Gina | Living Imperfection

January 11, 2019January 10, 2019

Girls can’t use power tools!

Have you ever done *literally* everything in your power for years to raise your kids to reject gender role stereotypes and sexism only to hear that very same garbage coming out of their sweet little baby mouths in spite of the evidence in front of their little pudgy cherub faces? I have…

FYI: according to my son at age four, girls can’t use power tools because they are too dangerous (the power tools, not the girls. Someday he’ll learn…) He told me this while he watched me cutting deck boards with a circular saw and continued to lecture me about his safety concerns while I drilled holes and screwed said boards into place on the playhouse platform. And I didn’t even screw my finger to the joist!

January 7, 2019January 7, 2019

New Year – I’m Quitting Fear

It’s a new year – new-ish, anyway. There’s a new, female-er, progressive-er, more representative congress, thank gods! New Mueller indictments are coming down the pipe. It’s a six-foot sewer pipe. Lewis CK is digging himself a deeper darker hole to crawl into and rot than we ever thought possible, and millions of women in India are standing up to demand gender equality for themselves and their daughters. RBG is mercifully still kickin’ it on the bench (even if she did miss oral arguments for surgery today for the first time in 25 years,) and a big beautiful freshWOman cohort has just been sworn into congress. Some things are looking promisingly good in 2019, after two long years of increasingly horrid OMGWTF moments. Also – Cyntonia Brown got clemency today and is going to be free soon! Fuck yeah!

December 20, 2018December 20, 2018

Pajama Chic: My Fashion Revolution

For a long time, I didn’t think I really had a personal style. I’m not a hipster, I’m not glam, I’m not goth, or grunge or whatever the thing is these days… I’ve always gravitated more towards simple elegance (and anything Stevie Nicks wears.)

December 18, 2018January 9, 2019

Throwing Roman Shade…DIY window treatments

Still in the midst of our kitchen renovation frenzy, we’re now on the finishing touches stage, so I’ve been very busy making stuff, like these super easy pillow covers. I liked the fabric I found for some of the throw pillows so much that I decided to use it for the window treatments as well – in this case, Roman shades.

I used a great tutorial and this post details my adventure, but is more cautionary tale than tutorial. I learned several lessons and had a serious revelation at the end.

December 14, 2018January 7, 2019

Quick Custom DIY Pillow Covers: These Look Awesome!

We are finally finishing up a massive kitchen/dining room renovation, which we started in mid-August with an eight-week-old baby in the house. More about that in another post. There’s no good time, right?

So, it’s time to decorate and accessorize! I’m very picky, I hate shopping & I know how to sew, so it’s a no brainer when I’m looking for things like throw pillows and curtains. Keep scrolling to see what I made!

December 13, 2018January 7, 2019

Notes on Abundance (or this child has way too much stuff)

It was time. Several months, like eleventy-nine months ago, I should have done something to avoid spending my Saturday in this godforsaken disaster area. Should being the operative word. I knew I’d have to face the music eventually. While I tend to be an uptight perfectionista in some areas of my life, I am an extraordinarily messy person. My son has definitely followed my lead…

Horrid scene depicting some, but not all of my son’s myriad possessions. Not pictured: piles of junk in the closet and on the dresser.

December 6, 2018December 6, 2018

This is how I sleep at night: Anxiety & Insomnia

This post’s purpose is twofold. First, to share what was for me, a groundbreaking method to override my internal monologue and get to sleep or back to sleep. Second, to sing the praises of the men who make it possible every night: Ben Aaronovitch, writer of my favorite series and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, narrator of the audio version of the books. It’s a kind of open love/thank you note to both of them. I owe them so many hours of blissful sleep, and should this missive ever reach them, I just want them to know how much they mean to me.

December 3, 2018January 7, 2019

Linguistic silliness: Readjusting to life in English

Our son told us, in French, on Friday evening after we returned from our trip to France, that he spoke French all day at school. He did this once before when he went back to preschool at the age of three for the first day or two, but I didn’t think he would really go through with it in Kindergarten.

Sure enough, this morning, when Fab dropped him off at school, he asked his teacher if he had spoken French on Friday. Indeed, he did. All day. Not a word of English. Luckily, Montessori education values exposure to other cultures very highly, so his teacher very good-naturedly pulled out google translate and did her best to figure out what he was saying.

December 2, 2018January 7, 2019

Boost bilingual kids’ second language with immersion

Family trip to Saint Malo in Brittany – our son’s first time visiting a walled city. That’s Saint Malo in the background. The photo was taken from Dinard.

Want to be amazed by your kids’ mad linguistic skillz and jealous at the same time? Curious about the absolute best way to activate a non-dominant language in your kids?

Surprise! It’s immersion.