via A Beautiful Mess
Blogger homes really stress me out.
They're all fiddle leaf figs in adorable woven pots and white carpets that my dogs would destroy instantly and lamps that I can't afford and perfectly arranged gallery walls of expensively framed prints that look like they were collected during a succession of impossibly glamorous round-the-world trips.
So I bought a crop top and high-waisted jean shorts. I'm sorry. (For future outings, methinks that crop top will be planted firmly underneath a pair of overalls, but hey, every once in awhile you've got to let out your inner Miley.)
If you're going to snoop, snoop like a pro. (10 Mistakes To Avoid When You're Crashing With Friends, via Refinery29.)
Perfect white button-down at a GREAT price (it's from the junior's department, though, so size up.)
Q. Jordan,
I'm engaged! Yay! Honestly, my dream wedding is a quick and fun weekend trip to Las Vegas (the Little White Chapel where Britney Spears got married, duh), followed by a week somewhere warm. And if not Vegas, a courthouse. No part of me wants the normal ritual or ceremony girls have...I've never wanted that.
(Not actually Plato, but no matter; this is a good thing to remember.)
Q. What advice would you give someone on how to handle the mean-spirited comments people feel free to fling around [on the Internet]?
- Jeannine
Thank you SO MUCH to all of you who took time out of your busy holiday season to answer my "how can I do better in 2015" survey - it's been so fun reading through all the submissions and learning more about you and what you're looking for from RG (if you didn't get a chance to fill it out and would like to add your two cents, click here).
(Got it.)
Some favorite comments and a few responses:
I have a funny relationship with my camera.
In high school, my parents' gift of a fancy-ish Nikon inspired me to take roll after roll (remember those?) of photos of my friends lounging angstily on fire escapes and brownstone stoops, eating toast in diners and putting on lipstick and blowing out smoke from pilfered cigarettes. I love these photos, but they aren't really photos of us - they're photos of us trying to be someone else, someone closer to the picture of "cool" we held in our heads.
And then there are the years that I jokingly (but not really) think of as "the lost years" - when I forgot about my camera for one reason or another, and many months went by without a single photo. I have only one album from college, and it's filled with shots from maybe three or four especially photogenic nights (a formal, another formal, a night my roommates and I got dressed up to go out and then decided to just stay in my room and drink bad tequila and dance to the Footloose soundtrack).
When I graduated and moved to California, my camera was stolen during a break-in, and I didn't replace it for a long, long time. I have a few shots from nights out at clubs with friends, but not of the times I'd really like photos of: the nights spent sitting by the pool with my dad, looking up at the moon and the palm trees and talking. The long drives I took to Santa Barbara. I wish I had more photographs of my sweet friend. I think of him every day; I'd like to see his face.
I went into the birth of my second child absolutely convinced I'd experience at least some degree of the postpartum depression I dealt with after Indy was born. It was something I brought up at my very first appointment after finding out we were expecting, and something that I touched base with my doctors about over the course of the next few months. I didn't want it to catch me unguarded and without a plan in place, because with a toddler and an infant to think about, being that emotionally out of sorts even for even a day didn't feel like an option.
My primary concern: you know how I've written extensively about my insomnia (which is largely related to my anxiety)? Well, when you have a newborn, you sleep even less. And less sleep = a greater chance of suffering from PPD.
At the mid-point in my pregnancy, I went to meet with a psychiatrist (which I should have done a long, long time ago), because even though I didn't want to start any new medications while expecting, I figured you know what? I've been dealing with this problem long enough. I've tried lots of different things - some that have worked for a time, and some that haven't worked at all - and if there's a longer-term, more stable solution, I'd like to find it. What we decided: that I'd start on an extremely low-dose daily antidepressant immediately following the birth. I don't suffer from depression, but apparently this kind of medication can help to shut off the sort of ruminative thinking that characterizes my particular type of anxiety.
(As a side note, this decision to try medication wasn't something I was going to talk about here - it feels so, so personal - but then I realized: am I ashamed that I suffer from insomnia and anxiety? No. Am I ashamed that I've tried lots of different things over the years, and that now I'm going to try this? No. And I know that these are issues that a lot of people suffer from, and that a lot of people feel ashamed about, and I believe with all my heart that there is no shame in being open about your struggles and seeking out help wherever you can find it.)
Yes, I try to stretch my "regular" wardrobe as far as humanly possible while expecting…but still: sometimes it's fun to go to a for-real maternity store and splurge: my friend Katie and I went out to lunch the other day and couldn't resist a stop into Destination Maternity, where I discovered this obvious (for me) must-own and these really really very good shorts.
The key: as much as possible, make sure those splurge items are pieces that you'll continue wearing long after the baby arrives; in other words, simple, classic shapes that will look just as chic (albeit a little looser) a few months down the line.
Some personal favorite pieces, above.
P.S. These aren't all A Pea In The Pod; I don't know why it's coming up that way. Click through the images for brand info and pricing.
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For several days last week, RamshackleGlam.com - the domain name that I have owned and operated since March of 2010 - did not belong to me, but rather to a man who goes by the name "bahbouh" on an auction website called Flippa.com, and who was attempting to sell off the site to the highest bidder (with a "Buy It Now" price of $30,000.00). He promised the winner my traffic, my files, and my data, and suggested that I was available "for hire" to continue writing posts (alternatively, he was willing to provide the winner with "high-quality articles" and "SEO advice" to maintain the site's traffic post-sale).
I learned that my site was stolen on a Saturday. Three days later I had it back, but only after the involvement of fifty or so employees of six different companies, middle-of-the-night conferences with lawyers, FBI intervention, and what amounted to a sting operation that probably should have starred Sandra Bullock instead of…well…me.
