18 January 2012

a walk and a breakfast-for-lunch






——
This is the story of a January 18, where the sun was so shining that hellebores were poking through the ground. This mid-January day called for a walk. A walk in sandals, because I'd just found them at the bottom of a bucket o' clothes. (The Jesus Sandals have their own story—about coming home to them on my top bunk when I lived in the Annex. Circa 2005? A surprise gift from Amy and Megan K!)

Cohen loved this walk, as usual. He was cute, as usual. I noticed and loved that all the yellow-and-silver fire hydrants are stamped with "American Darling." There were other things blooming.

And when we came home, the boy retired to his bathroom bed, and I enjoyed sunshine through the windows while I made some eggs and bacon that I'd been craving ever since reconnecting with flatmate Anna, of London 2005 times, now an accomplished foodie. (Yes, my serving is ginormous. I have no excuse other than I eat for two, and it was a late lunch.) My beverage was water with mango chunks in lieu of ice cubes. To quote my sister, it "wasthebestEVAR."

And the story ends with a mesmerizing steam in the sun that looked like a painting or a movie, but certainly not like real life. I dined happily ever after!

16 January 2012

better late than never


——
I spent a good while (since pre-Thanksgiving?) imagining a New Year letter to send in the mail to everyone we know. I had the paper, size and format settled, with a plan to use the Xerox transfer process like Mr. Rees taught in high school with Chartpak blender markers. After some internetting, I substituted the toxic marker for a can of mineral spirits (because it's called mineral spirits!) but it was a major fail with my chosen newsprint and I didn't have the gusto to push on the experiment. And so, here we are, over half-way into January and I am instead sending you this New Year greeting digitally, but sent with the same love as if I reproduced them all, had all your addresses, stamped them and got them to the post office. I am really very sad to see 2011 go—partly because it was so fun to write the year as '11; probably mostly because we got to watch a human grow for a year, maybe because I got to become a mom. But here's to looking forward. 2012 is aesthetically boring to me, but it rhymes with the cool word delve, so here's to delving!

May all of your 2012s include a lot of whatever makes your heaven!

04 January 2012

a sign of a winter




The glorious golden sun rising on the far trees is kind of stealing the show, but just believe me that there was indeed a thin slice of ice laying atop our backyard pond this day.

03 January 2012

first night


Meet Creepy Green Hooded Person. We hand-picked him on our first visit to Paris Market in early 2011, with the idea of recreating the King Cake tradition introduced to us at the Malans' First Night Atlanta. 

We ditched the cake idea, and he instead hid inside Chocolate Pomegranate cookies.
(Ben's cookie, to be exact! Luck for the new year!)

Cohen went to sleep nicely. Ben made an amazing soup (some cabbage, potatoes, veggies and veggies and a whole lotta fresh thyme). We grated fresh fresh Parmesan on top, grabbed crusty rosemary bread slices from our new toaster and snuggled up with an Amazon Instant Video.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes was so enthralling that we missed the stroke of midnight, and so toasted with our Martinelli's knock-off around 12:12am of 0-twelve.

And that's how it all began.