Long girls weekend with my daughter🧡

Hi Midlifers!

How is your weekend? Mine has been delightful because it started on Thursday!!! My older daughter had flown from Raleigh to NYC for a few days for work and then came to stay at my new place for three nights.

Gah.

We hit up all our favorite shopping spots (The Grove in Shrewsbury, Spring Lake and Manasquan), tried a new breakfast spot (Apple Street Kitchen—tbh new to her not me) and got jazzed by all the flowers at The Herbary before going to buy some annuals at Shore River Gardens in Manasquan for my front door planter. We picked up sourdough bagels at Benchmark Bread in Little Silver (my first time at the store) and drank many matchas and iced lattes (Batch was hands-down the fave). We even ate popcorn for dinner watching The Devil Wears Prada 2 on Thursday night (fun!) in oversized recliners washed down with a big Diet Vanilla Coke.

Reader: This post runs a little long (as per ush) so you might have to click over to Substack to read the whole thing—especially the stuff I bought at the end.

On Friday night, we were joined by my dear friend for a concert to hear a quartet play Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on a stage covered in flickering candles (don’t panic—they were the battery-operated type) at one of those Candlelight concerts. It was quite lovely and also a little over an hour so just enough culture before dinner.

My daughter hadn’t been home to New Jersey since Christmas so this was the first time she’d seen the new place, other than all the videos and pictures I text her. I gave her a quick tour when she arrived around dinnertime on Wednesday and as we finished up in the two-car garage, she was like, “Mom, this is so much better.”

Much like Trident chewing gum, three out of four of my children surveyed would recommend this new condo over the old beach place for their visits—and pretty much I have yet to survey that fourth kid but he’d probably say the same. Aside from the garage, central air and multiple toilets, this new setup has a nice hangout situation. The big sectional and comfortable swivel chairs are now the perfect spot for morning coffee or watching a new show (The Other Bennett Sister).

Any and all activities include the dog nuzzled up on someone’s lap like he’s a puppy and not 70 pounds of fur and tongue. And the nearby dining table was the perfect spot for her and I to play a round of Rummikub before she left for the airport while watching the PGA Championship on the giant TV while her brother lounged on the sofa.

It’s a little less crammed. A little more open. It’s just good vibes all around.

Aside from all the shopping and time spent together, the highlight of my daughter’s visit was getting to meet her kidney recipient’s new baby at a playground in our old hometown. Do you know my daughter donated her kidney to a girl she grew up with? Welp, she did—during the height of the pandemic. And while I was not too keen on the idea initially, I cannot recommend organ donation enough. It has been beautiful to watch it unfold.

Seeing her kidney sister bawl to see my daughter meet her baby—which would not have been possible without a healthy new kidney—is a remarkable thing. She and her family are just so grateful for my daughter’s gift and man, has it taught me a lot about humanity. It’s really been such a gift for everyone involved. We really don’t know what we don’t know.

As always, it was hard to say good-bye when the Uber arrived to drive my girl to the airport late Saturday afternoon. She’ll be back north in August for my birthday, but it was so nice getting her all to myself for three days. And if she lived right around the corner, maybe we’d get sick of each other. Who knows?

What I do know is this is how it is right now, so I’m going to just go with the flow. I’m happy to be the place they want to come home to. And that now we’ve got an even better spot to gather and be together.

I have been soooooo good not buying things for myself—only house stuff, which may or may not qualify as stuff for myself.

My daughter keeps up with what beauty products the girlies are using and told me this was a hot hair item—so I have to throw in my basket at Sephora. Turns out, I’d buy Dae’s styling cream just for the smell alone if it also didn’t bring some much-needed control to the air-dry frizz I always get. So nice. Can’t wait to try for a blow out and slick back.

This Rhode lip tint in salty tan is just the hint of color/gloss I’ve been looking for to upgrade from this winter’s tube of Aquaphor I’ve been rubbing on chapped lips.

We split Salt & Stone body wash and deoderant mini sets and I am in love with how good they all smell. It was hard to decide how to split and what fragrances to choose. Right now, I think the saffron and cedar body wash is my fave.

I wore these nice, flowy pants to the Vivaldi concert Friday night with a black cashmere v-neck and black Mary Janes and felt kind of spiffy. I pointed them out to my friend at dinner.

“I just got these Old Navy pants,” I told her.

“Where did you get them?” she asked.

Confused, I said, “Old Navy.”

And she said, “Oh, I thought you said old lady pants.”

And we laughed. Yes, old lady pants from Old Navy.

I still like them. And right now, they’re $19.99.

xoAmy