DIARY

Together, Anyway

December 25, 2015

Reading The Night Before Christmas to kids on Christmas Eve

{ Christmas Eve, 8:00 AM }

Last night, Kendrick asked me, "So what are you and the kids going to do tomorrow?" I didn't really have a Christmas Eve plan; I figured we'd run by Whole Foods for some last-minute Christmas dinner stuff I forgot to pick up, make potato pancakes to freeze for our New Year's dinner (more on that later), watch Tom & Jerry's Christmas for the 10,351st and 10,352nd time. That kind of thing. And then, once Kendrick got home from work, we'd all relax around the house, maybe go over to see our friends in Los Gatos for a bit, eat the stupid-expensive steaks I bought as an alternative to my traditional Engagement Chicken because we're leaving for Ohio on Saturday and I don't want to have tons of leftovers.

I slept a little late this morning; I didn't hear Kendrick getting up with Indy, but when I finally stirred it was 7:30 and I could hear them talking about waffles out in the living room, so I picked up my phone and scrolled through my email for a second. I heard the door open; heard the sound of the garbage cans being dragged out to the curb. And then I heard the door close, and Kendrick say: "Jordan, I just broke my foot."

DIARY

Carrying On: An Excerpt

December 11, 2015

Jacqueline Bisset Illustration from Carrying On by Jordan Reid

Illustration by Jacqueline Bisset

{ Buy Carrying On: Style, Beauty, Decor (and More) for the Nervous New Mom HERE }

Remember what I said about my second book being released in a couple of weeks? Scratch that. Apparently the date was pushed up and it's presently hanging out in Amazon warehouses right now (with an arrival date as early as December 14, depending on the shipping method you choose). Which means: if you're looking for a holiday gift for the mom-to-be or new mom in your life, you can totally get it into your (and then her) hands well in advance of Christmas Day.

DIARY

A Stroll Down Memory Lane: The Glory Days Of Facebook

December 10, 2015

Jordan Reid and Kendrick Strauch in 2007

Remember when Facebook photos didn't look like professionally filtered, lit and cropped art pieces and actually looked like...snapshots?

I distinctly remember when I first joined Facebook, because I did it in 2008: way, way after everyone else (I also did this with Twitter, Instagram, and virtually every other technology-related everything that I have ever encountered). It was about three seconds before I started blogging and taking ten thousand photos of everything I did and everywhere I went, so very quickly my feed went from the occasional random shot to...well, lots (and lots) of occasional random shots. Most of which you've probably seen before if you've been reading my site for the six (!!!) years its been in existence.

My life has always looked the way my life looks: sometimes happy, sometimes not, definitely messy. But the way it appears - that's changed in a big way. And while that's partially because of what I do and partially because of the fact that I didn't used to be interested in photography and now I am and partially because of how the nature of social sharing has changed...I'm a little conflicted about it.

Anxiety

Photos Of Flowers (And Being Gentle With Yourself)

November 19, 2015

Oversized pom pom Smile hat for toddlers from the Gap

Grey Knit Hat (for women) | Smile Hat (for kids)

I was playing around with lighting and props for a shoot I have coming up, and took these test photos, and...I don't know, I just thought they came out well, so I wanted to show them to you. Sometimes it's nice to just look at a pretty photograph of flowers and pom poms.

On my drive down to LA, I started listening to a podcast - Elizabeth Gilbert's Magic Lessons, in which she discusses the process of exploring (and hopefully unleashing) your creativity. (I'm aware that this does not appear to have anything at all to do with the aforementioned flowers and hats, but bear with me, because I do have a point here.)

DIARY

An Abridged History Of My Body

November 3, 2015

Before you read this, I think I should tell you why I wrote it.

The other day, my friend Erin wrote a post about her "mom bod," to explain why she created this sweatshirt on glam | camp. She showed photos of her postpartum stomach, described how it can happily hold in its folds a package of mum-mums (mine can, too; I tried). She talked about how poorly she used to treat her body, how poorly others used to treat it, and how her relationship to it changed once she became a mother. She suggested that I also write about my own experience with my body, and how becoming a mother has affected it. I didn't want to, because it sounded frightening...and then I realized that I had to, because it sounded frightening. When you're in tears before your fingertips even touch the keyboard, you know that you've hit on something that you need to get to the bottom of.

So I thought and thought, and what I realized was that for me it hasn't been a journey of learning to love the curves and the shape of my body (it's been that, too, but that's another story for another day) as much as it has been learning to treasure the very stuff of it, the meat and bones and blood. The life of it.

I wouldn't say that my relationship with my body has, historically, been an especially positive one. Not because I don't "like" it, in the "do you like what you see when you look in the mirror?" sense (I do, more on some days than on others, but generally I do), but because it's always felt like a danger zone, a virtual ocean of opportunities to be wounded.

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