Rare is the moment that I feel compelled to share with my readers anything involving household products, most explicitly laundry products. Never have I felt the need to tell you my secrets for cleaning house or washing clothes, mainly because I deplore these projects and know in my heart of hearts that  I am not very good at them anyway, so my personal tips and tricks would not be of value to anyone. However, after a random fortuitous purchase at the local Safeway last night, I feel I MUST post about a new laundry product that is nothing short of miraculous. Tide Stain Release packets are a literal godsend. I have been on the road for 3 weeks, living out of a suitcase and essentially the same batch of clothes, as has my young and stain-prone daughter. When I finally got home to my laundry room and poured through her clothes, I found ground in stain upon stain upon stain. My head was spinning. There were 2 pairs of pants that almost went straight to the trash. However, when I was at the store restocking my kitchen cabinets, I happened upon the Tide Stain Release product line and thought I should at least give it a whirl in an attempt to salvage my daughter’s clothes. It worked- with spectacular results. Stains gone, clothes beautiful, new cult laundry product found! I am in love!

I am in a Hamptons state of mind right now- literally reveling in the preppy, summery looks on parade here in this bastion of East Coast style. First off, as per usual, I feel that I brought the entire wrong wardrobe with me on this trip. I have somewhat adopted a California look- relaxed and laid back. Coming back East reminds me that I need to kick my style up a notch for Hamptons outings. Even browsing the stores in town midday, I had a long internal debate with myself about whether it was appropriate to wear my beach cover up and flip flops on the main drag of town. I ended up going for it, and I immediately felt depressed and under-dressed. White jeans and colorful short sleeve sweaters are the uniform here. As are Jack Rogers gold sandals. Many women also go for the whole haute hippie Calypso look, which I love. I desperately wanted to purchase some new clothes yesterday, but sadly, Calyspso just won’t work in SFO. And neither do sandals. Its cold back home- and really I could make it through the entire summer without ever wearing an open-toed shoe. So I resign myself to window shopping and selecting the outfits I would be wearing if I had any use for that beachy, preppy look in my west coast life.