Chicago!

16497 miles, 46 different license plates, 7 Chicago style hot dogs, 1 Chicago deep dish pizza , 2 Pearl Jam concerts, 1 and 3/4 jumbo bags of gummy bears, 4 souvenir pencils, 4 souvenir magnets, 2 souvenir Christmas ornaments, several postcards and such, countless spottings of Clark’s name on street signs, 1 boat ride, several bus/train/trolley rides.

Our summer vacation destination this year was...Chicago! We picked it because I had been to Chicago several times for business, but Paul had never been. I thought there were a lot of cool things to do there and it would be fun to explore as a family. Plus, we loved our city vacations in Boston and Toronto. Then, in early spring, Pearl Jam announced they’d be playing two shows at Wrigley Field this summer. Clearly, it was written in the stars! Hotel booked (even before tickets secured), tickets bought, dates saved. As when we went to Michigan 4 years ago, this was a long road trip vacation. We departed on a Wednesday and the first day drove to Cleveland. We really didn’t get to see much of Cleveland-ate dinner out, drove along the waterfront in the morning, and marveled at what a small city it was. On Thursday we finished the drive to Chicago, arriving mid/late afternoon. We checked in to our downtown Hampton Inn (which I highly recommend-great location, nice staff, fantastic daily complimentary breakfast, and we swam and used the sauna daily) and hopped on to the free trolley to go to Navy Pier. It was dusk when we went up the 200 foot ferris wheel and oh! what a sight! What a wonderful first night view to see the city and its skyline, as well as Lake Michigan.

There were a lot of things for these East coasters to remark upon being in this big midwestern city and one of them for sure is Lake Michigan. We really can’t get over how vast it is and how it looks like the ocean. We ended the evening with dinner at the chichi Boho House.
The next morning we headed out to the Art Institute of Chicago. Our hotel was situated just a couple blocks north of the river, so it was a charming and easy walk (right under the famous corncob buildings!) to Millenium Park, and then the art museum. We all couldn’t wait to see the Cloud Gate sculpture (aka The Bean.) It was even cooler than expected (even on a grey day) and much picture taking ensued.

Once we got to the museum we headed straight for a much anticipated highlight-The Thorne Rooms. These are 68 miniature rooms representing in perfect teeny detail various rooms in various periods of time and place in European and American history. I had first read about them in the children’s book, The Sixty-Eight Rooms. (As I was the only one who’d read this series we brought the audiobook to listen to. It’s a wonderful story where children shrink and go in the rooms and then time travel.) These little rooms in perfect detail are just amazing. It’s so easy to get lost in them, imagining being in them, and marveling at the craftsmanship.

After that it was on to the other anticipated famous works of art the institute is known for.

As with tromping around any art museum, we were tired and cranky at the end. Time for our first Chicago style hot dog! I’m going to state right here that my preferred hot dog style is a hot dog in a bun with ketchup on it. And I don’t like mustard. Or really relish. Or tomatoes. But I am game to try most foods and this is iconic. (And I loved that weird Norwegian hot dog with all the stuff on it.)We did pick the hot peppers off, though. I didn’t take jumbo bites, but I did enjoy it. I especially like the poppy seed buns. That evening we ate at a thoroughly weird well known place called Portillo’s.
The next day, Saturday, it was on to another Chicago landmark-the Sears Tower (or, as it is properly called now the Willis Tower.) We walked there and saw a surprising fun sight as we walked past the Cook County Courthouse (9am on a Saturday) dozens of couples and families lined up to get married! What a festive feeling on the block!
The tower was cool, though if I’m being honest it’s like any other spectacularly tall tower (CN Tower, I’m looking at you.) The view was SPECTACULAR (and it was even not the clearest day), stepping on to the glass was nerve wracking, and the facts and maps were interesting.

We were smugly pleased when we departed to see that now the wait to get in was significantly longer than when we arrived. We continued our vacation-good luck-and-timing streak when we we left and walked back north to the river. Turns out tickets were available for the architecture boat tour we wanted to take for a tour leaving in 10 minutes-perfect! After a long walk it was nice to sit on a lovely boat and enjoy a 75 minute tour along the Chicago River learning all about the different buildings as well as Chicago history.

This was such a neat way to see things in the city we wouldn’t have otherwise and I highly recommend this popular tourist activity. At this point we were quite hungry and the good luck continued because although I’ve been to Chicago several times, for some reason or other I’ve never eaten at Frontera Grill or Topolobompo and I’ve always wanted to. Well, turns out there is another Rick Bayless outpost called XOCO and it was a block down from our hotel. And to make matters even better, it was kind of late for lunch and there was actually adorable outdoor seating available for us! We had an amazing lunch. After that it was time to relax and swim before Paul and I went out to Pearl Jam concert #1. I think I need a separate concert post.. So suffice to say it was awesome and let’s move on to Sunday. {Here’s the post on the concerts.}
Sunday’s weather was lovely and we probably should have gone to the beach, but instead we took the train to the Shedd Aquarium. Initially I had wondered if we needed to go to an aquarium when we have one nearby us and it didn’t seem especially “Chicago.” But Paul pointed out that we all really enjoy them and why not? Good thinking, Paul. And this was indeed a really lovely one. It is situated near the Field Museum and Planetarium and sits right on the water. It was a gorgeous setting and the building was really cool. Check out the ceiling of the grand foyer.
Check out the view from where the black crested dolphins and Beluga whales swim.

Vacation good luck for this outing: the Air and Boat Show was happening this weekend and while we took a break on a shaded outside patio we could see Blue Angels or some such aerial display happening. [And while I didn’t have quite as stellar a prep moment as the infamous Watkins Glen poncho situation, my second best would be that I visited the Trader Joe’s next to the subway stop when we got off and bought snacks that I managed to stuff into my big purse so nobody could be cranky or hungry and we didn’t need to have a full lunch from the cafe. So, sitting on a beautiful lakeside patio eating a big bag of TJ’s cheesy poofs was a lovely moment.]
Afterward I insisted we walk along the lake curving around the building. I couldn’t get over how it’s just a wide sidewalk with the water lapping over the edge.

Many people were out and about walking and biking and enjoying the lake views. Members of our party were at this point overtired and droopy so I ran and fetched more Chicago hot dogs and restorative Cokes.
That evening we tried Chicago style deep dish pizza. No one was converted into a fan. Perhaps it was the place (I thought that the pie was undercooked), but really I think I just want a thin crust and my cheese melted over the top.
Monday was on to another museum-this time the Museum of Science and Industry. We took the bus to get there and this museum was quite a ways away from everything else. And the building was HUGE. And wonderfully old-fashioned. I was so puzzled. Until we found out this is where the Chicago World’s Fair was in 1893! It all made sense. And was pretty cool to learn, when we watched the Tesla coil be fired off, that Tesla himself had been in that building in 1893 basically doing the same thing. This was a great science museum. We especially enjoyed the mirror maze. 

By the way, because we did so many of these main attractions we opted to purchase a CityPass, which saved a tiny bit of money, got us some extras, and got us fast entrance into all the places. Well worth it.
That night was Pearl Jam concert #2. It had been grey and off an on rainy all day with 100% chance of rain that night so there was some apprehension about what would happen. More on that in the concert post..

Tuesday was our last full day and we used it to just do things we wanted to do extra, such a nice brunch out at Yolk, one more visit to the Bean

, a little shopping excursion into Blick, and walking up the Michigan Ave to the American Girl Place. Tabby and I had a lovely time exploring it and engaging in all the historical doll exhibits. (Paul was with us though I don’t know if he had a lovely time. Clark chose to stay in the hotel room.) We were delighted to find out that walking just three more blocks brought us to an actual beach. Finally! We got to get up close to Lake Michigan!The red flags were up because the waves were so rough the lifeguard couldn’t get his boat out (he explained to us.)  Waves! Actual breaking waves. It was so fascinating. It looked like the ocean but the air didn’t smell or feel salty. We waded in but afterwards our legs were easily clean and dry (no salt sticking.) There were waves but they didn’t behave like ocean waves. It was very cool and also very interesting to have this be right at the edge of the city and completely accessible. It was wonderful. After that it was a long walk back and then we had an early dinner out.
The next day we packed our bags and said goodbye to Chicago. We did do one additional stop on our way out of town: a trip to Nuts on Clark, which was up by Wrigley Field. We drove over, made Clark have some pictures taken, bought delicious nuts and popcorn, and then exited the city by driving all along Lakeshore Dr, which wasn’t the way we arrived so it was a beautiful way to leave.
Many hours in the car and made it to Pennsylvania. Rural PA, some place I never heard of, but Paul had found an inexpensive room that looked good and he said it seemed like there was an interesting animal place nearby we would want to look at. Well. It turned out that the Log Cabin Lodge and Suites was in fact a part of the Living Treasures Wild Animal Park and it was weird and fascinating and we could hear the lion making noise from our (quite nice and spacious and had bunk beds) room. We were all eager to get home but couldn’t pass up going into the animal park and oh boy are we glad we did. We were the first people in and we had a big bag of food that you can feed the animals. Chickens and geese wandered the grounds. We walked over to an enclosure with red kangaroos. They woke up and saw us and all came right over. We could just stick our hands right through the fence and feed and pet them and they loved it.

The whole place was like that-just go right ahead and touch and pet and feed the animals. [disclaimer: I was a bit apprehensive about a place like this. is this just some guy into keeping exotic animals as pets? are they cared for well? it’s definitely not like a big zoo with an emphasis on education and conservation. In the end I concluded that the only animals I thought shouldn’t be there were the pair of lions and tigers. All the other animals seemed to be living a pretty happy life.] It was great to kind of be “first in line” going around the route because we had the animals to ourselves. We fed and pet bison, camels, kangaroos, golden pigs, all kinds of goats (one of which Clark encountered on a path, it seemed to have just climbed out) and sheep and little donkeys and horses. It was a really fun start to the day. And after that, just 4 1/2 more hours in the car and we were reunited with our very own petting zoo. It was so wonderful to see Willow and all our other pets again. The flowers were blooming like crazy at home, the pool was nice and clear and cool, and it was good to be home.

An exhausting and wonderful vacation!!

 

 

 

School’s Out!!

Yesterday was the last day of school. I said to the kids as we pulled up to school that the perfect metaphor would be a car that had a dragging bumper, scratches on the side, door hanging from a hinge, lights out, and was scraping up to the drop off. We made it! Goodbye to 7th and 4th grades.  And that marks the end of my second full year! It’s definitely a bittersweet time of year. I loved signing many of the 5th graders yearbooks and got some very sweet notes from students. The past month has been filled with things at work, but also on our weekends we’ve been busy. Tabby and I went to Camporee with our Girl Scouts and I climbed a telephone pole (super hard) and jumped off it (super fun-it’s like a gentle bungee); we celebrated Father’s Day by joining some other Boy Scouts for a “six mile paddle on the river” that turned out to be twice that and many hours more than planned and we all got horrible sunburns and were so tired we had to scrap the plans for the rest of the day and go out to dinner; on the eve of the last day of school we went to see The Incredibles 2 and it was wonderful and we all loved it just as much as the first (which is a family favorite); we hosted our favorite doggie, Harry, for a few days while my mom attended my niece’s high school graduation (the first of our kids); we went to Bethlehem in the rain and brought the kids to a David Wax Museum concert, which was great; we enjoyed watching our “chicks” turn into 11 pullets and 1 gigantic friendly rooster-he was called Carlotta, but now he’s Carl; attending a multicultural festival where we heard great music, ate great food, and learned about Sikhs and all got turbans tied; and basically let the house go to ruin so now the first days of summer vacation will be spent cleaning.

I have so much I want to do all summer long: clean out the basement, clean the house, sew sew sew, exercise, take the dog on long regular walks, and write. We’ll see…

A Look Back at 2017

Happy New Year! Boy, all it takes for me to consider not doing this is going back and reading the previous year’s. And then I realize how nice it is to have a recap and yes, yes! I will take time on this first day of 2018 to look back at 2017 and find the positive in it.

Just like 2015 and 2016 Paul and I continued to see a lot of concerts together.  In the summer we trekked out to the Mann Center for a few outdoor shows: Sigur Ros, Fleet Foxes, and Belle & Sebastian.  We had seen Sigur Ros at Radio City Music Hall previously and this was a different experience being outdoors, but still intense and otherworldly and spectacular. This time closer seats let us admire their instruments. Ditto Belle & Sebastian (as in, we’d also seen them at RCMH, and this time we had close seats.)  We went to see the Flaming Lips at the Fillmore and while Paul is the fan, not me, I loved it and it lived up all I’d heard. Wayne Coyne rode a unicorn into the audience and also walked around in a giant hamster ball atop the crowd.  We’ve seen Barenaked Ladies many times before, but this spring due to a weather situation we ended up seeing them in a pretty small indoor venue, which made it extra fun.  A big spring highlight for me was seeing The Decemberists. I pinned a lot of high hopes on this concert because a. it was at the Fillmore (so it would be different than the Academy of Music show) and b. I hoped to hear some stuff we hadn’t heard live yet.  The show was fantastic and they did in fact play an awesome song I didn’t think they’d do.  We also saw an up and coming band Paul likes a lot called Pinegrove in a the world’st hottest basement ever. [I’m going to break up this lengthy text with a concert photo collage!]  Lez Zeppelin was an awesome treat at the tiny Sellersville Theater.  At a local outdoor festival we saw the hip band Red Baraat.  Perhaps my favorite show of the summer was seeing rock icon Blondie, with Garbage. Both were amazing. How had I missed listening to Garbage? I was smitten with Shirley Manson. And Debbie Harry just blew me away. She was incredible. In the fall we took Tabby to see Katy Perry! She is a great entertainer and we had a terrific time. We also saw the band Alvvays (super), Regina Spektor (beautiful voice, even though I got sleepy several times), and Rodrigo y Gabriela (crazy good.)  We were excited to see Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile and they were fantastic.  We finished the year by seeing Darlingside at the South Orange Performing Arts Center–a place much closer than our usual, very small, we had second row, and it was a wonderful way to end the year. They have the most beautiful harmonies and songs and seem like all around nice people (we met them afterward.)
We also saw some shows with the family and some non concert things:
Cirque Eloize (an amazing show of cirque and music, this had a saloon theme), our favorite fellow Seth Meyers, Taj Express (A Bollywood musical),  Pippin (my favorite musical, Paul got tickets for my birthday, and this production was outstanding), Water on Mars (the most fascinating and entertaining juggling I’ve ever seen),  Golden Dragon Acrobats, and Shaolin Warriors.    I’d say we were certainly well entertained in 2017! Looking at it written out it makes it seem like we’re never at home! I will say that after we’d secured tickets for Darlingside and Courtney Barnett, and First Aid Kit (in 2018) I announced that I was done with concerts.  That completed my list of singers and bands I really wanted to see live and really next year I just need to see Guster if (when) they come around again, and obvs. I wouldn’t pass up seeing Pearl Jam. So, we’ll see. Oh, and we have tickets for the Foo Fighters.

As for house and garden….well. No vegetable garden at all this year. We removed our raised beds and returned that area to grass (or, are trying to.) I did miss having my own grown things, so I think we need to make a plan for this spring about what we will grow and how and where we will grow it.  Our well covering fell down and we actually really liked the way it opened up our view of the rose bushes and butterfly garden.  And I got to grow my beloved Heavenly Blue morning glories up the trellis and they were spectacular. Our milkweed was part of the monarch butterfly life cycle, which made us very happy.And of course the roses and peonies and coneflower were beautiful. In fact, the coneflowers had a banner year and were host to many insects, birds, butterflies, and moths. In the coop things did not go well this year.  A fox (?) ravaged the population on one unfortunate night the gate was left open.  We are left with 3 young roosters and 4 hens. Of those hens two of them (silver seabright and buff orpington) are FIVE years old.  One of the hens did hatch a chick this fall, so we do have an 8th bird. Unclear if it’s a hen or rooster yet. Our flock is so sad and diminished and we weren’t sure what we wanted to do in terms of getting more birds–chicks in the spring? seek out pullets? We decided to wait until til spring. Gordon continues to live with them, though he was pretty sad (I think) that his beloved hen, Tree Bird, perished. He suffered an indeterminate “traumatic eye injury” (a chicken pecking? a thorn?) which required a vet visit and two weeks of oral antibiotics (which was a real treat to administer twice daily, let me tell you). He is all healed up nicely now and hopping around as usual, though he has likely lost some vision in that eye.
In other animal news, in late summer we welcomed two new guinea pigs as permanent fosters. Samson and Louie are adorable and lively and big! We love seeing Louie jump on top of his igloo, which he does all the time.And just a couple of weeks ago we said a fond farewell to dear Blackie. She was 5 1/2 and had a good long life. Although we weren’t with her when she passed away (it was during the day), it appears to have been a peaceful slipping away. R.I.P. Blackie, I hope you’re enjoying an afterlife with Nibbles.
2017 began poorly for our cat Sweetie, when accidentally left home and was gone for a solid month. We were so sad, canvassing the neighborhood, unable to find her, sure she was gone forever.  In February a hot tip from a neighbor led us less than 1/4 mile away and we were able to retriever her. Yeah!! Her month away made her get skinny (i.e. normal weight) but she was otherwise fine and super happy to be home. I don’t think she stopped purring for two weeks. On the other hand Liesl was super annoyed and mean to her for quite a few months. They are finally back to sometimes snuggling and at least no longer hitting. And Sweetie is back to being…large.As with last year my beloved hobbies took a hit. No homemade gifts, much less sewing, etc. However, just a couple weeks ago I finished the last of the courses I’d been taking at Rutgers (graduate, online, not getting an additional degree, getting a new certificate.) I’ve been taking classes ever since I started my job and I have to say I feel like a huge burden is lifted. No longer will I spend weekends doing assignments and projects! So, I feel like there is nothing to hold me back from getting back into doing the things I like. I will just work my normal job and have my normal family life. Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!

That said, I did manage to do one quilt start to finish, and it was a pattern I’d really wanted to do and I loved how everything came out. The Pinwheel Quilt!  I also finished in February the Christmas scrap quilt (it was really a 2016 project, just finished off at the start of 2017.) We did indeed love snuggling under it this season.

I also finished embroidering this towel finally, which apparently I will mostly use for photo-ops 🙂My Flickr is no longer kept up to date very well, and everything is on Instagram, and I no longer have those great “food” “sewing” annual sets.  But I have still done ample cooking/baking/photographing.  I’m scattering some favorite pics throughout this post. Here’s one more:

One big event this year (either terrible news or good news, depending on how you look at it) is that during the ’16-’17 winter we did not have heat as our furnace had broken.  We replaced it with a new furnace and conversion from oil to natural gas.  The project was completed in spring, just as the weather turned warm. It was not until this fall that we really got to turn the heat on and enjoy it.

Our big travel this year was a summer vacation to New Hampshire. It was a bit of a haul to get there, but oh man it was my dream vacation. A cabin (that left a lot to be desired), along a lake, with paddleboards and kayaks and canoes and loons (it was where On Golden Pond takes place!) There was reading and board games and swimming and floating and I loved it.

We began the year with a visit to my brother and his family in Vermont, and we also hit two theme parks this year-Hersheypark (on a day with pouring rain, which was awesome-no lines!)  and Great Adventure.

A super special trip for me was a weekend away with three dear friends. Our last trip together had been 15 years ago–to Iceland! We booked a lovely house in the Berkshires, near Stockbridge. We had a great weekend where we never ran out of time for all the talking we like to do about books. Plenty of wine, great food, and a surprisingly powerful trip to the Normal Rockwell Museum. 

January was also the historic Women’s March, happening all across the country.  I participated by going to a NJ one in Trenton. It was a powerfully moving day and I felt inspired that intelligence, common sense, and decency would someday prevail. Unfortunately the past few months that feeling has been waning. It’s been a tough year and I still can’t believe the things happening in our country.

Here are some assorted moments/memories:
Doing a fun photo shoot with the guinea pigs and having the horrifying event of a garter snake slithering across Tabby’s leg (we were traumatized)
Clark and Tabby riding the Wildcat roller coaster six times in a row
Getting maximum enjoyment out of our small pop up above ground pool, making whirlpools and filling the whole thing with rafts, and floating and looking out at the fields
Eating giant ice cream “snowballs” in New Hampshire
Watching Tabby become a confident baker who made us many tasty treats
Dinner out in New Hampshire when a lovely waitress spilled all our drinks on me and we ended up laughing and laughing
Watching Tabby perform in the Wizard of Oz at the 4H Fair
Watching Clark change his hair color to dramatic shades of red and blue (he also got braces this year and surpassed me in height)
Tossing rocks and dirt clods into the dried grasses of the meadow for Willow, who pounces like a fox
Listening to Paul on WDVR FM be a dj for an hour and playing a fantastic selection of music with commentary (my wish for him is that he look into having a regular show…)
My mom’s new dog, Harry
Getting Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and seeing Clark spend most of the year absorbed in that world
Many many off leash walks with Willow at the nearby meadow watching her run and leap and chase and jump and be a happy dog. At 2 1/2 years old and 85 lbs she is a solid full grown dog now.

and the #1 good surprising thing of 2017…Paul winning a Wawa sweepstakes! Wawa for life! (ok, not life, but a good long while.)
Here’s my other annual post: Top Ten Books of the Year.
A very happy new year to all! May 2018 bring adventure and also contentment.

Signing off with one of my favorite self-portraits of the year,
Sarah

Live Free or Die (a vaguely threatening motto…

Our much anticipated summer vacation has come and gone and it was wonderful! This year we went to New Hampshire, where I’ve never actually stayed before and neither has Paul. Frankly we just hoped that we’d picked a place that would be pretty, have a few things to do, not too much, have some ice cream nearby, and we’ve both relax and have fun together. We picked a place off of VRBO, which not knowing anything about the area, was kind of difficult. But guess what? Our vacation luck streak continues! It turns out we had chosen a popular (but not wild) outdoorsy area of the lakes region. Little Squam Lake was an offshoot of the big Squam Lake, and the whole thing was surrounded by woods. Not only that but it’s where On Golden Pond was filmed! As soon as I heard that I started listening and looking for loons. We never saw any, but one night around 3am I heard them!!! I was very excited by that and woke up Paul so he could listen too. We heard them the next night as well. Our Little Squam Lake area was perfect-we had access from our cabin to a small beach shared by a couple other houses. The lake here was very shallow and not too big. We could just step onto the paddleboards and take off, or kayak, or swim, or canoe. From the water, looking toward the shore:
The water was unbelievably crystal clear, and even though there were rushes and water lilies, it was not murky or icky. The water was like a mirror. I even found it delightful that there were turtles: The whole little lake area was a no wake zone and we enjoyed kayaking all down it and checking out all of the lake houses and boats along it. At the other end was a covered bridge and once you went through that you were into the big lake, which was very big and people waterskiied and the like on it and could drive their boats fast. On our last day we hiked up a mountain to a spectacular view of the whole Squam Lake (and Little Squam, etc.) and this is what it looked like:

We ate plenty of ice cream. We were especially enamored of something called a “Snowball” which was a scoop of ice cream rolled in toasted coconut and hazelnuts, sitting on hot fudge and topped with whipped cream. I was happy to read a few books, and we even played enough games to satisfy me. And we had a couple of outings too. In addition to the hike we also spent a whole afternoon at the Squam Lake Natural Science Center,an evening at the “world’s largest arcade” (Funspot at Weirs Beach/Lake Winnipesaukee) and another morning at the Polar Caves. The whole caves thing was reminiscent of Bushkill Falls–a natural geologic feature turned into a family attraction. In this case it was a series of caves in this mountain. I opted out of 3 of the caves, including the “Lemon Squeezer” and “Orange Crush.” One of the caves was called “Fat Man’s Misery.” There were definitely some tight and narrow spots, but none of us got stuck or freaked out.

All in all, it was a terrific week away!

A Retro Day

Last week I saw a listing on Freecycle for a girl’s banana seat bicycle. Tabby has always been in thrall of them from me talking about how great they were when I was a kid, so I jumped on this. I picked it up on Thursday and it’s lovely and in great shape. A pink Schwinn with the flowers on the seat still looking good, the chrome shined up nicely, and it fits her. She has been having such a great time with it. Yesterday we went to the park to ride it (alas, after all the effort of putting the bike rack on the car, filling my tires, wrestling the bikes on to it, getting to the park, wrestling the bikes off of it, I discovered that my rear tire was flat again and apparently has a hole in it.) Since I remember my own banana seat bike so fondly I hopped on to see if I cold pedal, even though it’s too small for me. I could! It was wonderful! Here’s a blurry pic Tabby took.
Our second retro event is sewing related. Last week I buckled down and sewed together the quilt top of the green and white giant pinwheel quilt. I am really pleased overall with my points (Here’s a perfect one, but they weren’t all perfect) and the overall look. For the backing I got the idea that a vintage green and white sheet would be perfect. Got on Etsy, found several to choose from, I especially liked one and it was only $15, which I certainly couldn’t buy 4 yards of fabric for, and ordered it on Friday. It arrived yesterday (so fast! 5 stars for that seller!) and it looks perfect. The greens actually match perfectly. I’m going to baste the quilt together today and then I need to figure out how to quilt up those vast white triangles.
Last week Tabby went to Girl Scout camp (day camp) and loved it. The camp has been closed a few years and just reopened this summer, so it was her first time. The week included a final overnight on the Thursday of the week, which she really enjoyed. After she returned Clark headed out early Saturday morning with his Boy Scout troop to go to Virginia for a week of camp. I’m sure he’s having a great time, though we do miss him. Paul, Tabby, and I are doing lots of movie nights of movies Clark never votes for her. First we watched Moana, then last night Tabby chose The Shaggy D.A., which was a hoot. Between the bike, the fabric, and the movie is was a full day of visiting the past!

Happy Summer!

It’s been a bit over two months since my last post, but I’m inspired to catch up-mostly because my dear friend and loyal reader said she missed it and today is her birthday, so here you go Perri! As a present to you I will be self centered and write all about my life 🙂 I think I will work backwards with the last few days. (*edit: it’s two days since I started this, so no longer her birthday, but there you go.)
Yesterday late afternoon I was thinking about the two fresh apricots I had bought and some leftover toasted almonds on my counter. I thought, “hmm…I bet that Thin Pear Tart I sometimes make in the winter would be a quick and tasty dessert with fresh apricots, and I even have the 2oz cream cheese necessary for the dough.” I easily whipped up the dough (this really is a quick and easy thing) and then saw that the apricots had rotted. No matter-the NJ blueberries are showing up at store and I had a few tasty pints in the fridge. I scattered blueberries across the top, baked, and voila!
Now, what else? Since that last post we’ve had Paul’s birthday

Father’s Day (I don’t have any cute pics of Paul and his human children, so here’s a very sweet picture of Paul and the kitty who adores him.)

The Last Day of School.  This is such a crazy event for me still and the whole last month of school felt so exciting and like we were barreling towards summer. I will really miss some of the students and it made me feel so good when many of them told me that they would miss me (our 5th graders are moving up to middle school.) I may have been even more excited than the kids for school to end. This was my first full year of teaching and hooray! I made it!! I like my job a lot, but was definitely ready for some resting and recharging, looking forward to plenty of time in the hammock and plenty of reading. [School got out June 23, today is July 4th, and I’ve read 7 books so far.]

Since summer has begun we haven’t done much of anything: reading, relaxing, kids playing with friends. I did sign up for tennis lessons through the rec dept. and am doing that with friends. We’ve only had 2 lessons so far, but I think we’re doing great! I even got together this morning just to play with someone. I know I’ll be even better when I can actually run to the ball. Presently I’m plagued by a painful knee situation. After being troubled by it for weeks I did go to the dr. and unfortunately the treatment is one of those slow and steady “do this exercise every day” things. It’s been a week and today it hurt all day long. Which is a total drag and makes me cranky.
I hosted a luau themed bunco, which was an excuse to make pina coladas and pull out a bunch of “tropical” recipes.

The main thing I’ve been itching to do since school let out is get into some sewing projects. I really do miss having the time to quilt or embroider (yes, I could do it in the evening, but I’m usually just needing to lie down in front of the tv), which is my creative outlet.I am hoping to make 2 quilts this summer. One is a giant pinwheel, which I got the pattern out of a book a long time ago. My pinwheel will be green and white, and I bought all the fabrics a couple months ago. I cut out the squares of green, but neglected to buy the background fabric, which I’ll be doing later this week.(*done! and I bought a hot pink for the binding, which will be a perfect accent.) The second is something I started a long time ago and then somewhat recently made a plan for. Like the pinwheel quilt it is all triangles (not my best shape-let’s see how many points line up!) and I bought the fabrics a few months ago. I sorted out the triangles today and made 5 blocks. I have a lot of pieces and have decided to NOT lay out the whole thing at once, but rather create a lot of blocks and then decide how they will be put together. My general guideline is that the center is a pair of peachy/coral and a pair of mushroom/taupe and the outer triangles are in the green/blue collection. But the pairs don’t necessarily have to match. I’m not even sure if it will all be put together just block after block after block, or if I’ll separate the blocks into concentric squares. I love all the fabrics I chose for it.

Finally, here’s a darling dishtowel I started, oh, years? ago. This was a set of retro style embroidery transfers, and I put this on a vintage style dishtowel. I think I got both at Walmart on the cheap. When I didn’t have a bigger project at our stitchathons I just worked idly on this. I basically forgot about it and came across it a couple of days ago noting that I only had the text left. What was I waiting for? Not only is it cute, but it would also be an adorable background for freshly baked bread that I’m taking a picture of for IG!

In the coop our numbers have continued to dwindle. A small sad flock remains. However! A hen finally went broody and last week chicks hatched. But it was a difficult week, there were deaths, and there is just one little chick. Let’s cross our fingers it grows up to be a hen, not a rooster. *update: the chick died yesterday. I found it lying on its side, dead. What gives? did a big chicken step on it? Not only that, but this morning it looked like something scratched up the dirt outside the coop gate. And the mother is missing. We are down to 4 hens and 3 roosters.

Willow just had her second anniversary of coming to us. Boy has she grown! We are so lucky to have her-she really is a marvelous dog.

In other dog news, my mom got a new dog! His name is Harry and he is adorable.
And today (2 days ago) is Blackie, our only remaining guinea pig, ‘s birthday. She is 5. I guess she’s at the far end of a guinea pig’s life span, but she still seems pretty spry. She even accommodated me for this birthday photo op.

We are not doing any vegetable gardening this year, save for lettuce and cilantro in a pot. Our peach tree is loaded with peaches and we hope at least a few will be edible. For the first time EVER the sad apple tree has apples on it- 3!

The flowers are in mad bloom and there are so many lovely colors everywhere. The coneflower has spread even more, making the front garden look almost cottage gardeny-just what I’ve always wanted. I’ve noticed that coneflower is also very popular with many different insects and butterflies and moths, so that’s good.

And, of course, peony season was tremendous and beautiful.

And as I type this we are getting ready to celebrate Clark’s birthday–#12! He is now officially taller than me by 1 1/2″.  Ok, that was also a couple days ago. The day was celebrated with many special meals and some fun at the arcade.

 

I think I’ve gotten some photo organization under control and hopefully will do more posts this summer that aren’t so long and rambling, but perhaps focused on one thing at a time. With that in mind-time to start sewing! (Of course it poured rain all morning and I cozied up with a book. Now the sun is out and it’s gorgeous and I probably SHOULD be doing outdoors things.)

Breaks, Birthdays, Etc.

It’s been two month since my last post, but I’m only focusing on a 2 week period here-spring break! My birthday! But I will give a quick follow up, to that last post about Sweetie. She’s been back for 2 months, put some weight on (but us not overweight like before) and all is usual. Except…Liesl went through a period of hissing and scratching at her. Also, where Sweetie was a food hog before, causing Liesl to leave whenever she went near the food dishes, Liesl stands her ground now while Sweetie sits and watches.  All that nasty behavior seemed to have tapered off and I was delighted to see them both on my bed the other day (though nowhere near each other.) But when Sweetie came closer to her and I was petting them both, Liesl hit her on the head and then left. So I guess she’s got some unresolved issues still.

We had a terrific and relaxing spring break a couple weeks ago. Boy, I could not wait for it. We didn’t plan a big trip or anything like that, but it was as least as long as our Christmas break, and more relaxing because there was not much to do. I feel refueled and ready to make it through the rest of the school year. Paul took the week off as well. On one lovely day we went to Bethlehem and enjoyed no festivals or events-just a relaxing brunch, hanging out in the bookstore, getting an ice cream on the Lehigh campus, and a stroll along Steel Stacks.

On another gorgeous day we headed to the beach.There were lots of people there! It was a very warm 80 degrees that day-except at the beach it was pretty chilly and everyone had to wrap up.
Other days the kids played with friends, we puttered in the yards, ran leisurely errands together, and so on.  The end of the week was a much anticipated concert-The Decemberists at the Fillmore. I have been looking forward to this concert since it was announced and was really excited. I love the band and we saw them 2 years ago at the Academy of Music. A great show, but that venue, while gorgeous and acoustically terrific, is hard to let loose in. The show was packed and there were, apparently, giants standing in our way, but it was still great. I was super excited that they played two songs I did not expect to hear (one of them I never thought they’d play but really wished it would be a concert song and I couldn’t believe it when it started.) It was awesome. A less awesome thing happened driving home on 95. A car came up behind us and on the left and sideswiped us. At 65 mph and then drove off. It was pretty scary and the entire side of the car is dented, scratched, and covered with their dumbass tire marks. And the mirror was torn off. I’m very grateful we weren’t hurt and the car still runs, but I’m pissed off that some asshole did that and we are the ones paying for repairs and left with a shitty looking car. (ten  scowly face emojis here.)
The vacation ended with a lovely Easter at my aunt Margaret’s. The kids took the canoe and rowboat out on their pond and I went for a row, too. It was so nice. For dessert I made a coconut cake that was really good. A very light and silky batter baked in a 9×13 pan, then soaked in a syrup overnight, then topped with whipped cream. Then it’s sprinkled with coconut on top and I decided to make mine in big flower shapes.Another thing we seemingly spent the entire vacation doing was reorganizing the basement and cleaning up our room by switching winter and spring clothes. One tiny and immensely satisfying part of that was sorting and storing in a new way all my cookie cutters. So I used a giant copper flower cutter to provide my coconut outline (which I was able to quickly and easily retrieve!)
For our own breakfast I baked a coffeecake that was a braided apricot nut bread. It came out great!
And then it was back to school, but the very next day was…my birthday! One of my most favorite days of the year! I had a great day starting with some marvelous cards and to-be-opened right then gifts. Paul got me the cutest, well, we can’t figure out what they are officially called. I had requested them. Those old-fashioned things you pin on a cardigan with a little chain in between? Cardigan clips? Sweater pins? Whatever, he got some adorable ones and I loved wearing one that very day. In the evening we had a great dinner. I had specifically requested (demanded) that this year my kids get on board with making me a homemade cake. I didn’t care if it was sloppy or came out poorly, I wanted something lovingly made just for me by them. This seemed to cause of lot of fretfulness and to my surprise they each made a cake. And each was wonderful.My mom joined us and it was  wonderful birthday.

Now, two other things. The first is very terrible–two nights ago we had the dreaded tragedy of a fox in the chicken coop. A bad combination of opening the gate and letting everyone out for the afternoon and then not locking them up. Usually if we forget to lock them up it’s actually not a big deal because the gate is always securely closed. But this time the gate was open. Out of our 17 birds, it took 8. Worst of all-only 2 were roosters. And the ones it took were our favorites-the two little emus, Baddie, and Tree Bird. Baddie and Tree Bird were the matched Mille Fleur pair we received as day old chicks 5 years ago (five years! They had nice long lives.) Baddie was a real jerk, for sure, but we had a soft spot for him. In his older age and diminished position in the pecking order, he rarely was feisty any more (though he had attacked me just a few days ago.) But Tree Bird. Oh, we adored her. She is the hen who was Gordon’s special friend. Here they were the week before:  He’s going to be very sad that she’s gone. She was super sweet and we’ll miss her. So now we are down to 9: 6 hens, 3 roosters. We could get chicks, but I think instead we should just see if anyone goes broody and let them.

In better news all the flowering bulbs and trees are looking great, the lilacs smell wonderful, the maple tree leaves have just come in, looking all yellow green, and it’s a pretty beautiful time of year.

Skibunnies and Vermont, but not together

A couple weeks ago we took a long (years long!) overdue visit to my brother’s family in Vermont. They had no snow, so there was no snow frolicking to be had, but plenty of nice hanging out. We visited my brother and sister-in-law’s workplaces, which were fascinating. He is at the most stereotypical dot-commy start-up  sort of place ever and she is at a maker space. Which for us meant we all played on the virtual reality set up they had. 
In all the times I’ve been to Vermont I’d never been to Ben & Jerry’s, so on Sunday afternoon we took a jaunt to there. It was bitterly cold out-just the sort of day for tasting ice cream! The tour is actually very short, so it’s kind of amazing that they have made a tourist destination out of a 6 minute video. It was still quite interesting and the nicest place ever and made me feel even better about the company and all the good things they do. We bought some merch and some big cones of delicious ice cream (Paul had a local to the shop flavor-maple walnut), took some photo ops, and then visited the icy graveyard. This is where they have headstones for all the retired flavors. So many of them I thought, “That sounds delicious! I can’t believe they don’t make that anymore!” and then to cap it off I grabbed a geocache from there and it was a travel bug, so I’ll now be hiding that somewhere in a cache in NJ.  We were also able to visit friends that Paul knows from long long ago. All in all it was a great 3 day weekend.

Last weekend was the weekend of the march, which was on Saturday. On Sunday we all went skiing at Jack Frost with Clark’s Boy Scout troop. I regretted signing up and really didn’t want to go (both weekend mornings getting up at 6, ugh). Despite my brothers both being avid skiiers living in Vermont and Colorado, somehow I got passed over when it came to learning how to ski and I’ve only ever gone once before, not very successfully. To my very pleasant surprise we all had a great time! There was a lesson to start, which was very helpful and fun, then we had lunch. Afterwards we just started going down the slopes. We stuck to PowderPuff and Snowflake, and honestly they were plenty exciting. You could really get up some speed on them and several times I kept thinking about how I was careening down a steep hill and if I fell it would really hurt. But I never fell once! Clark chose to snowboard, which did involve a lot of falling (from everyone new to it, I noticed) but he had a great time with his friends and actually we barely saw him. Tabby surprised us by being amazing at it. She loved it and confidently kept heading down completely on her own, zooming toward the bottom and ending beautifully at the ski lift. It was not a very nice day out, but it managed to not rain on us. Clearly all the snow was manmade, and the ski lift ride was not very scenic since it was dirty brown leaves below.  It was really fun and both kids have asked to do it again (drat! What an expensive day!)

The worst part was the tight boots which left narrow bands around both my legs that were raised into blisters. It’s a week later and the one area still really hurts! Surely that’s not right?

 

Oh, and somewhere in all that we celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary to us!

A Look Back at 2016

It’s time for my favorite post of the year! A look back at the past year. I really enjoyed reading the 2015 look back just now (that stuff was so long ago!)
2015 began with a bang for us-I got a job and returned to work. I can’t believe we’re coming up on a year anniversary of my first day! Obviously it’s been an adjustment in many ways for all of us (including the dog), but overall I’m so happy to be back in the field and very happy where I am. Not surprisingly, many of my hobbies took a hit from this, especially photography and sewing. I thought I’d make it up in the summer, but I didn’t.

In the spring Clark graduated from Cub Scouts and achieved the Arrow of Light. This was a big deal ceremony and we were very proud of him and happy for him. After so many years with the Cub Scout families and events it was a change for all of us to say goodbye to all of it. Clark joined a new Boy Scout troop and has liked it very much. It began with going away to camp when summer began and continued in the fall with a few camping trips, some of which Paul went on. The best was a trip to Harpers Ferry W VA. A cool thing their troop does is have their own patch for the Appalachian Trail. You get a pin for each state you hike 6 miles of the trail in and spend a night in. In December both Paul and Clark received the patch with their first three pins on it. So far he has achieved Tenderfoot rank, which I wrote about here because of the embroidery aspect of it.
Meanwhile, Tabby and I continue along in Brownies. I’m happy that I was able to continue on being her leader, as I really enjoy our group of girls. Our troop attended our first “Camporee” and had a great time. It was not so much camping as all of us (including parents) attending an outdoor resort. We stayed in cabins and got to canoe and zipline and swim and it was all a lot of fun (even if Tabby & I were huge babies on the ropes course and got terrified.)
While Clark was at camp this summer Tabby and I took a trip to visit my dear childhood friend, Joanna, and her daughters. We enjoyed our road trip very much and spending time with our friends. We capped it off with an extra special surprise visit to the National Zoo. Tabby adores pandas and to see them in person was very exciting for her (and me!) It was super fun and special.

 

After that it was pretty much just summer as usual, until we took our family vacation to Boston. Although I barely posted anything this year, I did write a pretty big post about that trip here.  It was a super vacation including whale watching, art, history, and the big event-Pearl Jam at Fenway Park. 
Speaking of concerts, it was a big year of concert going for me and Paul. I wrote about all the summer/ fall concerts here. All told, I went to see the Indigo Girls, Guster, Sigur Ros, Pearl Jam (twice!), Weird Al, Kishi Bashi, Band of Horses, The Monkees, Squeeze, The Legend of Zelda (symphony), Pokemon Symphonic, Ben Folds, Ben Folds with yMusic, XPN Fest (Darlingside, David Wax Museum, The Districts), Barenaked Ladies (with Howard Jones and OMD),  Flight of the Conchords, Crash Test Dummies, and Richard Thompson. It was a good variety of music and venues and a great part of the year.

We had one other trip this year, and that was a short getaway to Watkins Glen, NY. We’re not race car fans-the allure for us is the amazing gorge there. We’d been there once before, just to hike the gorge (in the rain!), but this time we stayed in a cabin for a couple nights. It was a lovely relaxing trip that included not just hiking the gorge, but also a trip to the Corning Museum of Glass, which was awesome.

Our menagerie remains large, but this year we sadly said farewell to Nibbles. He had been losing his sturdy plumpness and got rather thin and then one day it happened. We all loved Nibbles and were sad to say goodbye to him.

We also said farewell to my mom’s dog, Sophie. At 16 1/2 years old she had a wonderful long life, but her departure left a hole. Perhaps she’s playing somewhere with her dear old friend, Pippin. In the coop there many additions as well as deaths. Our big President Rooster died, I chased a fox across our front yard who had a chicken in his mouth-she escaped but he came back for her and her dumb friends on the following two days. There were 13 chicks hatched over the summer and it was just baby baby baby peep peep peep everywhere.

Some babies were nurtured more than others and of the un-nurtured group, who never were taught to go in the house at night, 6 of the 7 eventually got killed. Idiots. Our rooster Baddie was dethroned as the king of the coop by a up and comer young new rooster. Gordon continues to live in harmony with his chicken friends.
Willow continued to grow and mature and although she still eats food off the counters she is a marvelous dog. Although I think we both miss the big daily walks, she is actually very happy to instead have shorter walks in the meadow where I let her run off leash.

There were, of course, other fun days here and there-a Princeton football game, a Princeton hockey game, Tabby performing as Augusta Gloop with her 4H club at the fair, visiting the aquarium in the midst of XPNFest, holidays, birthdays, and fun for me-special days at school. One especially fun new thing this year was embarking on a long term tabletop game with our friends, Liz and Eleanor. We began Pandemic Legacy, which is a very intense game in which we are working to save the world from horrible pandemics. As you play the game you affect the board, actions, and characters (you can kill some) for the duration of the year long game. We are about halfway through and all I have to say is, good thing we’re not the real CDC.

Now, although I did say I haven’t been keeping up with photography, and there’s been a sad reliance on my phone this year and lack of Flickr participation, I did set one photography project for myself that I really enjoyed. Matching the Crayola colors from the 64 box to real life flowers in my garden.

I didn’t even keep up with my “Favorites of 2016” folder! Here’s a link to it.

All in all, it was a pretty good year. Now, the elephant in the room. I can’t talk about a year end reflection without acknowledging that since November 9 we’ve all been down in the dumps (well, the adults in the house) and had our beliefs about mankind and the world gravely shaken. I have tremendous worries and concern about the next 4 years, but I will strive to do one small part by teaching my children to show respect and kindness to people and stand up to bullies.  Although it may not feel like it, I know there are still good people in the world and good moments. Would you believe we met another Pearl Jam fan in Boston and kept in touch? I mean, how lovely is that?  And I get to be a librarian again and immerse myself in educating and sharing books with students. And I get to see my children growing up and being smart. And even though I didn’t enjoy my hobbies as much this year, I do have them! And I met my reading challenge this year (read that big recap of my top books of the year right here.) And I have a super husband who is my concert partner and biggest fan. So, that was 2016. Let’s see what happens in 2017!

Anything Else?

So anything else from this fall? Let’s see, we went to a Princeton football game and a Princeton hockey game, and had a grand time at both.

Hockey is more my speed than football, and as the far less popular sport, it was super cheap and easy to get to for a quick weeknight game. The rink was great and the rows only 6 back from the ice (we sat right at the glass.) 
Clark and Paul went on a couple camping trips with his Boy Scout troop, including a fantastic trip to Harpers Ferry, which included a hike up to this beautiful view of three states. See the beautiful view here and the proud hikers here .

In doing all these scout activities Clark was able to rank up to Tenderfoot at the December court of honor. This achievement made me finally get some sewing in, in the form of embroidery. The tradition in this troop is that when a boy achieves this rank he receives a hand embroidered neckerchief. Pretty simple embroidery-all satin stitch and the design is printed on the kerchief. (You receive a kit.) Satin stitch is not my favorite, but it’s certainly easy to do and while this was a little tedious I was happy to do it and think it turned out beautifully. (I can only imagine if you didn’t stitch that this would have been extra tedious.)

Congratulations, Clark!

Tabby and I went with our troop to see a Disney on Ice spectacular and that was a lot of fun, too. I didn’t do any other sewing, despite getting that Christmas quilt top finished right before school started. I finally took a day and made the back and yesterday I put it together and began tying it. My hope is to finish tying it today and do the binding tomorrow, thus finishing it in 2016. It may need to be a “finish by the end of vacation” goal, though. I’m sure we’ll all enjoy it very much and it will be brand new to us when we pull it out at the start of next year’s Christmas season.

There will not be a Garden Wrap Up post this year because there really wasn’t a garden. I will do my usual Top 10 Books of the Year post, and possibly the big annual look back. In the meantime, I’ll wrap up with a couple pics I especially liked, from a day at a conference.