end of an era

onwards and upwards - tweetingtotellyouiblogged.blogspot.com

midweek notes

This week is flying by which is sort of funny since they usually drag the week before a holiday. But I'm not complaining - it's almost the weekend again! :)

I spent a few weekends down on the Cape recently while my grandparents were staying at their house in Falmouth. The house has been 'Craigicized' - our family term for when my Uncle Craig comes in and turns an old rundown house in to a luxury retreat. 

He did a great job with this one - it's right on the edge of a small cove off Buzzard's Bay with gorgeous views and light and comfortably apportioned for large house parties,  particularly sports fans who want huge TVs and surround sound when their teams are playing. Most of the year it's rented out and he's pushing to add a hot tub to the patio - apparently all the rental people ask about it . he also wants to turn the garage in to a bed/bath suite b/c 'garages don't make money'. Words to live by. He's a pretty unique character. :)

Anyway he's outfitted this house incredibly well and one of the highlights is the beds. SO comfortable and cozy! I took this pic of the room Chris and I stayed in one visit as a happy place to return to as necessary. And decided we needed to up our bed game in Cambridge too. 

take me back

 Macy's has been having crazy pre holiday sales so I got an alternative down comforter, feather topper, new regular pillows and two Euro shams to complete the look for extremely cheap. Highly recommend checking them out and they even honored a further reduction when they dropped the price a few days after I bought them. #winning! Sammy's loving the new bedding too. :)

I also tried my first yoga class earlier this week. I've been wanting to try yoga for awhile now and my knee issues have just highlighted that low impact strengthening exercise might be more appropriate now that I don't recover like I used to (#glorydays). 

Went w a coworker to a studio in the North End and had a pretty good experience. Liked the space and a lot of the poses were familiar from other classes I've done and movies and such (thinking of this scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall in particular). 

Only fly in the ointment was that I'd been feeling nauseous all day and threw up right before the class started. Should have been my sign to call it but I wanted to give it a shot so I started the class with everyone else. Halfway through I was breaking out in cold sweats and feeling like I was about to pass out so I erred on the side of consciousness and tapped out. Will go back and give it another shot though - I can see how it would be very beneficial for everyday wellness. :)

i read the news today oh boy

have had this song stuck in my head since hearing about the paris bombings yesterday. i'm pretty bummed about it (as i'm sure everyone is). my company is a french company, headquartered in paris, with 800 employees. it feels personal on a lot of levels.

it also just seems so useless sometimes - we work hard and try and be good people and for what - to have it all blown up and gone to hell? it's hard not to think about how this could lead to WW 3 in a very real sense. in the words of batman 'some people just want to watch the world burn'. and in the words of desiderata

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

came home after dinner and some drinks and watched love actually with some wine, ben and jerry's and the kitty. it was a good antidote. and had two nice people interactions in recent weeks to remind me that the world isn't all that bad. a few weeks ago i went to potbelly sandwich to grab lunch and it wasn't until i got up to to the register that i realized i had put my wallet in my jacket instead of my bag and i wasn't wearing my jacket b/c it was unseasonably warm in boston. the lady at the register comped it for me - it was much appreciated. and earlier this week i dropped my umbrella sleeve in the lobby of my building and security tracked me down and let me know they had it. it's my cath kidston umbrella from london (in a buckingham palace guard print!) so that was much appreciated too. :)

heading up to exeter today for exeter/andover weekend. meeting jill and my parents on campus for some glory days reminiscing and visiting. zip zip zipcaring up in a mini VW golf - it's only an hour from north cambridge. it's glorious to be so close!

we're loving blue apron btw - so nice not to have to think about what to make or battling crowds at the grocery store after work to pick up ingredients. most recipes take about 20 - 30 minutes to make (beats waiting for take out delivery in cambridge!), ends up being about $10 per person per meal so lots cheaper than eating out and we've made some foods i never would have considered before. earlier this week we had crispy pan fried cod with spiced couscous, roasted acorn squash and swiss chard. delicious!

in other delicious food news have you ever had portuguese muffins? they're thicker, sweeter and less crumbly than english muffins and delicious toasted with jam. my grandmother introduced us to them - christmas tree shop often has them at v reasonable prices. highly recommend them.

in knee news unfortunately the MRI i had a few weeks didn't turn up anything, but the ortho diagnosed a posteolateral corner (PCL) injury. essentially and LCL stretched ligament issue that isn't fully supporting my knee. i have a snazzy leg brace that's supposed to provide support where i don't have any and i've been wearing it to run laps around the block. so far so good though i can't help but think about my brother running laps around our house growing up to burn off excess energy. i've also been attempting to rehab my leg with spinning classes and going to classes at b/spoke - a soul cycle type gym in downtown boston. classes aren't cheap but for the cardio, toning and core work it can't be beat, especially since spinning is about the only thing i can do at intensity at the moment. plus they have killer soundtracks. my hope is that building up my quad and hip muscles, plus my endurance, will help my knee overall and make it that much likely that i can ski (when it eventually gets cold) this year.

lastly i've been reading a lot lately - mostly agatha christie novels - but also 'dead wake - the sinking of the lusitania' by erik larsen. dead wake wasn't as good as 'devil in the white city' or 'in the garden of beasts' (which i LOVED) but a good read about the sinking itself and also about the political climate at that time. lots of parallels to modern times actually (see WW3 comment above) and it's inspired me to start reading a biography of winston churchill.

but back to agatha christie - if you like mysteries she is fantastic. my favorite are miss marple mysteries and i put the miss marple anthology on my kindle and couldn't put it down (like reading during lunch at work). she is just so good.

new favorite song

here's a round up of my new favorite songs - aka the songs i will be listening to on the road trip this weekend

• working for it - skrillex and zhu. just grew on me v fast
• hold me now and the weekend - eden xo. discovered these thanks to the pilot of 'scream queens'. i wanted to like it but mostly i just want to watch greek instead. but loving the 'hold me now' cover and boys will prob be annoyed by 'the weekend'. sorry for partying.
• heartbeat - mat kearney
• arm's length - kacey hill
• metaphysical - autograf
• sober, me & the rhythm, hands to myself - selena gomez. she's doing so many things right
• sugar - robin schulz - loved this song when it came out in '03. always makes me think of hanging out and listening to it in the heorot basement in fact. great remix
• girls just wanna have fun - stryker. another good cover of a great song. (there's a theme here.)
• true believer, broken arrows, i talk to myself - avicci. he is just sooo good. 
• la hallucinations - carly rae jepsen. courtesy of kevin m garland's spotify playlist. she's so much more than 'call me maybe'
• got to work it out - robyn and la bagatelle magique. a great seemingly under the radar robyn song and excellent for actually working out
• the boxer - jerry douglas ft mumford and sons. amazing cover of an amazing song. it gets all blue grassy which just works so well for the sound and subject matter. love it. 

i did listen to the new adele - on the fence about it though. will probably need a few more listens and and a rainy day but i'll get there i'm sure. ;-)

i was not thrilled when they changed the day of the week when new music drops from tues to fri but i will say that it makes friday go by much more quickly when there's a new music playlist to listen to while wrapping up work for the week and managing hangovers! :)

life with lyon

hello good morning. up early on a saturday thanks to samson who always knows that it's 6 AM and time for kitty crunchies. they do say it's good to maintain your waking time on the weekend - these days i like getting up early and taking a nice nap on sat or sunday afternoon instead of sleeping in. most of the time that is.

today i'm heading up to ME and NH for a bit before driving down to the cape with jill.  hitting up the outlets at kittery for some retail therapy and then picking up jill at exeter to drive down to the cape. my grandparents are spending a few weeks in falmouth and it's much easier to get down to the cape than to fly to florida so we're going down for the night.

i decided to try blue apron - my first delivery comes next week. i def cook more now that i'm in boston but still nothing too crazy or fancy. was reading some reviews of BA and people were saying that it helped them feel more comfortable and confident around the kitchen so i've decided to give it a try. we have the nicest kitchen tools b/c chris's mom works at william's sonoma so i figure how hard can it be? i will report back.

finally did the thing we all dread and took some posters to be framed at michaels a few weeks ago. good lord framing is expensive. so easy to put it off but it does look so much better when things are done. i'm having a moosilauke poster matted and framed and i got a custom mat for my favorite dartmouth winter carnival poster (this one!) so i could actually frame it and keep it nice for years to come. they look nice but they weren't cheap! ugh adulthood.

stumbled upon this ecommerce website - waiting on martha - and it is my new favorite thing. cheeky, adorable gifts for house and home and just because. perfect for holiday shopping. i got the ciao sign and a butter dish since there's nothing worse than trying to spread cold butter on toast, and i'm loving all the punny cocktail napkins too (overserved - one of my favorite WASPy sayings).

speaking of WASPy sayings while being the witches of eastwick last weekend and gossiping about anyone and everything with the crew girls we decided that we are not bitchy we're 'discerning', we don't hate it we just 'don't care for that' and of course we're not drunk we're 'overserved'. tee hee hee.

blog happy birthday shout out to mulley (not quite as meaningful as a doodad and mullet radio show shout out but we'll take it).

packing and showering before hitting the road to commence! enjoy the weekend. :)

Unofficial Reunion Weekends

Coming off of a great SD mini reunion weekend in Boston for the Head of the Charles regatta. Skips flew in from Chicago, Mulley flew in from Nantucket where she's helping to alleviate the under served 'ACK Civil War sex play' market and PPocket came down from Hanover for the festivities. Boxa and PPocket actually raced - the rest of us walked literally 10 miles to see D people, Exeter friends and various locales. Skips brought her new gf (not really new but new to us) who we loved and were very happy to meet, and had some boozy dinners in Beacon Hill and Harvard Sq. 

Side note - writing this as I ride home on the T and we just crossed the Charles River (my favorite part of the ride to/from work) and the light in Boston right now is INCREDIBLE. (In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary) :)

We decided to go to Cheers on Sun night to watch the Pats play the Colts since all of us Boston people realized none of us had ever been to the tourist trap. It was actually quite pleasant even though we were not greeted by name when we walked in (jokes). A good blizzard bar since it's on the basement level and the beers were reasonably priced. I'd go back. And was v pleased that the Pats won as well esp since Boxa was irritating all of us by cheering when the Colts did something good b/c Andrew Luck was on her fantasy team. harumph.

Heading out to Wellsley shortly to see Robin and Whit. Robin is doing an exec ed course out there and since it's closer than NYC we have planned to get a drink out that way. Hooray for mini reunions. 

Killington opened for the season yesterday and I did buy a season pass last week in a spurt of cautious optimism. Have my MRI on Thurs and an apt w the orthopedist next week so w any luck this time next week I will know what I'm dealing w with this knee thing. Finger's crossed it's a quick fix!

And a belated happy bday on the blog shout out to Vin who celebrated in New Zealand on sabbatical and possibly with a kola? and one for Allette as well. Wish I could have raised a few glasses with you both. 

MV Love

I went to the dentist today! Hooray! Adult gold star for me. And now I will go home and have Chef Boyardee for dinner to cancel it out.

Walked through Beacon Hill on my way home - was hoping for a pedi bc my feet are a mess after a few days at the beach - but no dice. There are, however, tons of people moving since it's Sept 1 tmrw. Most leases in Boston are times to turnover on Sept 1 to coincide w the start of the school year and it's brutal to have it all happen at once. This heat doesn't help. 

I was v happy about the heat for a few days at least bc we had PERFECT beach weather for our few days on Martha's Vineyard for our work offsite. We rented the same house as last year just outside Edgartown. Sleeps 20, is clearly made for entertaining an extended family with lots of bathrooms and sleeping/relaxing areas. It's big but not fancy - comfortable shabby chic - and has a pool, tennis courts, guest house and a big yard. Perfect for an epic house party. 

Had a great couple of days down there. it was the last true weekend of summer so everyone was in a party mood. Hit up South Beach a few times, stopped by Espresso Love - the MV location of one of my favorite coffee shops in Boston. Had some great seafood and an epic 'Thanksgiving in August' themed dance party at the bar upstairs complete w Pilgrim hats and inflatable turkeys (this made no sense to anyone).

Went bridge jumping off the Jaws bridge too. you may know that jaws was filmed on MV and this year is the 40th anniversary. there's an epic scene where the shark (spoiler alert!) swims under a bridge in to an estuary and devours everything in sight. now a days every one jumps off the bridge despite the prominent 'no jumping from bridge' sign and it's a must-do on MV. perfect hangover cure.

until recently nantucket was the island that i had spent the most time on and knew the best but i have to say MV has its charms too. feel very lucky to get to spend some time down there. 

Community Supported Agriculture

We live in a nice little neighborhood off of Mass Ave. I like it bc we're about a 5 min walk from the Porter Sq T stop - I can be out the door and on the train platform 7 mins door to door but it has a bit of a neighborhood feel despite being off Mass Ave and living in an apt building.

Our neighbor across the street has a beautiful garden in his front yard and I've been admiring it all summer and gushing to my dad the gardner about how much he's like it too. 

 Tonight as I was walking home he was out watering the garden so I thought I'd compliment it and let him know how nice it's grown. He was incredibly insistent on giving me some kale, arugula, rhubarb, basil and banana peppers to take home with me. 

It doesn't get much more local than this. :)