greek sandals, again

Yes, I am always on the lookout for cute sandals. I love these Greek sandals that Rachel of Heart of Light just posted about. So very cute...

[image: Rachel of Heart of Light]

stella in print

How awesome is this print?! My friend Shayna started an Etsy shop where she's selling custom prints... So, of course I had to order one for Stella's room. It would be such an great gift for a friend with a new baby, don't you think? And, yes, I will be ordering one special for the new arrival when s/he gets here in July.

tartine bread

Lucky me! My friend Devon has been working on her bread baking skills. Here's a loaf we cut into today for toast and to sop up bowls of her homemade chicken noodle soup. It's from Tartine. It was delicious...

sandal season

Could someone please make it sandal season already?

Avalon Sandal, $60

Logan Sandals, $58

Boden Strappy Sandals, $78

house of cards

We've been obsessively watching House of Cards, the Netflix original series staring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright who play the devilishly conniving political couple Frank and Claire Underwood. Based on the BBC 4-part series of the same name, the Netflix series boasts David Fincher as the executive producer of the show and director of the first two episodes. It's compelling and so uncomfortable to watch, brilliantly acted, evenly paced, and a nail-biter of a drama. I give it high marks...

ali smith's artful

I picked up Ali Smith's new book, Artful, this morning based on the Leah Hager Cohen's review of it in last Sunday's New York Times Book Review. My love for Ali Smith started when I was living in London, when I read Hotel World (the Sophie Calle photograph from Double Game on the cover lured me in initially) in one awe-struck sitting. Her newest sounds like a "stunner" indeed...

“Clever” and “inventive.” Are these the two readiest adjectives that spring to mind when describing the fiction of Ali Smith? Certainly they are common responses to her work. But as understandable as this may be, I hope to convince you that neither word is quite right. One damns her with faint praise, while the other misapprehends what she actually does.

Smith is a trickster, an etymologist, a fantasist, a pun-freak, an ontologist, a transgenrenatrix, an ypomonist — O.K., now I’m just making up words. Smith might approve. A wordsmith to the very smithy of her soul, she is at once deeply playful and deeply serious. And her new book, in which she tugs at God’s sleeve, ruminates on clowns, shoplifts used books, dabbles in Greek and palavers with the dead, is a stunner.

Read the rest of the review here.

learning what it means to be a woman

My friend Aria linked to this post yesterday and the message rang true for me. I'm not usually that vocal about "mommy war" issues. I have no issue calling myself a feminist (I wrote a page-long paper of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique in 6th grade and never looked back) and a full-time mom (ironic? of course...), and the work that I am doing as a mother, raising a strong, confident, funny girl feels infinitely more important to me right now than the many hours I spent attending meetings to schedule other meetings and sitting behind a computer in an office. I'm not saying the work that I did wasn't important, it just wasn't that creative or meaningful for me. I am so lucky to be able to stay at home, and will readily admit that, selfishly, I want to be here to witness all those milestones and daily occurrences. Staying at home won't last forever, and the time I have to do it is so short and it's going by so fast...I am relishing the days and doing what I can to impart confidence and my own knowledge about the world. I don't think this makes me less of a (creative? successful?) woman or more of a (womanly?) woman. I think it just makes me me.

Mothers who point fingers at other women for making decisions that are either necessary for them and the livelihood of their families or feel right for them and their children, grate on me to no end. 

I appreciate this by Glennon of Momastery:

And if every woman made the same decision, how would my children learn that sometimes motherhood looks like going to work to put food on the table or stay sane or share your gifts or because you want to work and you’ve earned that right. And that other times motherhood looks like staying home for all of the exact same reasons.

As far as I can tell, no matter what decision a woman makes, she’s offering an invaluable gift to my daughters and me. So I’d like to thank all of you. Because I’m not necessarily trying to raise an executive or a mommy. I’m trying to raise a woman. And there are as many different right ways to be a woman as there are women.

So, angry, debating ladies… here’s the thing. My daughter is watching me AND you to learn what it means to be a woman. And I’d like her to learn that a woman’s value is determined less by her career choices and more by how she treats other women, in particular, women who are different than she is. I’d like her to learn that her strength is defined by her honesty and her ability to exist in grey areas without succumbing to masking her insecurities with generalizations or accusations. And I’d like her to learn that the only way to be both graceful and powerful is to dance among the endless definitions of the word woman… and to refuse to organize women into categories, to view ideas in black and white, or to choose sides and come out swinging. Because being a woman is not that easy, and it’s not that hard.

city quilts

London

New York City

San Francisco

More city quilts over at Haptic Lab.

the backyard

It has been months in the making, but our backyard is finally looking pretty great. The last two weekends we've spent hours outside digging, amending the soil, planting, and watering. It's satisfying work, and I never want to come back inside when it gets too cold or the light starts to fade. The space has become an extension of our house. I open our kitchen door most days when I'm prepping dinner in the afternoon and let Stella make mud cakes, and paint outdoors. Now we embark on planting our vegetable plot and herb boxes and picking an outdoor fire element for the sunken fire pit in the corner of the garden. These are pretty cool...

It's a wonderful feeling to stand at the back doors of the house and just gaze happily at the space and expanse of green beyond our property...and it was so worth the wait.