she's got skills

for the first two and a half years of her life, eve refused to do any art projects. she would, occasionally, be willing to pick up a black pen and scribble or draw a circle. but crayons? markers? glue? heavens, no. not unless i shamelessly bribed her, and even then it never turned out well for us. . . . until the magic of stamping with oranges. thank you, kids craft weekly. for the first time eve didn't complain or sit lethargically, and i didn't end up wanting to melt all the crayons down into one giant brick and throw it through the window. it was an art-day miracle.

since that glorious day she has totally developed as an artist. she is a minimalist, often drawing just a few lines in the same color as the paper, but she does it and really likes it. painting, drawing, cutting, stamping and sculpting, she'll do it all. she's intense and will occassionally get really angry about the outcome of a project and cry or tear it up, but for the most part she seems willing to accept the slow evolution of her abilities.

on sunday she reached a new level; she drew her first person! her daddy and then our whole family, right on chip's birthday poster. no arms, hair or noses. we have only the essentials- head, eyes, mouth and two long legs. i'm in love. . . with the art and with eve all over again.

weekend cakes

the weekend is over and i'm happy. with a talk and a lesson at church for me, interviews and a lesson at a training meeting for chip, sunday was busy and exhausting. not the best way to celebrate a birthday. but, all the busy-ness of the weekend aside, we were able to enjoy the incredible weather, eat some good food and have some birthday cake.

this time around i went for carrot cake, specifically "the world's best carrot cake." i love ridiculous claims like this. but, in fairness, this cake is so good. it's the orange zest in the cream cheese frosting that does it. eve was my special helper with the cake. she was sure that adding some linguine noodles would have really made it something special. normally i trust her judgement but i just wasn't so sure about this one. . . so, i passed on the noodles. but i am curious . . . just how gross would that be?

i went for a small 6-inch, three layer cake and had batter to spare for cupcakes. didn't have time to wait for the cake to cool completely, so the frosting melted and the layers kind of slid around on top of one another. and apparently, i didn't have time to wait for the picture before eating half my piece either. . . but looks aside, it was, and always is, really good.

World’s Best Carrot Cake



preheat oven 350. grease, flour, wax paper, grease three round pans.

1.5c whole wheat flour
2/3c white flour
2tsp baking soda
2tsp cinnamon
1/2tsp salt
1/2tsp nutmeg
1/4tsp ginger
combine and set aside

1c sugar
1c brown sugar
1c buttermilk
3/4c veg oil
4 eggs
1.5tsp vanilla
stir until well blended. add to flour mixture along with following:

1lb grated carrots
8oz can crushed pineapple, drained
1c chopped walnuts (pecans)
1c flaked coconut
1/2c raisins
bake until tests done, about 30 minutes. Cool 10 minutes then remove from pans and cool completely. frost with following frosting:

cream cheese frosting

1/2c butter, soft
8oz cream cheese, soft
beat, then add:

16oz powdered sugar
2 tsp grated orange rind
1tsp vanilla

and here we have last weekend's cheesecake. i can't be sure this is the world's best (but don't think it isn't amazing, 'cuz it is) but i'm willing to bet it is the world's fattiest, so here it is:

World's Fattiest Cheesecake

preheat oven to 500.

1c graham cracker crumbs
1/3c sugar
1/4c melted butter
mix and press into springform and chill

5 packages cream cheese
1 1/3c sugar
3Tbs flour
grated rind of one lemon
lemon juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2tsp vanilla
blend hi speed. then add, one at a time:

5 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/4c heavy cream
bake at 500 for 10 minutes. reduce heat to 250 and bake for 60 minutes.

blend:

1 pint sour cream
1tsp vanilla
1/4tsp salt

remove cheesecake from oven, increase temp to 500.

spread sour cream mixture on top, bake at 500 for 5 minutes more.

cool in pan, refrigerate overnight.

i've been eating some sort of "weekend" cake for almost every meal for the last two weeks, which has been really good in that completely gross way. . .

belated to chipper

i love you chip. i love that you can make me laugh in any situation. i love (although it really does drive me crazy) your constant paranoia that one of us is going to choke. i love that the first four thoughts i ever had about you were "his name's chip?" "he's skinny" "i like his hair" and "wow, he's so friendly." i love that on one of our first dates you got lost and we ended up just driving for over and hour, listening to music and laughing before finally finding our way. i love the memories of going to your studio and reading my psychology textbooks on the balcony while you painted. i love that you are the most honest person i have ever known, and consequently, the worst liar. i love how you become completely obsessed with ideas or projects that "could be so great." i love that you are constantly wanting to make everthing around you better. i love that you are so complete in your forgiveness. i love the way you hit your hand to your chest and hold it there when you laugh really hard. i love your strange knowledge about the classic rock genre. i love, really really love, thinking about the time you thought you broke your ankle. i love your unreasonable fear of rats and sharks. i love thinking about what a terrible apologizer you are. i love that you can sleep anywhere. i love imagining us old together. i love watching you dance with the girls. i love that you love them so much, and that they adore you in return. i love the stiff-arm stance you get whenever your are trying on a jacket or shirt. i love that you talked me into marrying you, because you were just sure it would be great. i love it that you were right.

happy birthday, chip . . . two days late.

a dress and a dork

the dress. i made this several weeks ago but keep forgetting to get chip to take a picture. this is the same pattern i've used before, simplicity 4589, with some adjustments (lengthening the shirt to a dress, lenghtening the sleeves, and tweaking the collar part. the results of the pattern without said tweaking are not great). and eve wanted to join in the early morning photo shoot. . . what picture isn't better for having her in it?

and here we have the dork. today chip e-mailed these to me along with a note saying, ". . .me at work the other day. i just want you to be thankful for the long hours i spend toiling here at the office." oh, chip. you have no idea how thankful i am. mostly because i have another reason to make fun of you and another forum in which to do so.

artwork by ethan

the new banner was drawn five years ago by my nephew ethan. my sister, sarah, husband and two kids came to visit us in brooklyn for nearly five weeks during the hottest july known to man. to date, that is one of the best months we've spent in new york.

five adults (mim was also staying with us for an internship that summer) and two kids crammed into our 700 square foot railroad apartment in windsor terrace without an air conditioner. it could have been horrible but it was so great. i love remembering that month. . . chip was in art school taking one or two summer classes, i was in-between jobs, eric was on summer break from dental school, and sarah and mia (2) and ethan (4) were game for anything and everything. so we all just hung out together, wandering through the city. parks, bridges, coney island, museums, shops, regis and kelly, dana carvey, chinatown, broadway, bakeries, trains, zoos, massages and plays in central park, playgrounds, stoopsales, driving tours. . . we were able to do so much and were never rushed or anxious, just hot, exhausted and happy.

i really, really loved that time. i loved that we were really able to share our world with them. it is sad to know that it will never happen again. everything lined up perfectly just for that one month of our lives. but i'm so glad we took advantage of it, before life and bigger responsibilities carried us away.

back to the drawing. here is the explanation (and subsequent inquiry) as recorded by sarah on the back:

"7-21-02 by ethan. this is a picture of the subway. brown spots are gum. [after being told all the spots he was seeing on the subway platorm were gum] ethan asks 'so, long time ago people chewed black gum?' there's the train and mom, dad, kate, chip, miriam, mia and ethan standing behind the yellow line."

we've been in love with this drawing for more than five years, always trying to display it but never in a way that has really done it justice. so, i'll hang it here for awhile. of all the pictures i've seen capturing the city, i don't like any nearly as well as i love ethan's portrait of new york life and the family we were for that one summer month.

our weekend. brought to you by the letter "C"

Cucumbers. grown right on the science barge. i took a tour friday. such a smart idea and great tool for educating. if new york made use of its rooftops for hydroponic greenhouses and green-roof gardening, we would be able to grow enough food to feed the entire city, if not most of the metro area. incredible. complete space efficiency and no importing!

the barge and its components are constructed almost completely of re-used or recycled materials and operates on the power its solar array panels and wind turbines collect. no pesticides, no chemical treatments, just vitamins and minerals fed to the plants through the recirculating hydroponic system. the water they use is a combination of collected rainwater and water pumped strait up from the hudson, which they filter using a reverse osmosis system. the whole thing was amazing and exciting. the tour guide was british and used the word "reckon" which made me love that little barge even more. the tomatoes, butter lettuce and cucumbers grown right there on the barge (and graciously given to our little group) made a great salad with friday night's home-made pizza.

Cape. eve's good friend turned three on saturday, so i made him a reversible cape. one side is superman while the other is personalized for said friend, whose name happens to begin with a "C." i was inspired by the reversible superman/batman cape my mother-in-law gave eve on her third birthday, which is worn daily around here. this was a lot of fun to make. i love felt. i love cutting through it. i love sewing on it. and i love love love superheroes, especially when they're three years old.

eve was adorable during the process, "you working on my friend's superman cape, mom? you workin hard. ooh, i love dat cape mommy. so special!" she also loved trying it on and testing it out before it was wrapped up and given away.

Cheesecake. happy father's day chip. since you are one of the skinnier men i've ever known, let me try to fatten you up by making you this unbelievably good cheesesake that just happens to have 514 grams of fat packed into it's pretty little cakey body. 514!! FIVE bars of cream cheese, 1/4cup heavy cream, one PINT of sour cream, SEVEN eggs, some butter and some graham crackers and you've got 514 fat grams begging to be consumed and double the size of my love handles, while adding nothing to chip. but, it is really, really good, and i fool myself into thinking it isn't so bad for me if i have a few fresh raspberries with it.

no picture with this one. after all the revealing of its fat contents i'm too emabarassed (and horrified) to show how much we've eaten in just two days.

Console. oh, fine, it's a desk. we've been planning to have the desk stretch from wall to wall since we moved in a year and a half ago. this weekend it finally happened. one and a three-quarter solid-core doors painted and joined together. a chair for the computer and a chair for the sewing machine. now chip and i won't have to breathe down each other's necks asking "are you finished? are you almost done? so, how much longer are you going to be working here? . . ." every other minute when one of us is in the chair and the other wants to sit and work. it's no craft room (sigh) but it feels good. . . almost as good as when we got our couch and realized we could both lay down, fully stretched out without having to touch each other. now we just need to find a way to upgrade the double bed. . .

the weekend. there it is, or at least the "c" parts. you're missing out on the tantrums, the general destruction and the drawing everywhere with pen and marker, but i'm going to pretend that none of that ever happened.

dad

i love you, dad. i love that when bitten by a rattlesnake you killed it, sucked the venom from your hand and kept right on working. i love that you were in a band called "wildfire." i love that you get choked up. i love your loud laugh- the chuckle is nice too, but i prefer the loud laugh and how it is only lasts a moment. i love that you called us "knuckleheads." i love remembering you pounding on my bedroom floor (your celiing) when i was talking too late and too loud on the phone. i love your wheat pancakes. i love your chopped off finger and wish, oh wish, i had real memories of looking for the tip of it before mom rushed you off to the hospital. i love that you played the guitar for us to sing to. i love your donald duck impression. i love that very, very loud clap of yours. i love the many memories of playing volleyball or performing in a concert or a play and hearing that clap in the crowd. i love that i can't buy buttermilk without imagining you putting a little pepper on it and gulping it down. i love thinking of those talks you used to have with me when i was punk teenager . . . oh, i hated them then, but thinking of your concern now makes me teary-eayed. i love that you have always encouraged us to be happy in life, and that success is not a word with narrow meaning. i love your self-control, your incredible example of hard work and patience, and the fact that i've always known that you love me, even when i was at my worst.

so, thanks dad, for all the reasons you've given me to love you. happy father's day.

"my byself!"

eve has a new passion; photography. she grabs the camera, finds her subjects and shoots away, entirely on her own. "i do it my byself, mommy." ok, eve.

here is a sampling of her work:

happy birthday bobby

i love you bobby. i love that you let me dress you up as a girl over and over and over, makeup and all. i love that you made a "treasure hunt" for the family by drawing dollar signs on the all the walls and carving even more into the window sills. i laugh every time i think of mom making you run laps around the house with the hope of calming you down. i laugh even harder when i think of you walking down the hall complaining to mom that none of your "panties" were clean. and i secretly love, although it is completely disgusting, to remember all the meals you created with ranch dressing as the main course.

it is hard for me to think of you and not immediately picture the chubby 13 year old i left at home when i went off to college. . . but now you're all grown up. you're married (to someone i'm legitimately looking forward to being friends with) and have a life all your own. but you're still so fun to be near. you are so easy to laugh and joke with. and you still have the amazing gift of making people feel welcome and at ease. i'm lucky to have you for a brother and even luckier that you've forgiven me (you have, haven't you?) and like me after all the torture i put you through as a child.

happy birthday bobby. come to visit us soon.

saturday is a special day. . .

it's the day you get an air conditioner (if yours has been kind-of stolen) and then take off to governor's island for a wretchedly humid but happy day.

ferry ride to the island, just off the southern tip of manhattan.

when i told eve we were going on a boat to spend the day on an island, she went silent. eyes wide, she whispered "like pirates?" "yep, like pirates, eve." "well [pause] i need a pink pirate hat mom." if only. . .

fancy show from one of the harbor's fire boats.

old-timey music.

a quiet firetruck. "i like a fireman. help! i save you!"

randomly running into good friends from staten island and spending the rest of our island time having fun with the rasmussens.

hula hoops. nice form, chip.

craft time. eve and chip worked the front half while ruth and i handled the tail. the sequins for eyelashes! the red lips!

a lot of wandering for all, some napping for ruth, then back to brooklyn. back to summer cleaning, a little sewing, grocery shopping and sleeping in a freshly cooled apartment.