heyjenharrison

01/01/2024

Spooky-ooky-ooky 👻

Actually, this is just whirlpool bath Vineyards sometime after midnight on New Year’s Eve and isn’t spooky at all, but I love these nighttime images.

26/12/2023

Me: How much do you guys want to be in the background of a canned cocktail video?

My kids:

26/12/2023

Dear May & Kimber, aren’t you glad you sent me selfies!? Hahaha! We missed you at Christmas but you’re with us in spirit, and you are also with us on this very silly post that is now our digital holiday card. Luckyyyyyy!!!

Uh, also, you are welcome, Instagram. 🤍

20/12/2023

“It doesn’t matter if you’re doing it right, it only matters that you feel at home.”

I shared a recipe for Cordero A La Cidra (Lamb Braised in Cider Sauce) in an essay that I wrote last year, but added some fresh notes to, and re-published on my Substack because it’s a family (and personal) Christmas dinner favorite.

Happy Holidays! Enjoy! Hug your loved ones, they’re really all that matters. 🤍

19/12/2023

A very handsome sitch.

06/11/2023

When you go buy like $400 worth of groceries with big cooking plans and come home to have a straight up girl dinner.

To be clear, it was the blue cheese & persimmon plate, then peanut butter cups, then Greek yogurt with berries. Girl dinner is about ease and pleasure and I like it.

Hey, a note for moms! I was thinking whilst wandering between Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s about a thing I realized when my kids were teenagers: if you have a chore chart or you share your chores with your partner, shopping is a chore!

If you’re the main shopper in your household, and it takes you a couple hours a week, somebody else should clean the toilet, just saying.

Seriously! You gotta figure out what you’re gonna cook, make a list, ask everyone what they want at the store, PARK YOUR CAR, crowd surf the aisles, get the things, blah blah blah.

That’s chore stuff.

01/11/2023

The day Dolly went to confessional.

Happy Halloween! 👻

30/10/2023

She 40! 🎂

(as of yesterday)

I had a delicious breakfast with Luna who also got me a delicious gift from along with a book about cooking as ritual. So funny, because I had just decided that I wanted to start bringing ritual into my kitchen to connect with the romance and sensuality and beauty of food again but hadn’t said a word to my good buddy about it.

So after thrifting to the high heavens (I found some incredible pieces) I came home to make an olive oil polenta cake with simmered lemons and rosemary and good butter and I can’t wait for it to come out of the oven.

asked me how it feels to be 40 and I said “You know, I think it’s something that happens naturally as we get older and even though, in many ways, by virtue of being a young mom, Ive felt 40 since I was 18, I did wake up today feeling more like myself - not different or better or worse, just more like the person that I am.”

So here’s to another run around the sun. I think it’s gonna be a goodie. 🥂

20/10/2023

Our May-May came to visit and it was so good to see her little face in person!

She brought her adorable gf Kimber and we all hiked and hung out and acted like dorks and showed Kimber stuff and even though it’s hard when your kids live states away, getting to hang out (and see all of my babies in the same weekend) is really something special.

They flew home to Austin yesterday and I can’t wait until Feb when Owen I head to the San Antonio rodeo like a couple little country nerds and we get to see all our Texas friends and loved ones. 🤠 🤓

I’m still not over you, Tejas. Better keep my girl safe. Y’all come back now. Y’hear?

18/10/2023

Sydney turned 22! 🎂

In our family, we generally celebrate birthdays across multiple days and via various means. Though she has a present coming to her house and one I’ll deliver to her on Friday, this past Sunday, we brunched and caked.

I can’t believe my middle baby is 22. She’s an incredible woman, and like I always say, after some point, you can’t take credit for your kids, you just watch in awe as they grow and change and evolve and enjoy knowing them as both your family and also as the adults they’ve become.

Sanny, your Janny couldn’t be more proud. I love you my girlie. Always and forever.

🤍 Mom

04/09/2023

You guys, her name is Margot and the chairs are her beebees.

She is The Magnificent Mrs. Margot and she is a perfect vintage little queen and I loved her and obviously the cats needed new chairs to sleep on, so….

They say they’re very comfortable. 🐱

03/05/2023

Packing for Texas. Think I’m all set, yes?

17/03/2023

Mustard > Ketchup.

Fight me? 💪🏼

11/03/2023

Vaquera 🤠

10/03/2023

🌵

05/03/2023

We love a good truck. 🛻

28/02/2023

Wedding planner pov: when those acrylic, outdoor-friendly, super adorable glasses for an upcoming styled engagement shoot/our luxe picnic line show up in the mail, and omggggg it’s so exciting!!!

16/02/2023

The cutest little vendor gift from our friends a Flour & Bloom! So cute, right?

This was a dark chocolate cake with passion fruit buttercream and yummy other things I can’t remember at the moment, but it was (pun intended) such a sweet gift. 🤍

13/02/2023

Here’s the thing about rage: it doesn’t always look like anger. It isn’t always an emotional explosion or something unsafe we need to shy away from. We can harbor the rage of injustice, of hardship, of loss (rightfully so!) and yet, we never talk about it; we aren’t trained on how to direct it or where to channel it, how to use, acknowledge, and process it.

I spent my Sunday rage-hiking.

I do not mean this in a cute way.

Zero part of me is trying to make rage seem soft or sane.

Things were piling up. Things that felt unfair, things I need to address, things that demand more of me than I have the capacity to offer, things I’ll no longer tolerate, past grief, current grief, things, things, things - you know, life.

And so I turned where I always do: to The Mother, as in: The Great Mother, the Earth.

One of the practices that has sustained me is so simple:
I choose a stone at the beginning of a hike. I use it like a worry stone, gripping it tightly, letting my fears, anger, grief pour from my mind and heart, through my palm, into the stone. I usually bury the stone and leave it behind, letting the earth compost the things weighing on me, trusting that love will renew me. But today, there were several stones, and today, I chucked them as far as I could into the forest. Today, I breathed hard and said angry words, and prayed “f**k that s**t” prayers. Today felt powerful and honest and wild. Today was what I needed.

People I encountered on the trail probably thought I seemed a little crazy; I hiked fast and angrily, I breathed hard and didn’t make eye contact. I didn’t smile the obligatory hiker’s smile. I didn’t give a f**k.

By the end of my 4.5 mile hike in the redwoods, I didn’t feel “better,” I felt seen. I felt acknowledged. I felt powerful and self assured.

And that’s the thing, you know, when things pile up we feel small and powerless and buried under the weight of it all and we need to shake it off to feel clear and renewed.

I came home and showered and then went to a bayside tavern and drank wine while reading Braiding Sweetgrass. I met strangers and gulped in the sunshine on the water.

Was today “good?” No. Today was honest.

07/02/2023

You otter know.

04/02/2023

Somebody said: I don’t want to be happy today.

03/02/2023

I love design. Love it. Home design, wedding design (obvs), fashion, etc. I love observing and creating beauty in the world (it’s part of my relentless chasing of the umami of life). Beauty makes everything more delicious. It enhances our experiences. It reminds us to feel.

In that way, yeah, I think beauty is absolutely power, and that learning to wield that power and hone a craft and create a mood, a brand, a concept, a conversation, a feeling, or an experience are some of my favorite things to do.

Like everyone else, I get buried in emails and to-do lists, and being a mom, and doing the dishes, and trying to go to the gym enough, and all of the things, but I will sneak out on lunch and wander through antique stores and home shops and coffee shops and restaurants in search of the thing that keeps my creativity fueled: inspiration.

It helps. A sense of awe, wonder, and possibility feel so good to my creative soul. Sometimes it’s a textile, sometimes a bowl, or a bucket or a great goddamned jacket that sparks my interest but whatever it is, it tastes like a life well-lived and I’ll never get enough of that.

03/02/2023

🌸

01/02/2023

It’s all cute sister kitties in the sunshine until Luna decides to smack somebody. 🤦🏼‍♀️🐈‍⬛ 🐈‍⬛

30/01/2023

Green is good. We like green.

29/01/2023

10/10 would do again.

27/01/2023

Luna y La Luna by the water at sunset.

28/10/2022

39

25/10/2022

09/10/2022

GUESS WHAT!?

I got to SA Tuesday for a wedding on Sunday, a bunch of site visits with new clients, and to pack my apartment to move my things back to California. I cried the first two days I was here because I did NOT want to leave. As you know, I fell hard and fast for this city and the life I’ve built here, the friends I have here, and the way it all FEELS.

So. I did that thing where you pour your little heart out to the universe. I literally said, “If there is any way to make keeping a second place in SA more practical, please help me find it.”

I s**t you not, the next day, two apartments were offered to me. And my buddy Kris said, “Why don’t you ask the owner if you can AirBnB the place when you’re not there?” 💡

So, I did. BOTH owners said “Yeah, I’m cool with it.”

And I said yes to a little one bedroom right behind Hands Down in the heart of my favorite city. It’s walkable. It’s affordable. And it’s going to be ADORABLE.

So you will (sometime probably early next year when I finally get it all furnished and stuff) be able to stay in my little AirBnB should you ever come to San Antonio.

WHAT!?!?

Literal dream come true.

I badly wanted to live somewhere walkable to Southtown. And I’ve always wanted a two city life.

This feels like one of those basic suburban mom tee shirt moments where you say something sentimental like “dream big, pray hard, blah blah,” but here’s my version:

Dream weird. Dream specifically. Dream in a way that gets to the heart of what you really really want - even if it seems impossible. Dream individualistically. Nobody has to live your life but you, so f**k “practical,” f**k what anyone else thinks. Dream honestly. Dream real. Dream you.

Pray in all the ways. When you’re scared, when you’re grateful, when it hurts, when it feels great. Pray to the wind and to god and to ancestors and your own heart. Everything is sacred. And maybe I’m a spiritual slt but I love it all and will take help from wherever benevolence may find me. I believe in deeply connecting with all of it.

Make magic. Talk about what you want. Invite people in. Make friends. Be bold. Do what your heart’s calling you to do. And wear good shoes.