Is anyone feeling that oh-my-overwhelming feel of late March and early April again? I felt joyful and optimistic yesterday watching the inauguration, but all the good political news didn’t take me out of my house, where I always am now, meal planning and sweeping, working and eating. Over and over. I think it’s the combination…
We are Airbnb hosts. I feel like I should caveat that, or apologize for it. Why does it make me feel a little icky to write? I think perhaps because we have some of the most judgmental neighbors who make me feel like a criminal and make my guests feel unwelcome, but perhaps those neighbors…
You are stronger than you think. People tell others this when they hear about a cancer diagnosis, or when they start back to school virtually with four kids and a job and mediocre wifi. People don’t tell people embarking on a major home construction project this, because at some point the DIY-ers made a decision…
Demolition dust, concrete dust, wood dust, drywall dust, fine wood dust, painting dust, tile dust, grout dust – bags of it! – dirt dust, soil dust, stone dust, marble dust in your closet, paint dust, and at the end of it, even more dust. This is the story of building a house. It is not…
I woke up this Thanksgiving in a bed not my own, with my Matt and my dog sprawled out like sailors after a hard nights leave. We’re staying in my best friend’s mother’s home, and I am so grateful to her and to him and the village we’ve created that has enabled this year’s mantra:…
When we talked about tearing down our house, living as nomads for a year, taking on prodigious amounts of debt, and building a new home together from the ground up, I figured at the very least we’d learn a lot of things about each other and ourselves. I banked on discovering some lofty truths about…
I love to shop. I’ve shopped because I’m happy, because I’m sad, because I have a big event coming up, because I’m anxious about an impending interview, for every reason under the sun. I love to shop alone, because you can be deliciously selfish. I love to shop with my mom, because nobody knows what…
Our home is currently a gaping pit. It is a red, crusty maw in the earth. The college kids who live next door are genuinely afraid for their safety, not trusting their drunk selves with a veritable canyon running alongside their sidewalk. Our home is a hole in the earth. This construction process has really…
“We’re the same age but you have an architect!” Perched on a white stone balcony high on a hilltop above the idyllic whitewalled Skiathostown in the Sporades island chain of Greece, the girlfriend of the friend who owns said white balcony sardonically said that line about our ages and my architect. This woman has a…
The Outraged Eater 