recommend that, once you've secured your invite, to make sure that you travel with a pack of friends who don't bring things like children along with them (so there is silence), and do bring things like salmon fillets along with them (because in the absence of these children you can make those salmon fillets after night falls, and there's no one spread-eagled on the floor wailing that they NEED A SNACK).

Makeup & Beauty

The Night-Before Hack

August 25, 2017

I wish I was the kind of person who woke up an hour before the rest of the household to make coffee and lunches and whatnot, and be all showered and human by the time my kids emerged from their rooms. Maybe I will be one day, but not today. Today, I am all about The Night-Before Hack, because it is during those hours after dinner and before bedtime that virtually everything gets done.

Want to know the real way I “get everything done” at night? I do it all at the same time. All of it. (OK, perhaps talking on the phone while reading a book, brushing my teeth and watering the plants is a tiny exaggeration - but only a tiny one.) But that’s not especially helpful advice - so here are some more specific ways I make things happen at night so that they don’t have to happen in the morning.

ENTREES

Fig Season In Full Swing

August 24, 2017

Noritake China serving dish & gravy boat (shop my curated collection here)

My neighbor Hannah has a fig tree, and too many figs. This was a problem I was more than happy to swing by to help her with.

Hannah gave me bunches of ideas for what to do with the figs, including dipping them in chocolate and large-flake salt, stuffing them with goat cheese and drizzling over some honey, and topping pizzas with them - and yes, all of those are going to happen because HOORAY FOR FIG SEASON - but what I ultimately decided to do with this particular batch was to incorporate them into a dinner by cooking them up in a port-wine sauce that I poured over goat cheese and shallot-stuffed chicken.

Home

The Thing You Might Be Wondering

August 24, 2017

Lately I've been writing about a lot of home improvement projects. The blackout shades. The garage renovation that we just started. All day today I've been working on tricking out our side yard so it can function as a storage space for our bikes, tools, and such (since we'll have less storage space in the garage once it's finished). I'm also in the process of putting together a plan to fix up our pool and the surrounding area, which is starting to show some serious wear.

The question I'd imagine might be on your mind:

...How in the world am I paying for all this (short of having come into some heretofore unknown inheritance)? Excellent question. Let me explain.

Decor

Blackout Goals

August 23, 2017

Magical Thinking Duvet; Kantha Blanket; Lulu & Georgia Lamp

Our bedroom is very, very light. Very bright. I like this, generally speaking, both because sun-filled rooms make me happy, and because being woken up by children wayyyy before you want to be awake is easier when you're not laying in a dark, cozy cave.

Kendrick disagrees with me on this point. He has been annoyed by the brightness of our bedroom for going on two years now, but excuse me, I was not about to hang massive, heavy blackout curtains in our breezy, poolside room. I love him and all, but one must draw the line somewhere.

DIARY

A Trip Down Memory Lane: The “Personal Box”

August 22, 2017

Sifting through my "personal box" gave me all the feelings. (Mostly horrified ones.)

Remember how I mentioned in the post about my (probably ill-advised) new living room furniture that we decided to keep our old couch, so we could do something awesome with it? What we're planning to do - and started doing over the weekend: a massive, massive garage remodel that'll include a separate area for laundry, an office space for Kendrick to record in, and a family room - plus a lofted bed up in the rafters. I'm obviously going to post all about the process, because I'm SO excited - and if it turns out anything like what I'm hoping, it'll be the best thing ever.

But in the meantime, let's look at some embarrassing stuff, shall we? Because while going through my overflowing "personal box" (basically a huge pile of crap dating back to 1984 that I never threw out for one reason or another), I came across a treasure trove.

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