All the Frills: Six Months and the Year in Review

We made it to six months! And Eleanor Elizabeth Medea just keeps getting cuter. It's also nearing the end of 2017, which seems as logical a time as any to reflect back on the year.

2017 was a pretty huge year for me. It felt a lot of times like the whole world was just going to straight to hell (thanks largely to the dangerously moronic Trump, a cadre of alt-right jackasses who just could not help but be monumental assholes, and an ever growing list of men who got rightfully outed as abusers). But in my little corner of the world, two huge things happened.

The first was that I finally published my book, which I had spent close to 10 years working on.

The second, of course, is that I had my wonderful Eleanor. But motherhood has brought, as you might imagine, its own challenges. It started off rough. The last few weeks of my pregnancy were almost intolerable and then I had a very traumatic birth experience that left me psychologically battered and damaged. I'be lying if I said it didn't take me months to come back from that and that I still have flashes of sadness and anxiety over it. I also found the first few months of motherhood to be pretty rough. I had a lot of support from family and friends and other new moms that I was fortunate enough to know, but I still felt isolated, lonely, and guilty (mostly because I found I sort of hated being at home all the time and found myself longing for my return to work, which made me question daily whether or not I was a horrible mother, and also because I HATED breastfeeding and threw in the towel on that fairly early and, according to an alarming number of people in real life and online and in the medical community, that was basically a selfish and stupid decision on my part and I was damaging my baby because of it). I don't want to make it sound like it has all been negative - it truly hasn't (Eleanor is a wonderful, curious little child and I adore her unlike anything I've ever had in my life) - but there have definitely been dark times.

I think it's important to acknowledge all these problematic times alongside the joyful ones so that I can start 2018 in the most honest and transparent way possible. I imagine that, like me, most of you have probably had a rather mixed bag of a year (I think that's probably the way it goes for almost everyone, almost all the time) and I hope you all have a tranquil New Years and enter 2018 refreshed and centred and filled with optimism.

Weekend Reading:

• I am a big fan of the Gucci Spring/Summer 2018 ad campaign.
• I’ve never done a juice cleanse, and I’m not about to start now.
• Ah, the Year of the Woman.
• I cannot wait to see the Tonya Harding movie.
• This piece on that goofy Heart of the Ocean necklace from Titanic is great.

Sweater Love

I’m going to be so sad when this sweater finally falls utterly apart on me (it’s already got a few holes in it). I love it so and dearly hope it will last for at least a little while longer – I also wear it non-stop each October (I mean the skull print is just perfect for my favourite month).

leggings: ASOS / dress: Zara / shoes: Winners / necklace: Stella and Dot / sweater: ModCloth

All the Frills: Ostentatious Necklace Edition

Apparently I have a weakness for ostentatious statement necklaces …

Weekend Reading:

• So this is horrifying.
  
• Why is Bill O’Reilly such an idiot?
  
• What is happening to the Rohingya is horrific.
  
• The sad story of fascists and the clothing brands they favour.
  
• Animal photos are seriously just the greatest.

Cosmic

I am beyond thrilled that I fit into this dress again. I only got like three wears out of it last year before pregnancy made me too big for it – I am smitten with the cosmic print.

dress: Simons / leggings: ASOS / booties: Aldo / jacket: H&M / sunglasses: Aldo

All the Frills: Festivus Edition

Well, it’s that time of year again – Festivus! While I didn’t bother setting up my second tree this year (usually it goes in the basement but since Eleanor came we basically don’t ever hang out there now – hopefully we’ll go back to it when she’s older) but I did fully decorate the main floor and the patio area. As usual, my décor goal was “so this is what it feels like to live inside of a Christmas light.”

Weekend Reading:

• I love few things about the holiday season quite as much as the annual Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalogue.
  
• Worst job advertising tights in possibly the history of advertising tights.
  
• Ladies are taking over the Cosa Nostra.
  
• Can a python eat an avocado as big as your head?
  
• This piece on men and literature was so funny to read.

Winter Has Finally Foiled Me

Worn for a walk in the fall – I tried to cram as many of them in before the weather totally turned on me and getting out with the baby became difficult. I feel a bit like I’ve been hoisted on my own petard (as the kids say…kids say that, right?), what with my love of winter and all being complicated this year by the reality of having a baby, which means I can’t get out as much as I’d like to already and winter just augments that.

leggings: Old Navy / shirt: Old Navy / shoes: Toms / shawl: ModCloth

Toughest Mom In Town

I love this outfit so much – I seriously felt like the toughest mom in town when I wore this. These studded loafers were such a good investment!

pants: ASOS / jacket: Joe Fresh / shirt: Dynamite / shoes: Strategia / necklace: Simons

All the Frills: All the Magnets

Welcome, to my geeky curated fridge magnet collection! I’ve got Anna of Denmark, Elizabeth I, a Yale magnet in commemoration of my grad school days, a Holyroodhouse one (one of my favourite places in Edinburgh), a goofy shot of the helpmeet and I at the Edinburgh dungeon, and a lovely photo of some Salem witches rendered in magnet form. All carefully selected and carefully arranged…because I’m funny that way.

Weekend Reading:

• Let’s learn about Franceska Mann and how her final act was to mess up some Nazis.
  
• The intricacies of curry.
  
• I’ve jokingly posted about banding together with people to buy historic properties in need of repair a ton of times on social media, so I love this!
  
• While the way Budweiser served this notice to a small craft brewery is amusing, it’s a little scary that they did so within two hours of the brewery rolling out a product whose moniker connection to Bud I found pretty tenuous at best. I guess the big corporations are always watching.
  
• Donald Trump has a plaque commemorating a Civil War battle that never happened … and a singularly dumb dismissal of the entire community of professional historians.
  
• This article about shifting marriage trends is great – I saw a lot of pieces of my relationship in it.

Date Night

My lovely parents recently stayed with Eleanor (she loves getting to hang out with her grandparents) so my helpmeet and I could have a night out and see a movie. It was so nice to be out for a bit – I mean I’m out all the time with Eleanor when I take her to library programs, to visit friends and family, etc, but being out solo and doing things other than running errands and grocery shopping was really nice. I consider myself tremendously fortunate to have my parents as a support system. They’ve been such an amazing help (coming over to sit with Eleanor so I can clean the house and get caught up on laundry, cooking meals for us, the list just goes on and on).

leggings: ASOS / shirt: Simons / jacket: New Look / booties: Primark

All the Frills: Five Months and We're Still Hanging In There

Eleanor is now on her way to being six months old! I can’t believe how quickly the time has flown by – especially since, when you’re in the thick of it, it often seems to move agonizingly slowly (the crying that you thought would last for hours, the sleepless weeks that just felt like an eternity – seriously, they call it the longest shortest time for a reason).

She is the most wonderful little person to hang out with and I feel so lucky when I’m with her. I only ever wanted one child and I desperately wanted that one child to be a daughter (so badly that I never even really admitted it to anyone for fearing of someone jinxing it). I experienced two miscarriages, a gruelling pregnancy, and an extremely terrifying birth experience but, in the end, all my dreams came true. I’m really, terrifically lucky.

Weekend Reading:

• So I had a pretty traumatizing birth experience, but the ones described here are just straight bonkers.
  
• This Dior exhibit looks amazing!
  
• This Japanese politician is a great lady for taking this needed stand.
  
• This review really sums up the problems I had with Anne Helen Petersen’s Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman.
  
• Cracking glass ceilings via teeny tiny models of murder scenes.

Immunized

Worn to take Eleanor to get her first round of immunizations done ... in August because I'm insanely disorganized these days and this post completely fell off my radar but the bonus is it's like a flashback moment to the summer. The day we took Eleanor in I also got a couple of booster shots to make sure all my immunizations were up-to-date. So basically the baby and I were both super cranky for the afternoon and most of the next day, which I think the vaguely irritated look on my face conveys.

dress: Simons / shoes: Primark / cardigan: Target / necklace: Forever 21

Back in an Old Favourite

I am beyond excited that I fit back into this dress – and old favourite that I haven’t been able to wear in almost a year. It feels so amazing to be able to put in on again and not have it be uncomfortable.

In other news, my little article on honour among the early modern English elite got published and you can read it here!

leggings: Simons / dress: H&M / shoes: Target / jacket: Joseph Ribkoff / necklace: Stella and Dot

All the Frills: Nursery Rearrange

I recently did a bit of rearranging in Eleanor’s nursery in advance of our plan to transition her out of our bedroom into her own in a few weeks. I love this little gallery shelf I set up for her, which, of course, includes an image of the tomb of her namesake, the incomparable Eleanor of Aquitaine. I’m so excited to get her into this space so that I can stop waking up every time she so much as shifts in her sleep in her current crib that resides right by my bed.

Weekend Reading:

• This book about an Indian school of scientists predating several of Newton’s key discoveries looks fascinating (although I’m not sure I’m convinced of the author’s ideas concerning the transfer of said knowledge to Newton).
  
• There are a lot of misconceptions about kilts and their history and the historian in me has always been very irritated by it … this article soothes me.
  
• Remember that rediscovered da Vinci that recently sold at an incredibly high price? Well, the author of this piece has doubts about its authenticity and makes some pretty convincing points.
  
• This photo series, entitled Afro Art, is beautiful.
  
• I think you’ll be hard pressed to a find more hilarious headline than this.