so long

new york can be a forbiddingly lonely place. and it is. at first. and then, almost magically, you find people who you like, then love, then before you are really even aware these one-time strangers have become more than just best friends, they've become a part of your family, a part of you. and life, despite all the new york struggles and stories and ridiculous circumstances, is great. this place becomes home with your family right down the block.

but then things change. people move away. far away. and you're left wondering how to even begin duct-taping over the gaping hole that has been left behind.

alysha flew away to her new home sunday night. and with her went all of my favorite brooklyn beans. we made a pact not to cry as we said goodbye. no eye-contact and a quick escape proved effective. but maybe it would have been better to just let myself sob because my mourning has been a little strange and drastic since they walked out the door. i started by eating all the remaining gummy hearts. then moved onto the praline spread followed by handfuls of chocolate chips. if we had ice cream in the house i would have eaten an entire quart as i stared at the wall. instead i laid down on the couch and slept for 30 minutes. when i woke up i decided to cut my hair. i hacked off four inches with pinking shears and eve's safety scissors. and now i just wish alysha was here to help me fix it.

life will no doubt right itself eventually. i'll figure out how to reconstruct my days, but i am still so sad to know that it will never be the same. because it was really really great with alysha down the street. it was great to laugh and shop, to count on her for knowing random songs and even more obscure scenes from movies most the world has never seen. it was great to be able to call her up and ask for favors and it was great to be counted on for giving favors in return. it was great to be able to cry about not getting a bag i really wanted and have alysha understand, despite the ridiculousness. it was great to confide and discuss and be comforted and just hang out. and, yes, it is better than great to know that almost all of this will continue happening for years and years to come, i'm just having a hard time accepting that it will be by phone and email and i-chat, not on each other's couches or a park bench while we watch our kids trip and play.

this is grossly self-indulgent. i am truly happy and excited for tom and alysha. i can't wait to hear about life with grandparents and aunts for luke, the mountains, a backyard and real-sized fridge. i can't wait to hear about all the adjustments and successes. and i can't wait to see them again, in person so we can pick up right where we left off in our conversation the day before, just like the family that we are.

sunday

after the usual rush of getting ready and scrambling out the door, the girls and i made it to church almost on time, made it through sacrament meeting almost quietly and each went our three separate ways for the first time almost happily.

eve has been getting excited about moving up from nursery to primary, where all the big kids and a lot of her friends are, for a couple months. but she never realized ruthie wasn't moving up with her. she broke down sobbing as we dropped ruth off. sobs down the elevator, down the hall and into the chair next to her new teacher. eventually the sobbing turned to tearful wilting and with a kiss and my special lip gloss for her to hold on to- she loves that lip gloss- i made my way out and up to teach the gospel doctrine class wishing i could sob myself. i love that little team of two.

two hours later all the tears were dried and excitement filled the conversation as eve and ruth reported all the things they did and learned, many of which could have only taken place inside their little brains. with chip home from his meetings we all took a walk through the park and neighborhood and reveled in being together. next sunday we may not be perfectly on time and we certainly won't be perfectly quiet, but i think we'll all be a little closer to happy with the separation from each other for those two hours, because the reunion is pretty great.

christmas 2007 retrospective: the wrap up

the glory of the wrap-up report is that it is really simple. for the week in between christmas and new year's chip's office was closed, and for that one magical week we had no obligations. no meetings to attend or lessons to prepare or appointments to keep. we just got to hang out with each other and do as little as possible. we read books and built castles and watched planet earth. we walked to the park, the library, the playgrounds and we went out to eat. we went to the central park zoo with the upper east side riches and to the bronx zoo with the beans and we (i) did a little shopping, but really, the bulk of the break was all about being home and doing nothing.

as for new year's eve, it was another great night at the beans with a lot of friends and too much good food. alysha went overboard with a ton of chocolatey treats and i went a little overboard with my part: spinach dip in bread bowl, bruschetta, stuffed mushrooms and cream cheese/marshmallow fluff/almond extract dip with various fruit. the kids played, the adults talked. and we all said goodbye before the new year arrived. just as we were putting eve in her bed the countdown outside began. we joined in quietly in our little place and fell asleep listening to fireworks boom and our windows rattle.

welcome, 2008. i've got a few goals for you. but mostly i'm just hoping to be a better friend, a better mom, a better person in general.

christmas 2007 retrospective: the build-up

i'm starting to feel bogged down by my report of christmas. like it's a history paper i should have turned in last week, this is quickly falling into the chore category. but, i want this christmas documented, so i've just got to do it. and quickly, if i can make myself sit down in front of my computer long enough to sift through all the pictures and write something, anything, that makes sense. here goes.

church program. i wish i had a recording of the choir. the music selected was much more traditional than the usual fare; old basque, german and french carols. so lovely and the tiniest bit complicated, adding to the interest. i sang a solo in "the angel gabriel from heaven came" and shockingly, managed to not sound like a goat. in fact i was really happy with my performance. and that's rare. the best part of this program was the timing. held on december 9th, i got thinking about what christmas really is early in the month, and there was plenty of time for the excitement to really build. the worst part was the complete break down the girls had during the entire thing. apparently they're no fans of me being up on the stand while chip sits with them in the pew (a complete reversal of the usual church experience). chip was able to hear about 1/16th of the whole thing. but honestly, it was really nice watching the freak outs and not having to deal with them myself.

decorations. chip is the christmas decoration master around here. this is his doing and to his credit. except for the crowd around baby jesus. eve took care of that.

lights at grand army. our neighborhood is certainly rough on the edges, but the location is ridiculously great. the museum, the botanic gardens, the library, the park all within three blocks. and around christmas time it is grand army plaza that we love to visit at night. the tree that changes colors and lights up the arch fascinates for all of us, and eve does a strangely good job of guessing the color the tree will be when we first come down the street to see it.

kid's work party. eve now thinks that everyday chip goes to a place where cotton candy is readily available, pigs in a blanket and chocolate milk are continuously supplied, photobooths hang out for your enjoyment, movies about santa and reindeer play on fancy t.v.s and all conference room tables are covered with countless sugar cookies. before this visit eve was convinced chip worked on the train, so at least she understands there's a building involved now.

rockefeller center. started out walking from chip's work, got really lazy really fast and so decided to hop into a pedi cab. worth every dollar. eve waved to the people walking by, the "driver" drove them by the american girl superstore which they had little interest in, and we all hopped out at the huge tree. rockefeller center is an annoying place to be during the holidays- always so crowded- but we managed to have fun seeing the tree and watching the ice skaters. except for ruth. she did not like the ice skaters dressed up as oompa-loompas. something about painted faces and white gloves. a terrifying combination for her. i should probably avoid the circus for awhile.

church party. ruth's first up-close experience with santa. not a fan. eve, however, summoned all her courage and was able to sit on his lap and tell him what she wanted without completely wilting. "i was kinda a little bit nervous, but so i did it anyway."

christmas eve. all our pictures from the event are useless, but nights like this make me think i want to live here forever. the palmers, beans, and jeppesens. such great friends with all our kids gathered together in a brooklyn apartment. of course they won't all stay, but for now it is almost magical being together on nights like this. excellent food, great laughter, a lot of singing (accompanied by guitar and violin- how great is that?) and a ton of dancing by the kids. the nativity acting was so sweet. ruth was primed to be mary but lost focus moments before we started and ended up being a lone, mostly naked, wanderer. but eve was a solid shepherd; her character of choice. the white elephant gift exchange was entertaining. we gave the sad earless and armless sock monkey to the beans and we scored a can of spam from the palmers. i'm calling it food storage.

after leaving around 10pm, eve shouted her "very christmas!" cheers to everyone and we made our way home. we dressed the floppy girls in their christmas pajamas, put out a cookie and egg nog for santa (despite ruthie's protesting that he come into our house) and watched them fall asleep within seconds of their heads hitting the pillows. chip and i set to finishing the wrapping, filling the stockings and getting everything just right for the morning. with the tree lights still glowing we got cozy in bed around 2am, and i fell asleep feeling more excited and giddy than i have in years.

open house

this is our place during the renovation just over two years ago. scary. even scarier knowing it was gutted only two days after closing because i was pregnant and impatient. but completely without a contractor or plan. i'm smart like that.

for a more thourough look at our place, check out our friend's recently launched website; renovation voyeur. you can read chip's report of our renovation, see some before and after shots, and even rate and criticize.

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ours is the apartment labelled "chip and katie, brooklyn, ny" (just in case).

halloween 2007

halloween came and went this year with its usual amount of stress (procrastination is my curse) and fun.

since we were having way too much fun with friends we skipped pumpkin carving this year (which is a good thing, ruthie is far too confident in grabbing and attempting to use knives as it is) and let the girls paint away on their special pumpkin. clearly, tempera paints aren't the best option for pumpkin painting, but it is washable. and when is ruth involved, that is all i care about.

halloween brunch. spiderweb and pumpkin shaped panckakes.

inspired by this post of jeanie's and sarah's comment on said post. i love my sisters. and the girls loved the pancakes which we ate with eggs and beautiful homemade applesauce. the pumpkin pancakes were made with the help of a copper cookie cutter to shape the batter. for the spiderweb pancakes i only had a spoon, although a squirt bottle of some kind would have been much much easier.

the costumes. alice in wonderland and the cheshire cat.

the stress that is a product of my own procrastination is something i'm used to and usually totally comfortable with, because i can always pull things off. not so much this time with ruthie's costume. i needed more time to make it more fantastic and less homemade (you know what i'm saying here, the homemade that looks kind of sad and neglected, not the homemade that we all adore). but, she had a costume and besides the occasional "it's piglet!" (which she totally looks like in these pictures although i swear not as much in real life) or "umm. . . stripey??" many people got it. and as always, together she and eve were a great pair.

the most gratifying part of the costume making process this year was that i did not buy one scrap of fabric, everything is from the very very large stash i already have around the house. for ruth, i made skin-tight pajamas from some knit and applied the stripes out of some wool felt i've had for years. there were plans to make a hat with ears which i think would have made a huge difference, but time and exhaustion got to me. so we went for little felt ears stuck to her head bobby pins. the alice dress was a compilation of two things i know how to pattern (i use that term very loosely) and make; bodice top and circle skirt, along with a peter pan collar, made using this tutorial which is so easy. yes, there are a lot of steps, but it is still so easy.

trick or treating.

or "treasure picking" as eve was calling it. the girls, along with pseudo-little-brother luke, all went together through park slope. another year and another great night. definitely beats having a friend's parent drive you nad your friends from house to house because they were too far apart to walk. eve showed the way at the first house and ruthie got the hang of it immediately. she could hardly be stopped from running full speed stoop to stoop, mountaineering up the stairs, holding her bag out, squeaking "chik a cheat," climbing down and running off to the next bowl of candy. i was not allowed to touch her and the few times i touched her candy bag i regretted it.

the girls were fast and determined for two solid blocks of beautiful brooklyn brownstone stoops (oh, brooklyn. . .) but then hopped into the stroller and crashed. perfect.

this morning i woke up to hearing the stove top beep- my clue that ruthie has climbed on top of the counter in an attempt to get last night's treasure. i shot out of bed, got ruthie off the stove top and amazingly convinced her and eve that yogurt was a better breakfast option than a mars bar.

thanks rach!

a month ago i went to the rachel ray show. brooke, alysha and i left our kids with friends and sitters and with breanne, we made our way into the city to wait in line for filming. while waiting we saw teri hatcher filming a segment and made friends with some funny ladies who were very very nervous about not getting in. luckily for the ladies, they didn't get all fancied up in their jewel tones for nothing. luckier for us, we not only made it into the show, but were placed on the second audience row. our session included segments for two different shows. the first segment aired on september 11th. if you saw this, then you probably saw my friends and i sitting in the row right behind the three fashion-experiment moms. apparently i got some good air time, but missed it entirely due to my lack of a tv and running around to leave on our trip that day. and i'm glad i did. the idea of seeing myself on tv makes me squirm. the second major segment "couch potato kids" will be airing on this friday's show. we will be opposite the adorable little couch potato boys and their moms, second row back. if i look chubby or not-smart, don't tell me.

rachel was fine, the stage set up was very cool (the audience rotates on a big circle to face the various segment spots) but the highlight of the experience was realizing that in addition to our very own bag of veggie crisps, we were getting to take home a copy of the dangerous book for boys. who needs teri hatcher when i have the instructions to make the "world's greatest paper airplane" and the rules of rugby at my disposal? eve can now identify a brook trout, walleye, smallmouth bass, pike and minnow. and so can i. pretty cool.

laundry day

laundry monday usually takes place in our own little apartment. to be exact, in the corner of my kitchen/entryway where my washer and dryer are cleverly hidden behind cabinetry. but, not today. today my washer is broken. after $70 paid for a service call, it has been kind-of decided that my washer's main circuit board needs replacing. happily, i'm still (barely) under the 2 year warranty for parts so i'll only have to throw down another $125 for labor of the replacement, and hope the problem is actually solved.

in the mean time (7-10 business days) i'm back to the laundromat. the first time on four years. my all time favorite laundromat is in the old neighborhood (windsor terrace) and owned by the friendliest (in a kind of harsh, very loud way) man from ghana named robert. robert will forever hold a special place in my heart for helping me the first week of living in brooklyn. the week i made chip call the university of iowa for a transfer application to their MFA painting program. . . but, robert's place is just too far, so today i tried out my local "bubbleworks." i went the cop-out route; dropped off all the laundry for them to wash, dry and deliver to me nicely folded tomorrow. if i had known they also pick up, i would have saved myself a sore shoulder and several ounces of sweat, but i would have missed out on all the fun of the return trip home using this basket/hamper (which i think is one of my favorite possessions):

eve was in heaven. getting all the comments and smiles from people on the street sweetened the deal and i think she actually smiled at some strangers. it was much more fun to have a 25lb girl on my back than the 40+ lbs of laundry i carried there.

here's to clean laundry folded by someone else and backpack/baskets that provide years of entertainment and practical use.

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it's good to have a camera again. once i sort through the 600 pictures i came home with this weekend, i'll share about all the goodness of a dear firend's wedding and the beauties of upstate new york. i know, you can't wait.

the other one

the science barge and i are pretty much best friends forever, so i was really excited when i heard that brooklyn was getting its very own jimmy-rigged barge; the swimming barge. they call her "the floating lady." with a name like that, i was sure we were meant to be. so, monday i went to introduce myself along with the girls and alysha and luke. alysha and i were both in really bad moods but i was sure the barge would do us right.

this pretty much sums up the majority of our time there:

misery. we waited on the "beach" (glorified sand box) in the scorching sun and suffocating humidity for an hour and a half before finally being admitted. as much fun as distracting a three-year-old, a 20-month-old and a 17-month-old from the fact that they are not swimimng but stuck in a pseudo-hell of over-priced beach umbrellas, scorching sand and frustrated moms might sound. . . well, actually, it was about that fun.

but, i have to give the lady some credit. she was great once we got on board. clean, nicely designed, stocked with friendly workers, cool water, and lifeguards aplenty. the girls were in water heaven. a lot of giggling, jumping, blowing bubbles, dunking under the water, kicking, splashing and cuddling together in the towel on the deck (the girls, not me. i wasn't allowed.). we loved it. that is, until our hour-long swim session was cut 25 minutes short because someone puked in the pool. and, we're done.

i've promised a few friends that i will go to the barge again with them so i have to get over the "ugh" feeling i instantly get when i think of her. sometimes you just have to power through with relationships, right? i just have to ignore the "too little, too late" that is ringing through my head and focus on what she was to me before that dissappointing day, what she tried to give me and what she is at heart. because, really, a barge floating in the east river that has been turned into a free public swimming pool is pretty freakin cool.

camping, city style

every year a group of moms go camping to a beautiful little campground on lake whaley just outside of pawling, ny for a few days. we do camp in tents, use a campfire to cook hot dogs and kebabs and i even made some dutch oven peach cobbler for everyone, but that's as hard core as it gets at camp liahona. showers, bathrooms and refrigerators are involved, as are trips to the grocery store (10 minutes away) to restock the marshmallows. our five man tent was filled with our queen-sized aerobed mattress (that i used an adapter in my car to fill up) complete with sheets and quilt, and a pak-n-play for ruth.

this year, since the trip fell near the 4th of july, chip was able to come up and spend almost the entire time with us. so great. he put the girls down and fell asleep right alongside them each night, while i was able to inhale smoke around the campfire and watch stars with good friends.

i hardly took any pictures at all, which means that i was either too lazy or having too much fun. i choose having too much fun. the beautiful two hour canoe ride we took with the girls all around lake whaley, looking at homes, ducks, some fish and even a muskrat (gross) is not documented. neither is the fact that they were both sound asleep by the end of it. i'll have to rely on the kindness of friends to send me some pictures of the girls fearlessly swimming in the lake for hours on tuesday. this is a tangent, but the girls are awesome little swimmers. ruth is amazing at kicking and holding her breath. she's also surprisingly good at trying to get herself to air when the water goes above her head. never scared and always willing to go back for more practice. with floaties on eve, we'd swim eve out to the dock and practice jumping into the lake. she'd go all by herself, refusing any help or joint-jumping. down she'd go, pop right up, spit out some lake water and kick herself close enough to be pulled up again for the next jump. it wasn't until she got the idea that sharks were in the lake that she got a little nervous. unwilling to accept that they did not live in the lake, it was decided that they were asleep. with the sharks safely tucked in bed, eve kept on swimming all around like a little mermaid. i also missed, yet again, a chance to document chip being the sea monster. every year he pulls this out and every year he gets enough of a response from the kids to keep him going. happily, alysha got a shot of it, so check it out over here. the stuff is just as smelly as it looks. i also missed the running and playing with friends, the staring at the caught frog, the sneaking into others' tents and the amazement of hearing an owl in the night.

i did, however, have the camera out just long enough to get some shots of ruthie, who has been sadly neglected here lately.

we went home still terrified of bugs and hating s'mores (eve), more attached to our bink than ever (ruth), determined to make a better cobbler next year (me) and wanting a nice, long nap (chip), and all just a little sick. but we still love camp liahona and, as always, were glad to get a little of the quiet that comes with it.



and for the fourth of july fireworks we were back in brooklyn, sound asleep. like good americans.