The Tiger on Your Couch

Continued Harvest

2009-08-24T23:32:12Z

The end of summer has really brought out the best in my gardens. I have piles of green peppers, more than I know what to do with. Scads of green beans, I picked enough the other day to feed 6 people when we had company for dinner. Ancho peppers dripping off the plants (anyone want some anchos?) and tomatoes that I gather by the bushel. And finally, my gladiolas have come up. The green glads are my prize and joy, but I have pink and yellow glads as well. Gladiolas are my favorite flower.

My lettuce is gone, however. And my spinach never came up. I think something ate the seeds or the very young plants. Better luck next year.

One days harvest. I am able to do this about every day.

I planted the tomatoes strategically so that they would ripen in turn, and I would have tomatoes all summer. This did not work out, and instead everything ripened all at once, due to the weather and our rains. So I have PILES of tomatoes and have been making tomato sauce to freeze. But it's good to have piles of tomatoes because they really cook down! Out of 112 tomatoes that I peeled and cooked into sauce last weekend, it really only yielded a half gallon or so of sauce. Oh well...I have lots more to work with!

This sauce is a chunky marinara with fresh basil and cabernet.

And here are my glads. :)

Harvest

2009-07-25T19:08:30Z

Today I "harvested" a few handfuls of tomatoes, green beans, and a green pepper from the garden. I also replanted lettuce this week, since it's been cold enough here that I might squeeze another crop out before the cold hits in fall. There are many more peppers out there, but not quite big enough yet to pick. I'm pleased with all this. :-)

On Feeding a Baby

2009-07-09T14:37:19Z

Among our friends, and in due date communities, and in parenting communities I frequently see people asking what to feed their babies and young toddlers. People are always talking about it and bouncing ideas around. All those questions made me start thinking about what we feed Jack, so I started keeping a log during this past week or two, and occasionally snapping a photo.

Jack has always been a great eater, but he took to solid food very well. This is what he eats at 10 months, but he's been more or less eating this way since about 8 months old. He had a good pincer grip at 6 months and always wanted to pick up his own food. So save for a few liquids and semi-solids (like soup, yogurt, etc.) he's not really spoon fed. He's been a very enthusiastic eater and has shown no poor reactions to anything - so he eats....everything. He's beginning to wean himself despite my efforts - he's just a guy who likes his table foods.

Breakfast
Breakfast is his favorite meal of the day. He eats like a trucker in the morning, for serious. Some things he enjoys:

-oatmeal (baby or otherwise)
-yogurt
-banana, blueberries, melon, grapes
-breakfast turkey sausage
-pancakes, cut up
-waffles, cut up
-muffins or other baked breads

1. Waffles/Sausage/Kiwi
2. (Homemade) Muffin, Yogurt, Grapes, Banana
3. Pancake/Sausage/Plum/Banana
4. Oatmeal, yogurt, banana, blueberries

Lunch
He didn't reliably start eating lunch until almost 9 months, when his nap pattern changed to 2 naps instead of 3. All of a sudden he was awake at lunchtime and I was caught off guard - oh wait, I need to feed him again??

At lunch he often eats:

-Cheese quesadilla or cheese toast - cut up
-Rice and beans
-Cream cheese crackers
-Lentils with rice
-Bean and salsa dip (by spoon)
-Macaroni and cheese
-Cottage cheese and fruit
-Toast with butter or jelly or both

1. Soup/Cottage Cheese/Grapes
2. Macaroni and Cheese/Mango/Turkey Shreds
3. Pasta with Chickpeas/Kiwi/Cottage Cheese
4. Crackers/Oranges/Cottage Cheese/Kiwi

Dinner
Dinner is a picky meal for him. He's not an evening eater sometimes, he could take it or leave it. It was a long time before he would eat any meat but fish. Chicken is still touch-and-go. Ground beef he eats rarely. Steak he will eat anytime (figures).

He eats with us, things like:

-Pasta or gnocchi with red sauce
-Risotto, polenta, or other soft grains with vegetables
-Baked boneless white fish - like cod or haddock
-Filled pasta like tortellini or pierogies
-Cut up grilled steak
-Steamed veggies like tiny broccoli florets or a pea/carrot mix
-

1. Blueberries/Oranges/Cut up burger/Cut up toasted bun
2. Pierogi/Turkey Hot Dog/Broccoli/Mango
3. Flaked whitefish/Mixed Veggies/Sliced Yam
4. Ground beef and noodles (not spicy)/Pineapple/Cottage Cheese/A cracker
5. Shredded Chicken/Corn/Kiwi
6. Macaroni and Cheese (Farfalle cut up)/ Pineapple/Peas and Carrots
7. Turkey Meatballs/Pasta/Sauce / Grapes/ Mixed Veggies
8. Turkey hot dog / toasted bun / cucumber&tomato / biscuit / blueberries

He really does eat great variety. That may not be accurately reflected here, since these were taken over the course of 2 weeks and reflect what was on sale here during those weeks. But he does try everything. A few favorites not pictured here are: cut up grape tomatoes, sliced fresh apricots, cantaloupe, cut up thin slice of cheese, the fleshy middles of cucumbers, a spear of asparagus, a piece of english muffin.

Rain has been plentiful this year

2009-06-20T21:22:03Z

That is to say, the weather here has been crappy. However, it's helped yield a bumper crop of lettuce. This salad is brought to you by my gardens, and includes spinach, mesclun greens, butter lettuce, red leaf lettuce, and arugula. Tomatoes and carrots. My beans and peppers are not up yet, but they are coming.

A Wedding Cake

2009-06-16T16:03:13Z

This is how that wedding cake ended up turning out. I certainly would not call it my most elaborate work, but there was a lot going on last week, the bride and groom didn't have a lot of preferences for anything specific, and I did it completely for free.

I saw another church member taking photographs, and several church ladies downstairs working on decorations and food. So it was sort of like a barn raising, everyone pulling together to make a lovely wedding, and I'm glad to have helped out.

Unfortunately there is no way to disguise the fact that the church basement looks, well, like a church basement.

Sample Cakes

2009-05-17T01:58:09Z

I made a cake sampler today for someone who asked for a wedding cake for next month. It included marbled cake (at their request). Which was odd for me to make, I personally can't stand marbled cake and therefore never make it unless asked.

What kind of cake do you prefer? For the sake of this poll, the first choice in each line is the icing and the second is the cake. This really only applies to basic layer cakes, not tortes, coffee cakes, or other specialty type cakes.

View Poll: Cake

Also, Jack likes to help with the baking.

Lemonade

2009-04-01T01:33:13Z

It was 56 degrees and sunny today here in Massachusetts. Jack and I went for a jog in his jogging stroller, outside in the sun. Though it's admittedly early, today I made the first lemonade of the season. I had extra juice from squeezing lemons and I used it to make a potent lemon icing for some shortbread cookies.

Please God, let it be spring.

Scrabblified

2009-03-11T15:09:37Z

At night after we put the baby to bed, M and I like to sit up, drink tea, and play Scrabble. We love Scrabble. When family comes to visit, we con them into playing Scrabble, sometimes we invite Scrabble friends over for the express purpose of playing. It's fun. Though neither of us are very good at maximizing use of points and point spaces to their ultimate potential, we're good at using every letter till we're done. Sometimes I remember to snap a photo of the Scrabble board, too.

Apologies for the crassness here. I was literally inundated with i's and t's. I had a whole row of nothing but i's and t's to get rid of.

M wants to buy the collectors edition special dealie-o game, with the board that rotates around. I am considering getting on board with that, hmm.

Lunch

2009-03-02T00:18:27Z

The topic of lunch comes up fairly often in one community or another. People want to pack lunches for reasons of health, of cost, of convenience. Before we got married, M told me he was really looking forward to the idea of a packed lunch, because it would save him some time and hassle in his day, as well as some cash and some calories. I have always been pretty good about packing our lunches (and now just his lunch) - except for the last few months of pregnancy, during which HE packed MINE! He likes all types of bag lunches, hot and cold, healthy and unhealthy alike. For the past month or so I tried to remember to snap a photo of a few different types of lunches, to spread around the ideas. So behold, 10 different lunches that are satisfying by day, and all packable the night before, and with the use of an ice pack, are fine to be stored outside a fridge until lunchtime.

There are a few staples in our diet - things we eat nearly daily because we like them. In M's lunch, this includes a fruit, a veggie, and a yogurt. If you don't like those things, you could toss in a bit of pudding, a granola bar, whatever it is you like. But all these feature the fruit/veg/yogurt combination that we have used for years. I often include a small pick-up snack for the afternoon, like 1/4 cup of nuts, or a cheese stick. Once in a blue moon I might pack cookies. :-)

1. A Sandwich
Health=**** Convenience=***** Heartiness=****
Perhaps the most basic of all lunches, a good hearty sandwich can go a long way. Use low-glycemic grainy breads for a boost of filling fiber. I have never had an issue with making a sandwich the night before - if you like wet or oily sandwiches, this might not work as well. You can buy lunch meat, use sliced leftover meat like the chicken sandwich shown here, or just make a good old PBJ.

2. A Soup
Health=***** Convenience=*** Heartiness=*****
Soup is a great, filling lunch. Shown here is homemade Chicken and Pinto Bean Soup, but a can of Progresso or a microwaveable Healthy Choice is just as easy. Could be slightly inconvenient for people who need to eat on the go, as most require to be heated up.

3. A Green Salad
Health=***** Convenience=***** Heartiness=***
A generous salad of mixed greens and veggies makes an excellent lunch for the health-conscious. Shown here is mixed baby greens with carrots, celery, green peppers, and cheese, with chicken to add after tossing. Small pill containers with childproof tops (like empty Advil bottles) make excellent spillproof containers for holding dressing. An empty bottle from vanilla or other baking extract works well too. Add along a slice of buttered bread and it's a salad to rival any restaurant, for a fraction of the price. For a meatless salad with a protein punch, add in garbanzo, black, or kidney beans.

4. A Baked Potato
Health=**** Convenience=**** Heartiness=*****
A large baked potato is a super easy lunch to prepare. You can bake enough potatoes for a week, all at one time, and just parcel them out by the day. You can top it with all kinds of delicious things, ranging from healthy options like broccoli and salsa, to the less healthy options shown here, cheese and bacon. You will want to split and butter the potato before putting it in a tupperware, and of course remove the foil before microwaving.

5. A Burrito
Health=**** Convenience=**** Heartiness=*****
Also easily made in large batches ahead of time, a hefty burrito makes an excellent lunch. Make up a large recipe of rice and beans (or a few boxes of Zatarains if you would prefer) and let it cool. Roll burritos on softened tortillas (whole wheat tortillas shown here) using rice and beans, shredded cheese, some salsa, veggies if you want, and any meat if you want to throw that in. Usually I don't use meat and they are still really filling. To keep the burrito shape, secure them tightly in press-n-seal or plastic wrap. I get 4 pretty large burritos out of one recipe of rice and beans, or 2 large burritos out of a single box mix of black beans and rice. They are easily microwaveable and really sustaining. If you are cutting carbs, a "naked burrito" of just rice and beans in a bowl is equally sustaining.

6. A Leftover
Health=**** Convenience=***** Heartiness=*****
Perhaps the easiest of lunches, a tupperware of leftover dinner to be reheated for later. Shown here is gnocchi with red sauce. I've thrown in a side salad for some extra green veggies. You can even cook a whole separate meal with the sole intention of portioning it out for lunches during the week.

7. A Piece of Pizza
Health=* Convenience=***** Heartiness=****
Pretty much everyone loves pizza. It makes good lunches, hot or cold. Next time you are making, ordering, or even cooking a frozen pizza - do an extra one. It is usually cheap to add on a single extra pizza to an order. Set it aside and divvy up into portions of 2 or 3 pieces - and along with a quick salad, that can be lunch for a week. It can be easily eaten on the go.

8. A Flatbread
Health=**** Convenience=**** Heartiness=****
A different take on the cold sandwich, a flatbread sandwich on a tortilla needs to be heated up. Shown here is a chicken and black bean quesadilla, with salsa on the side. Since this is a slightly labor-intensive lunch to prepare on its own, it's helpful to serve a dinner of quesadillas or other flat tortilla sandwiches, and to make several extras for lunches. As shown here with black beans on a wheat tortilla, they are an excellent health-conscious choice.

9. A Cold Pasta Salad
Health=**** Convenience=***** Heartiness=****
Great in the summer but good all year round, a cold pasta salad is a good way to mix things up. I work to keep it healthy by using protein enriched pasta and a lower-fat vinegar based dressing. It's best to pack the salad undressed and the dressing on the side, the way you would a green salad. Shown here is spiral pasta with carrots, tomato, corn, green peppers, and chicken. For an excellent meatless salad, omit the chicken and use kidney beans or black beans instead. It's great to make up a big batch at once, or to mix a pasta salad on a night where you are already having chicken and vegetables.

10. A Pack of Nibblets
Health=*** Convenience=***** Heartiness=***
Like a lunchable for adults, nibblets allow you the option to eat a little bit at a time, to grab and go. Include sliced cheese, deli meat (for better flavor I like to pan sautee the deli slices into small wads with carmelized edges, which is what you see here, sauteed ham wads) and a hearty cracker like triscuits. For those watching your carbs, you can roll your meat and cheese up in large lettuce leaves and have an impromptu lettuce wrap. This is excellent on the South Beach Diet. Beware the fat content in Nibblets though, as the stacking feature lends itself to using much more cheese than an ordinary sandwich would. For people who like to graze all day long, nibblets are ideal.

And when absolutely everything else fails....I just tell M to take a Hot Pocket. :-)

Thrifty Wife is Thrifty

2009-02-17T20:06:49Z

I have piles of old clothes in the basement that I never know what to do with. They are mostly things that don't fit. But even if they did fit, I wouldn't want to wear them. They're things I don't want to donate because they are either A.) fugly or B.) mega-immodest (I donate to our churches secondhand clothing shop).

So when my mother was visiting with her sewing machine, i spent time cutting up all these old stretched out sleazy crappy tank tops, shirts, halters, etc., to make wipes. Seems like babies are always leaking out of one place or another, and so I'm always looking for something to wipe him with! So now I have stacks and stacks of nice little wipies made out of my old, fugly, circa-1995 clothes. Oh yeah baby, recycle, reduce, reuse.

Oh the Irony

2008-10-24T17:05:44Z

The good news is that SOMEONE likes to sit quietly in the crib and play with the crib toys.

Oh hai, Pip. Sigh.

Book Review: Generation Debt

2008-10-21T20:33:08Z

Tons of people I know are in piles of debt. Piles. It seems like student loans up the wazoo, credit cards of all different types, private loans, car loans - they are all normal for everyone, even those who aren't great earners. This was a new one for me, I graduated college with minimal student loans and no consumer debt of any kind. I didn't realize this wasn't the norm, and this book by Anya Kamenetz paints a very vivid picture of the average Generation Y college-grad.

The problem is that fundamentally, I disagree with her message - the message that avoiding poverty is a RIGHT, and the message that everyones chosen career should pay well - at least, equally well on a baseline level. She argues that the grocery store checker should be able to support a family on her full time wages on the same level as a skilled worker might support a family on their wages. I disagree.

But there are a lot of interesting points on why student debt has mounted in this changing economy. We lack the great numbers of well paying, blue collar unionized labor jobs - jobs that didn't require an education but did require some training, and they were jobs that could support a family that were not unskilled labor. We lack many of those today (replaced by technology) and those that do exist, many people don't want to work them. Every student is encouraged to go to college, whether or not he is college material. And I don't think that everyone or even nearly everyone is college material. People attend college to study fields they love, regardless of whether or not they are lucrative, and then they are confused and upset down the line when they are unable to secure gainful employment with their comparative literature degree. Many then turn around and go back to graduate school to get a degree in a more useful field - which on the surface seems like a good idea. But below the surface, they are most often racking up more loans, and even worse - they often don't get out of school until almost 30, which has a very serious impact on when they are able to start saving for retirement.

It's not a good situation for anyone, the author points out. Record rates of college attendance are flooding the job market with more qualified applicants than there are white collar jobs. An aging baby boomer population is also riddled with debt and has not saved appropriately for retirement - making them less likely to leave their posts and free up new jobs. Social security is reaching a point where there will not be enough workers to sustain retirees at their current benefit levels, but no one is willing to have those benefits reduced. Rampant advertising and consumerism encourage young people to buy things on credit that they can't afford. Young people who have grown up with everything don't find themselves willing to do without and start lives deep in debt just from living in the style to which they are accustomed. The ever increasing cost of college leaves recent grads deep in debt.

What is there to do? The author does not have the answers, and neither do I. But in reading it, I felt strongly on a few points:
1.) That not everyone is suited to attend college, and those ill-suited should probably not attend.
2.) That very very few young people know how to live within their means. The author admits that almost every person she interviewed had a cellular phone, a mp3 player, and stylish clothes - even those interviewees $50k in debt.
3.) Federal entitlements (social security, medicaid, medicare, etc.) need to be reduced in some fashion as the number of payees swells and the number of contributors shrinks. People piss and moan about this but it is not fair to bankrupt the young to save the old - and in this time of rapidly reducing replacement birth rates, who is going to save the young when THEY are old?
4.) That young people have been sadly lied to by an older generation who told us to "shoot for the stars" and "do whatever makes you happy and the money will follow" - those things are not true and we are having a generation of starry-eyed debtors chasing their dreams right into bankruptcy rather than settle for a job that is less than ideal.

What to do? I feel divided on these issues, torn between the younger generation and the old.

Prika is Gone

2008-08-14T13:57:16Z

I learned last night that Prika is finally gone, to my utter sadness. We've been prepared for this to happen for quite a while, as she was very old and also very sick, but not prepared for it to happen the way it did. Apparently there was a stray cat prowling around my parents house and starting fights, there was a cat fight one night and though my parents tried to call both Prika and Ed inside, Prik didn't come. That was a week ago. She has always been an incredible homebody and never stays outdoors overnight or for more than a little bit of time at once, so being that she's been away for over a week and without her medication, I think it's safe to say she's gone. She would have come back if she could have and without her medication she becomes lost and panicked and confused. They have looked all around for her for days and days, so after a week, she's surely gone. She just does not have it in her to survive outside alone for a week at this point in her life.

It's hard not to be sad about this, but Prika led absolutely the most amazing life for a cat. 16 years old, she lived in the same place since she was a kitten and she had everything - the best of both worlds. She slept in our beds at night and had the freedom to go outside on the luxurious-for-cats property during the day. Her health was cared for yet she was always able to run and mouse and do all the things in a wild cats nature to do. I know she missed me when I left home, but never has there been a cat more loved. She used to follow me around like a puppy dog and run down to the end of the driveway to meet me when I got off the bus from middle school. She loved to be picked up, constantly wanted to be held, and wanted to snuggle so close that she would crawl up your shirt to do it. I can't ever imagine loving an animal more than I loved Prik. Her name is pronounced "preek" and it's short for paprika, the spice. Her coat was black with flecks of paprika-like red.

In the past 2 years, her life went dramatically downhill - she started having grand mal seizures and was diagnosed with a brain tumor that was inoperable, and she needed to take medicine by ear twice a day to keep the seizures at bay. She had some sort of thyroid issue that no one could diagnose or treat and she could not keep weight on to save her life - no matter what vet-recommended food or supplements we gave her. She weighed less than 6 lbs last I saw her and though she was still spunky, she was so frail. I hated to see her waste away like that, she was so uncomfortable - never able to settle down, constantly goinggoinggoing, never able to find a comfortable position with her aging kitty body. We were prepared to have to put her down this summer. 16 is old for a cat, even older for an indoor-outdoor cat. Her quality of life just went downhill. She lived 2 years longer than her sister Anna, who died in my brother's arms after suffering from kitty liver cancer in 2006.

We hadn't put Prika down yet because she still had spark in her, she still seemed to want to be alive, no matter how uncomfortable she was. Mom reports that she spent most of her time laying in the grass under her favorite tree, and that just last week she caught a chipmunk. So she was doing the things she loved, right up until the end.

I love pretty much all kitties, and of course I love Nellie and Pip, but I doubt I will ever love another cat like I loved Prika. Sometimes you have a pet that is just...special, and that was Prik. She was special.

I wish I had baby Prika and little Prika photos, but alas, she was older than digital. :/

ETA 8/25/08: They have found her body. She is really and truly gone, but does not appear to have suffered or have been attacked. They have buried her and made her a lovely grave.

Weekend Baby Shower

2008-06-09T03:12:30Z

Making for a fabulous weekend, babyfevertime came up to Boston this weekend and threw a baby shower for me, and also for our good friend J. In fact, we all sort of threw this shower and this turned out to be a beautiful plan because being so far away, C would have had a hard time setting up food and decorations and whatnot, but it would have been odd for J and I to throw a shower for ourselves. So we had a great plan of C hosting the shower, coordinating invitations and RSVPs and registry info and general merriment, and then J and I took care of the local issue things, like setting up tables and food and things like that. In retrospect, this was a beautiful plan! Everything went off without a hitch and it was so wonderful to see babyfevertime again! We really miss them.

Coming up to join in merriment, all the way from NY, were my Mom, my sister B, and my Aunt W. I don't see them often enough!

This shower featured tiny tigers galore:

It was a brunchtime shower - we got there earlyish in the morning and set some things up. I love summer colors.

The gracious hostess adorns me with a "it's a boy!" crown, blinkie pin, and sash. It is very fortunate that I was never a beauty queen because I just could not get the sash to stay on, halfway through the shower I just abandoned it completely. I faithfully wore the crown though, like the little preggoprincess that I am. :) I am sporting some serious bump-age here.

My mother and sister B helped set things up. And sometimes they help me stand up, as well.

There are piles of prezzies.

And also, a cupcake tree. I made the cupcake tree, because that is just how I roll. There are rows of tiny tigers, for my tiny tiger, and frogs, for J's pollywog. And then flowers because everyone loves flower.

As everyone else eats, chats, and enjoys, we sit and take a break. :)

And then it is time for presents. I was gifted with so many wonderful things! My family and friends are super creative and generous. From Mom and Aunt W, I am gifted with a Beco Baby Carrier. I'm really excited about this because I tried on at least 10 different types of carriers and liked this one best. Unfortunately, I seem to have tried them on when I was less pregnant and now it does not fit over me. I guess you can't carry a baby on the inside and also carry a baby on the oustide (unless you do it on your back).

Fail. :(

I am also gifted with some beautiful diapers - gorgeous AIOs and some covers from babyfevertime, and some wonderfully soft organic cotton imse vimse contours and AIOs from our friend Meredith. I have already a pile of kissaluvs, so with a set of prefolds I am pretty set for a few months on newborn/infant diapers. (Unless the child is oddly shaped, always a possibility!)

My Mom and MIL, a few generations older than me, marvel at the wonders of todays cloth diapers. No plastic pins or rubber pants here!

In loving memory of my Gramma L, I am gifted with a large tiger. Medium tiger, perhaps. My maternal grandmother passed away 4 years ago, but for my whole life, she was a huge contributor to her local zoo association and my childhood is full of not only realistic plastic animals, but huge family outings to the zoo where all the cousins came along and some of us were pulled in a wagon. Good times.

Not a moment after opening it, the tiger is taken from me! So we cede the tiger to Ella, adorable daughter of my friend H.

As members of our local political womens club, J and I are gifted with some most excellent baby clothes. These kids will be voting in style.

J, ever the talented friend, knitted for us a tiny tiger hat with tiny tiger ears! So cute.

Unfortunately it does not fit me, I tried.

My Aunt and cousins in Texas sent SO MANY beautiful things. I feel as though the child is spoilt already! Here are some painted alphabet cards with vibrant colors...perfect for hanging as a border around a room.

My aunt and cousins hand crocheted several receiving blankets for us. They are soft and washed and the stitching around the edges is so tiny and perfect! I can't even imagine how long it must have taken them, but each of them did two blankets. I plan to swaddle this child until he's a teenager just so I can use these blankets!

And also there is a tub ducky that grows to 600% his size. From the look on my face, clearly this was perplexing at the time...

My papa built a little slingshot for the baby. It came with a tiny poem in the card:
"Not at people, not at cars
Not at windows, not at jars
Not at houses, not at hats...
But go ahead and shoot the cats!"

Aunt K in Texas sent a gift that had the whole room in tears, even people that didn't even know me OR my grandfather. It's a stuffed owl made of a sweater that my grandfather (who passed before I was born) wore all the time, she had been saving this sweater forever and finally decided to cut it up. On some level this is fitting, as we have been leaning towards naming the baby after my maternal grandfather. I know the sweater-owl will mean more to the older family members than it will to the baby, but it is such a lovely thing to have parts of your family all around you.

J got an absolutely beautiful handmade quilt from her friend H. Quilting is amazing and I'm in awe of the people that can do it so well.

And here is a photo of C, J, and I. This is super funny because we have an almost identical photo from sometime last year, except that C is pregnant and J and I are not!

And then, post-shower and pre high-tea, we relaxed by the pool at J's complex for a while. It's not often we get to sit with the pool on one side and the ocean on the other!

Even on a 95 degree day, the breeze from the Harbor keeps everyone comfy.

Up on the balcony overlooking the harbor.

All in all it was just wonderful! She did such a beautiful job throwing the shower and everything was just right.

A Visit to NY

2008-05-10T13:43:31Z

We went home for a visit to upstate NY last weekend - it had a dual purpose, both to welcome B home from Bangladesh (though she passed through Boston and stayed her layover at our house) and to celebrate my birthday at home with my peeps. It was excellent, nothing helps me relax and recharge like chillaxing with my family.

B came home with a suitcase laden with gifts! Hundreds of gifts, really. She left behind almost all her clothes there so she could have a whole empty suitcase to bring people prezzies. So now I have been gifted with some beautiful Bengali items - in both attire, baby attire, and decor.

B is super proud of all her authentic garb.

Mom, B, and Aunt W check out some hand-stitched wall hangings B brought home. They conclude that Bengali women must all be blind by 30 from all the teeny tiny stitching they do.

I am gifted with some tiny Bengali baby clothes for what is very quickly becoming our multi-cultural child!

B instructs Dad on how to wear his Lungee, a traditional piece of garb that all the men wear and apparently it just gets tied like a big old skirt, and they may or may not have anything underneath. Dad is already wearing his punjabi, which to me looks like a nightshirt but apparently it has rendered him very handsome by Bengali standards.

In the Lungee and Punjabi, Dad is now completely authentic, save for the New Balance sneakers.

B is totally laden with gifts. She is like the Mother Christmas of international travel!

Ever doing his part to help the drastically falling bee population, my father has again ordered 12,000 bees this year. He calls them his "girls", as in "I need to go out back and check on my girls", and it's funny. Dad and M suited up in bee garb and worked on the all-important mission of releasing the queen from her little box. You pull out the plug and the queen bee is there in this little space with a marshmallow blocking the door. So it becomes the drones job to eat away at the marshmallow until the queen is free and then they can protect her and eventually she will make more little queens.

Dad and M suit up like moonmen.

And extract the queen. Surrounded by wax, the bees are well on their way to producing some tasty honey for summer.

Monday we had the day off and went on a great hike in the High Tor area of Naples. We are big on hiking but 4 miles was all I wanted to handle at this point! It's like climbing steep trails with a ten pound dumbbell strapped to your belly. The weather was just beautiful and with a wet spring the runoff streams and the waterfalls were in full gushing glory.

Mom and Dad sit by the cool stream.

Pregnant hiking involves a good bit of sitting and relaxing. No joke, it took us 3 hours to do a 4 mile hike that probably only had no more than 2500 feet of elevation change.

I am always one for sitting in the stream. The trails were so empty we actually left our water bottles in a deep cold area of the stream - so when we passed on the way back, they were super fresh and cold. Sadly, I've never come across a hiking trail in MA that was empty enough to do that.

I'm also one for climbing and/or sitting in trees.

The waterfalls are just gorgeous! I need one of those tshirts that says "Ithaca is Gorges," haha. Naples is Gorges, too.

And then of course we spent time out back watching the cows. It's calving season and C says so far 43 calves have been born. We had the, ahem, pleasure of speaking with a cow fresh out of the birthing process - she still had about a 5 foot trail of placenta spilling out of her and dragging behind her. That is truly a sight to behold. We fed the cows some fresh asparagus from the garden and they all lined up to say hello. They are really such handsome cattle!

Thrifty Wife is Still Thrifty

2008-05-03T03:23:37Z

In an effort to achieve ultimate thrift, I have been making my own iced coffee. This may not be a big deal to some, but I have carried a thermos of hot coffee for years and never branched out into making iced, probably because it's just so nice to get a fresh cup from DnD. This easily runs me $15/week, or $60/month.

So now I have a nice setup of making my own. Complete with coffee ice cubes so the coffee does not get diluted. Thus far I have been putting it in clean plastic DnD cups, because I had so many...but come summer I will have to find a better receptacle for this. I still maintain that the best tasting coffee comes from a percolator, rather than a drip coffee maker. I will probably never budge on this.

It took me forever to get ice cube trays, I have not used them in years since we have an icemaker. I finally had my mother bring me a few so I didn't need to buy any.

Thrifty Wife is Thrifty

2008-04-08T13:21:36Z

In a Monday night exercise for marital bonding, yesterday M and I worked on a new "thrifty-chore" together - making laundry detergent. Laundry detergent is a point of contention at our house because I am anal about the clothes and so I make him use about 3x more than the jug calls for (how can that little tiny capful REALLY clean things???) so we have for years been probably supporting the laundry detergent industry all by ourselves. Anyway, sell your stock.

So in an effort to be a fun, contriving, thrifty wife - I bought all this stuff to make detergent with. It involves purchasing boarax and washing soda, and grating up bars of ivory soap with my cheese grater (all things purchased at the Hannafords in Waltham, for local people interested). You then combine these in different porportions in a large 3 gallon jug of water and stir in different orders to dissolve. It's sort of fun, and soap is a LOT easier to grate than cheese. So the upshot is that for slightly less than a dollars worth of raw materials (does not include energy to heat the water) we have 3 gallons of nice smelling laundry detergent. We ran it through a load last night and it does seem to work adequately well. I don't think it smells as strongly as packaged detergent, but that just means that I'll throw in more and more of it. And at a cost of about 3 cents a cup, I think I can afford to do that. The true test is smelling gym shirt armpits and underwear, which after coming out of the wash (before being dried) smelled fine. So I think we will give this a go for a little while (and also, because we now have 3 gallons).

It makes me feel like a good wife, in an "I'm in ur kitchen, savin ur monies" sort of way.

Snaps for B

2008-02-29T14:20:50Z

I would like to give a shout-out to my fabulous little sister, B, who is currently teaching at a convent in Bangladesh. I am lucky if I get to talk to her every couple of weeks, and even so there is no guarantee that my call will get through (apparently there is a dearth of cell switches in Dinajpur) and it takes nigh on 6 weeks to ship of box of anything to her over there. So mostly I send cards, emails are no good because she shares a computer with like 200 other people and it seems to break down every day. I wish I could just ship her an extra computer but it would probably take 10 years to get there. The US postal service lies like a rug, they say it will take 10-14 business days but once it gets to Dhaka it's out of their hands and I'm pretty sure that my packages just sit around waiting for the next rickshaw to Dinajpur, which comes like once every billion days or something like that. Also, I'm pretty sure that they open the packages and scan through them, so this time the joke will be on them because I put some nice silky ladies underwear right at the top of the package so all those Bengali men will open it and blush bright red at the scandelous American undies.

Anyway, because she is my sister and I miss her, here are some photos of B's fabulous journey to Bangladesh. She has been there 3 months so far, and will be back for summer.

B in the rice fields.

B with some students.

One of her classes. Holy available men, batman! She says Bengali men are all marriage-minded and despite a huge language barrier, she has received several proposals. Lol.

Doing something with rice. I have to tell you, I'm not sure about what-all happens with rice before it gets to me. So I'm not sure what they're doing here.

Local bathtime. B is going to smell SO GREAT when she steps off that plane back in Boston. Mmm hmm.

Ever the musician, she learns some fancy drumming.

She has a gecko in her bedroom.

Cows in the street. Hey, it feels like home!

They hardly ever get to blog, but when they do if anyone cares to read about it they can do it here: http://bestfriendsjourney.wordpress.com/

:)

Roombafied

2008-02-25T00:03:19Z

One of our investments in 2007 was a Roomba. Usually M rolls his eyes at things I deem "household expenses", in a way that says to me "do you really NEED 20 Dobies, dear?" but since it is superhot robotic technology, buying a roomba was not a hard sell on him.

Since we got the furry ladies last summer, I have been vacuuming obsessively to keep the house spanking clean, and vacuuming everyday - it got old really fast. So now the roomba runs while we are at work, and it does a good job on the day to day, and I only need to run the big vacuum on weekends. I hate hate hate to see things on the floor, even one fuzzy. If anyone has been considering purchasing a roomba, I would highly recommend it (so long as your floors are mostly level and do not include any big jumps).

The early models are just floor sweepers, the later models are floor sweepers and vacuum cleaners. Get the later models.

It does equally well on carpet and hardwoods.

The cats do not like it, not at all. Tough noogies, they are the reason we have it and they will have to deal.

And now lets look at the roomba-necessitating subjects. Nellie curls into the guest bed like she is hiding, probably hiding from the roomba.

Pip sits in my shopping basket. Will you take me to the store?

They play fight in our bed. These guys wrestle like the WWE, I swear.

Fighting? Who, us?

Now I am campaigning for a Scooba.

Cheertastic

2008-01-21T14:09:11Z

In true decadence last night I was enjoying an excellent piece of made-for-television filmography - the 4th installment in the Bring It On franchise, entitled "Bring It On: In It To Win It". Yay! The actors are unheard of, the dialogue is stilted, the costumes get sluttier every movie (and I don't know where moviemakers get the idea that everyone cheers with their hair loose, anyway, couldn't be further from the truth) - but I still have a real weakness for the Bring It On movies. In true Star Wars form, of course numbers 1 and 3 are the best. They are totally cheertastic!

Anyway, for me it is always a throwback to college cheerleading days, although in my experience actual college cheer is nothing like what is depicted in Bring It On. I tried to dig up a photo or two of me in collegiate glory - this is me about 15 pound lighter, 5 shades redder hair, in either of my first two years of college. Life only moves forward - but boy do things change.

I'm on the bottom of the 3rd stunt group, with a ponytail.

I'm in the middle with my hands on my hips.

Christmas Vacation in Key Largo

2008-01-08T01:47:27Z

It has taken a while to collect pictures from 3 cameras...and also I am bad at organizing photos. But here are some from our Christmas family vacation in the florida keys - Key Largo, Islamorada, and Key West are represented visually here. All in all it was a great trip, we saw some gorgeous things while snorkeling, and after doing it for 5 days straight I am snorkeled out! But it was so nice to be warm over Christmas and not freezing in NY or Boston.

We rented a house for the week in Key Largo. It was decently big and nice, looked like this. The benefit was that in addition to 2 full bathrooms, it had an outdoor shower. Perfect for all that post-snorkel sand and salt. Pardon my blurry picture.

Kitchen and dining area (though most of the time we ate outside on the porches)

Family room:

Bedroom for M and I...it was decent, had an attached bath which is handy.

It was much better than this hotel further down the keys that was advertising some very interesting accomodations.

On the way down we stopped for the day in the Everglades...where the big cats cross.

And we pose with a very large tree.

And with a national park sign. My family, we pose a lot.

We sit on swings and drink our milkshakes. It was pretty hot....so this was definitely a milkshake-every-day vacation!

The day after we got there we chartered a boat and started snorkeling the reefs. There are some very good ones (in very shallow waters) off the key largo oceanside coast. I love how blue the water stays. The turquoise water is where the white sand bottoms are, the dark green parts are the jagged reefs - so many interesting things come in and out.

The boat really plows along. Wind in your hair, and all that.

I am really awful at taking water pictures. But this is a whole mass of jellyfish. They have a pretty weak sting so they were ok to swim with....but we were always on the lookout for man-o-wars.

M and I are snorkeling fiends! Ok, M is a fiend and I try my best to keep up. I was just PETRIFIED of swimming with the barracuda and M had to hold my hand like a baby through the water. Barracuda just look so ill tempered and nasty all the time, they frighten me.

The rest of my family, they are snorkeling fiends too. Mom is taking the picture.

We spent one day down at Bahaia Honda, doing offshore snorkeling (my favorite) and playing in the sandbar. The water was so warm, like a huge public hot tub.

We have lots of time to goof around.

Why do they always fight me on cheerleading style photos? They always look fun in the end.

The day after Christmas we chartered a private boat - we got a great deal from a guy we met at the church we found. He took us out all day long to some amazing private reefs for a shamefully low cost. We never would have found those reefs on our own, probably! We did some fishing as well, catching grunt fish and marlin and almost some barracuda.

Fishing is fun.

The water is so beautiful and sparkly. Up in Boston the ocean is perpetually dark, grey, and murky.

M is a brave water lover willing to dive off the platform of the boat. Into jellyfish water where he saw a shark? Not for all the gold in china would I dive in like that.

On Christmas day we drove down to Key West...where there is always a party. And this was no exception. Even on Christmas morning, the moped guy was 100% smashed. We got quite a deal on mopeds after signing our life away for it.

I am a decent moped-woman, though I am usually slow. Safe, I call it. B and C ran around like wild people on their mopeds.

We went all the way to mile marker 0 on Route 1!! Seeing as how we drive Route 1 in Boston, it was such a change it required a photo.

We had dinner on the boardwalk in Key West and stayed late till all the lights came on. Those people know how to party for sure. :)

All in all it was an excellent vacation, though we really missed Nellie and Pip.

Gone, gone, gone.

2008-01-04T00:09:28Z

Last night we had dinner with babyfevertime and family, to say goodbye to them as they move from Boston to Kansas. They have left us a fish tank and fish as a parting gift (or maybe a we-cant-take-a-fish-tank-in-the-car gift). As a child I never had a best friend move away....but now I understand how it feels!

Here are some pictures of me with sweet baby June - next time I see her she will probably have doubled in size!

So now our to-do list for 2008 includes making new friends (le sigh) and allocating time and money for flights to Kansas. I can't wait to visit, their new house is so huge and awesome that I can have my very own kitchen while visiting.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-18T01:53:43Z

My MIL sent this to me....in a rare tradition, I found it worthy of a chuckle.

To All My Democrat Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.
I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Inspired by adr0ck and worthy1

2007-12-08T18:09:13Z

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Ran a 10k, got our own pets, bought a new car.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Yes - I did resolve to run more, and I did, and since we've already gotten a jump start on resolutions for 2008 I think we'll make it to those, too.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! It was a very exciting birth year. Besides my local friends Christy, Helen, and Kim, my online friends Jana, Ashley and Katy did too. This has been an awesome year for having babies.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thankfully, no. Although my brothers cat Anna had to be put down in July, after 15 wonderful years of cat life in our family.

5. What countries did you visit?
Boy I am boring this year. Only the USA, I haven't even been to Cananda!

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
I would like to have more privacy at home. I think multi-family housing is not for me anymore.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
11/5/2007 - Our first anniversary!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Despite all the negativity at work, I have had a few books come out this year that I'm really proud of. Panoramas in particular.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Failure also comes at work, I think. Failure to work for change, failure to stand up for myself, failure to persistently ask for things. It has not served me well.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I suffered miserably from an allergic reaction brought on by a new pair of jeans. It was an ichy, scaly, bleeding mess. I looked like a leper. ALWAYS WASH YOUR NEW JEANS BEFORE WEARING.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Exercise bikes, a food processor, a new car. All very useful.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
I would have to say Matt's - in the areas I lack, he is so consistent, so strong, and he works to get me where I need to be.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Hmm, probably my brother Cam - what is wrong with him, for real. Good looks and charm will not get him through college and they will not get him through life either. Put down the computer games and go to class, dude.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Living expenses, savings. It feels good to have been really able to work on saving this year. It feels good to get ahead rather than just getting by.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
We got really, really, really excited about getting kittens! It has been so long since I've had a kitten and they are just the sweetest things.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Cobrastyle - by the TeddyBears

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
About the same? I was pretty happy (outside of work) last year and I'm pretty happy (outside of work) now.

ii. thinner or fatter?
About the same! That is an accomplishment, I porked up last january and packed on 10 or 15 lbs, and over the past several months have managed to lose most of it. I may have a pound or two left but lets not quibble.

iii. richer or poorer?
Richer in every sense. Last year we had just come off paying for a wedding and honeymoon and were pretty broke!

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Proactively seeking out ways to learn things at work

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Helping Judith with her stuff - that is a lot of effort invested in a friendship where nothing will ever come out of it.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Snorkeling in Key Largo! Actually on Christmas Day we're looking for a community service project to hook up with down there so we can do some volunteering on that day when all the touristy stuff is closed.

21. What LJ users did you meet for the first time?
Newly met LJers include: Ashley (adr0ck), and Delilah (cemeterygates). I hope to meet more in 2008.

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
I did...with this chocolate brown corner sofa. Alas, it was out of my league and for now I can only worship from afar. But one day I will have the courage (and money) to make it mine.

23. How many one-night stands?
None? That I remember.

24. What was your favourite TV program?
I enjoyed Heroes this year.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Sadly, yes. Judith. It's been really difficult.

26. What was the best book you read?
The Overspent American

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I discovered how to read my ipod in Japanese. Awesome!

28. What did you want and get?
A Christmas vacation, kittens, a Roomba, and a new mattress set.

29. What did you want and not get?
A new chocolate brown sofa :(

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
Was the last James Bond movie still 2007? If so, then that. I could look at Daniel Craig all day long.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 25 and we went out for a nice dinner and a nice jog. Tuesday birthdays are not great for rocking it out.

32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Having more success at work?

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
More is.....more.

34. What kept you sane?
Stable home life, Matt, Unwavering responsibilities.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Daniel Craig?

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Tax reforms, Immigration

37. Who did you miss?
I miss my sister! She has had a busy first year teaching and we haven't seen each other much.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Christy and Andy and June? I know we met before 2007 but over the past year they have become really good friends that we love to hang out with. Making couples friends is difficult so it's easy to really appreciate the ones you have! As part of that family June can count as the best brand-spanking-new person I've met in 2007. It doesn't get much newer than that, folks.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
You feel like you don't have enough? It's almost certainly not true. BUY LESS STUFF.

Chicago Thus Far

2007-11-22T16:20:32Z

So we have been playing tourist for a few days in Chicago, at this point it's Thanksgiving so we're pretty much done and just hanging around with family from here on out. God has blessed gifted tortured us with some awful weather yesterday, it was cold and windy and raining. M says, "what did you expect in Chicago in November, sun and palm trees?" Well no, but still.

I was super pumped to see this theater, M performed here as a child in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and he has the greatest memories of it. (Or so he tells me).

We went to see the big tree and the Walnut Room at Macy's. It is a very tall Macys so I couldn't resist a photo looking down. The great thing about being an obvious tourist is that I don't give a damm what people see me taking pictures of.

Best part of the day - we stopped in the Merchandise Mart to meet up with my excellent lj friend adr0ck!! I just love to meet good peeps from eljay and I know like 80% of my friendslist in person so that is just excellent. I am pleased to report that adr0ck was extremely friendly, helpful, and petite. I do feel like a tall giant next to so many of my friends (and occasionally my husband.....). Touring the merchandise mart was excellent; I love to look at posh kitchens and expensive bathrooms and whatnot. It was so excellent that I dragged M back later that day to do the full tour. The Kohler store has so many fun things to play with, I could look at odd bathtub faucets all day long. :) M took this photo of adr0ck and I.

We met up with our excellent friend Adlai (the dude who introduced M and I) and went to this "awesome place" that M remembered from his childhood, Ed Debevic's. I am starting to see a trend that all the "awesome places" from M's childhood are burger joints, like Ed Debevics or Portillo's. The waitstaff at this place is actually quite rude and it unnerved me. They made me wear a stupid hat and that unnerved me as well. There were hardly any kidney beans in my chili and that too was unnerving (what the heck else would be in chili....) and the waitstaff danced on the table with their dirty shoes on and that was the final unnerving straw.

All in all it was a tasty lunch but it was so unnerving that it took me a while to get into the swing of things and enjoy it. I am not used to being told "shut up" by the waitstaff. Ironically, we left a large tip.

As you walk down the street, there is a sign that advertises Ed Debevics - I like this sign and I think I want one for my front yard.

Then we walked around and saw some more things. Chicago is already decorated for Christmas (Boston is tardy in that, I guess) and the T-stops are embellished with trains. I like them.

Despite the miserable weather, we spent some time at the end of the day walking the Magnificant Mile. I honestly expected it to be a little more magnificant than it was, it is really just an endless mecca for shopping. But it's all chain store shopping, so it really does not compare to Newbury street, though people told me it did. I sort of think it is a little depressing how many malls are around out here, it is really a land built for shopping. I don't so much love shopping so the magnificant mile is not high on my list for next time. You know what IS high on my list? There is a river tour on the Architecture of Chicago that runs in the summer, it goes along the river and details all the old buildings and new buildings and what went into each one and the landscape and stuff like that. That tour sounds AWESOME and I will leave everyone else to their shopping while I do that. We will be back in July for M's sisters wedding so I'm looking forward to seeing more cool things then.

One GOOD thing about the Magnificant Mile is that we passed Garett's Popcorn. Upon recommendation from deemystified and worthy1 I stopped and bought some, it is really super tasty. In fact, in my thanksgiving morning laziness I had some with breakfast this morning.

This is me in my pjs, wearing my spiffy ed debevics hat and eating my garetts popcorn. I could survive just fine in Chicago, y/n??

We are headed off now to meet family for Thanksgiving and help with some cooking. This is my first thanksgiving with ALL the in-laws (years previous we have just done it with M's mother) so I am excited to meet and greet people I don't see very often. Happy Thanksgiving to All. :)