We had the pleasure of being invited to the Boy family Thanksgiving. In order to attend, we had to break our 5 year or so commitment of not travelling on this particular holiday. One too many times spent stranded in uncomfortable places on DS's part has left a sour taste in his mouth. Luckily, David's parents are only a few hours away, and in the direction of least traffic. The drive was pleasant, and even included several tunnels through mountains, which never fail to enthuse my 5-year-old self.
The menu was planned out weeks, maybe months, in advance. We all shared a Google spreadsheet, adding and editing and leaving comments until we were all excited and drooling. In the end, this is what we ate:
2 turkeys (1 made by DS using Alton Brown's recipe)
1 smoked ham
baked mac 'n' cheese (again, Alton Brown)
green beans (grown in Tennessee by a family member as far as I could tell)
homemade rolls
stuffing
2 kinds of sweet potatoes
4 kinds of cranberry relish
homemade creamed corn
roasted brussel sprouts
cranberry citrus salad
mashed potatoes
pumpkin pie
cherry/rhubarb pie
a Colombian ice cream thing that was awesome
pumpkin pie/apple pie/pecan pie/dulce de leche with fig truffles
hot apple cider the whole trip
homemade cappuccinos
Are you drooling yet? It was divine. I thought it was entirely too much food, but there were so many of us that we managed to put a good dent in it. We even had some to take home, which helped ease our sadness at not having an entire turkey in our own fridge like usual.
Here is a small selection of photos. I'm sad to say that I didn't get one of the whole food spread, but that's okay.
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=================== *Written 2/14/11 and backposted
We had the very great pleasure of attending a wedding in Baltimore. Micah was a high school friend of DS, and though I haven't seen much of him, I've always had the impression that he and his family were, well, family. So you can imagine how happy we are to only be 1.5 hours from him now. This means a lot more now that the wedding has occurred, and he's no longer frantically preparing for it.
The cathedral where the wedding was held, and I do mean cathedral in the strictest sense of the word, was absolutely gorgeous. Having catholic family, but not being raised catholic myself, I did my best to keep DS and myself in check throughout the ceremony and not embarrass ourselves. At the reception I discovered I probably should have given all his friends a quick primer as they were confused, but no one did anything strange. All standing and sitting went as expected.
The reception was held on the top floor of the Admiral Fell Inn. There was an open bar. I can tell you I danced. A lot. Not necessarily on the dance floor. Apparently I felt the need to encourage everyone else to dance by whipping my head around a lot. My neck has never been so sore. It took 3 days to recover.
In all honesty, my night should have ended with the reception, but instead we all headed over to the Greene Turtle to watch the South Carolina football game. Where there were more drinks. And my husband decided to enjoy the company of his long lost friends and let me be as I went back to the bar. *sigh* At some point I was handed a Jägerbomb... The next 36 hours were trying, let's put it that way.
For your enjoyment, here are a collection of photos of the beautiful church, and the parts of the ceremony DS and I managed to capture before things got too crazy. We can't wait until Micah and Anne start visiting.
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With the actual reason for visit being a conference DS had to attend, I didn't have a whole lot to do starting Monday. Except look at the snow, and walk through rain and sleet without a jacket looking for a lost phone. Joy. Tuesday turned out to be much more hospitable as far as the weather was concerned. So I ventured out to see the town. The only other time I'd been here, it had been dark and we were only interested in seeing the Christmas lights in Temple Square.
I decided to walk up to the Salt Palace convention center, where I'd experienced a really beautiful art installation while DS was getting his conference badge. Outside the building there is a set of 12 windmills, and each one is connected to a wooden tubular bell inside the entrance. As the windmill turns, it causes bell to strike. Each windmill sort of does its own thing, so the music made is random. I walked into this space, not even really in the building yet, just part of the entrance, and stood there with my mouth open. I spun around a few times, looking at all the bells, the way the light played in the space. DS was waiting for me, wondering what the heck was wrong with me. I'm telling you, conference halls and locations are wasted on the people that use them. For real.
I also wandered over to Temple Square to see the area in the light and the splendor of fall. I had nearly made it out of there when I was caught by two Sisters who wanted to talk to me. I think I could have gotten away, but they lured me in with the promise of seeing the inside of the Tabernacle. With my love of historical architecture, I agreed to follow against my better judgement. I will say without any reservation that they were more than nice, and didn't bring up religion in the sense of getting me more of it until I'd hung around and seemed interested for too long. My mistake. At the same time, they were nice in a way that made it really hard for me to just walk away or be rude, and so I felt trapped. I ended up using a text from DS as an excuse to go because we had a "lunch date." Which was mostly true. He had texted me, and I still hadn't had lunch at 3pm. And I honestly don't regret seeing that building, but remind me to never be Mormon.
In conclusion, if you ever get a chance to visit Salt Lake City, I highly recommend it. It's beautiful, the people are nice, the food is delicious. If you go at Christmas, check out the lights in Temple Square. Just be wary of lingering too long in one spot in the square unless you're looking for advice on converting, or you're actually Mormon.
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It was an absolutely beautiful day. The kind of day that insists you go out and enjoy it. There was some talk of climbing Mount Olympus, but as I had not packed any active gear and have not exactly been keeping up with my exercise, I pushed for something a little easier. Thus, we hiked Shoreline Trail instead. This is actually part of what will be a 280 mile trail system that follows the historical shoreline of Lake Bonneville, a massive lake that once covered most of the state of Utah.
The fall colors were gorgeous, and the hills were covered in long grasses and plants that made it all look like a blanket of suede. Lovely.
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The last time DS went climbing in Salt Lake City, he and Mike went to this place known as Triassic. There was a particular climb that he was unable to finish, and it gnawed at him. So during this trip we made an effort to tackle that particular beast. I honestly can't say whether he was successful, because I was playing with Swiss and Kuro or reading most of the time. I can say that he did finish some of the things that he climbed. I can also say that I really should have taken more pictures of the scenery, but it was strangely beautiful for the middle of nowhere.
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Our friends in Salt Lake City just got a new puppy named Swiss, and I spent some time photographing him with his big brother Kuro. Are these some handsome dogs, or are these some handsome dogs?
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Felix's favorite toys are always either what we call "fluff balls" or "sparkle balls." Basically, small balls of either rabbit fur died bright colors or fake "fur" that sparkles. She will bat those things around the house for hours. I especially love when she "hunts." She will chase down one of these fur balls, carry it around in her mouth, and cry very loudly like she's hurt or something. It use to scare me a bit, but now look over to DS when I hear it and say something like, "someone just caught something good."
Winston's favorite toy has always been his mouse. And he has always wanted DS to play fetch with him. That's it. No other toys, no other games.
When we moved to Philadelphia, the cats came without their stuff, as all of that was trundling along in the moving truck. We got them a few new things to hold them over in this strange new place. Felix got fluff ball on an elastic string attached to a stick. At this point, we only had an air mattress, a few clothes, and our laptops, so I figured this was a great time to play with her. (She is normally very content playing by herself.) Winston got a rather large mouse covered in rabbit fur and some feathers sticking out with its tail. Little did I know that these two toys, meant to be mere placeholders until their real stuff showed up, would end up being the things they couldn't live without.
Now Felix trots through the house carrying that red fluff ball like usual, except now there's a long plastic stick trailing along behind her. It took us a while to realize that this was why some of the side tables in the living room would be in the middle of the floor when we woke up. Turns out she's getting the stick stuck in there and just pulling it all along behind her. Sometimes she wakes us up because we have wooden floors, and there's a step in the hallway, and she just clatters through there in the middle of the on her way to bring me her kill. Where I use to wake up to a small collection of toys on the floor beside the bed, now I wake up to this stick and its fluff ball.
Winston, on the other hand, gave up playing fetch for a long time. He flips this new mouse up in the air, and then bats it back down and kicks it around like a soccer ball. He will do this by himself for at least 20 min at at time, several times a day. It usually ends with him getting it stuck under the couch. Apparently the best part of this game is almost losing it, and then wrangling it back from the depths. Recently we discovered he'll still play fetch if he has to weave through all the living room furniture to chase the thing down. He still hasn't looked at his old favorites though.
Perhaps that plane ride was more traumatic than we thought... Their personalities do seem to be slightly altered. Winston even snuggles all the time now. In my lap. It's crazy.
I have been struggling my way through cooking dinner every night. I started easy. You can't really mess up frozen chicken tenders and frozen fries that you just throw in the oven. Or spaghetti...
Now I'm attempting things like lamb kebobs.. I'm scared guys. This morning I had a broiled brown sugar grapefruit that was so nasty I couldn't finish it. I should have known going into it, because I hate grapefruit. But this magazine I have has all these recipes for meals that will keep you feeling full all day and eating a reasonable number of calories, so I thought 'what the hell.' Luckily, the almond butter and honey toast I had with it was delicious. Not sure what I'm going to do with that other grapefruit I bought. See a bad play maybe....
So like I said, tonight I'm trying 'Greek Lamb Kebob', which involves lamb, on a kebob. And also some sort of salad base thing with cooked barley, tomatoes, red onion (nope, not doing that part, blech), mint, parsley, red wine vinegar, and olive oil. Except I forgot to buy barley. Hell, I'm not completely sure what barley is. I'm assuming some sort of leaf or grain? It's in beer after all. But I don't have it, and I've already started the kebobs, so we'll have steamed kale. Hopefully that's not nasty, otherwise this will be a whole day of nasty.
UPDATE: Turns out steamed kale tastes nearly the same, but not quite as good, as steamed broccoli. A little bitter maybe. I can live with that, though it's not high on my 'oh man, that sounds delicious!' list.
These popsicles I referred to 2 years ago? Yeah, there are still some in my freezer from that very same box. Turns out 200 of them take longer to go through than you would think.
Admittedly, some days I have more trouble adjusting to my retirement than others. It's strange not working while your husband does. It leaves you feeling sort of worthless, like you don't contribute anything to this life you share. I mean, I don't even have kids to care for, and my craft business isn't going anywhere because I can't figure out the PA laws. These problems aren't constant though. I've been making an effort to cook dinner everyday. This is a major step for me, and it sort of rubs in that housewifey feeling I don't particularly like. But at the same time, it's something DS hates doing, and it's one less thing he has to worry about after a long day at work. I have to admit that it feels good to make something tasty. Most nights though, I'm just putting Tyson chicken strips in the oven or something. Baby steps people.
What I have been doing more of is baking. It's awesome. I'll sometimes get on a kick, and DS will have to ask me to stop because he can't stop eating cookies and he feels sick. Ha! We didn't do gifts for our anniversary, but I did make him some peanut butter cookies. (He ended up getting a little something from Naked Chocolate for me, which was DELICIOUS.) I had some decorative sugars in the cupboard in fall colors, and thought they'd be fun to use since peanut butter cookies have to be rolled in sugar anyway. Check it.
Happy Anniversary dearest. Thank you for making life wonderful, and the opposite of being in jail, or caged, or tied down, or any of the other things people seem to associate with marriage. I cannot imagine a better second half. <3
DS and I managed to find some last minute plane tickets to South Carolina to celebrate his mom's birthday over the weekend. It had been a long time since I was able to go with him, and we spent a lot of time at his sister's house playing with the kids. They were so much fun, and the little one cried when we left. <3
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Friday, October 8th, was Sam of NY's (not Sam of Santa Barbara) birthday. DS and I fought 3+ hours of rush hour traffic to get to Brooklyn in time for dinner. It was totally worth it! DS, Sam, Matt and I took the subway to Manhattan so we could go to the Barrel. It was a beautiful little tapas place. The food was delicious, if a bit overpriced. There were many many people there, all of whom I had never before met. There were also many many drinks. I tried to remember the names of everyone I managed to photograph (it was very dim, and people were moving a LOT), but there is a bit of fuzziness. This was seriously a wonderful time. We all just kept randomly ordering items off the tapas menu, so that food just kept appearing. And then quickly disappearing. They also had quite the list of original mixed drinks, including something with basil infused vodka that had me swooning.
After we finally scarfed down cheesecake and tiramisu, and paid our (OMGSERIOUSLY) bill, we all careened off to the nearest bar with room for us all. It ended up being a new place called Queen Vic, which was meant to look like a little English Pub. This led to Sam and I drunkenly explaining to each other what English pubs really look like (Sam) and random tidbits about Queen Victoria (me). Did you know that English pubs have carpet? I can't imagine how horrible that would be to clean. She tells me it's because it's so cold all the time.
Anyway, what I'm saying is, our friends have cool friends, and Manhattan is apparently an excellent, though expensive, place to celebrate.
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I wish I could say that I took this, but alas, I did not. This is Wookie, Matt and Sam's lovable cat, and Sam took this with DS's new lens. Wookie showed up one day, looking disheveled, and decided to stay. All he wants is love. All love all the time. It's so different than my cats. We curled up together on the futon bed while I recovered from a bit of drinking the night before for Sam's birthday. Isn't he so handsome? He is one of the many treats that await us when we visit our friends in New York.
Life around here has been pretty mellow. A lack of immediate friends will do that. Also, DS has been scarce because teaching has swallowed him whole. I'm just happy if he's home by 7 and not completely catatonic. It's a good thing those notes he's making can be used in future classes...
So I've been celebrating little things. Why not? Tuesday was DS's birthday. I didn't give myself time to make him a treat, (and honestly, after the birthday cupcakes I made myself which were so nasty that we threw them all away, that's probably a good thing) so I picked him up a little cake and two of his favorite ice cream flavors. Well.. I'm guessing he'll love that Baked Apple Dumpling. He does love apple pie like crazy.
He got all kinds of sweet presents, including a new lens and flash for his fancy pants camera. I'm told he took cool pictures at Maker Faire, but I have yet to see them (see above).
My most recent sewing triumph is this new cushion for the window seat. It's corduroy, so it's super soft. I even put a zipper on one end in case it needs washing. Felix has claimed it, which is to be expected.
She's a little confused at my coming near and not loving her...
I love this set up, because it's the perfect length for me to stretch out and lean back against the pillow and read books. And thanks to a helpful tip on Facebook from a family friend, I picked up some shelf liner to keep the cushion from sliding. And also the couch (thank god, for real; hardwood floors are slippery), and the craft station table top. Finding that in the grocery was way easier than dragging myself to someplace like walmart...
DS and I spent the weekend with our friends Matt and Sam. The Matt who married us. They live in NY, which had its first Maker Faire. It seemed smaller than the SF one we went to last year, and DS and I got there late in the afternoon so we didn't have a lot of time. Still though, it was cool to go, and ARC Attack was AWESOME! I recommend finding some video of the dudes themselves, because it was so cool. Though maybe you've heard of them? Apparently they were on America's Got Talent? I have no idea, I don't watch TV...
Anyway, we had a lovely dinner, delicious chocolates, and good conversation. Then on Sunday we drove Sam out to Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ. It's been at least six years since I've ridden a roller coaster. I have a serious fear of heights. Well, not so much of heights, but of falling. If I think I'm safe, I have no problem whatsoever being high in the air. Roller coasters were something that took me some years of concerted effort to be comfortable with, to trust that they wouldn't kill me and accept the fear so I could enjoy the adrenaline rush. It's a skill that requires practice to maintain, and so I was excited about Six Flags, but also horrified...
There were six of us altogether, and we split a Flash Pass so we wouldn't have to wait in line. (so worth it!) We started off with the Batman coaster, which looked about on par with the types of coasters I really enjoyed back in the day. I've looked up some point of view videos on YouTube for you to ride along.
Not too high, not too fast. Easy peasy. Also, shoulder harnesses, which are an important part of me feeling safe. So then they all insisted we do Nitro, which is the second highest coaster in the park, with the first downhill going past vertical. Yowza. According to Wikipedia, you can see Philadelphia on a clear night from up there. There aren't even shoulder harnesses. I was freaking out. I closed my eyes for the lift hill, because contemplating falling to my death is less forceful when I can't see it laid out before me. Surprising myself, I opened my eyes as we crested the hill and let go. It was exhilarating. Watch.
That horizontal helix is just the right length so that you just start to feel your vision fading, then those little snake hills would have me giggling from the blood still stuck in my head. Probably not good for you to do all the time, but several times a day once a year seems like a good plan.
Other notable experiences:
El Toro, which I think is supposed to make you feel like you're riding a bull. And as such, there's little to hold on to, and I was lifting out of my seat quite a bit. Also, those rails always freak me out, which is oddly one of the reasons I love wooden coasters so much. And hooray for banked turns! That's something wooden coasters have seriously needed.
Kingda Ka gave me a panic attack just looking at it. DS loved it, and I sat and tried not to think about him failing to come back to me...
Superman would probably be a lot of fun for me, except that the cars invert you so you face the ground like you're flying. Staring straight down at the ground as I plummet towards it was a little too much for me visually. Though with my eyes closed, it didn't feel all that crazy movement-wise.
Bizarro is actually a fun coaster, but it has this music that plays right in your ears the whole time that's loud and static-y and completely annoying.
Skull Mountain reminded me of Kentucky Kingdom's old Starchaser, and as such had me laughing through the whole thing. Also, they put a giant foam jack-o-lantern at the bottom with a spotlight on it. SCARY!
After at least six hours of this, we were exhausted. DS and I made the short trip home (about an hour, and some of that was because we took a wrong turn; though we ended up getting home toll free because of that wrong turn, so I was happy) on our own. We made a frozen pizza, checked the interwebs, and then crashed as the pitiful hour of 8:30. Even me people. Me who is currently up at 3am. I slept 14 hours last night!
This was my third separate theme park, the first two being Kentucky Kingdom and King's Island. I have to say it was a lot of fun. Sometimes terrifying, but overall, fun.
I kept thinking I would do this when everything was neat and pretty. Then I realized that would probably never happen, at least not up to my expectations. So here it is! The apartment in all its glory, and mess, and lived-in-ness. Enjoy.
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