hollywood housewife

my signature style: granny rocker prep

Earlier in the month we were talking about Personal Style & Pinterest, I identified my signature look as Granny Rocker Prep. I'm attracted to all things brocade, lace, distressed, and monogrammed.

A few examples, if you will:

Current/Elliott Boyfriend Jeans // Haute Hippie Longhorn & Snake tee // alice + olivia Brianna Sequin Box Jacket // Cole Haan Skylar Oxfords // Tory Burch Patent Leather Cuff // Stella & Dot Serenity Stone Drops

Okay, so these are exaggerated versions of my style. But I own (or want to own!) a version of everything pictured here.

IRO Ashville Leather Jacket in Fuschia // Kate Spade Bow Tie Marilyn Dress // Frye Boots Melissa
 // Rebecca Minkoff M.A.B. Mini // Marc by Marc Jacobs Bird Stud Earrings

Making these style boards was oddly exhilarating. Try it out yourself using Polyvore.

hiding help is like denying botox

Last week I linked to Rebecca Woolf's post Help Is Not A Four Letter Word. It was interesting to see how many people responded to and shared her post. It seems that "having help" is still a topic up for discussion. I don't often write response posts, as the internet can easily beat a subject to death, then keep on beating. But this one felt particularly personal to me.

My mom was a career woman, and I grew up with a beloved nanny. Having help with your children is not something I find controversial, but what has surprised me is how quiet women are about it. I shout it from the roof tops.

It’s not about being superwoman. It’s about money. People don’t want to admit that they spend money on childcare when they may or may not be bringing in money of their own. Writers (and bloggers, and work-from-home moms who aren’t necessarily salaried) can be very private about what kind of money they’re making, and I think people are uncomfortable admitting that they’re spending most (or all or more) of that money on help.

But hiding help is a little bit like denying botox. You look great, but we both know it's not from vitamin water. You sure look like superwoman, but I suspect you've got some help in there somewhere.

So let’s start at the beginning of why this line of thought becomes itchy. If you’re someone who judges working women who have help with their kids, then you’re done here. I will not entertain that point of view.

When people start to bite their lips is when a mom is at home and has help. Why is she doing that? Because she’s lazy? Because she’s too posh to wipe her kids snot? Or because she’s working? Why would we expect someone who is working in her home office to have less help than someone typing in a cubicle? Because we just do. Because maybe we’re skeptical that they’re actually “working.” Even as our culture progresses, I am baffled at the mystery surrounding and attitudes aimed at the work-at-home mom.

I don’t think anyone would fault Rebecca Woolf, a clearly successful and working writer, for needing specific chunks of time for writing and tending to the business around writing. I do think people might look at women without such a tangible income and wonder how they can justify having another person look after their children while they stare at a computer screen or photograph their latest craft. But I have friends who are writers or in direct sales, or who volunteer all over town, or who just need a few hours to manage the machine of their lives, and these women need help and have it. I know women who have significantly less obligations, and they also have help.

We spend more on our nanny than I take in as a writer. Quite a bit more. My wonderful nanny is not quite full time. She is at our house between 25 - 30 hours a week. I use most of the time that she’s here to be productive. I write, I build a platform with which to write more, I manage our hectic household and schedule. But I also try to have lunch with a friend once a week, or get my nails done, or otherwise blow off a couple of hours by myself. I have never felt guilty about having help, but I have felt guilty about using the time selfishly. It passes. 

When having help isn’t a necessity, it’s a luxury. In this economy, and yes, in the age of the superwoman, a nanny isn’t a luxury that people like to talk about. For most people I know - including myself - having a nanny is both a necessity and a luxury. It would be physically impossible for me to do everything I do if I didn’t have a helping hand. It allows me a freedom to do more, and my husband and I have decided it’s worth it.

I don’t find this to be a controversial topic. Who in their right mind faults someone who works, whether at home or in the office? Who in their right mind wouldn’t have some help if they could, working or not? What makes this topic interesting is the silence surrounding it. Not talking about it brings shame to the people who are drowning by trying to create Pinterest lives all on their own. So it’s nice to acknowledge the facts. Not in a mommy mosh pit way, but just in an honest one.

friday links - evening edition

It's Oscar weekend!! I'll be doing my annual red carpet and broadcast tweet along. It's one of my favorite nights of the year. Follow along the fun here. The red carpet starts at 3pm/6pm EST.

Friday Links are usually up early on Friday morning. But sometimes I like to shake things up a bit. Or maybe President's Day had me confused. Or maybe I had too much (fun!) social obligations this week. Or all of the above!

But also, I was busy:

Do you use makeup primer? I've listed some of the best here.

Transform your hair, transform yourself. I talked all about my hair identities this week: Black to blonde to brunette and back.

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creating community after the lonely years

It has only been in the past few years that I’ve understood that “community” is a verb. I grew up in a small town where most people knew my parents. So even though they were not the world’s most social couple, we had community. My sister could drive away from the gas station “forgetting” to pay, and they would ring up my father’s law firm. I once called a local florist to order flowers for my mom, and they asked if I wanted it sent to her workplace, somewhere clearly already known to them.

Personally, a small town also means that you’re in school for years and years with the same people. For better or worse, they know lots about you and you about them, and the knowledge alone is a type of community. I always had a lot of friends. I was active in two different Christian youth groups, and various school activities. To this day, some of my closest friends are from my childhood.

When I went to college, it was an extension of what I had already experienced in my hometown. The university itself was almost as big, not to mention the town where it was nestled was a part of a greater metro area. Still, among all those people, I found my tribe. I pledged a sorority, I made friends within my major, I fraternized with people I met around my faith circles. Making and keeping friends came easily to me.

It never occurred to me that life wouldn’t always be this way.

clare vivier {obsessed}

Wandering around in a neighborhood close to my house, searching for the heywood gourmet grilled cheese place, I came upon Clare Vivier. Not Clare herself, but her beautiful corner store in Silverlake. After we ate, I made The Gorilla load the kids up by himself while I did a lap through the accessories. I spent so much time that he started honking and texting.

So I went back the next day.

how you make them feel

This weekend I hosted my sister's two oldest girls. Visiting Los Angeles from a life lived in Oklahoma has eye opening moments. They noticed things about the city and its inhabitants that I never notice. They were keenly aware of the style choices made by other girls their age. They oohed and ahhed over the prettiness of the city, something I try to appreciate, but that really makes you grateful when seeing it through fresh eyes.

They bemoaned an Oklahoma they considered "boring," which prompted a lecture from me about the merits of our home state, which sequed into wistfulness as I waxed poetic about the wind sweeping down the plains.

friday links - valentine's week edition

The year is just speeding right along, isn't it? I have so much coming up in the next few months, all amazing, that I'm struggling to keep my head above water. I don't really do Lent, but the season in general has made me reevalute what I need to give up, where I need to focus, and what (and who!) I should enjoy.

personal style and pinterest

Last week in Anthropologie, I spied a silky polka dot shirt and thought it was so cute. I thought about trying it on. I felt the fabric and mentally scanned my closet for something to pair it. Then I snapped back to reality. This shirt, though it was darling, would not look cute on me. I would feel like a clown wearing it. I would not feel confident, like one should when wearing a new silk shirt. I would feel like I had browsed pinterest for too long, because that is the truth.

What looks pretty on a website does not always look so great in real life. What looks gasp-worth in a magazine print ad, almost never looks as amazing in the bathroom light. You know how models (real models) do weird things with their bodies in photographs? Like they bend over and make their arms crooked? Sometimes I think that we, as internet-savvy women consumers, are doing the same with our style. We may look good, but it’s hard to tell with all the figurative bending and elbow crooking.

Which is to say, it’s awkward, what certain style has become. Perhaps I’m more sensitive to it as a blogger. I stare at my food (or my outfit) and do everything I can to make it photograph well. But if you’ve ever seen someone just after a photo shoot, or just off the stage, their beautiful makeup looks WAY too pancaked apart from the bright lights. Garish, even.

It doesn’t always translate, from beauty blogs to sidewalk style. And worse, I think it’s making people who possess personal style second-guess themselves. Suddenly they all want enormous bows all over everything. Or cartoon cat silhouettes on their dress. And what was cool about people before is lost in imitation of something not normal.

I’m constantly honing my signature style. I have a personal look that doesn’t vary much. I call it Granny rocker prep. Those are the things I’m always attracted to: total grandmother vintage, gold details and rugged leather, and a heavy does of preppy colors and lines. I am not bohemian (though I strangely covet these mocassins. See?! This happens to everyone. Mocassins should not be in my closet). I am not professional (I admire Banana Republic, but I can’t find much there any longer). And, somewhat sadly, I am no longer a twenty-something (so Urban Outfitters is out).

But even though I know this about myself, I am easily influenced by something looking great on someone else and before I know it, I’ve fallen down a Shopbop rabbit trail.

Stand strong, beautiful women! Use pinterest and the blogosphere to inform and entertain, even as a basis to experiment, but don’t lose yourself. You’re (we’re) better as we are, not as carbon copies.

s is for stupid

When my son was just a wee newborn, and my daughter was barely two, I took them out together, alone, for the first time. Destination: the mall. I needed to leave the house and my daughter’s toes were scrunched into tiny shoes, so a large department store was deemed a necessary errand.

In the shoe section, I had the new baby on my chest in a carrier, with one hand on a stroller loaded down with a diaper bag stuffed full. I looked a mess, post-delivery hormones destroying my skin, oily hair in a messy pony, and surely some sort of elastic-waisted pants on my lower half.

My toddler was gleeful to be doing something fun, so she ran circles around the stroller and my slow-moving self, rendering it near impossible to move down the wide, carpeted aisle.

Another mom approached our little parade, sympathy on her face. She was holding the hand of a school-aged girl, and they both looked like they had bathed in the last 48 hours, in contrast to us.

“How old?” she asked, referencing the wide-eyed baby tucked in under my chin.

“A few weeks,” I answered, with that half hearted smile that emotes both pride and sheepish-ness.

She returned the smile and politely ignored my daughter, now on the floor in a modified downward dog.

“You’re brave,” the other mother chuckled.

“More like stupid,” I replied cheerfully.

Record scratch.

The woman took a step back, gripping her daughter’s hand tighter. As if I had dropped the F-bomb, she looked panicked, then angry, and turned and walked away. It took me several foggy-brained moments to realize that her reaction was to my utterance of the “s” word, and I opened my mouth to stammer an apology, but then closed it again, because I wasn’t sorry.

“Stupid” is not a bad word in our house. This probably isn’t a surprise to you, as this isn’t a bad word in our house, either, and we are a clear exception.

It may or may not surprise you to know that I very rarely swear. It's not natural to me. But this limits my strong word choices. So "stupid" is not a battle I'm going to fight. I find it to be a great word, actually. Some things are stupid. Lots of things. And I can’t think of a more appropriate word to describe certain bits on the news, the occasional rule, or how I sometimes feel.

Dumb? Weird? Not right? No. Stupid. Some things are stupid. I like the way it rolls off the tongue.

I could amend the rule to say that we don’t call one another stupid, because that would generally not be allowed. But it doesn’t apply to all people. ‘Cause some people are stupid. And I hardly think the semantics taught in “I didn’t say YOU were stupid, I said your ACTIONS were stupid,” merits much. Stupid is stupid.

Stupid does not have to be forever or damaging, sometimes stupid is just factual.

The cop killer on the loose here in SoCal? Stupid.
Nemo the blizzard? Stupid.
Forcing yourself on an errand that will make you sore and tired and grumpy for hours? Stupid.

Add it to the list of the many ways in which I am not a politically correct mom. Which is stupid.

friday links

I had my annual Valentine-making party at Art Works in Hollywood this week. As usual, it was so fun and strangely therapeutic to sip champagne and craft alongside smart and funny women. If you're looking for something fun to do with your friends this weekend, throw this together. It couldn't be any simpler. I give details how here.

A sampling from this week's Instagram feed. Not pictured: me, hunkered in bed on and off with a terrible tension headache. Pictured: me, eating fried food after finding that chair shopping but before my party.

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I was also very lucky to attend a lunch for Los Angeles bloggers where I met some wonderful new faces. This whole blogging thing never ceases to amaze me. Door and windows and friendships have been blown open in the last year.

Photo by Mia Johnstone, The Private School Lady

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On the HH Facebook page, I asked for feedback on upcoming content and I shared a favorite Jonathan Adler quote.

To take part in these titilating discussions, like the HH facebook page.

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For your weekend reading pleasure:

• Go read about this man Benjaman Kyle. He was named after Burger King. Sort of. (My Right Brain)

• My friend Lindsay posted about this white noise bumblebee toy that clips to the car seat. I sure could have used that when my kids were tiny. Actually, I could still probably use that. It would also make a great gift.

• Kirsten from 6th Street Design School was one of the amazing bloggers I met at Alt Summit last month. I loved her style and energy immediately. Go check her out.

• My friend Becca wrote about Important and Enough, and it was just what I needed to hear in that moment.

• This will give you pause. It did for me, and the issue is something that's close to my heart. My Child is in the Psychiatric Hospital and No One Cares. (You Are A Great Kid)

• My friend Nora wrote a Dear Teen Me that summed up quite a bit. I don't even know what I would say to a teen me. That's okay, teen me wouldn't have listened anyway.

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Happy Weekend! We have family pictures scheduled with Jules Bianchi and some much-needed lazy family time to attend to.

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