If you’re going to make a movie in the mid sixties about sex and philandering, you’d better have a cutesy gal like Doris Day or Jane Fonda bat her long, false eyelashes through the entire romp. Any Wednesday is such a surprisingly enjoyable sexual comedy about the mistress of a New York executive that mixes cliche moments with surprising realism.

Ellen Gordon (Jane Fonda) is sitting pretty on her high horse, enjoying her job at an upscale art gallery, happily living in New York City with two roommates, and looking down her nose at two-timing married men like the wealthy Mr. John Cleves (Jason Robards). Until one day when Ellen’s roommates have moved away and she winds up sick and alone in the hospital. She’s about to lose her apartment until Mr. Cleves, who has been relentlessly pursuing her for a whole year, most recently visiting her in the hospital, suggests buying her apartment as a business expense and allowing her to stay there. Fast-forward a year, and we find little Miss Gordon happily playing the role of a kept mistress who plays housewife every Wednesday at her apartment which has now become Mr. Gordon’s executive suite. But everything comes to a head when on the same day of her thirtieth birthday, Ellen meets Mrs. Cleves, and begins to wonder about her future.

Continue reading »

Window shopping for dining room chairs has always been fun and easy. I’ve filled Pinterest boards with different inspirational dining rooms and chair options, But of course, now that I’m actually ready with an envelope of real, live, dirty greenbacks, I can’t make up my mind to save my life!

Why is it so difficult for me to decide on dining room chairs? I have completely changed my mind from the last time we discussed this. I think I’m having commitment issues. But like I said before, if we’re going to get new chairs, I’d really like them to be chairs we’ll have around for a very, very long time- if not forever! You guys brought up a good point, though. If we’re going to invest in forever chairs, I probably shouldn’t be crunching number so tightly. What’s a few more hundred dollars for a real dining room investment? (I’ll tell you what a few hundred dollars are- they’re about half a year’s worth of home improvement savings!) But I’ve decided to wait to take the dining room chair plunge, and really settle on a set that we truly love.

Here are the top contenders right now- of course, the one I love the most (this white spoke dining chair) is the most expensive. But I’m crossing my fingers for a sale. Oh- and while we’re talking about my dining room improvements, check out this ceiling medallion DIY I shared at A Beautiful Mess today!

I love this spoke dining chair from West Elm, because it has the traditional feeling of a spindle-back windsor chair, but the tapered style of the back lends the chair a bit of a funky vibe. It would be easy to wipe clean, and its more substantial size would stand up well against our large farmhouse table. This chair is a winner- but we’ll be saving quite a bit longer to take home a set of six.

The idea of having a grouping of these Panton style dining chairs alongside our rustic farmhouse table seems like a perfect contrast to me. I love the sleek style and mod design of these chairs, but they are a bit bulky, visually speaking, and the knock-offs that I actually can afford (The originals are more than $300, and I prefer the West Elm chair for that price.) have this weird webbing behind the curve of the seat, to give the weaker material extra support. The chair really doesn’t look so elegant with the webbing, so I’m not so sure I’d like to have the Panton knock-offs lined up in a row at our dining room table. Maybe somewhere else in our home?

This modern sleigh chair reminds me of a cross between the Panton chair above, and the gorgeous Saarinen tulip chair that I shared in my last dining room chair post. I love its sleek and mod vibes, and that it’s much airier that the clunky looking Panton chair. The cushion can be removed for cleaning and even recovered- which would be a great way to change up the look and add pattern to our dining room. But I’m just afraid that this style is such a statement that I’ll grow tired of it as the years progress. Also, would its small frame not work well with our bulky table? And could I ever commit to such a funky chair? I’m just not sure!

So what do you all think? I have a while to think about all of our options, because right now we’ve decided to save for six of the West Elm spoke chairs (option one), which will take a bit of time, unfortunately. Waiting is so difficult sometimes, but at least when the time comes, I’ll know with confidence which chair we want. Or will I?

Image sources: first dining room  image by Lena Ostling for Hus & Hem via Bright Bazaar Blog, second image by Barry Calhoun for Style at Home, last image by Daniel Mahon of Kirra Jamison & Dane Lovett’s home via The Design Files.

I cringe so hard when I read the comments on fellow blogger mom’s Instagram feeds. “Can I just be you?” “Your life is perfect!” Okay, so I’ve rarely ever heard such comments on my own Instagram feed (In fact, I’m not sure if I ever have…), but I have had friends in real life comment on how amazing my life seems, and that they wish they had my cool house or the time to do fun things (like crafts, or just their hair). It’s always a bit awkward when I receive those compliments, because sometimes they’re backhanded, and often they sound a bit self-deprecating. You wish you had the time? Oh really? SO DO I.

When I hear those comments while I’m at work behind the espresso machine, I want to retort with something like, “I wish I had the time to be out at Starbucks once a week spending money on overpriced lattes before I cart my kids off to Target where I buy them cute clothes and those squeezy packs of food that they’ll for sure eat and not throw over the edge of the high chair like Lucy does with the food I thoughtfully make with the time I don’t have.” Much of my life is spent scurrying home from a barista job so I can bust out work (that I enjoy doing) for A Beautiful Mess, so that I can maybe have time to consider what (or if) I can make for dinner (that Lucy won’t reject), and trying not to completely neglect my kiddo when Phil brings her home from Mom’s house, where she’s been lovingly cared for while I work. During days I don’t work at Starbucks, I often stay in my pajamas (Phil’s big gray sweatpants and Duke sweatshirt), makeup smudges under my eyes because I was too exhausted to wash my face the night before or that morning, hoping that whatever project I’m photographing that day won’t betray an embarrassing reflection of my appearance.

You guys, I’m not trying to say that I don’t enjoy my life, or that I don’t have nice things. I do! But so do you! I sometimes have a hard time making it to the weekend, and once the weekend is here, it often means just more work for me, because the babysitter (Phil) is home to help around the house. Life is not all fun and games. But I try not to portray the negativity that I sometimes feel, the anxiety, or the cluttered house. That kind of stuff can be a downer to read. But for the sake of dispelling any misconceptions that my (or any other blogger’s) life is like a magazine, I thought I’d share some confessions from this blogger mom.

I’ve never cleaned the bathroom in our house. Not ever. Don’t worry, Phil does. And we agreed on this being his chore, but I still feel really guilty about it for some reason. Gender stereotypes, perhaps?

I rarely put my toothbrush away, and the TP roll only sometimes makes it onto the roll holder by the toilet. Also- look! I have ugly toothbrushes and normal toothpaste. My lotion was a gift from Bath & Body Works, and isn’t something like the beautifully designed Aesop products that all the cool bloggers seem to be all about these days.

I wear Phil’s sweatshirts and sweatpants more often than not on my work-at-home days. I’m trying to remedy this, because I don’t feel good when I dress like that. A nice alternative, I’m finding, is a comfortable button-up shirt with a loose fitting jumper. You know, something like what Debra Barone would wear in Everybody Loves Ramond. Again- not so cool, eh? 

I haven’t shaved my legs since being in Florida during the first week of January. Or my armpits for that matter. This isn’t a feminist stance, but rather a lack of time for luxuriously long showers. When I do happen to shave my legs, I just feel like it’s a huge waste of time that could be better spent on something else- even if it’s just relaxing on the sofa watching Netflix. Priorities, people.

We have garish plastic toys and foam mats at our house. In our one and only living room, not our nonexistent playroom.

I’ve finally figured out how to keep my houseplants alive, but I can’t keep them on the floor. I thought I could be super mom and teach my 1 1/2 year old about obeying and not playing in houseplant dirt. But I’m tired of cleaning up dirt four times a day.

Those houseplants are in the ugly plastic containers that they came in at the hardware store. That’s right, I don’t buy my houseplants from beautiful nurseries that make for cool photo shoots or Instagram shots.

I saved up and bought Lucy one of those beautiful Blabla Bunnies, but it’s probably her least favorite toy. But hey, it looks good in pictures, I guess.

Our dining room table is constantly covered with power tools and project supplies. I’m working on finding a better way to deal with constantly working on projects in our tiny house. But I just can’t seem to find the time to get everything organized and built, or the money to gather the supplies.

I let Lucy watch TV while I work on projects. She doesn’t always watch tv, and she is happy to play by herself or read books lots of the time, but when she gets fussy, and I can’t stop working on something, I turn to Daniel Tiger for his wonderful babysitting abilities. 

I was so proud of myself for making sugar-free banana oat cookies for Lucy, and then I ate half the batch myself.  

My friends (and I) all think I’m a coffee snob, but lately I’ve been microwaving my second cup of coffee about five times a day.

I bought a pack of sugar cookies to use for a photo prop, and then I ate them all while Lucy napped. And then I felt really bad about it. I’ve been giving in to stress eating more and more often these days, which is making me more stressed.

When I want to take an Instagram photo, I move things out of the background so my house looks clean. 

I hesitate to do more kitchen related posts, even though my life tends to revolve around the kitchen, because I don’t think it’s pretty enough to take pictures in. I realized how pathetic that seems, once I typed it out.

There are plenty more things to say about how unglamorous my life is, but it’s way more fun to pretend that everything is beautiful and fulfilling in my life, so that’s the side of my life that I tend to share with you, when I have time that is. I’ve been trying not to stress about getting posts up as frequently here, because I would just rather spend that extra time with family and friends. I’m sure you get it. And I’m sure you’re not sitting here clicking refresh and wondering when a new post will pop up. But I do enjoy sharing things with you all here, though even more so, I enjoy the sense of camaraderie with you all and fellow bloggers on social media, like Instagram. Just let’s not get too caught up in appearances, ‘kay? We’re all just regular ol’ humans, after all!