Yes. I do.
Have you ever smelled the inside of an industrial-size dumpster?
I have!
My Glamorous Morning
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Our Very Own Superheroes
Us, 2014
I woke up around 1AM on Sunday night and stumbled out towards the living room, where I found Kendrick setting the alarm and getting ready to come to bed. "Hey," he said. "Why are you up?"
I pointed at our son's closed bedroom door. "I wanted to go lay down with him," I said.
Links & Love & Stuff
All day every day.
Remember the shoot I did with Francesca for sirena + the sea? I loved her kimono wrap so much I ordered one for myself in navy, and wore it all weekend long - over a bathing suit by the pool; over a lightweight nightgown around the house; over a striped maxi dress wherever and everywhere.
Here is a furry sloth pillow. You're welcome.
When You’re The Mom That Doesn’t Cry
Let me introduce you to our newest contributor, Claire Zulkey - I've been a fan of hers for years, and am so excited to have her writing appear on RG. That said, I think it's safe to conclude that when it comes to the topic of crying, she and I are different types of humans. - Jordan
When You're The Mom That Doesn't Cry
“Mommy, I decided you shouldn’t cry today.” That’s what my son told me on his birthday last week: the months prior, we had an ongoing joke where I threatened to cry on his fifth birthday and we talked about whether or not I should do it. This was inspired by me telling him about how vividly I remember my own mom crying on my fifth birthday; he decided that if he had the choice, he would rather not have a similar memory.
I Never Thought I’d Hire An Interior Designer…But Here’s What Happened When I Did
When I was about fifteen, my parents decided to hire an interior designer. His name was Val, he charged a small fortune (or at least I assume he did, based on the fact that he essentially lived at our house for two months while he sifted through piles of curtain fabric samples and such), and he did a very nice job, save for the fact that he covered the walls of our kitchen with a paper featuring French quotes about love on the very same day that my French boyfriend broke up with me and utterly destroyed my heart.
(I walked into the apartment - already in tears from our breakup conversation - took one look at the kitchen walls, and collapsed on the floor, screaming "WHYYYYYY?" To which my mom, to her credit, responded, "Oh, Jesus, Jordan. Get off the floor.")
It's safe to say that I've never been super into the idea of hiring an interior designer myself. I mean, I have my own ideas about what I like, and while I may not be especially good at things like planning and foresight (which means that my decor plans tend to undergo a lot of revision as I discover that, say, the rug that I ordered in no way fits in the room I intended it to live in), I also don't want to spend thousands of dollars for a service that, to my mind, seems a little...I don't know...indulgent?
A Little House Tour (Two Years Later)
Riccione Multicolor Umbrellas, by Gray Malin
Let me take you back to an era many, many moons ago. The Supreme Court had just affirmed same-sex marriage, a record-breaking 195 countries had signed on to endorse the Paris agreement (including the U.S.! Imagine!), and "athleisure" had become a word that people actually used in casual conversation.
Another thing that happened around that time: Our family drove up to a California ranch house that we'd only ever seen in photos, and right there on our brand-new porch, waiting patiently for us, was a housewarming gift: A print of a San Francisco nude beach taken by my all-time favorite photographer, Gray Malin. It took us many days (and months, and years) to wind our way through the process of making that funny little ranch house our own, but one thing that happened on Day One was that the nude beach print went right up on our dining room wall. Once it was hung, I laid down on the floor with a cup of warm champagne and looked at it for awhile - the waves swirling up onto the sand; the rainbow of striped beach blankets; the many, many naked butts - wondering what what was to come.
Labor Day Weekend Suggestion: Make S’Mores Shots
You are seeing this correctly: it is a s'more. And a shot. More specifically, it is a shot made out of a s'more. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that these are the easiest things to consume - they require a sort of nibble/sip maneuver that takes a bit of practice - but oh, they are worth the work.
I Have Been Blessed By The Etsy Gods
Wheeeeeeeeeee
When I bought our new couches, my primary concern (besides the fact that they're...you know...white) was the fact that they're also small. They're muuuuuch better-proportioned for our living room, but still: they really just amount to a loveseat and an armchair. It turns out that they're actually super comfortable and totally work for us - those wide arms make them feel much bigger than they are - but prior to discovering this I made the executive decision that our living room needed an enormous, smooshy addition to soften the blow of losing our enormous, smooshy Couch Boat.
It was then that I remembered The Beanbag. The Restoration Hardware beanbag, to be exact. I'd seen someone post about it - or maybe a pop-up ad? I can't remember - and ever since then it had been flitting around on the edges of my mind as a completely ludicrous obsession. You would be correct in thinking that only a crazy person would spend a thousand dollars (yes, you read that right: we're talking about Restoration Hardware here, remember) on a beanbag. But LOOK AT IT.
Miracle Water
At the end of May, I turned 36 years old. I suppose you could still say I’m in my “mid-30s,” but 40 (40!) is so close I can almost touch it, and I have a feeling I’m going to blink and it’ll have arrived, complete with all the wonderful and terrible things that come with for-real middle age (wisdom, wrinkles, and so on).
I’m not a big believer in resolutions because to me resolutions are basically just ways to siphon guilt directly into your brain, but on my birthday, I decided I wanted to make some changes to how I treat myself (which is historically not especially well, as both my best friend and my therapist could tell you; they certainly tell me all the time). Even I can resolve to do something small - anything - to care for myself every day. A few minutes of meditation. A playdate with my children where no phones are invited along. The permission to take a few minutes each morning and night to care for my skin. Vitamins.
My skin has been a trouble area for me for the past couple of years; I’ve written about this extensively. I’ve tried various strategies to handle the one-two punch of having some parts of my face be broken-out and red, while others are Sahara-level dry, and what I’m finding is that for me, there is no one-size-fits-all solution: the only constant is that I have to pay attention to what’s going on with my skin; how it feels today.
Now THIS Is How You Camp
Remember last time we went camping? With the terrifying park ranger and the iron gate removing us from society and the rattlesnakes?
This weekend was not like that.
So here's what I'm going to recommend to you: Know someone who owns a permanent campground, and who will invite you along to partake in it. Because my friend Alisa's family has a spot in Mendocino County that they keep set up all summer long, complete with decks, a full kitchen (complete with granite countertops, a 3-burner stove, and a stainless steel sink), a bar, a table to fit twelve with a gazebo and cozy chairs, and a 1970s trailer with seriously amazing wallpaper. I'm also going to recommend that, once you've secured your invite, to make sure that you travel with a pack of friends who don't bring things like children along with them (so there is silence), and do bring things like salmon fillets along with them (because in the absence of these children you can make those salmon fillets after night falls, and there's no one spread-eagled on the floor wailing that they NEED A SNACK).
