Holiday Roundup

We survived the rush of Christmas week. Between Nora's Birthday and assorted family get-togethers it was a bit of a whirl. Here's a few photos to give you the gist:

A Few Days In the Frozen North

I had some extra vacation days saved up and so after Jason's final final and before Nora's birthday, we took a quick run up to Chicago to check out the Christmas Market, Santa at Macy's and a few sights. We had a great time, although Nora greatly preferred the luxurious Best Western with it's indoor pool to doing anything else in town. I found it amazing that we could find a hotel room in Chicago the week before Christmas cheaper than a cabin in the Carbondale vicinity but I'm glad we did because we had a great time. It was nice to get away for a few days before the craziness of a combined birthday/holiday set in.



Writing a letter to Santa at Macys.

In line to see Santa at Macys (she asked for gingerbread and candy).


Freezing at the Christmas market
Filling up the suitcase so we can't pack to go home.

Small World

I just had a strange incident. I was looking for an artist that was at a craft festival earlier this year so I looked at the festival's website. Bizarrely, I'm in the photo at the top of the page. I was there for just a short while, but somehow I got captured.

Update

Saturday I had one of the most productive days of this fall. I managed to:
1. hem my jeans that have been waiting for over 2 months and I used this cool method I'd never heard of, but worked quite well.
2. make two pans of spanikopita for Thanksgiving.
3. Nora and I decorated hand turkeys and construction paper leaves to decorate the table on Thursday (I even traced real leaves - pin oak, tulip and maple - I feel so Martha)
4. sorted and resold a stack of Nora's clothes back to Kangaroo Kids where I got $30 in store credit, which I promptly spent. The rest of her old clothes went to Alana, my cousin's little girl.
5. We went to see Todd and Natascha and had a wonderful time catching up and planning for a crafty girls day.

I cannot believe I got that all done. Of course I've done nothing since then, although we did see my Aunt & Uncle and Nora went horseback riding again with Ellen. Maybe next time I'll get up on a horse too.

In other news, we took Nora to the allergist this morning. We got good news and bad news. On the good front, Nora was able to get a flu shot and it looks like she is non-reactive to peanuts, so we get to do an oral test with those. On the bad front, she is still very reactive and shows no progress towards outgrowing her egg and milk allergies. She is also allergic to almonds which sort of rules out all other tree nuts since they are usually processed together. We plan to do an oral test with her this weekend with peanut butter and I'm really hoping all goes well. It is very daunting to give your child something to eat that has the potential to make her very sick. Wish us luck.

Which Witch is Which?

A few photos from Halloween:

Pumpkin Hunt

This weekend we visited the pumpkin patch at Eckards in Grafton to find the perfect pumpkin for the jack-o-lantern this Halloween. Nora wandered all over the hillside and it was a cold morning. Just when the wagon was about to return for us, Nora finally settled on the perfect one. 23 lbs!




Afterwards, the day turned really pretty and we took a hike a Pere Marquette State Park, had some excellent beer at the Rotten Apple, and then took the river road further north to get apple and gourds at Ringhausen Orchard at Hardin. It was a terrific day.

Things I Could Be Doing

when instead I'm playing Bejeweled Blitz and reading trashy romance novels:

Finish recovering the baskets for Nora's dresser ex-changing table
Laundry
Reading The City & The City - which was featured on Unshelved last week and is also sitting on my nightstand
Making arrangements to be elsewhere next weekend
Planning my future
Visiting pumpkin patches
Swimming
Viewing the fall colors/Hiking in the woods
Making popcorn balls
sleeping
Making cute little stuffed birds
Buying/making birthday and Christmas gifts for loved ones
making Nora's appointment with the allergist
turning in 3 mail in rebates totaling over $125 due before the end of the month
figuring out how to use my phone
catching up on the news
updating my blog, twitter and facebook statuses
changing the sheets (okay it's not that bad, I did change them last weekend).
catching up on all that tv I haven't been watching
cleaning the bathroom
getting my flu shot
sending Nora's artwork to her non-local grandparents along with recent photos

My World Is Changing

I've been hearing about Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods for a while now, and I finally got around to buying it this summer when we were in Arkansas. But it wasn't until I committed to go to a book discussion about it for work that i finally got around to reading it. I cracked the book yesterday and I'm almost finished - unheard of for me and non-fiction, which usually takes me weeks to finish - and now I can't stop talking about it. This book broke something open in me, and now I'm so emotional about it, I'm a mess, which is sort of a problem since I have to speak about it rationally tomorrow. Anyway to organize my thoughts, this is why I like it:

1. Louv could have gone a completely different way with the tone of this book, when I first started reading, I immediately bristled wondering if I was going to feel like a miserable parent for not taking Nora backwoods camping at the age of two. But he didn't. Yes, he clearly does stuff like this with his kids, but really what he's advocating is for parents to ensure that kids get out of the house and into a natural setting everyday. This could mean trips to the park, but it can also mean growing a seed in a dixie cup or watching the birds land on the railing. In one of the best passages of the book, Louv reassures us that making the reconnection is possible, that it doesn't have to be a giant task, and he gives us permission to have fun and to learn things too:

" But before I take you on this hike, let me say something about the pressures that parents endure. Simply put, many of us must overcome the belief that something isn't worth doing with our kids unless we do it right. If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun."

2. He makes a really strong case for our need for Nature for a. mental health b. cognitive learning c. physical health d. the creative process. Our disconnect from nature is really messing us up on all four of these fronts and ruining the earth for everything else on top of it. Really that's it in a nutshell, but this book is so much more.

3. This book should be required reading for parents, educators and policy makers for Chapter 8 - the section on ADHD and the benefits of being in nature to combat it- alone. If you don't read any other part of this book, read that chapter, it is incredibly powerful.

4. He puts the responsibility for making our re-connection to nature on a multiple shoulders (well actually everyone) but he doesn't hang parents or teachers out to dry by saying its all their fault or that they are the ones who can fix this. He takes on universities, environmental groups, government, corporations,educators, parents and everyday folks and gives extremely sound advice about how to make this work. i.e.: this book doesn't just tell you there's this huge society wide problem that is destroying us, but it also gives ideas on how to fix it and points to places where folks are doing it right. Louv also cites lots of research to back up his claims but he also tells us where no one is doing any research, or not enough research, or the research is faulty to support his arguments to encourage more work to be done.

5. This book is readable. It doesn't overwhelm you with statistics (although there are plenty), it doesn't feel like you are being lectured, it's well set up and most of all it is extremely interesting, not just for parents and not just for educators and not just for green folks (although I am all three of those).

So, please check the book out. You can borrow it from me or buy your own copy or go to the library. Whatever it takes. If you want the readers condensed version check out the link to the Orion magazine article he wrote (it's where you will go if you click on his name above). Maybe you won't have the epiphany-revealing, earth-shattering, emotional reaction to it that I have, but maybe you'll like it anyway and maybe it will convince you to go take a walk in the woods. I hope so.

It's that Season

It's that time of year again, the leaves are turning and football is back in season. Not that football, the other one - what we call soccer here. Okay, soccer is always in season someplace, somewhere, but our house is now in full frenzy over the EPL, which is somewhat more frenzied than MLS season or the US women's season, and oh yeah, it is even more frenzied since there's this thing called the World Cup next year and everyone is trying to qualify for it. This means that for the next months I've been asked to avoid driving on streets named Arsenal and Manchester and we are supposed to wear lots of navy blue and white (with just a pinstripe of yellow), unless we're supporting Ireland, and then it's that flag, and all of our weekends have giant two hour holes in them. However, when we are not gazing across the pond at our teams over there, I thought I'd give you a heads up on a team right here in STL and a great player that is actually related to me. My cousin's son, Sito has been named a finalist in ESPN's National Soccer player of the Week! He's one of three boys (young men) chosen from across the country and here's his write up, in case you don't want to follow the link:

Sito Sasieta, Chaminade (St. Louis, Mo.): Sasieta, considered the top midfield prospect in the St. Louis area, assisted on both goals as Chaminade edged FAB 50-ranked Peoria Notre Dame (Peoria, Ill.) 2-1. Sasieta, a senior who has committed to St. Louis University, has one goal and five assists through three matches.

Yay Sito! Congratulations!

More On the Subject

Lately, I've been obsessed with this amazing website that reviews and snarks on romances. Unlike other snark-y romance sites, these girls are actual fans and they also are academics - making it for me, the perfect website. It's also helping me come to terms with my love for romances as well as helping sort through the dreck for some really great authors (Tree, you've got to read Loretta Chase). Among their many services they have a feature to help people identify romances they've read and lost. This appeals to my secret librarian side - yet another reason to love this site. However, this amazing summary floored even me, who seeks out the absurd in the world of romance:

"I was hoping you and your army of smart and bitchy readers could help me identify a romance novel I read when I was ten or so (in 98 or 99) and kept digging through my friends’ mothers’ romance novel collections during sleepovers.

The novel’s set in Regency England, I think. The heroine lives in Bath and spends her days lamenting the fact that all the men are foppish dandies and she can’t find one who won’t hide his mantitty with frills and lace. And then one day she puts on a dress in a shop and it magically transports her to Ancient Rome. There, she meets a fearsome guy named Magnus somethingorother who promptly makes her his slave. He does stuff like making her put on boobie-revealing tunics during his dinner parties and so on. Obviously she falls in love with him. But then one day she is magically transported back to Bath. She’s very confused about whether her months in Rome were real or just an opium-den-induced hallucination… But then she digs up some plaque or other that she and Magnus had buried together and she knows it was all real.

Thanks in advance!"

First of all, her summary skills are to be applauded. Having read several response papers that Jason was grading, not to mention various grant proposals, and other requests of this nature, I give the writer big props on 1. telling us what we need to know to make the i.d., but not giving us a long, involved play by play of the book 2. painting a sufficiently enticing plot for those of us who haven't read it to be curious about it, and 3. giving us enough snark to make me want to help her/meet her. 4. her use of "mantitties" and "boobies" in so short a paragraph to underscore the absurdity that is sure to be found in this romance.

Secondly, I am now incredibly interested in getting my hands on the book itself. The description sets up three rarities: 1. although the heroine is Regency English (possibly the most common period of historical romance), the setting is Ancient Rome, this is unusual - Italy is sometimes used as a setting (one of the genre's more exotic ones) but it is always from Renaissance forward and the plot then must have opera singers and/or courtesans. 2. This time-travel takes the heroine from a setting in the past, to even further into the past. Most time-travel romances, start in the present and send the heroine back into the past, or if they really want to shake things up they send the hero from the past into the present (or in the case of Janet Chapman's Highlander series - a whole passel of heroes), further, time-travel romances, when not set in the Scottish highlands, are set in England. Not unusual, is the change in location, time-travel in romances always seems to also include a geographical jump as well -see my note below. 3. If the memory of the person enquiring is correct, the heroine appears to return to her own time, without her man - ok, this is completely unheard of.

Fortunately, about a dozen readers knew exactly which book this was, since I didn't. For those of you interested it's Enlsaved by Virginia Henley.

Best of the Bookfair

The YMCA's annual bookfair was this week, and I went on half price day. Although I was primarily volunteering, I also did a little shopping. While browsing, er, I mean working in the romance section, I came across a couple of wonders. I'm sorry I passed on the one with the plotline that included a 21st Century Scandal Magazine editor going back in time to marry a Plantagenet Prince (that tricky time space continuum always sends people back in time to England no matter where they were on the globe). She has to "invent" celebrity journalism centuries earlier to save his life (as if scandal on the nobility wasn't a huge source of news/entertainment in late medieval/early Renaissance Europe). Yes, that was the description on the back of the cover and somehow I passed it up. When I tried to find it later, I couldn't remember the title. However, I did find this amazing gem:

Sorry it's not turned around, but I'm in a hurry, and I think you can appreciate it just as well from this position.
The cover alone was so terrifically bad I had to have it. It wasn't until I got it home that I realized how incredibly bad this really is. Our cover boy is an actual person. From the inside flap:
"The Powerful Zebra Hero on the cover of this book is David Alan Johnson, winner in the "Under 40" division at the first annual Romance Cover Model Pageant, held at the Romantic Times Magazine in 1993 Booklovers Convention in San Diego...When asked why he wanted to appear on the cover of a book, David's reply was "to represent a man of honor and character." His debut appearance was painted by acclaimed romance illustrator Sharon Spiak, one of the judges of the contest."

This description goes on, but I gave you the highlights. A couple of questions spring to mind: 1. Is there and "Over 40" division? (Well, given the constant sub genres of the Romance Market, I'm sure there is.) 2. 1993? REALLY? Not 1983? Or 1979? 3. Who wakes up and says to himself "I should be on the cover of a romance book. I'm entering that contest!"?

I have no idea of the character was indeed a man of honor and character, because this is probably one of the few romance novels I was not able to finish. Usually, the bad ones are so very bad that they are very funny and most romances are really light reads so it's only a couple of hours of time at most. This one was so very bad, it was unreadable. But there was one additional tidbit, the author must have a St. Louis connection since it was dedicated to: "Charles Brennan, Kevin Horrigan, and Paul Grundhauser of the Mighty Mox KMOX Radio, St. Louis. They are the true heroes who would look great on the cover of any romance!". Of course nothing says sexy to me like KMOX Radio - and no I've never heard it called the Mighty Mox before, but anyway. Additionally the book does partly take place in St. Louis (as well as Egypt, England, and Boston) but that was too far in for me to stomach, so I have no idea if our fair city was well represented. Oh, and yeah, he's supposed to be a priest. Well, not actually a priest, because that would hamper the romance department, but he's posing as a priest. All the priests I know dress just like that.

In all, it was so worth the $0.25 I paid, but if anyone else is interested in reading "Heaven", I'd be happy to pass it on to you.

City Walks: City Garden

City Garden opened up this summer to a great deal of praise. Despite it being a few short blocks from my office, today was the first day I actually wandered down there. It measured up to the hype. Some of the things I loved about it:

White Bunnies

The prairie running through the middle of the two block park - this grass is about waist high.


These river fountains (and the squirty fountains in the other half) are for playing in



The plantings give walkers the feeling like they might start taking over concrete (from down the block it sort of looks like the beds are in the middle of the street).

And best of all it's smack in the middle of downtown. Great location for tourists, locals, and office workers. The new parking garage Schnucks is just down the street, so it's easy to pick up your lunch and picnic here.

These photos don't show the massive number of statues that are in the park, many of which seem very climber friendly, and the many places to sit that aren't art. One of the other things that make it great is that while there is a security presence, they don't seem to be there to make sure you don't touch the art or stay out of the water. All ages are lounging, playing and soaking up the sun. It's nice to know our city gets it right sometimes.

Projects in progress

Well, actually I completed one of them. Here's the ottoman before & after:





The baskets actually have been more challenging. I've only gotten one done, although I did cut out another one, so hopefully, I'll have it finished before I head to Carol's this weekend. I decided to re-purpose the hook and loop on the inside tabs of the baskets, which is taking longer than I wanted to remove it from the old ones. But they really were getting manky (see the green ones below) and now that N is finally out of diapers, I'm looking forward to re-doing this changing table. Maybe we'll even get a place for all her hair bands and things too, so they aren't scattered all over the house.

The before on the changing table (with one new basket)


And that basket close up. Clearly, this one is not perfect, I'm hoping I'll improve as I go through this. The corners are a lot more tricky than on the ottoman, due to the sloped sides. But I really love this fabric, it's Country Fair from Denyse Schmidt and it's on clearance over here through today, as is the above fabric which is Coreopsis from Amy Butler's August Fields line.

Bad Cats

I'm a judge in a children's book contest and I just finished my entries and I want you to shoot me now. Why do people think children's books have to be opportunities to hit the child over the head with a moral or lesson? I'm sick of books that feature sickeningly sweet protagonists. In light of this, I give you a double header cat book of the day: Mr Pusskins: A Love Story and Rotten Ralph. Mr Pusskins was first brought to my attention by Daniel Pinkwater on NPR, and his reading with Scott Simon is too much fun. Rotten Ralph existed for me first on some valentines we had donated to the office, and when I found him later in book form, I realized he was the literary version of our Archie. While Mr. Pusskins does get his comeuppance and learns a lesson, I love that Rotten Ralph never does.

Book Cat of the Day

Ginger by Charlotte Voake. - Ginger loves his food, his basket, and the little girl that loves him.  But then he has to learn to share. 

 

Osage

My co-worker coerced me into abandoning my packed lunch yesterday and going to Osage, a local restaurant that is in a nursery, Bowood Farms, in the CWE. I was really, really happy with my Mediterranean plate, but then she gave me a bite of her Brie BLT and he heavens opened up, angels sang and I was bathed in a soft blue light. Yes it was that good. While the bacon was awesome, what really made this sandwich was the tomato marmalade. Bacon aside, this place is great for vegetarians, with multiple veggie options. It is very small though, and I'd recommend getting there early or late - we got there at 11:30am and couldn't get a table, we ate at the bar. But I'm going back for that sandwich.

Recipe testings

I don't have any pictures, unfortunately, but this past weekend, Todd and Natascha served as willing guinea pigs for some more recipe tests from the Veginomican. Saturday I made the Green Pumpkin Seed Mole, Chili-Lime crusted tofu, and the corn pudding. This was one of Isa's suggested menus in the back of the book. We had tomatoes & avocados as a side (it is August!) and Isa's Coconut Lemon Bundt Cake for dessert. I like all of these recipes quite a bit, but was most impressed with the mole. Possibly because it came together in a snap despite having a ton of ingredients, and I can see it working with a variety of dishes. I liked the corn pudding, but it was a pain cutting the corn off the cob, I might make it again using frozen corn, but I'm not sure it would taste as good. The chili-lime tofu was yummy, but again, it's a lot of work and a lot of frying and really I think I like the hot glazed tempeh marinade on tofu better and it's much less time consuming. It would also have worked well in this menu. I've made the Coconut-Lemon bundt cake previously, and this time was no different - this is a keeper of a recipe. I love this cake. Interestingly, Dad also loves this cake, and he's not really a big coconut fan, so I think it might go into heavier rotation. Mom got leftovers of the corn pudding and has now decided that it needs to be made more often too, which is surprising because I didn't think she'd go for it (it has coconut milk in it). Nora loved the mole, but she ate it with pretzels. I don't think tofu is her thing, even when fried. I kept trying to convince her that it was a sort of french fry, but it was a no-go. Anyone have any requests about what to make next?

Book Cat of the Day

Sampson from the Church Mice series. My favorite of this group is The Church Mice Adrift by Graham Oakley. Why this series has gone out of print, I'll never know because the story is terrific and the illustrations are delightful. In The Church Mice Adrift, progress has come to Waterthorpe and the rats have been evicted from the waterfront. Searching new digs, they evict the church mice and Sampson from the Vestry. It's up to Sampson to get them home again. Sampson is the best of book cats, smart, courageous, and charitable to the sometimes undeserving mice in his care.


These stories were favorites of mine as a child, and now Nora thinks they are they cat's meow too.

Running Rings Around The Empire

So, thanks to Twitter, I've been following that world citizen, Eddie Izzard's run around England, Wales, Scotland and No. Ireland. He's marathons 6 days a week fundraising for sportsrelief, and I'm pretty amazed that he's still standing. But he's a pretty amazing guy. Check it out.

Double the Grandparents, Double the Fun

From the Arkansas Trip:


Nora's first fish

Under the waterfall at Garvin Gardens

On the boat
Driving the boat

Where Am I?

This month has been so absolutely crazy, as evidenced by my lack of posts all month. I was in East Prairie just after the 4th for a couple of days, then I had a Saturday training, then I went to DC for a conference/mandatory meeting and now we're all in Arkansas. DC was wonderful, when I wasn't in the hotel (which was terrifically located at 13 and Penn. Ave). In spare moments I checked out the Library of Congress, the National History Museum, the American History Museum and the Smithsonian Castle as well as Union Station, Capitol Hill, an evening cruise to Alexandria, VA, and oh yeah, a bunch of really boring meetings. I got back Friday night and then Saturday we were on the road again, my parents in tandem, visiting Jason's parents and his grandmother (mom and dad missed out on our side trip to Magnolia), and now we are at Queen Willhemina State Park literally in the clouds. This is Arkansas' second highest peak and it's been raining for days so we have zero visibility, but it's sort of cool to be all out in what seems like fog, but is actually the cloud cover. Mom and Dad are finding it rather trying up here, but right now, I'm sort of just relived to be here, since we had a pretty wet and long drive from Magnolia this afternoon (we drove down there this morning and then turned around and drove up here this afternoon) and this on top of three days with the in-laws. I might find it a bit boring by tomorrow though if it never clears off. While there is no cell phone coverage up here and the lightening earlier today cut out the land phones, it's sort of amazing that we have wireless up here, but we do. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the camera cable when we packed though, so I won't have any pictures until we get back in a couple of days. Hope we don't fall off the mountain!

In other news, Nora out-fished both of her grandfathers by hauling in 4 bream and they came up with zilch. They should use the Barbie fishing rod (yes, Nora has a Barbie fishing rod), I've learned just how reliant and simultaneously incapable of using cell phones my parents are (If you called either of them today, they can't call you back, but they sure are spending a lot of time talking about how they want to), and Jason is watching the MLS all-star team play Everton. This is the happiest he's been all trip. Nora's done a good job managing all of her relatives and putting up with a lot of car seat time. I broke down and added to her my pretty pony collection and while I think keeping up with the miniature hairbrush will be tiresome, it was sort of worth the time she spent extolling it's greatness instead of screaming her head off while driving through some heavy rainstorms.

It's been a rough week

We lost Karl, Jason was disappointed in a promising job prospect and Nora said her goodbyes to the Sunshine Room and has graduated to the Red Room. But we also had some goodtimes too. We celebrated Nora's 3 1/2 mark and the coming of summer at the Zoo, we sweated and rode pink elephants at the Marine Homecoming with Aunt Linda, Leah and Mete, Friday night, and Nora had her first horseback ride thanks to Aunt Lynn and Ellen yesterday. Oh and I burned my scalp in the sun at the pool Saturday, but luckily that was all. I don't have pics of Nora up on Shadow, (I'm hoping Ellen will e-mail them to me from her camera), but I do have some shots of Jason and Nora on the Pink Elephants. Webster Community Days begin this week, so maybe they will be riding more amusements together, but honestly, I wouldn't count on it. Jason is a big chicken when it comes to rides.


Okay, these are left from the Merry Wives of Windsor, but I love this picture of Natascha.
Jason is always telling Nora "Get Down, Get Funky". See, she sometimes listens.
One of the hottest days of the year at the zoo.



Last day at the sunshine room - Nora gets a cake that everyone (even she) can eat. Unfortunately it isn't as tasty as the ones we make at home. Damn that no baked goods from home rule.

Nora eagerly awaits the Triad Marching Band. Well, not really, they don't have candy. But everyone else does and Nora gets lots of it. We all have blue tongues by the end of the night.

Amazingly, my timid daughter has insisted on riding the pink elephants. She stood for a full 15 minutes transfixed by their big blue eyes and gaping mouths, while we waited for Jason and Aunt Linda to join us after taking the chairs back to the car. Fortunately, Jason is ready to be a Daddy-O and is willing to board the monster with her.

Oh, I forgot to tell him, the Elephants go airborn too. Did I mention that Jason hates rides?

Goodbye Karl

1995/1996 - 2009

I will miss you so very much.

Chimps

I heard this song on THE WOOD this morning and thought of Jason and my Aunt Linda, both fond of Chimps. Enjoy.

New Album Post

More Nora pictures are in the album at the right. Most of these are from Easter and they include two short videos. Enjoy!

Rainy Days

It has been so wet this spring, but finally we have some bright sunny days to make up for it. Just in case you forgot what it was like though, I've got some Nora pictures:

The Graduate

Jason walked this past week, I think mainly so he could get the regalia. His parents came up. It was a nice time - we had the most beautiful weather. There are absolutely no pictures of him walking across the stage and getting hooded by his advisor while they read the title of his dissertation, because my camera would not cooperate and I got a picture of my shoe instead and it was way too far way anyway since we were in the basketball arena. SLU did take some that we can order, and we might since several of them have Jason humorously superimposed over SLU landmarks. And they did get the photo of Jason and his advisor and another of him walking across the stage to get his hand shook by the chancellor (Jason was eyeing his big gold medallion and chain). Here's the photos I did get.



This one was taken just moments before the Billikin Mascot walked out of the elevator. Nora didn't scream when she saw him, but she didn't want to shake his hand either. Unfortunately I have no pictures of Jason and the Billikin together.