my childhood plates! x0x

March 25, 2025 in family, holiday

(i LOVE these fun dishes… even the box is adorable!)

i am just beside myself today because my rainbow heller plates and cups and bowls arrived. i grew up in the 70’s with these guys - we had large yellow plates, small orange plates and both yellow and orange cups and bowls. i was a pretty simple eater (i still have the palette of a five year old) so my mom would cut up veggies and fruit and cheese and meat and i would make “faces” out of everything on the orange plates before i ate it. i have big memories of cheerios or mint chip ice cream in the bowls. and i loved laying my fingers against the curved cup handles when drinking my milk. at some point after we got older, my mom replaced the plastic set with ceramic plates (still yellow!) but i always thought the heller ones were more fun. and now i have my own collection just in time for outdoor dinners on the deck. how many of you grew up with these too? x0x

spring break of a lifetime... one YEAR later! x0x

March 11, 2025 in family, travel

(sunset on the beach with TT at iberostar last year)

last night we picked up my darling boy from the oakland airport. he survived (and reveled in) FIVE nights of mardi gras in new orleans, culminating in an all night “tequila sunrise” that rang in fat tuesday. now he is in his bed and i think he might remain there for the remainder of his spring break.

happy, happy mother's day! x0x0x

May 12, 2024 in family, hank, holiday

(back in days when all of my loves would end up in the same bed by morning…)

i LOVE being a mama… especially when my kids are asleep! they look like little angels (even now that they are teenagers and hank is technically middle aged.) their rhythmic, peaceful breathing (hank’s sounds more like a train) is really soothing and makes me feel like everthing is right in the world. i do not have a consistent meditation practice, but when i do it, i always crawl back in bed with my sweeties and lay one hand on someone’s chest so i can feel it going up and down. these days that sweetie is usually hank because my other babies sometimes tell me they need “space” and sometimes they even lock their doors! luckily hank never needs space. when they wake up we never know what will happen. sometimes they are delightful and sometimes they are less so. even when they are less so, my love for them feels so BIG it’s almost painful. i am so GRATEFUL to be the mother of these lovey darlings. loads of LOVE to all of the mothers and those who mother. x0x0x0x

REPOST: the order of a seder

April 23, 2024 in family, holiday

* this is the last seder i will be hosting in our boulder house… i have so many wonderful memories of passover celebrations around this table and i am so grateful for all of the lovely friends who shared in them! HAPPY, HAPPY PASSOVER! x0x0x

seder means “order.” there is an order to every aspect of the passover celebration from the way the seder plate is prepared to which course is served first and second and third to what prayer is said, what song is sung, what question is asked and when. even though i am not jewish, i have been hosting passover dinners for nearly twenty years. inevitably i mix up at least one aspect of the order. sometimes i even schedule the seder for the wrong evening - the jewish calendar is confusing and i am not always sure if “begins at sundown” means the dinner should take place that night or the next. i give myself a pass on this as a shiksa mama raising jewish children. i have enough trouble with simple time telling (my mom thinks that’s because i had the chicken pox the week i was meant to learn it in first grade) and adjusting to different time zones and daylight savings.

my guest house cottage was featured in a HOUZZ article! x0x

April 16, 2024 in family, hank, living room, residential interior

(the sun porch of the cottage)

i am so excited that my pine street guest house project has been featured in an article on houzz by becky harris. this charming cottage was redesigned by architect lisa laursen of lisa laursen design and photographed by heather knierim of HBK photography… hank, of course, served as the primary model. it was so much fun to work with my superstar clients, jess and zach zeldner, after having collaborated with them on their primary residence a few years prior… (that project ended up on the cover of 5280Home and was also really fun and rewarding!) MANY THANKS to all involved and especially to becky harris of houzz! x0x0x

HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY my darling lucy! x0x0x

April 11, 2024 in family, holiday

i am flabbergasted to share that my dearest, darling baby girl is FOURTEEN years old today. i honestly can’t believe it. maybe because she is my youngest, i never anticipated that she would actually grow up. but in her powerful, spicy, hilarious, cheeky way she has marched ahead and become a full-on teenager, a YOUNG WOMAN even (i can’t say “lady” - she burps and swears like a sailor!) this last year has been a doozy with loads of changes and milestones both for lucy and for our whole family: her bat mitzvah, theo preparing to leave home for college, ALL of us planning a move to california this summer, lucy’s grammy worthy lashes, theo’s mustache, the sale of both of our boulder homes, the purchase of our new berkeley house and lu preparing to attend my old high school… JUICE THE JACKETS! i have already pulled out my old cheer uniform for her - maybe she will wear it for halloween?

we're MOVING back to cali! x0x0x

April 02, 2024 in family

our family has made the decision to move to berkeley, california (my home town) this summer. we are feeling EVERYTHING: excitement, sadness, fear, hope and loads of gratitude both for the amazing friends and experiences we’ve had in boulder and for the opportunity to return to california and all the places and people we love there. things have been pretty hectic with the selling and purchasing of homes, planning and packing and paring down and trying to squeeze in extra time with special friends. we also have two pending graduations: theo from boulder high school and lucy from casey middle. but i wanted to officially share the news… AND let you know that as part of the paring down i am selling off the following items:

REPOST: easter brunch

March 26, 2024 in family, holiday, recipe

my whole life there have been two essential easter recipes served at our brunch: my mother’s mushroom crust quiche and her easter buns. they are both a little trashy… the quiche has smashed up saltines in the crust and the buns are made with the dough that comes in a can you bang on the counter to pop open. but they are both delicious. the quiche (or KWEE-CHEE as theo used to call it) LOOKS a little more elegant, but the buns are never pretty. the filling always squirts out and the jam slides around so they are just a mess. i have tried and tried to clean them up to no avail. when new people come for easter, they usually bypass them on the buffet and i have to force them to try one… no one has ever been disappointed. AND they are both still yummy, cold, the next morning as leftovers. happy, happy easter all! x0xx

girlie weekend (with hank of course!) at THE BROADMOOR! x0x0xx

March 12, 2024 in family, hank, holiday, travel

(how PRETTY is this hotel nestled into mountains?)

there are few places i like to visit as much as the broadmoor. my heart just soars when i am there and i feel kind of giddy. set against some group of colorado mountains and centered around a big, beautiful lake, it is unbelievably scenic. the interior spaces are so detailed and intricate and layered you are always discovering something new. on this visit, i really started noticing all the swans. aside from the actual swans who live on the lake, there are swans throughout the resort painted on the walls, tiled into floor mosaics, featured in oil paintings and even edible meringue swans available at the little patisserie. i HAVE been watching “the feud” featuring truman capote and his swans obsessively, so maybe that’s why i was so drawn to them.

happy, happy valentine's day! x0x0xx

February 14, 2024 in family, hank, holiday

we’re sending you all so much LOVE on this valentine’s day! x0x0x

photo: heather knierim of HBK photography

and POOF! just like that theo is EIGHTEEN! x00xx

January 27, 2024 in family

(the photo we used on theo’s baby announcement… he was only six weeks old)

theo was born january 27, 2006 in amsterdam, the netherlands. overnight i was transformed from a regular person into a MOTHER, which is something else entirely. i am so grateful for that (despite the fact that i have never really slept properly since, my belly feels like memory foam, i am always at least a little bit worried [will he fall into a canal? will someone convince him to get into a white van? will he join a weird cult? will he start eating raisins? - which are DISGUSTING, of course! will he be a good husband? WHAT will he tell his therapist about me in his forties?] i am frequently exhausted and i have been dreading this birthday since the day he arrived.) it felt like he was a baby for a LONG time - maybe because he was not a good napper and we spent A LOT of time together.

aloha! x0x

January 23, 2024 in family, holiday

since theo is a SENIOR this year (honestly, it is HARD for me to even write that as i am already torturing myself with anticipatory grief when i should probably just be enjoying him) we are trying to do all “the things” before he goes to college. so we went to hawaii over the holidays. i have not been in at least thirty years and the kids and first have never been so it was pretty exciting.

our BIRTHDAY QUEEN! x0x0x

January 17, 2024 in family, pet

miss rosie is SIX YEARS OLD today! i cannot emphasize enough how much JOY she has brought to all of our lives. we just cannot imagine our days without her. HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY darling rosie! wishing you a year full of sunny walks, steak snacks, cuddles and naps… we LOVE you so! x0x0x

PRAISE JESUS we made it to january! x0xx

January 09, 2024 in family, holiday

(artwork: lesik aleksandr)

i DO love the holidays and thank goodness because we do them ALL: thankgiving, sinterklaas, hanukkah, my birthday (i DON’T love this one as much!), christmas and new years. i love baking the cookies, making the gingerbreads, lighting the candles, driving around to see the lights, putting out our clogs, decorating the tree, hanging the stockings, eating the latkes (i DON’T like making them - too messy!), hiding the shelf elves and their reindeer friend, going to the parties, delivering the cookies, sending the holiday cards (although this is always a loaded task!) receiving the holiday cards (much more FUN!), giving the gifts, enjoying my mother’s sticky buns, finding out who got the monkey and spending time with family. but i am always EXHAUSTED by the time we get to january and so grateful to bunker down and have a super quiet month (after i have VACUUMED up all the pine needles, which is my absolute favorite post-christmas task.) wishing you all a quiet, restful month with lots of sleep and TV! (my recent favorites: lessons in chemistry, black cake and the gilded age.) x0x0xx

HAPPY, HAPPY NEW YEAR! x0xx

January 01, 2024 in family, holiday

wishing you all peace, happiness and beautiful experiences in 2024. x0x0xx

REPOST: the monkey

December 25, 2023 in family, holiday

(even at 15 my grandmother seemed to know exactly what she wanted)

my paternal grandmother was fierce. she lived the way she wanted and you pretty much just went along. she liked things a certain way and if something wasn’t to her choosing she would wave her hand, say, “oh FISH!” and carry on as she deemed appropriate. you didn’t really want to get in her way.

HAPPY, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my darling parents! x00xx

December 22, 2023 in family

this year marks the FIFTY-EIGHTH (i think) year that my parents have been married. that is longer than my whole life and while i recognize that that is the typical way of things (“first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in the baby carriage”) i still find it absolutely staggering. CONGRATULATIONS my beautiful parents on lives well lived and finding and sharing the love, support and humor to reach this wonderful milestone. x0x0xx

REPOST: gingerbread houses

December 19, 2023 in holiday, family

* i am feeling really SAPPY and a bit gutted because this is the last year theo will be home to help with the gingerbread houses before he goes to college… i have no idea where the time went and i kind of can’t wait to be a grandma so i can share this tradtion with littles again… x0x

REPOST: raisin-free cranberry sauce

November 21, 2023 in holiday, family

* something really interesting happened to me a few weeks ago… i tried eating blueberries and i LIKED them! previously, i have only enjoyed them in eggos and i’m pretty sure those aren’t real blueberries. hank really likes them too so we have just been scarfing them down. my kids were wondering if i might give raisins another try… of course that is just ABSURD! which is why i am reposting my favorite raisin-free cranberry sauce recipe in anticipation of thanksgiving… ENJOY! x0x

* theo went to a “friendsgiving” the other night and brought my cranberries and they were a bit HIT with the teen crowd! x0x

braces!

November 14, 2023 in family

(8th grade was the epitome of awkward for me!)

i got braces the summer of 1982, right before my 8th grade year started. for some reason, i also chopped off all of my hair. this was a super unfortunate combination. my children are both delighted and horrified by my school photo that year. my daughter also got braces during the summer before 8th grade. she has them on the top and the bottom. i don’t really understand why she needed them at all because her teeth were perfectly straight before (unlike mine, which were seriously wonky on the top AND the bottom, although the ortho only braced the top.) i think it has something to do with her bite and how her teeth will work in the future. anyway - she is pulling them off far better than i did (to be fair, she did NOT cut off all of her hair) but no one will ever even see her braces because she has perfected the closed mouth mona lisa smile and we don’t have any photographic proof that she has braces at all. despite my best interests, i am incapable of smiling without showing every single tooth i’ve got, braced or crooked. lucy’s generation has been practicing their angles and learning about their “good sides” with selfies for years so you will not catch them in an unflattering photo.