Pls tell me you remember when SJP used the cloyingly cutesy phrase: “it’s a cashmiracle” on Sex and the City about a decade ago? Some of her puns were…hard to swallow. Others were charming. Some seasons she came off as screechy and over-dramatic, and others she came off as tender and earnest. I could never quite tell if these vicissitudes were a symptom of bad acting or poor screenwriting, but—
As always, I digress.
Lately I’ve been on a sweater-buying binge (just snagged this), and I’ll admit that I’ve often shied away from cashmere thanks to the hefty price-tag. You can find great (!) sweaters for a decent price from places like J. Crew and Gap, so I’m usually on the budget buy end of the spectrum when it comes to knitwear.
However.
The ladies in some of the street style snaps above and below prove that cashmere can be not only ultra-stylish and ultra-comfy — but styled down and up in the chicest of ways, and all of those ways scream: casual luxury. I love, for example, the way a simple navy cashmere pullover instantly elevates an otherwise straight-forward denim look. (Although, those do look like the perfect lived-in Levis.) And I love the way cashmere plays with edgy sneaker footwear.
For those reasons, I’m contemplating upping my own ante with some cashmere additions. On the more affordable end of the spectrum, I’m eyeing this cashmere crewneck from Everlane, probably in the soft pink or donegal, or this (under $100!) in the orchid or pine (slash moss color), or this in the powder pink or navy blue.
I’ve also been lusting after these cashmere joggers for…weeks now. I feel like I would live in them all winter.
Finally, I’ve long been on the hunt for a sweater with a crossover detail similar to the one shown in the street style snap below. So fetching and unique — how often do you have such an interesting detail on the back of your sweater? This cashmere sweater in the prettiest bone color is the stuff of dreams.
P.S. I’m also intrigued by the frayed sweater trend. Mom, close your eyes. Just do it. But I’ve seen super chic bloggers like Arielle of Something Navy rock the trend and I’m curious about it. I’m eyeing this, which is sort of a refined version of the trend (and on ridic sale!) and this. Thoughts?
+The ultimate sign of wealth in the city? A St. Bernard dog. Who has space for a dog of this size in her apartment, unless she lives in a palace? I’ve seen two walked in our neighborhood and I’m always gobsmacked.
+Ordering pantry items via delivery is borderline necessary. It sounds like a ridiculous luxury, but I tried very hard to stock up for a week with just the stroller, navigating the very pushy crowds at Fairway (a grocery on the UWS), and exited the store on the verge of tears. I’d been shoved, taken to task for getting in the wrong check-out line, and given multiple nasty looks for taking up so much space with my stroller. Part of me thought: Girl, you just gotta toughen up. Welcome to New York. But part of me thought: aha, this is what Amazon Pantry is for. Grocery shopping in person might be reserved for meat and fruit where you can get in and get out lickety split before you lose your mind.
+If you plan on subwaying with mini, she must be in the carrier. Navigating the system with a stroller is too much. That, or I need to buy one of these, which literally every mom in the city owns. It’s uber compact and lightweight and has a shoulder strap so you can take baby out and throw it over your shoulder as you descend the stairs.
+Don’t wear heeled booties while carrying the baby in a carrier. This is less an NYC thing and more a “duh, what were you thinking” thing. But it made me realize that a lot of my boots and booties have some heel, even a small one! — and it’s highly impractical and dangerous. Most of the chic moms I’ve been spying on wear smart-looking sneakers like these ones, which are ubiquitous (especially Downtown), though I am about to pull the trigger on these (also considering these black and whites or these wool-accented ones!) because I can’t find it in me to drop $500 on a pair of distressed-looking sneakers. (Also, my bestie rolled her eyes when I told her I was considering a pair.) See below for more chic peas in Vejas, including on the stunning Emma Watson — and the snap of the chic pea at the top of this post is wearing a pair, too!
+If someone’s doing something weird on the street or in the subway (pretty much a daily occurrence), act nonchalant and don’t make eye contact. A girlfriend who used to live on the UES told me: “When I lived in New York, there was a guy who would run around the UES wearing a speedo thong almost every day. The weird part was not actually that there was a man wearing a speedo thong in public — it was that no one batted an eyelash. People just keep on moving. Nothing flaps a New Yorker.” I’m learning on this count, because I have seen some odd birds and it can be a little hard not to pause and catch a quick peep.
+I’ve seen a lot of lighter wash jeans lately on the streets, and it’s made me re-evaluate my tendency to reach for darker rinse pairs. See below for inspo! I am eyeing these, but I also found these while unpacking my wardrobe here in New York that fit the bill nicely. I like the way they’re styled below, with a kitten heel — she’s wearing these, but I also like these or these.
+I’m sure I’ve featured this snap before, and it’s from a few seasons ago, but something about it just feels like what I want to be wearing right now. I saw a lady wearing these exact Chanel captoe kitten heels, shown on the chic pea below as well, and she looked stunning — but we can get the look for less for these or these. And, as for her bell-sleeved sweater? This, under $100!
+There are a lot of service professions in NYC, and a lot of them operate on a “please tip me for good service” mentality. I’ve already learned to be mindful of this.
+Dreaming of an outfit that involves this uptown/downtown jacket and these bow-toed beauties. I’m realizing I’m talking a lot about footwear in this post. Why do I always have problems with overspending on shoes!?
Q: What sweater are you wearing in your most recent Instastory [screenshot above — I was annoyed from the 1349398th day of packing!]?
A: This one from Zara, which is sadly sold out — but put your name on the waiting list, because I’ve done that for other items, and they’ve re-stocked! If you can’t wait, check out this or this. I also almost bought this. Can’t stop with pearls!!! (Ahem.)
Q: You have so many great minimagpie posts, but I just need a recommendation for a good baby shower gift and I don’t know where to look. Thoughts?
A: You can browse my registry for bigger ticket items, but below are a few items not featured on that list that I’ve loved as a new mom that didn’t make my registry but wound up being total MVPs and that would make darling baby gifts:
+Zutano fleece booties. Come in so many colors and actually stay on a newborn’s foot! So cozy. I’d pair them/coordinate them with any of the clothes/jammies from Monica + Andy, but especially their blankets (more prints here). I would normally caution against a baby blanket because I received maybe a dozen of them and over half had never been used and were recently donated in the move! — but these are exceptional. They are really well-made (they wash well) and they are a unique breathable muslin fabric that makes them ideal for summertime. Sort of like an oversized swaddle. Plus, the prints are darling — you’ll be the cutest mom on the block at your next music class when everyone else is spreading out their little blankets!
+Boppy Lounger. Probably my most-used baby product up until around 7 months! So convenient to pop her in here while feeding her a bottle or snoozing at my side. This might be good along with a book (any of the books here would make a great accoutrement!) or toy (every baby needs one of these. Mini has loved hers since she was born, basically!) or Wubbanub.
+I mean REALLY. A baby in an animal towel? It’s just too cute for words, and I appreciate that these towels in particular are extra plush and cozy. The one we got from Aden + Anais was paper thin. I would maybe wrap this up along with some bath accessories, like a classic rubber duck and some baby shampoo (I love this stuff). Whenever we have friends over and they give mini a goodnight kiss before bed, just after she’s out of the bath, they flip over how good she smells. I think it’s this shampoo, but I also use Mustela baby lotion and it smells divine, too. Or, and I’ve not used it but have friends who do, the entire baby line from Beauty Counter looks beautiful and would be an elegant gift all wrapped up, too!
Q: I’m currently on the hunt for a large pom beanie hat. Tell me, do you remember the slightly pricier version that was so popular last winter?
Q: I’m looking for a gift with a price tag of under $50 that I can give to people in my life like my brother-in-law, my cousin, etc. Basically, a nice gesture but nothing too, too expensive or personal. What would you give?
I rounded up my favorite go-to gifts for any occasion here, but a few other ideas:
+The personalizable mini pillows from here. So chic and cheeky!
+Really good olive oil. Don’t you hate spending money on olive oil? It feels like we go through a bottle a week. I’d love to be treated to something like this, especially something that looks attractive on the counter top — although we often funnel ours into one of these.
+I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the greatest gifts my mother-in-law ever gave me was a set of 12 of these appetizer plates. The perfect size for a little snack, or dessert, or — duh — appetizers.
Q: I have a daughter that’s around minimagpie’s age and I’m running out of creative meals for her…any ideas?
I hear ya. I didn’t follow the baby led weaning approach that seems to be very popular among my mama friends, so I’m still feeding her lots of purees and simply mashed items — which can get boring. I just bought this cookbook and have started cooking her slightly more interesting dishes from it, but below are a few of my favorite things to feed minimagpie:
+Yogurt or cottage cheese.
+Two-ingredient pancakes. (This is an incredible breakfast hack and it creates simple, healthy pancakes that are soft enough for mini to chew and swallow and surprisingly non-disgusting. Mash up a banana and one egg. I add a little bit of cinnamon as I read somewhere that exposing babies to as many flavors as possible during their first year will prevent them from becoming picky eaters — and spices are easy to mix into things! Heat a pan with a little butter and cook ’em like usual pancakes! Mini loves them!)
+Mashed banana or avocado
+Acai bowl — Mr. Magpie and I love these for breakfast and they’re easy to feed mini, too. We blend a packet of frozen acai with fresh or frozen berries, half a banana, and some pomegranate juice. We top ours with slices of banana and granola. Mini just eats hers from a spoon!
+I recently made her a pear dish she loved using the cookbook above — I peeled and cored a few pears, roasted them with some olive oil in the oven, blended them up, and added a little bit of rosemary and almond butter at the end. Actually pretty tasty; the cookbook says you could even use it as a spread with cheese as an adult! I made a big batch and then froze some of the extra using one of these trays.
A few things I tried that she was not as crazy about (though I will try again!): hummus, soft-scrambled eggs, oatmeal.
Let’s be real, though — I’ve leaned on a lot of pouches from Ella’s Kitchen and Plum Organics over the past month’s transition to New York.
Q: I’m a recent college grad decorating my first apartment on a budget. Where do I start?
I always start by thumbing through my interior design books. I especially love this Nate Berkus book, this Domino book, and this one by interior designer and blogger Erin Gates. They always give me new ideas, even if I can’t afford the top-of-the-line custom furniture pieces or high-end original art they feature — I might get inspired by a specific color or theme or be able to replicate the look for less by searching on Etsy, LetGo, or HomeGoods. So start there to get a sense for what you want/like.
In my opinion, the best place to invest is a bed you love and a really good mattress. I say this for a few reasons: a good headboard can serve as decor — it means you need to do less to “finish” your bedroom. Also, while you will almost certainly move to a different apartment with different specifications and dimensions, your bed will always fit into a bedroom (unless you get a California King or something), whereas you might not be able to repurpose that ginormous L-shaped couch you got, or that oversized dining table. One of the first things I bought myself when moving into my first post-college apartment was a white wood bed from Crate and Barrel that looks somewhat like this, though mine had wainscoting detail for a beachy/Cape Cod look. (We just sold that bed frame when we moved to NYC and I’ll admit I shed a tear — it was such a big milestone, buying that first frame myself!) I think Crate and Barrel makes some really great furniture — classic, well-built, timeless. My bed held up for over a decade and countless moves! We used it in our guest bedroom eventually, because we bought this bed for our master. In short, you always need a bed, and you spend like half of your life in one, so you might as well spend that time in style! For this reason, I also urge you to buy a really good mattress. Think about how precious good sleep is! (Mr. Magpie stopped snoring when we upgraded our mattress!)
I think you can be thriftier when it comes to a couch, dining set, and coffee table. Prowl LetGo, Craigslist, and — if you’re in NY — AptDeco for steals, especially on things like coffee tables and dining sets. (You might want to buy anything upholstered brand-new unless you happen upon one in great condition.) For those pieces you do want to buy new, check out One King’s Lane and scour the sale sections of West Elm and Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel regularly. I’ve gotten lucky with that approach.
Finally, think outside the box when it comes to wall decor, which can get pricey. In my opinion, nothing looks sadder than a too-small piece of art on a huge wall. I’d rather have bare walls! But think about things like this:
+Find a bunch of coordinating vintage prints for cheap on Etsy, frame them, and arrange them in a grid on a wall. I did this with some Audubon bird prints and it turned out gorgeous.
+Hang a textile on a wall — a vintage quilt or something like this or this would be fun.
+Hang a bunch of plates, either all-matching in color (white?) or mismatched with different colors, artfully on a wall using these — see below!
Feel free to email me any additional questions at jennifer@thefashionmagpie.com! I love mail and have gotten some great blog post ideas from you, like this one!
By: Jen Shoop
“All ballplayers are superstitious,” he said, shruggingly.
I was looking down at the rabbit’s foot — a keepsake of his father’s he’d inherited at some unknown-to-me juncture — and a pit formed in my stomach. Tears burned my eyes. I blinked, trying to keep my composure. I’d found the rabbit’s foot placed on top of his cell phone. He’d been waiting for a call back from a company he’d been interviewing with.
Mr. Magpie and I had been married less than a year, and he’d graduated from his MBA program, decided to move on from his first start-up (a line of ready-to-drink cocktails — incidentally, a fantastic idea as this was just around the time Bethany was launching SkinnyGirl and cocktail culture was burgeoning amongst the yuppy set thanks to Mad Men, but regulations hamstrung him), and started applying for jobs in the interim. There are few displeasures in life like the agony of interviewing for a job when you really, really want one: you’re putting yourself out there, on the line, time after time, and people are telling you, “Nah, we don’t like you enough.” It’s hard to see it any other way when you make it through multiple rounds. You start to question yourself, ask whether there’s some previously undetected, repellant aspect of your personality that’s holding you back, wonder whether you shouldn’t just take a joe job in the meantime. And the misery of the waiting game: you think you’ve crushed one round of interviews, and then you sit in agony for a week, wondering when to follow up, or if you should even follow up? And in the meantime, there’s only so much you can do day after day. There are only so many job boards to look at, so many coffees to have with friends of friends and former colleagues to advertise yourself.
It had been a rough couple of weeks. Mr. Magpie was smart, hard-working, and highly qualified. He had an excellent resume. And by God, that man can charm the pants off anyone. He’s endearing, kind, polite. He’s the kind of man who will run after you to let you know you’ve dropped your glove. But it’s true what they say: finding a job takes about 6 months. You have to find the right opportunities, you have to hone your self-pitch, you have to be patient. I knew he was frustrated, but we didn’t talk much about his feelings. I knew he’d find something if he kept at it and just sort of glossed over the turmoil he must have been going through.
On that particular night, I’d come through the door and blabbed about my day. He hadn’t offered much of an update on his own, and I hadn’t asked. I steamrolled right into plans for dinner, and then — that’s when I saw it. The rabbit’s foot. Placed delicately, thoughtfully on the top of his phone, a signifier of the intense internal rollercoaster he was clearly riding solo. A symptom of a discomfort I’d not taken the time to identify, much less help him tend to.
I can’t think about the rabbit’s foot too long or my voice goes wobbly and I can’t swallow. In part, I think, because of the sweetness of the gesture: the boyish superstition. In part because it reflected just how dearly, how desperately he wanted this particular job to work out. And in part, too, because it reminds me that I have a long way to go before I’m the wife I hope to be: there have been periods of unintentionally callous behavior — not stopping to ask, not pausing to inquire about how he’s feeling. Mr. Magpie is strong and even-keeled. He’s not a crier. Little gets him down. But the rabbit foot reminds me that still waters run deep, and there’s a rich emotional tapestry weaving and unweaving on the daily.
When we packed up our car and cleared out our house to leave Chicago for New York a few weeks ago (the photo above taken a day or two prior to moving!), I noticed, with pause, that it was Friday, October 13th: an inauspicious start for my superstitious, former ballplayer husband. But as we drove out of Chicago, crammed like sardines into our SUV with 13 bags, minimagpie, and Tilly, Mr. Magpie said: “This is gonna be good.”
There is something symmetric that I can’t quite put my finger on about these two experiences: they both center around Mr. Magpie, superstition, our evolving husband-wife dynamics, and a major milestone in our lives.
It was not, actually good, as Mr. Magpie offered hopefully, in the short-term, but it has turned out very good in the slightly longer term. And though I recently pledged to abandon my whining whilma ways (see #turbothot and the ultra kind comments!), I thought I’d share, over a series of posts in the next week or two, the way our lives turned upside down and the way we turned them rightside up, and include the items — useful and aspirational both — I uncovered while on this journey. Actually, I hate the word journey. It’s been marred by too much self-help, express-your-inner-chi kind of baloney. So let’s say — the items I came to appreciate while on this…what shall we call it? Adventure? Too Pollyanna. Pilgrimage? Too religious. Peregrination? Yes, peregrination. It suggest just the right amount of…meandering…that was involved.
Today, to kick off the story of our peregrination, I’ll share the most useful stuff for wrapping up our lives in Chicago and hitting the road:
+Wunderlist app. To share lists of to-dos between Mr. Magpie and I and keep various tasks organized in their right category.
+Monogrammed, open-top canvas totes for the trip, to keep minimagpie and Tilden’s stuff organized but easily accessible in the car. (You don’t want to have to worry about unzipping a suitcase or something when you need something.)
+I know it looks super clunky and kind of like it might house A/V equipment, but this soft-sided cooler is top of the line. (Read some rave reviews of it here.) Mr. Magpie had really, really wanted to bring some of the goodies in our freezer — quart bags of the chicken and beef stocks he’d lovingly made and stored for future use, a whole duck (don’t ask), and some kielbasa sausage, a outlandishly delicious specialty of the Polish community in our heavily-populated-by-Eastern-Europeans neighborhood. We debated for some time as to whether it was feasible or not, and in the end decided not to bring them with us, which was good since we wouldn’t have access to our freezer for about two weeks (!!!) instead of the two days we’d anticipated. But, still, if we had brought that stuff, we were excited to keep it cool in one of these.
+A lifesaver for keeping our clothing organized. I can’t rave about these enough. They compress clothes very well and I love that you can see everything very easily when you’re rooting around in a suitcase.
+A home-care pack for the few days we thought we’d be without our stuff (the movers would take a few days longer than us to arrive in NYC): a sponge, two sets of cutlery, acrylic cups (super important that they were shatter-proof and dishwasher-friendly!), laundry detergent, dish soap, a few trash bags, and these scissors. Scissors, people! YOU NEED SCISSORS. Don’t forget the scissors unless you want to undo all of your boxes with a key!
+Snacks. We ate a lot of these, though my favorite guilty pleasures are probably Cheetohs (I know…gross), Cheez-its, or Haribo. (If you want to send me something that will endear you to me forever, it would be this.)
+Spare bags. I can’t tell you how this happens, but things kind of…explode and multiply when you’re living out of a hotel room. Or you find yourself wanting to make a quick run to the grocery, or to tote just a handful of things from Point A to Point B, and these just always get the job done and fold up into a tiny square.
+Two sets of towels (these are the best, and 40% off right now!)
+A seat protector for Tilly. I didn’t care for ours — I would 100% get this one next time around, because she would have loved to have something to lean up against on both sides. She would sit awkwardly with her back against the back of the seat, as far as possible away from the seat edge, which basically meant she was sitting on my lap for hours at a time. But it’s great to have something for her to sit on after coming in from a muddy romp around whatever service station we were stopping at in middle-of-nowhere Indiana.
+A corkscrew (we’ve always preferred the wine key to any of the fancy automatic contraptions) and Wine. Wine. Wine. We packed a few bottles so that we could enjoy a few drinks in our hotel room when we got into Cleveland on Night 1 and NYC on Night 2. You WILL need them after a long day of driving.
+For minimagpie: this travel crib has been a must for us even still in our apartment — she has her crib set up but we have workmen doing something outside (tuckpointing? I don’t know what that is, but it feels right for the situation) of her bedroom window every day from 9-4, aka during prime naptime hours, so I have on occasion set this up in our bedroom, which is a little quieter. I love it because it’s SO EASY to set up. You literally push down in the middle and it springs into place. Our one gripe with it is when you pack it up, it’s designed so you sort of wrap the mattress insert around the folded-up crib to hold everything in place and it’s next to impossible to do by yourself. Also, this travel bottle drying rack and these rice rusks were clutch. I bought mini a few new toys on the trip and would bring them out strategically. Weirdly enough, she loved a plastic measuring spoon we stole from my mom’s house the best of all — but these chewbeads and this Fisher Price classic were also lifesavers. She also loves — LOVES — this book; I must have read it to her ten times a day. I much prefer the rice rusks because they truly dissolve — a lot of the others leave this gross sticky paste that in turn gets all over everything, caked onto hands, and glued to hair. BUT MAINLY, YOU MUST HAVE THESE WHEN YOU TRAVEL. So, so helpful when you’re changing a diaper in the backseat, or there’s a blowout, or you’re staying with friends and don’t want to gross them out, or you are in a hotel room with nowhere to put soiled diapers but in the unlined trashcan…
It’s That Time of Year: I buy a new pair of J. Crew moccasin slippers pretty much every year and wear them around the house constantly until they’re matted and gnarly (ew). The coziest.
You’re Sooooo Popular: The Belt Bag.
The most popular items on Le Blog this week:
+I must have struck a chord with some of you, because this has been ultra hot this week. (GO ON WITH YOUR BAD SELF, CHIC PEAS!!!)
Reading through my posts over the past month disappointed me. I hope I haven’t lost too much of your respect in all the self-wallowing and angst I expressed in them. I feel as though I reached some sort of zen-like serenity during my pregnancy with mini — little ruffled my feathers, I had a good sense of perspective, and I spent a lot of time reflecting on myself, on who I wanted to be for my daughter, on what I imagined for myself, and for her. I think I was at my best during those anticipatory months. Several of you wrote to say you found my posts “inspirational” — inspirational! Me! Just me, figuring life out! I was floored (in a good way — can that word be used in a good way?) and humbled and felt like I’d reached some new apex in personal development.
This move, by contrast, has brought out the worst in me: I’ve been short-tempered, harried, over-anxious to just get settled in. I’ve been complaining about Murphy’s Law, about being exhausted, about my back hurting, about being off schedule, about all of the hoops we’ve had to jump through. I’ve been saying things like, “Of course they WOULD be doing repair work right outside the window of minimagpie’s nursery every morning at 10 am when she’s going down for her nap — WHY WOULDN’T THEY BE” in a very “oy vey, life is cruel” kind of way. I’ve lived entire days in an alien-to-me survival mode, just trying to get from point A in the morning to point Z in the evening. (“Deep breath: fight the crowds to find these 23 things at The Fairway.” “OK, in the next 10 minutes, while mini is busy with her toys, we need to find Tilly a vet by reading reviews and book her an appointment to get her vaccinations updated.” “OK, gird your loins, time to get on the phone with our real estate agent.”) I’m reminded of some of my thoughts about being in my 30s and not having it all sorted out (scroll down to the turbothot), and I’m ashamed to say I’ve clearly let the sentiment slip right through my fingers: I am sitting here, realizing that I need to recognize that THIS IS IT. These moments of chaos are part of the narrative, not a footnote to it. And if I don’t realize that, I’m going to wake up with an 18-year-old daughter and no idea what happened.
So shame on me.
Shame on me, too, for losing the forest for the trees. We are in a wonderful apartment right on Central Park in New York City. We are healthy. We are close to home and everyone we love. We are an intact, loving family. We are employed. God is good.
It took a trip to my bestie’s (now just a 15 minute journey, door-to-door, thanks to the miracle and madness of the New York Subway) and a scan through my recent posts to realize I’ve been a whining whilma, and ain’t nobody got time for her.
Putting it behind me, turning over a new leaf, and moving on.
+P.S. – Don’t forget to check out Le Shop! I’m always updating!
By: Jen Shoop
When I was little, I thought my mother was most beautiful when she was on her way out for an evening. I loved the cloud of perfume that followed her out the door, dabbed artfully on her wrists and neck. I loved the high heels, the silks, the furs — so sumptuous compared to her more practical day-to-day wardrobe. I loved the swipe of lipstick, the more dramatic eye shadow, the spritz of Aquanet, the special-ness of the occasion that these details heralded. I even loved the feeling of excitement — of rush, of hurry — in the air as she and my father descended quickly, with purpose, down the stairs, my father buttoning his mother of pearl cuff links or straightening his tie in the front hallway mirror, my mother fidgeting with the clasp of her necklace or dabbing her lips for excess lipstick, bursts of conversation punctuating their finishing touches: “…take Connecticut all the way through The Circle?”; “…Chris and Trish will be there –“; “do you think it’s too warm for my fur?” And then, always, a quick kiss goodbye from my mother, final instructions to the nanny, and out the door they went.
I’ve wondered, occasionally, about whether minimagpie will remember similar things about me: the perfume I wear at evening time (right now, Tom Ford), the heels I retrieve for special occasions (I finally pulled the trigger on these after all the hubbub I made over the other velvet shoes I’d snagged), the music we put on (Madeleine Peyroux or Frank Sinatra are currently heavily on repeat in the evenings), the glass of wine I enjoy while doing so. These trivial details of our life together: what will she dial in on? What will she remember?
One of my friends recently passed along an invite to an event at The Yale Club in NYC and it left me daydreaming about an evening out and all the gorgeous goodies to consider for just such an occasion — even though I’ve already talked about holiday dressing options…just click the images below to be taken to details. I will point out that these sparkly tootsies are on sale for under $100 with code FRIENDS40, how epic are the bows on this chic evening dress?, and — not shown below — this would make such a fun evening dress!
It’s been a minute since I’ve done a 10 pick post, and I know that many of you enjoy them over my other formats, so here we are! Today’s mash up!
Pick No. 1: The Fair Isle Turtleneck
It’s getting cold in New York and I’m pulling out all my sweaters and lusting after a few new additions. This fair isle style ($98) is a must for me. Love the colors and the retro vibe.
Pick No. 2: The Silver Cleaner
As I’ve been unpacking all of our belongings, I’ve tried to take time to clean/shine/polish everything as it comes out of the box. It can be hard to stay on top of windexing and waxing all of our oversized vases and accent pieces when they’re situated. One thing I noticed is that all of our silver pieces — frames, julep cups, and cutlery — were looking horribly tarnished. I was delighted to find these highly-reviewed wipes ($5), which seem a lot simpler than using a cloth and silver cleanser as my mother has done for years. BTW, I love julep cups as an alternative to a bud vase or even, as is the case in our home, a pen holder or a toothbrush stand. We had a few of these traditional ones engraved with our initials years ago, but they’re no longer available; Mark and Graham has a more modern style that’s engravable, or you can get non-monogrammed ones here. I always get compliments on them scattered around our house — they sort of up the ante on what would otherwise be very basic decor items.
Speaking of velvet, how perfect are these tootsies ($795)? GORGE. Get the look for less with these for $128! Perfect holiday heel!
Pick No. 5: The Shoe Storage Solution
I got a number of emails and texts in response to my thoughts on making the most of a small apartment and my Instastory about throwing away all of the shoeboxes that accompanied my favorite fancy shoes, and one of you recommended I look into the Container Store’s drop-front shoe boxes (also available in the fabric-sided style shown below). These won’t save me much space over the boxes I had before, but I like that you can so easily stack them neatly and see what’s in them. I’m thinking I might buy a few big bins for bulkier shoes and boots, one of these for my flats, and then a few of these for my nicer shoes and/or the shoes I wear all the time and therefore need easy access to. Thoughts? I’m sort of at a standoff with the boxes of clothing in my apartment — I’m at a loss as to how to organize it all in our limited space. I think we might be looking at a situation where I keep only the 15-20 pieces that I wear heavily hanging and rotate them in and out every few weeks, and keep the rest folded up in bins higher up in the closet or vac pacs under the bed. (I’ll just have to get into an intimate relationship with this.) We lucked out and were able to rent a 6×10 (!!!) storage unit in the basement of our building (seriously lucked out because apparently there is a several year waiting list for one of them! #newyorkproblems), so it’s like a whole other room for all of our overflow stuff, including off-season clothing. But still…as an aside, I love the idea of these for stowing clutches, which are notoriously difficult to organize neatly. I’m always stuffing mine in bins and drawers.
Pick No. 6: The Monogrammed Pouch
These hand-painted monogrammed canvas pouches ($49) have a Goyard air to them. Love the oversized letters and racer stripes. Would make a great gift for a friend — who doesn’t need an extra compartment? I’m the queen of compartments, and never did they come more in handy than during this nightmare of a move, where I was able to (pretty much) find things I needed quickly across about a dozen bags/suitcases.
Pick No. 7: The Texturizing Spray
I mentioned that I have a new ‘do, and it requires texturizing spray to “work” given my fine hair. I’ve been using this, which I love, but Mr. Magpie claims the smell of it “stings his nostrils” (LOLOL). It does have a strong smell — I don’t mind it, actually, but he’s not into it at all. I just ordered this as an alternate, which has strong reviews and hopefully a not-so-strong smell.
Pick No. 8: The Sweater Dress
Now this ($56) is the kind of thing I could absolutely live in all season. So snuggly. If you’re not into the dress situation but like the look, this gives me all the cozy feelings of a Starbucks holiday cup.
Pick No. 9: The KeyTag
I think I need one of these cheeky keytags ($15). How hilarious!? I know I’ve featured these or something similar in the past…getaway car?! HAHA.
Pick No. 10: The Face Oil
I’m playing around with my nighttime ritual when it comes to caring for my skin, and I’m thinking I want to re-introduce an oil into the regimen now that it’s winter time. I used this last year, but this and this have great reviews, too. Any other recommendations? P.S. My other favorite new beauty finds.
By: Jen Shoop
Did anyone else love the movie So I Married an Axe Murderer from the 90s? It’s ultra kitschy and reminiscent of the days when Mike Myers was considered the peak of comedy (we’ve come a far way, mah friends — I can’t think of him without simultaneously recalling glittery butterfly hair clips, trips to Limited Too, and a lot of lip gloss…ah, my akward tween/early teen years). There’s a funny scene where Mike Myers is participating in a freestyle poetry performance in it and he refers to his love interest, a butcher of Irish descent with:
“Harriet /
Sweet Harriet /
Hard-hearted harbinger of haggis.”
I have no idea why (maybe something to do with my love of words?), but Mr. Magpie and I love the alliteration in this stanza and will often recite these words, out of the blue, a propos of nothing at all, just to entertain one another.
It sprang to mind when I was drooling all over my keyboard while ogling at these M2 Malletier bags and their signature heavy hardware handles. (“Hardhearted harbinger of HARDWARE.”)
I also think all the styles from Manu Atelier nail the look very chic-ly at a pricepoint that is a bit easier to stomach. I especially love this little lavender lovely ($420).
I talked a big game about these Tory Burch heels, which I pre-ordered from Moda Operandi right off the runway earlier this year, and which just arrived and are too big (GRRRRR) for my pixie feet, even in the smallest size available (size 5). ARGH. I am so annoyed. I was literally waiting all season for these! (Although, there are lots of other options along the same lines…) I’m debating whether to try to put foot petals in the toe bed, which have the added benefit of making too-big shoes a little snugger, or returning them because they are going to be slipping off the back of my heel all season long…
Maybe one door closes, and another opens, and now I think I might take the plunge on these instead, although now I’m having a hard time finding a size 35/5 in those, too! Who are these small-footed chic peas who are stealing all the good footwear?
And by stealing, I mean overspending, like me, on fancy footwear.
SO, those heels *were* a good buy, but they didn’t feet mah damn feet.
Below, a few other favorite snags over the last month:
+I love love love this sweater cape. The design is actually very clever — your arms go through the little space between the buttons.
+I’m very into my new face routine — this cream is heavenly, this micellar water leaves my skin completely clear at the end of the day, and this relatively well-priced eye cream is MAGIC. I love the consistency — cooling, soothing, gel-like — and I swear it does brighten the area.
+I feel like I’m constantly cleaning these days — maybe I’m overly and unnecessarily concerned with the gritty/dirty New York streets, but I’m mopping the floors nightly, scrubbing bathroom surfaces with these (flushable!), and wiping down minimagpie’s toys and activity center and stroller with these at least once a day. I’m also thinking about ordering some of these to keep our shoes looking fresh amidst the city grime!
+Very much enjoying this book in the handful of minutes I have to read here and there…suffice to say, I did not make it very far in my October reading list. But, a full report to come soon!
+Not a recent purchase, but heavily used lately: I found that I was getting super light-headed and dizzy (no joke!) while unpacking boxes and moving items around our apartment this week and have found that keeping a water bottle at my side is really helpful. I love this one because I can drink from it one-handed thanks to the sport nozzle — handy when minimagpie is on my hip or I’m traipsing around my neighborhood with the stroller. But this one, a gift from a dear friend, is pretty. Also, in case you were wondering, this is the best travel coffee mug of all time. (Would make a great gift!) It keeps coffee super hot for hours and hours, and it has a nice “flow” when you drink from it.
Oh man, I’ve spent a lot of time researching storage solutions to maximize our new apartment over the last week. A couple of good, admittedly boring, finds:
+Expandable cutlery tray. Genius — it will tailor-fit basically any drawer so you’re not wasting valuable space.
+I wish we could have made this SimpleHuman under-counter trashcan work, but it’s just too damn small. Mr. Magpie complains that I generate a lot of trash and I feel like I’d fill this in about an hour flat. SimpleHuman makes great, sleek trashcans, if you can call trashcans sleek. I went with this larger, but still relatively sleek, under-the-counter style instead. (Mr. Magpie and I don’t want to use up precious floor space in our galley kitchen with a free standing one.)
+We have…a LOT of kitchen gear. Like. Too much. We shed a good portion of it before the move but still. Now that we’re here, we find ourselves asking, “Hm, maybe we DON’T need two paella pans?” and “Well, I guess I didn’t need to pack 3 loaf pans that don’t nest inside one another” and “Gosh, our two ginormous knife blocks take up a lot of counterspace…” (LOL — are we idiots? These conversations actually happened.) We will need to buy a large piece of furniture to house overflow kitchen gadgets and serving dishes and all that jazz, but in the meantime, I’m just trying to put out the little fires, like how the hell do we have so many spices?! I legit filled up an ENTIRE shelf with spices. I decided a better solution was needed, so I snagged these jars so I can move all of these free-floating baggies and bigger tins and multiples into one matching set and store them in a few of these. (Although, this also intrigues me — but I don’t think it’s the best use of space.)
+Got a few of these to make the most of our fairly high cabinet shelves!
+I’m now seeing the virtue in these food storage bins — they stack on top of one another and pop into place. Plus, easier to maneuver them into/out of cabinets and easier to find stuff. I have a feeling I’m going to eventually just have a wall of these bad boys.
+Contemplating one of these (see conversation above about the fact that we have two enormous wood knife blocks that take up about 1/6 of our kitchen counter space at the moment).
Why is it that I have encountered about a good dozen occasions in the past few weeks where things that should be digital are not? Am I too millennial for my own good? Why is it that I was told that medical records for minimagpie could only be mailed to our new pediatrician (#firstorderofbusiness) after a hard copy form was downloaded, printed, and faxed or scanned? (P.S. Who has a fax anymore?) Why is it that our new boarding spot for our dog required us to have vaccination records faxed and a hard copy form filled out and sent in? (Somehow more complicated than minimagpie’s pediatrician forms? BLBLBLBLBLBL) Why is it that our lease had to be FedExed at great expense over night? All of these are business opportunities but right now, I’m mainly in a cranky mood and confused as to how so many normal, everyday, quotidian processes are so manual in this day and age. Doesn’t it drive you nuts that all of us are spinning on our own hamster wheels doing the exact same thing and no one is working to improve the logistics? Or maybe people are.
+I’ve never been a fan of the Mary Jane shoe shape (too cutesy?), but these may make me change my mind. How fun for the holiday party circuit?! Also, it’s one way of nailing that Chanel glitter shoe lust I’ve been channeling.
I saw a v. chic woman walking down my block the other day wearing a Gucci belt bag. At first glance, I thought — “hm, how odd. Beautifully coiffed hair, lovely flats—blblblblb a fanny pack?!”
But it somehow worked.
I know the high fashion fanny pack was a thing maybe two seasons ago and I dismissed it as part of the “too out there” fashion camp, but seeing it in real life, on the streets, on an elegantly appointed woman, made me think twice…or thrice…or, well, let’s be honest — I haven’t stopped musing over it since I saw it, in part because of its wickedly delightful functionality: when I’m walking Tilly and pushing minimagpie on one of our strolls through Central Park, things can get a litttttle hairy. (I’ve been told many times “my my, you have your hands full!” — and this is just a dog and a baby. What happens if I have another baby? Will people start ripping out their hair when they see me careening down the street with a double pram and Tilly on the leash?) It would be so incredible to tuck my essential cards/ID into my card case — get the look for less with this, which is monogrammable! — along with my keys, hand sanitizer (I’m a nut about this stuff, especially in NY, and especially when picking up dog poop!), and phone to travel around ultralight. When I’m on these strolls, I don’t feel like I need the whole baby bag since I’m so close to home or can toss super essentials into the basket of the stroller. Sooo.
Thoughts?
Maybe we could accomplish the same thing with a mini crossbody if the belt bag is too out there?
(Also, I’m still contemplating purchasing these thanks to the chic peas of NYC.)
On a little less “out there” ground, a few other things:
+Y’all know I’m obsessed with these for makeup removal at the end of the day. I’ve probably featured them 2398 times, but they’re easy peasy (something so delightful about not having to tie your hair back and use a washcloth) and they REALLY scrub everything off, while toning. But I got a sample of this micellar water from Dior awhile ago and loved it. It smells amazing and the same principle applies — you soak a cotton ball and toss it when done — and it’s super gentle on the skin / not as astringent. I went ahead and bought a full-sized one and will be incorporating it into my nightly routine. (In case you’re wondering what the hell micellar water is, here’s a good primer. Note that if you wear inky black mascara like I do — THIS IS MY JAM! — you’ll still need a separate makeup remover for your eyes — I have used these for centuries, but have also heard good things about this stuff.) Also, if the Dior stuff seems a little rich for your blood (I hear ya), I’ve heard good stuff about this drugstore variation.
+I’ve been hearing that white boots are the new new when it comes to cool footwear. I can’t even imagine what they’ll look like after a couple walks around NYC. (Insert scared emoji face.) White bags, however….HEART EYES.
+Thinking about updating the drawer pulls on one of our dressers and some of the hardware in our new apartment is a cool brass color. Are these trying too hard? I mean, I’m not Zooey Deschanel over here. But I think they could look kind of amazing since we have a lot of animal paintings/decor (think white ceramic quail and a ginormous bull painting and my beloved Stark antelope carpet). Then again, these are more up my alley. P.S. — If you’ve never updated hardware on a dresser or set of kitchen drawers before — DO IT!! It’s a relatively inexpensive way to personalize furniture or better blend a piece into your overall aesthetic!
