Morning :: lamp

Morning :: bedroom window

Resolutions

I'm making some common ones - exercise and time management. I was out at a work holiday party last month and I started talking to the wife of one of my coworkers. We were chatting about our morning routines and I laughingly admitted that I set my alarm for 6 am every morning and hit the snooze for an hour and a half. Her joking response was "so you start out every morning disappointing yourself."

Wow. It was a joke, but it hit me hard. I set my alarm every morning with a good intention that I never follow through on. It's a small thing, but it sets the tone of my day and it's a simple thing to change. So with that floating in my head this holiday season, here are the concrete things I plan to do differently in 2012:

• Get out of bed when the alarm goes off at 6am. Duh. I've been doing it for two days now and I actually arrived at work this morning at 7:50 AM (see the evidence in the picture above, taken in the front room as I was leaving the house). This means that I can leave at 4pm and get an extra hour to an hour and a half of stuff done in the evening. It's a new year's miracle.

• Do something good for my body every day. Even if it's just a brisk mile and a half walk on my lunch hour or twenty minutes of sit-ups in the evening.

And that's it. Just two little, manageable resolutions. With just two, I think I can manage not to disappoint myself.

P.S. I was greeted upon leaving the house this morning with a little dusting of snow, which promises to melt by mid-day. Mother Nature, let's have much more of this please.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah!

It's been an incredible year. Best wishes to everyone this holiday season!

Check out the fabulous cupcakes I made with ingredients from my lovely friend Casey in California, and the way my window snowflakes throw a shadow on a sleeping Moo!

Happy Winter Solstice!

Here's what my beautiful city looked like last night. M and I had a fancy meal to celebrate the Solstice and walked home along the South Street bridge in the unseasonably warm weather.

Beginning Again

I got three seed catalogs in the mail already! Just in time for our end of the year potluck for The Woodlands Community Garden . . .

Sweeping up the leaves

It's Thanksgiving already! October and November have flown by, but here's a little snapshot for you:

** Black Swallowtail caterpillars on the fennel at The Woodlands Community Garden **



** Tree delivery at dawn, followed by many many volunteer tree planting events for work **









** A trip to the Philadelphia Zoo (the oldest zoo in the country) with some new friends **



** Lots of baking! **





I'm continuing my quest to perfect my apple pie recipe this fall, along with tweaking my presentation (see how I made it look like an apple when you cut it in half? clever clever me).

** Sukkah! **



We built a temporary structure called a sukkah on our porch this year in honor of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The holiday is a celebration of the harvest (and other religious and historical events) - the sukkah is open to the stars on top and filled with plant materials. Ours was decorated with paper chains, gourds, fruit, chestnuts, mums, fabric and drying bunches of herbs.







After we built and decorated it, we invited all of our friends to eat with us under the sukkah. Even though it rained during most of the week long holiday, we shared two fabulous dinners with friends and family. And it only took us two extra weeks to take it down!

That's all for now, I hope to post more frequently once I get a new laptop. This little setup that I have right now is driving me crazy, and I think it's time for a new computer, don't you?

Baby's First Surprise!

Two of M's cousins had babies this summer and I had a field day deciding what to knit for them. I've been ogling the amazing baby surprise jackets that everyone seems to be knitting (especially the ones that Amanda Soule makes over at Soulemama), and decided to have a go myself. I picked up 4 skeins of Koigu for $20 (total!), so I figured if I messed up I wouldn't be doing it with expensive yarn. I picked up "Knitting Workshop" by Elizabeth Zimmerman, where the original pattern is, and struggled through the pattern. It took me about 5 months to complete (I got married in the middle so I don't feel so bad about it) and I relied heavily on the "Knitting Nuggets" tutorials from Lorilee Beltman at City Knitting in Grand Rapids, MI. And here it is!



Raveled.



I really enjoyed making it and I feel like there are many more in my future (oh those stripey possibilities!). At the last minute I decided to embroider my new cousin's nickname into her jacket, and use buttons from M's grandmother's sewing kit.



The other cousin got another item from "Knitting Workshop" but I haven't photographed it yet so you will have to wait, dear readers. Hopefully I will take a photo soon so I can send the gift to them before the baby outgrows it . . .

It's Fall!

That crisp is in the air again, it's my favorite time of the year! But before we can address any fall-type things, let's do a quick recap. The last time I posted I was working with UC Green to raise funds for their fall planting. Many thanks to everyone who helped us reach our goal, we raised more than our $4K target and UC Green will have plenty of funds for their fall planting. I was also starting my brand new job at Philadelphia Parks & Recreation where I've now been working for almost 6 months! It's a wonderful learning experience and I love the work and my coworkers. What more could a girl ask for?

In the intervening months a lot of other things happened . . .

. . . M and I got married!!!! . . .





(wedding pictures are by Tiffany Atlas, Atlas Wedding Photography)



. . . We went on a wonderful honeymoon to Maine . . .



. . . I spent the 4th of July at my friend Alex's family place on a lake near Ithaca, NY . . .



. . . Alex, Katie and I joined my mom and Emmy for another Berryfest weekend . . .



. . . plus two new cousins were born (baby knitting project posts to come), M and I joined his family for a lake vacation in Maryland, and we went to my annual family reunion at the Delaware River.

A very full summer indeed. I'm finding it difficult to balance my full time job and my outside-of-work life, so the blog and my reading of other blogs has completely fallen by the wayside. But I hope to pick it up again, especially since this cool weather makes it easier to spend time sitting at my desk at the computer (which was unbearable during the summer months in our un-air-conditioned home). My posts will certainly be less frequent than in the past, but I promise to check back periodically and I hope to start reading all of your blogs again soon!

I'm glad to be back!

News and NEWS!!

As promised, I have yet another worthy cause for you wonderful people to support. But this time it's my project I'm sharing with you! For the past few years I've been working really closely with a non-profit organization in my neighborhood called UC Green. It's a community greening organization and they do two big tree planting events in West and Southwest Philly every year (among other great programs). The executive director, Sue, who is also my neighbor and friend, asked me to help create a Kickstarter website to raise money for the Fall 2011 tree planting event. So here are the fruits of my labor (pun! . . . you'll see when you watch the video). Please share it with everyone you know and help us reach our goal of $4,000!




The other news I have to share is that as of tomorrow, I will be working for Philadelphia Parks and Recreation as their new Tree Campaign Manager! I will be organizing their city-wide tree planting efforts and I'm head over heels excited about it! My first day is tomorrow, so wish me luck!