Penelope Loves Lists

Finally. Introducing… Jackson

Meredith — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 23:57:44 +0000

Hi Penelopes,

Long time no see! I’m so sorry to have gone MIA for so long. Thanks to everyone who’s emailed asking if we’re ok. We are! In fact, we’re doing great.

I wanted to do a quick post to introduce you to the now 4 month old (!!) Jackson. He was born on August 16th and weighed 8 lbs, 8 oz. His entrance to the world was nothing I could have ever expected and probably deserves a whole post all to itself. Four months later, I’m just happy he’s here and healthy. Jackson is a super mellow baby, for which this mama is unspeakably grateful.

Being pregnant and having a newborn have taught me a lot about being a Penelope. And, both those things changed me, too. I can’t wait to write more about that in the coming months. Now that Jackson is a bit older and has a more regular schedule, I’m hoping very much to be posting her more regularly. I’ve missed you all so much.

Until then, some photos of our boy.

Jackson on his very first day - August 16th, 2011

Jackson today - full of smiles

A Book Not to Miss: “A Trick of the Light” by Louise Penny

Meredith — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:13:38 +0000

Very few things could bring me out of my flurry of baby preparations (I’m overdue by 2 days and counting!). But, a great book is one of them and I just had to recommend this one to you.

I just finished an advanced reader’s copy of “A Trick of the Light” by Louise Penny, the 7th book in the Three Pines mystery series. I’m so happy to report that it was every bit as good as I’d been hoping. And that’s saying a lot because Ms. Penny has set a really high bar.

So, why is this series, set in a picturesque small town in Canada, my very favorite mystery series?

Penny’s writing is superlative. Her prose is beautiful to read even as it advances each thrilling plotline.
I have such a crush on her lead character, Armand Gamache. Sure, he’s old enough to be my father, but he’s soooooo sexy and quietly commanding. Love me some Gamache.
Her cast of characters is amazing. Each one is so fully drawn and real, I feel as if I’ve known them forever. And I care very much what happens to each of them as the series goes on.

But what I love most about Penny’s Three Pines series is that she’s written it as if she firmly believes her audience is intelligent. She doesn’t overexplain, or drop stupid red herrings, or repeat herself or pander to the lowest common denominator. She writes for smart readers and I respect that. Too few authors do that these days, especially in the mystery genre.

The new book is due out on August 30th and if you’re all caught up with the series, make sure you’ve pre-ordered it.

But, if you want to start from the beginning, and I highly recommend that you do that with this particular series, here’s the order in which you should do your reading:

Still Life
A Fatal Grace
The Cruelest Month
A Rule Against Murder
The Brutal Telling
Bury Your Dead
A Trick of The Light

If you love a good mystery, and especially a good police procedural, you owe it to yourself to check out Louise Penny’s books. If you do, please let me know what you think!

Finally ready to officially take a break (plus a few photos)

Meredith — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:04:37 +0000

Hi Penelopes,

I’m so sorry for yet another round of radio silence here at Penelope Loves Lists. The truth is, I’ve just been so conflicted as to how to handle this period of my blogging life.

As you know, I’m getting ready to have our baby in early August (I’m at 37 weeks -almost there!). The preparation for the little guy (and, even more so, for being away from work to be with him) has simply taken all energy out of me. And so, I’ve wanted to just post that I’m taking a long term break.

And yet, I didn’t want to take away my option to post if all of a sudden I had a bolt of energy and inspiration simultaneously. And I felt guilty for not posting. And I felt guilty for pushing myself to do more than I should.

And back and forth I’ve gone, all the while simply not posting anything.

Man, I am so tired of myself.

So, I’m finally making a decision and putting the blog on official hiatus for a while. I’m not sure how long that will be. I may post in a week, or it may be a whole lot longer. I just don’t know. I hope very much to be back for real in the next few months, but I’m giving myself the option to just see how it goes. Which is very, VERY difficult for me. I’m so not good with “go with the flow.”

I’m thinking this may be my season to learn to do just that. And that’s a humbling lesson to learn, isn’t it?

I deeply love this website and all of you and I miss our interaction, so I look forward to the time when life enables me to be back in full Penelope action.

Until then, and because so many of you have been sweet enough to ask to see some photos of my pregnant self, I’ll leave you with a few pictures from our recent family and maternity photo session with the fantastic photographer Lisa Farrer. Seriously, if you’re in the SF Bay Area, Lisa’s the person to see for family photos, belly shots, baby portraits or wedding photography. Super, super talented photographer and really sweet person. She made my entire, photo-phobic family feel extremely comfortable.

Our spectacularly blended family

Me and my very patient husband

The cliched heart-on-belly shot. Just had to do it.

29 weeks pregnant

Our Boston Terrier, Cooper.

Have a wonderful summer and fall, Penelopes. I’ll see you soon.

Genius Idea for the new mom: Sticky Bellies

Meredith — Mon, 23 May 2011 01:50:19 +0000

True confession time: I’m not so great at taking photos. In fact, I suck. Horribly. There are entire years of my childrens’ lives that have gone mostly unphotographed. I know. It’s truly terrible.

It’s like I was born without the proper photo-taking gene. I believe my sister got every last ounce of that gene in our family, unfairly leaving me with zero. (Which is odd, because I’m older, but who am I to question the way these things work?)

But, I do very much want to document the first year of my son’s life by taking a photo of him every month in roughly the same place and position. We’ve all been inspired by Nicole at Making It Lovely, right? She’s done this for both her kids and it’s a wonderful way to watch them grow.

Today, I found this product, which I think will make the project easier for me. It’s called Sticky Bellies. It’s a pack of 12 stickers that you can stick on the front of your baby’s onesie or shirt each month. They’re adorable. They’re designed to look sewn on, for that handmade vibe we’re going for with these photos. They make it easy to tell how old baby is in each photo.

And, at just $15 for the pack, they are a great shower gift for any new mom.

I hope Sticky Bellies makes a million dollars on this product, because it’s such a genius idea.

Guest Post: Dreaming Big, One Line at a Time

Meredith — Fri, 20 May 2011 04:22:36 +0000

While I’m crazybusy getting ready for my maternity leave, a few fantastic bloggers have agreed to do some guest posts here on the Penelope site. I’m so grateful for the help.

Today, a heartfelt rumination on effective list-making brought to us by Alexis Anne from Clean, Smart, Simple, Style.

I am list obsessed- always have been, probably always will be, it’s just in my nature.

Making a list is a necessary part of my life when I am trying to accomplish something. But I have to confess: sometimes lists stress me out. A list with no check marks is the worst kind of visual reminder of everything that you haven’t accomplished.

I used to make lists all of the time, but over the last few months I noticed that I wasn’t making lists very often, and I finally figured out why. I couldn’t stand making a list in the morning and seeing it without any check marks at the end of the day. The things that I wanted “To Do” weren’t translating very well into a “To Do List” because I was confusing goals with tasks.

I’ve been dreaming about big things, and setting lofty goals. But sometimes even after several hours of work towards a goal, I don’t “finish” anything, and I can’t cross anything off of my list. I get frustrated, and in the moment I feel like I will never reach my goal.

I’ve always been easily frustrated and impatient. As a kid, if it didn’t come easily to me, I generally wasn’t interested. But when I started playing the piano at age 5, it came easily enough that I stuck with it. No one expects perfection from a 5 year old.

As I grew older though, the work became harder. Songs would take weeks, if not months, to learn. Luckily, my teacher never expected that I would learn something overnight. Every morning I would practice at the piano for 30 minutes and slowly work my way through my lesson for the week- piecing together the notes to my new song. Not surprisingly, I’d often become impatient with my progress and race hastily toward the end, fumbling over notes until the melody was nearly unrecognizable.

Without fail, my Dad’s voice would chime from the other room, “Stop. Go Back. Break it down. Try it again.” He was a stickler for reminding me to learn it line by line until I got it right. Perfection never happened over night, but if I worked hard enough, I eventually reached my goal..

Today, as I find myself trying to move full speed ahead to my goals, impatiently wanting them to happen overnight, I find myself remembering the 30 min of practice a day approach, and the Xs that my piano teacher would mark at the end of the line in my sheet music as the visual reminder that I was not required (or allowed) to do it all at once.

I hear my Dad’s voice reminding me:
Stop. Break it down. Try again. One line at a time.

Even away from the piano, I need to break things down and tackle them one line at a time because when I make a list, I now know that I need to cross things off regularly.

I’m learning that you can’t just write what you want to do. You have to think about exactly how you’re going to do it, and THAT’S the part that you have to write down. You have to break it down into manageable pieces and devote a tiny increment of time to these task every day.

Work on X for 30 min
Research Y for 15 minutes
Contact 2 people about Z

Move through the list line by line, and then less than an hour later you’ve earned the right to put a check in the boxes next to X, Y, and Z. No more blank “To Do Lists” taunting you with what you haven’t accomplished, just visual proof of the steps that you’ve taken towards your goal.

It’s good to have goals. It’s great to write them down. But from one Penelope to another…what’s the point of making a list if you can’t check some stuff off today?

In addition to dreaming big and making lists, Alexis Anne shares ideas and inspiration for home organizing and design at her blog Clean, Smart, Simple, Style.

The Perfect Backbend: or, why I want to be a parent again

Meredith — Fri, 06 May 2011 16:41:40 +0000

As I’ve mentioned, my husband and I have three children in our blended family, which has been in the blender for 12 years now: he has 2 boys, aged 12 and 21, whom I consider my own sons, and I have a 16 year old daughter.

When we decided to have another baby, a question I got a lot was “But, why? You’re 37, you’re in a great, busy place in your career and your kids are grown out of that “needy” phase. You’re almost there! Why do it again?”

I’ll tell you why.

Because, these things happen.

The other night, my 16 year old daughter came to me with a problem. She’s in the “tumbling” segment of her high school gym class and they will be graded on being able to do the perfect backbend.

You know what I mean. This one:

My daughter hasn’t ever been interested in gymnastics (a somersault was as far as we got when she was little), so she’s never learned to do a backbend. And the fact that she was struggling with it was really bothering her. She is going to be TESTED on this. And she’s a true Penelope. If she’s going to get a grade, it’d better be a good one.

Before I go on, a bit of background on my daughter. The thing is, she rarely needs my help. Since she was young (like, 5) she has been able to figure out and execute nearly perfectly anything she puts her mind to. School comes easy to her. I mean, she works very, very long and hard, but the actual organization and doing of the work is fairly natural to her.

Unlike with my sons (who are smart, hardworking boys, to be sure) she’s never needed my help. The boys needed me to teach them to keep themselves on task, to manage their time and assignments, to wrangle in their various items of school-related paperwork into a workable system.

Not my daughter. She practically came out of the womb organizing a binder.

All this to say, she’s so easy to parent that sometimes the Leo in me feels unneeded. Narcissistic or not, it’s the truth.

But this night, she needed me. Almost in tears, she came to me for help in learning to do a backbend. I hid, admirably, my joy at being asked for assistance.

I was a bit frustrated that I couldn’t actually show her how to do one. I’m more than capable in my normal body state, but now that I’m 6 and a half months pregnant, a backbend seemed neither possible nor advisable.

So I stuck to going through the various tricks I’d learned back in my childhood gymnastic classes. At first, no luck. It seemed impossible for her. Her arms just didn’t want to lift her up into position.

And then, with a few more tricks and adjustments, she started to see how it might happen. And then, with more work together, she got it. Perfectly. She did it again and again, shocked that something so impossible just a few minutes before, was now not only possible, but easy.

She thanked me profusely and gave me the tightest, least “teenaged” hug she’d given me in forever. She must have thanked me 10 times. Later, right before bed, she quickly laid on the floor to do it again and was so happy it had now become muscle memory for her. Easy! She was delighted. She smiled that smile I used to see all the time but is a bit more rare these days.

And that’s why I want to do this parent thing again. Because every time you can help your children gain a new skill or overcome a challenge, it’s all worth it. Your joy at their successes far, far outweighs joys for your own accomplishments.

I’m not in the business of oohing and aahing over babies for babies sake (though they do smell awfully good) but I am all about helping to create happy, productive humans.

One backbend at a time.

New obsession: Girl of All Work

Meredith — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 15:00:07 +0000

Very few things make my heart skip a beat faster than a new online retailer of pretty office supplies. Maybe a shirtless David Beckham. No…I’m actually more excited by this new find.

Have you seen Girl of All Work? Penelopes, you must.

Their site isn’t huge, yet. It’s focused and well-curated. It’s no See Jane Work – yet – but it’s got tremendous potential.

I love every item they’re offering. The designs are exquisitely cute and the prices are reasonable compared with similar retailers.

Here’s a glance at what went into my shopping cart at Girl of All Work today:

Classic Tiles Page Flags

Peel and Stick Tabs

More Peel and Stick Tabs

Birdie Notebook with both lined and blank pages

A Teapot Journal for jotting down recipe ideas

My only two suggestions for the awesome people at Girl of All Work? More and larger images, especially showing the inside of notebooks, tablets and pads and more inventory. I know they’ll get there soon. They’ve got so much potential here.

Have you found any great new online retailers lately to help you find pretty office products? Let us know!

5 Ways in which I’m not as Penelope as you’d think

Meredith — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:00:16 +0000

We talk a lot here at Penelope Loves Lists about what makes us a Penelope. But I got to thinking about the fact that there are a few ways in which I am stunningly un-Penelope. I thought I’d share. But, the deal is, you have to air your dirty laundry, too. Read on…

5 Ways in which I’m not as Penelope as you’d think:

I have a much larger closet in our new home and I love it. Love, love love. I do not, however, have matching hangers. Never have. People are constantly surprised by this. I could have matching hangers, I know this. They don’t have to be expensive. But I just don’t care enough to do it. Very un-Penelope.
I despise clutter and my house is extremely clutter-free. But, I hoard books. Books are the one category of “stuff” that doesn’t qualify as clutter in my mind. Can’t. Have. Too. Many. Books. Even unwieldly piles of books are fine by me. More than fine, they’re comforting. I’ve got a pile by my bed, a pile on the table by my seat on the couch, and shelves full of books I’ve not yet gotten a chance to read. Kinda bugs my husband, but I just have to be surrounded by books.
My pajama drawer is constantly a mess. Every other drawer I have is completely organized by type of clothing and even color. But, since I was a kid, my pajamas are just un-wrangleable. No idea why.
I can’t stand cleaning the shower. In fact, honestly? If my husband didn’t especially love a clean shower, and clean it himself regularly, I shudder to think what our shower would look like. There, I said it.
I’ll use things longer than you’d think. I have a coffee cup that I bought with my niece that has a chip in it. But I use it almost daily, mainly because it reminds me of her. The chip doesn’t ruin that, in fact, it makes me love it more. And, we have a faded, green sofa with fraying edges and flat cushions that I only parted with when we got our new house and it simply didn’t fit the larger living areas. We put the sofa in a guest room temporarily and I still find myself drawn to it. The truth is, the majority of this post was written from that tired, old, comfy couch.

And now, confession time. What about you? In what ways are you not as Penelope as people would guess?

PS: Baby update for those who are interested: I’m at 23 weeks this week and am developing a serious little basketball shape under my shirts. Given that I never really “showed” with my daughter (I know, weird, right?), this is kind of fun. We had our 20 week ultrasound 2 weeks ago and were incredibly grateful and excited to get a good report. Little Jackson is developing right along and enjoying getting Mom’s attention at bedtime by kicking up a storm right as she’s ready to go to sleep. Love.

Why I Want to Be Nigella Lawson (at least a little bit)

Meredith — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:12:58 +0000

You all watch plenty of the Food Network and its new, edgier sister network, The Cooking Channel, right? I’ve always been a huge fan. I love to have it on the background while I cook. Makes me feel involved and…proactive… in some weird way. Sort of the flip side of the same emotion that makes me hungry when I watch The Biggest Loser.

But I digress…

One of my very favorite cooking show personalities is the inimitable Nigella Lawson, the voluptuous Brit with a love for all things buttery and gooey. She’s so joyful about food and comfortable with herself. She’s a bit unstructured and, well, messy and she’s most definitely NOT a Penelope, but I think that’s part of my fascination with her.

source AskMen

So, here’s why I want to be Nigella Lawson (at least a little bit):

She eats at midnight. Not that I think one should eat at midnight, but she allows herself to do it because she wants to. I just don’t give myself that kind of leeway, with food or anything else except sex.
She isn’t skinny, and man, is she gorgeous! The girl has some weight on her, but she owns it. She loves herself and her body.
Her food isn’t “healthy” all the time, but it’s good. It’s tactile and beautiful and joyful.
When she cooks, she talks about throwing in “fat pinches” of things, rather than 2 teaspoons or some such. She’s not exact. She tastes and adjusts as she goes. I don’t do that enough. I’m totally a ‘by the book’ girl.
She talks freely, and with no shame, about days where she stays in her pajamas and watches movies all day. I don’t do that unless I’m sick. She does it for fun. Because she can. So could I, if I’d let myself.
She seems to love her daily life. She revels in the small pleasures and doesn’t seem bound up in worry all day, like I am.

Of course, all of this may just be her TV persona, and that’s ok with me. The Nigella Way is something I want to learn from, to experiment with a bit. Just to see how it would feel to let go and have some fun.

And….we’re back. And I do mean we.

Meredith — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:39:44 +0000

Ahhhh, Penelopes. How I’ve missed you! I’ve appreciated all of your personal emails and well wishes, along with all the sweet notes, urging me to…er…get the lead out and start posting again. Makes me feel good to know you care.

So, what gives, you ask? What’s kept me away and silent for so long? I’ll tell you, but, bear with me, this post is lengthy. Feel free to skim.

Most of you have probably guessed it, so I’ll just confirm: my husband and I are having a baby!

A little background first. My husband has 2 boys from previous relationships, age 21 and 11. I’ve helped raise the 11 year old since infancy. I have one biological daughter, who is turning – ahem – 16 next Monday. Good Lord.

So, while this new little one is not our first time at the rodeo (and boy, is that phrase played out or what?) it is a first in several ways.

First, he’s the first one either of us got to actually plan. (Did I tell you he’s a boy? He is!) And that was weird. After so many years of trying desperately not to get pregnant, it’s a real mindfudge to actually try to get pregnant. I thought maybe we’d get stage fright, but we muscled through admirably. And I found that the planning part wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. I actually wrote about some of the issues I was having here.

Second, this is our first baby together. First time both of us are in a happy, real, solid relationship when a child was created. That’s been wonderful. My husband’s been unspeakably amazing through all of this.

Third, this is my first baby, in, like, an ice age. Seriously, being pregnant at 20 and then 37 are two totally different things. Whooo baby. Different in some great ways and some not so great ways. (Want to take bets as to whether or not I’ll come home from the hospital, post-delivery, in my pre-pregnancy jeans. Ha! Yet, I did exactly that when I had my daughter. One laughs. And then cries.)

So, we planned this baby and wanted it very much. Then I miscarried on our first attempt back in August (and wrote about it in a veiled way here.) And that, my friends, is serious business. I think I knew intellectually that miscarriage was serious, but until I experienced it, I never fully understood the total gutcheck that losing a much-wanted pregnancy is. We got through it, and grew closer, but it threw me for a loop for a while.

Then, I got pregnant in November and – whoa Nellie – it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was super nauseous 24 hours a day for weeks and couldn’t remember a time when I liked food. And the fatigue. Wow. I didn’t experience it with my daughter. Maybe because back then I didn’t have an entire family to take care of and a company to run. But this time, I was tired in a way I never thought possible.

And I struggled against my Penelope self all the way through. I knew why I was tired, but the reality of being so tired and sick that I ordered a pizza on a Wednesday night, or that my kids had to eat cereal for dinner on a Tuesday, well, my ego took a major beating. I was so used to being able to do more in a day than others do in a week that I needed to really look at how I was valuing myself and why I thought others valued me.

Turns out, my wonderful staff still respected me, even when I was cranky with them. (They are a truly stellar bunch of Penelopes.) And my family loved me even when I didn’t cook dinner and do a million chores before the sun rose.

I think I needed that lesson. Actually, I know I did. It was humbling.

And I struggled with the paralyzing fear every day of losing this pregnancy. Once it’s happened to you, it feels so…possible to have it happen again. And the pregnancy feels so tenuous and tedious. All the waiting about drove me insane. Just crawling through those first few weeks was a feat.

Then, just as the worst of the physical symptoms started to abate a bit and we got through that glorious 12 week appointment and saw the heartbeat again and felt that things were proceeding at a good pace, another huge tidal wave hit: we decided to buy a new, larger home to fit our family.

And you know the toll that takes on your time and energy. Between the orchestrations of the escrow and the move, on top of the job and the family and the growing of the human, well, this Penelope was pooped.

So, I took a break. More out of pure necessity than anything. I just couldn’t do a single thing that absolutely didn’t have to be done.

I’ve missed the blog and, more, all of you, and am glad to be to a place where I can finally do some writing again.

I can’t promise I’ll go back to a normal posting schedule, but I am going to give it my best shot. I’ll try not to turn Penelope into a mommy blog (though I do love me some mommy blogs) but I will most likely be posting, along with the normal Penelope content, a bit more on baby-related items than I have in the past, just because that’s what I’m dealing with at this point. I hope you’ll be ok with it.

Again, my apologies for the radio silence and thank you for hanging around. I don’t feel that I deserve so much loyalty, but I appreciate it and thank you from the bottom of my Penelope heart.

Penelope PS: Since we’re always looking for ways to de-clutter and thin out our stuff: if anyone has maternity clothes and/or baby boy clothes in good condition for which you’re looking for a good home, send me an email and we can chat. I’ll be keeping everything in good condition myself and then will be passing them off to another Penelope later.

In fact, I’ve been mulling ways that we could use the Penelope community to facilitate this kind of swap. Anyone with ideas should email me on that, too!