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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.

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Lifestyle

Lumberjacking

December 9, 2015
Tiny pigtails and checkered shirt

When I was growing up, "picking out a Christmas tree" meant walking over to 43rd street with my mom and dad, looking at the selection of trees leaning against the side of the local Food Emporium, then lugging our pick the two blocks home and up into our fourth-floor apartment (and then retracing our footsteps with a broom to pick up the pine needles we'd strewn across the lobby and elevator floor). I've heard of people cutting down their own trees, but figured that was a pastime bestowed exclusively upon the residents of, like, rural Vermont. I also figured you probably had to be relatively adept with an axe in order to actually do this.

Not so, as it turns out. Apparently going to cut down your own Christmas tree is a pretty normal thing to do in parts of the world that aren't New York City.

Huh!

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ENTREES

Homemade Alphabet Soup (Sopa de Fideo)

December 9, 2015
mexican comfort food soup called sopa de fideo

Let me first just say, in case you're under the extremely mistaken impression that I am a food snob, that I have absolutely no problem with canned soup (or canned anything, for that matter). I think it is delicious, and have deeply-entrenched food memories that emerge when I so much as smell some Campbell's chicken noodle.

That stuff is DELICIOUS.

But! I also recognize that it's...maybe not, I don't know, the healthiest thing in the world, what with the sodium and the vaguely questionable meat cube-things that floating around in there. And soup is one of those things that is so easy to make in big batches and then throw a bunch in the freezer to eat later, so:

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My Looks

Bejeweled

December 8, 2015
Dogeared gold rings, midi rings, ear crawler and necklace

Good morning!

I think it's pretty obvious by now that I have a serious thing for rings, so it's probably not surprising that the gorgeous stackable ones you see pictured above make up the bulk of my curated collection for Dogeared. Click here to check out my collection of holiday gift picks (and a fun little interview).

P.S. Check out that ear crawler! (I had to google what an ear crawler was. But apparently it's that.) I love it...especially with my NY stud in the other ear ;)

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Recipes

Orange-Cranberry & Cream Cheese Crackers

December 7, 2015
cream cheese and cranberry-orange compote on crackers

Trader Joe's is such a joy in my life. Putting aside the wine selection for a moment (but omg the wine selection), can we please talk about those samples? They are literally what give me the ability to wander through the aisles unaccompanied by the sounds of budding sibling rivalry in the form of simultaneous desire for the exact. same. banana.

The unfortunate thing about the fact that the samples must immediately be dispensed into tiny hands if we are to maintain any semblance of peace is that I rarely get a chance to try them. I guess I could pick up a third little sample plate for myself, but I become so excited by the fact that my children are paralyzed by the sight of herb-scented quinoa mounds placed atop teeny little crackers that I just start rocketing around the store in search of the aged gouda that is my other joy in life.

But the other day I went to Trader Joe's and made my customary stop at the counter to pick up samples for Indy and Goldie, and Goldie decided that she didn't like hers (and said decision, in toddler-speak, translates to I Will Throw This Dramatically Onto The Floor If You Do Not Remove It From My Hands RIGHT NOW). So, in the grand tradition of mothers everywhere, I ate my child's partially-masticated leftovers. (If you think this is the grossest thing I did all week, you would be very, very wrong.)

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Entertaining

Holiday Cocktail: The Paloma

December 3, 2015
Paloma cocktail with grapefruit juice and tequila

You know what's fun about Palomas (besides everything)? They're light and fruity - so you'd imagine they'd be a strictly-for-summer cocktail - but the deep pink color and snowy (or, to be specific, sugary-salty) rim and general fabulousness make them perfect for the holidays.

(MAN that sugar-salt rim is good. I've never tried doing this before, and for real: you have to give it a shot.)

Tequila hasn't really been my beverage of choice for...oh, maybe a decade now (due in large part to a couple of tequila-inclusive incidents during my college years that turned me off the stuff for awhile), but I've recently rediscovered it. Not the bottom-shelf swill that we used to drink straight from the bottle during our dorm room dance parties - ohhhh god, I get a headache just thinking about that - but rather the good (or at least pretty good) stuff. When it comes to tequila, it's always worth spending a little extra money, because bad tequila is a bad time. And good tequila? Whee.

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