I'm sitting here at the dining room table, and there are things to do (two bags of groceries to unpack, thank you notes to write, an overdue doctor's appointment to schedule, a 20-minute yoga video, a few emails, plus Babygirl is about to be on break from Zoom and she will want a snack and she will need to know what the PLAN is for the after-school hours...) but instead of tackling these items as I had intended, I'm kind of paralyzed. For one thing, it just started raining, unexpectedly, which is throwing a wrench in the aforementioned after-school planning (see : outdoor activities ... [READ MORE]
Small Moment
January 5, 2018 by Leave a Comment
The kids have this writing curriculum at their school in which every year begins with "small moments". As a writer I get this: the moment begets the scene, which begets the idea, which begets the plot and so on. (I love this about their school.) If the blog died a quiet death in 2017 it wasn't for lack of small moments. It was because those moments weren't mine. The year belonged to other people. Other people's battles. Other people's pain. Other people's triumphs. The false starts and the great, big, smiling, deep, breaths. I was a bystander, and a support system. I ... [READ MORE]
Please
December 21, 2017 by 1 Comment
To my readers, I present...a letter (this is a real letter, BTW. Real estate is EXACTLY this crazy-cakes in San Francisco). __________________ To: The Owners of our Future Home From: Us, the Hapless Desirers of Said Home Date: October 12, 2017 RE: Purchase Offer To Whom it Concerns: For the past eight years, we have been raising our son (9) and daughter (6) on the 15th floor of a high-rise just blocks from your condominium. They have grown up looking down at the buses, watching the commuters and tourists (and parrots!), marking the time by the Ferry Building clock. They ... [READ MORE]
Recipe Roundup No. 12: Monday Musing
March 20, 2017 by 1 Comment
The clouds rolled back in with a vengeance yesterday afternoon. The kids and I were caught unawares, having been at a gymnastics birthday party that worked everyone into a sweat, but we emerged from the ritual pizza-and-cake to find that our spring temperatures had dropped and our t-shirts weren't going to cut it. I have a good spot here on my living room couch on Mondays. Through the sliding door next to me, the deck looks bright and pretty despite a gray sky (and windows that need a cleaning if this rain EVER STOPS), the bridge soars above the choppy Bay waters, and through the rails of ... [READ MORE]
Recipe Roundup No. 10: Nostalgia, with a Side of Salmon
October 24, 2016 by 1 Comment
My husband and I established our evening routine of cooking together very early on, when we first moved in together back in 2001. We were barely out of college and interestingly, though we had already been together a long time, outside of our relationship we had very separate lives -- career-wise and socially -- so our time together on weeknights had a kind of self-conscious "coupled up" vibe: there was a little thrill in the otherwise mundane. Planning meals together, and then preparing them for ourselves and for company, cemented the grown-up status our shared lease seemed to have earned ... [READ MORE]
Stripped Down
July 14, 2016 by Leave a Comment
The long-timers know that back in the day I used to write a column for my girl Jess at Nest Studio called Stylin' Mamma, where I'd put together an outfit based on stuff going on in my fascinating, glamorous life as an inexpert mom-of-two-children under-ten/part-time philanthropy consultant. (I know. Don't be jealous.) I would sometimes link back to LotF and sometimes not; I generally thought of this blog and that blog as two separate pursuits. However, I recently decided that writing is writing, and I might as well start writing all in one spot. Also: I spend an (unjustifiably) ... [READ MORE]
Happy Moms Who Hate Clutter
March 8, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Every December (and yes, I know it's March...bear with me), I get a strange yearning to remodel my apartment completely. This is obviously very convenient timing for everyone, but especially for my husband, whose company policy dictates a furlough between Christmas and New Year, meaning that the days leading up to Christmas Eve are a mad dash to get things in line at work. Also to reupholster furniture, replace all the kitchen cupboard knobs, and build stuff at home. Have I mentioned that I love him? This year (meaning last year, I guess), I spontaneously decided that we needed to ... [READ MORE]
