Have a Lovely Weekend.

Wow, wow, wow, that Vox article. So powerful and definitely the experience of many, unfortunately. I’m glad we’re all getting more enlightened as time goes on — more empowered by the modern feminist movement, more able to put our feelings into words, and more willing to be vulnerable and share these things with each other. It’s in the sharing that we all feel less like we’re crazy, and less alone <3. I don't experience what that author wrote about nearly as often and deeply as she did, but I know I have felt it before, especially as I look into my past. So thankful for the opportunity to read her story.

Love your book links to independent bookstores and author pages. I admit, I buy books (and so many other things) from Amazon but most of the time I try to support out local independent stores. I know that bloggers have benefits from the Amazon links that can make it more challenging to put in these links to smaller businesses so kudos to you to trying to get these in there too!

Should we all start our mornings like this? –> Yes, I think we should. I can’t stop watching that video, like when you posted this one of Anton:

https://www.instagram.com/p/3RLFVknoCg/

and I was showing it to my baby all the time!

I don’t have kids but I read through that games to play while I lay down thread and laughed and laughed. The comment who chose was SO GOOD! SO FUNNY! It’s only things like this that make me a little sad that I never had kids. I do wonder what kind of mom I would have been!

I know everyone might have seen this already on IG but I just have to share in case any one HASN’T seen it – it makes me so happy!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/style/david-hockney-joni-mitchell.html?action=click&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage

Really appreciate that these books are not linked on Amazon! I find it hard to get to a plot summary from the front page of Amazon book links, and I also dislike the assumption that it’s where all of us buy all our things (even if that may be true). But this was great!

Joanna, I really admire the way you manage tricky situations on the blog, and highlighting this clean beauty choice is such a graceful way to deal with not-so-positive (and sometimes unkind) feedback. Xx

Sexual assault in marriage is a HARD article to read. I know there have been times in my marriage where I have had sex because he wanted to, even though I didn’t. I know I could have said no- but I didn’t want to deal with the negative emotions and manipulative talk that would have happened. But, having said all that- it is not the norm in my marriage- the norm is that my husband wants me to be as sexually satisfied as he is. My pleasure is important to him. I did feel like a bad feminist at those times, though!
It’s been a long time since that has been our experience- our marriage is very different now then it was 10 years ago.

About clean beauty. Clean ingredients, whatever that means, isn’t actually much better for your skin, Cerave for example is not considered “clean” but very good for your skin, and unlike fear mongers would have you believe, the ingredient paraben is not “toxic” or proven to be cancer causing. Sometimes natural products are bad for your specific skin. I, for example, have to stay away from RMS because of the coconut oil in all of their products which is very comedogenic. We need to start looking at facts and science when it comes to beauty instead of this fear mongering of “cleaner is better.” EWG is a popular tool that readers on here have referenced, but if you dig deeper you learn their data is not accurate. I encourage everyone reading this to carefully research their makeup and if it is possible and affordable, to speak to a dermatologist about skincare. Poison Oak is natural and you would likely not put it all over your face! Before you put anything on your face “clean,” or not, you should understand the ingredients.

I needed to read that article on sexual assault in marriages right this very second. (It’s not a new thing in my house, but I was finally ready to see that in print.). I’m a grateful mess right now.

Thank you for posting that Vox article on sexual assault in marriages. I’ve never been married, but I was in a relationship where I began dreading my boyfriend’s initiations for sex. He would get annoyed if I didn’t want to do it, and once said, “You do other things even when you don’t feel like it to make me happy, like cleaning or watching a movie, so why can’t you do this to make me happy even if you don’t feel like it?” I had no idea how to respond. I would be relieved after we did have sex, because it meant that I could maybe have a week’s time before I felt too much pressure again. I felt so angry and ashamed, and so resentful towards him, even now years later, for the situation. I didn’t know how to talk to friends about it, because calling it sexual harassment or assault seemed too intense. And this was a man who was, for all intents and purposes, a culturally and politically enlightened person who advocated for women’s equality and all that. Yet somehow when it comes to sex in a relationship, it seems like men still feel like it is a domain where their perspective and fulfillment matter most.