Living With Kids: Ashleigh Miller
The reason I love this series so much is I’ve always been a bit obsessed to peek into peoples’ lives and see how they live. I’m the kind of person who has been known to go to an open house in the neighborhood, just because I am curious about how someone else lives their life. And it is even more exciting when the person’s life is so drastically different than my own. That’s why I am so excited to introduce you to Ashleigh. She’s a mom of 2, a dog owner, an entrepreneur and lives here fabulous life in a suburb of Nairobi, Kenya.
Please say hello to Ashleigh.
… #MeToo
Did you see the #metoo hashtag? Or see the “Me, too” status updates? Maybe you watched in horror, surprised at how universal the problem is. Maybe you added a #metoo, and could name 100 women in your life who could add one as well. Maybe you had a #metoo to add, but didn’t feel safe enough to post it.
If you’re not sure what I’m referring to, this message was copy-and-pasted all over social media this weekend. If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote “Me too” as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem. #metoo
I don’t know who originated the message, but all of my feeds were full of #metoo. I participated, and so did hundreds of women I know personally. It’s overwhelming.
At some point on Saturday, I said to Ben Blair, “I think you’re the only man on earth I fully trust. I love lots of men. I support lots of men. But ultimately, I don’t trust them.” I have only just started to gather my thoughts on all of this. I must have read dozens of posts, essays and articles about it over the weekend. Here are some of the best ones I found:
– “I wish women didn’t have to rip our pasts open & show you everything & let you ogle our pain for you to believe us.” — Lindy West
… Living With Kids: Sonja Ibsen Allen
Life is its most interesting when it takes some unexpected twists and turns. It’s not always what we expect or what we would plan. Reading Sonja’s story (today’s Living With Kids family) this morning, I couldn’t help think of just that. As a teenager, Sonja couldn’t wait to get out of her small Northern California town. And now as an adult and a mother, she has not only moved back home, but is also living with her parents while she and her husband save some money to buy a place of their own. Sharing a roof with your parents brings new meaning to the idea of “it takes a village” to raise a child.
… Parenting Trend: Are Our Kids Delaying Adulthood?
The Washington Post published an article a couple of weeks ago about some interesting downward trends in the lives of teenagers. Here are the basic numbers:
“Between 1976 and 1979, 86 percent of high school seniors had gone on a date; between 2010 and 2015, only 63 percent had, the study found. During the same period, the portion that had ever earned money from working plunged from 76 percent to 55 percent. And the portion that had tried alcohol plummeted from 93 percent between 1976 and 1979 to 67 percent between 2010 and 2016.
Teens have also reported a steady decline in sexual activity in recent decades. The portion of high school students who’d had sex fell from 54 percent in 1991 to 41 percent in 2015, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
The article also goes into a possible reason why this could be happening:
“According to an evolutionary-psychology theory that a person’s “life strategy” slows down or speeds up depending on the person’s surroundings, exposure to a “harsh and unpredictable” environment leads to faster development, while a more resource-rich and secure environment has the opposite effect, the study said.”
The comments on the article are fascinating. Most comments are by parents of teens and and compare what the article says to anecdotal evidence in their own children’s lives. Some people feel like seeing these numbers go down is a great trend, and others wonder if their kids won’t be prepared for adulthood. Still others feel like the article really missed the whole point and see the downward trend happening for very different reasons that the article suggests.
…Parenting Trend: Are Our Kids Delaying Adulthood?Read More »
Living With Kids: Anne Marie Cropper
Today I’d love to introduce you to Anne Marie and her family. Welcome Croppers! She and her husband built a beautiful home in Southern Oregon (which is what we are featuring here today,) but after living there for a couple of years, made the tough decision to sell it and move to a rental a few miles away so their son with special needs could have access to a school that was a better fit for him. While I am sure it was challenging to make a tough decision like this, Anne Marie has a great attitude about it and about what makes a home. I’m so glad she shared these lovely photos with us of their “dream home” before they moved.
… Americans: You’re Doing Tea Wrong
Hah! The other day I read an article about how residents of the UK were flabbergasted that most American households don’t have an electric kettle. The responses are hilarious! (Also: lots of cussing.)
“Is it true that Americans rarely own kettles and boil their tea water in the microwave? Wtf is wrong with that country?! #heathens #tea
“In all the movies and tv shows I’ve watched, I’ve never seen an American use an electric kettle. These things keep me up at night.”
Apparently, there’s a whole reddit feed dedicated to the conversation. The responses make me laugh so hard! And I totally get it. All over Europe, in every house we’ve visited or hotel room we’ve stayed in, there was an electric kettle. No question. It’s an essential kitchen tool across the pond and is used multiple times a day in pretty much every household. (And in Australia too!)
… Living With Kids: Katja Meier
I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but in my neck of the woods it’s been freezing cold and rainy this weekend and this weeks Living With Kids interview has me dreaming of warm, summer Tuscan nights.
Meet Katja, who is Swiss, and her husband Sergio, who is Italian. Katja is a writer and she also works with refugee women. Katja and Sergio live with their kids in the Tuscan home Sergio grew up in and it’s as charming as you’d want it to be. Come say hello!
… What to Wear to School: 2nd Grade and 6th Grade
Here it is! Your annual guide on What to Wear to School. This post features Betty Blair (6th grader, and new to middle school), and June Blair (2nd grader).
Fun fact: this post marks the first time in 13 years that we haven’t had at least 2 kids in elementary school. Hah!
Come see what Betty and June are wearing to school this year.
… What to Wear to School: 7th Grade andMiddle School Outfits 10th Grade
Ready for some fall What to Wear to School photos? Can you believe I’ve been posting this series every school year since 2006? If you’ve been reading Design Mom for awhile, you’ve basically seen my kids grow up right before your eyes!
Come see what Olive (10th grade) and Oscar (7th grade) are wearing to school this year.
Middle School Outfits
…What to Wear to School: 7th Grade andMiddle School Outfits 10th GradeRead More »
Childhood Obsessions: What Are Your Kids Into?
Over the last year or two, my daughter Betty has developed a deep love of unicorns. A passion? An obsession? Not sure how to classify it, but she is WAY into them. Her heart skips a beat with every unicorn image she sees, and at the top of every wish list she makes (for holidays or birthdays) is a unicorn-something-or-other.
I saw Betty reading The Last Unicorn the other day, and it started me thinking about my other kids and their particular obsessions. It occurred to me that only some of my kids had really developed specific obsessions (at least so far), and that the same was true in the 8-kid house I grew up with. It doesn’t seem to be a universal thing, and it makes me wonder if it’s more of a personality type.
… Living With Kids: Lora Fanning
I think we all have moments as parents where we need to get away from all the noise and the chaos of raising kids. I have literally crawled under my bed with the dog (more than once) when I needed to take a break. Well, todays Living With Kids family offers such a great perspective on that. Meet Lora, her husband Andrew — and their 7 kids! Not only do Lora and her husband homeschool, but they both also work from home, which means there are a lot of people in the house all the time. Lora has some great perspective and wise words to offer on raising a big family, managing a house, and taking time for yourself.
… How to Have a New Kitchen On Any Budget. No Really. Here’s How.
What if you refreshed your kitchen instead of renovated it? That’s what I did. And today, I’m going to tell you all about it.
If you are craving a new kitchen, but can’t afford the time or money it would take to do a complete overhaul, you’re not alone. And you’ll be happy to hear, I’ve got real, doable, practical ideas that can make a big impact in your kitchen — while keeping a tight reign on your budget.
And it’s all thanks to Joanna Gaines. (More on that in a minute.)
Something you should know before we dive in to this post: I really, really want to enclose our laundry area (which is currently an extension of our kitchen), and transform it into a laundry room & kitchen pantry. In theory it would be a fairly simple thing to do. But in reality, it would require moving the oven/range from it’s current location and redesigning the whole kitchen so that it wraps around a corner.
We’ve wanted to do this basically since we moved in. You may remember we had only been here a few weeks when we pulled out a wall in the kitchen to open it up, and that’s when we first hatched the kitchen redesign plan.
But we haven’t done it yet for three reasons. First, when started working on this house, the kitchen wasn’t the worst spot. It worked well enough, and with a few updates like new floors and a new freestanding kitchen island, it served us well while we worked on the other parts of the house.
The second reason is budget. Construction prices (and real estate prices) in the Bay Area are comical at this point. And the price tags we’ve seen for our kitchen, which is considered on the small end size-wise, are pretty hard to stomach.
Third, kitchen renovations are so disruptive! The kitchen really is the heart of the home, and removing or limiting access to it is rough on a family. So I keep putting off a full kitchen renovation and working on other projects instead. I think it will be the last thing we tackle.
BUT. When Joanna Gaines asked me if she could send out a crew to photograph my house for Magnolia Magazine, and I said, “YES, of course,” I knew I had to do something with the kitchen.
So I went into problem solving mode and considered what I could do in the kitchen to refresh it in time for the photo shoot — with a tight budget, and with only a few days to complete the work. Those limitations meant my plans couldn’t be too ambitious, because we’d end up with chaos during the photo shoot! Plus, it meant we had to focus on items that were in stock and available right this minute. No special orders or custom options.
Sometimes restrictions like this feel frustrating, but in this case, to me they felt freeing, because it narrowed down the endless choices considerably.
I made a list of options and realized that we could make some big improvements without breaking the bank. I reached out to IKEA to see if they wanted to work with me to make the refresh happen (they said yes!), and the whole thing came together in just a few days. Here’s how you can break it down.
…How to Have a New Kitchen On Any Budget. No Really. Here’s How.Read More »
What Does Too Rich Look Like To You?
Recently, I read 2 different articles on wealth that were both pretty fascinating — the articles themselves, and maybe even more so, the comments and reactions.
The first one was in Current Affairs magazine, and is titled, It’s Basically Just Immoral To Be Rich. The whole message of the article can pretty much be summed up in the first paragraph:
“Here is a simple statement of principle that doesn’t get repeated enough: if you possess billions of dollars, in a world where many people struggle because they do not have much money, you are an immoral person. The same is true if you possess hundreds of millions of dollars, or even millions of dollars. Being extremely wealthy is impossible to justify in a world containing deprivation.”
The second article is from the New York Times, titled, What the Rich Won’t Tell You. It focuses on very wealthy families in New York City who try to downplay and hide their wealth (like cutting off price tags before the housekeeper sees them), because they feel deeply conflicted about it, and want to be seen as “normal” not “affluent.” To them, true wealth would mean owning a private jet. Here are 3 paragraphs from the article:
… Living With Kids: Kirsten Clark
Kirsten is a mother, a doula, a farmer, a homeschooler, and a wife. She and her husband live with three young kids in a small home on a lot of land. And you are going to love reading their story. When so many friends were going “bigger and better” with their homes, Kirsten and her husband decided to stay in their small home and make it work for their growing family.
Welcome Kirsten!
… Did You Teach Your Daughters To Shave?
I’ve never thought much about the history of shaving for women, and was fascinated by this article that chronicled some of the key dates. Apparently, shaving for women only started 100 years ago when Gillette introduced a razor for women and introduced the idea that women needed to shave their underarms. From then until now, the idea has become so entrenched that it’s nearly universal in our culture, and pretty much a given that women will shave their legs, their underarms, and their bikini lines (at least during swimsuit weather).
But apparently, the percentage of women shaving is going down these days. From the article: “A 2016 Mintel study reported that between 2013 and 2016, the percentage of women who shaved their legs fell from 92 to 85 percent. Mintel cited several possible reasons for the change, including the popularity of the wellness and natural-beauty movement and a desire to buck societal expectations. Celebrities who don’t shave, such as Monique, Julia Roberts, Madonna, and Bella Thorne, have also given the phenomenon more visibility.”
It made me wonder, is the current generation of parents passing on the idea of “needing to shave” to our daughters? And will the practice continue to aggressively decline?
… Living With Kids: Jen Zerrer
I’m delighted to introduce you to Jen and her family. They live in beautiful Southern California, in a home that she and her husband completely remodeled. Now it is full of light and full of charm. What makes it even more unique is that Jen, who is a children’s clothing designer, added a showroom on the property to showcase and preview her new clothing collections.
Come take a peek and say hello to Jen!
… Living With Kids: Sara Stubbert
I’m a big believer that families come in all shapes and sizes and colors, and today’s Living With Kids interview is about just that. Sara and her husband have two biologically born kids and two kids that they adopted who were a bit older when they came into their home. And they are raising all four of them in a lovely home in the California Wine Country. It’s such a touching story, and if you love a house full of bright colors and mixed-up patterns, you won’t want to miss this.
Say hello to Sara.
… A Short Primer on Klein Blue for The Curious
If you’re someone who likes to read interesting books and magazines, on or offline, chances are you’ve recently happened upon a reference to Yves Klein, Klein Blue, or International Klein Blue. I’m not sure where it’s coming from, but there’s so much buzz about it lately. For those who aren’t sure what is being referred to, here’s a little primer that will get you up to speed.
Yves Klein was a French artist who was a pioneer in performance art. He worked in the post-World War II era, and he died very young (heart attack) in 1968 at age 34 — months before his first child was born. His wiki page is good and includes this charming tidbit:
… What If The Dreaded After-Baby Mom Tummy Isn’t Really a Thing?
The other day, I was on social media and was scrolling past what I thought was a spammy ad about flattening my tummy. I mean, the title was total click bait — something like flatten your tummy with 1 exercise in 10 minutes a day. Ugh. I see stuff like that all the time, and I’m sure you do too. And then I did a double take. Because instead of linking to some sketchy url, the article was from NPR. What? For real? I wish I had a picture of my face when I observed the url — I’m guessing it was some combination of confusion, shock, disbelief, sadness (has NPR been taken over by spam?), and curiosity. What in the world was this article?
So I read it, and now I want to discuss it with you. The article jumps right in and within the first section I read:
Decked out in purple yoga pants and leather cowboy boots, Keller is a personal trainer from New York City. She has developed an exercise that allegedly shrinks the mommy pooch.
There is science to back up the method, she says.
“A doctor at Weill Cornell and I did a study on the exact same program we’re going to do,” Keller says. “And we found 100 percent of women achieved full resolution.”
Ummm. In a study, 100% of women achieved full resolution of their after-childbirth stomach? I’m officially totally intrigued. From what I’ve observed, that after-childbirth-jelly-tummy is almost a universal complaint among mothers, and many, many essays have been written about coming to terms with it. Weeping and wailing, over that darn post-baby tummy, is basically a universal experience at this point. And you’re telling me, the whole issue can go away in a few weeks?
You’ll be glad to hear the article doesn’t focus only on the cosmetic aspects. Instead, it goes into the diagnosis, and into the very real health problems (like back pain and hernias) that the problem can cause. It even talks about how some of the exercises we traditionally have done to combat it (like crunches) actually make the situation worse. It also talks about how to resolve the problem.
To me, I see a connection between this, and other articles I’ve shared about how doctor’s don’t treat the pain and health issues of women as seriously as they treat men. Our society has a tendency to downplay the health issues of women. Oh? Your stomach hasn’t returned to what you feel is “normal”? Well, you’re just vain. Get used to your new body and stop complaining about the back pain. Losing your body identity is one of those things that you have to do to become a mother. Accept it.
But instead, it sounds like the dreaded mom tummy it’s a real medical problem that just hasn’t been widely undiagnosed and untreated. If I think about it too hard, I’ll get ragey.
Anyway. I am still pondering the article, and thought I would share it with you in case you hadn’t seen it. I have not made an attempt at doing the recommended exercise, but would like to. I think I would be more confident trying it if I had someone who could confirm I’m doing it correctly. But I’m so curious about it — if you’ve given it a try, or know anything about it, I hope you’ll jump in with a comment.
What’s your take? If the click bait title is true, and a simple exercise can resolve your mom-tummy in 10 minutes a day, would you do it? Or have you moved on? Maybe you’ve embraced your body as is with no interest in looking back at that pre-baby tummy? Do you think my thoughts on women’s health not being taken seriously are off-base in relation to this article? Or do you see the connection too? I’d love to hear.
P.S. — The only belly shots I ever had taken. Living With Kids: Susan Yeley
I always have such admiration for parents who manage to work from home and run a successful business. I sometimes feel like I can barely get the laundry folded and put away with kids underfoot, let alone do anything that requires deadlines and dealing with clients and billing. But today’s Living With Kids mom does just that. Susan is an interior designer and has 4 employees, a husband, and 3 kids all under the same roof. On top of that her home has tons of mid-century charm and has a really drop-dead gorgeous add on to make room for her growing business.
Come say hello to Susan!
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