The 📖📺🎧🔪🛍️ List

The salad dressing ingredient that will propel your greens, new Nikes, a perfect peach crisp, and watching a classic series for the first time

Being pregnant after experiencing loss is a complicated space to exist within. This is literally all I’ve wanted for the last year, all I’ve prayed about and hoped for. So I never want to come off as ungrateful, and I really don’t want to complain. But the flip side of it is that pregnancy isn’t easy? No matter how badly I wanted this and how much I literally couldn’t wait to feel like shit (I wrote a free letter last year with this exact title), the reality is that growing life is a serious job with a lot of sacrifice involved. I’m so happy — ecstatic, really — and thank the universe daily for finally answering my wish. I love watching my belly grow, checking my daily apps for little updates about baby’s development, and I’ve loved, more than anything, connecting with friends, family, and so many of you about this insane journey.

But.

BUT. There are hard days and shitty symptoms and wild hormones that render you helpless against yourself. Some days, all you can do is wake up, eat, and go back to bed. Some days, weird new aches and pains drive you to tears. Some days, you quietly think to yourself “being pregnant kinda sucks?”

But then other days (and if I’m being honest, most days) it’s the best, you’re the best, everything is the best, and you love being pregnant and can’t wait to do it again even though you’re not even halfway through with this first one!

What I’m trying to say to myself and to anyone else who’s in a similar boat is that it’s okay to be both happy and miserable. Both can be true and exist in the same breath. Just because we wanted this and went through hell to get it doesn’t mean it’s all sunshine and rainbows and flower crowns and perfectly oversized kaftans gently moving with the wind as you frolic through a field with your perfect baby bump. Don’t get me wrong — it’s plenty of sunshine and rainbows, but with a healthy dose of “I feel like shit,” “my head hurts,” “I’m gonna puke,” “my jaw line is disappearing into itself,” “I physically can’t get off the couch,” “my nipples are on fire and is pregnancy arthritis a thing (it is)?” etc.

It’s an always magical sometimes terrible ride, and I’m here for it all.

Coming up for paid subscribers…

• An essay about why I was never 100% on having kids and why pregnancy terrified me so much

• TIBAR (Things I Bought and Returned) for May

• Another maternity clothing round-up!

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WATCHING 📺

Entourage debuted on HBO in 2004 when I was in the thick of my being a teenage virgin who could drive but not well. That is to say, I wasn’t watching TV — I was AIMing and texting and not wanting to hang out with my parents who were for sure watching Entourage every week. Very randomly last week, Zac fired it up (I seriously don’t know what compelled him), and uh… I LOVE IT? I love that it’s mostly comedy, an incredibly easy watch, and only 30 minute episodes. We were in dire need of an “easy” show to binge, and Entourage is hitting all the spots. Sure, it’s dated, but it is so fun (and fucking terrifying) seeing women’s fashion a la 2004. The reminder is almost too much to bear. The tube tops? The lowest rise jeans just inches away from the top of your pubes? The stick-straight greasy hair with shitty highlights? All this was considered HOT, and I would know because every popular girl in my school looked like the girls on Entourage. Anyway, I’m really enjoying it. Watch it on Apple TV.

We are painfully making our way through season three of Succession. I don’t know, y’all. I think maybe it’s one of those shows we needed to watch when it was happening rather than binging it on our own? Because on our own, it’s so fucking tedious. I don’t know how much more I can hate this family or how much more they can hate each other. At this point, the only saving grace for me is Cousin Greg and Tom’s relationship. Sometimes, I’m incredibly tempted for my friends to just tell me what happens because I don’t know if I can take another season of “who’s it gonna be?” An unpopular opinion perhaps, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I walked on the Peloton last week for the first time since March and decided to pass the time by firing up season three of Bridgerton. I got so many DMs yelling at me to stop being insane and start from season one, but what these people fail to understand is that I don’t really care? I’m not trying to get invested in whatever I deem a “treadmill show.” Bridgerton is not my vibe in general, which is why I haven’t watched it at all until last week on the treadmill. It’s entertaining enough to watch as I power walk (at 2MPH, sometimes 2.3), but I’m not going to get in any deeper with it. In fact, I only did 45 minutes on the treadmill which means I didn’t even finish episode one and I didn’t have any desire to fire it up on our regular TV to see what happens, so there’s your answer!

LISTENING TO 🎧

Andrew Santino has had a podcast for a long time, but I only very recently became obsessed with him, so Whiskey Ginger is new to me. I just love the guy, what can I say? I love that he’s a Chicagoan, super sarcastic, and a true guy’s guy in the sense that he loves golfing, talking about sports, and being very funny and knows very funny people. I’m not sure what it says about me that the majority of podcasts I listen to are hosted by men (gay and straight), but I’m rolling with it. I especially loved his recent interview with Benny Blanco, AKA Selena Gomez’s new boyfriend. Their rapport was hilarious, and I learned a lot about Benny! Listen to Whiskey Ginger.

MAKING 🔪

If you take anything from today’s letter, please take this: adding pesto to Italian salad dressing will send you and your bowl of greens into outer space a la Space X. To be fair, I will eat pesto on anything: pasta, a sandwich, dog shit. But I threw some into this perfect Italian dressing recipe yesterday and holy fuck, I saw stars (in the best way). Save this image to your phone, add a tablespoon of pesto to the mix, and thank me later.

+ PESTO!!!

Peaches are a quintessential summer fruit, and I had a hankering to make a peach crisp over the weekend so I did just that. I used this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction (she never fails me), and it turned out perfect. I had the genius idea to serve it with strawberry ice cream, and Zac and I were in heaven. HOT TIP: I hate “cutting in butter.” I’ve been using knives and forks to get it done, but finally got a legit pastry cutter this week at Target and am looking forward to life being a lot easier.

SHOPPING 🛍️

I need another pair of sneakers like I need a third boob, but I saw someone wearing these Nikes the other week and immediately got some. I just love the retro look (especially the little strap in the back). They’re so comfortable and obviously very cute. I did go up a half size because I found my typical size to be feel very tight and narrow? Could be pregnancy but I think it’s just Nike.

My dad gave me this sleeping mask to help with my insomnia and midday naps, and holy crap, I love it. It blacks everything out AND you can open your eyes while wearing it so you don’t feel super suffocated. The strap is adjustable, and I’ve had a lot of luck with it so far in terms of staying in place and tricking my brain into thinking it’s pitch black outside even when I wear it in broad daylight with the blinds open while napping.

I finally ordered a purse insert for my LL Bean tote. I realized that, without one, my bag quickly became an unorganized trash receptacle. You have to measure your bag to ensure you order the right size insert, but for anyone out there who may also have a medium-sized LL Bean tote, the “slender large” is the ticket!

OMG look! I’m wearing the sneakers.

You know how I know I’m pregnant? I ordered a $35 box of 12 packs of varied gummy candy from Albanese and have no regrets. Didn’t even blink an eye. This is the best gummy candy ever, and I will die on that hill. The flavors are so vibrant, the texture is perfection, and there’s so much variety.

Lastly, Farm Rio’s summer dresses are all so stunning and I want them all but I also don’t want to spend money on non-maternity clothes right now, so I’m just gonna sit here and drool from afar. Each one is more beautiful than the last, but I fear my tits won’t fit in any of them, so I dream.

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That’s all for this week, folks. I’ll see you on the other side.

XOX,

EGM