Jen's Weekend Drafts: Basic Chic Style, It Doesn't Happen All at Once, and More.

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What Inspired Me This Week.

+BASIC CHIC: Kelly Rutherford and Monica de la Villardiere makes a case for black and white dressing. Note Monica’s mesh flats — don’t they compel you to try the trend?! Get the look at a reasonable price here.

+IT DOESN’T HAPPEN ALL AT ONCE: Another vote in favor of slow growth, also via Kelly Rutherford. “It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time.” It is so hard to crouch at the beginning of something, an athlete at the start line. You imagine the reward, the trophy, the accolades, the sense of completion. But life is a lot of middles. A slow and often recursive process of becoming.

+RETAIL THERAPY: I did a little retail therapy at Vuori after my girl had her bi-annual amblyopia eye appointment. She had to be dilated and was deeply upset about it – poor lamb! – and so I brought her home to relax for a few hours instead of returning straight to school so her eyes could reset. I reminded myself: “This is where you need to be.” The thought occurred to me: “Life can wait.” But then I corrected myself: “This is life. You’re making space for what matters. Sitting here, consoling my daughter, holding her hand, making her comfortable is the most important thing.” (More on my daughter’s eye condition, and her inspiring forbearance through nearly six years of treatment, here.) Anyhow, afterward, I stopped into Vuori to pick up a few things for myself. All my favorite finds from that trip here.

+DOEN X GAP: I couldn’t be more thrilled about this collection. My two longtime favorite brands together! I absolutely love it all.

+OTHER THINGS I LOVE RIGHT NOW: Mille’s second summer collection! OMG – this dress is SO good in the Nantucket stripe and is en route to me now. (15% off sitewide with JEN15) Also: this mini cosmetic bag came free with my recent Minnow order and it’s the perfect size for throwing makeup essentials into my everyday tote. I just put together a cluster of favorites to permanently keep in there so I can just transfer from bag to bag. You can also see some new Beyou products, including my beloved $18 caffeine eye cream, above – one of the brand’s founder wrote to thank me for writing so enthusiastically about it and sent me another tube! Truly an amazing product. Finally, just received these washable silk Lunya jogger pajamas. Divine. Divine!

What Inspired You This Week.

+OMG, how fun and intimate were the comments on this post about our grooming rituals? I learned so much! Two standout comments that I’ve been turning over:

“Being a shadow of myself can’t be of service to anyone.”

and

“My routines have ebbed and flowed with early motherhood.”

The first reminded me why I take care of myself in the first place (you can’t pour from an empty vessel, etc), and the second reassured me of a truth I have often needed to cling to: nothing is permanent, in ways good and bad. There are seasons of life for everything. If you feel like you don’t have the time, money, or inclination to follow an elaborate (or even minimal) self-grooming routine right now, it’s not a forever thing! I’ve certainly gone through seasons of being more involved and less involved in my own upkeep.

+I shared a random photo of my planner on Instagram and was inundated with questions about my process, my planner, etc! I use this inexpensive, simple Amazon planner because it gives you lots of room to make long lists of to-dos against each day of the week, but you can still see an entire week at a glance if you need to. I am disciplined about getting through each item on the list – but sometimes life happens. I used to beat myself up about the cross-outs, but now I just white them out with these cute little white out pens and instead write what I did do. For example, this week, I ran into a few tech issues that made it impossible to write my blog as I normally do, and then my daughter had an eye appointment that ran unexpectedly long and ate up an entire morning. Instead of crossing out my to-dos, I whited them out and wrote in what I did accomplish. Why not see and celebrate the things we’ve done versus punitively look at the things we haven’t?