If you’ve been out of the country or locked in a closet or somehow not tapped into the Worldwide Bloodstream (see video below), you might not be aware that I recently put my house on the market. It’s been a challenging process — clearing out all our clutter, sprucing the place up and keeping it clean all the time. I also picked an interesting time to undertake this endeavor with all four children home for the summer and about 13 pounds of sand that makes its way onto the mudroom floor every day, courtesy of my 12yo son’s bathing suit.

But by far the biggest challenge I’ve faced these last few weeks is keeping the place smelling fresh and not like a fraternity house. The last thing I want is a prospective buyer to walk through the front door and get a big whiff of freshly cooked porkroll or the dump someone just took in the powder room. So I’ve instilled some basic rules for the children, like NO COOKING and NO POOPING DOWNSTAIRS.

These edicts have been met with varying success.

The other preventative measure I took was loading up on products that might mask the stink of adolescent boy that sometimes hangs in the air here. The stink of teen spirit.

I am a firm believer that sometimes, more is more, and thus use the products liberally, often and simultaneously.

• The number one thing I am totally obsessed with are these candles — in particular the beach sage flavor but I also love the apple slice variety upstairs in my bathroom — that I used to load up on at Target until I saw they started carrying them at our nearby Harmon. I really think you are going to thank me.
• When my neighbors pulled up stakes and moved to Hong Kong last year, I made out like a bandit when — in an effort to get all of their stuff out of the house for renters to move in — they just started dropping bags of things off at my door. Trader Joe’s chips. Band Aids. Cotton balls. Good stuff. One of the items buried in one of the bags was this room freshener spray from Alex & Ani. I mean, who knew they sold that stuff there too but apparently they do. When I know someone is coming to check out the house, I start running from room to room squirting the stuff into the air.
• When I went to Hong Kong last spring (seriously), we made our way to the Captain’s Bar for cocktails one Friday night and it was swanky, to say the least. In fact, as soon as we stepped into the hotel we were enveloped in this citrusy, floral scent that they apparently pump through the place through a diffuser and it smells divine. So when my girlfriend came home to New Jersey for the summer, she brought me a bottle of the spray, which I also run around squirting throughout the house when things are smelling a little stale. Now if someone would just make me a proper Old Fashioned, it would be like being back at the Captain’s Bar.
• Speaking of bars and drinking in general, I’d like to suggest what you adopt as your go-to summer drink before it’s too late. It’s a Mexican Mule and you get yourself someone ginger beer (like the type they sell at Trader Joe’s) and mix in your favorite tequila and perhaps some seltzer/club soda to lighten it just a bit. I have to admit, I’ve enjoyed a few of these this summer. And speaking of tequila, life has gotten much easier for my Hong Kong pal who used to spike her tequila by letting it marinate in a mason jar with a couple of jalepeno peppers to spice up her famous margaritas. But we recently discovered at our favorite local bottle shop that some evil genius has invented already bottled spicy tequila and it is delish.
• Finally, I had some time on my hands this week and revisited Broad City, which I binged on while sick this winter. I can’t even. And this clip in particular totally nails what it’s like living with Millenials who stop mid-conversation to stare at their phone and start to laugh. Annoying.

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Here’s the thing about me: when I like something, I generally tend to really like it. Whether you’re the person who colors my hair, a turkey and avocado sandwich or my boyfriend, chances are I’m going to try to keep you around. I mean, I’ve been going to the same hair lady for almost 20 years and come to think of it, was married around that long, too. I’m pretty loyal and monogamous. And that sandwich? Man, I ate that thing for lunch every day for years. I mean, not the same one but you get what I mean.

The downside of this dedication to things I really like is that there’s often not a lot of fluctuation in the types of goods and services I seek out. I usually just go for the same old things. But recently, it has come to my attention that I have been branching out a bit. In some instances, new needs emerged in my life and in others, I took a chance on something new (WHAT?) and the result was kind of great. Go ahead, live a little. See what I’m talking about.

• I take my hair very seriously. Sometimes more seriously than what’s inside my actual head. As mentioned, I already have the pesky coloring part down and even though the race to keep all my gray hair covered is a never-ending one, I look forward to my every five or six week trek to have Lorraine wave her magic wand and make it all better. I am committed to her and hope she realizes that I won’t ever let her retire until I’m ready to give up this whole charade and allow my hair to turn the silvery-gray god would really like it to be. But getting my hair cut has been trickier. I don’t like to plan cuts too far in advance, which rules out some hairstylists I have liked. And I haven’t really had a haircut that I’ve LOVED in a long time. Until now. I was part of a blogger crawl and admired the hair of one of the fabulous women in our group. She sent me to Yanni Erbeli Salon in Red Bank and I couldn’t be more thrilled. First of all, Yanni is a nice and chatty guy. That’s an important quality for me in the people I need to provide me my various services. I really need to like you. Well, then you have to be good at what you do, too. And Yanni is amazing. I told him what I wanted and he totally listened and gave me just that. He didn’t just do whatever he wanted. And, here’s the magical part, somehow he’s cut it so that I just wash it and spray some product on it and it dries into a cute, wavy, summery bob. Good-bye blow dryer. Now if only he could help me get out of other annoying tasks that fill up my day, like making dinner for my children.
• I’d been trying to meet up with a girlfriend for breakfast and she asked if I tried the new Seed to Sprout that opened in Fair Haven. We set a date to meet there two days later and then I turned to another pal who was working alongside me on her laptop (we’d run away from our children to get work done at our town’s library) and asked her if she wanted to go check it out for lunch. Reader, I’ve gone every day since and I am not like some super-healthy-vegan-organic-crunchy-chewy person. I just like food that tastes really good. I’ve even started studying the menu online. I tried the various bowls for lunch — like, I never knew kale could be so good — and had some magical avocado sandwich yesterday for breakfast. And, the portions are so big I ended up bringing half of my meal home to eat later (much to my children’s chagrin). Maybe I’ll see you there because obviously I’m heading back again today.
• There comes a time in every girl’s life when she needs to start thinking about money. And not in the what-can-I-buy-at-Target kind of way but more like the how-shall-I-pay-the-bills way. The stinky way, in other words. If you find yourself in need of someone to help you sort it all out — what’s coming in and what’s going out and what, if anything, is left over — do I have the wizard for you. She’s Liz Gearon at Ship Shape Financial and she while she may make you come to Jesus a little — oh, it can be a reckoning — Liz is kind, supportive and not the least bit judgemental. She didn’t even make me feel bad about all that money I spend on my hair. Oh, and you don’t even have to be a girl to use her services. Boys, apparently, use her, too. She’s also a QuickBooks guru and assists small to medium businesses with financial statements, budgets, cash projections and general ledger analysis. In other words, she does things I barely understand. You can email her at liz@shipshapenj.com as the first step to putting your financial house in order. Just like me.
• There may also come a time in a girl’s life when her cat of five years begins to freak the fuck out. For no reason. When the animal whom was rescued from the wilds of suburban New Jersey and drinks from a water bowl that reads “Princess,” begins urinating daily on your couch. When it gets to the point that it starts to seem normal that all the upholstered furniture in your house is covered in plastic drop cloths you bought at Home Depot, like your house is one big Dexter-style kill room, you need to call in The Contented Cat. Sally came to our house and cooed at our naughty kitty and came up with a game plan for directing her urine into the proper receptacle and — in what now seems like no time — our girl was back on track. Sally is truly a cat whisperer and provides all sorts of other services like reiki and adoption counseling. Along the way, I also learned a lot about the care and keeping of kitty cats, something I never really knew anything about, and found a friend in our cat lady as well.

Wishing you all enough money to afford fabulous haircuts, big bowls of kale and cats who don’t pee on your couch. Happy Friday!

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Sugar Says so many great things.

In a strange turn of events, after loving practically everything I came into contact with last week and writing about proposing to any number of inanimate objects, this week I hate fucking everything.

I actually joked about this phenomenon with another mom last night as we stood on a grassy hill, teary-eyed, watching our middle school’s graduation ceremony. And I didn’t even know one kid graduating. But three of my children have participated in these exercises and while many of the faces standing up at the podium and handing out diplomas have changed, nothing much else about the ceremony has changed in decades. The girls are decked out in pastel-colored dresses that brush along the grass as they wobble on high heels toward their seats, and the boys swap out their gym shorts and soccer jerseys for elegant white dinner jackets adorned with a single red rose on the lapel. Years ago I hated the getup but quickly drank the Kool Aid after my oldest child slipped on his jacket and joined the legion of young men who came before him to graduate from the town’s tiny middle school whose photos now line the walls of the school’s main floor. It’s a lovely tradition and on a clear June evening — as it thankfully remained last night — many residents, of former and future graduates, come out to stand along the sidelines and cheer for the newest batch of eighth grade grads.

I think all the crying was in anticipation of another graduation ceremony I will attend tonight but this time, I’ll have more skin in the game. This time my own child, Kid #3, will be handed the diploma and frankly, I’m pissed. I’m really not happy that this child — the one who came so confidently into the world and whom we referred to as “The Boss” from a very early age — is graduating from high school. And so I just kind of hate everything today.

I hate this totally adorable tote bag I just bought her (which I found on this adorable blog) to carry her books around this summer as she starts her college adventure four hours away.

I’m cranky that I’ll be slipping on an adorable dress I picked up this spring at Athleta a lot like this one, which can be dressed up with heels like these from Aerosoles (spoiler alert: my aging toes require me to now gravitate towards wearing more old lady-friendly heels) or worn more casually with this summer’s ubiquitous sandals.

When one is feeling cranky, there is nothing better than a handful of these divine morsels whipped up by the evil experts at Trader Joe’s.

With everyone home for the summer, the house has gotten kinda smelly between all the late-morning egg frying, trampoline jumping and sandy/wet shit my 12yo pulled out of a recently-uncovered beach bag. I made a special trip to Target this week to stock up on these amazing candles that smell super-clean and give the impression that my house is clean as well.

As if the candles weren’t enough to keep my home smelling fresh, my girlfriend — home from Hong Kong for the summer — brought me a bottle of the most divine room spray (note: for some reason I can’t find the spray here in the U.S. but you can get a candle or “pebble”) that evokes an elegant evening we spent sipping fancy cocktails at the Captain’s Bar at the Manadarin Oriental Hotel when we visited her in Hong Kong in April.

There’s been a lot of cooking going on around here with the crew home and that means, a lot of pots and pans that need to be cleaned. I’m over it. However, if one does have to keep cleaning up after people, and that same cleaner wants to keep her fingers from drying out and gel manicure from chipping, one should rush out and buy herself these dish gloves that are strangely fabulous (tip here courtesy of my favorite product tester, my mother).

Finally, in an effort to keep it all in perspective — that my babies are growing up and I am in turn growing old — I have latched onto a line I recently read in Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things in which she responds as “Dear Sugar” to a question posed to her wondering “what the fuck” life was all about. It’s heartbreaking and powerful but the bottom line loops through my head quite often nowadays: The fuck is your life.

Chin up people.

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