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Eat

Kids In The Kitchen

September 21, 2016

From the time that my son could understand the word “cook,” he’s been in the kitchen right next to me more nights than not...and now that my daughter’s two, she’s starting to join us. Everyone has their special thing that they do with their kids, and for me it’s talking them through recipes; having them pour in milk or stir in chocolate chips; letting them taste as we go and see that it’s okay to experiment.

It’s less important to me that the food come out perfectly than that they feel confident in the kitchen – I want to make sure they know how to cook, but I also want to make sure they enjoy it. (My reasons for involving them in cooking so much are also selfish: in the kitchen is simply my favorite place to hang out with them, because they're simultaneously super-engaged and excited.)

Lifestyle

Out Of Office

September 20, 2016

Took this photo on the Finding Nemo submarine ride and kind of love it.

P.S. This ride is the most adorable thing ever, and yet made my 2-year-old scream like Linda Blair.

P.P.S. The spinning teacups - my own personal Ride From Hell - went over much better with her.

Video

The Cake Emergency

September 19, 2016

The other day, I made a phone call to my friend Alisa - the one who helped me make this little masterpiece - that began with the words "Cake emergency! CAKE EMERGENCY!"

(You didn't know cake-baking could be an emergency situation? Then you clearly haven't been reading this website long enough.)

I was just starting dinner on Friday night when I realized that I had completely and totally forgotten that I had promised to bake a very fancy, very labor-intensive cake for my friend's daughter's birthday party the very next morning. I realized this because my friend sent me a text reading "So how's the cake look?!" - to which I, of course, responded, "Great!"

Decor

Remote Restyle

September 16, 2016

There are many drawbacks to living in the Age Of The Internet. Among them is the fact that I can no longer have a phone conversation where I sound like a marginally well-functioning human being as opposed to an awkward, stuttering person-bot programmed to focus solely on how quickly the interaction can come to an end (apparently this "condition" is increasingly common nowadays thanks to the fact that emojis let us LOL without actually risking another wrinkle).

So, okay, the fact that people can now communicate without actually seeing each other is potentially problematic, and a bit of a bummer. But it also means that people like me, who live thousands of miles away from many of the people they love the most in the world, get to occasionally feel like those people are a part of their lives in the present moment, not just in occasional "so what have you been up to?!" bursts.

Take Francesca, for example (who lives only about 400 miles away, in Los Angeles, but still: I would very much like to see her every single day, so the example holds). Every once in awhile we get on a back-and-forth text or email marathon about nothing especially important - and it's those kinds of conversations I love the most, because you skip all the "catching up" and just...talk.

Lifestyle

Minimum Money, Maximum Joy

September 15, 2016

My latest family travel video is over on The Scenic Route

Now that my son has started kindergarten (! Granted, it's "transitional kindergarten," but STILL), I see a day in the not-so-distant future when we won't just be able to pack up and go whenever the mood strikes us. Very soon, we'll be beholden to school schedules and sports practices and et cetera et cetera, so we've been trying to take advantage of every opportunity to just haul off to wherever. Coming up we have a me-plus-kids trip to see Kendrick's family in Ohio, an all-four-of-us press trip to New Orleans, and a trip to Kentucky to meet with a client that I'm taking Indy on so we can get some just-us-two time.

Buuuuut I think you already know that one of my absolute favorite places to sneak off to for a few days is Los Angeles (specifically Francesca's couch in Los Angeles; thank you Francesca). Which is where I shot this video about some of the ways we make all this travel happen - which includes accidental cameos from everyone mentioned in this post (because that's what happens when you film videos at your best friend's dining room table; thank you Francesca).

Eat

In Which I Eat My Words

September 15, 2016

easy recipe for hoisin beef stir-fry with vegetables

Cher Blanc Square Bowls Rochelle Gold Serving Bowl

I've been using Blue Apron for two entire weeks now, so I think that obviously qualifies me to give my expert opinion on it. (That is a joke. But I still want to write about it because I finally hopped on the food-delivery train four years after everyone else, and now I obviously need to be the 1,994,854th person to weigh in.)

Here are the reasons that I pshawed about Blue Apron (and similar services) for years:

Lifestyle

Do They Hand Out Leashes At The Entrance? (And Other Questions About Disneyland)

September 14, 2016

via

We're going to Disneyland in a few days - the trip is Kendrick's birthday present - and I need help please, because my head is full of visions of panicking, overheated children who must sit on our shoulders and/or heads in four-hour-long lines and who end up eating so much cotton candy that, in the throes of a madcap sugar high, they end up physically levitating off of the It's A Small World ride. I'm also picturing accidentally parking on the Disney equivalent of Mars, and ending up accidentally boarding a shuttle that just goes around and around and around and eventually lets us off at, like, the airport. And fifty-dollar hot dogs; picturing lots of those.

I am SO EXCITED about this trip, in case that wasn't clear from my first paragraph. Kendrick's never been to Disneyland; I've only been as a four-year-old (which I don't remember) and as a jaded adult, and I'm dying at the idea of watching Indy and Goldie experience it for the first time. (Indy has heard tell of some show where you get to actually use the - real! actual! - Force, and is freaking out about it, and my daughter, when asked if she'd like to meet Princess Aurora, declared, "No. I'M Princess Aurora." Okay, then.)

Decor

Domino Effect

September 13, 2016

how to use vintage glass apothecary jars in home decor

You know how sometimes you do one tiny thing to your home - buy a new soap dish or have a couple of throw pillows dry-cleaned - and all of a sudden you get this seemingly-out-of-nowhere intense energy burst that inspires you to overhaul every single inch of your entire place?

Makeup & Beauty

Calme et Saine

September 12, 2016

The other day, my son came into my bedroom to wake me up, and when I rolled over to say good morning to him he scrunched up his eyes. “Mom?” he asked, “Why is your face so red?”

Excellent question, my love. The answer could be one of a thousand things, from the fact that I drank too much coffee yesterday to the fact that I forgot to use my hydrating moisturizer before bed or the fact that I woke up to retrieve wayward stuffed bunnies and water cups six times last night. “Sensitive” doesn’t even cut it as a description for my skin; it reacts in a major way to everything from pollution to stress and fatigue. And during the transitional parts of the year, as it adjusts to warmer or cooler weather, keeping it calm becomes an even trickier prospect.