A slice of January

Posted on February 3, 2010
Filed Under christmas, collections, family, friends, me and my brain | 1 Comment

Most people probably agree that the cold months following Christmas and New Year’s can be a little bit of a letdown. But there are always good little moments. Here are some of mine so far in 2010.

One long weekend I finished up the Santa puzzle my mom gave me for Christmas in 2008. It was a lot of fun… a really good cozy winter activity. I think it looked better put together than it did in the picture on the box.

During our holiday visit to the farm, Ezra’s sister Abby introduced us to Bananagrams. It’s so completely up my alley–a word game, sort of like Scrabble and Boggle put together, but better (well, definitely better than Scrabble anyway). So on that long weekend I mentioned we gave Bananagrams to Amy and Doug for Christmas. Of course, we played several rounds.

Bananagrams
Amy’s fabulous creation with the Bananagrams tiles… not a part of the actual game

And, of course, we had to get it for ourselves shortly after that.

I’m still going through my Christmas postcards. I promise to share more about them soon (take that as a “coming attractions” or a warning, as you wish).

In vegetarian news…

Posted on October 29, 2009
Filed Under Blather, Gastronomie, cooking, dining, family | 1 Comment

Most weekends Ez and I try to cook something yummy and fun that will provide good leftovers. Last weekend I thought, “Let’s make a veggie pot pie!” We explored our various cookbooks and couldn’t find the one perfect recipe, but we used one as a jumping off point and made a vegetable pot pie that totally hit the spot.

veggie pot pie

Chef Ezra is always looking for an opportunity to prepare mushrooms like he does in his mushroom empanadas. So he employed that method for the pot pie. We wanted to use good fall veggies, so we included potato, carrot, garlic, leek, butternut squash, and parsnip. We ended up with a pot pie that was A) piping hot–a must for pot pie (part of the point, right?), and B) had just a hint of sweetness, courtesy of the mushroom prep and the squash. It is (and I say is because we’re still enjoying the leftovers) SOOOOO GOOOOOD. Hooray for fall veggies and weekends and team work!

black bean mango

I also bring you another vegetarian chow recommendation. I’ve lately purchased a few ready-made microwavable veggie meals for quick lunches. I’ve tried two of Kashi’s offerings, the Pasta Primavera (okay) and the Black Bean Mango. I was a little wary of the latter, but it is so tasty. I could live off of Kashi products (I practically do).

Why we love Suki, part 3876559

Posted on April 22, 2009
Filed Under Blather, family, photography, the pusses, this old house | Leave a Comment

Suki

There’s nothing like the ways of a cat to make you stop what you’re doing, forget about stress and tasks, and just say “tee hee!” and be happy. I recently went through a lot of papers and files in my office and produced 5+ bags of recycling. In the midst of moving furniture out of the office, we discovered Suki as you see her here. Never to be deterred from perching in the sun’s rays, and as much a fan of little nesting places as the next cat, she found that this particular bag of recycling would do quite nicely, thank you.

(Feels like) a long weekend in New York

Posted on February 1, 2009
Filed Under Blather, art, dining, family, friends, sports in general, wide world of vacation | 1 Comment

It’s been a long and very good weekend.  Ez and I spent Friday and Saturday in New York.  On Friday Ez worked and I wandered around, checking out Tinsel Trading Company and spending a couple of happy hours browsing (and eventually buying) at The Strand.


Spotted after lunch

On Saturday Ez was kind enough to walk with me to the vegetarian cafe S’Nice in the West Village, where I know they have delicious steel-cut oatmeal with all the trimmings.  There I ate said oatmeal with dried fruit and honey and enjoyed one of the tastiest glasses of apricot-orange tea ever.  We went to The Strand again because Ez needed to get his fix (he didn’t really have to twist my arm to get me to spend more time there), and then Ez took me to the Chelsea Market, where the New York Lux office will soon be moving.  It’s quite a nifty building.  I’ll have to upload a picture or two.

width=
I fell in love with this spot at the Chelsea Market.

Then we met up with Ezra’s old friend Jen Williams in the Cooper Union area (Jen went to Cooper Union and now teaches there).  I’d never met her before, though I’d heard a lot about her.  She seems pretty great, and we had a really nice time chatting with her, wandering around the Lower East Side, popping into a small gallery to check out her friend’s show, and just basically hanging out.  For dinner, the three of us went to the tasty Pan-Asian vegetarian (and largely vegan) restaurant Wild Ginger (it’s just as good as Ez and I remember).  We’re hoping it won’t be another 10+ years before we see Jen again.

And oh, hey, the Steelers won their NFL record sixth Super Bowl (that’s about 14% of all Super Bowl games that have been played).  And the game was actually exciting.  I am not a big NFL person, but we’re Steelers people in this house.  (And, incidentally, it was a day of more pleasant sports news, as PSU men’s basketball upset ninth-ranked Michigan State, the Celtics won again, and Rafael Nadal beat Federer to win his first Australian Open title.)

Every time I go to New York I want to spend more time there.  I like its energy and pervading spirit of creating new things.  I think it improves my health to be around that vibe more often!

So I owe you…

Posted on July 8, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, family, photography, wide world of vacation | 1 Comment

I owe you all four pictures–I promised one a day!

I mentioned that I had more pictures of the Rose Kennedy Greenway at twilight to share. Here they are.



These are coming to you all in one batch because we were away for the 4th of July weekend. We visited Simon, Frances, and Eva in Saratoga Springs. Simon and Frances teach at a summer dance program there, and as it’s only about four hours from here and as I lived there during college, it’s always a good place for us to get together. They are staying in a nicely fixed-up old house this year with some other dancers who are teaching in the program. We stayed with them and just had a good time relaxing and catching up.

On the way home from Saratoga Springs we made two previously unplanned stops. For lunch we decided to find somewhere to eat in Western Mass. We ended up in Great Barrington where we had very tasty organic-sourdough-wood-fired-gourmet pizza. Yeah, it was good. Then as we neared 495, inspired by the cool way the place we’d stayed in Saratoga Springs had been fixed up, I asked Ez if he wanted to stop at IKEA for some organizational goodies. He agreed, and we hit the joint around 6:30-ish, so it wasn’t too crowded (though it was ridiculously messy–IKEA has such a tidy aesthetic that it just kinda seems completely incongruous that their shoppers would leave potato chip packages and empty soda cans on displays). We found many practical and relatively inexpensive items for our little home improvement project–which is basically a home organization project. It was a successful tangent!

Yesterday the darkroom at MassArt was closed, but today I spent several hours there. The prints from today are still drying, but here’s one from last week.


A few things to share

Posted on May 6, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, family, friends, photography | 3 Comments

So I haven’t felt very blog-worthy lately, as I suppose is apparent.

A few possibly blogworthy notes:

Beware evil doers, wherever you are!!!

Posted on March 2, 2008
Filed Under Blather, family, films, me and my brain | 5 Comments

Recommendation of the day…

Sometime when I was a kid, my family watched Radio Days together. Kim and I have now seen this film countless times, together and on our own, and it’s a long-standing favorite. It’s a sweet, sentimental, funny nostalgia piece–there’s not really any plot to speak of, but it doesn’t need one. As you might guess, it’s full of tons of great music from the 40s. The cast is fantastic, too. I mean, Wallace Shawn plays the Masked Avenger!

…If nothing else, when you watch it, you might figure out where some of the silly things we say all the time come from.

More new photos, this time from France

Posted on February 26, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, family, photography, wide world of vacation | Leave a Comment

I finally got my two rolls of film developed. Both are full of pictures from leisure time during our January trip to France.

Some are black and white…

Ezra in Eze

train station, France

…and some are color.

Eze

Vespa

I’ve posted more on flickr.

Memories live in photo envelopes

Posted on February 25, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, daytripping, family, photography | 8 Comments

I investigated the contents of a stack of photo envelopes on my dresser and found that I’d never scanned a bunch of them. Here’s a little peek at a few from the first batch to meet with the scanner.

From a long-forgotten walk in a dream:

On a street corner, under a sky:corner

Memories of memories:mendad
Me and my dad in the backyard in State College. I’m holding a camera that my grandfather picked up in Germany during WWII. My father gave it to me. Ezra took this picture.

Felines!

Posted on February 23, 2008
Filed Under Blather, family, me and my brain, the pusses | 7 Comments

Have I mentioned lately how much I adore my kitties? I think I need to say it again.

SUKI

Suki

Suki

EDIE

Edie

Edie

Their cousin to the south, DEXTER
Dexter

And some much beloved family cats no longer with us… they still have a special place in my life.

JASPER

Jasper
Jasper was the first kitty in my life, and he will always be the Zen master of all kitties.

TRUMAN

Truman
Recently departed; we miss this sweetie.

Somewhere along the way, my family figured out the mysterious and wonderful charms and the calming power of cats. I feel lucky to have had and to continue to have so many connections with these fuzzy, amazing creatures.

keep looking »

Song of the Day

Autolux-Robots in the Garden 

Photos

My Photos on Flickr


The Knitting Turnip

On My Needles

Rhapsody in Tweed cabled pullover for Ezra! using Tahki Donegal Tweed in Forest, from Fall 2004 Interweave Knits. I've just picked this one up again, so it's moving up in the queue!

Sweater with Cable Patterns pullover using Araucania Nature Wool Chunky in Mauve, from Rebecca Magazine Number 28

Heather Pullover using Classic Elite Wings in Larkspur, from Rowan’s A Season’s Tale... This needs the knit doctor. I'm going to have to frog back a little bit and redo the shoulder area. Long story.

Hush Pullover using Jo Sharp DK wool in Wine, from Rowan’s Calmer Collection

More scoop on my knitting endeavors can be found at my home on Ravelry (clicky here).

Links


Recently


Categories


Archives