There has never been a better time to be a devotee of the esoteric arts...who also happens to have great taste. Here are a few impeccable suggestions for the stylish witch in your life.
Ulli x Kahina Giving Beauty Candle
A friend of mine once stopped by without warning, and entered my house only to point at the candle I had burning on my desk. "You," she said, "are the only person I know who actually lights candles when you're just sitting at home by yourself."
That cannot be true. ...Doesn't everybody keep candles lit at all times?
I've had many summers that felt like little jewelboxes of time, sweet and slow - the one we spent living in temporary housing while we waited for our daughter to be born comes to mind - but there was one that was wonderful in a completely different way than all the others.
It was the summer after Kendrick and I moved from our tiny Hell's Kitchen place to our slightly-less-tiny Upper East Side apartment. The summer that I quit my office job, and started writing for a living (well, that was the plan, in any case). The summer that we were working out how to be married and wondering how in the world we were going to pay our rent and trying to figure out what we wanted to be when we grew up...but it was so exciting. The sheer possibility of it all. We were children standing on the edge of adulthood, thinking about jumping.
We had a little crew that summer. Stephen and Dave, of course - we had rooftop cocktails with them most nights, Lucy whizzing in circles around us while we watched the setting sun light up all that silver paint. Francesca was living in the city then, just a few blocks away, and a few of Kendrick's other friends from college lived at various points along the 6 line. We'd all go out to terrible bars and drink terrible drinks and stay up far too late, because we were still so young, and it still felt like bad choices were a life imperative.
I have a curated coffee table now. That's right, I said it.
Alright, I am obsessed with this company. Obsessed, I say! Interior Wanderer, if you've never heard of it - and you likely haven't, as it's brand-new - offers kits of curated products sourced from all over the world and designed in collaboration with incredible local artisans, and then tailored to various spaces in your home. The goal: To elevate a given space (entryway, living room, kitchen, bedroom, what have you) as if you'd hired an interior decorator without...you know, hiring an interior decorator.
It comes out in May. But if you're, like, really excited about it you can totally order it now. Check out more info on my next book with Erin Williams here.
And on a related topic, I have a very, very important question to ask you: What would you like to see us do an activity book on next?
A few months ago, I had a family reach out to me to help their three-year-old son. His grandmother, who took care of him several days a week, had passed away. He went from consistently sleeping through the night to waking up multiple times at night and refusing his naps.
I've dealt with a vast array of toddler sleep issues, but this one really gave me pause. I wanted to do my job and get this child’s sleep back on track, but I also wanted to be sensitive to the fact that he was trying to understand the fundamental reality that someone he loved was not coming back.
Related Read: The Things We Dread (Jordan's first conversation with her son about death).
Explaining death to a young child is something that no parent wants to go through, but the reality is that many of us will. If you are reading this because you are grieving a loved one, I am so very sorry. I hope these tips help you navigate changes that may occur in your child’s sleep following the loss of a loved one.
Francesca and I were talking about "fashion these days," and agreed that the overarching theme appears to be "anything goes." T-shirts as dresses, grandpa sneakers, oversized earrings shaped like fruits...anything.
Which, I must say, I think is awesome. And I would also like a little credit for being an early adopter of this development, because please look at that insanity up there. I want to say it's terrible - because it seems like that's what you really *should* say about an outfit that includes shorts over fishnets, animal appliqués paired with faux fur, and a heavy dose of plaid in case all the aforementioned wasn't quite enough...
But I actually think it might be the best thing I've ever worn.
When we found our new house, we knew immediately that we would make one of the downstairs rooms into a play space for the kids. Our first house didn’t have a dedicated playroom, which meant that our living room essentially functioned as their play area.
In other words, the toys were everrrrywhere.
Quick backstory here, because I always think it's nice to know a little about the history of a house: The previous owners were both scholars, and they each had their own office in the main house. Her office (which is now our playroom) was downstairs, with an exterior door leading out to the backyard, and his office was upstairs. They also had a library downstairs and a guest room, which became Huxley and Tilly's rooms, respectively. Despite being 100 years old, the house was in great shape - it just needed a little rethinking to make it work for our growing family.
Why HELLO THERE. #Dying (46 Things That Made Me Say, 'Why Don't I Own That Already?' via Buzzfeed.)
Mott & Bow's hi-rise stretch jeans are actually, literally perfect (lightweight, comfortable, amaaaazing cut), and actually, literally maybe the only thing you'll wear all autumn (and winter, and year) long. Could not recommend more highly. Go for the dark grey raw hem.
Currently test-running Mesolyft's microneedling pen, and I am into it. It doesn't hurt - promise; it's a little prickly but not painful - and I feel like my skin texture improved almost immediately.
This cake was, shall we say, a freewheeling design. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do for my son's annual Halloween-themed birthday party - an all-black cake (inside and out) with bugs somehow involved (because eight-year-old boys, et cetera), and I thought maybe it'd be cool to have the bugs sort of coming out of the cake as if they'd been inside, but when I got to the part where I'd actually do that, I was stumped.
I wanted a crack in the cake of some sort, but didn't want it to look like, you know...a mistake.
And then I remembered the geode cake. It's all over Pinterest these days, and I've been dying to try one, and you know what geodes have?! CRACKS. (Sort of; you know what I mean.)
