Here is an odd way to start a post about pasta and cheese:
I've decided to try limiting my gluten and dairy!
(EXCELLENT start to the experiment, I know. But I figured what the hell, let's go out with a bang.)
I'm SO. EXCITED. about Valentine's Day this year.
...Totally kidding. The holiday isn't my favorite in a vacuum, but this year it's leveling allllll my Scrooge tendencies up to Defcon 1. But just because Valentine's Day is putting me in a mood doesn't mean I can't use it as an excuse to give you guys one of my all-time favorite products: Riddle's pheromone-based oil (plus their spray-on moisturizer and spectacular face oil). Because, you know, you're my real Valentines, anyway. (I mean that. I love this community. Thank you.)
Here is my kitchen. It's where I spend perhaps 75% of my day. There's the cooking and puttering and such, but those barstools are also my writing spot, the kids' homework spot, and (more often than not, alas) where we eat dinner, with the kids sitting on the stools and me leaning over the countertop on the other side (whatever, formal sit-down dinners are overrated).
There's something that my kitchen's missing, though.
This morning I went on KTLA to talk about fun new toys to play during and after the Super Bowl, keep kids active, yadda yadda yadda, and hilarity (obviously) ensued.
The segment (above) went great, but you know where I really got to shine? During the teasers. Teasers, in case you're unfamiliar with the verbiage, are when anchors tell you why viewers should stay tuned - "Don't go anywhere, because you want to see Jordan Reid yadda yadda yaddaing!"
Thought about writing about bellbottoms today but I was boring even myself
Whenever I'm not sure what to write about on a given day, I click over to the "Drafts" folder on my dashboard. I have a tendency to jot down titles and a quick note or two there whenever a potential post title pops into my head (it's a good habit; if you're a writer of any kind I recommend it highly). Which means that, at present, I have 678 drafted posts dating all the way back to 2010 that, for one reason or another, have gone unseen. They cover topics including the wonders of Jessica Simpson shoes, why VHS tapes make excellent gifts (yes, I wrote this), how to handle illicit love affairs between your dogs (omg), and many more topics that make me thank the Internet gods that my 28-year-old self was wise enough to skip hitting that "Publish" button.
But there are also a couple that were kinda cute...and one that made me weep. And so now? Now they shall be seen.
Today's reader question comes from S, who is in the process of divorcing her husband. S, like so many divorcing women, is conflicted about what to do with her engagement ring: Part of her wants to hold on to it for her children, but...it's complicated. I get it, and you probably do, too.
So S wanted to know if I had any ideas for what to do with her engagement ring. I'm going to give my 100% honest answer, with the understanding that this is a touchy subject, and also that symbols of marriage (and the institution itself) are topics I have ever-evolving views on. Let's back it up for a moment.
For the years that I was married, if you had asked me what my most prized possession was, I would have said "my engagement ring" - the $350 pawn-shop band with which Kendrick proposed to me in a Las Vegas parking lot - without a moment's hesitation. Cut to nine years later, when a trio of events related to that ring took place:
Q. Mahaley, please help me yell less?
A. If I may be honest here, I don’t have all the answers. My daughter is three, and she still wakes up in a horrible mood some mornings. I guess we all wake up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes, right? But here are some strategies I've found to be helpful for creating a (relatively) stress-free and happy morning.
1. Make sure that your child is going to bed at an appropriate time. I cannot stress this enough. If your child is not getting enough sleep, there’s virtually no saving their mood in the morning. For babies and young toddlers, an appropriate bedtime is usually somewhere between 6-7 PM, depending on when their nap ends. For older toddlers and young kids, I recommend somewhere between 7-7:30 PM.
My tiny Ewok
It's been two months since we lost our girl, and it's getting close to the time when I feel ready to bring another dog into our family. I needed a minute to recuperate after Lucy died - emotionally, of course, but I also needed a second to breathe, because the last few months of her life were...a lot. Besides the logistical work - vet appointments, messes to be cleaned - I worried about her all the time. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to check her breathing, or terrify myself imagining the worst when she didn't run up to greet me at the door when I came home (which, towards the end, she never did).
I was exhausted from the sheer volume of care she required - that on top of the care required by the other living things in my household - and honestly? I wanted to rest. But now my kids are starting to mention wanting another dog, and not just that: They've taken on a bunch of pet-related responsibilities (scooping the litterbox is one of them, thank Jesus) to try to convince me that they'll help out with the walking and training and such, and I want to reward their efforts.
When we were looking for our new house, we knew that we needed a space for guests. My family lives in Texas, and we love having them out to visit. We also have friends who regularly come to Los Angeles, so we almost always have someone staying with us. When we first toured our new house, we noted the detached doctor’s office behind the house, which had three rooms – a waiting room, a bathroom, and a main office. I knew that with a little work we could convert the space into something that would allow us to comfortably host frequent visitors.
Main room, before
Case of the Tuesdays over here
The way our custody schedule works, I mostly have the kids on weekdays - so when I found out I had the kids all three days this weekend, I got super excited and did the obvious thing: I overscheduled us up the wazoo. (I do this on the nights that I'm solo, too: I think, MUST DO ALL THE FUN THINGS! and end up watching half of sixteen different shows and staying up too late and feeling wildly unsatisfied about the whole event.) We had sleepovers. Korean BBQ lunches. Beach trips. Hot tub soaks. ALL THE FUN THINGS.
So: I'm exhausted. But all this activity also resulted in a bunch of interesting discoveries. Here, in no particular order, are a few of them.
