Month: October 2016

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VAB 2016: The Last Night

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All good things must come to an end, and tragically, our Virginia Beach vacation was no exception.  We were so grateful to have had a week to decompress in a beautiful place, with some of the dearest people in our world.  I spent the last night of our vacation really living the excellent advice: “Don’t be sad because it’s over.  Smile because it happened.”

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We were determined that our last night in Virginia Beach (for now – we will be back!) would be our best night.  First item on the agenda: another spin on Uncle Eric’s Water Truck.

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Peanut was prepared with this beachin’ coozie.  Nugget was rocking a new life vest that Rebecca and I bought for him on one of our naptime Target runs.  (The puddle jumper works great, but we thought he’d be a bit more comfortable in something with a slimmer profile – and he was.)

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The kids loved being out on the water!  I have to get them out on the Potomac soon.

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There’s my handsome husband!  Vacations with him are always fun.

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Nugget got the extreme joy of another turn behind the wheel.  We have a little sea captain on our hands!

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Meanwhile, Peanut kept a sharp lookout for mermaids.  She said she saw a few.

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Our destination was… well, I have no idea where this beach was, but it was beautiful.  Beautiful, and home to several jellyfish (the stinging kind!).  Which is why I look so excessively nervous, which you hopefully can’t tell from this picture because Steve kindly kept the camera zoomed out.

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Away from the jellyfish, and speeding off toward our next destination (looks like someone didn’t want to stop swimming!).  We checked out the houses along the route home and had fun opening it up and really getting a good wake going for awhile – had to, because we didn’t want to miss out on Part II of the evening…

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Expecting a particularly perfect sunset, we all trooped over to First Landing State Park to watch the show.  We made it just in time…

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The sun was already going down when we got to the beach, and soon we saw…

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THIS.  It was. an absolute. stunner.

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The whole family trooped into the calm, peaceful water to enjoy a sunset swim.

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Part of youuuuuuuuuur woooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrllllllllllllld…

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It was a gorgeous night, and felt like a very fitting goodbye to a vacation that was exactly what we needed, exactly when we needed it.

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We stayed on the beach past the kids’ bedtimes, and all headed home in the dark for a campfire with vegan s’mores.  As we sat roasting our marshmallows, watching the neighbors drift by on the canal – on their way home, no doubt, from their own sunset viewing parties – we felt very blessed.

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Goodbye for now, but not forever, Virginia Beach.  Thanks for the sand between our toes, the salty splashes on our faces, and the gift of a perfect sunset.

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The Summer List 2016: Final Tally

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As the sun goes down on another summer, it’s time for the final accounting: when I look back at my list of things to do for the season (which I haven’t touched since first publishing it months ago) and see how I made out.  This year, I tried to keep it rather low-key.  I knew that I was moving and that I might not be able to do as much as I normally would try to squeeze in, amidst the whirlwind of closing out one job and starting another, closing out one life and starting another.  But I was raised a New Yorker (even if I consider myself a Virginian now) and New Yorkers believe in maximizing the sunshine and squeezing every bit of fun they can out of our all too brief summer season.  Since I have to be me:

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  • Run the 50 Yard Finish 5K.  Done!  I huffed and puffed through it, but I crossed that finish line.  Apparently I got my medal handed to me by the Buffalo Bills’ kickoff kicker – who knew?

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  • Eat lots of summer fruit – watermelon, cantaloupe, stone fruits and berries, get in my belly!  Done!  Picture above from our berry picking adventures over fourth of July weekend.  (We left with a flat of raspberries – that we didn’t pick – and a small handful of blueberries that we did.)  But while picking wasn’t spectacularly successful this year – I’m holding out high hopes for apple picking, though – I made sure to always grab summer fruit from the farmers’ markets or the grocery store, and I definitely ate my fill.  I even did a little baking – stone fruit compote, I’m looking at you.  Actually, I’m not looking at you, because you’re long gone, and you were delicious.

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  • Dive into Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire novels.  I’m calling this one done, because I’ve read four so far, including three that are set in the summer months – High Rising, Wild Strawberries, August Folly and Summer Half.  Looking to get a few more in before too long, as well.

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  • Get back into the habit of buying my produce from our local farmers market.  Done!  I’m not getting every produce item from the farmers’ market, but I’m working on it!  I’m really making an effort to live as seasonally as possible, and buying from the market is a big part of that.  Hope I can continue building on this practice into the fall and winter (Virginia markets are year-round!).

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  • Spend a weekend (or longer?) at the beach.  Done!  I was hoping to squeeze in at least a long weekend, but I did it even better and managed an entire week between moving back to NoVA and starting my new job.  We spent eight glorious days soaking up the sunshine and salt air in Virginia Beach with my BFF, Rebecca, and her family, and it was magic.

Look into getting a bike trailer for the kiddos.  Can I call this done if I have a trailer picked out and just have to buy it?  Maybe something to do this fall.

  • Resuscitate my balcony herb garden.

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  • Read Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee.  Done!  Cider with Rosie spans all the seasons, so it doesn’t have to be a summer read, but for some reason I always thought of it as a warm weather book.  I read it on my metro commutes and several times, found myself surprised to have reached my stop, I was so deep in Laurie Lee’s boyhood memoir.

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  • Stock up on bubbles, sidewalk chalk and other fun outdoor toys and let Peanut go to town.  Done!  We got bubbles and sidewalk chalk, and dug out the bikes too, and the kids have been having a blast playing out in the warm air.  It’s easy to get them out, because Nugget in particular is obsessed with being “Out-siiiiiiiiiiiiide” – he will stand at the door and whine to be let out, like a puppy, and once I even caught him calling “Outsiiiiiide!  Outsiiiiiiide!” in his sleep.  Peanut is more of an indoor child, and often needs to be dragged away from her nice climate-controlled bedroom – I think Nugget is going to be a good influence on her.  I’m thinking that in future years, I should stock their Easter baskets with outdoor goodies, and have that be the Easter Bunny’s specialty (rather than candy).
  • Take the family on a weekend visit to Ithaca and Watkins Glen.

Soooooo… Not too bad!  We never made it to Ithaca, and I sort of suspected I wouldn’t be able to get the garden going, what with moving and all – that is something to do next spring, for sure, though.  But I’m pretty pleased with the rest of the list!  I made lots of time for fun, and made sure to do the simple things that make summer what it is – like shopping the farmers’ market and eating plenty of delicious seasonal produce, too.  And now it’s time to turn my attention to fall, and all the good stuff that the new season brings.  Fall list coming next week!

 

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (October 3, 2016)

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Whoa – how is October already?  Time sure flies when you’re having fun.  We had a delightfully relaxing weekend.  On Saturday, we enjoyed a beautiful, serene hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains, followed by a long, leisurely candlelit dinner in a romantic bistro.  On Sunday, the weather was a bit gloomy, so I spent the day wrapped up in my coziest oversized sweater, curled in an Adirondack chair watching the rain come down off my front porch, with the world’s biggest chai latte and Pride and

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry, you guys.  I tried, but I couldn’t finish that paragraph with a straight face.  As weekends go, it was more of the same around here – errands, chores, kid-wrangling, birthday parties.  Not bad, not at all.  Saturday morning was spent not rambling the trails in Shenandoah, but instead on a hike of a different kind – through the wilds of IKEA.  We drove down to Woodbridge knowing that we would be leaving empty-handed but, hopefully, with some decisions made.  I wanted new bookshelves, and we really need a new dresser, since our wardrobe never made it upstairs when we moved in (and has since been repurposed into board game storage for at least the next three years).  We picked out the furniture we needed to decide on (and ordered online from home later) and Peanut broke it down with an impromptu dance party in the bedroom section.  So overall, it was good.  We mixed in some Saturday fun in the form of a long walk around our neighborhood, including to… the library!  I had books to return and holds to pick up, so I checked out my neighborhood branch for the first time – it’s beautiful.  I’m so glad that I’m back to living in a neighborhood where I can walk to the library (I missed that during my last two years in Buffalo).  On Sunday, we took another walk around the neighborhood and tortured ourselves by reading all the brunch menus we came across, bemoaning the fact that our kids are too wild for restaurants right now, and the irony of moving to one of the best neighborhoods for restaurants in the DC area when we can’t actually eat at any restaurants because of small insane people.  Sunday afternoon I took Peanut to another birthday party, and while it went much better than last weekend’s parties, we were both wiped out by Sunday night.  I’d meant to do some food prep, but ended up splayed out on the couch in a state of complete exhaustion.  Right now I don’t know what’s more tiring – the workweek or the weekends.

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As for reading, it was a busy week.  Last week I mentioned that I had a tough week ahead and that I was planning to keep my reading light and fun to balance it out, and that’s exactly what I did.  I read the first five volumes of Ms. Marvel – the new Kamala Khan version by G. Willow Wilson – and loved every moment.  (When I said I was going to read the first six trades, I was mistaken – apparently volume 6 doesn’t come out until December, and I’m now waiting impatiently for it with the rest of the Kamala Korps.)  Then I picked up Mindy Kaling’s Why Not Me?, which my mom gave me for Christmas last year.  It was, as expected, absolutely hilarious – and by far the best part was the alternate existence Mindy invents for herself as a hard-partying Latin teacher at a posh NYC prep school, complete with twenty pages of emails between alternate reality Mindy and her fictional colleagues (who don’t like her very much).  I finished with Mindy on Saturday – although I’m never finished with Mindy! – and finally picked up George, by Alex Gino, one of my new library holds, which I read in one sitting on Saturday evening.  It was a sweet story, not easy to read, but I think very important, and I’m so glad that it’s in the world.  Then I started Stella by Starlight, another library hold, and another one that I think is not going to be particularly easy to read, but that I’ll be glad to have read when all’s said and done.

After I wrap up with Stella – which will probably take a few days – I have two more library holds waiting for me: Feathers, by Jacqueline Woodson, and The Obelisk Gate, the second book in N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy.  So I’ll most likely grab one of those, although Barchester Towers is currently staring at me from my kitchen counter, and I am really sort of craving a classic right now (it’s the fall season, I’m always looking to dive into the greats around back to school time).  I also have a book of Hallowe’en poems that I’m planning to dip in and out of all month.

On the blog: we’re finally wrapping up summer.  I have my final tally on my summer list coming to you on Wednesday, and the last Virginia Beach recap on Friday.  Feels a bit ridiculous, since there are pumpkins on display at the grocery store, and you know what is back at Starbucks, but I can’t help myself!  After this week, it’ll be fall here just like it is everywhere else – I promise.

What are you reading this week?