hollywood housewife

the silly is the best part

hollywood housewife — Mon, 20 May 2013 03:00:00 -0700

By Sunday evening I was over it. When The Gorilla asked why I was grumpy, I said something about the sheer amount of quality time we'd spent together. Weekends are usually reserved for family, but with last week's houseguests then a tummy bug, there had been a lot of hours of being in the house all together. I was itching for some time to myself, without interruptions, without chubby arms reaching upward.

So I left the house in a hurry - late, but wearing lipstick - and sped through Hollywood for the last showing of Expressing Motherhood. I took the glass of wine offered, sank into the theater seat, and I was tearing up before the show even started. The cast bios alone got me. Have I mentioned I was a little on edge?

I was there to support two friends who were performing, but the power of a group of women expressing their, uh, motherhood, hit me in the right spot. Some of the pieces were funny, some were heart-wrenching, but all were true.

It was all I needed to knock the ungratefulness right out of me. I was thankful for the escape, impressed by the performance, and, when it was over, ready to go home to (sleeping) babies.

I realized that the last several weeks of Mommy Mondays have been a bit heavy. So for levity, here are pictures of the kids! Because as serious as parenting is in theory, it's a lot more silly in reality.

The silly is the best part.

friday links - calligraphy edition

hollywood housewife — Fri, 17 May 2013 03:00:00 -0700

This week I went to a calligraphy class at ArtWorks that was hosted by Morgan from the 818 and sponsored by Smirnoff. (Thank you, vodka, for fine penmanship!)

Alex from Type A Calligraphy and Alexandra Wrote was our teacher, and we had a lovely evening sipping martinis and trying to write pretty.

Calligraphy looks like it's hard and guess what? It's hard. I thought since I had good handwriting that writing in ink would be a breeze. Not true! But a fun time was had by all.

Thanks for such a fun party, Morgan!

(Pssst..you can buy a twitter handle necklace like hers at Survival of the Hippest.)

Things were a little quiet on the HH facebook page this week, but I did share that I found it hilarious that when I posted about Blog Lovin', the comments were mostly in favor of feedly, but that when Simple Mom posted about Feedly, her comments were mostly about Blog Lovin'!

I'm easily amused.

(And also easily irritated. No sooner had I committed to Blog Lovin' did they change up the format. And I have to admit, Simple Mom's customization of Feedly is making me give it another look.)

My column at allParenting this week was about Playdate Etiquette in the Age of the Helicopter Parent.

I'm not saying I've ever had an ackward playdate experience...okay, yes I totally am saying that.

For your weekend reading pleasure:

21 Acts of Parental Brilliance. (Um, why have I never thought of some of these?) (Mommy Shorts)

One of my very favorite people in the blogoshpere (and just in life) is Elizabeth from Flourish In Progress. You may remember her from her year-long shopping hiatus. She's one of the best writers out there, and we pretty much cemented our friendship after we survived rooming together at the Mom 2.0 conference earlier this month. She does these Hustle Hard interviews and they're always funny, but this month's version with her husband and her daughter was just great. Hustle Hard Interview Project: Harv & Cal.

The subject of adoptions seems to be everywhere I look right now. These thoughts from Jen Hatmaker about international adoptions are a really important part of the conversation. Examining Adoption Ethics, Part One.

Putting it all in perspective is The Bloggess. I like it when she just lays it down. Two Uncomfortable Truths: New Merida Looks a Little Whorey. Fewer People Care About This Than You Would Think.

And if you just want to look at something pretty: Pink Peonies. One of my new favorite fashion blogs.

Happy weekend!

Enter your email address in the box in the right sidebar to receive my posts as emails. If you're more the facebook type, you can "like" HH here and receive all my posts + original content in your news stream. I'm also active on twitter and Instagram.

backhanded compliment

hollywood housewife — Thu, 16 May 2013 03:00:00 -0700

The Gorilla and I took to the tennis courts. He basically had to drag me there. There are tennis courts close to our house, closer than the yoga studio. Yoga is the first activity we tried together in an effort to tame our tummies while also spending time together. We both really liked yoga. We need more yoga in our life, actually. Yoga is beneficial in at least eight ways. But the yoga place we liked was kinda far away, and arranging extra child care for something we could technically do at home felt stupid. Note that we have never once done yoga at home.

So The Gorilla started pestering me about the tennis courts. I played tennis in high school. I wasn’t very good. Okay, I actually wasn’t terrible, but I definitely wasn’t great. I’m not very strong, so while I could return the ball, there was no power in my stroke. Some would say that all of life is about returning the ball, over and over, so if you can do that then you can do anything. But really, you won’t make it far in the tournament if there’s no strength behind the racquet. This is a life lesson.

When my husband gets something in his head, there’s really no turning back. (See: ginormous fish tank.) I was able to keep him at bay for weeks by shoving my swollen, purple ankle in his face, but his orthopedic father looked at it last weekend and declared my ankle sprain “severe” (validation!), and also in need of some light exercise.

So on Mother’s Day we got rackets and an ankle brace and on Tuesday we drove to the courts. As we turned into the parking lot, I asked The Gorilla if he was nervous. “No,” he answered. Whenever I’m feeling nervous, I ask him if he’s feeling nervous. He always replies no.

We chose an open court and started hitting the ball around. We were awful. Truly abysmal. It took many minutes before either of us could even get the ball back over the net. But the movement felt good. We kept laughing at ourselves and at each other, and The Gorilla would shout out encouraging words diffusing even an ounce of frustration.

“Your backhand is amazing!” he said. Amazing might be stretching it, but my backhand was still good. It was from all those years of drills with my dad and my coach, over and over my backhand because that was my weak spot. How smirky I felt that after 15 years, it was the backhand drills that had endured.

I still couldn’t serve worth a hoot. But neither could The Gorilla.

Weird things kept floating through my head. Things I hadn’t thought about in years. “Follow through!” “Get back to the middle!” “Set up!” “Move to the net!” It felt like a revisit to a cobwebby house where I knew every passage.

I tried to scoop up the ball using my foot and the racket. That will take a little more practice. I remember - with horror! - that I used to keep spare balls in the back of my underpants. What in the world was that about?! But we all did it. We had little navy tennis skirts with navy bloomers, and we shoved the second ball up there to rest on our butts. In practice, when we weren’t wearing uniforms, we just used our underwear. This is completely suspect to me. I can’t believe in all those years no one pointed out how weird of a practice this is. Or even cracked a joke about putting balls in underpants.

This week I just put the spare balls in my pocket.

original art in your home, part 1: acquiring the pieces

hollywood housewife — Wed, 15 May 2013 03:00:00 -0700

After my house tour at Design Mom ran last month, I got lots of questions about the house that I’m going to attempt to answer here over the next few weeks. The most common thing people asked about - and this happens with guests in our home, too - was about all the art. (Though no one asked about the nudie art. Thank heavens.)

What you put on the wall is the most important decorating decision of any room: the paint, the wallpaper, and of course the art. Color and texture sets the tone, and original art takes any home from generic to unique.

I’m supremely lucky because I’m married to an artist. The Gorilla is a painter, his college degree is in art, and he will blow you away with his skills. We have several prints of his paintings hanging in the house, but currently our only piece framed and hanging is in the playroom. It is amazing. You can see more of his art here.

So, because art was his world for so long (and still is, only now it’s in the digital form, which is harder to display), some of our best pieces came from his artist friends. Clearly, we’ve got a leg up in that department. But in the last ten years we’ve both acquired things and are on the same page about how and what we’re looking for.

Don’t buy from a gallery. Galleries serve a certain purpose, but it’s generally not for the normal buyer. Art in a gallery is marked up 100% or more, so unless you’re really short on time or have no budget, use galleries as a way to educate and inform, but don’t purchase there.

(unless it’s a student gallery)

The most fantastic sources for original art are students and student galleries. Find a local college or (even better!) art school in your area, and they will always have art shows or stand-alone galleries featuring new talent. The cost here will be so much less than more established artists, but you may just find a total gem. And, if investment is in the back of your mind, student art is the most likely to increase in value.

I bought an amazing pen and ink piece at one of the SCAD student galleries. There were several things I wish I had taken home with me that day, but I settled on the one. I believe it was in the $300-$400 range.

If possible, go directly to the artist. The internet has made finding and contacting artists much easier. Start small on a site like etsy that does sell originals, or use a little google detective work if you hear about an artist you’re interested in.

Another great way to browse for art and speak with the artists themselves is attending art or craft fairs. The handmade movement in the last few years has made craft fairs cool again, so even if a lot of the stuff isn’t your style, you just need to find one booth that gets you excited.

Years ago I discovered Ruth Ann Borum’s paintings while I was wandering through The Girlie Show in Oklahoma City. I was living paycheck to paycheck at the time, but after a couple of hours circling her booth, I just couldn’t leave without the two pieces that were calling my name. I think I paid $500 for them combined, rent money at the time, but beyond reasonable for two beautiful paintings. Eight years later, they both hang in prominent spots in my house, and this was worth a few weeks of living on ramen.

When speaking with the artist directly, you are much more likely to negotiate a price, or possibly work out something custom. Or, if you really like their style, you may ask about older works that they would be willing to sell you for cheaper than their current stuff. If it’s an artist you really, really love, this personal relationship could prove to be invaluable.

If price is an obstacle, consider bartering for art. Now, this only works if you have a relationship with artist, but you might be surprised about what a working artist needs or wants. The Gorilla traded art for art quite a few times, and those pieces are some of the best we have. But if you’re not an artist yourself, consider what your value is and talk to the artist. (Again, this really only works if there’s a familiarity there.) Could you offer a month of after-school care? Help editing a project? Web site design? Whatever it is you have to offer, the artist might have a need beyond cash.

Whatever your budget, make sure you account for proper framing. Do not take a beautiful piece of art and then buy a frame from Target. I’ll post more about framing later, but assume that you’ll have it done custom, and it might cost more than you anticipate. There are several ways to frame outside the norm, but whatever you choose, you must do justice to the work of art.

Having great art is a priority to us because it brings us joy to surround ourselves with it in our home. But I'm no expert on art (at all), and we choose not for investment purposes, but by what we like. Don't be intimidated to start a collection. Beautiful things are beautiful things.

*first photo by Jules Bianchi

carry on warrior, where'd you go bernadette, look at me

hollywood housewife — Tue, 14 May 2013 03:00:00 -0700

If it means anything to you, I cried off and on throughout Glennon Doyle Melton's Carry On, Warrior. This was surprise to me, as her memoir about drugs, bulimia, and rebellion isn't something to which I should relate. But she is such a talented writer, a gift I already knew through her very popular blog Momastery.

Several of the essays in Carry On, Warrior are posts from her blog, but since Momastery was still relatively new to me, it was still new material. Though even if you're a rabid fan, it's nice to have some of her best writing all in one place.

Glennon - if I may call her by her first name - writes candidly about motherhood and marriage, but it's not really her topics that are the draw. She says stuff other women don't say. Stuff about sex, feelings about her sister. Don't Carpe Diem, the post that catapulted her into the wider public eye, is in the book, as is A Mountain I'm Willing To Die On, which is one of the most poignant things I've ever read and brings tears to my eyes as I type. (And describes how I feel about this subject almost exactly.)

I don't know her in person, but Glennon did for me what Shauna Niequist did when I was a teenager. I didn't even know that kind of a Christian existed. Don't let that last sentence scare you if it's not your thing - the book itself is not overly Jesus and is clearly not printed by a Christian publisher. Her faith is in the background, but this is one for the women I know.

I'm pretty sure Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple plopped on my radar when I made a call on the HH facebook page for fiction recommendations. I've been reading so much memoir lately (I love it, but I can't seem to get away from it), and I needed something else.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? is so clever. I love it when I start a book that has an unusual narrative device that I wasn't expecting. The story is told almost entirely through sets of emails. I instantly loved the format, Bernadette herself, and the quirky tale.

It was a quick read, and well done. It was also the first book I read on my new Kindle Paperwhite.

I read Look At Me by Jennifer Egan because several people recommended it after how much I loved The Keep and A Visit from the Goon Squad (both books, FYI, that are sort of different in their story telling, and probably aren't for everyone).

Like the others, Look At Me is smart and is talking about something way bigger than what it's talking about. And it's so interesting that it was written in 2000, before September 11, before facebook. That really makes it all that more wondrous, actually.

And, like the others, it's very well written. My problem here is that I didn't really love anyone. I wasn't cheering. Or feeling sad. For the last third, I just kept thinking, "I can't believe this was written in 2000." So while I liked what Egan was doing, The Keep is still my favorite.

What are you reading lately?

amazon affiliate links included in this post