Catching Up: Thanks a Ton (and a half)

It's only a week or so until Christmas, but I'm overdue in recording the early Christmas present my parents gave me during their visit in September.

When we first moved into this house my mom came out to spend a couple of weeks to help us move in and to get a leg up on some house projects.  For those who know my mom, project is her middle name.  Actually, it's really more like her first name, and don't-mind-work is her middle name.  During that  first visit, she took to cleaning parts of the house--armed with a toothbrush, razor blade and ammonia--that I'm sure the previous owners completely managed to avoid ever cleaning in the sixteen years they lived here before we did.  Now I'm sure that the greatest housewarming gift you can give someone is to mop behind the fridge. 

But from the very beginning she singled out the rotting railroad ties being used as a small retaining wall at the top of our driveway and said that she'd like to build a rock wall there.  It's come up on every other visit in the years since, but there have always been other projects at the top of the list instead.

In this year's visit, they once again did not dissappoint. They painted some closet doors, tilled a section of the lawn with compost to amend the soil, pushed the very large aerator over the whole lawn to prep for seeding, dug out/sifted many bucket-fulls of gravel from a French drain, hauled all the dug-up gravel in multiple wheelbarrow trips up the hill, helped with homework assignments, ironed shirts, woke up early to oversee piano practicing, made sandwiches for lunches, and cleaned the bathrooms, etc.  I'm trying to remember what I did besides catch up on my Netflix queue.

Well, earlier in September I had all (and I mean all) of the overgrown landscaping in the front of the house removed.  I should interject here a little pity for poor Adam; it's really unfortunate for him that my love language turned out to be home improvement projects.  The landscaping decision was impulse (not that I regret it), but it left the rotting railroad ties at the top of the driveway completely exposed. So when my mom again suggested building the rock wall, even Adam agreed.  Immediately my mom and I were calling rock suppliers, and soon enough my dad and I were on our way in borrowed a pick-up to buy 3000lbs of field stone.  

When my dad wasn't moving rocks for my mom, he was being pestered by Saul for a walk down the street.

After a few afternoons of work, they did it.  And, wow! The finished product looks pretty fantastic. I invite anyone to come on by anytime; I'll even set up some folding chairs in the driveway so we can sit and admire it. Thanks, Mom and Dad.  We love you too.

According to Isabel

We had another great day in New York.  According to how Isabel would tell it, here's (some of) what we did:

Went to Metro Diner for brekwist with Yeeyian and Madeline
Played Merican Girl Dolls and rode cooters with them
Ate a sam hamwich for lunch
Rode on a  frowded frain
Saw a puppet show about Santa Cwaus
Saw the big Frismas Free (and it is not frooked and is bigger than our free at our house)
Rode on a very frowded frain again
Ate chicken for dinner, but the sauce was too picy!
Had chocwit ice fream for dessert since I ate some vreen beans

A few thoughts while being in NYC tonight

We are in NYC for the weekend.  Adam and I were out tonight, and since I have no pictures to document the evening, here are a few of my thoughts (possibly deep, but most likely not):

1.  New York rocks.  I love it that at 11pm we were out looking for something to do and possibly a snack and there were at least a dozen places in the few blocks that we walked that would have been great.  And all of them were open.  So we settled for sharing a gyro and a red velvet cupcake.

2.  Pretty much all cupcakes are overrated.  Certainly overpriced.  Of course this isn't just exclusive to NYC.  I have yet to fully figure out why people get so crazy excited people get over a cupcake.  Maybe I'm the last person to say this, but I should have been the first considering that I've been thinking it for the last ten years since my first way-over-anticipated trip to try out the much-hyped Buttercup Bake Shop. And back then we had to schlep all the way over to the East Side to go to Buttercup. The best I can come up with is that the people who love them are people who grew up without ever having cake that wasn't from a mix and that there was no other frosting than the kind found in a little plastic tub.  I guess I can understand how this happens considering that until I was an adult I didn't know that garlic came in cloves and not in powder form.  But as for the frosting, at least I can thank my mom for a proper education in buttercream.

3.  Paper or plastic?  I'm now questioning the proper kind of tree to get for Christmas.  While I love a good, fresh tree (and so far it's the only kind we've had), while out tonight we walked by several sidewalk tree "lots" and a couple of large flatbed semi-trucks filled to capacity with more cut trees to stock the sellers. Suddenly the trees looked less like holiday decoration and more like the result of a brutal massacre.  So many trees!  And then we just throw them away!  And then my mind cycloned (just me?) into thinking about every tree in every lot in every city....  But, is the alternative plastic? Certainly that can't be right. So now I'm all confused.  Maybe next year I just let each child make a giant cookie in the shape of a tree that at the end of December they can just eat.  That's what I call both festive and pragmatic.

4.  In NYC, money is relative.  While on one hand I'll hardly think twice about spending $3.75 on a mediocre cupcake, on the other I insisted that Adam and I walk the 30 blocks from 65th up Broadway in 30 degree weather to save the $5 that we would have spent on a train ride home.  Hey, but, if we hadn't walked then we wouldn't have seen that there is now a Two Boots location on the Upper West Side.  And the $3.79 for the slice of shrimp pizza was well worth it.

5.  I'll happily choose a late-night date with Adam that doesn't involve any leaves.

P.S.  Regarding cupcakes: I did think that Georgetown Cupcake in DC had cupcakes worth the 20 minute line and even a repeat visit.  But maybe that's because growing up I didn't even know about the existence of ganache.

Leaf Harvest



Call us crazy, but we've finally figured out how to somewhat enjoy raking the millions of leaves that fall every year in our backyard.  It's called, the late-night date of raking leaves together--with our his and hers headlamps, some new lightweight rakes, a large tarp we fill with leaves and carry together, and plenty of time to talk with no interruptions.  No, seriously. Even though I am especially skilled at complaining about my house and the various chores involved in home ownership, it's at least one way to make lemonade from our yard full of lemons.

Catching Up: Girl's Weekend Out / Another DC Weekend

I have many wonderful gifts in life.  Among them, I have a fabulous husband that made arrangements in his schedule for me to have another October weekend away in DC.
Lucky me. 

And this time, it was a weekend away with some of the most fabulous women that I know. Women I've known since third grade, but who continue to amaze and inspire me with the kind of wives, mothers, and just good people that they are. Another phenomenal gift.
Lucky, lucky me. 

We spent a few days together touring DC: beautiful weather, a hotel, museums, monuments, shopping, sight-seeing, late night conversations, and eating absolutely fantastic food.  I had such a phenomenal time doing all of it without kids, it was like I'd never been to DC before.  But we decided that could have gone anywhere for a weekend away, because the favorite activity by far was talking.--all we needed was a table to sit at all together and we were good for hours of coversation.  And, when I came home, I was truly rejuvenated.

 Old Town Alexandria (and eating at LaMadeleine)

Our hotel was near the Capitol. 

Anna and I went out for early-morning runs (well, I did more walking than running)

on the Mall  for our fitness challenge requirements. 

 Visiting the National Gallery and getting a serious case of the giggles--while today's vogue is to have your family portrait taken in a fruit orchard, please observe the family portrait with the Virgin Mary.
 

 Julia Child's kitchen in the Museum of American History

Michelle Obama's inagural gown

The original Star Spangled Banner

Cupcakes at Georgetown Cupcake.  Divine!

 Cute Poppy

 Touring the monuments

Thanks dear friends!  I hope that it's not two years before we can do this again.

Catching up: Rally for Sanity in DC

On the last weekend in October we went to DC with 200,000 other people to see the Rally for Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive with Jon Stewart and Co.  Turns out, if there are that many people crowded into the area of a few blocks, the cell towers are completely overwhelmed and you have no coverage for the entire day.   It was like we were all isolated on our own remote little island.

If you got your report of the Rally from a major news source, then chances are they completely missed the boat.  I just want to dispel any falsehoods and say, it was awesome.  The weather was perfect, the mood was incredible, the crowd so amazingly friendly, and the message central to why everyone was there for the day.   Yes, the medium for the message was comedy (and sometimes the program was silly), but I also really think that people who were there were completely serious about the message: that we're a nation of diverse and good people who compromise and cooperate with each other everyday, and that it's time for the media and government to take it down a notch or two and do the same.  If you missed it when live, then at least  read Jon Stewart's closing remarks.  Or watch it here.  (He even gives a shout-out to Mormon Jay-Z fans--to which Adam replied with a hearty whoop).  I also thought that this analysis was pretty spot-on.

We left early from our house with our lawn chairs and sack lunches.  Adam's mom was even with us too (although she's extremely skilled at escaping our camera).  We were early enough that we sailed into town and parked at a lot really nearby the the Mall.  That turned out to be a good decision since we heard that the Metro stations from the suburbs were completely jammed. We had a spot in view of one of the jumbo screens and we spread out a place for ourselves with blankets and chairs.  Adam took the kids to see the National Gallery to pass the time before it started while Sharon and I staked out the spot.   

And when it was all over, people stayed milling around on the mall just hanging out and photographing each other and their funny signs. We did too.  Seriously, the friendliest crowd of hundreds of thousands that I've ever been in.  The couple next to us kept trying to share their food with our kids.  People were walking around with trash bags helping collect garbage.  A cute, eager little couple came by our spot with some trash bags just as I had finished changing Saul's diaper.  And don't think that I didn't take them up on the offer to carry it off for me. 

And after all of that, we walked over to the National Portrait Gallery to see the current Norman Rockwell exhibit.  Nothing like rounding out a day of friendly rallying with some good old-fashioned Americana.  Actually, we really loved the exhibit too. 

Although, by the time we were driving home Max complained that "We haven't done anything fun today!"

I guess sanity really is in the eye of the beholder.



Thanksgiving, part 2: Harpers Ferry

The day after Thanksgiving while in Virginia, we went with the Hastings, et. al. on a little day trip to see Harpers Ferry (actually in West Virginia).  I knew Harpers Ferry only as the famous setting of John Brown's raid of the Armory and its influence in the Civil War.  The lower part of the town is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, and so is a flood plain with floods reaching 34 feet, even as recently as 1996.  So, much of the town is built up into the hillside at some pretty sharp steepness.  It was much more incredible than I had expected, with its fantastically picturesque setting and also the little town buildings and the stonework and such.  But I'm kind of a sucker for all the historical preservation/re-creation stuff.  You know, it makes that movie-in-my-mind just that much more romantic. (Just me?) Well, we had a really great time, despite the cold and Katy's valiant attempts at trying to take some family photos for us while there (but I'll save that for another post). 

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of all of us there together.  I was being lazy with the camera.  So, thanks, also, to Katy for many of the fabulous photos used in this post.