friday link love

Hi friends, happy Friday, and no I haven’t forgotten about this site – or you. I simply just can’t fit everything in these days, and am doing my absolute best to prioritize. Work, wellness, and family and friends, of course, come first. And everything else winds up being a bit marginalized. So with that in mind, a few of these links are quite dated, given that news doesn’t stay “new” for long, but I still found them to be interesting enough to include – I hope you agree.

Last week, we had our apartment painted and revamped our home office. The painting meant that we had to take all our books off the shelves and move them from room to room (after work at night) while the painters painted certain rooms. As a result, we’re still unearthing things and still finding new homes for them. This is what happens when you get home at 7:30pm and still need to eat dinner, make some calls, answer a few emails. The home office installation – I’ll take some pictures in once we settle in – came from Elfa and the folks at the Container Store. They were having a massive sale, and we decided to make an investment into our work space. Andrew works from home enough for it to be meaningful, and I may do some work from home as I get closer to my due date. The old set-up wasn’t working for us – such a small room needed built in shelving and smart use of every single inch of space.

A few of you have emailed me to ask how I’m feeling and what we’re doing to the nursery, i.e. can I share pictures and decorating ideas. I’m feeling, generally, pretty great, knock on wood. It’s getting hard to bend down to tie my shoes, and I’m finding new and creative ways of doing it, but it is funny to find yourself faced with this problem all of a sudden. As for the “nursery” – trust me you do not want to see the mess that room is in. In general, I don’t think we’re going to get the room ready before the baby. We’ve registered for the necessities, we’re hoping to start out with less than with more first. And we’ll see what we need. The one thing we’re both really keen on, however, is artwork. While neither one of us is an art connoisseur, we’ve decided that we don’t want any art that the baby will ever grow out of. We’re hoping to hang a few things that will look good in any room down the road. I’m a huge fan of these as well as this (the framed pieces). And we’re keeping the room white with grey trim at the bottom. That’s about as much of an update as I can give.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on enough. To the links! Enjoy your weekend – we’re away, belatedly celebrating Andrew’s birthday. I hope there’s some apple picking in our future! And then, the upcoming week, there’s lots to do at work, my cousin is coming to visit from Israel, and I have two of my books to edit (one I’m given less than a week for – ha!) – I guess I better rest up! xo, olga

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What’s worse, a little girl saying “f*ck” or the unequal ways society treats girls and women. If watching children swear offends you, don’t click on this – you will get an earful.

And while we’re on the topic of gender relations, here’s a single infographic that reveals just how insane the gender gap is.

The one way to trick a cat into sitting still.

When a political candidate underplays his/her military record – that never happens, folks. [Full disclosure: I went to school with Seth, and have always thought the world of him – and even as a New York voter am supporting him in the Massachusetts.]

Why kids sext. Illuminating and disturbing; a must-read for any parents with tweens/teens.

A terrific piece on the NYC Dosa Man, Thiru Kumar. Folks, visiting NYC, this guy’s dosas are not to be missed.

No matter how you fuss with the data, inequality is still rising.

How billionaire oligarchs are becoming their own political parties.

Which protein is lighter on the land: chicken or cheese?

On all the great ways to write a recipe – had to read it for work and thought it was terrific.

How to use spices, simply explained – a helpful primer.