The vibration plate I still use after a year
A year later I am still on it every day, usually in socks, and I still cannot call myself a gym person. The machine does not seem to mind.
The journal
Everything I’ve written down so far
Twenty-five posts and counting, mostly written before seven in the morning. Pick a corner of the house, or just start at the top.
Why I finally wanted an air fryer
Rey stood on a chair and watched the chicken brown through the glass. That is the moment I knew I was not going back to a coated basket.
Best moisturizers for oily skin while using tretinoin
My face could be greasy and peeling at the same time. These are the moisturizers I actually kept using with tretinoin — and the ones I would buy again.
My honest five-minute skincare routine at 44
No ten-step ritual, no fridge full of serums. Five things, five minutes, most mornings — and the one I would keep if I could only keep one.
The five-piece uniform that saved my mornings
Jeans, a good tee, a cardigan that hides everything, loafers, one gold necklace. I wear versions of this almost every day and I have never felt more like myself.
In defense of boring Tuesday nights
We stopped trying to have date nights and started having Tuesdays instead. Two mugs, one lamp on, nothing happening. It turns out that is the whole marriage.
The summer I refused to fill
Dean is eight and Rey is six. I stopped signing them up for everything this summer, and I am hoarding the empty afternoons.
Why every room in my house has a small lamp
The cheapest thing I ever did for this house was stop using the ceiling lights after six o’clock. Everything softened, including me.
The sunscreen I wish I had started at 25
I am not going to pretend I was diligent. I was not. But I have worn it every single day for six years now, and that is the part I can still control.
I finally bought jeans that fit the body I have
Not the body I had at 32, not the one I keep meaning to get back to. The one carrying the groceries in right now. It took me a whole afternoon and it changed my whole spring.
A bath is not self-care, but it helps
The bath did not fix the week. What helped was the closed door, and finally being willing to say out loud that I needed forty minutes.
The kitchen table is the most honest room in the house
Homework, taxes, birthday cakes, one memorable argument about a dishwasher. Every mark on this table is something that actually happened to us.
Everything I wear in September, honestly
A list, written in February while I am cold and dreaming of the good month. Nine items, most of them older than my youngest child.
We argue better than we used to
Not less. Better. Shorter, kinder, and almost always about the thing we are actually upset about, which took us about fifteen years to learn.
A letter on Sundays
Would you like the new ones in your inbox?
One email a week, Sunday morning, written with the second cup of coffee. Nothing else, ever.