Month: December 2018

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2018: In Review

Happy New Year’s Eve, friends!  In lieu of my usual Monday post, I am getting sentimental (you’re not surprised, I know) and looking back on the year that is wrapping up today.  2018 was a year of extreme highs and lows – we had some really joyful times, but we also had an unexpected death in the family that left us reeling for the latter half of the year.  I think if there was a theme or a lesson to 2018, it was that life is short and you should hug your loved ones as much as possible.

January was a hectic month.  I entered a particularly busy season at work and had several 70-hour workweeks in a row – ouch.  Poor little Nugget also got hit with a yucky stomach bug that we’re pretty sure he picked up while playing at a local children’s gym.  And the weather was super-weird, fluctuating from 65 degrees one weekend to below freezing for weeks on end.  But we managed to get outside a couple of times, even in the cold weather, kicking off the 52 Hike Challenge at Theodore Roosevelt Island in D.C.

February brought more cold weather, more indoor time, and more hectic weeks at work.  We only managed to hit the trail once, but we did host Peanut’s BFF and her mom for a fun play date.  The girls baked raspberry crumb bars (with some help from the moms) and we all enjoyed them with tea.  I had some grown-up fun, too, attending a rosé tasting event at the Embassy of France with my BFF and doing a bit of book shopping.

March means one thing – my sweet baby’s birthday!  We celebrated THREE YEARS of Nugget with a Star Wars themed birthday party, and true to his nature, Outdoor Boy chose to mark his birthday with a hike.  We hit the trails a few times this month, since the weather finally started to thaw, and we also made a trip to the National Zoo.  I also made a trip to Boston to work on a union campaign (my favorite part of my job) and spent an evening chatting into the night with sweet Katie.

April was a banner month, because I saw my favorite band, the Decemberists, in concert!  They don’t tour all that often and even more rarely come East, so it was a special treat.  The rest of the month was just as celebratory.  We marked Easter with a service at our church – joined by Aunt Rebecca – followed by egg-dyeing and a vegetarian feast with a Aunt Rebecca, Aunt Jenn and Uncle Robert, and Peanut’s very first friend (Jenn and Robert’s daughter).  Hiking was good, too – there was the Bluebell Loop Trail, naturally – a can’t-miss April tradition – a Mason Neck hike with Rebecca and her dog Brandy, and a muddy good time at Great Falls.

May saw more family fun – a visit from Grandma, who we don’t see nearly as much as we wish we did, and a Mother’s Day hike at Mason Neck.  We also started our garden for the year (dubbed “Squirrelbait”) – spoiler: this wasn’t the most successful year.  We visited Mount Vernon and petted the baby animals, and Peanut said lots of hilarious things.

June was a month of highs and lows.  We started with the highs – first a trip to Cornell for my fifteenth reunion.  How is it possible that so much time has gone by since graduation?  It was fun introducing the kids to the place where Steve and I fell in love.  After Cornell, we stayed upstate for a bit longer and swung by my parents’ house, where my brother Dan and his wife Danielle were visiting from Colorado.  We never get enough time with them, but we made the most of the few days we had – sailing on the Adirondack lake where my parents have a camp and hiking at Lake Minnewaska.  The end of the month brought great sadness, though – the sudden and unexpected loss of a beloved family member.  We’re still working through the grief that followed.

July was a sad month, while we grieved and tried to adjust to a new reality without someone we all loved in it.  We’d been planning to make a trip back up north to spend the Fourth of July with my parents, and we decided that we would keep those plans, because we wanted to be with family.  I didn’t recap most of the trip – too sad – but we made it to the lake again and my parents distracted us with an afternoon of hiking at Bash Bish Falls and dinner out in nearby Lenox, Massachusetts.  (Western Massachusetts is so lovely; I wish I got there more.)  We kind of drifted through the rest of the month; I don’t remember much of what we did, other than camp runs and play dates – and I finally learned to bake bread.  It didn’t occur to me at the time, but looking back I think that maybe my obsession with bread-baking this summer might have had something to do with needing an outlet and to do something with my hands when my heart was feeling so sad.

August was the month we reserved for our summer vacation, and we managed to have a pretty good time.  We drove back up to New York (three trips to the Empire State in three months!) and spent a week in the Adirondacks with my parents.  We got a cute Airbnb apartment right in downtown Lake Placid and used it as base camp for a week of hiking and water fun.  Steve and I climbed our fourth Adirondack high peak (Big Slide Mountain this time); the kids splashed and played at the Lake Placid beach, and we celebrated Peanut’s sixth birthday on the trail.

September was quiet after the wild swings of summer, and that was what we needed.  We hiked at Great Falls with new friends who just recently moved to the area from San Francisco, and the kids went back to school.  Most of my month was taken up with back-to-school activities – as kindergarten class mom, I had a lot to do with back to school night, first PTA meetings of the year, and more.  Volunteering in Peanut’s classroom was one of my fall goals, and I have loved being around the school more.

October is my favorite month!  It’s my birthday month, fall splendor is everywhere, and Halloween is the best way to close out a month – if you ask me, which I realize no one did.  I cashed in my birthday authority by dragging the family out for a cold picnic and hiking in Shenandoah National Park – Nugget’s happy place.  During the week, I treated myself to a lunchtime excursion to see No Spectators: the Art of Burning Man at the Renwick Gallery with my friend Susan, and it was fabulous.  The rest of the month, we fit in several more hikes, watched the beginning of the fall foliage changing (it’s really a November phenomenon in Virginia, but it starts in October) and celebrated Halloween at school and in the neighborhood.

November was Steve’s birthday month, and we celebrated on the trails, of course!  Governor Northam had recently opened a brand-new state park – Widewater State Park, near Stafford – so we headed down there to check it out.  Even with the very barest beginnings of a trail network, it was lovely.  I also changed jobs in November, after a long search for a new opportunity, and enjoyed three days of “funemployment” – which I spent reading and chaperoning Peanut’s field trip to the weirdest farm ever.  And of course, one of my favorite holidays – we shared a Thanksgiving feast with my parents and our beloved next door neighbors, then spent Black Friday working off the mashed potatoes on the trail at Great Falls.

December – we made it to the end of the year!  I started the year with a business trip to Philadelphia, which was a lot of fun – and I got to see the lovely A.M.B. into the bargain!  Back in Virginia, we tried out a new tradition and cut down our own Christmas tree, then decorated it with all of our favorite ornaments.  We filled the month with other holiday fun – like a trip to the Christmas trains at the U.S. Botanic Garden – and even made it up to Baltimore to spend a day at the National Aquarium.  We ended the month with a little over a week at my parents’ place and managed to squeeze in almost everything we wanted to do – lots of friend time, hiking, family fun and playdates.  A good way to bid the old year farewell.

And now, it’s 2019!  Here’s hoping for lots of joy and adventures this year – we need them.

 

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My 2018 Christmas Book Stack

I know, I know, I haven’t recapped the actual holiday yet – next week!  But what I really want to show you is the stack of books I unwrapped on Christmas morning – because, to be honest, that’s always what I want to know about other people’s holidays: what books did you get?  Isn’t that terrible of me?  Oh, well.  Here’s what I received…

From Steve:

  • Drawn From Memory and Drawn From Life, both by E.H. Shepard and Slightly Foxed Editions No. 44 and 45.  I thought I had all the SFEs I wanted, then they rolled out two new releases I simply had to add to my collection, just in time for Santa to swing by Hoxbury Square, London, and toss them in the sleigh.  For those of you scratching your heads over E.H. Shepard’s familiar name – he’s the illustrator behind the classic depictions of Winnie-the-Pooh.
  • The House at Pooh Corner and The Complete Poems for Christopher Robin, both by A. A. Milne, in gorgeous Folio Society editions.  I’ve already got Winnie-the-Pooh in the same edition and these are going to be a beautiful addition to my children’s classics shelf.
  • Hons and Rebels, by Jessica Mitford.  Santa was shopping my Amazon wish list!  It was funny, because I had just discussed Hons and Rebels with my friend Susan over lunch, not two weeks before Christmas, and she was telling me how wonderful it is.  It was probably already winging its way to Steve for wrapping by then!
  • The Common Reader and The Second Common Reader, by Virginia Woolf.  Woolf isn’t normally my cup of tea, try as I do to like her experimental style.  But these books of her essays about authors, reading, and books sound great, and I added them to the Amazon wish list just in time for Santa’s snooping.
  • A Country Doctor’s Commonplace Book, by Philip Rhys Evans.  My first reaction to seeing this in the Slightly Foxed catalogue was a decided “meh,” but then I read the delightful and hilarious snippets and snatches that formed the little book’s preview, and I was completely charmed.  I look forward to laughing over this book in the very near future.
  • In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor.  It’s a very Mitford Christmas for me, apparently – I have been reading Nancy’s Christmas Pudding, received Jessica’s memoir (above) and will also get to peek into Debo’s correspondence.  I find the Mitfords absolutely fascinating, and Patrick Leigh Fermor is an illustrious figure in his own right, of course, so I can’t wait to tear through this.
  • A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt.  I’ve got a weakness for diaries and primary source materials that breathe life into different eras – an ongoing obsession since I first pulled L. M. Montgomery’s five volumes of diaries off my grandmother’s bookshelf and curled up with them in her overstuffed armchair, many years ago.  These were another Amazon wish list item, and I’ve been not-so-secretly admiring them over on Jennifer’s blog and Instagram.  I’m excited.
  • Tartine Bread.  I always tease Steve that his cookbook gifts are half self-serving – because while I’ve been wanting Tartine Bread for years, and especially lately since I finally learned how to bake bread somewhat reliably for myself, let’s be honest: he’ll be the one eating most of the results.  But y’all?  I’m going to enjoy this book.

From my mom:

  • Whiskey in a Teacup, by Reese Witherspoon.  I probably wouldn’t have bought this for myself, but I’m sure excited to have it – so thanks, Mom!  My BFF Rebecca really enjoyed it and kept texting me snippets of Lady Reese’s wisdom – especially the part about how children belong at weddings.  (Longtime readers may recall that Peanut was Rebecca’s flower girl last year, and Nugget rocked the cutest gingham bow tie at her wedding.)
  • My Squirrel Days, by Ellie Kemper.  My mom has a tradition of giving me a comedienne’s memoir every Christmas.  I’ve received books by Mindy Kaling, Amy Poehler, and Lauren Graham – and Ellie is this year’s addition.  I love these smart, hilarious women’s voices and I’m sure I’m going to enjoy this.  And when I’m done, Ellie can keep company with her Office co-star Mindy, and the other funny ladies, on my nonfiction shelf.

From my brother:

  • The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh, by Kathryn Aalto.  It was a very Hundred Acre Wood Christmas for me, huh?  I actually already owned this one, so I’ll probably exchange it for something I don’t have yet.  But it’s delightful – my brother and sister-in-love clearly know what I like.

There it is – quite a respectable book haul!  Books were really all that I wanted this year, so I was happy to find so many of them under the tree.  And I foresee some really excellent reading this winter…

If you were celebrating a holiday this December, did you receive any books?  Do share!

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Advent-ures 2018

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!  (That’s what the song says, at least.  I’m more of a summer kind of girl, myself.  But I do love the holiday season too.)  As always, I’ve been dragging the family out to make memories, determined to fill up our hearts and photo albums at every opportunity.  It’s what I do.  We’ve actually missed a few of our normal traditions – no Old Town parades, no Christmas in Little Washington, and we’re not going to be watching Santa waterski down the Potomac this year due to a schedule conflict.  But we’ve done a lot.

Visiting a Christmas Tree Farm

Starting with – cutting down our own Christmas tree!

Steve grew up with a real tree but I’ve had a faux tree for basically as long as I can remember.  I’ve always been squeamish about the idea of cutting down a living tree, but Christmas tree lots give me the sads.  But in 2017 I read that in order for a faux tree to be more environmentally friendly than a real tree, you have to keep it for seven years.  That’s the line at which the fake tree’s lifespan surpasses the effects of off-gassing, water use and chemical processing it takes to produce it.  The problem is: we weren’t keeping our fake trees that long.  These days it’s almost impossible to find a nice one that isn’t pre-strung with lights, and our pre-strung trees were dying after three to four years.  So I read up on Christmas tree farms, liked what I learned about their sustainability, and agreed to give it a try.  (We may go back to a fake tree in the future, but for now we’re experimenting with real.)  So – off to Middleburg, Virginia we went, to cut down our own Christmas tree!

The kids went tearing down the mowed path, ready to pick out their tree.

How about this one?  Too small, Charlie Brown.

Peanut liked this one, but it was a little oddly shaped, so Dad vetoed it.

Ohhhhh, the sass.  So much sass.

Found it!  Steve stopped in front of this Douglas fir and I said: “It’s a beaut, Clark!”  He cut it down while I stood supporting it from the other side, sniffling that I felt like a murderer.  I still feel a little guilty, actually.  But I try to remember that the tree gave oxygen to the atmosphere all year and that three to four replacements were planted in its place.

We hauled our victim tree out in the big yellow wagon.

While Steve took care of paying for the tree, getting it wrapped, and loading it on top of the old four-wheel drive sleigh (sorry, Clark) the kids and I warmed up by a delicious-smelling campfire.

I harassed the littles with photo shoots and checked out the coordinated outfits of the families who were clearly planning to combine their tree-cutting with Christmas photo-taking.

 

Such cuties.  Most adorable kids ever, and not a bit biased.

Finally, Daddy motioned us over to the car.  We drove home gingerly with the tree secured by several miles of rope.  Daddy set it up immediately and we wasted no time in pulling out the lights and ornaments.

Now it’s officially the holiday season!

Warming Up in the National Aquarium

Last Christmas, my high school BFF gifted our family with tickets to the National Aquarium in Baltimore.  It’s one of the most expensive family activities in the area – adult tickets are $40, incredibly steep when you consider that most museums are free – so having gift tickets was a blessing.  We applied the gift tickets to a membership so that we can go to the aquarium all year long; everyone in our family loves it.  It’s not Christmassy per se, but last weekend we found ourselves in Baltimore, darting through the raindrops to the aquarium entrance.

My favorite part of the aquarium?  Seeing the wide-eyed wonder on these two little faces.

(My second-favorite part is the gigantic multi-story coral reef.)

The puffins are cool too.

There was a touch tank full of moon jellies.  Nugget bravely reached a finger in and petted one of the jellyfish.  Peanut, Daddy and I took a hard pass.

Brave boy.

Hello, turtle.

So much fun!  I’m glad we have the membership, and I can’t wait to go back on chilly weekends this winter.

Christmas Trains at the U.S. Botanic Gardens

Finally, while we have missed out on most of our usual Advent fun this year (due to scheduling snafus, some poor planning on my part, and a yucky cold in Nugget’s nose a couple of weeks ago) I insisted that we make it to the Botanic Gardens for the Christmas trains.  That’s a can’t-miss activity.  It’s mainly for Nugget, but we all enjoy it.

While we waited in line, we enjoyed some of the plant-based D.C. landmarks.  The garden does them every year, and they never fail to impress.  The Washington Monument!

Waiting impatiently to enter the train room…

It was delightful as always!  My favorite year was 2016 – for the National Park System’s centennial, the train room was NPS-themed.  This year, the trains circulated around various train stations, natural elements and the North Pole, but it was still beautiful.

A certain little boy was very taken with the whole thing.

(His sister was impressed, too.)  Hello, Thomas!

After we’d had our fill of the trains, we checked out the rest of the Botanic Gardens.  I demanded pictures by the poinsettia wall.

 

(It was nice to have these pictures to look at later, after they were both so obnoxious in Michael’s that I wanted to kick them out of the car.)

The final stop on the way out of the Botanic Gardens is the D.C. landmarks – of course.

Hello, Mr. President!

I had to snap a picture of the Supreme Court for us lawyers in the family.

The National Museum of African-American History and Culture.  (Still on my to-do list.)

A miniature Botanic Gardens.  The roof looks like it’s made of onion skin?

The Library of Congress.  Hello, beautiful!

And the Capitol – always the most impressive of all.

The days are ticking closer and closer to Christmas now, and I still have a lot to do.  I’m entering the whirlwind of gift-wrapping, card-writing, FedEx-running and friend-lunching that always characterizes the latter part of December.  But I don’t mind any of it, and I hope that my kids grow up remembering how I packed the holiday season full of fun and family from October to January.

How have you been celebrating this holiday season?

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The Winter List 2019

Another season’s change is upon us – is it just me, or do they seem to go faster and faster every year? – and it’s time to make a list of hopes and dreams for winter.  I’ve always liked winter, but three years in Buffalo kind of stamped out my enjoyment of the season, try as I did to embrace it.  So I’m going to try to get some of my old appreciation for the cold months back this year.  Here’s what I’m thinking:

  • Take a snowy (hopefully) weekend getaway to the mountains.
  • Bake an olive oil citrus cake.  I put this on the list every year – this year, it’s happening!
  • Take Peanut to her first movie in the theater.
  • Make progress on cleaning out the basement.
  • Take the kids to play at Badlands.
  • Read some Dickens.
  • See Huckleberry Finn’s Big River at the Adventure Theatre.
  • Go ice skating on the Empire State Plaza in Albany.
  • Take Peanut to see Angelina Ballerina: The Musical in Gaithersburg.
  • Complete a “vegan for 100 days” challenge.

There!  Some outdoor fun, some bookishness, some family stuff and some food – sounds like the makings of a good winter to me.  After checking every item off my list for the first time ever this fall, I’m excited to see how the winter goes.

What’s on your winter to-do list?

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (December 17, 2018)

Blahhhhh.  It’s Monday and I’m exhausted from the weekend.  There are certain seasons in which I’m happy to just laze around, run errands and straighten up the house on weekends, but the holiday season isn’t one of them.  Steve would tell you I’ve always been a big one for dragging everyone out to make memories and having kids has just exacerbated it.  What can I say?  I want the kids to be able to look back on a childhood full of fun and magic and if that means I have to shout at everybody to put their shoes on, I guess that’s just the price we all have to pay – right?  Anyway.  This weekend was packed full of all the activities we didn’t manage to do last weekend.  On Saturday we pulled out our shiny new National Aquarium membership and spent a few hours with the fish.  My favorite part of the aquarium in Baltimore is the gigantic – multi-story! – indoor reef.  On Sunday, we braved a rainstorm to stand in line for the Christmas trains at the U.S. Botanic Garden.  This was our third year attending (I think? I know we went two years ago, and I’m pretty sure last year, too) and it never disappoints.  My favorite part is always the D.C. monuments and landmarks constructed out of bark and other plant material, but the kids love the trains.  Nugget was delighted to see his friend Thomas chugging along through the exhibit and Peanut thought the North Pole display was magical.  We spent Sunday afternoon working feverishly on a research project for school (due today; we waited until the last minute but we got it done) and I was glad to curl up with Michelle Obama’s memoir and a cold kombucha after tucking the kiddos in for the night.  And now – a new week beckons.

  

Reading.  Some reading week, all right.  I spent the entire workweek on The House of the Spirits and was about halfway through the 488 pages when I sat down at the computer to renew my library books and discovered there were holds – ouch.  I was sure I’d end up with overdue fines as a result, but somehow I powered through more than 200 pages on Saturday and was able to return it on time.  Yay, me!  Next I checked one off the longtime TBR and read the first volume of Art Spiegelman’s classic Maus.  Finally, after two tough reads, I rewarded myself with a book from my own shelf and one I’ve been looking so forward to – Michelle Obama’s new memoir, Becoming. #myforeverfirstlady

Watching.  Well – I didn’t actually watch anything this week.  I’ve been craving one of my favorite classic 1930s screwball comedies, but I haven’t turned the TV on for myself all week.  (I feel like I get asked all the time how I manage to read as much as I do.  Part of it is being a fast reader, but a lot of it is simply the fact that I don’t really watch much TV at all – I probably average about an hour a week of actual TV watching.  No shade to TV; there’s lots of great material there.  I just mostly don’t gravitate to it.)

Listening.  A hodgepodge, which is pretty usual for me.  Some podcasts – my favorite parenting and home podcasts are putting out their holiday episodes, which I always enjoy – and a little music.  Decemberists, Offa Rex, Christmas carols.  I popped the Shins into the car CD player this week and enjoyed it, but there’s really nothing that comes close to the Decemberists and my beloved R.E.M.

Making.  A menorah and nine glittering “candle fairies” (one shamash fairy and her troupe of eight candles) for Peanut’s school holiday project.  Each kid chose a holiday to research and represent with a paper-based project.  Much to my delight, Peanut picked Hanukkah – although I don’t personally celebrate the holiday, I love absolutely everything about it – and we had fun making a play set with the “candle fairy” paper dolls, a menorah and two dreidels with pockets to house the fairies.  I texted pictures of the project to a good friend who is Jewish, and she adored it.  I’ve also made progress on my own Christmas preparations.  Cards will go out tomorrow (I think) and I’m done with the kids’ shopping.  I have a bit more to get for grandparents and extended family, but I’m getting close.  (Also, why is anything after December 15 considered “last minute” shopping?  Hello, Amazon Prime ships in two days!)

Blogging.  Winter list on Wednesday – gotta keep the momentum going after a great fall.  And I’m recapping our Advent adventures on Friday.  We didn’t do everything I wanted to, but we’ve done a lot.

Loving.  The family-friendly theatre season is on point this year!  Peanut and I are continuing with our tradition of a girls’ date to the theatre in the days leading up to Christmas – we’re seeing Fancy Nancy’s Splendiferous Christmas this year – but I’m also giving theatre tickets to a few other shows as Christmas gifts.  I don’t know if the kids’ theatre scene in D.C. has always been great and I’m just now figuring it out, but I’m so hype to see some shows this winter.  I’ve loved theatre (both musical and otherwise) since I was in high school, and it’s great fun to share it with Peanut.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

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Tree Trimmings, 2018

Recently, someone asked me whether my tree was “designy or personal.”  The answer is – personal; definitely personal.  Back when Steve and I were newlyweds, I had the idea to make our tree coordinated and – I guess “designy” would be the right word.  It was, for maybe a year or so, but it fell by the wayside fairly quickly.  Today it’s a hodgepodge of kid-created ornaments, things picked up during our travels, and reminders of where we live.  But that conversation reminded me that it’s been years since I took you on a tour of our Christmas tree.  So how ’bout we do that?

This old favorite might look familiar – it’s the lighthouse from Block Island.  My brother lived on the island for more than two years and he gave this to me one Christmas.

More old favorites – Mount Vernon as a gingerbread house and two teapots in the Washingtons’ china patterns.  We bought these before we moved to New York for three years, to remind us of Old Dominion.

We have political statements on the tree, too.  No Stamp Act!

 

And there are other nods to George and Martha, too.

Still on the Virginia theme, I bought this handmade clay ornament at the Torpedo Factory Art Center.  It looks (a little) like our house here.

In recent years, we’ve fallen in love with Little Washington, the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains.  We missed this year’s Little Washington Christmas parade, but at least we have this nod to the famous Inn at Little Washington on our tree.

Speaking of the Shenandoah Valley, a couple of years ago we decided to start collecting ornaments from every national park we visit.  One of the first to be added to the new collection, of course, was an ornament from Nugget’s happy place – Shenandoah National Park.

We also have this one, from Joshua Tree National Park.  I’d love to get back there someday and camp in the park.  The night sky over the desert must be incredible.

 

We have other ornaments picked up from our travels, too – like these handmade pottery ornaments from the Outer Banks – the Hatteras Light and a great blue heron.

 
 

And the Adirondacks.  A loon and a red canoe (couldn’t find a kayak) to commemorate paddling on Mirror Lake this past summer.  (We’ll have to add a kayak after our trip to the San Juans this coming summer.)

And no tree would be complete without a nod to Cornell, too.  This happy snowman is ready to take the Big Red straight to the Frozen Four!

Travel isn’t the only thing we celebrate on our tree, though.  Miss Austen graces a branch.

And we have some seals in winter knitwear, because Peanut has a longstanding love affair with pinnipeds.  (I’m trying to convert her to Team Cetacean, though.)

 

Speaking of Peanut, we have some familiar faces on our tree, too.  Miss Peanut and Mr. Nugget doing their favorite things – picking flowers and hiking, respectively.

 

And, finally, no tree is complete – at least, not in a house with young children – without some kid-made ornaments.  The gold handprint on the left is courtesy of Peanut, and the little fingerprint snowmen in the right are Nugget’s work, both from their time at Westminster Early Childhood Programs back in Buffalo.

What special holiday decorating traditions do you have?

 

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The Fall List 2018: Recap

FINALLY!  A season packed full of fun, with every.single.item crossed off my seasonal to-do list.  After the Summer of Torrential Rains, I really needed a few months of good weekend weather.  We were sorely in need of family time and we made sure to pack the autumn season full of it.

  • Pick apples at Butler’s Orchard (and maybe some raspberries too?).  Done!  Well – not at Butler’s, because it was closed on the day we wanted to go.  And not berries – we were too late in the season.  But the kids and I drove out to Bluemont with some friends on Columbus Day and enjoyed a day of apple picking at Great Country Farms, followed by a hike to Bears Den Overlook – a lovely way to play hooky from work.

  • Hike Big Meadows at Shenandoah National Park – moving this one over from the summer list.  Done!  I cashed in my birthday rights for a day trip out to Luray, and we had a picnic (hot soup in the chilly fall air) and hiked Big Meadows and the Story of the Forest Trail.  Big Meadows was absolutely magical!

  • Roll up my sleeves and do some fall baking with Peanut.  Calling this done, even though Peanut only helped with taste-testing this time (ha!).  I had fun whipping up a cranberry-apple spice cake with maple buttercream and candied cranberries to take to the neighbors’ house for Thanksgiving dessert.  And there’ve been several batches of sourdough bread, sourdough rolls, and spiced apple cornbread – yum.

  • Catch up on the 52 Hike Challenge before it gets really cold.  Done!  Well – I’m calling it done.  The next hike I do will be hike 52 – wahoo!  (I’m saving it for something special.)  I have loved spending so much time on the trails this year.

  

  • Read cozy mysteries – as many as possible.  Calling this done.  I have had a great year of reading, now that it’s almost over, and there’s no season like fall for curling up with a blanket, a big cup of tea and a cozy mystery.  I visited with Lady Georgianna and Hercule Poirot, two of my favorite sleuths, and had fun experiencing a different kind of mystery novel in The Floating Admiral.

  • Run the Wonder Woman virtual 5K (and maybe the Alexandria Turkey Trot).  Done!  Not the Turkey Trot – I was too busy cooking all day – but I did manage to squeeze in 3.1 miles on the Potomac Yards trail for the Wonder Woman virtual 5K run.  I made the plans to do the run “with” my fellow Wonder Woman fan, Katie – she got it done sooner than I did, but I made it happen eventually!

  • Volunteer in Peanut’s classroom.  Done!  I made a goal that I would be more present and visible at school this year, especially for Peanut – Nugget is such an easygoing, happy-go-lucky guy that he doesn’t really need me at school, but Peanut does.  It’s been a commitment, but I have been around a lot more in Peanut’s class and I think it’s been helpful.  I am a class mom, so I helped to lead Back to School Night for the kindergarten parents, co-hosted the class Halloween party (and was in charge of the Halloween art project – superhero pumpkins!), chaperoned a field trip to a nearby Colonial farm, and helped serve muffins and open applesauce cups during the Togetherness Feast before Thanksgiving.
  • Get back into Barre3.  I could have done better with this, but I’m calling it done.  Getting to class has proven too hard to fit in, but I signed up for Barre3 Online and have done some workouts from the comfort of my bedroom.  Hoping to keep this going over the winter – I really do enjoy Barre3, I just don’t enjoy the fact that my kids are already awake before I have to leave for the 5:45 a.m. class.

  • Pumpkin picking, of course!  This is an easy one to put on the list, because it’s guaranteed to happen.  We went back to Wegmeyer Farms this year and the kids had fun choosing their pumpkins and snacking on apple cider donuts.  The best!

  • Take the kids trick-or-treating (they already have their costumes!) at Mount Vernon and in the neighborhood again.  Another easy one, because Halloween is coming whether I’m on my game or not!  We actually didn’t make it to the Mount Vernon trick-or-treating this year, but the neighborhood block party was bumping as usual.

How about that for a seasonal list?!  It was a great fall.  In addition to all of the fun above, I changed jobs and we hosted my parents for Thanksgiving.  We really did need this bright and happy season, and I feel a bit more human again after a summer that left us all pretty emotionally banged up.  Here’s hoping we can keep this momentum going and get more joy and more family bonding in over the winter.

 

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (December 10, 2018)

First of all – love and light to my friends who are celebrating Hanukkah this week!  I hope your holiday has been full of joy, family, and miracles both big and small.  Around here, we are deep in preparations for Christmas and the busiest season is busier than ever.  I was out of town for two days last week – in Philadelphia for a client visit with a group of my new coworkers.  The visit went well, we got in some good coworker bonding, and I was even able to squeeze in a quick breakfast with my lovely friend A.M.B.  Also, I have to say – Philly was in the holiday spirit in a big way.  It’s nice to know of an option for a festive seasonal getaway that’s closer than New York.  Anyway – the rest of the weekend was a bit of a dud.  On Saturday we shoved off early and drove to Baltimore to deliver on a promise to take the kids back to the National Aquarium.  When we got there, we discovered it was “dollar days” and admission was $1.00 instead of $40.00 – and the line wound ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BUILDING.  (It’s not a small building.)  I stood in line, huddled in a biting wind, for twenty minutes before we threw in the towel, bought the kids consolation prizes at the giant Barnes & Noble, and drove back home.  Womp, womp.  On Saturday night, Steve and I went out to my firm’s holiday party – which turned out to be a fun night, and it was nice to introduce Steve to my new colleagues.  Our regular babysitter, Bre, was unavailable so we hired the children’s librarian from our local library branch to watch the kids.  She’s sweet and patient and she did a great job, but the kids (Nugget especially) didn’t let her forget that she was NOT BRE, OKAY.  On Sunday, we just bummed around the house.  I worked on some Christmas presents, ran a couple of errands, watched The Incredibles ii with Nugget (who’s fighting off an icky cold) snuggled up on my lap, and did a marathon batch cooking in the afternoon.  Cozy, but I’m looking forward to doing something more festive next weekend.

 

Reading.  I spent this reading week in South America, as it turns out.  Most of the week was devoted to The Lost City of Z, which was my book club book for December.  Of course, I got halfway through the book before I realized that I was going to be in Philadelphia on book club night.  But as it turned out, everybody cancelled, so the host called off the meeting and we’ll be discussing The Lost City of Z in January instead.  I’m glad not to miss the discussion, because I really enjoyed the book.  I finished it on the train on the way home from Philly and then turned to The House of the Spirits, which I’ve been meaning to read for ages.  It’s slow going, but I’m really liking it – and I think I may have finally found a magical realism novel I can get behind.

Watching.  With the exception of The Incredibles ii a few times, I haven’t watched any TV this week.  I do really enjoy The Incredibles ii, though – especially the scene in which Jack-Jack wrestles the raccoon.  That slays me every time.

Listening.  This and that – lots of podcasts.  The metro work went on all of last week, so I spent quite a few metro rides squished between people and unable to reach my book – bad for my well-being, but good for listening time.  I went through both of the holiday recommendation shows from The Book Riot Podcast, and a bunch of back episodes of other podcasts too.

Moving.  Sadly, not as much as I wanted to.  I was hoping to squeeze in a sightseeing run to the Liberty Bell while I was in Philly, but it didn’t work out.  I did take two walks around the neighborhood of my hotel, though.  Hoping to fit in more fitness this coming week.

Making.  FOOD!  Lots and lots of food.  Sunday afternoon’s batch cooking includes: pasta e fagioli; red lentil dal; sliced snack veggies; gardein taco “meat”; diced fresh mango; steamed tricolor cauliflower and broccoli; roasted tempeh; roasted tofu; plain chickpeas; steamed einkorn; dry-roasted mushrooms; white bean and sundried tomato dip; raw grain-free granola; and cornmeal breakfast cake with chocolate chips (a concession to the kids).  All in all, less than three hours of work, and this will probably get me through two weeks of lunches and dinners.

No one is allowed to complain that there’s nothing to eat.

Blogging.  I have some fun stuff to share with you this week!  My fall list, recapped, on Wednesday – spoiler alert: it was a busy season – and a tour of my Christmas tree, since it’s been awhile, on Friday.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  The gift guides on treehugger.com are great this year!  I’ve been perusing this year’s selections – gifts for your favorite zero-waster and vegan (those cross-body bags! gorgeous) – and past years’ offerings as well, like 2017’s gift guide for the outdoorsy type and 2015’s green gifts for kids and gifts that give back to wildlife.  I paid extra-close attention to the vegan gift guide, because about a year ago, I quit purchasing any non-vegan fashion or beauty products.  I’m phasing out the leather accessories and non-vegan beauty products I own now – using them until they wear out or run out – and when it’s time to replace items, I’ve been buying cruelty-free products exclusively.  Several of the items from the vegan gift guide might just make it onto my wish list this season!  Do go check all of the gift guides out, and while you’re there, take a look at this article about seven problems facing the ocean and what we can do about them.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

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Gift Guide: Shopping For A Sustainable Ocean

Busted – that’s the Potomac River.  But rivers feed into oceans, so you get the idea!

As the holiday shopping season heats up, I thought it would be fun to put together a list of gift ideas that do double duty – hopefully, delighting the recipient and supporting environmental conservation through either their low planetary impact or their direct contribution to earth-friendly causes.  Here are some of my favorites…

Creative Conservation

  • Upcycled sunnies.  I’ve got a thing for great design, and I especially love great design that makes creative use of materials, so I’m predictably obsessed with Norton Point sunglasses.  They’re polarized, completely UV-blocking, and made from recycled ocean plastic!  I have a pair – “The Tide” – and was waxing poetic about them to my BFF, Rebecca, who said “I have a hard time imagining you wearing garbage on your face.”  But I assure you – they don’t look like garbage; they get more compliments than any of my other pairs of sunglasses.  I can’t get enough of them, and I’m hoping they come out with more designs soon!  (I love “The Whitecap Swell,” but I have a very similar-looking pair from goodr, and can’t justify spending the money for almost the same exact look.)
  • Jenga for ocean nerds.  I first spotted this Jenga game, made from recycled plastic fishing nets, in the National Aquarium gift shop, and I thought it was such a cool idea.  If we ever decide to add Jenga to our game closet, this is definitely the version I’m going for.
  • 4Ocean bracelets.  I looked at 4Ocean’s products for a long time before pulling the trigger and buying the whale bracelet, and I LOVE it.  The basic gist is that for every bracelet that is purchased, 4Ocean will pull a pound of trash from the ocean – and the bracelets themselves are made of recycled materials (glass beads and a string made from plastic water bottles) pulled from the beaches and waterways.  You can even get a subscription and receive additional bracelets – with corresponding good feelings – throughout the year.  I think these look especially cute stacked, so I’d love to add to my collection at some point.
  • A wetsuit yoga mat?!  If I didn’t already have a yoga mat that I love, I’d be so into this one, made from recycled wetsuits.

  • A recycled recycling truck.  Nugget has a fleet of vehicles – trucks, cars, buses, helicopters and airplanes, and even a submarine and a ferry boat – from Green Toys.  (He doesn’t actually have the recycling truck, but I love how meta that idea is.)  The products are made from recycled milk jugs, the packaging is all cardstock and recyclable, and with no small parts to choke on, they’re suitable for the youngest kids.  Ours have done bathtub and sandbox duty, driven over the tough terrain at the beach and playground, and served as snuggle buddies at night.  Yes – I’m serious.  Nugget went through a phase when he was about a year and a half old, in which he wouldn’t be caught dead with a stuffed friend and would instead fall asleep cuddled up with his Green Toys fire truck.

Low Impact Gifts

  • Experiences.  My high school BFF, Jenn, gifted our family tickets to the National Aquarium in Baltimore last Christmas.  We saved the tickets for a rainy spring day and enjoyed every minute of our aquarium visit.  The National Aquarium is on the pricey side (especially in an area where many museums, zoos and other experiences are free) so having the tickets bought and paid for took some of the heat off of our wallets and encouraged us to go.  And bonus – the tickets were delivered by email and my phone was scanned at the entrance, so the carbon footprint of the gift was literally nada.  The year before, my very generous mother-in-law gave us a gift certificate to the Inn at Little Washington – the dinner of a lifetime, and almost no packaging.  (I have an experience gift planned for Steve this year, and I think he’s going to love it.)

  • Memberships.  We’re big on memberships in my family.  I’ve gifted Steve with an annual membership to the Buffalo Museum of Science when we lived on the tundra, and down in DC we renew our Mount Vernon membership, our Friends of the National Zoo subscription, and our America the Beautiful pass every year.  As with experiences, memberships are a great low-impact option – very little packaging, just a tiny membership card, and an entire year’s worth of enjoyment.
  • Support local businesses.  I’m a busy working mom, so I’ll be relying on Amazon to help me stock under the tree for Christmas morning, but I really love shopping locally.  Given where I live, I am spoiled by the opportunity to walk out my front door and have dozens of fabulous local businesses to support within just a few blocks.  We try to shop at our neighborhood children’s bookstore for every birthday party, and I’ve given plenty of handmade gifts purchased from the neighborhood farmers’ market (which includes craftspeople), the shops along King Street, and the Torpedo Factory Art Center (a favorite, because I can support local artists within walking distance of my house!).  The earth-friendly bonus to supporting my neighbors: less packaging, I can use my own bag, and I don’t have to burn any gas, whether my own or FedEx’s.
  • Gifts from your travels.  I won’t be doing this in 2018, because I wasn’t on the ball enough when we visited the Adirondacks, but in other years I’ve thought ahead and picked up holiday gifts while on vacation.  I’m there anyway, so it’s not burning any additional fuel, and I get the fun of including in my adventures those family and friends who weren’t on the vacation with me.

  • Make it yourself.  Once again, I probably won’t be doing this in 2018, but once upon a long time ago I had some spare time and I did an entirely handmade Christmas – I crocheted scarves for the women in my family, made homemade soaps and bath teas for my mom, and gave extended family members homemade rosemary and lemon-infused olive oil.  The gifts were a hit!  This year, I may try having the kids make something for their grandparents, but they’re not always in the mood to be cooperative, so we’ll see how that goes.  But in my experience, gifts from the kitchen are usually a hit – one year, I’d love to do preserved lemon in pretty glass jars for everyone – and they’re as low impact as farmers’ market ingredients and some of your time and love.
  • Green their laundry.  Lately I’ve been really focused on microfibers and microplastics.  I’d love to find the Guppyfriend under my tree – it would give me so much peace of mind to know that if my laundry is shedding microfibers, that I’m catching them and keeping them out of the Potomac and the Chesapeake.

Gifts that Give Back

  • Adopt an endangered animal.  Fun story: when Steve and I were on our second date, I told him about my friend Nicole, who had an adopted whale, and how much I had always wanted one.  A couple of months later, for my birthday, he surprised me with my very own humpback whale, a calf named Ember.  (Cue the collective awwwww.)  Years later, I added an orca to the family: J-51 Nova of the southern resident population.  Later I adopted L-119 Joy, also a southern resident orca, for Peanut’s class, and Steve and the kids adopted me J-26 Mike as a birthday gift.  The money for the adoption goes toward research and conservation efforts, and if you choose to adopt an orca through The Whale Museum, you can even choose an environmentally-friendly paperless subscription.
  • Donations.  I love gifting (and receiving!) donations to a good cause.  For the past few years, I’ve done donations to educational causes for Peanut’s teacher gifts – last year she gave three “a year of school for a Syrian boy” donations, one for each of her teachers.  For me, I set up a birthday fundraiser through Facebook, with proceeds going to The Center for Whale Research, the leading research and conservation organization dedicated to protecting my beloved SRKWs.  As with many experiences and endangered animal adoptions, donations can be paperless for the lowest impact possible, and there are so many great causes to support.
  • Reveal techie goods.  I’m obsessed with my Bluetooth earbuds from Reveal Shop.  For every purchase of their – beautifully-designed, cruelty-free and affordable – products, Reveal plants a tree.  I’m seriously considering adding this bamboo Bluetooth speaker and smartphone charger to my Christmas list this year.
  • Glassybaby for everyone.  I couldn’t make a sustainable/low-impact gift list without including glassybaby.  I’ve been collecting them for years.  In addition to their handmade uniqueness and gorgeous glow-from-within look, glassybaby is committed to giving back to causes including environmental and wildlife conservation – for every single glassybaby purchased, the company donates a portion of its proceeds to charity.  I love that they’re on a mission to make the world better, one light at a time.  (Note: glassybaby is based in the Pacific Northwest, so if you’re not local to one of their shops, this is a gift with a little bit of a carbon footprint.  But I think the company’s commitment to charitable giving makes it worth it nonetheless.)

What are your favorite eco-friendly gifts?

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Reading Round-Up: November 2018

Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby. I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book. Here are my reads for November, 2018…

  

Hallowe’en Party, by Agatha Christie – A fun one to read on Halloween (and for a day or so after, as it turned out).  Ariadne Oliver, the celebrated mystery writer, is at a children’s Hallowe’en party when one of the party guests is found murdered.  Mrs. Oliver knows that her friend Hercule Poirot can unravel the mystery – but will he solve it in time to prevent the murderer striking again?  Agatha Christie always delivers, and this was a blast.

The Radical Element: 12 Stories of Daredevils, Debutantes and Other Dauntless Girls (A Tyranny of Petticoats #2), ed. Jessica Spotswood – I loved the first entry into this series, and The Radical Element delivered exactly the same joys.  There were stories of a young Mexican-American woman using magic to pass as white in 1920s Hollywood, a Jewish girl willing to risk everything to learn about her faith, a gay teenager who runs away with the circus, and more.  Every story was heartfelt and beautiful.

I Should Have Honor: A Memoir of Hope and Pride in Pakistan, by Khalida Brohi – This was a stirring and powerful memoir by a still-young woman who has risked her life over and over again to empower women and girls and to fight the custom of honor killing in Pakistan.  I couldn’t stop turning the pages.

  

The Shooting Party, by Isabel Colegate – I read this for the fall Tea and Tattle book club – to be honest, I was sold when Miranda explained that it inspired Julian Fellowes in creating Downton Abbey and Gosford Park.  I could see it, too: the same upstairs/downstairs dramas and complex characters.  The Shooting Party was a slim but lovely read, about an eventful gathering of a group of aristocrats for a shooting party at a great house on the eve of World War I.

Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay, by Phoebe Robinson – Meh.  So, I really enjoyed Robinson’s first collection of essays, You Can’t Touch My Hair (And Other Things I Still Have To Explain), but Everything’s Trash felt like more of the same.  I kept thinking to myself: I feel like I’ve already read this.  And there was a weird braggy interlude in the middle about how she met Bono twice and he made her a piece of original artwork.

My So-Called Bollywood Life, by Nisha Sharma – I was excited to read this YA novel about a young girl navigating high school with the help of her favorite Bollywood movies, but it was kind of a let-down.  The central storyline revolved around a prophecy that the main character had received as a baby, about marrying someone with a name that starts with “R” who would give her a silver bracelet, so her entire family was super committed to making sure she married her boyfriend Raj, who gave her a silver bracelet because he felt like he had to after hearing so much about the prophecy. And then there was a love triangle, which is my least favorite YA trope ever.  It just wasn’t for me.

  

The House By The Lake: One House, Five Families, and A Hundred Years of German History, by Thomas Harding – I loved this.  I can never pass up a history told through an interesting lens or with an unusual hook, and The House by the Lake sure delivered.  The book begins with Harding visiting a ramshackle, falling-down cottage on the shores of Gross Glienecke Lake – just outside of Berlin – that once belonged to his great-grandparents.  Seeking to save the cottage from being razed by the government, he weaves together the house’s fascinating history, from his Jewish great-grandparents, who were forced to leave the house and its contents behind when they fled for England at the beginning of World War II, through the families who either summered or lived there year-round under the brutal East German regime until the fall of the Berlin Wall, and all the way to present day.  Harding’s quest to prove the cottage’s historic significance seems quixotic at first, even to his family, but his zest for the mission eventually wins him the support of the local historical society – but will it be enough?  You’ll have to read it and find out.

Four Seasons in Rome, by Anthony Doerr – Several years ago, Anthony Doerr received a fellowship to live in Rome and work at an American writers’ collective in the city for a year.  He moved his wife and their six-month-old twin boys to the ancient city and they attempted to learn Italian and live as Romans while he worked on a novel about World War II.  Unsurprisingly, the book writing does not go well – Doerr spends most of the year nauseatingly exhausted from parenting (been there) and disoriented from the foreignness of Rome – which is fascinating when you know with 20-20 hindsight that the book that was going so badly at the time eventually turned out to be the stunningly beautiful All The Light We Cannot See.  This memoir was beautiful too – Doerr is an incredibly evocative writer.

Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner – I’ve been meaning to read this since about 2007, when a friend with excellent literary taste told me that Stegner was her favorite writer.  (This friend was from Utah originally and had made it her mission to read all the literature of the American West.)  Angle of Repose is widely regarded as Stegner’s masterpiece, although it’s not without controversy – part of the book includes letters from the main character, who was inspired by a real historical figure, and Stegner lifted whole letters from that actual figure after her family was kind enough to share them with him for research purposes, and published them in the book.  (Whoops.)  Anyway, if you’re reading between the lines, you’ve probably guessed that I didn’t love this.  Liked it, but didn’t love it.  I found the central plot – the marriage of the narrator’s grandparents – to be hard to believe; they were just too different and I understand that divorce wasn’t a “thing” in Victorian times, but meh.  I just couldn’t buy into the central relationship because I didn’t find it believable that they were in love in the first place. I was disappointed, because I loved Crossing to Safety (another Stegner) so much – but Angle of Repose fell a little flat for me.

Autumn (Seasonal Quartet #1) by Ali Smith – I wanted to read this book (hailed as the “first Brexit novel”) after seeing it all over my Instagram feed.  It makes for gorgeous photographs, but I didn’t love the book.  Ali Smith is a genius, no doubt, and I was suitably impressed by the things she did with language.  The problem was that I couldn’t lose myself in the story (of an elderly man and his devoted young neighbor) because I was constantly aware that Ali Smith was Doing Impressive Things With Language.

Belonging: A German Reckons With Home and History, by Nora Krug – Soooooooo so so so so good.  I absolutely loved this graphic and pictorial family history.  Nora Krug, like many Germans of the younger generation, has grown up under the shadow of World War II.  Finally, after moving to America and marrying a Jewish man, Krug feels brave enough to confront her family history and ask the question about her grandparents that she’s never been able to get satisfactorily answered: were they Nazis?  Krug delves into her family history, and the history of the towns in which they lived, and the result is half-scrapbook, half-graphic memoir – and totally fascinating.

Slightly Foxed No. 59: Manhattan Moments, ed. Gail Pirkis – Just in time for the special 60th issue to arrive on my doorstep, I finished this fall’s Slightly Foxed.  It was full of literary delights, as usual.

The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, by Florence Williams – Another one I’ve had on my TBR for awhile; I liked, but didn’t love, The Nature Fix.  It was interesting, if a bit more focused on neuroscience than I was expecting – I’d have liked a little psychology or nature writing to mix it up.  The one thing that really bothered me was the author’s near-constant ragging on DC.  I get it: DC isn’t for everyone, and she moved from Colorado, which is just a different world for someone who likes outdoor adventure (I know, my brother lives there).  But one or two complaints about DC (the noise, the air quality, the lack of access to trails, blah, blah, blah – it’s not actually that bad here) would have sufficed to make her point.  Complaints in every chapter got tiresome.

WOW, what a busy reading month November was!  Part of that was because I changed jobs – I had three days of “funemployment” between gigs, plus ramp-down and ramp-up time on either side of that, when work wasn’t keeping me crazy busy.  That time coincided with some disgustingly awful weather, so instead of hiking as I had planned to do with my “funemployment” I spent two entire days on the couch, reading.  It was pretty blissful.  As for enjoyment, I was all over the place.  Belonging was the clear highlight, but I also loved The House By the Lake, The Shooting Party, and Four Seasons in Rome, and a new Slightly Foxed quarterly is never unwelcome.  There were some duds, too, but even with those I was enjoying the act of reading, itself, so no regrets.  Here’s hoping for a strong finish to the year!