Some business first: today I am five pounds away from my pre-baby weight, which is I am happy about because it took me a full year to lose it all with the first kid, and also because I wasn't one of those ladies who gained 15 pounds in pregnancy--try 50. Anyway part of the reason why I know how to lose it is because of my work with Dawn Jackson Blatner, whom you can now watch on the show My Diet Is Better Than Yours. Frankly most of the experts on the show seem utterly ridiculous except for Dawn, which is why I'm sure she'll win. So tune in and check her out! Also, super-unrelated, I wrote a post for Mom.me called The Rise of Mean Mommy, inspired by a series of events wherein I transformed from an ordinary person into an evil supervillain, at least in the eyes of my three-year-old.

Here is today's brutally true intro: I first got to know today's interviewee due to my lurking around on various sites that round up news on lifestyle bloggers of note. Since she's a mom, I wanted to know if she'd let me pick her brain about screentime and kids for a Fast Company story. She was so honest and generous with her responses, which made me grudgingly decide that I can't hate her for pretty and thin (she's a former actress and model) and prolific and having waaaay more followers than I do -- and perhaps it's possible that despite her great Instagram feed, her life is complicated and difficult like mine is.

Anyway, that is my subjective intro. Here are the facts. Jordan Reid, Harvard-educated mom of two little kids, runs the lifestyle site Ramshacke Glam and is the author of Ramshackle Glam: The New Mom's Haphazard Guide to (Almost) Having It All and the recently-released book Carrying On: Style, Beauty, Décor (and More) for the Nervous New Mom. She also opened up her new online shop, Glam Camp, this fall.

What, if anything, was more difficult about writing your second book compared with your first?
Well, going into the book-writing process knowing from my experience the first time around that the thing was likely going to sell in the neighborhood of five copies was a little dispiriting. I've wanted to be an author from the time I was about four years old, but my Grownup Writer fantasies obviously didn't include any of the elements that are part of the reality of writing books, like whether you'll be able to scrape up enough money to hire a publicist so that someone other than your mother will actually read your words. But I'm not complaining - the book business is a tough one to be in, but getting to walk into Barnes & Noble and see my actual books sitting on actual shelves is a dream come true.

Other than that, though, the process of writing Carrying On, my second book, was about a million times easier than writing Ramshackle Glam (my first). I wrote Carrying On while extremely pregnant, so it's not like I was sleeping anyway, and by then I had worked out a book-writing system that works really, exceptionally well (at least for me) - so the actual process of sitting down every day and typing was much more fun that time around. I'd describe the process of writing my first book more as "soul-cripplingly scary," because I had a book deal with a three-months-out deadline in place and no idea whether I actually had that many pages sitting there in my head.

Does your background in cognitive neuroscience inform your current life in any ways, unexpected or otherwise?
Other than my thing for psychological thrillers...ah, no. But I think the mindset that pushed me towards cog neuro in the first place - an interest in the extraordinariness of the everyday - has a lot to do with where I ultimately ended up. I spend a lot of time talking about the inside of my head...well, first because I'm so conveniently right there, all willing to be written about and stuff, but also because I really do believe that even the smallest behaviors and choices can be hugely instructive.

It probably doesn't happen often but say your husband is occupied and the kids are either both napping or off at somebody else's house: what are you doing with your hour or two of quiet time?
That's a really good question. It doesn't happen ever, so I have no idea, but you know what I used to do all the time in my former, non-parent life? Go to horror movies by myself and eat an entire thing of popcorn in the gross way I eat it (with butter applied in at least three layers and salt stashed in my pockets for mid-movie reloads), and not have to listen to the person I'm sharing my popcorn with whining GOD IT'S SO SALTY.

What were the favorite gifts you gave this Christmas?
I gave a friend of mine a framed embroidery from the online shop I co-own, glam | camp, that says "A Wise Woman Once Said Fuck This Shit and She Lived Happily Ever After," which I think is a kind of phenomenal present.

And really, watching a four-year-old and one-year-old unwrap toys might be the most fun thing on the planet. I gave my daughter one of those gorgeous French dolls that opens and shuts its eyes, and she now carries it around everywhere with her calling it her "bee-bee," so I take that as a good sign that I got something right. And I got my son a human anatomy model that you can unpack like you're a pathologist, using little pincers to remove the liver, the kidneys, the brain, everything. It sounds horrifying, but it's so cool. And it's even cooler that he seems to agree with me on this point.

So how does a stylish internet person dress her kids in an attractive way that they will also tolerate? (I can feel my son shying away slowly from jeans and towards "soft pants," for instance.)
OK, we need to have a conversation about this "soft pants" thing. Literally every morning I break out my son's stupid-expensive faded-and-ripped babyGap jeans and hear "BUT I WANT TO WEAR SOFT PANTS." And it's not worth fighting about, so I just try to make sure said soft pants are, like, solid colors that will likely match whatever (soft) shirt he wants to wear as opposed to paisley or whatever. Also bribery in the form of inappropriate television shows and Tootsie Rolls works.

What topics do you typically stay away from when you write, either due to lack of interest or lack of desire to share it publicly?
The fact that I include photographs and stories about my kids on Ramshackle Glam is something that my husband and I have discussed on a constant basis ever since we first found out we were pregnant with our son. I write about parenting all the time, but I keep the focus on my experiences as a mother. I'm careful never to give them a narrative, if that makes any sense. Their stories are their own to tell one day, if they choose to. I use pseudonyms for them on the site for a similar reason: so that their mother's website doesn't form the basis of their online identities for decades to come.

Where's your technology high water line? (IE where did you draw the line at which social media platforms you regularly employ--and why?)
Snapchat was where I gave up. I don't even understand how it works, and this fact makes me feel ancient. I can hear myself saying "I just don't get what the kids these days are doing with all that snapper chatter business" in my grandmother's voice. If people have some interest in knowing what I'm up to, they can find out the good, old-fashioned way. On Facebook.

What's your typical philosophy about which sponsorships and partnerships you will take part in?
When I was in high school I was a commercial actress, so I was accustomed to walking onto sets, being handed a product, and being told to talk about how much I loved it regardless of whether or not I had any personal opinions about it at all. And that was fine, because it was my job (and because it wasn't technically "me" expressing "my" opinions; I was obviously an actress playing a role), but the advertising landscape has changed in a big way - and I think that's a positive thing. The clients I work with don't just give lip service to the idea that they're interested in my own perspective on the product and my own experiences using it; they actively seek out my personal take and allow it to dictate the narrative. They don't say "take this photo"; they say "what kind of photo do you think would resound with your audience?" Coming from a background of traditional advertising ("hold this and say this because that's what we're paying you to do"), getting to be this intimately involved in the content creation process is fascinating - and so much fun. To me, working on integrations doesn't feel any different than working on non-sponsored posts - it's all just trying stuff out, seeing if and how things work in my life, and then turning those experiences into stories.

What do you do that most annoys your kids (either on purpose or not?)
My daughter appears to still be at the age where she thinks I walk on water, but my son is getting into the "God, mom" years already. The other day we actually had this conversation: "Stop saying okay to me." "Okay." "Stop saying okay to me." "Okay." "STOP SAYING OKAY TO ME." "OKAY." So we're basically both four year olds. It can get dramatic. 

What are the first sites/social media/publications you read first thing in the morning?
This seems to surprise people, but I don't really read blogs other than the ones my friends write, because I find that the only thing that happens when I do that is I start thinking "oh my god I'm doing everything wrong." I can't stay off of Instagram to save my life, though; I love it so much. My husband isn't quite as big of a fan, mostly because all Instagram means to him is that he has to wait to eat his meal until it has been properly photographed (see: Instagram husband):

That's pretty much it, though. Maybe Perez Hilton if I'm feeling lazy.

What do you think when you meet a boy Jordan?
That his birth certificate probably listed his gender correctly. (Mine didn't.)

How does it feel to be the 413th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
Well, if anyone makes it this far down your list they must really like your interviews, so I guess the pressure's off. Thanks for that.