GET HUCK DRESSED

a little bit of old-fashioned americana, all from schoola, to get both of us through the late summer / early autumn hump :) 

My philosophy on getting boys dressed is this: Two parts basic to one part flashy. 

For example.  One pair of good, slim-cut skinny jeans (often from the girl's section-- stores still aren't getting that boys need more than baggy pants anymore?), one part basic tee or long-sleeved thermal, one part flashy shirt worn on top that'll keep my kid warm while also adding that tiny element of "pretty flyyyy for a white guy."

Brandon's philosophy on getting boys dressed is this: ALL OF THE FUN THINGS, ALL OF THE TIME, ALL AT ONCE.

It's always a kick in the pants for me to see how one set of clothes can skew so differently depending on who is the one putting two and two together. Huck's favorite colors on Huck are "all of dem!" and Brandon's favorite colors on Huck are pink and purple and orange, and I'm over here trying to keep things at least mildly classic by stocking the blues and browns and wondering how did it happen that *I'm* the conservative one when it comes to getting Huck dressed?? I count myself a pretty lucky girl in that way, though. It's always more fun to be the brakes in an operation when the two crazies gunning the gas have such a fun sensibility about things. Especially when you're the one accustomed to being the speed demon, otherwise. 

As such, whenever I'm picking out clothes, I keep in the back of my mind that fully half of the time these clothes that I select will be used + abused by the male two thirds of the house, leading to chuckles + smiles from strangers in the parking lot at the Walmart when they see my kid bound out of the Jeep ready to take on the world like a clashing patterned superhero in all the colors of the rainbow on the days my boys are in charge of the morning routine. 

Similarly, it is important to document the times on those rare days when the items in questions are used responsibly, as Mom intended, to further the betterment of mankind as a whole.  :) As such, here we have Huck in his Schoola, styled by to me. He's a pretty handsome little turkey.

This year Huck is growing like a weed, it seems he wakes up a full inch taller than the day before nearly every single morning. It's miraculous and exciting and bittersweet. More and more pairs of pants are becoming high waters on him on the daily. It's a good time to outfit a kid in items from Schoola, a shop that sells gently loved items of kids + women's clothing, with every purchase helping to fund programs in schools across the country. Huck gets taller, I have somewhere to send his pieces that are outgrown but not outworn, more schools get money, Huck's closet gets replenished on the cheap with anything we could ever dream up along any inch of the basic-to-flashy spectrum. And if Huck only gets three wears out of a thing before it's already too small, so much the better! We send it back in a Schoola donation bag (request one here), pick out something new, and feel good knowing we've made it possible for one more student to enjoy a music or art class as part of their daily school curriculum. 

(You can read more about our new Idaho lifestyle and how we use Schoola this fall here!)

That's pretty cool.

And anyway. Congratulations to me on being prudent for once in my life!

The end.

This post was sponsored by Schoola. Ongoing collaborations like these make me feel happier than a clam in the sea with a strong wifi signal. 

GET ME DRESSED | THE IDAHO TUXEDO

Canadian Tuxedo? Texas Tuxedo. Apparently these terms are pretty interchangeable! It's a little disappointing, actually.

(Do you feel like you learn terribly useful things from reading this blog?)

Being the type of person I am who'd care about these kinds of things, I have to tell you: One of the best parts of this move has been all the different ways it's made me approach the same old things I do every single dimdamn day.

Such as for example! Getting dressed. 

The other day, while sporting this fancy tuxedo of vaguely North American heritage, I noticed I felt a little incognito if not entirely normal-looking considering my surroundings. I fit in rill good at the tack + feed store is what I'm saying. In fact the other day I picked up a handkerchief to wear to keep the dust + spiders out of my hair while poking around in the chicken coop and it was like, yep, this is what you'd do actually, and I'm doing it, and pass me the overalls and a pitchfork, I got me some muckin' to do.

Also legit, is what Idaho is doing for my hair.

Thus concludes this highly essential outfit post. Thank you for your time.

AND A BURGER THE SIZE OF MY FACE

huck waiting to be the first to see grandma + grandpa when they pull up the drive. he has no pants on. but at least he's wearing his mickey mouse slippers.

My parents came into town on Friday for the Labor Day weekend and got to witness up close + personal the cold sore of my life that had taken up residence on my lip from all this stress of us trying to find us Holbrooks a second car. 

Trying to find a second car when you are a Brandon is an adventure fraught with peril, and we should all extend unto him our deepest sympathies. Because I  am an emotional car shopper. I know what I want, and for whatever reason that does not include power windows, and you just can't reason me out of that one, okay, so don't even try.

You know, what I really want is a late-70s Chevy Blazer. Or a Ford Bronco. Or an International Scout! The beastlier the better. Craigslist was a lot of help. Brandon's eyes would twitch any time I'd get on my phone in case I was about to get on my Craigslist app and stir up a lot of trouble. 

I fell in love with a forest green 1968 Ford F150 in Spokane the other day, but Brandon wanted something that wasn't going to land his wife and son in a ditch on the side of the road, which is admirable, except he DOES know we've been riding around on a death bike in the rain + wildfire smoke all month, right? I mean, I could go bungee jumping in a rusted out old Land Cruiser with bad brakes and no functioning speedometer and STILL be safer than I am riding my bike across Sixth Street, but bygones. 

I guess I just want my Betsy the Flying Potato all over again and that's all there is to it. Oh, Betsy.

So we compromised on what we are now calling our Wrangler-With-Warranty Special. She reminds me of my old Isuzu Rodeo, Suzy Q. So we are also calling her that, too.

Suzy Q Two, the Wrangler, and Minnie the Marshmallow, our Prius. 

I know, it's super precious, isn't it?

Papers signed, next we celebrated with an Effie burger. As you do. Have you been to Effie's? It's the kind of thing where you'll happily land in Idaho all your life so long as Effie is there to make you a burger the size of your face and then get impatient at you when you aren't sure what kind of fries you want to go along with it. 

This burger has a larger hat size measurement than I do. Here. Here is a soda for reference. 

Bless you, Idaho, for understanding the necessity of the DDP. 

You'd think nothing this large could taste any good but actually, it is divine. Even Huck was into it, and Huck is into nothing these days. (Being four is an ornery endeavor. I get it.)

You know what is weird? Going into the bathroom at Effie's with Huck when the last time I was in that bathroom with Huck (at Brandon's graduation dinner), Huck wasn't born yet. And yet, there were still the same number of humans in there the last time I was there as there was this time I was there, except this time one of them was just . . . bigger.

And outside.

No, I mean, that's really weird, huh.

And anyway my mommy got me this antique marshmallow tin at the antique mall while she was here for an early birthday present, and this reminds me that I never shared with you all the last time they had visited us at our house, back when our house was in New York City, lo these many weeks ago. We did fun things and took dorky pictures, so now I am going to share all of THOSE with you, too.  CONTAIN YOURSELVES, PLEASE.

Hey remember when I lived here? Weird, right??

One of the fun things we did the last time my parents were in town is buy all the fruit for sale in Chinatown and hold ourselves a fancy tasting party. A lot of Googling went down to figure out how to open most of these suckers and which parts of the fruits we were actually meant to eat. 

And then we browsed some of the famous Americana art-turned-street-statues along Broadway between 34th and 42nd Street.

And now we get to have a vote on who did it best.

Eh?

Here, vote wisely.

Huck and I win, though. Right?

Thought so.

And thank you to my mother for this picture of me needlepointing on the subway. 

Sigh. And then we left Brooklyn . . . 

Stayed a night + jumped on beds in Queens . . . 

And then moved our butts on out to Idaho.

Where we stand now, pantsless.
Whelp, I'd say that about does it.
Come back again soon, Grandma + Grandpa! 

THE FARMHOUSE | A SHAKER STYLE KITCHEN

These days I find myself drawn to the kitchen more and more. It's my home base. My headquarters in our war on chaos and hobo spiders. :)

Every morning I rustle the boy from his sleep, pull on my slippers and robe, and make for my black and white checkered tile floors to start the day. Brew the coffee, pour the cereal, assemble the lunches. Our kitchen windows get all the best morning light, and the neighbor's chicken is usually out in the mornings pecking around for worms in our overgrown yard. She's a pretty little lady, and I have NO idea how she keeps getting in, but every morning I listen for her gurgling coo, and then I open the back door to tell her how pretty she looks and ask her how her day is going. Huck suspects she is checking to see if her friends Tiny Tim and Tiny Cuddles are here yet. Our coop isn't ready--give me another week or two--but I'm hoping to have our own hens in and clucking by October 1. The coop needs just a little sprucing. And a heat lamp too, probably. :)

After biking the boy to school, and lingering a minute outside the schoolyard fence while he plays, I bike back home and set up at the kitchen table, making out meal plans and grocery lists and answering emails as best I can before my A.D.D. gets the better of me and I am off researching rocking chairs for whoever knows why.

(I need one more rocking chair out back!! And then once I find it, it will snow.)  

I love the layout of this house! It's all connecting rooms and tiny spaces, with this giant working kitchen in the center--heavy on open space and very light on actual cabinet space. The layout reminds me of the historic homes I love to tour so much, so I decided we'd do her up all the way, and I'd embrace the life of a homebody without any Brooklyn or Manhattan adventures to distract me. 

One of the first things I did was install some shelving in the awkward space under our windows. Mixing bowls, serving pieces, our linens, the silverware. The shelves are not sturdy at all and they make my eyebrows go cross-looking when I notice them slumping.  

(That is a pineapple plant and it is hysterical.)

The second thing I did was install a row of pegs from the local hardware store along the area that I think is meant to be the dining area. I hang my watering cans for my Monday plant watering hullabaloos from it, I hang a few baskets filled with assorted odds and ends that would otherwise fill up a junk drawer, I hang my nice scissors that I don't want getting sticky from opening Otter Pops, and I hang my market baskets that I try to remember to take with me grocery shopping because the people at the Co-Op are NOT messing around about bringing your own bags. 

It is my tendency to hang everything but the kitchen sink on these suckers because I am a recovering clutterholic. This is the opposite of the point of a Shaker kitchen, but what can I say. I am a work in progress. 

(The pegs and table a few iterations ago.)

(And what it looks like now.)

I sort of love this spot the most at the moment. 

The kitchen doesn't feel completely finished. I walk in and pause every time, like something off but I can't quite nail it down. I'd like a second work table or kitchen island by the windows for working out pie crusts and letting bread dough rise, and homes still need to be found for some of my things that don't need to be out all of the time (I've done a fair amount of squiggling about with the location of this bench too, for example), but I like the way it's going. We're headed the right direction.

GUYS, IDAHO IS STILL BEAUTIFUL

Particularly at sunset. 

The Farmer's Market, also, is still bonkers.

In case you were wondering.

Even though Patty's no longer sells empanadas.

(Breakfast burritos? What-everrrrrrr.)

Anyway. Thanks for having us back, Moscow you old weirdo.

(Patty's you're on notice.)

(Mama needs her mole.)