Potentially stupid life decisions.

What on earth is next.

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Hi all,

Me, at the top of Nine Orchard on my birthday in August. Feeling…optimistic? I don’t fucking know.

Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of my 2025 life — truly the shittiest year on my record. It isn’t easy for me to expose my personal life on this type of level, but many of you have valued my honesty, so here goes:

• We started out the year evacuating our Altadena-adjacent home due to the Eaton Fires. We were so lucky that our immediate neighborhood was untouched. But we mourned with so many close friends who lost everything.

• I got laid off for the second time in two years and struggled to find work of any kind. Even Trader Joe’s rejected me.

• To avoid financial ruin, we rented out our Pasadena house and moved in with my parents in New York City. And yes, when we told people we were “moving in with parents” they were like “oh god, so sorry” but when we said it was “in NYC,” everyone was like, “OMG why are you complaining?” We weren’t. But — just saying — we do live in a bedroom stuffed with two bookshelves, an upright piano, five IKEA storage units, and a large radiator. It’s chaos in here.

Here’s what’s been good about being in NYC for the past five months:

• It was the right choice financially. We considered trying to stay in L.A. and live on credit in the hope we’d lock into job-jobs, but that hasn’t happened…yet.

• We had extra support from parents.

• I finally got to meet so much of the Substack-design community and the design-design community in real life. These relationships and meetings really kept me going when I was feeling at my lowest about Schmatta and the trajectory of my life. Special thanks to Lauren Sands, Robert Khederian, Sydney Gore, Lila of Wrong House, Lily Sullivan, Julie Vadnal, and the team at Sundays Furniture.

• I built up my freelance work and did a lot of writing/am still writing for Architectural Digest and other design publications.

  NYC Apartment Diaries, Vol. 1

But NYC has also been hard. Really hard.

• No matter how good of a relationship you have with your parents…living with them will drive all of you crazy. (Hi, Mom and Dad. Sorry. And sorry in advance if we have to come back again.)

• Even when you’re not spending money on rent, everything in Manhattan is insanely expensive. Like why am I always spending $18 on paper towels?! How is that even possible??

• But the hardest — and most painful bit — has been with our daughter. She’s four and, to a certain extent, easy to please and make happy. But when we decided to move to NYC, we missed all the public school deadlines for pre-K enrollment. She was waitlisted at #100 on almost every school within a 40-block radius. She got into one “childcare center” and we almost cried when we toured it. There was no outdoor area. The classrooms looked onto a construction site piled high with discarded tires. There were holes in the walls that were “fixed” with duct tape. People were sleeping in the lobby.

• Full-time private school was out of the question, money-wise.

This outfit is either the work of a genius or a madwoman.

• But we finally found a small French immersion school nearby on the UWS with flexible offerings. The most we could afford was two days a week (Mondays and Tuesdays) at $1,500/month — the same amount we paid for our 5-days-per-week school in Pasadena. It wasn’t ideal because both my husband and I would need to cram as much work — and we have been working! — as we could into just two days. The additional five days were honestly a mix of museums (expensive) and TV. A lot of TV. We feel/felt awful about it. We struggled to get work done or take care of ourselves during the week. Our parenting was/is at its worst.

• At first, Eleanor did okay at the French school. But then getting her there on Monday became an ordeal. It wasn’t normal crying and procrastinating. It was anxiety that would mount over the course of the five days she wasn’t in school. “Is it French school tomorrow?” she’d ask almost every day, and as it got closer to Monday, she’d become more agitated. Between me and my husband, I’m the “bad cop” parent — pushing for Eleanor to do the uncomfortable things, fighting for consequences. But even this proved too painful for me. I couldn’t take another day of her bawling and physically blocking the front door. So, we withdrew her from school. I’m still not sure if that was the right decision.

• But it was also so hard for us to feel normal among the other parents at the school. We were the only creatives in a group of lawyers and finance people. During a school break, we tried to organize a group park playdate via the parents’ What’s App group. People enthusiastically responded that their children’s’ nannies could indeed meet up. No parents. Just nannies. We didn’t end up going.

• And then the sickness. I started off in August with a period that lasted over a month. About a month later, I had a nasty cold. Which turned into pneumonia. Which was then strep. And then mono. MONO!!! for Christ’s sakes. UTIs galore.

I spent a lot of time over the past few months in Warby Parker trying to decide if I should get glasses. You tell me.

Which leads me to what’s next…

• Our renters in Pasadena are leaving and we’ve decided to take the huge risk of going back home in January. My husband and I have built up enough freelance income to support half of our living expenses. We’re liquidating our brokerage (money I swore I would never, ever touch until retirement) to float us for the other half.

• One of us will need to land an aforementioned job-job (which, honestly, I’d love…I thrive in management)…unless thousands of you decide to become paid subscribers and/or I can run a legitimate business on sponsorships. So yes, I am asking if you’d consider upgrading your subscription, which you can do here:

  I’m running a sale. Only $5.20/month for 12 months.

• If you become a paid subscriber in the month of December, you’ll also automatically be entered to win this Louis Poulsen lamp, courtesy of Lumens and worth over $1,700.

• If you wish to support the work I do on Schmatta with a one-time donation, my Venmo is @leonora-epstein

• Potential sponsors, please reach out! I have a media kit that, according to several PR professionals, has been held up as an example of a great brand dek. To toot my own horn or whatever.

• If you are wealthy and feel like funding a new media enterprise, I am still really into this idea. FOR REAL:

  @_leonoraepstein

  

  Leonora Epstein on Instagram: "When the coffee kicks in…"

• Although, in an ideal world, what I (and my husband) really, really want for the future of our family is to have the opportunity to move to Paris — where I’ve previously spent 3 years of my life. We could actually live a very decent, rich, middle class life there. So if you have ideas about how to make this happen, I’ll love you forever. Between lack of employment opportunities and visa restrictions, it seems truly impossible.

• Otherwise, what would make me feel great is for you to sound off in the comments about:

  • Tough times in your life and how you made it through.

  • What I can do to make Schmatta better/more enjoyable for you.

  • Any of your 2026 “design resolutions” if that’s even a thing…

I’ll end this by saying: THANK YOU. Thank you for reading my writing. Writing Schmatta truly is my passion. I hope it makes your day a little bit happier.