Life Lately

Happy Almost-April!

That exclamation point is much more optimistic than I actually feel. Really it feels blah. Y’know that whole “in like a lion out like a lamb” thing? We entered March with major lamb energy: there was sunshine! And the snow was melting! And we had a whole week of 40 and 50-degree weather! Now we’re exiting March to snow and wind and cold. I feel like I haven’t been properly warm for a solid two weeks. That lion showed up. Rude.

Just us here. Perpetually indoors and eating snacks. Guess it could be worse.

But! Enough about the weather (sorry, Midwestern hazard). If you follow me on Instagram, you know I went back to work as an interior designer this month for the first time since the twins were born. Though “went back” is actually defined as “sitting at my desk in the corner of our bedroom.” Which honestly, is what I was hoping for. I’m working for my previous employer, but remotely. Same but different.

This has been in the works since late January. (When one of my co-workers called me up and was all, “This is really random but would you ever want to come back and work remotely?” And I was like, “Absolutely yes.”). Despite wanting to go back to work in some capacity for a while, once I had a start date on the calendar, it got real. Did I really want to go back to work? To have my time not be my own? (As though my time was my own with three kids around.) To give up my early retirement? Gah.

But? I’m loving it. It feels good to work with floor plans again. To interpret wants and needs into reality. Even to fight with the design program over dimensions and try to chase down elusive countertop materials again. Things long-forgotten, pushed from my brain by motherhood, have started to come back, like NKBA guidelines and building codes.

It’s a vibe shift but honestly what hasn’t been a vibe shift the past two years? Since 2016? Since having two babies and then another one? You get a vibe shift and you get a vibe shift! Vibe shifts all around.

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Thing I’m Doing

Honestly just adjusting to a new schedule. Sometimes life is like that.

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Around the Internet

• “Watching Smith up there on Sunday, burying his behavior in the Williamses’ story, I’m not sure he was entirely back in his body. I’ve never experienced a victory that feels this much like defeat. I suspect he knew this, too. He wondered whether he’d ever be invited back. That feels right. He wasn’t accepting an Oscar so much as trying to turn himself in.”

• On toys and children and Ukraine and what gets left behind.

• “This character exists for women. Sort of. She’s in Mare of Easttown or The Fall. Women who are lost in their ambition or their work, or simply just leave their lives. But they are not heroes. They are complex. It’s all we can talk about: the woman left. The woman left. Critics and essayists write about how the woman left. Is she good? Is she bad? We like it so much better when a woman stays.”

• The mothers are tired.

• I cannot believe they canceled BSC. God forbid little-big girls see themselves—or their near-future selves—on TV. “For fans, the end of The Baby-Sitters Club is disappointing because so few series fill its specific niche: stories about preteen girls that don’t oversexualize or infantilize them.”

• “But consider this: For millennials and younger generations, the last couple of years have carried a reordering of life on every level, from the personal to the global.”

• Okay, those were all vaguely, if not specifically depressing. Is this what I read all day? (Narrator: Yes.) I’ll end on a couple of laughs. 1. Can confirm this is accurate. 2. Where is the lie?

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Eating

• I made this Thai-style basil chicken for the first time in a long time and remembered how delicious it is. Equally great as leftovers.

• I’m sure I’ve mentioned this pasta with prosciutto and snow peas before, but it’s worth bringing up again. It’s spring on a plate. I don’t like mint so I replace it with basil. Yum.

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Fun Things

• These pastel highlighters. They’re also erasable and the erasing part actually works.

• I went on a spring buying spree, mostly at Madewell, and am v. excited about these jeans, this top, and this tee.

• We set up a little charging station in our kitchen with a USB outlet and these magnetic charging cables. They stay out of the way and are super durable. Plus the magnets are kind of fun.