Feeling Right At Home: Things I love right now

Nice liquid hand soaps. My current favorite is Caldrea, but I also love Sur La Table and William-Sonoma's hand soaps. I love the way they make my hands smell (and that Frances actually wants to use them), I love that they make me feel that I’ve elevated the “fanciness factor” in the house without too much effort, and I love that they are good for the environment and animal-friendly.

My dry erase wall calendar. I love calendars and I need calendars to keep me organized. As an attorney, I was 100% electronic – my Blackberry was synced in to my Outlook calendar on my work computer and I relied solely on that system to keep me ordered. I knew that would be impractical at home for many reasons – for one, syncing in my Blackberry everyday may not be possible when there are four grubby hands vying for my attention and the computer keyboard at the same time. So, I found this dry erase wall calendar at Target and so far, it has been perfect at keeping us organized. Plus, I really like the fact that Will can see what we are planning each day and can add things in if he would like (such as, “7pm - LPH to rest while WGH puts the children to bed”).

Black pants. My co-workers are probably laughing as they read this because I wore black pants 99% of my entire law career. I’ve retired my work black pants (for now), but have found a new obsession in the casual version. I am always on the hunt for black pants that are comfortable, flattering, not too long for my stubby legs and not too expensive. Once I find a pair that I like, I usually buy more than one because otherwise I know I will wear them out in a matter of months. I currently have three pair of my favorite black pants (J. Jill wide leg) and just found some others at Target. I also have some from my college and law school days that I keep on hand for emergency purposes (i.e. holy cow, I need to do laundry today). I always make an effort to buy other colors in the same style (heather grey; dark blue), but usually make my way back to the old standby – black.

My current book. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is wonderful! As with most of the books I read, this one came as a recommendation from my mother. It’s told from the perspective of letters to and from an author, various residents of Guernsey (a series of islands in the English Channel), and other characters during the post-WWII era. I have learned (should I have known this already?), that Guernsey was occupied by the Germans during the War as a home base – they didn’t destroy it, but they lived there for four or so years. Unfortunately, this still translated into some very hard times for those islanders and the main character, Juliet (the author) befriends several of those who were affected by the occupation. I love that I am learning a little history along with the fictional storyline, I love the descriptions of the beautiful island (there is something highly romantic and relaxing about British coastlines) and I love the style of the writing. I can already tell I will be a little sad when it’s done – the making of a good read.

Curious George. Pathetic, I know. I swore up and down that my children would never watch TV if I could help it. Guess what – I can’t help it. But, I do control greatly the amount of TV they watch and the shows they are allowed to choose (i.e., no Dora the Explorer. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see the redeeming value of this show. And it’s just really annoying). Frances loves Curious George (PBS) and frankly, so do I. George is the absolute cutest cartoon monkey you’ve ever seen. He’s always happy, smiling and nice to everyone and he’s curious without being mischievous. I love that each show has many teaching moments without hitting you over the head with them. And best of all, each show is only 30 minutes long (two 15-minute shows technically), which is the perfect amount of time – Frances feels like she’s watched something long and I don’t feel like she’s wasted much time in front of the TV. (My) George has not caught on to the whole TV phenomenon yet and I’m not in any hurry. But I hope when he does, Frances will still want to watch Curious George with him.