Extremely good shit: IKEA Fado lamp

IKEA Lisabo side table, Mimi Ceramics planter, Poketo coaster

As the days get shorter and we prepare for a long winter at home, I’m getting very into lighting! I come to you with two strong recs in this department: unscented taper candles, and, today, the $25 IKEA Fado lamp.

I cannot say enough good things about this lamp, which my girlfriend brought into my life last year. It looks so nice and creates a soft, glowy, warm, cozy light. It also really pulls its weight, brightening up dark spaces without being too harsh.

It was actually impossible to get the Fado in Brooklyn for a while this spring/summer, but I kept checking the website regularly and they eventually returned — so we were able to buy two more, bringing our total to four (two in the living room, two in the bedroom). Other friends have mentioned the same thing happening in other cities recently, but they were also able to get them eventually, so don’t give up if it appears to be out of stock where you live.

The Fado comes with a perfectly good bulb, but if you want to take it to the next level, I recommend the Yeelight multicolor smart LED bulb ($32.99 on Amazon). We have two of these, and have been really happy with them. You can use the app that goes with it to choose the exact shade of white and brightness you want, and/or easily turn the bulb whatever color you want. (My friend Devin sold me on this idea, and now I’m very into it, especially for movie nights. I recommend a pink shade, personally.)

Other lighting-related odds and ends:

• While poking around Tradera (a Swedish version of eBay) this summer, my gf came across the IKEA Lykta lamp, which they no longer produce. It originally came in a bunch of colors; we tracked down a Barbie–fuchsia one on eBay, and absolutely love it. While the color is fairly aggro, it’s balanced by the fact that the lamp is so small. And when it’s on, it looks very much like the wax in a lava lamp, mid-bloop. It’s very flirty!!!

• The Room Essentials G40 clear globes from Target ($12 for a 20-ct. string) are my all-time favorite indoor/outdoor string lights.

• Good floor lamps are hard to find, but Article now has an orb floor lamp (floorb?) that looks pretty nice.

• I’m into IKEA's $12 Tokabo table lamp, which seems like it might be the new Lykta. The lamp’s designer said, “I see TOKABO table lamp as a cute little friend who fits anywhere, on the smallest shelf or table top.” A cute little friend!!! I love it. 💡

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Go on, live a little — get yourself the giant pasta-shaped garlic peeler

When my girlfriend bought this giant fake piece of penne from GreatBigStuff.com — along with some bowtie pasta pot grippers — I expected it to merely be decorative. That alone would be great! But much to my delight, it’s also a surprisingly effective garlic peeler.

Peeling garlic by hand is a fairly annoying task, and putting it in a plastic tube — that, it cannot be overstated, looks like a giant piece of penne — and rolling it around is a nice alternative that doesn’t take up a lot of kitchen space.

I highly recommend it! Get it from GreatBigStuff.com for $19. 🍝

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My favorite cloth face masks

Over the past five months, I, like a lot of people, have tried a bunch of different cloth face masks. Some have turned out to be better than others, so I thought I’d share the ones that I like the best and that are holding up well!

A couple top-level notes, for context:

• When I’m venturing out, I’m doing fairly low-risk activities: taking my dog out, going for walks in the park, taking trash to the trash room, and picking up packages from the front desk (which is generally possible to do at a distance). If you’re spending more time in close proximity to and/or indoors with people who aren’t in your household, these might not be the best options.

• Not all of my favorites are three-ply or have a hydrophilic outer layer (which I learned about when working on this article), but those are features I’m looking for as I buy new ones.

• I generally pair my masks with a filter (more on those later), so that adds another layer/improves the effectiveness.

• Since we started buying masks, my girlfriend and I have discovered that I have a BIG FACE (I mean, I sort of already knew that) and she has a ˢᵐᵃˡˡ ᶠᵃᶜᵉ so our mask preferences are fairly different. She prefers masks that have ear loops with adjusters and is not a fan of behind the head elastic, whereas pretty much all masks fit me well. Some of the ones below work for both of us, which is a nice bonus, but others really only work for me.

So! With all that said, here are the cloth face masks that I like a lot:

Stark’s face masks

These are a fairly recent addition that I thiiiink I found via Instagram ad, and they are great! We now have four in rotation and I really like them. These masks have the adjustable ear loops, three layers, and the lilac is so nice. (It also comes in several other colors, and they are now making a slightly smaller option for smaller faces.) Get one from Stark’s for $12.95.

BaubleBar face masks

These are another recentish addition that I immediately ordered more of after a couple wears. They are soft/comfortable, they have the adjustable ear loops, and I like the pattern options. Get a two-pack from BaubleBar for $12.

Amalfii face masks

This was actually the very first mask I bought, and they’ve been great! They are full-coverage with a fairly tight seal, and they’ve held up very well in the wash. Get a three-pack from Amalfii for $30 (multiple colors available).

Gir.co filters

I came across these filters when I bought the masks that require them this spring. While I like the masks quite a bit (they are lightweight and can be sterilized in the stove, microwave, or dishwasher), I like the filters even more. I usually order three packs at a time and they always ship/arrive quickly. Get a ten-pack for $10 from Gir.co.

Wear a mask! Over your nose!! Please!!! 😷

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I've finally achieved my lifelong dream of owning a postal scale

Since everyone is—reasonably, correctly!—talking about the post office right now (and buying lots of stamps), it seems like a good time to mention a recentish purchase of mine that has been very wonderful: my USPS postal scale.

I have wanted a postal scale basically since I’ve known what they are, but have never had a super compelling reason to get one. But a couple months ago — wanting/needing to send small packages but not willing to go inside a closet-sized UPS store to do so — I decided to buy one. And let me tell you, it’s been worth its weight in gold.

Basically, a postal scale allows you to precisely calculate the weight of a package, so you can then create a shipping label from home. (This postal scale can connect to your computer/the USPS website via USB, but that feature only works with PCs. Fortunately, that’s not actually necessary — you can simply type the weight in on the USPS website when you’re preparing the label.)

It’s been really helpful to have the scale in a few instances where I’ve needed to make a return and the company doesn’t cover return shipping/provide a label; without it, I would be sort of screwed. It also allows the possibility of sending out care packages and gifts!

To make the postal scale work, you’ll also need access to a printer for the labels you’re creating, which I feel like might actually be the higher barrier to entry…but I got a printer this summer too, and can say that having both in my home has made me feel very powerful! Not having a working printer is a hassle fairly regularly, so having one has been a true relief, and made it easier to stay at home/inside.

Buy it from USPS for $35.99. 📫

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‘The Art of Showing Up’ arrives in 16 days!

We’re rounding the corner on May (!!), which means my new book,The Art of Showing Up, will be available soon. The original publication date was May 26, but back in February, my publisher informed me that the production schedule was changing due to coronavirus; it’s now coming out on May 12, 2020. (If you pre-ordered it, you might have gotten an email that said something to this effect over the weekend.)

You can pre-order The Art of Showing Up via the following retailers:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble
Bookshop

Books-a-Million

Indigo

IndieBound

Powell’s

Workman
Books Are Magic
McNally Jackson

(If you’re a bookseller, librarian, or reviewer, you can request an e-galley on NetGalley. And if you have other questions about getting an advance or want to set up an interview, you can email Jennifer Hergenroeder.)

If you want a sense of what the book is going to be like, here are some things that I think sum up the vibe pretty well (a handful of which actually appear in the book):

• During Bad Times, 'Don't Look Down' Is the Advice I Turn To Most

• What to Do When Everyone Needs Support but You're Only One Person

• How to Be OK With Being Alone Right Now

• The best $16 I ever spent: Old Navy pajamas after my husband left

• On deep-shallow companions

• Two tips to keep in mind if you want to be a better conversationalist

• A modest proposal: Take notes when you’re hanging out with friends

• Not Great, Bob! The Case for Actually Being Honest When People Ask How You Are

As far as I know, the UK edition is coming out on June 25 as originally planned. There’s also an audiobook, which I was scheduled to read at the end of March; I wasn’t comfortable traveling to or recording in studio at that point, so they went with a different narrator, which was totally fine. (The production company assured me that most professional narrators have their own at-home recording set-up, meaning they would be able to record remotely in a way that I simply couldn’t.)

Events are sort of up in the air at this point; I was originally supposed to do some in NYC and Chicago and maybe D.C., but that’s not happening now, and I’m waiting to hear whether they’ll be moved online. I’d also love to figure out a way to join in any book clubs that read The Art of Showing Up/meet virtually in June or July. Right now, I’d say that, schedule permitting, I’m totally down to call in for the last 20 or so minutes of any gathering of four people or more, and I’ll just kind of handle this on a first-come, first-serve basis for as long as I can manage it. (Email me if you’re interested!)

Promoting a new book right now is uhhhhh….pretty weird, and I don’t know exactly what the market is going to be like in May and beyond. I really appreciate pre-orders (a great way to support authors you like!), reviews on Goodreads (or wherever you bought it), and, if you enjoy the book, just sharing that information with your social network, friends, etc. The main thing I want is for this book to reach the people who would enjoy it/connect with it. ✨

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If you can’t handle me at my Crocs, you don’t deserve me at my literally any other shoe

I am a proud member of Team Take Off Your Shoes at the Door, which means I’m extremely pro house shoes. And the time has come for me to admit that my current house shoes of choice are the highly controversial Crocs. 

I was introduced to Crocs at the age of 19 by my friend Beth. I was visiting her in Chicago and she was wearing a kelly green pair around the city. Her explanation: “Flip-flops are disgusting, especially in a city, but Crocs are great.” This is actually 100% true and correct, but it didn’t take long for me to fall out of love with the hot pink pair I bought. After that, I didn’t really think much about Crocs again.  

But then last fall, I came across some pale blue faux shearling–lined Crocs on Zappos and….……..did not hate them. They looked really cozy and weren’t very expensive, so I decided to go for it. After wearing them indoors for just a few weeks, I knew I had made the right decision, so I asked for a second pair (to wear outside) for Christmas, which my mom ended up giving me.

Feeling quite secure in my Crocs-related life choices, I also recently got two non-lined pairs: the chambray blue classics (I fully intended to buy the mint green and then just like….didn’t??? IDK?) which are for outside, and a pair of pink “freesail” Crocs that are way lower profile/lighter weight for inside.

I did not mean to make a pair of Crocs that looked like my blog; it just sort of happened.

Are Crocs ugly? I mean…I don’t think of Crocs as ugly as much as I think of them as being for children. I can’t say that I think Crocs are particularly defensible from an aesthetic POV. Though a lot of cool people and celebrities wear Crocs, and the brand manages to make them look pretty cute on Instagram, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that it looks hip or stylish when I wear them. I don’t think they look awful on me — choosing the right color goes a long way in this regard — but they also don’t look good either, you know? The vibe, on me anyway, is, I think, fairly neutral — i.e., a vaguely shoe-shaped swath of color, similar to what a cartoon or video game character might wear. 

But also….IDGAF if they are cute or cool!!! You know what’s not cute? Getting a sore back from a couple hours of meal prep because you’re in your thirties now!!! My friend Augusta (who recently bought a very cute lavender pair of Crocs) wrote an ode to wearing comfortable shoes that I think about a lot, and that is very relevant here. 

If it’s not already obvious, Crocs are kind of the ideal pandemic footwear. They are great for long periods of cooking, doing lots of water chores, etc. They can be cleaned and disinfected easily. They can be worn with or without socks and look correct with soft clothes. They slip on and off easily, which is great when you’ve just come inside after taking your dog out and need to wash your hands before you do anything else. They are also very clearly made for carers; when I think of Crocs, I think of healthcare workers and chefs, two tasks that are fundamentally about nurturing. So wearing Crocs right now feels appropriate and correct.

By the way, when I told my mom I was writing this blog post, she told me I had to interview her for it. This is fair; my mother is basically a sneakerhead…but for Crocs. She was into Crocs before Post Malone or Madewell were. She has 20 pairs and counting (!!), and and her collection includes some limited editions. 

“The reason I only like to wear Crocs is because every other shoe I have tried is not as comfortable,” she told me. “I have advanced osteoarthritis in both knees and these are the only shoes that provide the comfort I need for being on my feet all day as an art teacher. The kids at school love them.” 

Some of my mom’s favorite pairs, in her own words: turquoise with SpongeBob jibbetz (the little decorative charms); donut print; black with PacMan jibbetz; pink floral; green with working Christmas light trim; tie-dye; and Star Wars. She also has “dress” Crocs that have leather uppers.

My mom also sent me a screenshot of a message from a parent, who said her daughter (so, my mom’s student) wanted “Crocs with paint splotches on them” for her birthday because she said “her favorite teacher (you) would love them.” The parent went on: “She specifically requested these because she loves that you wear Crocs all the time and she couldn’t wait to show you!” 

In other family clog news, my girlfriend bought a pair of white Dansko clogs a couple of months ago that look great on her. Danskos are a whole other ugly cool shoe story, but I like my gfs so much (way more than I expected to). I might get a pair eventually, but I do think Danskos make more sense as real world shoes vs. house shoes. 

A few odds and ends:

• Here is a good podcast episode about the rise, fall, and re-rise of Crocs.

• I bought Teva Hurricane Drift sandals last summer and love them. 

• I still freaking love these Italian clogs. 

• The essay about fanny packs that I wrote a few years ago feels relevant to this discussion. ✨

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An ode to my two favorite stain removers

Look, I’m not trying to make enemies in the laundry industry, but when it comes to stain treatment, I think T*de pens are very much a scam. As my coworker recently said, they offer the illusion of preparedness, and not much else. As a lover of white clothes and bedding, I swear by two other products: OxiClean stain remover spray and Spray ‘n Wash sticks.

I have only had a handful of Major Incidents with regard to white fabric. The fist time it happened, I had just gotten brand-new white flannel sheets and a cozy white cotton blanket for my bed. Washing all of these items before using them is a task in NYC, and I was thrilled to finally have them on my bed because my apartment was very cold.

The first night I slept on them, I woke up feeling great. And also like my face was…wet? I was sitting up in bed when I touched my nose, and then looked down at my hand and realized I had my first-ever bloody nose. A beat later, basically in slow motion, I watched big, fat crimson blood drops fall from my face and land on the fitted sheet, top sheet, and blanket. Every single component of the bedding was hit.

Luckily enough, I had just read Home Comforts, where I had learned that you should use an enzyme-based cleaner on organic and protein-based stains, and I had — after realizing that I didn’t own an enzyme cleaner — ordered some OxiClean spray, which was now sitting in my closet. So I stripped my bed, while feeling pretty certain that my sheets and blanket were going to be forever marred by this. I made peace with that, but I treated them with the Oxi, let them soak in cold water, and then rinsed them… and the stains completely disappeared. 

I was sold.

The second Major Incident happened at work. A visitor to the BuzzFeed office got in the down elevator with me on the 16th floor; she was carrying a lidless travel cup of coffee, and when the elevator stopped on my floor, she thought we had reached the lobby. She stepped out, realized her mistake, went to turn around to get back on the elevator, and was startled by my presence right behind her. She jolted, THROWING her coffee all over my white jeans in the process.

Looking at the fist-sized stain on my thigh, I knew what I had to do: marched to the CVS across the street from my office, bought a big bottle of Oxi spray, went to the single-stall bathroom, stripped off my Bean boots, the socks my jeans were tucked into, and jeans; treated the stain with the Oxi; and then rinsed everything out in the sink. Despite the fact that my jeans were very wet — it looked like I’d pissed myself — the stain was basically gone.

So, yes, I’m an OxiClean stan; it works great for everything, generally speaking. However, I’ve recently added the Spray ‘n Wash stick to my toolkit; I discovered it via my girlfriend, and was pleasantly surprised by how effective it is. It even got a faint coffee stain that was years old and that I’d simply given up on out of a beloved white dress. I’ve used it on other smaller stains (grease, food, even other blood drops) and it’s worked well every time.

I now go between the two, depending on the stain, and strongly recommend having both around! The Spray ‘n Wash is small and won’t leak — despite the name, it’s not a spray at all, but a waxy deodorant-esque stick ‚ so it’s a good one to keep it in your desk/bag/locker. (I’ve also used the OxiClean gel stick, and while I think it’s fine, I ultimately prefer the spray…but to each their own!)

Regardless of which you choose, you can definitely be done with T*de pens once and for all.

Get everything from Amazon: a pack of three Spray ‘n Wash sticks for $10.86, a three-pack of OxiClean spray for $16.90, and Home Comforts for $13.59.

Related: How to wear white clothes year-round without completely ruining them. 💦

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cozy :) house :) shoes :)

If you want to feel extra cozy when tooling around town or doing chores at home, might I suggest these cozy shearling slip-ons? They are vegan, come in black shearling, and cost $12.50 at Wal-mart (on sale from $35).

I feel like they’re good for anyone who loves Jenni Kayne but doesn’t have Jenni Kayne money.

@nickisebastian via @jennikayne

@nickisebastian via @jennikayne

@laylaygibson via @jennikayne

Speaking of my clog wishlist, I’m very into these muted Birks, and I love these Calzuro clogs for summer! (While this look isn’t my personal style, it’s very cute.) ☁️

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The girlfriend hoodie

My girlfriend, her hoodie, and my dog

It’s cozy season, so it seems like a good time to plug the Gap Vintage Soft Carbonized Pullover Hoodie, which I’m a big fan of. It’s super soft and just the right weight; the creamy color is perfect; the fit is great (not too baggy/bulky, but not too slim either); it’s held up well in the wash; and it looks fairly polished. I am not really a hoodie person, but I love this sweatshirt.

It’s technically a men’s hoodie—my friend Devin owns two in black (“and that’s not even enough” he told me), and it looks great on him too. But my girlfriend was actually the one who first discovered it; she bought it for herself right before Valentine’s Day last year…in part, she said, because she knew I’d like it on her. She was right; I liked it so much that I bought one for myself! We now have four of them between us. (There was a sale, and having a backup of a beloved item is just practical!!!) My favorite way to wear it is with white Lou & Grey soft pants and cozy socks, or with white or blue Levi’s. 

Thinking about this hoodie, the other clothes I’ve discovered via my girlfriend, and the items from the men’s department that I own and love, I was reminded of the 2016 Racked article “The Presumptions of ‘Boyfriend’ Clothes”:

“The idea that men and women are supposed to be certain sizes in relation and proportion to one another is reinforced by boyfriend clothing. Images of heterosexual relationships almost invariably show a woman so small she is swallowed up by her boyfriend’s clothes. All my life I’ve worked to shake the idea that my relationships don’t count because they have not looked like this. But what the boyfriend shirt is selling is that very idea, love defined by comparative body size.

Women wear, and always have worn, masculine clothing for myriad reasons, reasons to do with identity and reasons that have nothing to do with identity, reasons to do with gender and reasons that have nothing to do with gender, and reasons to do with the fact the men’s clothes have pockets far more often than women’s clothes do. I might buy a men’s shirt for a million reasons that have nothing to do with a man.”

Buy it for yourself, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, or your partner from Gap for $35. (Available in sizes XS-XXXL and eight different colors; for reference, I own the size small.)

Related: Hanes tees and girlfriend shorts. ✨

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I would lay down my life for this Hobonichi Techo planner

I’d been thinking about buying a Hobonichi Techo Cousin planner ($35.04) for two years, so I finally decided to go for it this fall. It’s just such a good planner, and after four years of dot journaling in a Leuchtturm notebook, I’m ready for a little change! I ordered my Hobonichi Techo Cousin back in October, and I’m legitimately looking forward to January 1 so I can start using it.

Here’s the deal with the Hobonichi Techo, from the website:

The Hobonichi Techo is a planner notebook created by staff members of the website Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun, shortened as Hobonichi. Techo (pronounced “tetch-oh”) is a Japanese word for a planner notebook. We also describe the Hobonichi Techo as a Life Book; it demonstrates the planner notebook’s versatility and freedom that accommodates every user’s unique personality and lifestyle. It first came out as a 2002 edition, which was created when the members — who weren’t professional planner designers — decided to get together and create a brand new kind of planner that they would actually want to use themselves. There are 18 years of history behind the current book. New varieties have appeared over the years in response to customer requests, and all the techos improve every year based on these requests and feedback. New cover designs are released every year so that using a Hobonichi Techo carries an extra sense of excitement and enjoyment. In recent years people from all over the world have begun to use the techo — there are now over 780,000 users worldwide!

I was able to look at several different Hobonichi Techo planners back in late 2017, and the Cousin was my personal favorite. (It was also my favorite of all of the planners I looked at in 2017, and I looked at…a fuckton of planners that year.) It’s more guided than a dot journal — but not annoyingly so — and really nails both form and function.

I highly recommend going to the Cousin’s About section and clicking through all of the different tabs to see/read about the features, because there are a lot of them! But here are some of the things I like about it, if you’re curious…

Size

The Cousin (the A5) is the biggest of all of the Techo planners, but isn’t huge…it’s 5.8” x 8.3”, so it’s fairly close in size to the Leuchtturm I’ve been using for years. It is the perfect size for me.

If you want a smaller planner, the original Hobonichi Techo (A6) ($20.02) is also good. (You can also buy the original on Amazon.) I actually bought the original by accident because I got confused when I was placing my order. (One way to remember which one is which: the Cousin is the big one, much like Cousin Greg is the big one on Succession.) While the original is perfectly nice (and my girlfriend is happy to take it off my hands), I prefer one with more room to write on each day, aka the Cousin.

The paper

Ugh, this notebook. I just love it! The paper is super thin and smooth and feels so luxurious. The journal also has layflat binding (which means it will easily lay open/flat on your desk).

Image: Hobonichi Techo

The cream-colored cover is lovely, and even though it’s super lightweight, it’s surprisingly durable. (I tried bending the corners of the sample one I received, and couldn’t.) You can also buy a cover for it, but I didn’t go that route; instead, I bought a mesh pouch at McNally Jackson to transport it in.

There are different colors of ink used throughout the journal (the daily pages for each month are printed in a different color, for example) but the colors still feel fairly neutral. Also, a lot of the grids and other details are designed to be guidelines that you can only see up close (similar to the dots in a dot grid journal), so those are printed in a fairly light ink.

The page design

So, the big difference between this planner and the dot journaling method is that the Cousin is pre-printed. So, the pages come with dates and other information already on them, and each day gets its own page. There is also a year-at-glance view, monthly calendar pages, a spot for goals/tasks each month, weekly pages (with an hourly breakdown that I like a lot), and then the daily pages. This isn’t ideal if you want to be able to write really long journal entries some days, or to add in a new spread about, say, your favorite books wherever you feel like it. But it’s great if you want something convenient that is kind of doing the work for you, and/or you don’t mind when your journal or planner bosses you around a little bit.

I tend to be way too picky to enjoy pre-designed daily pages, but in this case, they are designed so well and so thoughtfully that I really like them. There’s an hourly breakdown on the left side of the page if you want to use it (but that’s easy to ignore), and then there is space on the right where you can list tasks/to-dos. (There is also a light “invisible line” down the middle that you can use to separate the two if you want to.) And there is space at the bottom for journaling/notes. You can also use the daily pages as a sketchbook or regular journal…like, you can just kind of easily write or doodle over the printed page designs if you want.

Features

The Cousin has several thoughtful/cute touches throughout that I love, including the moon phase on each daily page; subtle color tabs for each month of the year; a mini monthly calendar every two pages; and a “warm up page” at the beginning where you can reflect on the past year/set the tone of the new year. In the back of the notebook, there is blank graph paper; a “Favorites” page where you can document your favorite songs, movies, books, purchases, etc.; and a “My 100” page that you can use for anything you want (wins, top moments, goals, favorites, etc.).

Another thing people seem to love about these planners is that they have a quote on each page. This is actually not my thing, but it’s sort of moot because in the Cousin, all the quotes are in Japanese, so I can’t read them.

Shopping

I will say that the Hobonichi Techo website is a tad hard to navigate, in part because there some choices to be made: you have to figure out which planner you want, and whether you’d like the week starts to start on Sunday or Monday. You can also buy the Cousin Avec, where you get two notebooks that each last six months instead of one notebook for the whole year. And if you want to pick out a cover, there are a lot of options.

Once you make your selection, you’ll get routed to a different interface to purchase, and you’ll have to make sure it’s all in USD. It’s also not the most user friendly, but it’s also not prohibitively difficult to use. And both notebooks I ordered arrived very quickly (especially considering that they were shipping from Japan).

TL;DR: The Hobonichi Techo Cousin planner is super elegant and well-designed, and I am very excited to start using mine in January! Buy the 2020 Cousin for $35.04. 🗓

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