Kendrick asked me the other day whether it's weird for me to live in a house that I don't own. He knew how important to me it was; the ability to work on a house and make it my own felt like...I don't know, like an intrinsic part of who I was. And the pride that I got from home ownership after many years of not thinking it was anywhere within the realm of possibility for me was enormous.
But you know what I said to him?
"Eh. I kind of love renting."
Pendant Lamp | Table | Blanket | Bed | Rug
Here is a nice - but also slightly vexing - thing about my kids' new bedrooms: They are huge. Like, twice the size of their last ones. (Thank you, Gods Of Real Estate That Isn't Located In Silicon Valley.)
And like I said, that's nice, and they love them, but those cavernous, popcorn-ceilinged (why) rooms presented a bit of a decorating conundrum...which was compounded by the fact that on moving day, I discovered that neither of their beds could be removed from their old bedrooms without being disassembled. And since both of those beds were from Ikea (his; hers) and thus required Herculean disassembly and reassembly abilities, and because the idea of having to do all that Herculean dis- and re-assembling on the exact same day in which I was upending my entire life was less-than-appealing, I just sort of...left them there. (Kendrick came and got them later; don't worry, I didn't bequeath The Ikea Problem to the new owners.)
Whee, responsibility!
I hired a financial planner, and it is already changing my life, and so I am going to take a minute to explain why I think you should maybe do the same.
OK, so I have a very emotional relationship with money. A lot of people do, I imagine, but the extent to which my financial situation in any given moment has an immediate and profound effect on my mental state in that moment is kind of overwhelming. Literally, it goes like this: Book job --> happy. Do not book job --> utterly panicked, fully devastated, and completely incapable of taking a step back to realize that I've gone ahead and made the hustling lifestyle work for a solid fifteen years now, and will almost certainly continue to make it work going forward, because that's just common sense.
Hi I love you
I discovered Nipomo's blankets at the MTHR retreat in Sonoma last weekend...and now I want to fill my house (and my Christmas gift lists) with them. They're gorgeous. And hand-woven. And come with (also hand-made) leather carrying straps, in case you love yours so much you feel the need to take it with you everywhere.
The woman who designs the patterns and color ways, Liz Clark, was one of the vendors during the Makers Pop-Up Shop on Sunday, and...you've heard the term "flying off the racks"? These blankets flew. (Liz's mom is the one who makes the leather straps, which is obviously wonderful.) I bought one as a gift for a friend, but am kiiiiind of wishing I'd picked up a couple more, because not only are they spectacularly pretty and unique, they're also crazy-versatile - you can pop them on top of a rug pad and layer them on your floor, use them as beach blankets or picnic blankets, toss them over your bed or the back of a couch...whatever.
Here is why I feel okay about the fact that I will be putting in something akin to "zero" effort re: my son's birthday party this year:
Because this was what I did last year, and he deemed it "okay. Not very spooky though."
So I think it safe to say we're dealing with a tough customer. And my feeling is, you know: y'all got a trampoline a week ago. You're welcome. (I will be making a spooky cake, of course, but the rest of the festivities will involve takeout Chinese and plastic eyeballs stuck on top of supermarket cupcakes, and it will be great, because I will be sane and he will be on a trampoline, and there you have it.)
