live long, and prosper

I have mentioned before that we love Star Trek (the Original Series) in our house.  I thought I might emphasize this fact with a few examples of our over-the-top Star Trek loving.

1.  A photo me, as a Vulcan.  This was Halloween last year; I didn't just dress like this for no reason.  Although I would.

2.  Another, for good measure.  I tried not to smile the whole night, since Vulcans don't really have emotions.  I mean, technically, they do, they just don't acknowledge them.  Which is what I went for.  I am pretty sure I failed miserably though.  A recently told me that I could not really be a Vulcan, because who ever heard of a Vulcan that cries.  I had to point out that really, Spock was only half-Vulcan.

finding our feet - part II

Read part I here.

So Saturday morning, I woke up after a few weeks of acting "horribly," as Kathy put it, and we tried to figure it out.  We all got up to take A to her horseback riding lesson, and I brought my cookbooks with me.  While she had her lesson, B and C at bagels and I tried to find actual real meals that could be cooked in under 45 minutes.  Then the whole family piled back in the car and we went directly to the grocery store. 

We bought the stuff for the meals I'd planned, but we also bought stuff previously on my prohibited-list for budget-friendly grocery shopping.  We bought little containers of drinkable yogurt (which I personally think are gross).  We bought a massive bag of shredded cheese.  We bought Pop Tarts, and granola bars.  When we got home, I unpacked the groceries and Kathy started taking games off the shelves of our game closet and sorting out what was no longer age-appropriate for our kids. 

We went to Home Depot and got the stuff we needed to finish our closet in the basement so the toys could be moved down there, as well as the hose we needed to fix our grill (something chewed through the gas line) and the part we needed to fix the unflushable toilet.

Diary of an Expat: The Holidays Abroad

When I made the decision to live abroad, I knew that it would mean giving up some of the things I love. I also knew it would mean missing things that my friends and family got to experience together. But I'm not sure anything could have prepared me for my first Thanksgiving out of the US.

Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday. It is all the warmth of seeing family, a fantastic meal and a few days off from work without the added pressure of having to buy the perfect gift for every relative, friend and acquantaince while baking copious amounts of cookies and making sure your house looks perfect. Christmas dropped way down on my list of favorite holidays (to dead last) once my brother and sister left for college and there was no one to share the anticipation with. It's begun to climb back up, but really nothing will ever compare with Thanksgiving. Last year was my first Thanksgiving without any of my family around. I thought it would be hard, but I have a fantastic network of friends in New York who celebrated not only US Thanksgiving with me, but also Canadian Thanksgiving (who knew you can have the excuse to cook a turkey and GBC - green bean casserole, in case you didn't know - in October and November?!).

Canadian Thanksgiving Spread

an open letter to whoever makes stocking decisions at the stores around here

To whom it may concern:

I try hard to keep our house relatively organized.  This is not easy when any attempt at organization is constantly undermined by three people under the age of twelve, and occasionally undermined by the resident adults.  

There is one organizational item that I disproportionately love.  That item is the holiday color coded bin: the big orange and black tubs you can put Halloween decorations in, the red and green ones for the Christmas decorations, etc.  This is essential when you have an attic completely jammed with all sizes and colors of plastic bins full of kindergarten art projects, baby clothes, high school yearbooks, your sister's sewing machine, cases from CDs you no longer listen to, and the like.  If you don't have color coded bins, you never find all the holiday stuff until the holiday is good and over and you are searching for the stuff for the next holiday.

(the ubiquitous bin*)

my investment portfolio, which can survive any crash

From the time I was 18 until I turned 28, I had 13 different addresses.  Finally, I have just the one, which I intend to keep for the foreseeable future. 

When I signed the two-year lease for our Fire Island house shack, which just expired, I smiled at Kathy and noted that it was the longest I had "lived" in one place, since moving out of my parents' house at 18.  Now I live here with Kathy and the kids, in a house she owns (until we redo the title, at which point I will also own it, hooray!).  Home ownership, combined with the joy I have found in trying not to kill plants in our garden, has given me the lovely gift of a feeling of permanence, in a good way.  I always thought such permanence would feel like being tied down.  Imagine my surprise that it, instead, feels like being set free.  Free to plan, free to make changes, free to hang on to the things that are working, while discarding the things that aren't.

(a fading hydrangea that's mine, year after year)

Yesterday afternoon, I bought heads of garlic online to bust apart and plant the largest cloves, in the hopes that each one will grow into a full head next summer -- if I don't kill them. It has gotten me thinking about all of the little investments I have made, knowing that I'm not going anywhere. Like any good portfolio, some are short-term investments (expecting payoffs in the spring or summer of next year) and some are long-term investments (which could take many years to mature):

spring is in the air

Today is March 1, which means that we are officially in the month when Spring begins.  Which means we are officially in the month I start working on the garden.  Last year, I had a lot of good intentions, but struggled to actually do much more than mow the lawn and throw in some wood chips and random flowering plants I picked up while at Home Depot for other projects.  This year, not so. 

The first step toward having a lovely garden is to plan it, not just buy random flowering plants at Home Depot and throw them in (although in my view, that is better than nothing).  I've lived at my house through 1 1/2 summers (i.e., one summer full time, one summer half-time) so I have learned a few things about the yard.  That helps.  However, there is still a lot I don't know.  We didn't do the existing landscaping, so there are several plants that I have no idea what they are (either because I can't remember at the moment or because I have never seen them before).  But I like them.  That is why they are referred to below as "nice plants" or just "bushes."  I'm not that experinced of a gardener, actually.  Anyhow, here is what our yard currently looks like, to me:

My dad would kill me if he saw this freehand, not-to-scale map drawn on typing paper.  But it will serve my purposes for now!  And anyway, it's kind of accurate.  This is what our house and yard look like to google maps (although upside-down compared to my map):

what happens when you leave me home alone all day

Lately, work has been s-l-o-w.  So slow.  Incredibly slow and boring.  So today, when there was about 1/2" of ice encasing everything in Westchester, including my house, my car, and the road, I stayed home.  And barely had to work at all.  I still woke up at my usual time and couldn't get back to sleep.  Kathy isn't here (she's still in London) so I had the entire day stretching out in front of me, with nothing to do.  So I decided to take advantage of this rare luxury, and started doing chores like nobody's business.  You see, with Kathy out of town, and the house to myself, things had sort of... slipped.  You'll see what I mean.

First, I cleaned the kitchen.  This is what it looked like before:

And this is what it looks like now:

In case you're failing to appreciate what I was working with, this is a different view before:

And this is what it looks like now:

soup, or how to feed a family of four on one chicken breast

Kathy's youngest child, C*, is obsessed with making soup.  His grandma bought him the book Stone Soup last year, and after successfully feeding the family stone soup, he asks pretty much weekly whether he can make soup.  Since Kathy and C are both home sick today, and I am stuck here because of the snow (I actually tried to drive to work today, and turned around and came home because the roads were so bad), it seemed like a good day to indulge C's inner chef.  In case you're interested, this is how a kindergartner makes a very basic chicken soup.

Date Night: Home

(where we spent our date night)

Last night was supposed to be Date Night:  NYC.  We were going to start off the evening with meeting a friend/client of Kathy who was in from out of town, followed by dinner at a favorite West Village Italian restaurant (which I will not rave about in this post, because I'm sure it will be a date night post in the future).  Then, because it's the end of the month and we are on a budget, after all, we thought we better just head home after the client meeting.  Kathy promised to cook me a romantic dinner, and I was really looking forward to a cozy night in.

All day, Kathy had been complaining about not feeling well.  While we were out with the client, Kathy got a text that her son was throwing up.  Just at that moment, she had turned an unfortunate shade of green herself, and whispered to me "I'm going to puke.  We have to get outside NOW."

hausfrau

(borrowed)

I bet you thought I wasn't still planning to quit, since I haven't talked about it in a while.  Not so.  And what will I do when I quit?  Well, yesterday I read on APW about how great it is being a wife.  Specifically, the kind that takes care of the house.  I think I may have a somewhat romanticized notion of what it must be like to be a stay-at-home-wife.  Yet, on any given day, I would rather do stuff around the house then go to work.  So.

Things I like to think I would do as a stay-at-home-wife

1.  Wear A-line dresses while vacuuming.
2.  Work out on a daily basis.
3.  Happily fix all the stuff broken in our house, even if it requires going to the specialty hardware store.
4.  Read all the books I've been wanting to read.
5.  Bake.
6.  Plan healthy and interesting meals for the family.
7.  Grow an amazing vegetable garden.
8.  Start wearing makeup and actually doing my hair.
9.  Pay all bills on time and have a perfectly balanced checkbook and budget.
10.  Decorate my spotless house in a creative and vintage-y way that really reflects my personality by refurbishing items of furniture I purchase at the Salvation Army.

consensus building

Last week, as you know, was the week we realized how thoroughly we suck at sticking to our imaginary budget, and also the week where we determined that was actually fine.  I also happened to read over on Laptops to Lullabies about the her plan to try to eat all the old crap that has been hanging out in the kitchen for who-knows-how-long.  I wanted to try it ourselves.  Then came the tricky part.  I had to get Kathy's buy-in, knowing that she has told me that one of the great things about being an adult is you can eat what you want, rather than what is put on the plate in front of you.  This idea does not mesh well with "Hi Sweetie, we're having canned tomatoes and three month old Rice Chex for dinner!"

I concocted what I thought was a really great plan for getting her on board.  We would utilize the "eat all the old crap out of the kitchen" as a challenge, which would inspire us to cut our grocery budget by $300 (a random amount I picked out of nowhere).  With that $300, we could buy one round trip plane ticket.  That, plus a coupon I got for a free companion fare, would get us a weekend away, anywhere in the US (excluding Alaska and Hawaii, per the terms of my free airfare voucher), for the measly price of some canned tomatoes and old Rice Chex.  How exciting and fun!

(via)

the budget

Last week, Kathy and I went to a local sportsbar, sat down with our bank statements and a sheet of paper, and hammered out our budget.  Yes, I had to bribe her with beer and football to get her to do it, but it was definitely time well spent.  We came up with a live-able budget where we can set aside a decent amount of savings each month, as long as I don't freak out and quit my job on the spot.  It will give us flexibility later in the year if I do decide to freak out and quit my job on the spot.

Then, we taped our budget to the inside of our closet door, and starting on the 15th, we're tracking expenses.  Earlier this week, I said to Kathy, "You know, in the kitchen at work they cut the sponges in half.  I mean, really, you never need the surface area of the whole sponge, and then you only have to buy them half as often."  So we cut our sponges.  We have also started washing out our ziplock bags.  I am constantly on the lookout for other tricky little ways to cut costs.

Now, considering the size of our monthly grocery budget, saving $2.39 on sponges every other month is not likely to make much of an impact.  Even adding in the washed-out ziplock bags and our other money-saving ideas is not likely to make much difference.  But lately, we've kind of been feeling like our entire life is out of control.  And so, reclaiming some control by cutting our sponges in half feels really good.

(via)

Yes, Michigan!

(Aren't these mittens adorable?  You can get them here, in case anyone wanted to get me some.)

Over the long weekend, I was in Michigan attending a close friend's wedding.  I grew up outside of Detroit (which is very different than growing up inside Detroit) and I went to Michigan State for college.  After college, I lived in Lansing for a couple of years, until I moved to California for law school, when I was about 24.  I also spent part of my bar-studying summer in Michigan living at my parents' house (so cool, I know).  So I have lots of friends there, still, and my brother and my sister-in-law, as well as their tiny twins, live in the metro-Detroit area. 

The trip to Michigan was too short.  They always are.  New York has not, ever, been "home" for me.  But this is what always happens, when anyone from someplace else finds out I live here, or someone I meet here finds out I am from Michigan:

Other person:  Oh my god, don't you just love living in New York?

Me (if I'm being honest):  Not really.

Other person:  WHAT?! (shock, incredulity) What do you mean?  WHY NOT?

Me (this is where it gets tricky):  Um, it's really loud.  And the work ethic is sort of crazy.  And... I don't know.  There's a lot of smog?

For some reason, it's impossible for me to articulate what it actually is I don't like about New York.  I can find plenty to complain about.  And there are actually some things to like.  But what it really is, is that for this Midwestern girl, it just doesn't feel like home.  I routinely get lost.  People shout at me when I'm indecisive about ordering my sandwich.  People make fun of my accent A LOT (which I did not even realize I had). 

But more than my love-hate relationship with New York as a city, there's also law firm life, which is completely foreign to most of the old-Erin friends. It's hard to understand it, really, unless you live it. Not that my friends don't accommodate my crazy work schedule, they totally do. But they don't really understand how it grates on you to do it day after day, with not even a close friend's wedding weekend as sacred non-work time. And complaining and explaining gets boring.  For others, yes, but I have also started to bore my own self with complaining about work. It's not only the work schedule, either. It's things like the Diamond Olympics, vacations on tropical islands instead of Niagara Falls, judgement over the '99 Jetta we drive to work, and not knowing how to pronounce pretty much anything on the menus at half the restaurants I find myself in (I'm always asking, "Is that some kind of cheese? Why don't they just say it's cheese?").  And for crying out loud, I do not want to spend $100 on dinner and only get three raviolis.  I want enough to take home for lunch. (I still do not understand why that is not done.  Why is being wasteful more polite?)

This is the surprising part, though.  Michigan doesn't feel like home anymore either.

weather wimps

New Yorkers are weather wimps.  I'm sorry, but we are.  The kids had a snow day from school today, and had several last year, too.  Pretty much every time it snows, they have a day off school.  Last night we got about a foot of snow.  But it was overnight, and the roads were pretty much plowed by the time the kids would have gone in this morning.  Also, there are no buses in my town.  So the weather should have to be bad enough that the kids can't walk to school to justify cancelling it.  Wimps.  In Michigan, where I grew up, it pretty much took a one inch layer of solid ice on the roads before we got a snow day.  And the layer of ice had to be on the roads by 4 am, when the superintendent looked out his window.

the house across the street

It's time to talk about the house across the street.  It was built in 1890, and is an absolute monstrosity.  I'm talking thick red shag carpeting covering the original wood floors, asbestos, a refrigerator weirdly placed in the middle of the kitchen, an entirely dark brown exterior.  In fact, it looks like this:

And I want to buy it SO BADLY.  I should not give it any publicity, because now you will want to scoop it up and buy it out from under me, won't you?  It needs so much work, which I would love to do.  It's got 6 bedrooms, so when Kathy and I have more kids (yup, more kids) we'll have enough room for all of us.  We could lovingly redo each and every room.  I could take classes on Saturday mornings to learn to fix the wiring and plumbing myself.  It appeals to me so much.  This is probably my parents' fault, as they were big do-it-yourself-ers.  Whatever, thanks mom and dad.  It's been empty for years, and has been on the market for ages.  I think this means it is meant to be.  I would rip all that ivy off the front and paint it a lighter color so it's not so dark and imposing and unfriendly.  We would fill it with love.  All this, and we would still get to be neighbors with our favorite neighbor, who currently lives across the street from us, but who would live next door to us if we moved in here.  I think about it all the time! 

just like a picture print by Currier and Ives. really.

  (Picture by Currier and Ives.  Who apparently believe in child labor. 

Our kids would never go just cut Christmas trees down by themselves.)

Kathy and I went to visit her family in California for Thanksgiving.  On the way there, we were both so excited to see everyone, and go to her uncle's almond farm in the central valley for the turkey eating part.  We also had plans to hang out with our friends in Berkeley Saturday night, go into San Francisco on Sunday, before flying home Monday.  As an ex-East Bayer, I was super excited to be on my old stomping ground with my old friends (as in they were my friends when I lived in the Bay area, not that they are old).  The kids were excited to see grandma.  But then, the thing that always happens, happened.

moving in, the final chapter

Today, I dropped off the keys to the apartment and paid the final rent.  It is finished, as they say.  As I rode the subway to the management office, I thought about my time in the apartment.  Warning: this is very sentimental.  I always get like this when I close a door.

When I first moved in, the dishwasher broke (which was one of the reasons that I chose the apartment in the first place).  Then, the fridge broke.  It was December, so I kept my perishables in plastic bags on the fire escape.  That meant that if I wanted salad dressing, or garlic, or veggie burgers, I had to go into the bedroom, open the window, get the correct plastic bag, brush off the snow and soot, bring it to the kitchen, root around for what I needed, and put it back.  It was such a pain.  But I did it.

safety

Sometimes, the misfortune of others makes me so grateful for all I have.  Sometimes, remembering the hard stuff I have already been through makes me so grateful for all I have.  I think that this is why hard things happen in life.  To teach us gratitude.

Photo via Father Goose.

moving in, part II (or, organic tater tots)





(What self-respecting lesbian does not know what this is?  It's what you bring on your second date, of course.)

As you can see, we've progressed from suitcases to U-Hauls.  That means it's time to move more than just the birds.  This weekend, it's furniture time. 

The appearance of my stuff, and the reality of moving the furniture to the house, has resulted in resurgence of a more extreme version of a particular aspect of myself that I always new was in there -- Erin as domestic goddess.  Since Sunday, when we brought the non-furniture items from the apartment to the house, I have claimed ownership over the house in a way I didn't really even realize I hadn't before.  What's that, Kathy, you think you are in charge of laundry?  Think again.  I have mixed all the laundry soaps into one bottle.  Oh really, you think we should call the repair man for the thumping noise that the furnace is making?  Not so fast.  I have a plan involving home depot, masking tape, and a new filter.  I have become, suddenly, even more opinionated about all things house-related that I ever was before.  When you have an equally opinionated partner, as I do, this can be an issue.

We, as as couple, have always had an issue with relinquishing household control.  Our nanny drives us nuts on occasion, only by not doing things exactly as we would (sorry, Amber).  For example, she once bought organic tater tots.  I saw them, and said "WHAT?  ORGANIC TATER TOTS?!  If you're going to eat frozen, processed potatoes, why would you pay extra for organic?"  It's not the $0.50.  It's the principal, you see.  Ranty, ranty rant.  Then Kathy said, "But oh my god, they are so good.  So good.  So much better than the ones we buy."  She was right, they were so good.  The other thing is, we think Amber is pretty universally great.  The kids love her.  She helps them with their homework.  She communicates with us via e-mail.  She backed me up when I thought a compost bin was a great idea and Kathy was afraid it would be stinky.  And okay, now she has opened us up to the wonder that is organic tater tots.  But put a plate on the wrong shelf when you unload the dishwasher?  Watch out.  You should see what happens when we have a house cleaner come, and we can't find something.  That house cleaner is suddenly satan's long-lost cousin.  (E.g., "Why would you just throw someone's empty box away??! I had that sitting there, in the middle of the floor, full of garbage, for a reason.")  Anyway.  You get my point. 

I realize this is a rather privilege-y rant, but it's our reality.   And it's the reality of lots of dual-income families where both wage-earners have all-consuming jobs like we do.  I leave the house at 8, and stop working somewhere around 10 or 11 at night, on average (though, to be fair, often with a break to cook and eat dinner).  Kathy is the same.  And we have three kids.  And one cat.  And a house.  When, exactly, do I buy the tater tots myself during all of that?  For the record, we do not openly criticize the people who make our lifestyle a possibility for these horrible transgressions.  We mostly just mentally fume and stomp around a bit.  But think about this -- what kind of person decides to go out and get themselves that kind of job in the first place?  That's right.  A control freak.  And our house is now the full-time residence of not one control freak, but two.  It's really hard to be a control freak and hand over the running of our house to others, no matter how competent.

watching tv

(And speaking of rotting your brain.  Or at least, having weird effects on it.  Photo from here.)

Kathy has often told me she has a fantasy life.  It involves the great American pastime -- no, not baseball.  Watching TV.  I've always resisted this.  I would rather watch a movie than TV, and I'd rather read than do either.  I hate commercials, it rots your brain, etc.  I've "compromised," and agreed to watch the occasional HBO series.  Or Showtime series.  But in general, no.  We both work long hours.  We live with 3 kids and 1 cat.  We have a house (although not an apartment).  We almost never have time to read or watch a movie, let alone watch network TV. 

But tonight, right now, in fact, we are living this dream life.  We're sitting here, watching TV, like an old married couple.  And she's right, it is actually kind of nice.