OK, I promised you (and my hus­band) some ideas for the Trip We Take Before We Have the Baby (so much eas­ier to say than “baby­moon”) and hon­estly, I really don’t care. It doesn’t have to be elab­o­rate. I just want decent sur­round­ings and good food. A pool if pos­si­ble. The afore­men­tioned hus­band in relax­ation mode. Any­thing else is just gravy.

I’m open to sug­ges­tions if you have them, but right now my thoughts are Big Sur or Napa. (Yes, going to wine coun­try when you can­not par­take is per­haps not the way to “do” wine coun­try, but I’m not much of a drinker any­way, so I don’t think it would be too much of a loss.) If I found a bag of money on the street, I’d high­tail it to the Post Ranch Inn, but one night there can cost as much as our rent, so…no. It doesn’t look bad, though, huh?

Another place I’d like to go, and this might not be pre-baby trip mate­r­ial, nor with-baby trip mate­r­ial, so let’s just file it away in the some­day trip file, is on an overnight at the Eames house. But, for rea­sons I don’t entirely under­stand, the Eames FAQ will not tell you how much it costs. Much like “price upon request” in décor mags, or a Sotheby’s real estate sign, not reveal­ing the price just means “If you have to ask, you can­not afford it.”

Or maybe it means “Actu­ally, it’s free, but we don’t like to tell you that.” Here’s hoping.

(Post Ranch Inn from the NYT; Eames house from the Eames Foun­da­tion.)

Spoiler alert: My pants won.

A few weeks ago, I looked in the mir­ror and thought, “Hey, I look sort of preg­nant.” It’s a good thing, too, because I’ve been going to pre­na­tal yoga classes and feel­ing like an impos­tor. At least until we get to the part of class where we tell every­one how far along we are. While my mom was in town, she sug­gested tak­ing a look at mater­nity clothes. I bought some pants, said to every­one who would lis­ten, “These are crazy com­fort­able,” and then con­tin­ued wear­ing the non-maternity jeans.

Last night, we were going out to din­ner, and I chose the non-maternity option. They still but­ton, they’re stretchy, I’m totally fine! Until I real­ized I might be a lit­tle more com­fort­able with unbut­ton­ing the top but­ton. OK, so I rigged up some­thing with a hair elas­tic, sat down at the restau­rant, and hey, guess what? My stom­ach feels a lit­tle strange. Maybe because I’ve crammed myself into a pair of pants that will not put up with this tomfoolery.

Today we are back in the mater­nity pants. You win, stretchy waistband.

OK, moms out there: what else is it time for?

Speak­ing of moms out there, I met my inter­net friend Tor­rie (and her very sweet sister-in-law) last week. She posted about it here and hello, I want to hang out with me based on her descrip­tion. I did not pay her to say any of that. Not only was she a delight, but she even gave me a part­ing gift: a few mac­arons and some fancy gummi bears since she knows they are my Offi­cial Preg­nancy Candy™. Speak­ing of which, it’s candy o’clock at my house.

This marks my third spring in warmer climes. Weird. Even now that I wear the same clothes essen­tially year-round, I some­how feel the sea­sons change. There are no win­ter coats to put away, yet I want to clean out my clos­ets, rearrange every drawer in the house and buy some­thing new.

(Before you say, “Duh. You’re nest­ing,” I do feel this way quar­terly. Though in Sep­tem­ber, I always have a burn­ing desire for notebooks.)

Due in part to local inspi­ra­tions like the ladies of Closet Visit, I’ve slowly been attempt­ing to up my style game in LA. But mater­nity jeans—and don’t get me wrong, they are awesome—are throw­ing a wrench in the plan.

Which brings us to acces­sories. Instead of invest­ing in a wardrobe with an expi­ra­tion date of mid-August, I’m think­ing about buy­ing as lit­tle mater­nity cloth­ing as pos­si­ble, and spend­ing money on items where size isn’t an issue.

Clock­wise from top left: I’ve wanted this Clare Vivier bag for ages (though not in red). It could be a pretty cute dia­per bag, too. I can­not bring myself to spend $350 on the pair of sun­glasses I adore, but I crave new ones. Maybe some clas­sic Ray-Bans? I had these Kork-Ease wedges in light blue suede and even­tu­ally destroyed them (stu­pid suede!), so I promise to be more care­ful with a new pair. I saw this cuff at Rene­gade last Decem­ber and for some rea­son didn’t buy it. Now it haunts me. (It doesn’t, but I like how it looks like a preppy rope bracelet on steroids.)

What do you want for spring?

Much like when I got engaged and ran out and bought a bunch of wed­ding mag­a­zines, I have been work­ing my way through a stack of preg­nancy mags. Much like the wed­ding mag­a­zines, the preg­nancy peri­od­i­cals are very close to useless.

I real­ize that ours is a con­sumer cul­ture, and with each life event comes some enter­pris­ing soul wish­ing to make mad money from it, but some of this shit is ridicu­lous. I’m look­ing at you, Bellysonic.

(I guess you wear this and baby can lis­ten to your iPod with you? This is just the tip of the iceberg.)

Before I get ahead of myself with par­ent­ing promises to break as soon as Mr. Baby presents him­self to the world, I’m focus­ing on short-term goals. Namely, some pregnancy-related words that I pray I never find myself using. Is preg­nant so hard to say that short­en­ing it to preggo or pregs is nec­es­sary? While I’m all for gifts, doesn’t call­ing one a push present make it feel like birthing a child is some sort of busi­ness trans­ac­tion? On that note, does tak­ing a trip together before baby arrives have to be a baby­moon? Please.

(But if we’re talk­ing about some places I wouldn’t mind visiting…more on that shortly.)

My mom is an excel­lent cook, and a woman who rarely—if ever—eats prepack­aged food. So when she tells you she likes some­thing that comes in a box, I sug­gest you lis­ten up. Her tip: Beecher’s mac­a­roni and cheese. You can buy it online, but I found it nearby at Smart & Final. (My mom says the Dean & Deluca in Kansas car­ries it too.)

The box says it serves four, but would you judge a preg­nant girl for eat­ing the whole damn thing?

No. You would not.

Did you/do you crave things while preg­nant? I have always been firmly on Team Choco­late, but baby has brought with him a desire for gummi bears. Weird.

I am about to drop some seri­ous Secret on your ass.

A few months ago, I wrote a bit about Alexan­der Girard. So what. (Girard’s awe­some­ness, not news.) In the post, I men­tioned my excit­ing dis­cov­ery: Girard designed an apart­ment for Joyce Hall of Hall­mark. Pon­der­ing this mys­ti­cal place sort of hit my holy trin­ity: Girard design, Kansas City, warm fuzzy feel­ings for Hall­mark. But alas, I could not turn up a photo.

In the com­ments, Sarah from máX­imo said that she did in fact have a pho­tos of the apart­ment. She sent them. I freaked out. And then, not unsur­pris­ingly, the exis­tence of these pho­tos van­ished from my mind.

So, like a junkie with a secret stash, I have been keep­ing these to myself. But that ends now. Sadly, these aren’t color. But feel free to men­tally paint these in some Girard-approved hues. In my head, there is def­i­nitely some magenta up in this joint…

Pretty sure this is a detail shot of the above curio wall:

And here’s an infor­mal liv­ing room (I think). Dig the records and the banjo on the floor.

What else have I been not shar­ing? Tons. Con­sider this a taste and I promise more goodness—maybe even a lit­tle less sporadically—next week.

(All pho­tos cour­tesy of the ever-generous máX­imo. Seri­ously, I can’t believe I get to see these—and then share them.)

From the “If I want it, oth­ers must too” files: a leisure pool. A pool club that doesn’t require laps or gog­gles. Not a coun­try club—I don’t want golf or ten­nis (or expen­sive dues). Just a place I can go and float in a pool.

If—and this is a big if—I decided to do some­thing vaguely ath­letic in said pool, I think it would be syn­chro­nized swim­ming. Don’t laugh. I just learned about the Aqualil­lies, a troupe of swim-dancers (dance-swimmers?) who even teach classes in the LA area.

I sug­gest watch­ing their YouTube chan­nel if you are cur­rently buried under snowdrifts.

Back before we moved to LA, when I was in what­ifwe­movein­toas­tu­dioOMG­we­have­toomuch­stuff mode, I sold a lot of our fur­ni­ture. Like our beloved patio set. I checked Circa Who’s site a few times, won­der­ing if our stuff would appear (and, let’s be hon­est, won­der­ing what the retail price would be), but never saw them.

Fast for­ward to last week: I’m look­ing at the new Lonny, and there’s an arti­cle about Mar­lien Rentmeester’s home in Pacific Pal­isades. Dec­o­rated by Hillary Thomas, the house is a refined mix of preppy Palm Beach and Cal­i­for­nia bohemia. I rarely read the arti­cles in Lonny (no offense, Lonny, I greatly pre­fer your pretty pic­tures), but I started skim­ming this piece to find that Rent­meester and Thomas had speed-shopped West Palm Beach to fur­nish the house.

My first thought: I hate you, Marlien.

My sec­ond thought: Hey, those look familiar…

Verdict’s out on whether they once graced our back­yard or not, but I’m enjoy­ing think­ing the chairs live nearby.

(Title cour­tesy this clas­sic book; Lonny photo by Patrick Cline.)

I told Ryan this morn­ing when he left that the only thing I was doing today was clean­ing the house. “Maybe,” I said, “when I’m done I’ll take myself to Clemen­tine for lunch.”

Famous last words.

It’s 2:18 as I type this and the list of today’s accom­plish­ments is pretty lean. I changed the laun­dry a few times, and of course Harry has curled up in the clean pile that I dumped on the sofa so that I could fold while watch­ing DVR-ed shows. I fixed a kitchen drawer that’s been bug­ging me—the dividers kept com­ing loose—and washed the tray we keep our cof­feemaker and grinder on. I took a shower, if we’re going to cel­e­brate the small things.

Our Christ­mas tree is still up. There’s a drawer in our dresser that I ear­marked for presents and now fear open­ing. I have a 2011 cal­en­dar still in its wrap­per sit­ting on the book­case. I made the mis­take of look­ing at our base­boards a lit­tle too closely when pick­ing up dog toys and now fear that those might need to be dusted. I have a list of posts I keep mean­ing to write and this is what I bring to the table. And a photo of Harry with some Paulette mac­arons.

When there’s no good place to start, where do you begin?