*Image via.
My Latest Snag: Petite Plume Robe for Mini.
This was a big spring fashion acquisition week between Shopbop’s sale (extra 25% sale items — all my picks here; I bought these and this) and my new Marea pieces (this and another dress that’s now sold out (!)), both generously gifted. I can’t believe how quickly the Marea pieces are moving! Contemplating buying one of these tops before it, too, sells out. A good price point for the look. But my most exciting shopping this week was buying all of mini’s birthday gifts! She turns six in a few weeks! I’ll share everything we bought for her in a small post later this week but I was mainly excited about this robe and pajama set I bought for her. I even bought the matching doll pajamas! (They fit the standard 18″ American Girl dolls.) She’s been asking me for a robe every since I started wearing my Weezie one around the clock. (A full review of the Weezie French terry robe here — it is SO good. Instantly and easily one of my favorite possessions.) I can’t wait to surprise her with this pretty floral one!
This Week’s Most Popular: Early Spring Finds.
01. PEPLUM KNIT CARDIGAN // 02. BOYS DOCK SHORTS // 03. TARGET WOVEN CANISTER WITH LID // 04. SPLITS59 AIRWEIGHT LEGGINGS // 05. AMAZON WOVEN BAG // 06. BLOCKPRINT SHIRT DRESS // 07. CASLON FLORAL BLOUSE // 08. GIRLS SPRING DRESS // 09. CHI SPIN AND CURL HAIR TOOL // 10. ST LAURENT KATE SUNGLASSES // 11. TARGET WOVEN END TABLE // 12. ALL THE WORLD BOARD BOOK
Weekend Musings: Do You Ever Do Nothing?
Over drinks earlier this week, a girlfriend of mine shared a prompt from her therapist: “Do you ever do nothing?” My friend added that she (like me!) tends to multi-task: she’ll call a sister while in the car running errands; listen to a podcast while folding laundry; take a work call while on a walk.
This led to some navel gazing on my end. When was the last time I sat in stillness? Went for a run without music or audiobooks? Drove in my car without anything going but the engine? Let my thoughts wander and pool?
Mr. Magpie and I unpacked this a little bit over dinner later in the week. We determined that the goal (for us) is not necessarily doing nothing (neither of us can imagine sitting down, daydreaming), but doing one restful/relaxing thing fully, without the competition of a conversation, or the buzz of alerts, or the pawing sense that we should be doing something more conventionally productive.
This is difficult to achieve at this heavy-on-the-vine phase of life. If we’re not working, we’re tending to our children, taking care of our home, exercising, or attempting to maintain some semblance of a social life. However, after reflecting on this prompt, I realized I have been able to find time for small stretches of “focused nothing.” I didn’t realize what I was doing, but I was essentially uncoupling routine activities from their former “multi-tasking pairs.” For example, I used to listen to audiobooks or call my mother while walking Tilly in the morning. But for the past few months, I’ve left that sliver of time fallow. I find I get some of my best thinking done during that brief morning constitutional. I also used to call friends and siblings on the return from school drop off. Now I enjoy the vacancy of those twenty minutes. Sometimes I listen to music; sometimes I don’t. But either way, it feels deliciously solitary, and intensively so. I’ve also been eating lunch at the dining room table or at the kitchen counter every day of 2023. I wrote about this practice earlier this year, and I can’t tell you what a change it has made for me. Lunch time is now for sitting still, enjoying my meal, and (usually) chatting with Mr. Magpie. (We try to eat lunch together daily.) It always feels like I catch my breath during that midday pause. Finally, I have returned to observing “the buffer,” or the habit of turning off my computer, stretching my legs, often refreshing my makeup/changing my outfit, ten minutes prior to the end of my official work day. Usually, our nanny leaves at six, and so at 5:50, I force myself out of the desk chair and give myself ten minutes to recalibrate, shifting from “writing Jen” to “mom Jen.” I’ve talked to many friends who now permanently work from home in the aftermath of the pandemic, and many of them miss the commute for just this reason: the twenty or thirty minutes of absent-minded transitoriness, during which they uncouple from their work selves and clip into their home selves. Now we must find new ways to engineer this phenomenon. “The buffer” is my mode.
What about you? Do you make time for “focused nothing”?
Shopping Break.
+Two great under-$100 dresses: this Mango steal and this Zara score.
+Fun textured jacket — reminds me a bit of the BA&SH Gaspard jacket we’re all eyeing…
+Van Cleef-inspired earrings for $20.
+A great new indoor/outdoor rug option — would be cute for a playroom, covered porch, etc.
+How cute is this little Target bag?
+After yesterday’s post on everyday tops, I can’t stop shopping for them myself! Just found this fun sky blue – red stripe at J. Crew Factory at a great price! I like the idea of wearing this almost like a sweatshirt/top layer, even tying around shoulders.
+Oo! Love the colors and tunic length of this sweatshirt.
+This espadrille is SO good.
+Sweetest sets of Liberty hair clips for littles.
+Drooling over this skirt.
+Doen has some really pretty new arrivals.
+These new vanity applique monogram vanity bags from Biscuit are so fab.
When my daughter gets out of the pool she likes to lie down in the sun like a lizard. Usually I hurry her along but yesterday I lay down with her and we spent five minutes basking, completely still and quiet. It was amazing. I have forgotten how to do nothing – she showed me a very simple way that took almost no time (I could have stayed put for hours but the sun is too strong to risk it for either of us!).
Oh I love this so much! What a great reminder of how children can help us dial in on the small things / stay present.
xx
I adore doing nothing. It’s not until you stop and stare out the window, or up at the trees, or even just at the ceiling for 15 mins do you really understand what incredibly overstimulated lives we live these days. I think most people have a hard time justifying that level of unproductiveness, though. If that feels unaccessible, I recommend just trying to notice when you’ve stopped paying attention to a podcast or music in the course of your daily life and turn it off in favor of listening to your mind instead. Our bodies and brains are smart- they’ll tell us when it’s time to unplug, as long as we take the time to actually listen. (Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing is also a great read on this topic.)
I love this suggestion / note — thanks, Anna!
This reminds me of a strange practice I picked up when I started law school. When I left a particularly challenging class or exam, I would driving home in complete silence – no music, no podcast, no phone calls. It was odd to me because I’m one of those people who is always talking, listening to others, engaging with my internal monologue, putting music on, etc. but I ended up really liking it and now do it more often than I realize. It’s nice to sit in silence sometimes… My mother always says that people who can’t sit with themselves probably can’t be trusted, LOL!
Oh absolutely – Mr. Magpie and I were just talking about how we’ve enjoyed not listening to music lately when in the car. A nice pause on all the noise in our lives.
xx