Leaves and trees

This I do love about where I live. These were all taken walking around the yard this afternoon.

Thanksgiving

Cap did his thing with our turkey, everyone contributed something to the table and it was a beautiful and delicious meal. The hits for me: my sister's turkey sausage stuffing with pecans and Momoko's spinach dip. But, really, everything was yummy.


Kinder and my mom (Baba to the kids) had a blast playing soccer. The ball and net were her birthday gifts to him. It was about 70 degrees out.


A Thanksgiving tradition is to take the family photo which my parents use for their holiday cards. First was all jazzed giving his grandfather bunny ears. Here he is completely subdued because I made him stop.


I cannot believe he is six. So wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time.

Pink hat

I have a terrible memory for some things. I used to have an excellent memory for birthdays and phone numbers, but having kids has weakened this secret talent of mine.

I have a hard time remembering what happened in movies I've seen, sometimes even forgetting that I've seen a movie at all.

I never remember who I did something with and have been caught in webs of embarrassment and surprise as I recount a story to a friend and they look at me quizzically before gently letting me know that they know, because they were there with me when it happened.

Something else I have a hard time remembering is who has given me which beautiful, meaningful, thoughtful gifts over the years. I love the books, cds, jewelry, and wonderful decorative and functional objects. But, I often forget who they are from.

I have this distinctive, wool, pink hat. I don't remember if someone gave it to me or if I bought it myself. But, I love it and have had it for well over 10 years. I've been wearing it a lot lately because it's perfect for short hair and for covering up bed head ("my hair had a party last night!" we say in our household a la Trout Fishing in America).

Monkey see, monkey do.

Portrait

First recently sketched me as I sat on the couch watching tv. (This was the day after my 3 hours of sleep post-DC and Kinder throwing up in the middle of the night. I very rarely watch tv during the day.)

Art, and certainly drawing, permeates our life. This first foray into portraiture was inspired, I think, by Lucia's Louvre sketches on Holly's blog. He and I haven't spoken about it, but I think her art made an impression on him.

Nisei WWII vets stamp

If you want to learn more about it and sign a petition, go here.

(Thanks to Cap and Ellen O. for the heads up.)

Kinder's 6th birthday party

Kinder drawing and coloring his birthday cd covers before the party started. First was his sous artist and was a big help.


First and his best friends playing "jankenpo" (Rock, Paper, Scissors) while eating a lunch of sushi and pizza.


Kinder can only take so much being amongst a crowd. Every now and again I would come across him and Lukas hanging out on or behind the big bed (the coat bed of my childhood when my parents would have big parties) playing by themselves.


Holly and Lucia are missed often by me as they spend six months in Paris. Here, during the alternative Hot Potato game, their spirits were with us. It was great to be able to spend some time outdoors and get some fresh air.


The Ben 10 cake, a Bette Hagman's feather light yellow cake with decadent white frosting from Living Without...kids (ever so vigilant and caring) asked First whether he was okay to be eating the cake and grown ups were surprised and delighted as they tucked into a GFCF cake that was just as good as "regular" cake.



Winding down with cousin, Auntie and Uncle, and my cousin, Momoko.


The birthday song.

Making breadsticks

A happy way to end the day. The kids love making these GF breadsticks from a bag (Chebe brand). We rarely get to knead dough so this is a treat.

I was in an inexplicable black mood for most of the day. Being a peripheral bakers' helper was therapeutic.

Tried to get a holiday photo...may have succeeded.

Can you guess whose hands are who's?

It's bullet time

• Kinder's birthday party was great. We had quite a crowd, but the energy was warm and happy and we had a good time. Pictures to come.

• First has become a boob man. Today he was singing a song of his own making about how much he loves boobs. He thinks they're funny, he's magnetically drawn to them. It's been embarrassing and poignant and a lesson in tolerance and patience.

• I canceled Austin. First has been expressing fear of separation and it just started feeling less and less worth it. Cap was amazing in his immediate and genuine support and understanding. So we'll work on a plan B to celebrate togetherness sans kids. The smile of relief on First's face when I told him this morning spoke a thousand words.

• Looking forward to a period of reflection and quiet as we head towards the solstice. The kids have been pretty media saturated (for us, which is still so much less than most, but still, a lot, for us...and there we have a circle) and I am longing for some rhythm.

• Within hours of Kinder's party ending I felt like I was back to myself. Suddenly I had space to think and time to relax. This continued into today. I watched Anna and Lukas for a few hours, the kids played and I picked up my knitting for the first time in weeks. I baked brownies for our neighbors to make up for the ruckus we created in the hallways and house yesterday with our nearly 40 guests. There were vegetables back in our meals. The kids and I read in bed for almost an hour tonight.

• Both kids had meltdowns today. Afterwards it was like that dry, clear, blue that comes after a summer storm blows away a stagnant humid front.

Drained but in a good way

Must. Go. To. Bed.

Mike D. is here for a visit which has been wonderful. Cap picked him up around 3:00 this morning (flight was delayed) and Mike surprised me, my bedhead and all, by waking around 8:00 (5:00 CA time).

He showered us with gifts and the kids set about building right away with their new construction sets. Me, I got a big blue box from Tiffany with a lovely yellow teapot and matching sugar bowl and cream pitcher. My bling itch was majorly satisfied :-)

We went out for breakfast at a local diner, with a stop to see Vinny for my traditional chinese herbs. By the time we got home it was time to get ready for our first family concert at our local performing arts center. The kids were none too happy about having to pause their building again.

The concert was a lot of fun, appropriately interactive, and our seats were great, first row of the first balcony. And it was cool to see Cass' brother, who is the concert master!

We got home and ate, Mike was craving pizza as most northeast expats do when they return to the home region and he and I indulged in a pepperoni and garlic pizza. Yum.

Cap and Mike then took off for coffee and dessert before heading back to the performing arts center for an evening classical concert that we had tix for (the first of a Saturday night subscription).

The kids watched an ep of AFV for movie night while I began prep for Kinder's party tomorrow (and talked to Wendy for the first time in ages). After their show was over, First really wanted to help me, as he has been doing more of lately.

He neatened up the couch draping the throw against the back of it and arranging the cushions just so. He cut the hemp laces for the necklace making area while I measured them out. He moved the little chairs and then sprayed and wiped down the little table which we arranged to create the face and hand painting area.

He has been changing again and seeming older. Kinder, too.

They went to bed around 9:00 and then I made the potato for the alternative hot potato game that we played at Lucia's party. It took way more paper than I had anticipated and took a really long time to make! Holly, I had no idea.... In this version of the game, when the music stops, whoever is holding the potato gets to unwrap a layer of it and receive the treat that appears. Then they leave the circle. The game continues until the last child has unwrapped their layer finding a treat.

I tried in vain to locate Kinder's birthday cd song list that we had compiled together yesterday, but I think it may have gotten accidentally recycled. Unfortunately, this means that Cap will not be able to burn the cds and printout the covers tonight. C'est la vie.

The eggs are boiled and in the fridge (for deviled eggs), the brown rice is cooked and warm in the rice cooker (for Sri Wasano's Infamous Rice Salad from the original Moosewood cookbook), the bathroom all sparkly, the living room set up with the activity areas (a third activity will be drawing and coloring your own puzzle), and I am headed to bed.

I will awake at 6:00 and bake the cake, make the rice salad so it can marinate and chill for a few hours and make the deviled eggs and frosting, too.

I need the early start because Cap will be out tomorrow morning driving Mike to the airport (he'll be flying to Beantown to see his sister) and gone for at least two hours.

I'd like to have some time in the morning to straighten out the kids' room, too.

No pictures of Mike and the kids, the camera batteries needed to be recharged...

Bling

I'll admit it. I have always wanted a diamond ring. Not an engagement ring, but a ring of my choosing, some fine bling.

But, I/we have never had the money for that kind of thing and I know enough about the diamond trade to know that I would have some mixed feelings about owning a diamond.

During my travels today, I came across a diamond ring I could have. It cost $6 and is stretchy and comfortable. It made my girly self happy :-)


(Click on the photo for a closer look!)

A glimpse in

I am cleaning up my desk area today. It's a good day for it. It's a typical first day of period laying in kind of day. It's a grey day outside, but the light is hitting the yellow leaves just right and it feels cheery.

Kinder is fever-free this morning and clearly feeling much better. He's been doing a lot of hiding from First and jumping out to say "boo!"

I awoke around 5:00 am practically panting from a nightmare, but it is a fast receded memory.

As I was going through the piles on my desk, I came across this packet of place mats (called "luncheon mats" in Japan). An aunt gave them to me/us back when we lived in Cambridge...this would be a minimum of six years and three moves ago.

I love them. They are made of washi, a type of traditional Japanese craft paper. Place mats made of paper. Only in Japan? Maybe not, but a dilemma they have posed for me, nonetheless.

There's the Yankee spirit in me that feels like it would be a waste to use them, for they can only be used once.

There's the romantic in me that just knows there will be the perfect moment to unveil them, to the crows of delight of the just right set of guests.

There's the pack rat in me that has packed and unpacked them, still in their plastic, still with their weathered 400 yen price tag, three different times, and has been completely okay with that.

Then there's the me that stood holding the packet for a minute or two, trying to decide whether to just chuck them or not. Part of me longs to just chuck a lot of stuff as I try to simplify and organize my space and things.

I wonder what else I will find as I go back in there...

F**k!!!

There's a big lesson here and I've learned it...but it feels like something always comes out to bite me when it comes to handling our finances. And it freaking hurts.

Cap and I had our once every six months or so difficult money conversations this morning. It was long, but worth it, for me. He lost out on some work time, so it was doubly hard for him.

Afterwards, I took a fresh look at our numbers in order to formulate a workable budget, something we have never been able to stick to successfully over our decade-plus together.

My shocking discovery. Spoiler alert: Turns out I am a big, f**king idiot.

I've been feeling like I have been spending less money since moving to NJ. But, working without a budget, I could never be certain.

I started charting our bills. I did this for nearly a year, but realized after six months or so that this wasn't doing much...not giving me any new information. The initial satisfaction of creating a form and typing numbers into it regularly, soon faded away.

Our credit card bill kept going up incrementally, but slowly enough that I was never alarmed enough to pay closer attention.

What I realized today after spending some time with the conundrum that is our financial life, was that for over a year now, I have not been sending money to the credit card for all the little, budgeted charges that I was making, mostly online.

Or, for the bigger, reimbursed charges for Cap's professional spending.

I was paying our paper bills, including partial payments on the credit card bills (which started getting closer and closer to the minimum payment which I also did notice, but did not pay closer attention to), but simply forgot to pay the credit card company for specific charges (ie. things that I would normally use the debit card for, but because it was an online transaction or a bigger ticket item for which we could earn more significant points, I used the credit card) as they occurred.

(Also, we carried some hefty debt coming into this, especially from the move itself)

It seems such an obvious thing NOT to do, but there it is.

In the now over a year that we've lived here, I have yet to fully go through all my paperwork AND create a workable and habitual system of book keeping/desk work.

Life happens, especially (adjusting to) homeschooling two kids and living somewhere new, and now I'm paying a high price for continually, and unconsciously, putting this work on the back burner.

Ugh...

Back from our trip

A rare family photo taken at the FDR Memorial in Washington DC. We spent time there with Marc and his wife and baby daughter. (Marc is a friend from my teen years and has the distinction of having been my boyfriend from ninth grade to spring break of our senior year of college.)

It was a beautiful autumn day after a mostly cloudy and rainy weekend. Our trip was fun and it will take me awhile to organize the many photos we took.

We saw Ellen, Jen and their kids, went to the National Zoo and the Air and Space museum, and took looks at the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, Washington monument, Vietnam and Korean War memorials (on Veteran's Day alongside throngs of vets), the White House, and the Capitol building. We strolled along the reflecting pool and mall, as well.

Cap's workshop went well at the conference he attended, our hotel room had a great view, and we had meals at two restaurants with GF menus: the Austin Grill in Alexandria (where Cap remembered we had eaten once a long time ago) and Legal Seafoods in Arlington. We also had a couple of meals at Whole Foods in VA and MD. Their presence, seemingly everywhere, a comfort, but also an indication that we weren't very much off the beaten path.

We returned late Sunday night and Kinder woke at 2:00 am throwing up in the family bed. I was a zombie yesterday after 3 hours of sleep, today I'm pretty sleepy, too.

My seven year old dragon

First was born in the year of the dragon. I remember Dr. Li chuckling, I detected ruefulness, saying that my baby dragon (still in utero) would be getting into some battles with my mother, who is also a dragon.

What he didn't mention was that I would be butting heads with him, too.

Me, the horse. But, I am a special horse, a fiery one, born in a year/cycle that parents of maidens of yore would lie about in order to improve their daughters' chances for marriage. For, who would want to marry a girl who was a fire horse?

I know it's normal for clashes and conflicts to arise when raising a child with love and passion. But, it kind of sucks, too, when it is all so new and unfamiliar. I need to buck up. I mean, he's only seven.

I'm in the lucky space!

...this is what Kinder crowed to his brother as he dove into the crook of my armpit as we settled in for the night. The lucky space.

On a day like today when, by the end of it, I was wondering if it is ever possible to go a whole day without any unpleasantness on our parts, but especially mine. No complaining, no whining, no butting heads over the slightest (and truly unimportant) details, no abrupt answers to seemingly dysfunctional questions...

Even on a day like today, I am the lucky space.

Instant cure. Immediate balm. How lucky am I?

Wall of hats

Last night, as our co-op dinner guests were departing (after a mellow, lovely, time change winter-is-coming feeling meal of turkey chili, corn bread, salad and peanut butter cookies), we could not locate Anna's hat.

All of us were used to this sort of thing and we murmured reassurances to each other that it would crop up somewhere, sometime.

This morning, the boys noticed both Anna and Lukas' hats hung up on our wall of hats. The children apparently took it upon themselves to place their hats where hats should clearly go.

(The wall of hats is by the door we used to use to come in and out of the apartment and so was out of our visual field as we said our good-byes...)

Drumming at home

Kinder set up a drum kit and was drumming away while I prepared tonight's common meal in the kitchen. I came out and he explained how he figured out that the drum sounded different when it was propped so that it wasn't sitting flat on the floor.

I want my kids to be who they are, but have to admit that I've always loved drumming and am thrilled that he does, too. First has been practicing, as well, and checks in with his brother to make sure he's keeping up in his own progress.

Ellen's book

So cool, my friend Ellen has a new book out. I remember the days when writing a paper was pure, absolute, unadulterated torture. Way to go sweetie!

http://www.amazon.com/Family-Bonds-Genealogies-Feminist-Philosophy/dp/0195314751/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/104-6387017-4855960?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194447519&sr=8-2

That's the long web address...I can't figure out how to make it a link that you can just click on....

It's called Family Bonds and can be checked out at Amazon.

For fans of Ellen, feminist philosophy and Foucault :-)

Latkes

...they're not just for Chanukah around here.

Once the autumn air starts to feel crisp, we start making and eating latkes in our household. My love of latkes began with Chanukah celebrations, most notably Diane's, back when we lived in Cambridge and she in Somerville.

We do love our potatoes, and so it seemed natural to introduce latkes into our home cooking repertoire. First loves latke sandwiches (a latke in between two slices of bread with mayo :-) for breakfast the morning after we have them for dinner...anyone who's ever lived with me knows where he gets that kind of stomach/appetite from.

I began making latkes in autumn/winter with vigor while we lived in Sacramento. With our move back east and the acquisition of cast iron pans, making them has become an even more easy and fruitful endeavor.

Tonight, First volunteered to assist and he worked on learning the ways of the vegetable peeler. He didn't make it to the grater because the onion fumes were getting to his eyes. He returned for the mixing of the grated potatoes and onion, GF all purpose flour, salt, eggs and potato starch.

This fall, I am trying hand grating and am surprised at what a difference it makes. The latkes have been, in my opinion, superior. Tonight, I grated the taters right into a colander. The potato starch I got from the bottom of the puddle of potato water was fantastic. Plentiful and much more solid than I've ever seen.

The kids and I tucked into the warm and crispy-round-the-edges latkes and ate a pretty silent dinner (too busy eating to talk :-) First was the last to finish and I ran to grab my camera to document at least the final luscious bite, but, alas, I was too late and this is the shot I got (he'd look happier except he's got terrible head cold symptoms---hence the pile of tissues!)...

Catchin' up

It's been a busy week...funny, it feels like much longer has passed.

I've been eating a lot of prosciutto lately. I used to like it, now I love it. It's something I would sometimes treat myself to by getting a sandwich somewhere, but these days, I've been buying it at the big Whole Foods, the yummy domestic kind, ten to twelve slices at a time.

I've been hating my hair/haircut. The whole point was to have it be less fuss, and now I'm having to mess with hair paste and a blow dryer...

We have to get the air conditioners out of the windows! All of a sudden it's colder and the apartment feels downright drafty.

We visited Anna and the kids this weekend which was a lot of fun. We leave for Virginia/DC in a few days. I'm looking forward to this trip. It's our family vacation for the year though Cap will spend about half of his time participating in a conference.

Halloween was a lot of fun. I crammed to finish the costumes and it turned out to be a magical night of trick-or-treating.

Here are some random visuals, odds and ends.



The cover and some sample pages from First's comic book featuring Write Man.


Kinder enjoying some tunes on Cap's iPod.


First wrapped this gift for Tobias and Elsa, a book he chose personally. It looked so pretty I had to snap a pic.

I was going to post two videos, but...I think because the computer I'm on has an older operating system, the one step video posting option I used when posting from Cap's laptop does not appear available.