Archive for October, 2011

“Tell me again why you watch this?” queried Hubby, plopping down on the couch next to Yours Truly.

“Because she’s the real deal in a sea of imitators?” I shot back. “Because she has a stellar work ethic? Because she makes me LMAO?”

We don’t usually upspeak like gum-chomping Valley gals in Momover Central, but for some reason we were the other night, as I plowed through about five eps of The Rachel Zoe Project jamming our DVR queue.

“But wait – is she a cougar?” Hubby asked, spotting Rodg onscreen next to Rach.

“They’ve been married for like 20 years, you scary age-ist,” I said, rushing to Rach’s defense. “And for the record, I think he’s actually older than she is. Not that it matters, meanie.”

Of course straight guys don’t get why a good chunk of the world is gaga over Rachel Zoe, but I most certainly do. To them, she’s just a tightly wound whirling dervish, mincing through her very rarefied world in what I like to call “ER” footwear. (Case in point: The new broad on RHOBH, who’s on crutches because she fell literally off her shoes. Straight guys don’t fall off their shoes.)

Remember when Rodg had to make it his life’s mission to get Rachel to wrap her mind around having a baby? I was a nervous wreck, chewing my nails down to bloody stumps (just jiving – I’m not even a biter) fretting that she might let motherhood pass her by. The clock was ticking, and I was freaking, watching the wheels turn as she calculated just how very, very much a tot would turn her amazing life on its ass.

Aaaah, but then she took the plunge.

Et voila, a so-cute-you-could-just-squish-him Mini Rodg.

Okay, so new-mommyhood makes me love Rach even more than I did in Seasons, 1,2 & 3. And because I know you’re on pins and needles waiting to hear the other reasons, I shan’t keep you in suspense any longer.

1. She’s a perfectionist to the über-nth degree. This is not a woman who phones it in. EVER. When she commits, she gives it her all.

2. She never stops being excited by fashion. We should all love our work so much. Actually, I do. Yay!

3. She paid her dues. Life wasn’t always 7,000 square-foot pads and Marc Jacobs on speed-dial.

4. She’s a really loving wife to Rodger. I think she could let him off his leash a bit more, but you can tell how devoted she is to him. And vice versa. That bambino is one lucky tyke to grow up surrounded by so much love. Awwww.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that I have a deep and abiding obsession with chemical peel pads. I once pitched a two-page magazine story about the wonders of the little white exfoliating discs, and I had absolutely zero trouble finding enough things to say about how ground-breaking and life-changing I find them to be.

(I know – I need to get a life. Immediately.)

After a quick scan of these here Momover archives, I see that I’ve blogged about a whole mess of peel pads, including Peter Thomas Roth, Arcona, philosophy and Colbert MD.

Well, say hello to the hottie du jour: Dr. Dennis Gross Alpha Beta Peel Extra Strength.

I can’t tell whether I’m happy or sad that I discovered them on a recent wander through Sephora. On the plus side, I’m in serious like. On the minus side, I’m in debt. Not really. But they aren’t cheap, that is for damn sure.

And between the $200 Refissa and the $85 robo peel pads, my skincare shopping cart is getting a little spendy these days.

But maybe this is my new normal. Maybe I’ve turned some sinister corner and I’ll never not need the razzle dazzle provided by my beloved Refissa and my peel pad of the moment.

Whatever. I’m just super-duper glad they were concocted by the mad scientists in the beauty labs. Love you, mad scientists.

On Friday afternoon, as I was making my way back home to Momover Central from a schmancy beauty luncheon at the Waldorf, an email query popped up on my iPhone: Would I like to be granted media access to listen to Dr. Brandt’s radio show on Saturday? Gwyneth Paltrow would be his special guest.

Hells yes, I tapped back.

Faithful Momoverettes know I blog about Dr. B incessantly.

And while I blog about GP less incessantly, she was nonetheless the recipient of my first-ever Hot-Mama Appreciation Award. Love her. Team Gwyneth, big-time.

So I was happy to tune in to hear these two peppy peeps chirp about beauty and wellness. And I agreed with so much of what they had to say, which I will now convey to you, my lovely reader, because that’s exactly the type of super-nice person I am.

I will lead with Dr. B because it’s his show.

Dr. Brandt’s Top Beauty & Wellness Tips

1. Swathe yourself like a beekeeper and avoid the sun like the plague. Or, alternatively, just be normal and wear sunscreen.

2. Juice up some greens every morning in your trusty blender. Dr. B likes to pretend that his fictional wife Edna is whipping up his little celery | kale | spinach | ginger | green apple | ginger concoction, but you don’t really need all that backstory to crank out a healthy bevvie of your own.

3. Make time to prepare decent meals for yourself. None of this eating on the fly nonsense. You are worthy, darn it! Stay the heck away from the Taco Bell drive-thru! On crazed work days, when he’s flitting from patient to patient with a Botox needle in his hand, Dr. B even says a little prayer first before wolfing down his lunch and getting back to business.

4. Ingest vitamins topically and orally. Taking issue with the recent Iowa Women’s Health Study linking vitamin supplement intake with a higher mortality rate among women, Dr. B says we still need to popping and slathering. He likes B vitamins for hair and skin (niacin topically and biotin orally); vitamin D orally for overall great health and immune support; and Omega 3s obtained through foods like salmon, walnuts and flaxseed oil.

5. Steer clear of sugar. Dr. B is convinced we can retrain our taste buds to prefer less-sweet fare. And he’s adamant that we should. Not only does it add unwelcome padding, it contributes to wrinkles and sagging and spikes our insulin and cortisol levels. Your poor bod doesn’t deserve all that sagging and spiking.

GP’s Top Beauty & Wellness Tips

1. Sleep. And then sleep some more.

2. Drink tons of water.

3. Get tons of exercise. Gwyneth says she does cardio five times a week, and credits Tracy Anderson for helping her feel confident when she has to strip down to her skivvies in movies.

4. Give your digestive system a rest every once in a while with some type of cleanse. When she’s up for a major overhaul, she prefers to follow Alejandro Junger’s three-week Clean program. But she’ll also do a five-day juice fast from time to time. Our world is just too toxic, she says, not to take that extra step to rejuvenate.

5. Feel happy and positive. I loved that she said that focusing on all the good stuff in the world (her world, the world) is her number one beauty secret. We can all do that. Personally, when I’m happy and relaxed I look five years younger. It’s so much more effective, and family-friendly, than the $500 miracle cream.

It’s kind of perfect that my latest Mama Guru, Beautiful Stranger co-founder Melissa Fedor, is squinting behind her groovy shades in this picture; she has one of the sunniest dispositions around.

I’ve known Melissa a looooong time. Trust me, we don’t need to start tossing numbers around…

And without fail, she always looks great when I see her – stylishly pulled-together but comfy, with just the right amount of label action happening.

(Gratuitous pop culture sidebar: Who, besides me, has been shrieking at the new label-dropper on RHOBH? Holy mother of god.)

But back to my Mama Guru.

In short, Melissa’s pretty much the embodiment of the cool lads and lasses she and her Beautiful Stranger team politely accost in the street to inquire about what they’re wearing.

And since it’s Friday, I will forgive her for being so tall, lovely and perpetually well-dressed.

Read how she does it (except for the tall part) – and her style advice for mamas far and wide – right here.

At 5 a.m. today I was wide awake, completely stressed. (Where oh where did my blissed-out work-less summer go?) Of course it’s my own damn fault for checking email at that ungodly hour. But by 5:05 I was wired like a Christmas tree on your annoying neighbor’s front lawn.

So what did I do? I ran, natch. On the treadmill in the gym in our building, truck truck trucking along while some gorilla juicehead (Jersey Shore ref; look it up) next to me clickered through literally every sports show in the television universe.

With all the P90X-ing, I feel like I had such a great fitness start to 2011. It hurts like a mother-effer, and it takes hours to do, but when it comes to a well-rounded plan of attack, P90X has it going on. You’re hoisting heavy weights, you’re smacking your nose into the floor doing dive-bomber push-ups, you’re twisting like a pretzel busting yoga moves that are seriously beyond your skill-set. (Well, they’re beyond my skill-set. But I’m not exactly Yoga Girl.)

But upon glancing at my precious workout log – OMG, I am soooo OCD with that thing – I see that for the last four or five months, 99 percent of what I’ve been doing is running. Yes, there was tennis. And jesus, I love the tennis. But the tennis window is short, and my fitness needs are kind of never-ending.

That’s the thing about fitness – you gotta keep doing it. Year after year after year after year after year after…

Still, I simply must stop running so much. Yes, it’s good for stress. Actually, it’s fantastic for stress. But I should be lifting weights. Strength-training is incredibly good for women, conveying a list of benefits as long as the Mississippi.

Not to mention the superficiality aspect. And I’m all about the superficiality aspect. Speaking of which, how much am I loving the new issue of Off the Couch magazine? And how great is it that there is actually such a thing in this wacky old world of ours as a mag dubbed Off the Couch? I crack up about that, but the fitness makeovers contained within its pages are wicked inspiring.

Anyway, that’s my overshare of the day – me and my hamster-on-a-treadmill exercise scenario. Heading back to the Stress Factory now. Over and out.

After a few months of being accosted by dust bunnies – and consumed with guilt that I might want to knit or watch RHOBH instead of scrubbing the bathroom floor – I’ve finally waved the white flag of surrender and hired a cleaning service to whip Momover Central into shape.

It’s called Spotless Planet and they are so fast and thorough and pleasant that I’ve actually decided that I’m really not such a horrible person after all for hiring them. I skip merrily through the house once they’re finished for the week, marveling at all the many chores I won’t be doing.

The weird thing is, when I actually do clean, I get really into it. But now that I’m working full-time again, and developing another website on the side, I’ve decided that the few hours a week I have for house-maintenance should be spent organizing.

Right now, par exemple, the kitchen is preying on my feeble mind. It’s a pretty good size, with lots of cabinets, but I feel that when we moved in three years ago, we just sort of shoved stuff on shelves without really thinking through what we’d be needing on a daily basis.

And I don’t even really know what I own. Recently I spotted a brand-new, never-been-opened juicer and food processor! WTH? Oh, and an extremely schmancy espresso machine. They were either wedding presents or magazine-job swag, and they’re not doing me any good if they’re still in boxes.

Another organizing “hot zone”: A wall of built-ins in the Wee Lass’s play space that are jam-packed with techno-gadgets, books, cleaning supplies (ironic!) and the always-worrisome “miscellaneous.” All of that needs to be dealt with too.

My point: I have plenty to do around here that doesn’t involve plugging in the vacuum. And maybe when, and if, I ever achieve my ultimate goal of a house that looks like a hotel, I’ll go back to cleaning it myself.

I woke up this morning thinking about Olivier Theyskens, the Belgian fashion wunderkind.

(Actually, he’s getting up there in years, so he’s not quite so kind-y. But he’s so damn talented that he’s eternally wunder-y.)

It’s not so much that I was thinking about Olivier’s work – although it’s amazing, and I’m thrilled he’s now helming Theory, one of my all-time favorite brands.

Rather, I’m obsessed with something former Barneys honcho Julie Gilhart mentioned about him in that gi-normous piece in the Times that ran back in August.

“He knows how to manage his mind,” said Julie, who has known Olivier since he was a Wee Lad of 19 and has major insight into what makes him keep on truckin in the insanely fickle fashion biz.

It’s kind of crazy that one line in a verrry long profile, published 10 weeks ago, would stick with me like that, right?

Well, it would be nutso if I hadn’t already given mind-management an enormous amount of, well, mental space. I devoted an entire chapter of my Momover book to it, and I pretty much consider the successful execution of mind-management to be nothing short of the key to happiness. Really and truly.

Though it takes a tremendous amount of discipline, it basically boils down to our inner dialogue, and the way we chit-chat with ourselves all day long. And don’t even try to tell me you don’t chit-chat with yourself all day long, because I will NOT believe you.

It’s like those adorable Maybelline commercials, with Christy Turlington and her little foundation “eraser,” telling us to bounce our self-defeating inner chatter.

Personally, I have my Dark Dana days and my Light Dana days. Dark Dana is grumbly and growly, and doesn’t do a boffo job of managing her mind. Light Dana just gets on with it, finding little pockets of fun and joy, even when, just five seconds ago, she was completely ballistic and batshit-crazy about something work- or otherwise-related.

So how to have more Light than Dark days? By stopping yourself dead in your tracks whenever your mind starts to head down the rabbit hole. I think we all have a lot more control over our inner dialogues than we’d like to admit, or own.

Unless you’re one of those naturally perky types (and if you are, we hate you…kidding), it’s hard but incredibly worth it to try to manage your mind. You know what helps? Meditation.

In fact, meditation helps with just about everything. Om.

It sort of snuck up on me and bit me in the bum, but the annual Harvest Festival fundraiser for the Wee Lass’s school is taking place THIS WEEKEND. As in six days from now.

As in:

Sunday, 10 | 16, from 11 to 4

It’s held in the “Market Oval” in front of the Newport campus of the school, but is really sort of everywhere – in the classrooms, the gym, the school yard. You need a lot of room for two Bouncy Castles and approximately 8 million hot dogs.

Last year, I killed it at the tie-dye table. And I could be there again this year. All I know right this second is that I’m definitely on the Crafts team. Which could mean Spin Art, or jewelry-making, or pumpkin-painting, or lord knows what kind of super-creative gew gaws.

But if I do get assigned to tie-dye again, I’ll just try to push it out of my memory that I worked so hard on so many groovy psychedelic T-shirts, purses and socks last year that I felt like an arthritic 90-year-old lady with a lovely hand-knit shawl wrapped around her bony body. I was ouching for a good cause.

And it truly is a good cause. Such a great school. And such a fun festival.

Something tells me my timing could have been better. But on Saturday, I started my seasonal closet flip (I divide New York weather into six months of hot and six months of cold, and October 15 marks my mental shift) a mere three hours before I was due to depart the house with dearest Hubby to see yet another Ryan Gosling movie.

I swear all we do lately is go to Ryan Gosling movies. Not that I’m complaining. He’s the best thing to come down the cinematic pike in quite some time. He makes me want to do push-ups. Many of my favorite actors make me want to do push-ups.

But back into the closet go I.

So you would think three hours pre-movie would be plenty of time to accomplish the seasonal switcheroo, right?

Not even close, my mama friend.

So, because I spent all of today with the Wee Lass at the Central Park Zoo, it still looks like a bomb went off in there. And unhappily, there is spill-over into my office, which is making me all angsty.

Whatevs, I’ll just get up at the crack of dawn and tidy it enough so it won’t make my head explode, and I can continue my excellent work habits of last week.

But I’ll need to block out a few more hours to really get the job done. At least.

One reason it’s taking so long this year is that I’m being more ruthless than ever. Edit, edit, edit, toss, toss, toss.

Still, some pieces are receiving a stay of execution, mostly because when I tried them on they were cuter than I remembered. And I noticed that certain brands always wind up in the “keep” pile: Theory, J. Crew and, oddly, Juicy Couture. I say “oddly” only because I was never a tracksuit Juicy gal. But I’ve gotten a few things over the years, and I really love them. And just last week, I nabbed a really cute white faux fur vest at the Juicy store in the Short Hills Mall.

Not surprisingly, I have a bizarre-o dialogue going on with myself the entire time I’m working. “That black puffy-sleeved cropped blazer’s very Carine, maybe you should keep it,” I’ll say to myself.

Or, “That skirt would take a good 10 rounds of P90X to jam yourself back into.”

Or, simply, “Blech.”

Okay, I need to hit the hay, but before I do, I want to impart a deeply excellent closet-organizing tip from designer and über-gorgeous mama Shoshanna Gruss. I interviewed her during the spring for one of the InStyle Makeover stories I worked on, and she said that when she’s doing her own seasonal closet flip, she makes sure that nothing gets packed away that she doesn’t love.

In other words, even if you’re tempted to just shove it all in suitcases or boxes or whatever and move on to the current season, don’t. Take the time to really assess whether you’ll be happy to pull it back out again in six months.

I noticed that in my own case, my fall pieces elicited two reactions: “Hello, old friend.” And, “You’re still around?”

Circa April 15, when I do the reverse closet flip, I want to feel all warm and fuzzy when I see those hot-weather clothes again.

Mid-career (whoa, how business-y does that sound? mid-career), I took a breather from magazines and went to work for the biggest, baddest beauty company in the world.

Such a serious place. Incredibly buttoned down. After years of professionally flitting around Gotham all day, going to this, that and the other beauty event, to breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, I had to sit in my chair in my beautiful office and f-o-c-u-s.

Yes, I got to go to Paris a lot. But then I’d be sitting in my glamorous Paris boss’s beautiful office, f-o-c-u-s-i-n-g.

Though I worked really hard at my magazine job, there was tons of leeway with how I produced my pages every month. If I wanted to flit about all week and then come into work on a Sunday and write and edit like a crazed banshee, I could do that.

But the big, bad beauty company wasn’t down with loosey-goosey work habits like that. So I literally had to train myself to produce in a completely different way.

And I did.

Mostly with the help of one of my all-time fave productivity books: Eat That Frog.

The big “takeaway” from Eat That Frog is this: We all know which task we have to do on a given day that’s most important – and, typically – most terrifying.

And because we’re terrified at the amount of hard work and effort said Most Important Task will take, we often do everything else but our Most Important Task. We read email, organize files, gossip with our co-workers about the hottie in cubicle 9.

The author calls our Most Important Tasks “frogs.” And his reco is to eat your frog first thing in the morning, before doing anything else.

He also advocates working quickly. That, he says, is the killer combo. Not just mere excellence. But excellence and speed.

I have now arrived at the point in this blog post in which I will apply this frog-eating theorem to my current professional sitch.

I’ve committed to working full-time, four days a week, from home. The fifth day, theoretically, is for other projects, like another website I’m dying to develop.

But because I’ve been inefficient, time-wise, my four days has been dribbling into five. Which means my other projects have been dribbling into the weekend.

Weekend work-dribbling isn’t good.

Weekend work-dribbling is the exact opposite of good.

So I thought long and hard about what I was and wasn’t doing, and here’s what my detective work revealed:

The Wee Lass has fallen in love with early drop-off, because it means an extra half-hour of giggling with her gal pals before school starts. So I’m kissing her goodbye by 8 in the morning.

But then I’d head up the street to the newsstand to nab the New York Post and whatever else caught my eye – mostly shelter mags lately, especially Arch Digest, j’adoring Arch Digest. Then I would come back home, crack open my reading and drink tons of half-caf.

And then start my work.

But finally it dawned on me that I wasn’t maximizing my peak productivity hours. I am a straight-up morning person. I wake up super-duper early and my mind is on fire. Consequently, I’m useless later in the day. And my DVR queue is filled to the rafters with shows that start after 9 pm.

So this week, every day, I’ve been coming right back to the house after early drop-off and heading straight upstairs to my office, fruit in hand.

And along with my chunks of pineapple and cantaloupe, I’ve been eating my biggest, scariest Frog of the Day. After that, I eat the smaller frogs. One after the other.

Now, quite happily, because I buckled down, today is completely mine to do with whatever I please. All this week’s frogs have been eaten. TGIF.