snippits of the week

Let's start with this.
Whoo-hoo!


As I mentioned before, it's been a quiet week around here. I've dragged them out of the house to the park on a few occasions, but mostly it's just been play play play. Which, honestly, has been pretty awesome.


I made a couple of lace crowns for a work project and had Evie model one to see how it worked and she hasn't taken it off since. Last night she added her cape and declared that she was a "Princess Rescuer!" at the park.
Yumm, it's quiche weather. I love quiche weather.
So I'll leave you with that, and a wish for a happy weekend in your neck of the woods. I'm off to pick up Uncle from the train station.

snippits of the week

Evelyn has no school today. Which means that Briton has no school today. Which means that, in theory, with no where particular to go this morning we could all sleep in. Right?
No. Evelyn popped out of (our) bed at one minute past our regular wake up time ready to PLAY and GO and DO. I sent her out to watch cartoons and half an hour later found her looking like this. I think someone found the chocolate chips.
It's been warm this week, warm enough to go down to Hudson Beach and play in the sand. Warm enough for icees from the cart on the corner after school. Warm enough that mommy got a little sunburn on her winter pale legs. Time to restock the sunscreen.
I'm knitting a shawl for myself out of yarn that I spun, my first project with my own yarn. (Can you hear me squeeing inside? I am!)
Also in the workbasket are a teeny weenie pair of booties and an equally teeny weenie sweater for another Evelyn. I wonder if she will love pink the way my Evelyn does?
Genetic.
Ok, not as funny as Mannish Water, but still good.

Happy Easter Weekend!

snippits of the week

Nana is in town (which explains why I've been a little, ahem, MIA) so we've been having lots of fun cruising town, checking out the pigs feet.
It's been an excellent week for signs. This one being, I think, the best, blurry from a quick phone/subway shot but still the best. Ram Goat Flavor. Yum?
And also I need some of this. Just because.
Evelyn has decided that stepping on lines or cracks is off limits. At least when we walk home from school. Because it makes things more interesting.
Also, she has a new favorite song.
I wish I could spend days wandering the Lower East Side. Eating. We accidentally found an amazing market while we were looking for a Pizza place that was, as it turned out, the opposite direction from the one we were heading in. Good thing too or we would have missed out on a grilled ricotta and honey sandwich on sliced brioche. Heavenly.
Truffle popcorn!
Harry Potter is getting interesting. We're halfway through the sixth book and flying. I wonder if, when he gets to the end, he'll want to just start the series over again (like his mama).

Spotted this book, Yiddish with Dick and Jane at the tenement museum, this was my favorite page.
Awesomesauce.

Have a great weekend!

snippits of the week

It's been a nice old week, light on the sit at the table kind of school work but heavy on the go out and see things and have fun kind. I may have allowed Evelyn to play hooky today, and Briton too. Because sometimes you just need a day off for no good reason and today was that kind of day. But don't tell.
We spent an afternoon on the Intrepid which was chock full of moms and their sons. Some of the schools here are on spring break so that was part of it, but there were also lots of moms with toddler boys who obviously came regularly to look at the planes and push buttons in the Gemini pod and test out the aerofoils on the wind machine.
I have a feeling that if we had lived here when Briton was two we would have been regulars instead of spending our days riding train after train after train in Dublin. But then again, there are plenty of trains here, so maybe he would still have been a train boy.
I should probably tell you that I only haul these out for St. Patrick's Day, but the truth is that they are my favorite socks and I wear them all the time.
Although they aren't quite as flashy as the pompoms.
We had a mid week haircut here. Briton thinks it's way too short. I think that it will be longer before I have to cut it again. And I think it's cute. Not that I would tell him that. Cute is off limits it seems.
Briton and I tried out one of the kids art talks at the Met which I'm afraid I found more interesting than he did.
More captivating than the talk, though, were the artists dotted through the galleries. I never quite get over seeing all those paintings that I grew up looking at in books hanging on the walls of the museums here. I wonder if the artists and art students that always seem to haunt the Met feel like that or if it's just part of life for them.
Almost done with my latest spinning project. It is, by far, the largest amount of fiber and the thinnest finished project that I've done so far and it's coming out nicely. I had a plan to use it in this pattern but it ended up not being a good match color wise to the other yarn I have for the project, so it will have to live in my stash for a little while until I decide what to do with it.

I picked up Major Pettigrew's Last Stand at the library this week. It's not at all what I thought it would be, although I'm not sure what I really thought it was about, I only put it on my hold list because it kept coming up in my "you might enjoy" lists. It's a very calm book. Beautiful. Almost short on words, but in a good way. It makes me want to curl up all day in my rocking chair. Which I might just do.

Anyone read a good book lately? Once I finish this one I'll need some more, so I'm open for suggestions!

snippits of the week

We've had what you might call a full we around here. Lots of doings and goings and playings and learning's.

Most of the day Saturday was taken up by a long and leisurely walk/heely/scooter ride across the Brooklyn Bridge. It's a beautiful walk, probably my favorite in the city. It's the polar opposite of a walk in the woods. Where that would have trees and soft earth under foot and quiet, the bridge is man made and hard and loud, so loud. But nonetheless, breathtaking.
On the other side we waited in a long line to try out the new and improved Grimaldi's Pizza. It was still delicious, but probably not delicious enough to justify the further wait while they cleaned out the ovens. By the time our pizza got to the table we were almost too hungry to eat at all. But we had fun waiting and ended up with a rare shot of Will and I together. Fuzzy, but in the same photo at the same time. I should probably hand off the camera, or camera phone, more often so I can be in more pictures.
I remember that in our first weeks here I was enchanted with how you can just happen upon things in this city. Head out for a simple walk and end up with a spectacular memory. Sunday was sunny and beautiful and begged for another walk, so to Riverside Park we went and found some kind of circus party happening at the Hudson Beach Rings. The kids tried out unicycles, hula hoops, shied away from the tightrope walking, gave the rings a run for their money and then fell in love with pogo sticks.
There was a lot of bouncing.
Humm, what's my next move here.
Scrabble. It's like spelling and math all rolled into one.
"I've got this" is Evelyn's new phrase. When I try to help her with her homework, or read part of a book to her, or carry her awesome report card cake home from the store.

"I've got this mom."

Sob sob.
Yesterday we took what has to have been the coolest field trip of the year, spending the afternoon with my friend Valerie at her microbiology lab at Manhattan College. Briton had a fantastic time learning about bacteria and cells and how to heat set them onto slides. Now, of course, he's begging for a microscope. And a lab coat. He really really wants a lab coat. He also got to meet a real paleontologist, which is basically nine year old boy heaven.

Tomorrow we are heading to The St. Patrick's Day Parade, have to do a little comparison to the one in Dublin. I'm sure the New York version will be bigger and much less...odd. And then Will and I are going to see Seminar with Alan Rickman. Squeeee!!

What a week!

snippits of the week

Somehow this hasn't been a very photographic week. It wasn't a boring, do nothing week, exactly, just not especially photo-worthy. Or maybe I was too busy to take pictures. In any case, there are very few. Such is life sometimes.
Yesterday was so sunny and warm, it almost felt summer like. After a brutally cold Tuesday and a mild Wednesday, it was glorious to be outside with a short sleeved shirt on, standing in the sun.
On our way back from his Wednesday class each week, Briton and I pass the Jacques Torres Chocolatrie and we always stop to peer in and see what is happening. This week there were racks and racks of Easter bunnies, painted chocolate roosters and chocolate eggs waiting to be filled. It probably would have made me hungry had I not just stopped at Frites and Meats for some fries with horseradish aioli. Delicious.
Evelyn spent a good hour practicing different kinds of handwriting on Sunday. Bubble letters and dot letters and rainbow letters, oh my.
It took us more time to pump up tires and fix sagging chains than it did to actually take our bike ride, but we did squeeze one in. It all went smoothly until we were walking home and (carrying nothing but a loaf of bread and a scooter) I bit it, falling into one of the railings that keep people from tumbling down the basement steps on our street. I'm going to have to start wearing a helmet when I walk I swear.
Briton claims that, when we move, he wants his own room, but I have my doubts about that plan sticking. That would be Evelyn's bed, by the way. Meaning that in the middle of the night he crawled in with her, not the other way around.

Last night, as with almost every night, Briton came out of his room way past his bedtime to "ask one more thing Mom because I'll DIE if I can't ask you this please, please, please!" The question (in question) being "If a shark swallowed a diver's air tanks, would he blow up like a balloon or just fart a HUGE fart?"

Interesting mental image either way I think.

snippits of the week

The girls in Evelyn's class have discovered the joys of doing one anothers hair at recess, it seems. Every day this week Evie has come home with a different 'do than when she left. For example, when I sent her off she had braids but she came home with crazy piggies yesterday. So far they can only manage wonky pigtails and pony tails, but I'm sure some fancier looks are soon to come. I remember doing the same thing in about first grade. It must be genetic.

Also on the lines of genetic habits, we are doing lots and lots of reading. Reading in bed, reading on the couch, reading while we make breakfast, reading with mommy.
Yay! I mean, really, YAY! Now I'm wondering how long it will be until she can read Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. (Now that I look at it, that photo is kind of funny, I'm reading on a Nook, Evelyn is reading Dick and Jane. Opposite ends of the reading spectrum)
Book town continues in its construction. Briton informed me that he designed it with adult walking in mind, meaning that we should be able to walk through it with out knocking things down because he left a daddy-foot sized trail through the house. It's getting a week bit crowded in here even so.
Spring! Spring!
The little bodega down the street has had a bucket full of pussy willows out front for the past few days and I'm so tempted to buy some. We used to play with them when I was a kid, pretending they were magic seeds or pets or alien pods, our pockets full of them all spring.
I had great plans to ply these two yarns (light grey is un-dyed angora, dark is some corrindale that I dyed over the weekend) and spent a long evening winding them into balls and then winding them together into one ball so that I could easily twist them together. And then once I started plying I realized I didn't like them together at all. Which has led to more winding, but of the un-variety.
Almost back to where I started now. Ugg. They do look pretty though.
Our cat, who has spent the past nine months in seclusion under our bed, hating everyone but me, has turned a new leaf. I was on the verge of picking up some kitty Xanax for her when Briton and I brought a catnip plant for our biosphere that she tried to tackle out of our hands and drag under the bed skirt. Last week we bought a bag of dried catnip (she doesn't like catnip toys we've discovered) and now, twice a day, I rub a pinch of it all over her. It's like we have a new cat. I think this is the first photo I've taken of her since we started packing our house that doesn't' scream "I'm plotting to take you down". Will thinks we should try rubbing some on the dog. It could be the beginning of a whole new friendship. (They are both looking expectantly at me in this photo because of the Seaweed Snack on the couch. Yes, both of my pets, and both of my kids, are mad for Seaweed Snacks. It's weird, I know.)