My children have officially entered a picky phase. But their version of pickiness is so bizarre and selective: they will happily put whatever slimy/raw/completely insane piece of food I offer them - oysters, grilled octopus tentacles, salmon roe, you name it - directly into their mouths (PLEASE look at the pics at the bottom of this post, because omgggg), but drink a glass of milk?

Abso-freaking-lutely NOT.

My son won’t drink milk at all. Like, not a single drop of the stuff has touched his lips since the day he gave up drinking from a bottle. My daughter will drink it, but only if it is on top of cereal, and in a bowl that either my husband or myself are at that moment trying to eat from, because when she sees us eating something she realizes that she must eat it herself RIGHT NOW.

Beauty

The Great Taboo Topic: Thinning Hair…In Women

July 19, 2017

So here’s something no one likes to talk about: hair loss in women.

I know it’s pretty common - everyone’s hair follicles shrink as they age, making your hair
thinner, and my family has a history of hair loss, so there’s a hereditary component there. I also know it’s nothing to be embarrassed about (seriously, why?), but still. It feels embarrassing. Unfeminine, or something.

And I suspect that if I feel that way, there are plenty of you who are experiencing something similar and feel that way too, and I’ve found few things whisk away embarrassment more readily than just talking about whatever the issue may be. Because when you talk about a problem, you can get ahead of it.

Over the past few years -starting around the same time I started this website, actually - I’ve noticed my hair becoming thinner. There were bouts of lush gorgeousness - thank you, pregnancies one and two - but increasingly, I’m noticing that my hair just isn’t the same as it used to be, and every so often I see a photo taken from an angle that makes my jaw drop, because that cannot possibly be my head.

Ohhhhh fine, I'll show you one.

DIARY

I Tried A Probiotic Cleanse, And Here’s What Happened

July 18, 2017

This image is pretty, but it's not the cleanse I did.

The cleanse I did was this one.

Cleanses and I do not have a very positive history. I've you're a long-time reader, you may recall the Great F-You BluePrint Cleanse post, in which I cleansed for about a day before giving up and eating pizza, and arrived at the conclusion (parts - but not all - of which I still stand by) that expensive, beautifully packaged cleanses prey upon young, upper-class women who already may have tendencies towards restrictive eating, if not full-blown eating disorders. Something about the rules; the precision of it all - I don't know if this happens to everyone, but while I was on the cleanse I could almost feel it poking at the ghost of my many-years-gone anorexia: "Hey, doesn't this not-eating feel kind of awesomely powerful?! LET'S DO IT AGAIN."

Eat

I Can’t Stop Eating Shrimp Rolls

July 18, 2017

It took me years and years to understand the appeal of shrimp rolls. I think this is because I tend to only encounter them at places where you can also eat lobster rolls, and...I mean...eating shrimp when you can eat lobster is sort of like eating white chocolate when milk chocolate is available, no? Like, why would you do that?

The answer, as it turns out: Because lobster is expensive, and lobster is really only great when it's fresh...but shrimp? Pretty cheap, actually - especially if you get it at Costco, ahem. And shrimp are delicious even when they've been frozen and defrosted, making them practical, as well.

I'm very particular about my lobster rolls - I need them to be juuuust the right combination of lobster meat and mayo, with very few other ingredients gunking up all that perfect simplicity - and it turns out I'm equally particular about shrimp rolls. Which means that when I tell you that the one that I have been making constantly these past few weeks is perfect, I mean it. It's perfect. (Did I mention that you can easily make it in large quantities for guests, as a much more swishy take on regular old hot dogs?

Style

Jump (Suited)

July 17, 2017

Every morning from April through September, during the blur of activity that happens between 730AM (when my kids wake me up; and yes I know I am lucky that they let me sleep that late) and 830AM (when I load everyone into the car and head off to my son's camp drop-off), there is one consistent:

I will reach for a pair of denim shorts. I will pause, because I am bored to the depths of my soul of wearing denim shorts, and I will scan my closet for something else to put on my body. I will find only various incarnations of misery (tight jeans, mostly; I cannot handle anything snug-fitting at all when it's ten thousand degrees outside) or things that I don't feel cute in, because I'm distinctly blah lately and nothing makes me feel cute.

And so I will put on my denim shorts, think about wearing something other than a t-shirt on top, then put on a t-shirt and go about my day.

Beauty

Product Discovery: Truly Phenomenal Sunscreen

July 14, 2017

Summertime Splash (FYI if you're a Gray Malin fan: pre-orders for Escape just opened)

Over the past year, I've turned into an obsessive sunscreen-er...on my face. I'm extremely hit and miss with my body for completely obnoxious reasons, like not wanting to gunk up my necklace (and being too lazy to take the damn thing off and put it back on again post-sunscreen). Not wanting to get the tinted sunscreen that I use on my face on the edges of my shirt (and being too lazy to use different products on my face and on my body). Et cetera.

Then, as you may recall from yesterday's post, I went to see a skin specialist because I was 99.9% certain that my feet were going to fall off, and discovered that the tiny red bumps on my chest that I had assumed were bug bites of some sort (ohpleasegodnotfleas) were actually just...sun damage. Which shouldn't have surprised me, given that I've spent the past few months sort of actively ignoring the fact that my chest is starting to look, very simply...old. And wrinkly. And sort of rough in that way that people's skin looks when they've spent a few years or decades baking in UV light. This is also unsurprising, of course, because the chest is the part of the body (along with the hands) that usually ages the fastest on people, because it gets tons of sun exposure, and is rarely protected. I know all of this, and still did my best ostrich impression and pretended that the skin on my sternum would somehow, miraculously, inexplicably be...fine. Forever Young, and such.

Links & Love & Stuff

The White Whale (Of Rompers)

Poor Choices: A Photo Essay

The Great Milk Boycott Of 2017: A Tale Of Two Picky Children

Archives

Shop Jordan’s Favorites

Figgy Figgy

The Great Taboo Topic: Thinning Hair…In Women

I Tried A Probiotic Cleanse, And Here’s What Happened

I Can’t Stop Eating Shrimp Rolls

Jump (Suited)

Product Discovery: Truly Phenomenal Sunscreen