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DIARY

Wide-Awake In A Marriot At 4AM (Or: The Grand Myth That Is “Having It All”)

June 24, 2016

I'm not even sure what to write today; all I can think about is how happy I am to be home.

I am so grateful to get to travel, and to get to do the kind of work I do. I'm so scared of sounding like I'm not, or like I'm not aware that I have a choice in the matter - I mean, obviously there is no one ordering me to take on multi-day shoots in far-flung locations. But the fact that I'm incredibly excited about the projects I've been working on lately doesn't change how much anxiety I'm having over the possibility that my schedule might stay this way, because I haven't been handling being away from my kids especially well, and I don't know if that's going to change.

I was talking to my mom about this, and she said something to the effect of "Jordan." (With a period, which tends to indicate that whatever's coming next is accurate and also something I should have thought of myself.) "Most working parents have to return to an office a few weeks after their children are born. You mostly get to work from home, and if now, several years in, you're starting to have to occasionally travel for a week or two, that's how it goes. Jobs evolve, and your family will evolve too."

Decor

Bye-Bye, Baby: Time For A “Big Girl” Room

June 23, 2016

So big I can hardly stand it.

I expected to get a little misty-eyed about seeing my baby girl move out of her crib into a "big girl bed" (aka my son's old toddler bed)...but she is so freaking excited about it that it made me excited, too. (OK, so I may have cheated a little by putting a pink, heart-covered comforter on the bed. She was ALL ABOUT that thing.)

If you recall from this post, my major issue was that I needed to keep our futon in my daughter's room for when guests come to visit, but the room isn't big enough for a futon and a dresser and a toddler-sized bed - I tried, trust me. Kendrick came into the room one night and found me dragging pieces of furniture back and forth trying to find any iteration that worked, and it just wasn't possible. The solution: we picked up an inexpensive narrow dresser that would fit into Goldie's closet, and moved her old dresser into our room. The coolest part: the top of a dresser was a changing table, but it was removable - so we just slid it underneath the futon so it'd be out of sight but still accessible for diaper changes until we're done with potty-training.

Lifestyle

Off The Grid

June 23, 2016

Who knew our picnic blanket would be such a hit?

(Check out 11 Inexpensively Awesome Bay Area Dates)

I've been meaning to go to Off The Grid - a gourmet mobile food market that travels around the Bay Area - for months now, and when I went up to stay in San Francisco with Morgan for the night we decided to take all our many, many children to the Presido Picnic. (To clarify, we technically only have four children between us, but four people under age 5 who have been plied with M&Ms and then released into the wild feels like approximately twenty.)

DIARY

Hot In STL

June 22, 2016

Distressed white Converse sneakers with leather laces

When I left home, these sneakers were snow-white.

Hey there! I'm in St. Louis. Again. (And once more again later on this summer.) This go-round is three days long (plus two travel days), and each of those three days has involved 12-13 hour shoots in 100-degree weather (with occasional thunderstorms), plus a LOT of dust. And mud. And things like construction equipment.

I am disgusting.

Makeup & Beauty

Au Naturel

June 20, 2016

These past few weeks, I’ve been clocking a minimum of an hour a day in the pool, and usually it’s more like two – the first around late afternoon, helping my kids figure out this whole “move your arms and legs at the same time” thing, and the second after they’ve gone to bed, when I have nothing more pressing to do than swim a few laps all by myself in the silence.

I’m trying to remember to do this more lately: find opportunities to be quiet with myself. It doesn’t come naturally at all, but I read something Brené Brown wrote about letting go of the idea that exhaustion is a status symbol, and it’s something I’ve been trying to remind myself of as often as I can. Basically: that it is okay to rest, and to do something for no other reason than because you enjoy it.

Anyway, this is a new thing for me: wanting to spend more time than I have to in a pool (as opposed to “next to a pool”; I’m pretty much always happy to do that). The reason I’m finally enjoying it now is because I realized that my rationale for not swimming every day was a completely ridiculous one: I didn’t want to get my hair wet, because blowing it dry again is a pain.

Lifestyle

Links & Love & Stuff

June 17, 2016

Indy + Me | Carmel, CA

I'm in the mood for a road trip. If you're feeling equally get-me-out-of-here, check out National Geographic's itinerary for doing the Pacific Coast Highway right.

My favorite J.Crew t-shirt (the Painter's Tee) is available in a short sleeve.

Wearing these wishbone earrings pretty much every day lately.

Eat

Allow Me To Introduce You To…Frosé (a.k.a. Frozen Rosé)

June 16, 2016

Lunch.

This is the best summer cocktail in the universe. Hyperbole, you say? 'Tis not. Frosé is essentially a tarted-up slushie for grownups, except instead of Berry Berry Buzz or whatever, it tastes like...wine. Except better.

Oh heyyy, want to read my most popular posts?!

My Looks

On Mountaintops with Minis

June 15, 2016

Jordan Reid, Francesca Vannucci and Brie Barbaccia

Francesca | Me | Brie

Scenic Overlook | Berkeley, CA

So this was the post I was originally planning to put up on Monday before we arrived back at my house and life became extremely dramatic. Its alternate title is "Too Old For Coachella...But Not Too Old To Throw Out Peace Signs In A Photograph!" (That little slice of genius was a collaborative effort.) All is back to normal now - with the exception of some water damage, but I think we got off pretty easily there considering the amount of flooding we're talking about - and Lucy is A-OK, so let's talk bags.

Decor

Today In Good Things: Harmonious Decor…And Linguica

June 14, 2016

Brightly colored Moroccan style outdoor rug

Lulu & Georgia Kelim Rug + Legs + Matching Pasta

Our house is pretty tiny - we've been over this - but it feels bigger than it is because we use our patio area so much that it's essentially a second living room. A couple of months ago, I decided to expand the patio by laying deck over a long, narrow spot that wasn't much more than a ditch running alongside our dining area...but the guys who I hired to do the work insisted that they couldn't match the flooring that was already installed; that color, they said, was no longer in production. (It is. I was in Home Depot the other day and hello, it is right there. I am annoyed, but it's also my fault for not looking into it myself, and whatever, it's just flooring.)

DIARY

The Village, Part Deux

June 13, 2016

Here are the things that happened on Saturday: Francesca, Brie and I (plus kids) got in the car with the intention of driving to Marin County to meet Francesca's brother Mookie for a lovely, semi-glamorous lunch before "hiking" (strolling) through the Ewok Forest. Then, an hour into the drive, traffic and carsickness happened, and we thought it best to just take the nearest exit, which happened to be Berkeley. And so the lovely semi-glamorous lunch was replaced by grilled cheese sandwiches and a pitcher of Bud, which was obviously fine by us. We wandered around in vintage shops (I picked up a gold lame maxi dress that is wildly inappropriate for my present lifestyle of Safeway runs and baby-corralling, but whatever it's amazing) and made a string necklace for Kendrick to match the ones that Indy and Goldie wear, and then drove up to a scenic overpass and took photographs of the fact that we have all simultaneously decided that we are excited about miniature bags like the ones we last wore in 1996.

Those bags were what I was originally planning to write about today. But then we drove home to make dinner, and my plans changed. Because around 7PM, Francesca asked where Lucy was, and in the same instant all five of us realized that we hadn't seen her in hours.

Lucy is getting old; very old for a purebred dog. She sometimes spends hours sitting in the bathroom underneath the toilet, staring at the wall that she can no longer see thanks to the cataract that has developed over her single eye. She sleeps most of the day. She gets stuck on the couch or on a chair or on the edge of the bathtub (how she gets up there, I have no idea), and barks and barks until someone comes to help her down.

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