Costco Buco

So easy, so good!

my year in objects (mostly).

twelve little things that made my year.  

1. chickadees in january. 

2. board butter in february.


3. a new-to-us table brought home in march. 

4. a cot for a couch in april.

5. lilacs in may.

6. a belated birth-story in june. 

7. blender lemonade in july. 

8. maine in august. 

9. plum torte in september.
 

10. rainy day reminders in october.  (and a brand-new site.)

11. a visit to portland in november.

12. a tiny getaway in december.

Wishing each of you a warm and hopeful finish to 2015. Endless thanks for returning to this space.

out and about: table on ten.

Last night, Faye’s snoring reached near comic levels. There were great blustering intakes of breath followed by high pitched whistles that sounded like a sound effect borrowed from a Disney cartoon and not something that would actually emerge from a human baby. She’s feverish this week for the first time in her little life and I’m finding myself somewhere between knowing that everything will be fine enough in a day or two and panicked, envisioning a full-on reenactment of Minnie-Mae and the great croup fiasco of Anne of Avonlea. 

There’s something bittersweet about nursing a sick baby in the midst of what was otherwise supposed to be a quiet week. The advantage is two parents home to do the nursing and plenty of undivided time for walking the apartment in circles willing her to take a blessed nap. The downside, of course, is a sickly baby and a whole list of ambitious, if quiet, goals that have been tucked into bed along with the feverish babe.

It’ll be an even quieter end to 2015 than we anticipated, but I’m grateful we squeezed in a tiny getaway before fever struck. Here, a few photos from our stay at Table on Ten in New York’s rural Delaware County. We’ve never taken advantage of the days between Christmas and New Years for a getaway of the true vacation variety, and even though our stay was short, the little respite between the excitement of the holidays and the lull before the new year felt just right. A new tradition, perhaps.

We stayed in one of the three rooms that Table on Ten lets through Airbnb. The entire place is an example of the triumph of simplicity and kindness. More gracious hosts could not be found and the understated rooms provided the exact backdrop of calm that we craved after Christmas. We gobbled wood-fired pizza and drank fresh coffee and drooled over brilliant eggs that we’ve already tried to recreate, twice. When we left, we took with us a hand-drawn map from owner, Inez, directing us to other local treasures. The only downside was the brevity of our stay.
Linen sheets, simple fixtures, and a queen bed for snuggling in on a rainy day. 

Coffee and mixed-berry handpies for breakfast in addition to the most delicious eggs in a skillet I’ve ever eaten. 
No-frills curtains and a view of the neighbors.

My guys.

Tables and chairs waiting for hungry patrons.

Winter Citrus and Root Vegetable Salad      

Because I wasn’t quite ready to leave it all, behind, here’s a little bit I took home with me. This is an approximation of a salad we loved at Table on Ten; an imperfect recreation of a truly perfect salad. It’s the right kind of salad for welcoming a New Year. A mixture of sweet and savory, bright and earthy, wholesome and indulgent. The original was made lovelier with the addition of very beautiful chioggia beets and yellow ones, too. I used what we had on hand and you should too—a combination of bright winter citrus, thinly sliced root vegetables, a smattering of endives and kale, and warm toasted nuts. 

Serves two.

1 large endive, sliced
3 leaves lacinato kale, massaged in cold water and chopped into small pieces
1/2 grapefruit, cut into supremes (aka, segments without skin or pith or any bitter bits)
1 clementine, cut into supremes
1 beet, uncooked and sliced as thinly as possible (carrots or parnsips or turnips or any combination of the above very much welcomed)
1 small shallot, thinly sliced
a handful of lightly roasted nuts (I used almonds and cashews because we had them. The original included hazelnuts which were lovely)

For the dressing:

1/3 parts champagne vinegar
2/3 parts olive oil
a squeeze of grapefruit juice
a pinch of sea salt
a pinch of sugar

Combine vegetables and nuts in a large bowl, toss with dressing and nuts and enjoy. Happy New Year!

Traprenovatie Limburg

Een rustieke, ietwat verouderde woning omtoveren tot een strak, schitterend plaatje, dat is de opdracht die dit koppel uit het mooie, Limburgse Rekem zichzelf hadden gesteld. Dit bereiken vereiste natuurlijk de nodige werkzaamheden aan vloeren, muren en andere interieurelementen, maar kon onmogelijk tot een stijlvol geheel worden gemaakt zonder ook de trap onder handen te nemen.

Meer info at gebroedersjanssen.be

Happy Holidays!

It’s almost the end of the year, and the holiday season is in full swing. As we reflect on the past year, we know that we have a lot to be grateful for. […]

The post Happy Holidays! appeared first on City Floor Supply Blog.

make-believe: ’twas the night before…

As a child on Christmas Eve, I’d lie awake, in keeping with the cliché, waiting to see if I’d catch a glimpse of Santa Claus and his reindeer dashing across the night sky. I’d leave my electric window candle burning and pull my covers up to my chin. I’d eventually will myself to shut my eyes and would fall asleep to the sound of my parents making their best effort to walk on the stairs that creaked least loudly.

As a parent, I’m learning, after the festive merry making with the whole family, there’s the furtive merry making after the lights go out: The tying up of the last packages and tucking of treats into stockings. 

Here, a make-believe Christmas Eve for a merry-making mama:

+ A kerchief for Ma.

+ Cozy pajama pants and matching shirt

+ My very favorite Christmas album.

+ Fleece-lined slippers.

+ Fancy hot chocolate mugs. 

+ A plate with cookies enough for a jolly old elf or two. 

+ Beeswax tapers for a little light.

+ Clementines for late-night snacking.

Other things: 
Sugar plums, a brief explanation.

solstice poem.

i

A tree hulks in the living-
room, prickly monster, our hostage
from the wilderness, prelude
to light in this dark space of the year
which turns again toward the sun
today, or at least we hope so.

Outside, a dead tree
swarming with blue and yellow
birds; inside, a living one
that shimmers with hollow silver
planets and wafer faces,
salt and flour, with pearl
teeth, tin angels, a knitted bear.

This is our altar.

– An excerpt from Solstice Poem by Margaret Atwood, Selected Poems II: 1976 – 1986

Other cozy things:
Candles.
Mulled wine.

gift wrapping alternatives.

Christmas is on Friday. And I have a hunch that some of you might be in the midst of wrapping presents. Or, at least, starting to gather together the gifts that you’ve slipped into various sock drawers and cabinets and onto high closet shelves for safe- and secret-keeping. If you’re like me, you rely on a tried and true formula for gift wrapping. You know it well: kraft paper + festive and vaguely elfin woodland element + twine + luggage tag. As with many things, I blame my infatuation entirely on The Sound of Music—brown paper packages tied up with string, and all that jazz.

It’s a sweet formula because a little bit of woodland flair can make even an old pair of socks look charming without much effort. And in addition to offering a neutral-colored blank slate, as far as paper products go, a recycled roll of kraft paper is a relatively gentle environmental choice.

But even more environmentally friendly than heading to your local hardware store in search of kraft paper, is gathering materials closer to home. This year, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, I kept a small tote bag hanging in the closet and have put into all manner of paper and packaging that’s come into my house and that might be useful for wrapping gifts.

In case you’re needing inspiration, here are a few of my favorite wrapping supplies to save you from the cartoon Santas and goofy reindeer and to encourage a Christmas trash pile that’s a little smaller and a little gentler on the planet.

Paper

Paper’s perhaps the easiest material to gather second-hand from the recycle bin. I’ve been saving pretty sheets of newsprint and packing paper and grocery bags since Thanksgiving. When embracing the once-used approach, if you don’t worry about crumpled sheets or wrinkled corners, the happier you’ll be. (And I promise everyone will be too distracted by your spritely sprig of juniper to notice the wrinkles.)

Newspaper: You can wrap a present with any kind of newspaper page, but I like to save pages with pretty pictures, interesting graphics, or seasonable headlines. It’s admittedly a little nicer to wrap a present in a newspaper page with a photograph of blue sky than one portending environmental doom or reporting bloodshed. Because the ink rubs off of newsprint, use it for presents that are already boxed—nobody wants an ink-covered hand-towel, for instance. For smaller gifts, magazine pages work too, and their ink is less likely to rub off.

Grocery bags: We do our best to always bring our own basket or tote to the grocery store, but on the occasion that a paper bag does make its way into our apartment, I know it can be cut open and put to work as well as any roll of kraft paper. (Note: it’s helpful to use slightly heavier duty tape—like packing tape—when wrapping with thicker kraft paper.)

Maps: If you have an old map hanging around, it could make for an artistic bit of wrapping paper. Depending on the thickness of the map, you might need to use heavy-duty tape here, too.

Packing paper: I receive a fair amount of work-related packages and I’ve been saving the best bits from inside of them to repurpose for my own gifting needs: even if it’s been wrinkled in the mail, thick black paper makes a nice statement and Greenwrap Protective Paper has thankfully been making its way into packages lately instead of bubblewrap. I think it makes an artful gift wrap all by itself.

Cloth

If used over and over again, cloth is perhaps the most environmentally friendly gift wrapping choice. In the form of drawstring bags, squares of cut up fabric for Furoshiki-style wrapping, or simple totes, you can put the same small collection to work year after year. 
Drawstring Bags: I’ve mentioned before that I keep a stash of small cloth bags on hand for repurposing. They’re the perfect thing for wrapping tiny presents and can be used over and over without showing much sign of wear.

Furoshiki and Bento Wraps: The Japanese custom of wrapping gifts in square cloth is centuries old and as useful today as ever. I have a few squares of thin muslin that I keep on hand for wrapping up presents for James and Faye. (Unless the fabric is part of the gift itself—a bandana or a scarf, or instance—I try to use cloth for gifts for family members so that I’ll be able to save the fabric for use on another occasion after the presents have been unwrapped.

Canvas totes: I can’t remember the last time I bought a paper gift bag, but I do like to use plain canvas or muslin totes for wrangling harder-to-wrap items. If you’re looking for a plain tote, Muji sells them very affordably (and they’re sturdy enough to put to use at home—I use several of these bags to wrangle other bags in the closet). 

Finishing Touches:

At the risk of acting like the sales clerk in my very favorite scene of a favorite Christmas movie (“This is so much more than a bag…”) it’s nice to add a little something special to a plain brown paper package wrapped up in string.

Tags: I love the look of  tiny luggage tags, but a classic single-hole punch is a useful thing to have and can turn just about any kind of paper into a tag with just one punch.

String: I like to use plain hemp string or cotton twine to wrap my packages. If I keep the lengths long enough, I find I can reuse them over and over again, but if they get scooped up before I can gather them, the untreated string is recyclable and biodegradable. But there’s also a practical purpose: traditional wrapping paper is thin and creases easily making it great for wrapping boxes neatly. Using slightly more quirky materials can mean a package that needs a little more help staying wrapped. String helps!

Greenery: A snip of just about any kind of greenery will do for adding a wintry flourish, but I like to choose delicate greens with interesting pops of color when I can. A cinnamon stick or a glued-on bit of star anise make for a sweetly spiced gift. A bit of cedar berries or juniper adds a bit of understated color. Bonus points for tiny pinecones.

Other things:

A brief and fascinating history of wrapping paper.
A helpful diagram of Furoshiki techniques from the Japanese Ministry of the Environment.
Beautiful Furoshiki-style wrappings: here, here, and here.

Seven Days ’til Christmas!

And a super sweet Christmas music recommendation

Don’t Miss These 2015 Small Business Deductions

Section 179 gives contractors big tax breaks for making significant purchases, like heavy equipment and vehicles intended for business use. It allows you to invest in your business instead of paying extra taxes to Uncle […]

The post Don’t Miss These 2015 Small Business Deductions appeared first on City Floor Supply Blog.

free gifts, fifty ways.

The best things in life are free. So instead of getting caught up in finding the perfect something to give during the holidays, I think it’s kind of nice—if slightly offbeat—to think of the resources that we have right under our noses: the kindnesses and favors and generosities-of-spirit that, in all honesty, might mean about a million times more than a new pair of socks or earrings (nice though socks and earrings might be).

Giving a free gift doesn’t have to be an exercise in Scroogey asceticism. Carefully planned, thoughtfully described, and tenderly given—maybe even with a bow on top—a free gift might be an offer of help, a gesture of kindness, a promise for accompaniment somewhere special (or hard).

My top fifty ideas for friends and family, below. Specifics, unimportant. Mix and match, etc.

Give a foot rub to your son.

Accompany a sister on a long walk.

Read aloud a favorite book to your wife.

Make a playlist for your husband.

Give a hand massage to your sister.

Write a love note to your brother. 

Share a secret recipe with your mother-in-law.

Volunteer to pet sit for your neighbor.

Reorganize the coat closet for your wife.

Label the linen closet shelves for your family.

Donate a stack of books for your grandpa.

Reindex your mom’s digital photo collection, according to her preferences.

Turn down the covers for your wife.

De-pill every sweater in your daughter’s drawer.

Plan a garden with your spouse.

Get your kid’s passport paperwork in order.

Scrub out your husband’s garden pots.

Configure your dad’s new hard drive.

Clean your mom’s oven.

Shovel the neighbors’ walk.

Teach your babysitter how to knit.

Babysit your friends’ kids.

Teach a friend to play the piano.

Offer a head massage to your husband.

Prune your mom’s apple tree.

Hang a shelf for your grandson.

Scrub the bathtub, without being asked.

Loan a friend your car.

Teach a niece to skip rocks.

Do your aunt’s grocery shopping. 

Plan a week of meals for your sister.

Lend your power drill to your daughter.

Update the address book.

Draft a running plan for a newbie runner.

Give your son a sewing lesson.

Teach your brother how to pickle.

Share your sourdough secrets with your uncle.

Take a friend to your favorite foraging spot.

Record family stories.

Vacuum out your father-in-law’s car.

Help your daughter master the harmonica.

Pass along a cutting from your houseplant.

Tutor your co-worker in a foreign language.

Teach your friend how to make a button hole.

Show your grandson how to darn socks.

Sing an aria for your grandma.

Tune your brother’s guitar.

Pass down a cookie recipe to your nephew.

Teach a cousin a card trick.

Show your granddaughter how to chop wood.

Need more ideas?

Holiday Gifts, Two Ways
Holiday Gifts for Kids, Two Ways
Simple Gifts, Two Ways

Any to add? To the comments!

dried orange ornaments.

First a quick note to say message(s) received and rest assured: We have no intention of lighting our apartment on fire in the name of holiday cheer. In a prudent twist on my original plan to create a holiday candle tradition, I’ve decided it’d be a fun and wise plan to light candles on the first night the fresh tree comes inside, and to follow the lighting with rolling candles that we’d use to decorate the tree for the rest of the season, and to light the following year. See how that cycle works? Breathing easier?

But I also wanted to update you on the ornament situation chez nous. In search of a bit of color, I took 5 minutes to slice oranges and pop them into an oven set to a very low temperature. Now our tree is looking sufficiently cheery and sufficiently old-timey and sufficiently earth-friendly to make my heart sing.I’m a committed low-impact DIY-er, meaning that I like to make things myself that have a pleasant impact on a space, but low-impact on me in terms of time, and expense, and levels of difficulty. Dried fruit ornaments fit the bill.

I first wrote about making a dried fruit garland in this post, originally published a couple of years ago. The advantage of these simple orange ornaments is that the sun comes streaming through them in a way that gets a little lost with a more abundantly strung garland.They’re also terribly easy to make. If I hadn’t been taking photos to share with you, the entire affair would have taken mere minutes (not counting drying time). I used a tiny screwdriver to pierce holes near the top of each dried orange slice.
I used cotton twine to string my orange ornaments, but you can use whatever ribbon, yarn, or wire you’d like. 

What you need:

Oranges (Any kind’ll do. I used two naval oranges I found lingering in the fridge drawer.)
Sharp knife
Cookie sheet
Drying rack
Small screwdriver (or similarly poke-y instrument for making a hole in the dried fruit)
Twine

+ Begin by slicing your oranges into 1/3-inch rounds. (Be careful to cut the slices as evenly as possible. Thinner sections will dry more quickly and could burn or curl in a warm oven before the thicker sections have a chance to dry.) (Wash well first if you plan to include them in mulling spices or other edible treats).

+ Place a drying rack on top of a cookie sheet and arrange orange slices on top of the rack. (If you don’t have a drying rack, you can place the slices directly onto the cookie sheet, but in that case, you’ll need to flip the slices every 1/2 hour or so.)

+ Place orange slices in a warm oven set to the lowest possible temperature. (That’s about 200 degrees F for me, but if you can go lower, do). Bake oranges for 2-4 hours until dried. I like to err on the shorter side of total time spent in the oven, and allow my oranges to finish drying completely on the tree. 

+ Pierce a small hole near the top of your orange (below the rind) and string with twine, ribbon, or wire as you prefer.Dried oranges make a sweet ornament to a simple Christmas tree, but they’d also make a nice addition to a pouch of mulling spices, or a simple gift wrap. And the best part? If properly dried, the orange ornaments will last and last. But once they become too fusty to keep, or if you don’t have the place to store them, or if the theme for your tree is more white and gold than, say, orange and honey, then into the compost they go, with a nary a landfill filled.

More wintry posts, this way.

embracing winter with tradlands.

This post is sponsored by Tradlands, a Made-in-America shirt company making some of the very best button-ups for women.

Write a blog for long enough and it’s admittedly a little hard not to sound like a broken record. Sometimes I imagine longtime readers yawning: “Here she goes again: Gearing up for winter.” “Any day now she’ll announce an ecstatic experience involving hot chocolate and a pair of cozy socks.” “Girl’s got a whole thing going on with hot baths and salt soaks.”
It’s true. Every year, around the time of the winter solstice, I launch a full-on personal campaign against the winter doldrums. There’s usually hot chocolate involved. And warm baths. I love a good pot or ten of forced bulbs. I usually write about them in this space. Heck, I usually write about them in other places. I’m into it.

So, here’s an annual post that’s pro-winter and anti-winter-blues. And in celebration of the very coziest shirts in my closet, this year, I’m partnering with Tradlands to bring you a list of my favorite tricks for actually enjoying the season (psst: there’s a very special discount at the end of this post). 

+ Get warm. I’m a big proponent of the idea that there’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. And of course I’m a believer in flannel. It doesn’t get much cozier. No surprise, Tradlands makes some of the best women’s flannels out there. Currently available in four different styles—the original Arapahoe Red (featured here), the Arapahoe Snowflake, the Boulder Frost, and the Boulder Carmine—Tradlands flannel shirts are so cozy you won’t want to wear anything else. I have two of these shirts and like everything else made by Tradlands, they’re incredibly well-made, fit beautifully, and they’re cute to boot. Take my word for it, but you can also invest worry-free: Tradlands makes online shopping super easy with free domestic shipping ($5 to Canada and $10-$15 International) and free returns and exchanges. 

+ Get moving. My crazy sisters do a weirdo Christmas Eve jog. I never join them. But this year, I’m going to give it a whirl. We’re all going to be in different places, but I’m hoping to do a simultaneous sisters’ run anyway. If I make it around the block, I’m declaring success. With any luck I’ll make it a habit that lasts into the new year. Baby steps.

+ Go someplace cozy. In New York City, cozy is often synonymous with crowded, but there are lots of places in the city that are actually more fun visited on a cold and dreary day than a warm one. So if you’re not someplace with easy access to a well-stocked wood pile, head to a restaurant or bar with a fireplace instead; choose the dark, basement restaurant for date-night instead of the rooftop; find a place serving mugs of mulled wine and beeline thataway.

+ Tackle a new project. I’ve just started knitting a certain someone in my family a toddler-sized scarf for Christmas. I can’t do much more than make a very basic rectangle, but I’m finding the offline project to be so rewarding. (Not to mention the finished product is gonna be cute.) Choosing the wintertime to embrace mildly challenging projects that exist outside of the realm of the internet helps me to fight what I call Netflix malaise. Maybe knitting is not your thing. Chop wood? Maybe chopping wood is not your speed? Reorganize your dresser drawers? Just about anything’s preferable to doing nothing and choosing a project with a clear beginning and end is key.

+ Embrace the outdoors. I think the stark difference in the amount of time that I spend indoors in the wintertime has more to do with a lack of light outside than a lack of warmth. But when I do muster the courage to bundle up and head outside—even for an after-dark walk—I never, ever regret it. 

+ Bring the outside in. Even when it feels like everything is bleak and gray for months on end, it’s nice to embrace the bits of outdoorsy beauty that exist in the wintertime. A carefully pruned branch of rosehips, a piney bough, or a cluster of winterberries can do as much work to make the indoors feel festive and bright as a posey of daffodils or wildflowers in the spring and summer. + Break out of your routine. Winter is the time of year for getting cozy, but that shouldn’t mean you also get bored. Identify an element of your day-to-day life that feels boring and see if there’s a simple change that you can make to reenergize it. For me, that’s dinner. Solution? Get a new cookbook; email friends asking for favorite weeknight dinner suggestions; do a search for a new food blog and work your way through the archives. Instant reset.

+ Invite friends over. Grumpy downstairs neighbors aside, there’s no reason that we shouldn’t invite friends over for cozy evenings all winter long (and long past the holiday season).While I can’t quite muster her outrage, this piece got me laughing and wanting to focus on inviting friends over to our place even more often (keg not required).
What about you guys? Gimme your best!

And in case you’re needing something cozy to kick off the season or give to a friend in need: Tradlands is offering Reading My Tea Leaves readers 25% off their entire collection through December 25, 2015 with the code giftwell. 

This post was sponsored by Tradlands. Thanks so much for supporting the brands that support Reading My Tea Leaves. 

A Downton Abbey Christmas Carol

A little Downton, a smidge of Selfridges and a dash of AbFab

simple matters 06: rachael ringenberg

Rachael Ringenberg | Erstwhile Dear

The first time I stumbled upon Rachael’s blog, Erstwhile Dear, I knew I’d found a place to return to. As mother to two with a third little girl on the way (this month!), Rachael writes with particular clarity (and good humor) on parenting. Since becoming a parent myself, I’ve been particularly intrigued by her ability to create a welcoming and imaginative space for her children in a small Boston apartment. Rachael recently answered my questions about raising a family in a small space, tweaking a rental to meet her family’s needs, and fostering creative spaces for children.

Erin: You’re getting ready to welcome a third child into a small Boston apartment at the tippy-top of an old Brownstone. While the apartment isn’t diminutive in the tiny house sense, at 900 square feet, it’s still quite modestly sized and it’s situated in a quirky attic space. Are there challenges in raising a family in a small apartment that wasn’t necessarily set up for maximum space efficiency?

Rachael: Well, if anything has felt like a challenge, once I compare notes with other mothers, it turns out not to be. I’ve learned that the other side usually has challenges that haven’t occurred to me. Learning to crawl in a small space also means no worrying about that staircase, or an unwatched room. Sharing a bedroom with the baby means the shortest walk from bed-to-crib. Older kids sharing a room means less parental time soothing them to sleep. But I do have what I mentally refer to as “yard guilt.” The girls don’t have time outside of my sight in the outdoors. When we go out, we go out together. So they don’t have unstructured time totally by themselves, puttering around in nature. That was an important part of my alone time as a kid—though more around the ages of 8-12 than the young ages my girls are.

Though Joe doesn’t work as an architect, he trained to be one, and he has given me the gift of evaluating the productivity of a space. Though our space is small, I think there are elements of the layout that are enormously helpful. For example, the fact that the girls can sit in the kitchen with me while I bake. And we have two rooms you can sit in without being within sight of each other, so if Joe and I are both trying to get work done, we can sit separately and get to it. Having lots of windows and full sun is a huge gift.  

A disadvantage that I worry over sometimes: the tidying up at the end of the day. I’m not sure it’s fair to ask your child to put everything away every single day. If we had a basement or a “play room” I could let them get it messy and keep it that way for a week, and then clean it up. Right now the girls are young and they play better in a tidy space. But I know there’s an age of imaginative games coming later on that involves more convoluted staging and design.
Erin: You’re renters, but are there tweaks or modifications that you’ve been able to make in your space that help keep it a comfortable space for a growing family? Are there different changes or solutions that you’d make if you owned your space?

Rachael: Modifying our closets as needed has probably been the biggest thing. I know, I can write the plural: “closets!” Because it is an old attic, our home has many closets, and that’s really a rarity in city apartments. We needed to turn one into a pantry, and we’ve changed the design of Lux’s a couple times to put clothes either out of reach or within her reach, depending on the age.

I think our lease probably says something about not hanging art up, but we have never worried about that, just patched up before we moved out. And the art supply pinboard wall is certainly a large modification. We would love to not have carpet. Sweeping a wood floor is so much more satisfying! But then I fear we’d probably be much louder for our downstairs neighbors? So I can’t complain.
Erin: One of the most laudable things about your home is the spaces that you’ve managed to carve out for your girls. They’re whimsical and set up to foster creativity, but they don’t also appear to be chaotic or overwhelming. How do you strike that balance? What does your ideal space for kids look like?

Rachael: Sorting, frowning at the results, leaving them for a bit, and then sorting again! Throwing things away and never looking back. I treat it a little like a science lab. I will move things around and watch to see if the girls respond differently. I’m always curious to see how they play in their room differently after I’ve done a big organizing clean. My ideal kids space is objects set up in a suggestive and accessible manner. Something along the lines of a classic Montessori setup: low, open, containable, encouraging one project at a time.

This has a little bit to do with my style of parenting—I don’t like to suggest activities to them. I want them to meander around and find something for themselves. It’s extremely satisfying to me to have both girls wake up in the morning and immediately settle in with books, or drawing at their art table, or building Magnatile towers on the floor.

Here’s a good example of a trouble spot for me: the dress-up bin. A dress-up bin should be full of objects that can take their ideas in any direction, right? So a frilly dress, a tutu, a nurse’s uniform, some masks, leather cowboy breeches, farmers’ hats, magical headbands, butterfly wings…There is no wrong object for this box. However, if the box is more than 60% full, they won’t dig through it or even notice what’s inside of it. They keep it shut because it’s overwhelming when they open it. So I have a paper grocery bag of “overflow dress-up stuff” stored out of sight in my closet. It’s beautiful stuff, I still want to own it, but it’s been rotated out for now.

Art supplies is an area that I make room in my monthly budget to afford. I don’t like run-down, ratty art supplies for kids. When someone hands them a basket of crayons bits that have nearly turned grey from rubbing off on each other, the kids pick up on the lack of interest being projected by the adult. It took us awhile to get to a good spot with this stuff. For months, every time Lux wanted to paint, I had to dig around to find some clean paper for her to use.

Finally I went through a list written up by the Eric Carle Museum of favorite supplies and ordered many of them, including 1000 sheets of good white, and black paper. Now that we have that base, I can just occasionally pop into an art supply store and supplement what we have. But even there—if I go in with the girls and ask for colored pencils, they’ll say “Oh the nice ones are over there. But the Crayola ones are down this aisle.” If you go get the nice ones, they will last longer, are colored more vibrantly, and need to be sharpened less.

Erin: While you’ve managed to create a serene space, it’s clear from your colorful and art-filled home you and Joe are also collectors of sorts. Do you keep anything in storage? How do you decide what to keep and what to give away? What about your two tiny magpies?

Rachael: I must admit right now we have a few pieces of furniture stored in the basement of our building. Not enough to warrant a storage space, but I feel lucky that because the owner allows their presence, they can stay in our lives for a future date.

Joe and I both feel the tug of great art, whether it’s a fine print or a perfectly executed luggage tag. We frequently change the art that’s been hung up, or will have half-asleep midnight confessions of “I don’t like that anymore.” Then we put it under the bed. Every spring, it seems, we pull it all out and line it up and see if we still love it.

We have fantasies of owning the perfect vintage flat file. I wouldn’t mind keeping one hundred pieces in accessible storage if it meant we could store them safely and rotate them in now and then. I love white walls too, and will equally defend “my favorite white wall” to Joe instead of putting more art up.

Much of our college romance was built on bits of paper and notes to each other. We have a full file devoted to stationary in one of our file cabinets. So you could say we are both certified paper-people. Perhaps inevitably, Lux is too, already. She has two cigar boxes full of cards, labels, things cut out of packaging (like the fluffy dog from Cottonelle toilet paper), bookmarks, treasured candy wrappers. She goes through the boxes frequently and recites why each thing was important to her or gifts/loans pieces to Joan to play with for several hours. She’s never seen our collections, but I’m sure we’ve encouraged the trait in her somehow!

Erin: Do you ever find yourselves overwhelmed with an influx of kid-related stuff? What’s your strategy there?

Rachael: Giving away gifts that were given to your child can be really hard for parents. People love to buy stuffed animals for children, for example. The thank-you narrative Marie Kondo encourages is brilliant. Thanking a stuffed animal for allowing that friend or relative to feel connected to your child, and then throwing it away after your child’s interest has waned. Friend/relative doesn’t need to know that your child returned to their two favorite stuffed animals a week after the gift arrived. Goodwill and Salvation Army won’t accept stuffed animals because of all the germs they carry, and you’ll just have to throw it away. That’s ok.

My deepest true knowledge with kids stuff is the rule of “other people’s toys” that Karen Maezen Miller describes in her book Momma Zen: “You like them precisely because they are not yours.” Every parent has watched their child attach with true enthusiasm to an object outside of their home. This feeling and watching your child fall in love with an object can quickly translate into I have to get that for her, THIS is the toy we’ve been waiting for.

It’s so important to settle your mind and remember they loved it in that moment and it has nothing to do with how they will feel, or act, if you own that object.
Erin: As anyone who follows along on your Instagram account can attest, you spend a fair amount of time exploring the city with your kids. Do you see a relationship between this kind of daily adventuring and life in a small space?

Rachael: For sure. For one thing, city playgrounds have an abundance of those movable toys that you feel you must get when your child finally starts moving and develops a singular focus on mobility. But when you realize the playground has all of them (because no one wants them in their apartment) you count on that designated hour or two of focused activity.  

It’s also about personal satisfaction for me. I really enjoy visiting new spots in my city, and that’s something I can do as a stay-at-home mom. It makes me feel empowered and piques my curiosity, two things can become a little deadened if you are home for a full day with your children. Every time I think about something like my aforementioned “yard guilt” I remember the reason we live here, now, is because of all these great things I can take the girls to without a car or much of a plan. That’s why the small apartment living feels like such a good fit for us right now.

I see it as an advantage that the smaller space pushes us out. That said, I know this January and February we’ll be in a deep winter babymoon, in the sense that I will really not want to go out with the baby. It will certainly be a stage where the older girls’ lifestyle will change for a few months—more movies, more indoor activities, more boredom, I imagine. There will be days in which we will feel moored in grim, ship-like tight quarters. They will probably look forward to their time with my husband or our weekly sitter as great adventures. That’s just the way it is.

+ To hear more from Rachael, head to her blog Erstwhile Dear.
+ To keep abreast of her daily adventures follow @girlpolish on Instagram.

The Simple Matters Series is inspired in part by curiosity piqued while writing my book of the same title. I wanted to know what simple matters were for other folks. And why simplicity mattered to them in the first place. My own story comes out on January 12, 2016. It’s available for pre-order right this way.

Photos of Rachael’s apartment by Emily Billings for Apartment Therapy. Photo of the girls by the pond and Lux by the batter both by Rachael. Photo of the whole family by Anna Winchell.