This summer marks six years since we bought our house in Oakland, California. As I imagine most homeowners do, we immediately set about making it our own, which in our case meant painting the walls a rainbow of realtor-unapproved colors (red! navy! purple!), hanging guitars from the ceiling, stringing twinkle lights pretty much everywhere, and letting the front and back yards become totally, jungletastically overgrown because we have no idea what we’re doing. We’ve never had gardens like these before. We’ve never had a home together.

Click through to read more about why I love owning a home here. (It’s a sponsored post but not a review.)

In some ways we’re still getting used to this place, I think in part because as our family changes so do our needs. We moved in as a couple and have become a foursome. Suddenly we’re paying more attention to things like the size of the bedrooms and the safety of the treehouse and the single solitariness of the one lonely-but-never-alone bathroom. It’s not always ideal (oh my lord do we need to get the non-sleeping baby out of the master bedroom), but at the same time, we feel lucky to have this steady, solid, fabulously imperfect, ours-all-ours place to raise our family. It will help define who we are for years to come.

And that’s the best part about owning a home here, I think: becoming part of the history of the place, just as it becomes a part of our history. I suppose as a renter the same thing happens, especially if you stay somewhere for a long time, but I also think there’s something different, bigger, about owning. Maybe it’s just that you can literally put your mark on the place, whether it’s planting a new tree in the yard, pressing your handprint into fresh concrete on the sidewalk, or scrawling “LEAH SLEPT HERE” in purple paint on the bedroom wall. Maybe it’s the way the house leaves its impression on you.

As for owning a home in this area of California, my favorite part has been having wonderful neighbors—and, as owners rather than renters, a greater incentive to get to know our neighbors. The people around us are part of the history of this place too (the couple on one side has lived in their house since 1969, when they bought it from the daughter of a Very Famous Writer whose partial archives are still jumbled in their basement(!)), and the neighbors on the other side moved in during the dot.com boom of the early 2000s. (They babysit our cats when we go out of town, they give us gardening advice, and they feed Wombat blueberries through the slats in our shared fence.) The people across the street bought their house a few years before we did and now have a son six months younger than Wombat and a son five days older than Fox. Our old neighbors say it’s nice to have kids running the streets again, the way their kids did back before I was even born. And this makes me think about what I know of the earliest history of this house, whose first occupants, in 1912, the year the Titanic sank, were a family of FIVE. Wait, no. They had five kids. A family of seven crammed into our little Craftsman bungalow! I feel less bad about our single bathroom now.

Is it hard to live away from family, especially now that we have kids? You betcha. Very hard. So hard we sometimes think it’s not worth it. So what keeps us here? First and foremost I believe it’s the people. Californians are cool. We are complicated and diverse, and we are okay with that. We teach each other and learn from each other. And since you can’t know someone’s story just by looking at them, that prompts you to ask. This embracing of history–of the larger history of the place as well as the individual history of its denizens–is why I will always feel lucky to have owned a home here.

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I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

I love birthdays but hate getting older. “Just one more year too old to be a child genius [on Jeopardy],” I say every May only semi-jokingly. Simon has tried to cure me of this disorder by reminding me that each year I get older is a year I’m not dead, and darn it if he isn’t right. It’s enough to make me shut my trap on the subject…until at least a month or two before my next birthday.

The thing is, I don’t mind being older so much as I mind what my age implies about what type of person I might or should be. I’m thirty-three (and a half), and isn’t that just so…middle-agey an age? People who are thirty-three have mortgages and children and Costco memberships so they can buy bulk orders of batteries and light bulbs and wet wipes. And wrinkle cream. The disconnect is that most days I just don’t feel thirty-three (and a half) AT ALL, and yet…I have these things. Mortgages and children and enough batteries and light bulbs and wet wipes and wrinkle cream (and wrinkles!) to get me through to age forty-three. I am, in many ways, exactly what I’m “supposed” to be at this age. And what in the world do I have to complain about when I’m definitely exactly what I wanted to be at this age?

So. Thirty-three. This is what it looked like when it happened to me:

It’s slower and saggier than twenty-three, but it’s also fuller and richer and clearer and wiser than twenty-three, and those are the things that count. It’s not middle-age, it’s prime time, baby.

Nothing quite puts it all into perspective for me than when people start talking about Life Lists–that popular ritual of taking formal and public inventory of all the things they want to do before they die. It’s inspiring and amazing and discouraging and morbid and, for me, mostly frustrating because at this point in my life, with two small kids and an underwater house, there isn’t much room for backpacking across Europe or rappelling into a cavern in the rainforest. No room and, frankly, very little desire.

That’s why my Life List isn’t full of things I hope to do but things I have already done. It’s a record, not a prediction. It’s not inspiration but reflection. I graduated college at the top of my class. I fell in forever-love. I bought a crazy house. I made two spectacular boychildren. I (finally) got married and there was a taco truck and a giant tub of Red Vines at the wedding. I’ve also been up the Eiffel Tower, sailed around the Statue of Liberty, knitted a hat, and made a galette from scratch using apples from our backyard tree.

My Life List is big things and small things.

Those are the things that add up to thirty-three. Those are the things that add up to me.

What’s on your Life List? Leave me your answer in the comments below for a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card courtesy of Olay.

Rules:

I’ve reviewed Olay® products before, and all the usual praise applies to the most recent item they sent me (it’s quality, it’s affordable, it’s available at normal places I already shop), but this latest product, I think–no, I KNOW–is my favorite by far.

Introducing the Total Effects Tone Corrector UV Moisturizer.

I hate to start with a negative, but right off the bat I need to say that my main complaint is that you can’t see how inventive the product design is unless you open the box. IMO, the outer packaging should have a clear window so you can see how fancy the actual pump bottle is. The soft-serve twist-cone effect of the contents looks so delicious cool I want to eat it wear it all up in one sitting. Yum.

(Okay, even though product design doesn’t mean squat if the product itself is subpar, I will say that I DO appreciate it when my beauty products are…beautiful. Might as well go all the way, right?)

So, how do I like the actual moisturizer? Perhaps a better question would be: “Olay tinted moisturizer, how do I love thee?” Shall we count the ways?

No, let’s not do that, but here’s what I’m digging about it:

The vanilla and chocolate in this swirled-together formula are (a) moisturizer with SPF 15 and (b) tinted moisturizer, which comes in a range of shades. (I wear Fair to Light.) The fact that one product combines moisturizer AND tone-evening tint AND sunscreen makes it a total time-saver. And yes, those extra thirty seconds DO count for me because on some days the prospect of spending an extra thirty seconds on self-beautification is all it takes for me to decide I’m simply entirely too lazy for this whole “look good, feel good” racket and I seriously contemplate leaving the house either (a) bare-faced or (b) wearing a paper sack on my head. Since having this product on hand, I’ve been wearing it even when I’m not leaving the house; that’s the best endorsement I can give anything, really.

Olay says the product “minimizes the look of spots instantly, helps with the appearance of discoloration, and fights the seven signs of aging.” Check, check, and I sure hope so! It definitely evens my skin tone and balances my color, and it does so in a way that doesn’t look or feel heavy the way foundation usually does. It’s noticable coverage but it’s light and natural coverage. Just my style.

The moisturizer itself feels rich without being thick, and it absorbs into my skin without feeling goopy or sticky or greasy. The SPF works wonders; I unexpectedly spent a few hours in the sun recently, and later that afternoon my forearms turned pink with sunburn but my face had been completely protected. Yay for products that do what they say they’re going to do.

I was already primed to love the product when I read that it was a three-in-one, and now that I’ve used it and seen what a great job it does in place of (not just in addition to) several other staples in my bathroom cabinet, I’m a huge, huge fan. Hey, lazy people deserve to look great too!

For a chance to win a $50 Visa gift card, tell me in the comments how you expedite your beauty routine and you’ll be entered into the sweepstakes.

Rules:

No duplicate entries.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods: (a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post, (b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post, (c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post, (d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to U.S. Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by email. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 4/9 to 5/16.

Be sure to visit the Olay TE page on BlogHer.com, where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win! While we’re on the subject of looking good, you might want to check out the “Looking Your Best” posts in the Life Well Lived section of BlogHer.com. There are some great tips and expert posts!

I was compensated and provided free product for this post. The opinions expressed herein are my own.

I thought maybe when I had a baby, I’d become one of those people who could say she constantly sacrifices her own needs for those of her family. Say it with a straight face, I mean.

The reality has been that for better or worse I’ve remained plenty capable of sleeping in, taking solo vacations, and telling everyone to just leave me alone for ten freaking minutes–all of this without guilt–even if those personal luxuries only happen once in a blue moon. (Off to Google what the heck that idiom even means…)

Now that we’ve been a one-working-parent family (again) for a full week, I’ve been busting my butt to make sure all the balls stay in the air, and I’m finding that when a ball does drop, it’s likely to be one labeled Me Time.

When BlogHer asked me to post a few words on how I put myself first, and how doing that makes me happier, it was an easy question to answer because right now there’s only one thing I can count on a pure, uninterrupted, rejuvenating time to myself: my daily shower. Fine, my every-other-day(ish) shower.

Historically, the boys have had a habit of busting in on me, whether to ask a question, demand a snack, to just say hi. Last week I put my wet, soapy foot down. “I’m only in here for ten minutes. Whatever you need can wait. Ten minutes. That’s all I ask.” (That was my polite way of putting a KEEP OUT sign on the door; if I’d got that route, I might have included “Trespassers will be shot.”

Ten minutes in the shower. It’s not much, but it’s mine all mine. And it really does make me happier knowing that.

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This post is written as part of the Life Well Lived program and sweepstakes. Visit the main post on BlogHer.com and then go enter the contest to win a fabulous prize.

I’m trying out a new thing with BlogHer called the “Life Well Lived” series. Basically, a handful of bloggers are asked to write a few words on a specific topic in hopes of stimulating conversation over on the BlogHer.com main page, where we’ll be hanging out in the comments section as well. The series is also paired with a sweepstakes, so don’t forget to check that out too.

This week’s question is: What are your favorite beauty tools?

That’s easy. My beauty routine is fairly quick and simple, and there’s only one thing I use regularly that I’d call a “tool”: my eyelash curler. I no doubt got it somewhere easy and obvious like Target or the grocery store, and I’ve had it for…probably way too long, but it still works, so I’m not complaining. A crimp near the base of my lashes and another one about halfway up plus a sweep of my new favorite mascara–Mary Kay’s I “heart” Black, which I got for a BlogHer review, actually–and my thin, blonde, all-but-invisible lashes look magically longer and more lush. Curled lashes are a must-do for me, right up there with a little color on my lips and cheeks.

What are your favorite beauty tools? Come join the discussion here (and don’t forget the contest!).

I’m hosting a super-special, super-fast giveaway over here. Don’t miss this chance to win another smartphone courtesy of AT&T!

On the night we got engaged, we took a self-portrait that’s so hideous I don’t think I ever even posted it here. Bad camera work aside, we were looking exactly as you’d expect two non-celebrity parents to look ten days after one of them gave birth, and also without the benefit of years of celebrity PR coaching about “good sides” and camera angles and, to quote Tyra, “finding your light.”

Things I learned that night: (1) Never let your giant postpartum rear end be the closest thing to the camera, and (2) Sometimes the best way to “find your light” is to turn the lights OFF because, grrrrrl, you’re a hot mess. For real.

When I plunged back into our photo archives to find that picture for this post, I was expecting bad and it was, honestly, even worse. Click through to see it and read about how Canon (my favorite, favorite, favorite camera company) helped us get Our Second Shot, and how it could help you get yours too (preferably by sending you to a quaint restaurant in Italy, as they did for one lucky couple).

So, we got engaged on Christmas Eve 2008, ten days after our son was born. We were in the middle of watching Spider-Man 3 on cable, eating Frosted Mini Wheats, and looking completely glamorous, as you will see. (Read the full engagement post here.)

I wish I could look at that photo and be mother-proud of what childbirth had done to my appearance in the form of sleeplessness, weight gain, and whacked-out hormones, but no, it’s pretty bad, and the only reason I didn’t take a million photos until I got a good one was because I was simply too tired and hopped up on babysmell (and yes, champagne) to care.

Behold:

When Canon and BlogHer asked if I’d like the chance to retake a less-than-awesome photo of a special occasion, what else could I say? Do-over, PLEASE AND THANK YOU. It helps that this time my hair was combed, Simon’s wasn’t giant, and Wombat at nearly three was a little more expressive than he was at ten days old. It also helped that we had the HS System technology of the Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS, which did a fine job capturing detail in the dim light of our T.V. room without a glaring flash. It also had a ton of features that made the photo easier to take in general: a self-timer that I could customize to a preferred length of time and number of sequential shots; face recognition, which picked out all three of our faces in every photo and let me review everyone’s expression up close; an icon that looked like a squinty face to tell me when someone (Wombat) had his eyes shut; and…I could go on and on. It’s just a really sweet camera.

We’ve had a lot of fun playing around with the camera over the last few weeks. If you’re a fan of the tricky/vintagey filters all the kids are crazy about, you’ll love some of the camera settings:

Miniature!

Toy Camera!

But that’s not what you came to see, so here’s the Second Shot of our engagement.

That’s straight outta the camera, no editing (hence the weird framing). It was still a little tricky to get the timer set up and everyone in position and smiling when the shutter clicked, but in the end the Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS did us good (I loved not having to use the flash)–just like every other Canon we’ve owned since 2001, including two SLRs and two other models from the ELPH line that have held up to major use and abuse and are still clicking.

Thanks for the years of memories, Canon, but thanks also for the Second Shot. I’m Simon’s Second Shot, and in a way he’s mine too, so I guess that’s proof that no matter what the movies say, the second time’s a charm, and it’s never too late to make a second impression.

***

People far and wide are participating in the Your Second Shot campaign; to see other “before” candidates and vote for your favorite to get a photo do-over courtesy of Canon, click here. (Babies’ births! Kids’ first days of kindergarten! Weddings! Anniversaries! You name it).

For a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card, leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite photo is from Canon’s Your Second Shot page.

Rules: No duplicate comments. You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods: (a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post, (b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post, (c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post, or (d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry. This giveaway is open to U.S. residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by email. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. The Official Rules are available here.

Sweepstakes will run from December 5 to December 18, 2011.

For more opportunities to win, visit the Canon round-up page on BlogHer.com to read other bloggers’ reviews.

When I started this blog a hundred years ago, I picked the name “A Girl and a Boy” because it fit and it felt good, not because I wanted that “A” to put me at the top of my friends’ blogrolls or on the first page of the Big Book o’ Internet Websites. Who knows how much of a difference that sort of thing makes in the grand scheme of anything anyway, but I finally have a real reason to be proud of my position here at the start of the alphabet…

I’m honored to be the first stop on the virtual tour of Secret Agent Josephine’s new trio of childrens’ books: ABC’s, Colors, and Numbers.

I’ve known Secret Agent Josephine (aka Brenda Ponnay, although she’ll always be SAJ to me) for a hundred and one years–since before I started blogging myself–and whenever I talk about her I end up gushing like a busted fire hydrant because I just have so much admiration and respect for what she does as a parent, an artist, and an all-around creative type. She’s the real deal, a genuine artifact, doing what she was obviously born to do, and I always say I want to be like her when I grow up, even though much of her genius and charm is in the childlike way she approaches the world.

Her new books–available in print and as e-books–are every bit as genius and charming as she is, and I couldn’t wait to show them to Wombat. This was his first time doing anything on an iPhone, and he felt so proud being able to turn the pages all by himself with a quick flick of his finger. (It also beat sitting quietly while dad used his phone to read politics sites.)

You should have seen the look on Wombat’s face when he flipped to the first page of the alphabet book and realized he already knew this stuff. About a year ago, JenB gave us a set of the SAJ alphabet cards after her daughter outgrew them, and we’ve been enjoying the heck out of them ever since. We flip through them like flashcards, we scatter them across the floor and then put them in the correct order, we use them to spell out simple words on the coffee table. When Wombat’s sounding out a word in a book, he still falls back on the photos from these cards to figure out tricky stuff like “W” doesn’t say “duh” as in “double-you” but “wuh” as in “whale.”

And wouldn’t you know it, his favorite page from the new Colors book (which includes a lot of practice with the alphabet too), is the one for white, which features a “woolly white warrior wombat waving at wasps in the wintertime.” (That’s him in SAJ’s current website banner.)

Considering I’ve loved SAJ for going on a hundred and two years now, of course I’m biased, but as far as Wombat’s concerned, he just knows the illustrations are fun and the words make him giggle and the whole experience makes him feel like he really is a big, smart boy now that he can “read a book” on daddy’s phone. He also doesn’t even know that a lot of my best crafts are courtesy of his new favorite author, but maybe one day he will, and hopefully that will happen before either of us is old enough to grow a moustache. It’s a cold day for pontooning.

Oh dear me.

[Download a PDF of the instructions for SAJ's easy-peasy Old Man Disguise here. I made mine in about three minutes, no joke.]

The books are available on Amazon and in formats compatible with iPads and iPhones, Barnes and Noble Nooks, and Kindles (all for just $2.99), and wouldn’t you know it, you can also enjoy them using those old-fashioned things called your hands.

Kindle: ABC’s, Colors, Numbers

iPad/iPhone: ABC’s, Colors, Numbers

Nook: ABC’s, Colors, Numbers

As a special treat for you, the super stealthy followers of the book tour, Brenda is also offering you a chance to win a print of your choice from the ABC’s book. (Wombat loves “U is for underwear.” It’s my favorite too.) To enter, leave a comment on this post–how about sharing your favorite “A” word (keep it clean!)–and everyone who does so before November 30 at midnight Pacific will be in the running for the prize. Absolutely everyone all over the world is eligible to enter, and the books and e-books are available worldwide too, so don’t miss out! (And don’t forget to visit the rest of the book tour participants over the coming weeks for more chances to win.)

Thanks, SAJ, for the contest and the books, but mostly for many, many years of being awesome, and many more to come. You’re one of my very favorite people on the whole wide internet. “A” is for amazing, just like you.

[Sponsored post ahead!]

One thing I’ve been working on over the past year is being more thoughtful and generous, which for me has also involved some hard-line quieting of all the nitpicky naysayers in my head who go, “So you want to buy a gift for someone? What if she doesn’t like it? What if she doesn’t appreciate it? I should really just spend the money on something else. No, I shouldn’t spend the money at all but save it. Besides, a gift card is so much more practical. But is that tacky? Am I tacky? Oh god, I’m skipping the gift and the party entirely and just staying home in my tacky p.j. pants and no one will miss me anyway.”

It’s very noisy in my head.

The past year has been all about quieting that noise, though, and instead aiming to be freer and looser with kind gestures and also become a true believer that an imperfect gift is still a gift, and it really is the thought that counts.

Continue reading this sponsored post from Citrus Lane (which includes a chance to win a cool prize!)…

Internet, the things I do for you.

A few weeks ago I swapped out my regular midday and evening snacks to test-drive the new Dreyer’s shakes and smoothies, all in the name of delicious public service. If this is what it means to take one for the team, I’m thinking about joining a league.

The Dreyer’s shakes and smoothies are frozen just-add-milk products that, admittedly at first, I didn’t quite understand. Why do I have to add milk? Why don’t they just package the shakes and smoothies pre-mixed? Now that I’ve tried them, I know the answer: Because it’s impossible, that’s why. Have you ever seen a pre-packaged shake or smoothie sold in a grocery store? I thought not. But more importantly, have you ever made yourself a late-night shake without having to fire up the blender and wake your sleeping child? Have you ever made an early morning smoothie without waking your sleeping spouse?

Right. Now go to the freezer section and get your treats, which will be shelved next to all the other Dreyer’s products. (I found mine at Target; depending on where you live Dreyer’s might be called Edy’s in your area.)

When you get home, don’t forget to put them *back* in the freezer if you’re not going to immediately get out the just-add-milk milk to see what they taste like. I saved my first one for a Monday night, so I could have what Simon describes as a “Bridget Jones evening,” meaning me plus pajamas plus a creamy frozen dessert plus reality t.v. Even though he made fun of me, I let Simon have a sip before shooing him away, and then I downed the rest myself before the credits were over.

This is the chocolate shake, and I put some banana discs on the rim for style (it’s harder than it looks) because I care about you, Internet, and want my photographs to meet your exacting standards. (This is also why I didn’t take a photo after I cut up the rest of the banana and tossed it in the glass. That’s a recipe as unphotogenic as it is delicious.)

The next day (because I work tirelessly for you, Internet), I tried the mixed berry smoothie. Again, I had to decant it into something fancier than the original packaging because (a) Mr. Simon Fancypants would disown me if I didn’t add flair to my beverages and (b) I made sort of a gigantic mess of the container in my unbridled enthusiasm to be making a smoothie without a blender.

Don’t tell my kid I picked that berry and mint from what he thinks is his own personal garden.

(Although I liked the smoothie well enough–it tasted like blueberry yogurt–it reminded me I don’t actually like smoothies all that much in general. (I’m more of a slushie girl.) Simon, however, who does like smoothies, sucked his portion down in about three swallows. Slurp.)

Another shake! Vanilla! My favorite! This one tastes like the creamy soup at the end of a bowl of ice cream, and it was as delicious plain as it was dressed up with a maraschino cherry.

I took pictures of the half in this vintage parfait glass while I drank the other half straight from the carton.

After a few long, hard days of rigorous testing (I do it all for you!), my verdict is as follows: Dreyer’s shakes and smoothies are a convenient treat for home (they melt too quickly for the road), and they come in a size that lets you feel indulgent without going overboard. Also, they look really cute in sweet little glasses and topped with happy accoutrements and garnishes. Also also, before you go buy your own (check the Dreyer’s Facebook page for special offers), you should leave a comment below before August 31 to enter for a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card (and visit the Promotions and Prizes section of BlogHer.com for more chances to win). Now tell me: What flavor would you choose and how would you decorate it?

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Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry

methods: (a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post, (b) tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post, (c) blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post,

(d) for those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by email. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. Visit the official rules here.

Good luck!