Not Thirty-Something Anymore!

I haven't touched this blog in ages, but I have decided that I might start writing again.  I opened up the blog and what first struck me was the subtitle about being a 30-something in suburbia.  I'm still in suburbia, but I'm a 40-something now!  So many changes since I used to keep this blog!  For anyone who might have followed me on the past and still has me in an RSS feed, here's a visual update of "the nursery" closet which now belongs to my 6 year old daughter M.

A couple of those neatly labeled bins remain (not so neatly labeled anymore), and the color remains, but now it's a reflection of her personality!

Oh, and there are now some horses living in that room too...

And if anyone recalls that craft room/office project I was going to do...here's where we are now:

Life kind of got in the way of tackling that project.  This is M's desk...she's a crafty girl like her momma (and takes after me in the neatness department too).

I'm working on a long story that I'm hoping will somehow find it's way to Julia Louis Dreyfus for inclusion as a side story in VEEP...it may have it's first audience on this blog...wait and see.

Nursery--A Work in Progress

A few weeks ago I was having my recurring anxiety dreams--I'm in high school and I have a paper due and I haven't read the book yet, or I'm in a play and I don't know my lines. These dreams are pretty transparent in meaning--I'm feeling unprepared. The lack of preparedness I was feeling had to do with not being ready for the baby--emotionally I'm ready, but as far as "stuff" I wasn't feeling ready at all. Now I know that practically speaking babies need very little "stuff"--just somewhere to sleep, somewhere to be changed, a car seat, something to wear, and that's about it. But of course these days we've been convinced we must have lots of special baby stuff, and I of course feel compelled not only to have it, but to make sure it's cute!

Now, when these anxiety dreams started creeping in, I had already had one shower thrown by my sister and my friend Wendy, both experienced mothers. I received a car seat, a pack n' play, and clothes so really at that point the baby's basic needs were going to be met. But I still didn't have anything for the nursery. I had bought fabric for the nursery ages ago, but didn't have a crib, changing table, place to put all of those little clothes, etc. I knew the crib was coming (it was delivered last Saturday), and we were still trying to figure out the changing table situation (we ended up getting a hand-me-down from a neighbor), but at least I could get started on the closet.

I had purchased some bins at HomeGoods but didn't have nearly enough for all of the stuff in the closet. Target to the rescue! I bought 2 Closetmaid bins, and then sent D to Lowes for some more. They fit perfectly in the closet and are the right size for all of the different categories of stuff. I made prompt work of filling them and labeling them. I felt much better after that and the anxiety dreams ended! The baby's closet is very well organized (at least until the baby actually arrives).
About a week ago my neighbors brought us their changing table and it's perfect. The baby's room is very small and is made smaller by having one wall entirely taken up by a closet and another entirely taken up by windows. Wall space to put furniture against is at a premium. This changing table, in addition to being cute, is nice and small.

Fast forward a week and we've got a crib. Now the room is looking much better! After a second shower thrown by my mother-in-law and D's grandmother I have just about everything I need!!! I've got crib sheets and mattress pad, changing pad cover, etc. Yesterday was my first day as a stay at home mom (to be) and I washed a ton of baby stuff and got to work putting the nursery together. Here are the results:

Now I know you experienced mom's are thinking, "she'd not going to want that there," "that will never work," or "I would be easier to have X over there," and I know that when the baby actually arrives and I start using the room I'll be moving stuff around. For now, it's just nice to have a room that looks ready for a baby to come home to. Tomorrow my mom is coming up and we're going to make the valance and crib skirt. This weekend D and I will hang the Bunny My Honey picture and the ABC needlepoint that my grandma had made for me when I was born.

Before and After

I was lucky enough to have a day off from work today. Originally, my mom was going to come up to help me pick out fabric for valances for my family room and dining room, but she fell while on vacation and needed to spend the day with her feet up (she says her ankle is swollen to 3 times its natural size).

So, left in the house all alone (D is in Phoenix for work), I contemplated what I should do. Should I watch a movie like I did yesterday? Should I cook up something good to eat? Should I venture out to the fabric store on my own? Or, should I tackle something I've been putting off doing? I chose the latter.

Our house has 3 bedrooms. The blue room (where we sleep now), the yellow room (where D has his closet), and the pink room (which will be our mast bedroom someday). The grand plan for the pink room is that we're going to build a wall turning 1/3 of the room into a walk-in closet. Then we're going to lay down hardwood flooring. After that we'll put up crown molding and a chair rail and paint the room to coordinate with our bedding (which my mom gave me for our shower last year and we have yet to sleep on).

These are great plans. Unfortunately, the only part that has been done is that D has ripped up the pink carpet in the part of the room that will one day be the closet. Why haven't we gotten any further, you ask? This is why:

So today I tackled this room. I wasn't able to move everything out, or to find a permanent home for everything, but I did pare down enough so D can pull up the rest of the carpet. And, I emptied 3 plastic bins (which I'll move to the basement and fill with other things). Here's what the room looks like now:

I know it doesn't really look that much better (especially the 2nd picture), but really, it is. The pile of stuff by the door in the 2nd picture is stuff to donate and recycle, including:

That's 2 old cell phones, plus chargers, earbuds, and earbud covers. I need to add the car chargers to this pile--they're in my car. This whole lot will then be donated. There are a lot of places and organizations that will take donated cell phones, but to be honest, I'm just going with the one that's the most convenient. That would be Staples or Verizon. Based solely on the information on these 2 websites, I'll probably drop them off at Verizon.

Something else I recovered in cleaning out this room was my 2nd pair of glasses (my first pair, circa 1987, broke). This pair is Polo Ralph Lauren circa 1989. I wore these until 1996 (though I really didn't wear them that much). Below is the history of my glasses (minus the 1987 pair which were big peach colored plastic frames with glass lenses. Glass lenses were particularly bad for me because I had perfect vision in one eye and my vision in the other eye was really bad. Picture it, 12 year old girl with braces, bad bangs, and crooked glasses).

Top pair is the circa 1989 Polos. These will be donated to charity through the local Lion's Club (there's a donation box at my local library). The other 3 pairs (and the sunglasses clip) I'll keep. I actually wear the ones 2nd from the bottom the most. I got those in December 2000, and I love them. The pair above (with the sunglasses clip) is the only pair of prescription sunglasses I have, so I'll keep those too. The bottom pair is circa 2005 and I wear them occasionally.

I know you're all really curious about what other treasures I found when cleaning out this room. There were many. I mean real treasures, things that are priceless. Like, the contents of 5 purses:
This photo, the contents of 5 purses I don't use, contains:
6 hair elastics
1 barrette
2 Starburst (circa 2006)
8 band-aids
3 packages of tissues
2 boxes of matches
2 place cards from 2 different weddings
a ticket to an exhibit at the MFA
a stack of old business cards
a bracelet someone lost at my friend Darci's wedding
a sewing kit
a 1/2 piece of "Hollywood Tape"
15 cents (1 dime and 1 nickel)
2 boutonniere pins
1 lipstick
1 lip gloss
3 moist towlettes and a bottle of hand sanitizer
1 emery board
a pack of gum
a handful of candy-coated chocolate mints (circa 12/2007)
a cell phone cozy
a coat check ticket

This isn't nearly as bad as I would have thought. I must have cleaned out most of these purses fairly recently. Of course, these aren't the only treasures from the clean out. I also have souvenirs of my honeymoon in Greece. Look at this next picture and you'll want to be a guest at my house:


Yup, that's mostly toiletries and slippers from the resorts where D and I stayed on our honeymoon. Most of it is from the Blue Palace. They had the most amazing smelling shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lotion--all of it from Korres, a Greek company that just started selling its products in the US. In this picture is also a handful of beach glass and shells I picked up on the beach on Mykonos. I pick up beach glass and shells wherever I travel. People in Cuba thought I was nuts picking up broken glass at the beach!

So that's it in a nutshell. I found some other truly fascinating things in the room too, but I didn't photograph them. Oh, and for any of you who have noticed a trend between the "before" pictures of the pink room and the "before" pictures of the office (posted here), don't fret. These are the only 2 rooms in the house that look this bad. Honestly, I swear!

Finally Organizing!

On Thursday I went back to the Crate and Barrel Outlet and picked up my book shelf. As it turns out, my back seat does fold down--I just didn't know it. I've had my 2001 Honda Accord for 4 years (I believe in pre-owned, especially because I tend to "bump into things"), but assumed that it was like my old car and only had a pass-through. So, in any case, I picked up the book shelf and brought it home.

D and I assembled the shelf and I started arranging my stuff on it. By the end of Thursday night, it looked like this:

Then, on Saturday morning after taking the cat to the vet for her vaccinations, I added a few more things to the shelf and labeled the boxes. It's very handy having boxes that are actually labeled--it means you know what's in them without having to open them (novel concept, isn't it?)

In all of this organizing, I found a bag of refrigerator magnets from my old apartment, so I stuck them all to the ugly filing cabinet, because, why not?! This corner of the room still doesn't look great, but it's better than this. While D was out buying a snowblower (we had our first flakes this morning), I pulled out the trusty drill/screwdriver and installed a shoebag in the closet to hold our hats, gloves, and scarves. Much better than the cardboard box!
And, I found some old plant hooks in my toolbox (leftover from 4 or 5 apartments ago) and hung them on the window. you'll notice they are upside down--this is on purpose because the hangers wouldn't stay on if they were upside right. Incidentally, the spider plants are descended from a plant my friend Wendy had in her very first apartment in Cambridge 10 years ago. I love plants with a story!

So, that's where I ended up at the end of the weekend as far as the organizing. Not bad. It definitely looks better than before. Oh, and while D was buying a snowblower at Harvard Outdoor Power and I was organizing, Mercury was enjoying the propane fireplace. She loves it (we all do in fact).

17 Day Organizational Challenge

I only have 17 more days for the Organizational Challenge from OrgJunkie.com, and I need all the time I can get because I haven't started yet. I've thought about it, but haven't had a chunk of time to actually start. Today I thought I had made a move in that direction, but I was thwarted by the limitations of my car.

I went to the Crate and Barrel Outlet at lunch and picked out a book shelf with adjustable shelves that I thought would be perfect for my office/craft room. Perfect for holding books and supplies...and I found cute fabric covered boxes to go with! unfortunately the bookcase didn't fit in my car. Hoping I can pick it up tomorrow--not sure how just yet!

30- Day organization Challenge!

Now here's a blog activity that my husband can really get behind...this time, instead of sending stuff to strangers, baking pink stuff, or creating a dessert with more eggs than we usually eat in a year, I'm going to be tackling a problem I've needed to do for 5 months! I'm going to organize my office/craft room. Check out the before pictures--yes, this is really how bad it is.In my defense, we moved into the house in June and have been concentrating on the yard thus far; however, I really need to get this room in ship shape so i can use it for it's intended purpose instead of as a storage or junk room!

Weekend Happenings!

The weekend started out on Friday night with some organizing of my office/craft room. Anyone who has lived with me knows that "neat" and "organized" do not typically describe the rooms I inhabit. This is most certainly true of the craft room/office. The room contains my old desk from when I was a kid (but painted black with glass pulls), D's old filing cabinet, a gate-leg extension table that used to be in my grandparents' house, a chair I pulled out of someone's garbage and painted and recovered, and 3 additional chairs of various origins. In addition to the furniture, there are a bunch of boxes containing wedding gifts that haven't yet been put away, various shopping bags full of stuff that I have to return to the store or out away somewhere, a shopping bag containing gifts I'll be giving for Christmas, about 5 bags of yarn, a huge stack of photographs to sort, a huge box of sorted photographs, and 2 bags, a box, and a stack of scrapbooking stuff. On Friday night I did manage to put some of the stuff away, and I'll put more away once I move a chest down that's currently in the master bedroom.

On Saturday am I headed to a Friends and Newcomers new member coffee. I met some more nice women and learned a few more of the ins and outs of my new town (and the surrounding area). One thing that has been very reassuring about meeting these women is finding out that I'm not the only one who loathes the grocery store in our town. While the prices at the Market Basket are very good, the aisles are narrow, the lines are long, the parking lot is too small, and the produce goes bad too quickly. Everyone seems to shop in neighboring towns either at the Shaws, Hannaford, Stop and Shop, or Donelans. Typically, I do as much shopping as possible at Trader Joe's and then head to Market Basket for whatever I can't find. It drives me nuts every time I go there, but it is much less expensive than the really nice Donelans that is also close to our house.

One of the women at the Newcomers coffee told me about a place called Idylwilde Farms in Acton. She said it was similar to Wilson Farms in Lexington and that they had terrific produce and meats. I knew I had to check it out, so I headed over on Saturday afternoon. Basically, it looks like a big barn, and outside they have stacks of fresh local produce. This week they had tons of different kinds of pumpkins, squash, applies, and multi-colored cauliflower. I picked up a sugar pumpkin and some purple cauliflower. Inside it was a mix of Wilson Farms and Russo's in Watertown. Perfect stacks of fresh and colorful produce, fresh baked goods, a huge cheese section, and a perimeter of staple and gourmet foods. I was able to find all of what I needed for my Daring Bakers challenge, including a vanilla bean and superfine sugar. They also had fresh raspberries which I knew would make the perfect garnish. I also picked up a fresh, natural roasting chicken for Sunday dinner.

Upon coming home from Idylwilde, I started in on my Daring Bakers challenge (you can read about the details of that in my previous post). Meanwhile, D put together 2 more storage shelves in the basement and started tearing up the carpet in the master bedroom so we can get started on our demolition/construction. We're demoing the existing closet and building a walk-in because I have way too much stuff! Were also going to lay down hardwood flooring in the master bedroom and upstairs hall. I can't wait until the room is done and we can start sleeping on the beautiful sheets that my mom gave us for our shower. The colors are so soothing.

Saturday night we went to the Gibbet Hill Grille for dinner to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of our engagement. We had heard about Gibbet Hill from D's cousins, and then saw it on TV Diner where it won the "Platinum Plate" award. Luckily I had called 2 weeks earlier for a reservation because it was parents' weekend at the local prep school and the restaurant was very busy. Gibbet Hill Grille is located in a beautiful refurbished barn on a farm in Groton, MA. There's a fireplace by the bar making it very cosy, and they serve a nice variety of wines by the glass. I had a very nice Pinot Noir and D had the house beer--Gibbet Hill Brew. We were ushered into the dining room promptly at 8pm and started perusing the menu.

There were many fabulous-sounding choices--from gourmet sandwiches to roasted beet salad to all kinds of steaks. We started with PEI mussels which were served in a delicious better/herb broth with a piece of toast to soak up the juices. Being a huge lamb lover (I eat it probably 1 out of every 3 times we go out to dinner), I was happy to hear that they had a rack of lamb special served with braised cabbage and brussels sprouts and roasted sweet potatoes. D had the Arctic Char (he loves all things Icelandic/Scandinavian). My lamb was delicious and I think D was a bit embarrassed when I separated the bones and started gnawing on them after I had finished most of the meat. I had a Malbec that was specially selected to pair with the lamb. After dinner we had port and coffee, during which time we watched and listened as others in the restaurant ran up to the bar to check out what was happening in the Red Sox World Series game.

Sunday was also a moderately busy day for me. D and I organized some things on the shelves in the basement and decided there were some more items we could part with. I also went through my closets and pulled out some stuff to try to consign and some to donate. D mowed the lawn while I worked on a project handblock printing onesies and dish towels (I'll post on this later). Then D and I spent about 1/2 hour laying in the hammock in the warm sun (until the sun went behind the trees and the breeze became too cool).

After "hammock time" I set to work making dinner--chicken with 40 cloves of garlic from the Joy of Cooking. I originally consulted Joy just for the minutes per pound for a roast chicken, but found the garlic recipe which called for lots of dried herbs and garlic. I have a whole deck covered in fresh herbs that we need to eat up so I thought this would be a perfect recipe. Basically, I basted the chicken with olive oil, rubbed under the skin with fresh chopped herbs and salt and pepper, seasoned the cavity and stuffed it with whole fresh herbs (sage, rosemary and thyme) and a quartered lemon. Then I put the chicken in a covered casserole, added some chicken broth and white wine, and all of the peeled cloves of garlic from 3 heads! The covered casserole went in a 375 oven for 25 minutes, then the cover was removed, the temp increased to 450 and the timer set for 35 more minutes of cooking.

While the chicken was cooking I boiled potatoes for garlic mashed potatoes (with the garlic from the chicken). I also cut open 2 sugar pumpkins, saved the seeds on a cookie sheet for roasting later, and roasted the pumpkin pieces. Not sure yet what I'm going to do with the roasted pumpkin. A few weeks ago I made roasted pumpkin risotto which was quite good. I may make that again, or pumpkin soup.

When the chicken was done it smelled heavenly. I removed it onto a platter and added the garlic to the mashed potatoes. I then strained the cooking liquid into a bowl and added some hot chicken broth to thin the sauce down a little. The flavor was great. After dinner I picked all of the remaining meat off the chicken and then put all of the carcass pieces into the slow cooker along with a quartered onion, 3 celery stalks, 2 carrots, the herbs that were in the chicken cavity, and a handful of fresh parsley. This morning I strained that and will make soup with it tomorrow night for dinner.

It was a full weekend that also included watching the Red Sox win the World Series for the 2nd time in 3 years. While I watched the Sox I finished my knitting project for my swap partner. Hopefully I'll get the box in the mail to her tomorrow.