10.31.2013

currently... the most sincere pumpkins


Currently is a weekly link-up that I happily co-host with  Randalin ♥ of Harvesting Kale each week. We hope that you can participate by writing your own Currently post (using our themes or your own) and please join us by linking up. What have you been thinking, drinking, planning, making, learning this week? Over here, we have been...

Etta has been Thinking that sleep is for losers and nerds. She's also been a total fuss bucket. Girlfriend must be on the brink of a major milestone (cursive? skydiving? I mean she already says Cookie Monster AND walks backwards, what else is there?). Anyways, there is no other explanation than brink-of-milestone for this small, angry woman's behavior. Baby be cray.

I have been Drinking.      

Otto has been Planning the perfect Halloween. I can't wait for him to have today be awesome! He has a day version of his costume for school and then a night version which, if I do say so, is gonna be a hot mess pile of kick ass! Can't wait to share the pics with you guys. Instagram should be super fun today!

I've been Making the kids costumes come together and am probably as excited as Otto is to see them in all their costumed glory. And I've been remembering that it's been a whole year since we did this last. Look, 2012...
I was also supposed to be Making corn chowder for a work potluck today but got lazy at the grocery last night and decided to buy a cherry cobbler instead. Hopefully that's cool too. I'd be all, "Hell's yes!" about either chowder or cobbler so hopefully that's the work attitude too.

Etta has been Learning to make happy and sad faces. Her happy face just looks really appalled and then her sad face looks like the most disappointed, miserable person in the world. It's amazing and we need to capture this on film but we're all just so busy dying laughing to do anything but clap and laugh with her. She's a funny bunny.
     
That was this week. Here are next week's themes: 
craving, waiting, remembering, liking, cooking 


10.27.2013

Otto at Four and Three Quarters


Otto is sneaking up on five. It seems to me that every time my kids get one day older I scream, "How did this happen?!" But then I look up and five is on the horizon. Five? I mean, how the eff did this happen?! Five magic years...

It's super important to Otto that you're crystal clear, he's four and three quarters.

He finally remembers that his birthday is January first, but can't always remember if he "had school today." Ha.

He's obsessed with growing his hair out, "like Mick Jagger." This is probably the first time I've ever had to eat my wants. Release control. Pick a battle, or however you want to say it. He looks mangy to me and I am just thankful that his straw straight hair is finally past the point where it's growing right into his eyes. But I also get a feeling that he craves a little more control of his destiny, lately. So if rock star hair is what he needs to feel like a badass, I guess that's an easy enough one to let him have. I asked him the other day, "When will you ever let us cut your hair again?"

"I will cut my hair the day before I die."

He plays Lego Batman on xbox with his dad. He plays turbo chess every night before bed. He loves Royals by Lorde and Squirrels in my Pants by Phineas and Ferb (a show that he isn't even allowed to watch, I think it's too sassy) and Satisfaction by the Stones. He asks to rock out in the car and when I peek back there he's playing air guitar and his cool guy hair is tossing all around as he jams out.

He makes me smile every single day. He also makes-a me crazy. He really can't get no satisfaction these days. He's always on the take. What else can he get out of any deal? And the moping around, omg haha. Have you seen Paul Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer?



It's like that. Ha.

He is my heart. He is my sunshine. He is so hilarious and so smart and so sweet hearted. I see him struggling with new emotions lately, like the yearning for fairness. Also with sadness, lately this has come up a few times when a buddy at school isn't cool to him. It breaks my heart. We're entering into harder years, here, with five. As a mom, it's scary business. I just want to protect him from everything that's out there. But I know that wouldn't really be doing him any favors. So instead, I will have the joy of watching him grow up a little more every day. Into an amazing guy. And I'll make it my business to help him learn to cope with all the unfairness and uncoolness that's out there, to be a great person with a moral compass and strong values. I can't wait to see who he becomes, because right now he is the coolest little guy in the world.

10.24.2013

currently... a quiet little week


Currently is a weekly link-up that I happily co-host with  Randalin ♥ of Harvesting Kale each week. We hope that you can participate by writing your own Currently post (using our themes or your own) and please join us by linking up. What have you been loving, listening, worrying, reading, singing this week? Over here, we have been...

Loving Costco. So I get some sort of Centurion Card of Uncoolness for that answer right? But really, we went to Costco last weekend and they have amped UP their organic options. We got a vat of honeycrisp apples and giant bag of pears and two tubs of fresh soup and two kinds of cheese and Dave's Killer Bread and eggs and milk and z-bars and corn chips and bpa-free canned freakin pumpkin puree! All organic. I was floored and didn't even have to go to the "normal" grocery store this week. I'm gettin jiggy with CostCo, na na na na na na!

Listening to records in the kitchen... soon! My project-per-month PROJECT for October is coming together so nicely and there will be a little record player on top of the dresser in the corner by our kitchen table. Now to just get a handful of old LPs (Bowie, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Neil Diamond, Elvis, and Fleetwood Mac are some I'm on the lookout for) and we'll have the best little kitchen jams.    

Worrying for once I am not worrying about anything in particular. Skipping this category before it reminds of something I should be worrying about. ::runs away::

Reading Etta is reading board books about Sesame Street and different animals both at home and at her sitter's house. She has so many words these days and just points to all the pictures and characters and names everything. It's awesome! Otto is learning to sound out words to the point that Rob and I can't "spell our secrets" to each other anymore with Otto in the room. Yikes! Time to learn pig latin?

Singing Nights in White Satin. The Moody Blues came to town this week and the radio has had this song on heavy rotation on the way to/from work for the past few weeks and it is so good! Yes I love youuuuuuuu ohhhhh IIIIII loooooooove yoooouuuouuuouuuoouuuoouu! So good.
     
That was this week. Here are next week's themes: 
thinking, drinking, planning, making, learning 


10.22.2013

Five Skin Favorites by a lady in her 30s


Hey guys. Sometimes blogging is like the most natural thing in the world and you're so loaded down with amazing pictures and charming stories that you don't know what to share first. Other times, like lately for me anyway, life is just kind of floating along busily and nicely but just busily enough that the great picture taking moments aren't really happening except on instagram and the charming stories can be condensed into a single Currently post on Thursdays. That's how it's been around here these days. We've been settling into our fall schedule and that's about it. Things are quiet and nice.

One thing I've been meaning to share with you is a list of my favorite beauty products. I read the Bleubird blog and she did this a while back and I really appreciated hearing what was out there that someone who seems to have really good taste in products likes. I even tried the moisturizer she recommended and ended up really loving it (see Mario Badescu below). So maybe this will inspire you? And I would love if you would do a similar post and let us all know what you're using these days. I find word-of-mouth recommendations mean so much more than just grabbing the most nicely packaged thing at Target which is what I used to do.

Who knew I could be so long-winded on beauty products?! Goodness. Ok final thought... As I get older I find that quality and intention of ingredients in what I'm using really make a difference in how my skin looks and feels. I have thin, dryish skin. These are the products I am relying on lately and I recommend them super highly!

Five Skin Favorites by a lady in her 30s

by otandet featuring a face mask


one. Mario Badescu Skin Care beauty product / two. The Body Shop face mask although the one I use is 100% pure brand and I like to mix it with cold yogurt / three. witch hazel Face toner by Humphreys / four. aluminum free & sweet smelling Lavanila deodorant / five. Sibu Beauty face care buckthorn serum although the one I use is by Queen Bee Skin Care

10.17.2013

currently... this time of year


Currently is a weekly link-up that I happily co-host with  Randalin ♥ of Harvesting Kale each week. We hope that you can participate by writing your own Currently post (using our themes or your own) and please join us by linking up. What have you been dreading, anticipating, thankful, watching, choosing this week? Over here, we have been...

Dreading my annual "fall cough" which has set in and MEH! I hate it. Everyone can just stop side-eyeing me right this second. I am not sick, thanksomuchforsprayingmewithLysol. I am like the ever-weakly-coughing person in the room. Super cough drops and medicine ease it a bit but it's just this chronic thing that happens this time every year and takes like a month to figure itself out. I have consumption? Yes. I am a tragic heroine. Like of the Edith Wharton variety, obvi.

Anticipating getting some things checked off the list this weekend! My project-per-month PROJECT is going nowhere fast because the thrift store gods have been pooping on my every effort to find a decidedly narrow AND cool tallboy for this catch-all corner of my kitchen. This weekend I'm going to try TJ Maxx and a couple of used furniture places and up the budget if need be. I'm starting to realize that not having a garbagey junk corner in my kitchen has become more important to me than I thought it would. We are also getting the kids Halloween costumes assembled and you guys, Otto's is going to be epic. That's the tease. Just wait! He thought of it himself and it makes me die laughing.      

Thankful for my wonderful family and friends. I don't want to brag or anything but I am surrounded by the most rad people in the world. I just wish we lived a hell of a lot closer to most of them than we do. Our Arizona weekend reminded me. I knew it would, and it did.

Watching Etta talk. In the past week she has added fish, pretty, elephant, boat, and Cookie Monster to her roster of words. Amazing! And with every new word she seems to be a much more light-hearted little lady. Not surprising, she has a lot of opinions and now she can start sharing them. That would certainly take the edge off. Also Watching Otto get the knack of sounding words out and reading/spelling things. He is doing this thing now where it's like, "If bat is b-a-t then cat is k-a-t and rat is r-a-t and mat is m-a-t." And we are like, "You are awesome!!!!!"

Speaking of awesome, Rob captured this moment which will be re-shown to every girlfriend forever and ever and eventually played at the wedding (volume mandatory):  http://distilleryimage7.s3.amazonaws.com/05159a18354111e3895422000ae81dd2_101.mp4

Choosing soup. Soup season! Soup me up! Ladle the soup on my face I love soup! Fall is the best for sweaters and leaves and bottomless soup occasions. What are your favorite soups and soup recipes? I have been meaning to recreate this amazing creamy chicken and wild rice mushroom tarragon soup that I made about a year ago... it was one of those moments where you perfectly combine like three recipes and it works out beautifully and you are too busy chowing down to write down exactly what you did. Fool! Boy I've been craving that soup lately. Mmmmmm.
     
That was this week. Here are next week's themes: 
loving, listening, worrying, reading, singing 


10.10.2013

currently... sunshine corona tamale friendship days


Currently is a weekly link-up that I happily co-host with  Randalin ♥ of Harvesting Kale and this week, yack, I am super slacking on my co-host duties. We flew out to AZ late last night for a long weekend and I blame my lovely daughter, who is an airplane nightmare, for my delay in posting.

Anyhoo! We hope that you can participate by writing your own Currently post (using our themes or your own) and please join us by linking up. What have you been looking, making, wondering, playing, wearing this week? Over here, we have been...

Looking forward to this weekend and it's here! DIY 4 Day Weekend! I'm spending a couple days with my best friend at her house in Tempe while Rob takes the kiddos and kicks it with his family and then we'll all meet up Saturday for some 60th anniversary festivities for his grandparents. Rest, sunshine, tamales, beer, and loved ones... Feeling pretty blessed right this minute.

Making airplanes full of nice, innocent people swear they will never, ever have children, EVER, because Loretta.     

Wondering why I've never heard of HexBugs before. They are rad. Otto Christmas present = locked in!

Playing chess. Well, not this weekend, but every other day we've been playing chess with Otto and I love it.

Wearing sweaters, my stinky awesome moccasins, and leggings. I've been wearing eyeshadow in my eyebrows lately too. Try this. It makes your face look more awake and kind of perks things up a bit! Who knew? xo
     
That was this week. Here are next week's themes: 
dreading, anticipating, thankful, watching, choosing 


10.08.2013

a new york minute

First, I just have to say that Etta woke up at 4:30 this morning and just about cramped my bloggin' style but then, after demanding crackers and a waffle (carbers gonna carb) she just started playing away with the fridge magnets and she's happy as a clam and every time she drops one she says, "Uh oh!" which is, I think, her cutest new phrase.

backlog of post topics: engage

A few weeks ago I was whisked away on a 3-plus day whirlwind ladies weekend to New York City (where Rob and I lived in Astoria, then Bushwick, then Fort Greene years and years ago). It was a trip to see a gorgeous and hilarious group of ladies I used to work with who remain some of my favorite people on the freaking planet. I flew, I gossiped, I slept more than I ever get to sleep, I meatloafed, I visited my old office, I pounded the NYC pavement for about 1 hour, then I flew home again. Whirlwind! I took so few pictures it's stupid, but I swear I went! I did! Here are my pathetically few pics...
ready to fly
a city abuzz
a pop into The Strand (my husband designed all those dolls & mugs)
a pop into a kids boutique and a shirt I want to try making at home for my little Batman fan
NYC shop windows are so great
Union Square is really pretty in the fall
another view from Union Square
taking a cab to the airport already
a last view of the tunnel before leaving the city

And there you have it. I totally failed to take pictures of the ladies I love, or the meatloaf, or my friend Jennifer's gorgeous new home, or of the greatest karaoke night of all time. I have this problem where I usually completely fail to take pictures of the important stuff because I'm doing it, living it. But I swear those things all happened and it was just a soul lifting energy boost for this yawny, tired mama.

I just love how you can pick back up with certain people like no time has passed at all. And how time turns the best of friends, the real keepers, into family.

10.03.2013

currently... it's fall y'all


Currently is a weekly link-up that I happily co-host with  Randalin ♥ of Harvesting Kale. We hope that you can participate by writing your own Currently post (using our themes or your own) and please join us by linking up. What have you been learning, growing, buying, loving, wishing this week? Over here, we have been...

Learning how quickly your body can go from sleep-deprived to rested and right back to sleep-deprived. As of yesterday morning I thought my life might be over. Loretta! My love. She is a wild thing complete with nighttime wild rumpus. She had been up quite a bit the night before and I was a mess. Well, last night I fell asleep (full makeup, dinner breath, yo) at 7:30 doing Otto's bedtime and I slept straight through til 4:30, with the light still on from reading Pippi Longstocking, and BAM! I feel like a new woman! Hello cuppa joe and a couple of Peeps for breakfast! I'm here. I'm alive! I'm ALIIIIVE!

Otto is Growing into such a strapping young kid with a golden head of shag. He's tall and stout so he still has a baby-ness about him that I just love and want to hang onto because, guys, he is going to be 5 in a few months. Five. How did THAT happen? That is super duper old. That is doing things like reading "Candied Bacon" on a menu and blowing our minds. That is asking tough questions like, "Mom, how many days until I die?" (ps. I said, well that will be like 100 years times 365 days so something like 36,500). Yeah, ugh. And whoa. And wow. Anyways, he will be taller than me by the time he's 10, I guarantee it. And he just catches eyes left and right. He is a little old lady magnet. And that hair, people. I trimmed up the bottom inch because it was basically a swirly off-center rat tail (he inherited my multiple cowlicks including varying degrees of swirl, yay) but dudes, that is epic hair he's growing out. I wonder how long this Mick Jagger phase will last?

Buying not much. Well I did just buy both kids some new shoes. Etta is getting ready for a toddler size 6 and Otto is in a little kid 12. Giant dogs on these little chickens.

Loving warm blankets, good books, and piping hot drinks. I love a good makeout session with night coffee, especially when there's a chill in the air. Time to get some Bailey's in the house. Yay, fall.

Etta is Wishing she could dance all day and night. She has so many signature moves (chin to chest, tummy out, arms at sides, and march!), she has favorite songs (errbody get up!), and the music is just in her bones. We will find a baby dance class for her soon, like as soon as soccer season is over because I don't have it in me to take on anything else right now. But she will absolutely love it.
     
That was this week. Here are next week's themes: 
looking, making, wondering, playing, wearing 


Currently

10.01.2013

the project-per-month PROJECT month 8

Another month has come and gone and here we are with the Project-Per-Month Project, take eight. For me, this month was kind of an epic fail so here is a pic of a past success... that time earlier this summer when I freaking re-did my kitchen table with Annie Sloane chalk paint. July Project, you was rad. September? You was not so much.

Project-Per-Month Project HOW IT WORKS... If you want to join in the project project, and you totally should, here are the rules...
Pick a single, manageable project off your to-do list, just one.
- Determine that you WILL do it, come hell or high water, even if you have to stay up late one night
- Give yourself specific goals.
- Give yourself a deadline: the end of the month.
- Give yourself a budget.
- Do it. Do it.

My September project was to take this corner of my kitchen that currently has one of those small square Ikea tables tucked into it, piled super high with bills and papers to file and an old purse and a sewing machine and and and... it is a garbage corner and my plan was to get a narrow and tall dresser, strip the paint if needed, and put that in the corner instead, hide the table things, and top it off with a cute plant and maybe some other thrifted decor.

Here's the pickle. Well, there are two pickles.

Pickle 1: I went to about six different thrift stores over the course of September and I didn't find a single dresser I liked. Lame! But I was stuck - and I'm not walking around all day with time on my hands to visit more than six thrift stores in a month. I was damn proud of myself for trudging to six! And so super disappointed.

Pickle 2:

Pickle 2 does not sleep. Pickle 2 founded the Cool Girls Insomnia Club and she is very small and loud and I am her exhausted lackey.

Something about the disappointment of thrift failure coupled with a general sense of losing your mind to fatigue = feeling generally disappointed about life and like you've pretty much lost your mind. Sorry guys, I failed.

I did manage to watch Love It or List It at 3am with Loretta last night and to still wake up at 4:30 to write this post and put on a yogurt seaweed face mask (because zits!) and make myself some coffee. There's that...

Two big thumbs up on this one. I sleep in a flannel because I still secretly dream that Jordan Catalano will want to make out with me.

So who completed September projects? I want to know! I'm going to start a Pinterest board and pin all of your past and future projects to it - since I can't figure out HTML enough to make a good-looking photo library for you here. So that will be fun (I think)! And as for October I am doing this kitchen dresser project, redux. This time I'm going to visit a couple different thrift stores that are further from me but usually have more/better furniture and look into antique stores in the area. Wish me luck! My budget this month is $80 - I'm just upping it to give me more wiggle room on finding something I like and also because I skipped last month.