Priss & Vinegar

I ardently wished for a son the way most women wish for daughters to dress up and take to tea. It sounds silly, but I just always knew it, felt it in my bones, that I would have a daughter, and the Little Lady is every bit the pink-loving, bow-wearing, ballet-dancing girl I’d anticipated.

But a son, such an appealing blank slate, a chance to raise a child free of my own private expectations. Our relationship could be whatever we invented, whatever we wished it to be.

And so it was that precisely one year ago the sweetest of little boys became mine. I adore his chubby dumpling feet, the husky way he says “Mama,” and the special smile he has only for me, like we have a secret. It is with no small amount of sadness that he becomes less and less of a baby each day, inevitably heading towards the drama of toddlerhood. But for today, and perhaps a little while longer, he is still my delicious, smiling, handsome baby boy. Happy first birthday, my darling.

Ever since we switched preschools there’s been a significant uptick in the “documentation” coming home each week. If my kid places so much as a swipe of paint anywhere, her teachers slap her name on it and in the cubby it goes. Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate her school’s commitment to sharing with parents, but I am literally *drowning* in toddler masterpieces. Creating a coffee table book compilation of my children’s artwork has always seemed like an elegant solution, but I needed a more immediate fix.

Enter the unremarkable blank wall in my kitchen which is scheduled to remain until our remodel plan comes together. {Shudder.} So I took some navy-and-white stripe washi tape and covered that boring old wall with my daughter’s body of work. It’s not the most polished thing I’ve ever pulled together, but this instant gallery wall solved two problems with a single roll of washi tape. And come on, even the coldest-hearted among us would have to admit that it’s damn adorable.

The Little Lady and I have been plotting lately. Lemonade stand or book donation? Flowers or a new toy for a stranger? Brownies or cookies for our local fire station?

You see, we’re planing a random act of kindness.

On July 31st, we’re participating in Noah’s Kindness Project, a special day to perform random acts of kindness in memory of Noah Atticus Weber. I went to high school with Noah’s parents and, like so many of our former classmates, first learned of their family’s impossible journey through social media. Noah fell suddenly and gravely ill at 2 1/2 months of age, suffering severe irreparable brain damage as a result of rapid onset liver failure attributed to a rare childhood disease. He and his family spent the ensuing days at George Mark Children’s House, creating memories and treasuring one another until Noah’s passing on July 31, 2011.

The Webers have borne the loss of their beloved Noah with stunning grace, founding Fierce Little Warrior, hosting annual holiday toy drives and walks, and now creating Noah’s Kindness Project. It’s extraordinary, really, for a family to find a tiny corner of hope and beauty in what is otherwise every parent’s nightmare.

Those of you who have followed Priss & Vinegar since the beginning know that I have never, ever asked you to do anything. And I’m not really asking you to now so much as encouraging you to consider whether Noah’s Kindness Project might be a good opportunity to introduce your families to the concept of practicing random kindness. I decided the Little Lady was ready this year, and it has been very special (and fun!) dreaming up ways we could be kind to others. (There are some terrific ideas here, as well as on the wish lists of the George Mark Children’s House.)

We look forward to sharing our random acts of kindness with you next week, and if you decide to participate, we’d love to hear what you’re doing to remember sweet Noah!

If you’d like to join Noah’s Kindness Project on Facebook, please visit the event page here.

Blake Lively wants to teach *you* how to curate a sustainable, handcrafted life through artisinal storytelling to preserve the greater good (or some bullshit like that)

Blake Lively’s new lifestyle website, Preserve, launched yesterday, and it is just as annoying and useless as anticipated. The introduction proposes telling a “story through style and craftsmanship,” living a “holistic” and “present” life, and so many other cultural buzzwords it’s like Lively filled out a hipster Mad Libs. She overuses the word “artisinal” so brazenly that reading Preserve could be a drinking game. Oh, and she uses the incorrect spelling of “palate.” (I almost choked on my coffee.)

It’s utter nonsense, and as far as I can tell it’s just Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop by way of Brooklyn, i.e., another half-starved actress shilling overpriced retail and unintentionally sounding like an entitled asshole. Next up is Reese Withspoon (I live for when Michael K calls her “Laura Jean Poon”) with her southern lifestyle brand, Draper James, debuting later this year.

Which leaves me wondering: why are celebrities starting these lifestyle brands in the first place? Goop has been in the red since its inception. (And at millions of dollars per film, I doubt any of these women expect they’ll substantially increase their bank accounts by selling fancy ketchup and aryuvedic enemas.) Sure, Martha Stewart built an empire on lifestyle, but let’s be real: not everyone can be Martha. Jessica Alba has a thriving brand with The Honest Company, but she isn’t selling some amorphous vision of living like an idealized Instagram feed; she’s selling diapers, people.

If it’s increased publicity these actresses-turned-lifestyle doyennes crave, this, too, seems a losing proposition. Paltrow may have always been a pretentious nightmare, but it wasn’t until Goop that the press started talking about it. Lively is already being publicly lambasted only 24 hours into her internet venture. Is *any* publicity truly good publicity? Has Kim Kardashian won?

Look, I don’t want to be entirely crusty about these brands as a category. Paltrow has undeniably good taste and I will admit (grits teeth) to admiring some of the items Goop recommends. I have a harder time seeing the value in Preserve which is basically a hipster dry goods store, a category that already has a substantial e-commerce presence.

The critical flaw with celebrity lifestyle brands isn’t so much the content as the spirit, the holier-than-thou presumption that famous people have something special to teach us about living merely by the fact of their celebrity. It would be so much more palatable if these blogs were presented objectively: Look, this is how I live, where I shop, what I eat, and I think it’s pretty terrific. Maybe you will, too. It is supremely annoying to have a twenty-something former star of a CW teen drama tell me how to “live authentically”; but if she’s just sharing pictures of what her last dinner party looked like, perhaps I might be inclined to buy her favorite artisinal vegan napkin rings.

Summer leisure comes in all forms, and lately, it’s been about enjoying our new home: exploring the surrounding neighborhoods, entertaining friends, and chipping away at the zillions of household projects we’ve undertaken.

Coffee and an *excellent* croissant from Boot and Shoe Service (pictured) followed by the Grand Lake Farmer’s Market just may be my new Saturday morning ritual. The stars of the market this week were dry farmed tomatoes, charentais melons, and plums so gorgeous I displayed them under a glass cloche on my dining room table instead of hiding them in the kitchen. Added bonus of visible fruit: my toddler has been asking to snack on plums instead of cheesy bunnies. Winner: everybody.

I was so inspired by all of the “Ikea hacks” I found while sprucing up the Little Lady’s “Tarva” dresser that I decided to hack a “Vittsjo” bookcase for my son’s nursery, too. The curves of his Pottery Barn Kids “Hayden” crib have always reminded me of the Golden Gate Bridge, so the corny sentimentalist in me decided that painting something “International Orange” in his room just felt right. Full details on this project (as well as the rest of my son’s nautical nursery) forthcoming!

We hosted some dear friends for Sunday brunch, something I especially love to do the day after the farmer’s market when I’m still pumped up about my purchases. Prather Ranch uncured maple bacon, a big ole’ fruit plate, and some pastries from Boot and Shoe Service (I have a problem) rounded out a menu starring our brunch standard, the Smitten Kitchen Spinach & Cheese Strata. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: every Smitten Kitchen recipe I’ve tried has been just dreamy. I often hesitate to use recipes from blogs, preferring instead to use bulletproof, tried-and-true sources like America’s Test Kitchen, Martha Stewart and Ina Garten. But Deb has never failed me, and I truly use the recipe archives on her blog like a cookbook.