The Inn at The Fauxhouse is now open for guests has been taken over by Linnie’s Nursery. Well, it’s been sleeping guests for 3+ years, but I’m finally done tinkering with the room. And when you come to stay, I won’t corner you as I tell you about all the unfinished parts. (Can you hear Kev cheering in the background?) Let’s just call this the official grand opening of The Cozy, Collected Guest Room. Somebody cut the ribbon already. Read more
Women, you can have it all, they say. And you can. Well, everything you can carry in two arms, a piggyback ride, a Mary Poppins bag, and a frazzled mom-brain, sandwiched between the sun’s coming and going, between breakfast and dinner time, between deadlines and surprise sick days. Motherhood and working through it (having it all) is a complicated order. Read more
Mirrors. They’re in the strawberries and the Piña Coladas. They’re in the lesson on gratitude to a crying 4-year-old in the Target parking lot. They’re in the garden, and in the new strands of color in my hair, too. Mirrors—they’re everywhere. Read more
The laundry room was just a square of a room with a stacked washer and dryer when we moved in. We were fresh out of budget for any kind of shelving by the end of the building process, so we threw an extra shelf in the room that we had on hand and called it good enough. We hung clothes on the metal stair rail to air dry and used the guest bed as a folding counter. The laundry room was basically an empty room, and all of its contents were spilling out into the upstairs. It was time to make this room functional. Read more
Can you call it a charcuterie board if there’s no meat on the board? If the cheese on the board is baked into crunchy, delicious bites? If it’s made up mostly of summer’s bounty? I’m claiming the faux on this one and calling it a Summer Charcuterie Board, whether I should or not. Because it’s easy like summer and pretty like a charcuterie board. Read more
The rhythm of the school year is about to play again. The rhythm that keeps us slightly more confined than the loose beat of summer. And with that change comes a tighter deadline on dinner. It requires a bit more forethought and planning, too—some of my least favorite tasks. Even still, meal planning seems to be the only thing that makes dinner time work well in our house. To that end, we installed a 90lb. vintage chalkboard on the dining room wall to keep a record of the weekly meal plan. I’m a visual processor, so a plan only works when seen. If you too are like me, here’s a couple beautiful, doable ideas for adding a menu board to your home. Insider tip: Look for inspiration at cafés. Read more
Two years ago, almost to the day, my sister and I made my brother’s wedding cake for over 200 people. We said I do to making cake for over 200 people. It’s as crazy and foolish as it sounds. However, we built in some fool proof buffers to keep the catastrophes at bay, which is why I’m sharing this DIY Wedding Cake with you—in case you too find yourself saying I do foolishly. Practice safe wedding cake making, friends. Read more
I’m going to start this post with a cliché, a big no no. But clichés are clichés for a reason. At the end of July, I went on the Stonyfield Farm Tour. It was life changing. (There’s the cliché.) If life were a video game or card table with a 500 piece puzzle on it, I feel like I just collected a couple important puzzle pieces to move on to the next level. Do you have those times in your life? When you’re waiting on something, not exactly sure what. And when you find it, or in this case, experience it, you know it’s going to be life-bending.
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