Mikkele.bringard

This GIF made me laugh. So many emotions.

This made the frequent texter in me laugh. Illustrated by Jean Jullien.

These Egg Ninjas made me laugh. So unnecessary but funny.

This makes us sound 1,000 years old, but here goes…

A couple weekends ago, Alex and I wanted to go to a buzzy Mediterranean restaurant in Nolita.… Read more

The post Marriage Tip: The 6 O’Clock Dinner appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

After the Selfie-stick comes the Selfie-Arm. This made me laugh.

(via Amrit)

my brother and i on his birthday. more on that below… this month marks SEVEN years of this old blog being in the world! i never knew how long i would be able to keep it up, seven years is beyond expected!

The post 🎂 Seven Years 🎉 appeared first on Miss Moss.

What are you up to this weekend? My twin sister (right) and I are turning 37. Alex and I are going out to dinner twice, and we’re having chocolate cake with the boys on Sunday.… Read more

The post Have a Great Weekend. appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

How was your holiday? Hope you had a good, relaxing break. We got back to Brooklyn last night, after a week and a half of visiting relatives and getting a blast of that California sunshine.… Read more

The post Vacation Photos: Palm Springs and L.A. appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

Me: We need to walk quickly.

Ellis: Yes. We can’t run, or play, or stare at people, or pick flowers!

That little exchange took place almost two months ago. I don’t remember now where we were rushing off to, but I wrote it down because she made me laugh aloud.

I’m in a busy season right now, one in which I quickly fall into the perpetual pattern of hurry. No one’s telling me to “walk quickly,” but I can feel the hurry in my heart.

When I pressed Ellis to hurry she quickly listed all the things she’d do if she weren’t being prodded, all the things she most loves, the things that really make her who she is.

I’m convinced that hurry robs us of the things we really are. Sure, we may notice some minor gains, some short-term wins. But hurry holds us back from better things.

I’m sitting here wondering what my things might be. My little girl’s list may be tough to beat.

I never thought I’d be an embarrassing parent.

But then.

The other day, I left work early to pick Toby up from kindergarten as a surprise, and when it was my turn to step up to the door, I spotted him and did a little dance (jazz hands and the like).… Read more

The post How Did Your Parents Embarrass You? appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

Brass money clip, ’cause that’s how he rolls. $80.

T-shirt of his favorite national park, $34. (Or some good old-fashioned midwest pride.)

Potato chip chocolate bar, the perfect balance of salty and sweet, just like him.… Read more

The post Gift Guide 2015: Your Outdoorsy Brother Who Knows Every Elvis Song and Never Met an Animal Who Didn’t Love Him. appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

I’m always trying to figure out what my 36-year-old skin needs, so when Olay asked if I wanted to come to their lab to get my skin analyzed, I gave them an enthusiastic (but nervous) yes.… Read more

The post Taking Care of My (Aging) Skin appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

It’s sweater season! Some sweaters can be bulky and itchy, or thin and fraying, so we set out to find the coziest ones. Here are twelve pretty sweaters to live in this winter (how cute is that rainbow number?)…

Thoughts?… Read more

The post 12 Cozy Sweaters appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

Jessie Randall, the creative director behind beloved shoe and handbag line Loeffler Randall, lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with her husband, three kids and a Chihuahua.… Read more

The post Bright and Airy Brooklyn Home appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

Mark your calendars: September 23rd is the first day of fall. I’m looking forward to fall weather, along with apple picking, pumpkin carving, walking in crunchy leaves, the whole shebang.… Read more

The post 12 Fall Dresses appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

What’s on your fall wishlist? My top item is soft oxfords. Lexi wore them to work the other day and they looked amazing — like tomboyish ballet slippers.… Read more

The post Pretty Fall Shoes appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

“I used to self-harm. He was literally the first person who ever sat me down and told me that I didn’t deserve to be in pain all the time.”

Photographer Jamie Street lives (and works) in a bright, bohemian San Diego home with her husband and two young sons. “It was a very lucky find,” Jamie says.… Read more

The post Bright, Bohemian Home appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

More than six years ago my grandmother knitted a blanket for our son, Finnden, her great-grandson. She finished it before he was born, a mint-green rectangle made from bundles of knots fashioned into interlocking triangles. During those long early nights when Finnden couldn’t find sleep we’d lift him out of his crib, place him in a swing, and tuck him in tight under that green blanket. He’d calm down almost instantly. Soon, he couldn’t sleep without it, and his attachment to it grew as he did. Before he could walk he’d sit in the middle of the room, surrounded by toys, but his eyes would anxiously scan the room for the only thing that mattered: the blanket. When he could walk he would wander from room to room in our house with it trailing behind him, dirty and ragged.

The blanket went back and forth from the house to the car so many times that we started to wonder if the odds would someday turn against us and we’d accidentally leave it behind somewhere. One Christmas, Gi-Gi-Ma (as the kids call their great grandmother), surprised us with two new blankets, exact replicas for his own but in miniature. These became our walkabout blankets, perfect for bringing along in the car and holding in the stroller.

The blanket became such a cherished treasure—and she derived such joy from Finn’s attachment to it—that Gi-Gi-Ma started making more. She was already in her late nineties, and there was no telling how many more little ones might yet appear, so she made a few extras, and my mom tucked them away. As each new child was born—Ellis, Evie (my brother’s girl), and Ona—she was given a blanket of her own.

This blanket-making business also had the added bonus of keeping my grandmother, Esther, busy, though it doesn’t seem so long ago that she didn’t need things to keep her busy. She’d always been a social butterfly with an easy laugh and a gracious smile, and she’d often have a card game going or a friend to visit. But my memory plays tricks, and I have to remind myself that the ebullient version of my grandmother has been disappearing bit by bit for awhile now, a sign of something like an ominous hiss from a bicycle tire.

In these last few years, as her eyesight failed along with many other aspects of her health, knitting was still something she could do. Even as her mind was weakening she was able to knit just a little. But then she couldn’t anymore, and all of us were thankful that we had these knotted treasures secreted away.

Four weeks ago Finnden started kindergarten. That morning Karen and I surprised ourselves a little with how well we were coping. No tearful goodbyes. No forlorn waves as the bus carried him off and around the corner. None of the melodramatic scenes I’d always imagined there might be. We saw him off; I took a deep breath, exhaled a deeper sigh, and then I was off to work.

That afternoon Karen texted me a photo, a picture of Finnden’s blanket sitting on the bench by the door where he’d tossed it before rushing out to meet the bus. Underneath the picture Karen had typed the words: It hasn’t moved.

Somehow, the sight of that made it far more real for both of us. The blanket wasn’t being dragged around behind him throughout the day, nor was is sitting balled up on his lap while he watched cartoons on the couch. He wasn’t begging to take it outside in the sandbox or waiting at the top of the basement steps for Karen to bring it up from the dryer. Our boy had moved on to something new and exciting, and he’d left something precious behind in the going. His blanket, sitting lifelessly there on the bench, was a reminder that our boy had stepped into a new world, one where we couldn’t go along with him in the way we always had.

We all move on, and it usually means we leave something behind.

This past May my Grandma Esther turned 101 years old.

Last Thursday evening she passed away.

After I received the news I could think only of Finn’s blanket and how still it had lain there on the bench a few weeks ago. At that moment, a few hundred miles away, Esther’s body lay still, finished with what had become the increasingly difficult labor of keeping things going. As I think about her now that stillness elicits a sense of finality and a flood of tears. But Esther has already moved on to something, something unknown and beautiful. She’s stepped into a new world, one where we can’t go along with her just yet.

And that means that for my mom and uncles and all the rest of us who knew and loved her (since the former always begat the latter) we have stepped into a new world too. Like Finn, taking giant leaps up the too-tall steps of the bus that first morning, we are taking huge strides into the unknown, and maybe without a full sense of all that we leave behind.

But I’m so thankful that we have a cherished treasure to come home to at the end of the day. Whenever we want or need we can come home to the memories we have from walking alongside a life well-lived. Those memories are the knots that knit us together. We can pick them up, feel the well-worn weight and the warmth of them and find comfort.

This fall, we were excited when Blue Apron invited us (and our city kids) to Alewife Farm, a couple hours north of New York City. There, we spent some time with a real live farmer, lots of ginger and a big red tractor.… Read more

The post Blue Apron Farm Visit appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

The first day of fall is September 23rd, but there’s already a hint of crispness in the air. So, just for fun, here are nine big fall trends…

1.… Read more

The post 9 Fall Fashion Trends appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

Photographer and art director Tatsuya Tanaka has a fascination with all things tiny and has an uncanny ability to repurpose everyday objects as set pieces or tools for the inhabitants of his miniature world. For his project Miniature Calendar, Tanaka has been stretching his imagination to its limits nearly every day for the last four years. A tape dispenser becomes the bar for a restaurant, a circuit board is suddenly a rice paddy field, and the notes of a musical score become the hurdles for a track race. Individually, the photos might invoke a smile or chuckle as you get the joke, but when viewed collectively they morph into a fascinating study on Tanaka’s breadth of creativity.

New photos from Miniature Calendar are published every day on Instagram and Facebook. Tanaka also published a book of earlier miniature photos in a book titled Miniature Life. (via Spoon & Tamago)