February 2012
1 post
Thrift Shopaholic
Guest post about my thrifting obsession over at Lauren’s style blog, Stylemammal. Perhaps you can tell from the photo that my children, just outside the camera frame, are driving me kah-ray-zee.
January 2012
1 post
Stylish Mama = Stylemammal
My friend Lauren has launched a terrific new blog focusing on personal style. Lauren has a dry sense of humor, excellent writing chops, and a great eye for clothes, making this a must-read for anyone who takes pleasure in putting together an outfit. And guess who got to be one of her first interviewees? Yours truly. But if you read only one post of Lauren’s, make it this one, because she...
December 2011
1 post
Living Plan B
My friend Amy Gutman writes this excellent blog called Plan B Nation — a rundown of what life is like for those of us laid off during the Great Recession. My friend Karen Brown interviewed Amy (and me!) for our local NPR affiliate.
Something I said to Karen — which may sound a little Pollyanna but is the absolute truth — is that life is so much better for me now, here in Plan...
November 2011
1 post
WatchShysters.
October 2011
4 posts
Head, shoulders, knees and toes.
Let me be clear, with myself as much as with anyone else: I do not want another baby. I am finished with the whole parenting-a-baby thing. Sometimes I felt like I was doing it very well, other times I felt like I was failing profoundly, but in any case, done is done. And I do mean done. Even toddlerhood and the preschool years are distant images in the rearview mirror.
But.
Lately I find myself...
September 2011
2 posts
Are You There, God? It's Me, Naomi.
Rosh Hashana: Time to pause, reflect, reconsider, plan ahead. I started off the year with a bang by missing the children’s service. Oops. I guess I’ll have to atone for that in about a week.
This whole personal-introspection thing is coming up at a handy time, however; I’ve recently set myself a goal of writing four personal essays in the next four weeks. I’m a quick...
Thirty-day cleanse
Oh hi! I haven’t been here for a while. I’ve been too busy putzing around on the Internet to write a blog post — for a while now.
That changes now. Last weekend I attended a writing workshop that was part nuts and bolts, part therapy, part motivational seminar. One of the (many) revelations I had over the course of the weekend is something that probably all my friends already...
May 2011
4 posts
Happy house anniversary
Eleven years ago today, Chris and I closed on this house. I still remember the exhiliration of being handed those keys. We walked over immediately and let ourselves into the empty, echoing rooms.
When I think back on it now, we kind of rushed into this relationship. We decided to move to Northampton in the summer of 1999; rented an apartment on Hawley Street in late October. A scant six months...
Things she did for love
When I was three, she put M&Ms on my spaghetti.
When I was five, she let me wear a tutu to my birthday party. There was much back and forth on this, but I got my way.
When I was eight, she let me paper my bedroom walls with wallpaper samples. It was hideous. I loved it.
When I was eleven, she bought me training bras — helping me adjust them, showing me how to put them on. I would not...
Things she did for love
When I was three, she put M&Ms on my spaghetti.
When I was five, she let me wear a tutu to my birthday party. There was much back and forth on this, but I got my way.
When I was eight, she let me paper my bedroom walls with wallpaper samples. It was hideous. I loved it.
When I was eleven, she bought me training bras — helping me adjust them, showing me how to put them on. I would not...
April 2011
4 posts
I forgot to mention. I spelled.
But Megan explains it all much better than I do.
Thanks a lot, Katy Perry
Stella: Mommy! Snuggle time!
[Stella announces a snuggle several times a day. If I can, I drop what I’m doing and we convene at the nearest snuggle station — usually my bed, since my desk is in my bedroom — and then follow the rules of snuggling. Today, though, Stella had another requirement.]
Stella: Kiss. Kiss first, Mommy.
[I kissed her on her forehead.]
Stella: On the...
Two things.
First, since it looks like my contributions to KitchenDaily.com have dwindled from weekly to bimonthly to never, I’m considering adding a recipe component here. Consider yourself warned. (Next up: artichokes!)
Second, I offer you a sampling of life with my children:
[From upstairs, an odd scuffling sound is followed by piercing shriek, followed by second odd scuffle, followed by second...
Welcome to the club, baby girl
Stella caught the bug. It was probably inevitable — it’s been going around in our house for some time. You know this bug: the one that renders her silent on the couch, curled up in one position until a limb loses circulation, unable to hear her parents calling her until they come up and remove the book from her hands.
I take a certain proprietary pleasure in this. Sometimes, that kid...
March 2011
1 post
Motherhood is glamorous
Stella climbed into bed with us at about 6:15 this morning. The sun was up, and she was in a chatty mood. She nestled in between me and Chris and started talking…
Stella: [cough] What is that? What is that stuff in my throat? I can’t cough it out. What do you call that?
Me: Ummm [yawn]…phlegm?
Stella: What is phlegm?
Me: It’s, uh, like snot.
Stella: What colors does it...
February 2011
3 posts
Ga-ga-goin' back to Target
I haven’t been in six months (except to get fake Uggs for the girls for Hanukkah — but I felt really, really bad about it).
Lady Gaga is apparently fixing all that.
How to Snugle
1. You have to fined somone to snugle with.
2. Get the scwooshiest bed.
3. Get as close as you posubly can.
Yous this power for good. You can never forget this.
By Stella Eve Shulman Templin
January 2011
1 post
Where have I failed?
Upon returning home from school today, the girls were arguing about something. I was only paying partial attention until I heard this:
Stella: I’m not a bad person. I’m open-minded.
Lila: “Open-minded” is just a nice way of saying gullible.
December 2010
5 posts
Damn you, Judy Blume
I have mentioned before, I think, Lila’s voracious reading appetite. She will read. And read. And read. I keep shuffling through the young adult shelves at the library, picking out the titles I remember loving, forcing them upon Lila. She, like myself at her age, loves that ole Judy Blume.
Did you know that Judy Blume kept writing books after some of us outgrew her target demographic? I...
Hairspray, cont'd
Lila began talking more about Tracy Turnblatt today in the car.
Me: Turnblatt?
Lila: Turnblatt.
Me: Huh, I guess she’s supposed to be Jewish.
Lila: Really?
Me: Well, it’s a Jewish name.
Lila: She doesn’t act Jewish.
[pause]
Lila: But her mom kind of does.
welcome to the funhouse: Do You Have It (Guts) →
organizingthesoup:
at aaron & brian’s holiday party last night, after talking with teddy about howaboutwe/writing/writers/etc for about 10 minutes, I turn to his friend who’s been listening politely the whole time:
me: So. Are…you a writer too?
him: No, I’m a doctor.
me: Oh, what’s your specialty?
him: I’m a…
All ratted up like a teenaged Jezebel
The other night Lila and Stella broke into sixties-style dancing in our kitchen. You know what I mean — swinging their arms up and down, shimmying their tiny little booties, shaking their heads side-to-side.
“They dance like this in Hairspray!” Lila shouted, grooving away. Yes — I let the girls watch Hairspray about a month ago. Perhaps somewhat against my better...
You are lucky cheris.
Stella’s birthday card to her daddy (Chris, aka Cheris, apparently):
Happy (hie hie hie) Breth (low low low) day cheris cheris cheris happy berth! Love Stella. p.s. You are lucky cheris.
November 2010
1 post
Thank-you notes
Lila is working on thank-you note text.
Thank you for coming
My thanking is true
And of course you are knowing
That I’m thanking you
***
I’d like to thank you
For you did come
I’m glad that you came
I’m sad that it’s done
***
To you I thank
I thank to you
For coming to my party
And to yours I will come, too
October 2010
5 posts
I'm not buying it.
In this edition of “I’m not buying it,” we must first go to Marie Claire magazine, where a female writer with significant body issues (yes, that describes many, many people, probably myself included, but anyway) wrote this lovely piece of backwash.
Since I’m not actually a regular (or even occasional) reader of Marie Claire, this was brought to my attention via Facebook,...
This child, I tell you.
Stella: Mama, I wanna tell you a story.
Me: Okay, go for it.
Stella: All right. Once upon a time, a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long….
Me: [Resisting crossing my eyes]
Stella: ….long, long, long, LONG time ago…
Me: Uh huh…
Stella: …in a land far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far,...
News items of interest
First, what the hell is a meth lab doing here in Mayberry? I mean really. There’s an upside, though. As Chris pointed out: “At least no one can accuse us of living in a bourgeois neighborhood.”
Second, I have mixed feelings about this story (h/t Megan Zinn!). On the one hand, I am against the criminalization of pot. On the other, I’m totally for the criminalization of...
September 2010
4 posts
Why I married him
Sitting at the table, eating dinner after a somewhat trying day (which I shall not go too deeply into, but hello, conjunctivitis), the kids began telling jokes. When Chris and I got married, one of the vows we took was to laugh at each other’s jokes, and damned if we don’t still do that every day. The girls took no such vow and do not always suffer our sense of humor gladly, but their...
Nerds
Stella got glasses yesterday. She looks totally adorable, and yet each time I look at her, my heart constricts a little: Her face will always look a little different, a little older.
Lila, who is actually jealous of Stella’s poor vision (she wants glasses too), said, “Stella, you look like a nerd.”
“No, she doesn’t,” I said quickly. “Calling someone a...
Today. Tomorrow.
Today is September 10. Which means tomorrow is September 11.
A blogger I read fairly regularly, Design Mom, highlighted this book in her blog, which happens to be one we own and love. It’s not really about 9/11 at all — it only mentions in passing that the Twin Towers used to be there, and now are not. It is really the story of the tightrope walker Philippe Petit, and the stunt he...
August 2010
7 posts
I'm not buying it.
The other day I started an unexpectedly controversial thread on Facebook when I mentioned that I miss the days of helmetless bike riding. I always, always wear my helmet, not only because I don’t want my children to consider not wearing their helmets, but because I have grown fond of my head. We’re close. That said, a little part of me dies every time I put on my ugly, styrofoam-y,...
I am totally going to try this.
I love ice cream. But I have no ice cream machine. Enter this recipe.
There will be a full report, of course.
Some updates.
(Because I know you were wondering.)
How’s my shampoo-less hair? Glad you asked. I have not shampooed my hair since March. That’s almost six months, folks. It’s curlier than ever, with far less frizz, and I swear to god it doesn’t look or smell dirty. (I do, after all, shower each day, and use lots of conditioner every time.) I get compliments from strangers now....
I'm not buying it.
Welcome to my new intermittent feature, “I’m not buying it.” It’s a look at things I’ve considered buying for a moment and then rejected because I’m too cheap.
Today’s installment: This dress from Boden. Oh, Boden. How you charm me with your British accent and your heathery, drizzly London-based catalog shoots. This dress in particular calls out to me....
Scents-less Cruelty
There is a word for this — it’s asnosmic — but no one knows it, and I feel silly using it. It’s easier just to conjure up that old Seinfeld episode, The Smelly Car, in which Elaine proclaims sarcastically, “Can I smell it? What am I, hard of smelling?”
For years I was unable to smell anything, and I do mean anything. I had chronic sinusitis, and even after a...
Today I'm thinking about
….this
…and this
…and trying not to think about this.
Dear Target...
Target, Target, Target. Where to begin?
First, I want to tell you this probably hurts me more than it hurts you. For more than ten years now, I have really loved you. I discovered you on a visit to Texas back in the late 1990s, when I was living in New York City. The clothes! At those prices! I was besotted. When we moved to Western Mass a few years later, I was overjoyed to see that big red...
July 2010
1 post
On Love, and Heartbreak, and Pets
A dear friend of mine lost her cat of 18 years last week. She wrote me asking, essentially, whether she will ever love again. I thought about what we’ve been experiencing here, these last six months, and I told her this.
***
I cried for a solid two months, I think, after we put Sully to sleep — every night I’d crawl into bed and just weep. It was truly awful. And then I...
June 2010
1 post
Ideas for a bed (by Stella)
Ideeas for a bed. By Stella.
1. Bed that has munkee bars.
2. Bed that is mad of pilos.
3. Bed edabel. [“Made of lollipops,” Stella explains.]
4. Bed for a hog.
May 2010
1 post
Ick. Oh, and ICK. Did I mention ICK!?
When I picked up Stella at school today, she opened her hand to show me a tiny baby tooth. “Stella!” I cooed. “You lost a tooth today, sweetie?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. ”It’s not mine.”
I stopped in my tracks. ”What do you mean it’s not yours?”
“It’s Emmet’s.” (A boy in her kindergarten...
April 2010
10 posts
Overheard
Lila: We had a substitute today.
Stella: Who was she?
Lila: I don’t remember her name.
Stella: What did she look like? Was she fat?
Lila: (pause) I wouldn’t call her fat…
Stella: Well, I mean, was she kind of like Mommy?
****
In other news, the cat seems to feel quite at home now.
What a cat isn't
What a cat isn’t is a dog. I miss Sullivan, our adorable naughty puppy, so sharply it still takes me by surprise. I haven’t written about her death because, frankly, it’s too hard. I start, I cry, I stop. Suffice to say: We’ve been grieving. And I knew if I tried to get another dog, we would be comparing that dog to Sullivan, probably unfairly.
But we need something furry...