friday finds

This Friday found F and I traipsing along on E's field trip.  We explored our urban prairies and enjoyed an absolutely glorious fall day outside.

And while the class found themselves listening to our conservation guide, F found herself much more interested in the amphitheater. 

On our way home (after leaving the rest of the class at school) we refueled at Rue Lafayette and found two cool things.  The first is this old advertisement.  I think it will sit or hang on the new living room bookcases.  The reason it caught my eye was the name - Bianchi, which is my Italian family name several generations back.  I may have a collection of European heritages, but I'll always claim my Italian piece first.  And I lived in Genoa, not far from Milan, and I live amongst car nuts, so it seems just about perfect.

The other find is so, so cute and unique and photographs beautifully, but alas, it's a gift for my sister so I just can't share it here.  It's getting near that season when the finds get a bit more secretive.

And oh yeah, we just happened to stumble upon a slice of lemon mascarpone cake and a croissant to tide us over until dinner.  Although the cake was so good, I wouldn't be opposed to calling it dinner.

I hope you found something beautiful in your own backyard (urban or not), and perhaps even something sweet.  Do share. 

inspiration

Christmas card inspiration is flowing.  I love these block printed cards by Love and Reason and more good stuff on her blog.

I'm always thinking of ways to produce one, and then produce one hundred.  And after an all-white design last year, I'm hungry for color.

yesterday, on npr...

After years of prefacing most of my conversations with things like "So, today at work I was listening to NPR and..." or "On the way home they were doing this story on NPR...", M finally pointed out (nicely) that I could just leave those leading lines out of my story because by now they were understood.  I'm a self-proclaimed NPR junkie, although I don't listen to it all day long like I once did.  Now that E is getting older she is starting to request "music, any music please, as long as it's not someone talking" when we are in the car.  And now that I'm getting older, my tolerance for the same crappy music and four billion commercials is waning.  Occasionally there's a compromise - usually when there's the kind of gripping storytelling going on during a show like "This American Life", and then I wonder if perhaps the content might just be a little bit too much for her.  But at least she's not sighing about the talking, and I'm not left singing the same Katy Perry line over and over in my head for the next three days.

Apparently my mother also knows my affinity for public radio.  She was helping a friend sort through and get rid of a house full of things prior to a move and saw this mug and knew exactly who the new owner should be.  Now I can just lift my glass of coffee before starting a story at work, and be already halfway through it before I even open my mouth.

kitchen fantasies

The problem with long car trips is that it gives me a LOT of time to think.  (At least when the girls are asleep and not making all manner of mischief in the backseat.)  On this last trip I brought along my favorite kind of reading material - don't laugh - cookbooks.  For our anniversary my husband gave me two cookbooks that he heard listed on "The Splendid Table" as the two books all home bakers must possess.  He emailed the titles to himself, and then picked them up later at the bookstore.  I read cookbooks like a good novel, cover to cover.  Perhaps it's strange, but I love knowing why I'm supposed to be doing something as I bake.  I like the science of it all.  Baking is not a creative endeavor for me - perhaps the finishing touches are, but I crave the preciseness of it all.  And I'm never as successful at it when I'm distracted by other things.  So maybe it's just the immersion aspect that I really enjoy.

Those two books are The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum and Bakewise by Shirley O. Corriher.  And like every good book that inspires you to try something new - expect to see a bit more baking around the blog.

Briefly back to the daydreaming in the car - what do I dream about?  Especially while reading through cookbooks?  My dream kitchen.  I'm assembling images (in my head, always), but on Pinterest as well.  If you haven't stopped by, please do.  It's a lot of fun. 

Jamie Theakston's Town House Kitchen, as seen in LivingEtc.

"that a fun party, nana?"

That's what F asked her Nana before promptly falling asleep in the car, exhausted by a fantastic afternoon in the backyard with friends.  And no, that's not a park.  That's my sister's backyard.  A fabulous place for a fall party with lots of monkeys.

and like that, he was three

No one ever, in the history of birthdays, ever, put so much effort and passion into blowing out the candles.  Well done buddy.

More pictures to follow after a little more unpacking.  Hope you had a nice weekend.

eleven

Eleven isn't my favorite number.  2011 has proven to be a bit of a tough year.  The eleventh hour.  9-11.  Ten's a nice round number, a milestone, but eleven just kind of dangles out there, beyond a milestone but nothing particularly special.  I remember my eleventh year of life being a bit of a rough one - a transition from a little kid to a middle schooler.  I anticipate we'll enjoy that transition time again with both girls in the near future.  We do have a gift certificate for a great restaurant near us named - appropriately so - Eleven Eleven.  But of course we can't seem to find the time to get there to celebrate.  Time is not always our friend, and eleven o'clock each night rolls around much too quickly and the evening to-do list never seems to get done.

For we do celebrate the number eleven this year, today.  Eleven years of marriage.  A respectable number.  A number with some girth and some history.  We've been at this for more than a decade, and with each passing year the challenges and the joys shift.  They lean more to one side in some years, and ricochet back in other years.  We try for balance between the two extremes, and when we achieve it - for months on end, or sometimes days, or even minutes, it is so, so good.  For balancing is what it is mostly about.  Remembering who we are as individuals, who we are as a team, who we want to be as a family.  

What a fun day that was, eleven years ago.  What a dress, what a cake, what a band, what a place - bursting at the seams with hundreds of friends and family and pieces of each of our past lives and our life to come.  We danced through the late hours and awoke in the wee hours to honeymoon and relax and become who we are today.  

I wouldn't want to share this balancing act with anyone else.  Happy anniversary.  What a find you are.

friday finds

 

This Friday (so far) our monkeys found some faces.   And I also found out how hard it is to photograph, upload and post pictures of monkey pictures with a very curious two-year-old attached at the hip.  Curious is a good word today though, right?  Yeah for George!

 

faceless

 

Curious George cookies in progress.  Or "Monkey George" as the little one calls him.  Now, let's get some faces on these guys.