Christmas 2012

I've found that not having internet in my apartment seriously cramps my blogging style...as in, I tend to very rarely post anything these days.  Honestly, I find that very sad because it means that it's unusual for me to exercise my literary abilities.  When working at a software company, literary abilities are not something that I put into practice terribly often, except to write careful instructions:

"This issue is due to (error).  To fix, click (link), find (tab), change (field value), update, and refresh."

I'm getting distracted.

The point of this post is to recap our Christmas in Florida, which also meant my first Christmas not at home with my family.  Instead of Christmas looking like this:

...it looked like this instead:

Since pictures are worth a thousand words, here's a photographic recap of the trip (please pardon the phone photos).

So overall, we spent time with family, went to a lovely church on Christmas Eve, hung out on the beach, saw an alligator, viewed another fantastic church, and saw an amazing sunrise on the plane back to Boston.  It was a low-key Christmas, but the best part about it was the time.  It's so rare these days to just have some time to stop and let go the cares of every day routine, and so when an opportunity to take that time to just rest presents itself, I think it's truly invaluable.  

In Which Will Be Found Dessert and Pumpkins

Sunday was full of adventures.  No Sunday would be complete without going to church, so that's where we headed first.  Except instead of going to our regular church, we went somewhere else for the sake of variety.  We went to a place where psalms are sung, descants are added to almost every hymn, and the service is almost two hours long.  It was great.

After church, we headed to have a cinnamon roll/pumpkin carving...festival? with some of our friends.   Since you can never have too many cinnamon rolls, we decided to make two different kinds.

Verdict: no two cinnamon roll recipes are the same.  However, both were fantastic and almost produced four sugar-induced comas.

To counteract the sugar, we moved on to pumpkin carving.

In order to carve the pumpkins, we needed to have pumpkins to begin with.  When you're a kid, picking out pumpkins to carve is great fun.  When you're a young adult, picking out pumpkins to carve should still be great fun.  When you're a young adult and the wind is blowing hard and the rain is falling steadily, picking out pumpkins becomes more of an adventurous chore rather than great fun.  I would have taken a picture of that particular event, but it was too blustery outside to attempt to break out the camera/phone.  Instead, I will leave you with a picture of our finished products:

(Obviously, the glowing letters are the feature of that picture.  Writing by trackpad is not my strong suit.)

And so we departed in peace, full of cinnamon, sugar, and butter and thoroughly covered in pumpkin.  Sunday well-spent.

Post Script: we briefly considered making this, but it seemed a little outside of the scope of both our abilities and our little carving tools:

How I Nearly Burned Down My House

You may have heard of a hurricane around these here parts.  If you didn't hear about it, you may either a) have no connection to the outside world, in which case you're not reading this, or b) live in a foreign country.  However, my parents living in Vermont had to stream live coverage of the hurricane from an Australian station, so my guess is that option b is out.

Moving on.

The hurricane didn't cause anything too catastrophic around here, but it did cause me to lose power at my apartment for several hours.  Which leads me the point of this post: how I almost lit my house on fire.

I quickly realized that I was going to need some light if I wanted to stay up past 6:30 last night.  At first, I lit my candles and left them in the kitchen, but quickly decided that I'd rather hang out on my bed under my blankets (no heat!) rather than at my kitchen table.  I put two votive holders on my desk and window sill, and I put a glass jar candle on my dresser.

The lighting was lovely.  It almost made me wish the power went out every night because it felt cozy.  I read for awhile, talked to my mom, and watched the flame in the glass jar get progressively higher.  Suddenly (after a good hour of candle-burning), I realized that I had left some pajamas next to the candle, and as the flame got higher it was getting closer and closer to the flammable material.  

I approached the dresser.  I touched the side of the glass.  My finger burned!  I blew out the candle.  I grabbed the pajamas and tried to pick it up...but it had fused itself to the dresser.

Thought process: This is not my dresser.  I've ruined the dresser.  It's so hot.  I need a potholder.  ::grabs potholder::  Ah!  Hand is burning through the potholder!  Must put candle in non-flammable area!  Run to the sink!  Put water on super heated glass jar!

Had I thought this through, I would have decided that putting cold water on a very hot glass object was a bad idea, but I wasn't thinking about the jar so much as I was thinking about burning the house down.  Naturally, the jar cracked as soon as it touched the water.  Awesome.  Judging from the state of the jar though, I decided it didn't matter.

The dresser, however, still had a nice ring of melting resin.  I grabbed my now-wet kitchen sponge and put it on the spot...which immediately started steaming.  For your general knowledge - seeing a solid piece of wood steam is not a comforting thing when you know all emergency vehicles are occupied with the massive hurricane and widespread power outages.

There's really nothing after that, so sorry for the anti-climactic ending.  But just so that you know it really happened, here's the candle:

Happy Tuesday.

Visiting Zeke

When people get married, the bridesmaids need dresses.  When your best friend gets married and you're her maid of honor, it turns out that you need to buy a dress.  When your best friend who is getting married lives in Rhode Island and her dresses come from there, you have to find a place to measure you, call the RI dress shop, and order a dress you've never seen in the right size over the phone.  You'd think this would be straightforward, right?

WRONG.

As it turns out, getting your measurements taken is a very complex process.  I briefly consider doing it myself, but being the untrained seamstress that I am, I might end up getting the measurements incorrect, and ordering a dress that you've never seen is not the ideal time to have incorrect measurements.  I decided to make Zeke the tailor my first resource.  Remember Zeke?  Yeah.  Zeke is the greatest Turkish tailor that you'll ever meet, but he doesn't know women's sizes and therefore can't take measurements.  At least this is what he tells me.  And because he's Turkish and awesome and since he usually makes men's tuxes instead of women's gowns, I believe him.  Plus he gives me a recommendation for another place.  That's a good tailor right there.

My next stop is French's Bridal.  I figured hey, they're a bridal shop.  They have to take measurements all the time!  Plus, at one point Meghanne and I had gone there to peruse wedding dresses.  Will they take my measurements?  No.  They "used to do that, but they messed up a few dresses for other stores and so they don't do that anymore."  What?  You sell and alter wedding dresses for your career and you messed up three DRESS measurements?  My business = lost.  

I'm beginning to think that I should just take them myself, since none of these places seem capable of measuring waist, hips, and bust.  (Ooo, I just said "bust" online.  Awkward?)  As a last resort, I head to the place that Zeke recommended.  The floor is dirty and the whole place smells like cigarettes.  Gross.  I almost walk out, but they've seen me already.  Since the place is also a dry cleaner's, I think that my chances of success are slim.  

"You don't happen to take dress measurements, do you?"

"Oh, of course we do!  Just wait over here, and Rosalie will be right with you!"

Wonder of wonders!  Miracle of miracles!  The dress measurement process has been redeemed!  After Rosalie whips out here measuring tape and wraps it around me a few times, she writes the numbers on a post-it, tells me it's no charge, and sends me on my way with a "Have a nice day!"  

Moral: if you know that Zeke the Turkish Tailor is awesome, don't try your own judgement before taking his advice.  He knows what he's doing and you most certainly do not.

On Walking at Night

I took a walk this evening.  It was clear and cool, and I could see stars peeking through the overhanging trees.  The air had just enough of a nip to whisper that winter is slowly approaching, and it reminded me of fall and winter night walks I used to take with my family when I was very small.

I din't know why I remember it so vividly.  I sat in the red wagon, bundled up so that only the tip of my nose got chilled.  There was no hurry to get anywhere.  No one said anything, and we would occasionally stop just to stare at the stars.  What stuck with me the most, however, wasn't the walking or the star-staring.  I remember just drinking in the bigness and the deepness and the darkness and the stillness that came with the cold nights and the distant moon.

Some day, years from now, I want to take my children on those walks.  I want them to feel the significance of knowing that the God that created this big, deep, dark, still, crisp world also created the hearts of those that behold it with quiet fascination.  In the mean time, I will continue to walk by myself so as to never lose the perspective of a child marveling at the creation of a loving God.

Fall!

Ok, I know that summer technically lasts until September 21st, but I woke up this morning and felt a significant change in temperature.  I was so excited that I completely forgot about it being Monday and not wanting to get out of bed because my mind was suddenly full of wonderful fall things.  I put on tights and a sweater instead of no tights and no sweater, and I walked outside to smell crispness in the air.

I quickly decided that fall is the best season.

It's taken me a long time to pick a favorite season.  I used to say that I liked winter the best because it meant that I could go out and play in the snow, but since staying in and sitting by the fire seems slightly more appealing than being outside these days, fall has claimed the favoritism victory.

Here are ten things that I'm looking forward to this year:

1.  No more sweating due to high temperatures and humidity

2.  The return of the down comforter

3.  Drinking more tea

4.  Apple crisp and pumpkin whoopie pies

5.  Holidays

6.  Changing leaves

7.  Cozy sweaters

8. Clear nights and crisp air

9.  Apple picking

10.  The first snow falling (alright, this one probably goes to far. But hey...who doesn't like to watch the snow fall silently over a quiet world?  I challenge anyone who says it isn't magical.)


Overall, though, I think I like fall the best because it's a time to turn my gaze inward and remember how grateful I am for the people closest to me.  I want to use this season as a time to focus on how much I have been given and how much I have to treasure.  Maybe fall is a season of joyful introspection.

And when I'm not thinking..I say it's high time to break out the bakeware.

Musings of Late

It's been a very long time since I've felt like I have had anything worthwhile to blog about.  Not because my life was uninteresting - to be sure, it was great - but mostly because I felt like I had nothing to offer.  For a significant amount of time, I felt like I had entirely lost my identity.  I don't know what happened, except that everything around me shifted as soon as college ended.  It had to - nothing about the way you've existed for the past 16 years is the same, and you're thrust into a world that you've only experienced through thinking about the future.

Transitions are difficult.

There have been a few times in my life that I have truly felt God's hand in my life.  One of the most clear times was at the end of last summer, when I had no idea what I was going to as soon as I was kicked out of summer housing at Gordon for school to start back up.  Within two weeks, I suddenly had a job and a place to live, and I would be in complete denial if I said that I had control over any of that.

The second time is now.  The line "I once was lost, but now am found" keeps repeating itself over and over, and joy - once elusive, yet earnestly longed for - has woven its way back into my soul.  My life is so richly blessed, and for that I am eternally grateful.




(Note: please ignore the grammar mistakes and strange images in this video.  The music was the goal...)

Washington! Whistler! Adventures!

As it turns out, Washington state and Whistler, BC are two fantastic places.  Here's the pictorial overview of our trip:

Today's Tacoma Narrows Bridge:

(The replacement for the one that collapsed in 1940 - things get interesting around 3:15)

Lavender sold at the Public Market in Seattle:

Kayaking on Hood Canal:

Canadian mountains!

The Whistler Inuksuk (also referred to as "the stone guy"):

ZIP LINING.

More mountains:

I would be a neglectful blogger if I failed to mention that we ate at Arby's...multiple times.

And finally, what would a trip to Seattle be without a sideways picture of the Space Needle?

Specific stories to follow.

First Prize?

For the first time in my life, I have a secret recipe. I guess it really isn't incredibly secret - more of a hybridization of three other recipes - but I have managed to create the world's greatest cinnamon rolls, according to the only cinnamon roll judge that counts. Considering his great love of cinnamon rolls, this is no small feat.

 Sorry. No pictures. OF COURSE it's not because we didn't take any...it is solely to add to their appeal and mystique.

 But really. They were so good. Come visit me and I'll make them for you!

Summer Travel

This summer is crazy.  Let me recap.

Trip 1: Mom and Jillian head to Florida to visit family.

Sad fact - I have very few pictures of this trip.  The first photo is of us the day we left for Florida...

And the second photo is of my mom and her brother Fritz on the day we left to return home.

Nevertheless, it was a fun trip.

Trip 2: Meghanne and Jillian venture to PA for a friend's wedding.

Meghanne and I got to the airport a good 2.5 hours early, so we took advantage of the unexpected opportunity to sit and hang out to look at her engagement pictures!

(This picture is courtesy of Kristen Scott of the 2654 Project; I shamelessly stole it off of Facebook.)

Once we got on the plane, we got the added bonus of a gorgeous sunset.

Travel tip no. 1: As it turns out, it's NOT ILLEGAL to rent a car if you're under 25.  They just charge you an extra $25.00 per day for being a "young driver," regardless of the fact that you have a spotless driving record.  

Travel tip no. 2: Flying into Baltimore is so cheap that it completely negates any extra fee you might have to pay for said rental car.  Ergo - if you need to go to York, PA, fly into B'more and rent a car.

Moving on.

Best part of this trip (other than the wedding)?  Seeing Diana!  It's always a glorious event when we get the rare privilege of a best friends' reunion, and this was no different.  Plus she brought her brother along, so we had a whole contingent of awesome people.

Amber was beautiful...

And so was the setting.

The day after the wedding, Meghanne and I got up at 4:45 to get ready to leave the hotel.  I've always considered myself a morning person (which might seem strange to some, I suppose), but after going to bed around 10:30, 4:30 felt like the middle of the night.  Nevertheless, we got ourselves up, ready, packed, and out the door by 5:15.  We drove the hour back to the airport, returned the rental car, went through security, and got on the plane.  From there, I got home, took a 2-hour nap, got back up, and went straight to work for a 2.25-day conference.  

Trip 3: After a week of work, Chaz and I took off for San Antonio for a business training trip.  Hello, 106-degree weather.

San Antonio is probably one of the coolest US cities I've visited.  That isn't really saying a whole lot, because I've really only ever been to Boston, Ft. Lauderdale, D.C., and Providence.  (Lest you think I am extremely un-traveled, note that I have left out all international cities.  Also, note that I am missing NYC from my list, which is honestly pathetic as it's only 4 hours away.)

In my opinion, the most interesting thing about San Antonio was that it had a very unique cultural flavor that made it almost feel like visiting another country.  Between the huge old-world Spanish style cathedral in the heart of the city and the gorgeous river walk beneath the hubbub of city traffic, I felt like I was walking in some city in Europe.  Plus we got to see the Alamo, which was something I had always thought of as some sort of mythic place that lived in a textbook and that I would never see.  

Having grown up in the North and currently living in Boston, it's easy to forget that the nation has more history than just the Revolutionary era.  I think it's funny how certain parts of the US are so inextricably tied with different eras of history: Boston and Philadelphia claim the Colonial days; Gettysburg is tied with the Civil War; and San Antonio is linked to the oft-neglected Texas Revolution.

Trip 4: Leaving on Monday for Washington state!

Ice Cream

I've always believed in taking good opportunities when you see them. Usually that turns out well.

Sometimes though, my head and my caloric intake have differing ideas about what constitutes "turning out well."

Flash Mob Glory Take 2!

Awhile ago, I blogged a video of the Copenhagen Philharmonic doing a flash mob in a Danish train station.  I guess the Copenhagen Philharmonic has a thing for trains, because they did it again.  Only this time they did it on the train rather than just in the station.



(Sidenote: I would really not enjoy being the oboist in the video.  Playing with a reed with sharp corners in a jerking train car sounds hazardous.)

I love the idea of doing this.  While I realize that it is a brilliant advertising scheme, the benefits go far beyond a little extra money in the orchestra's pocket(s).

There are so, so few people that get the rare privilege of experiencing orchestral music from the midst of the orchestra.  It's easy to appreciate music from an observer's perspective - you can turn on the radio, you can go to a band concert, heck, you can go to the BSO for only 20 bucks! - but it is a different thing altogether to be fully surrounded by it.  The sounds become richer.  The interworking parts become clearer.  And at least for me, it's incredibly moving.  So this type of flashmob?  Advertisement or not - I support it.

!!!

Have I mentioned that they're opening a Pinkberry 10 minutes from my house?

No?

THEY'RE OPENING A PINKBERRY 10 MINUTES FROM MY HOUSE.

Summer income: gone.

Historical Science Textbook?

Every once in a while when poking around online, I find something hilarious.  Or at least I think it's hilarious.  You might beg to differ.

Take this website as an example:

isitchristmas.com

But far better than that particular website is a second one that introduced the delightfully naive modern world to the illustrated horrors of people-munching creatures n 1889.  While it sounds truly ghastly, let me comfort you with the fact that these depictions of abominable deaths are hand-drawn, and in no way contain any blood.  But I will let you judge for yourself.  Be sure to read the captions.

Hopefully now you don't think that I have a terrible dark and twisted sense of humor.  However, if you were also intrigued, you can go see the rest of them here.

Birthday Fun

This evening, Meghanne threw a birthday party for Jon.

(They're engaged, by the way.  Woohoo!)

It was great fun.  Meghanne made some great cookies and a phenomenal cake, complete with a topping of heath bars that she crushed with a frying pan.  Epic.

What started as great conversation quickly morphed into an even more exciting round of the cup game.  Some of us knew it from elementary school, and others learned it for the first time, but the general conclusion was that the cup game will never lose its appeal.

Moreover, Meghanne now has her final lesson plans for the last week of school all set...

Crafts

Lately I've been wanting to do some crafting, especially after we made the cutest onesies at a friend's baby shower.  (Side note: it was a lovely shower!)

Since I don't really have a use for baby crafts, I thought I'd go with something more like these cute napkins:

(source)

Or instead, I could just go paint pottery again, possibly using this mug as as a model:

(source)

And if I had a tree to hang it from, I would absolutely make this (though definitely in a different color):

(source)

However, over the course of compiling these ideas, I've decided to make a patchwork quilt.  That means fun crafting!  And a trip to the sewing store!  And new fabric!  All I need now is a sewing machine.