Hello all. Prepare yourself for a bounty of fresh posts (well, a handful) from Yours Truly Who Hasn’t Blogged In Forever. In keeping with this theme of not getting anything for a long time and then suddenly having more than you know what to do with, the first post will involve our garden.
You might remember it looking like this:
Now, after an incredibly wet June and tons of recent sun, it looks like this:
And that’s just one of the beds. Here’s some of the pickings.
Guess I’d better get myself into the kitchen before all of this freshness goes to waste.
Yesterday I tried to tweet through the day about some of the things I miss about New York. Unfortunately my new iPhone app for pics was not working so well and only a few things posted so here is my more extensive list:
Bodega coffee
Every cream cheese known to man
Garlic scapes at the farmers market
Bottomless mimosa brunches (not that I partook but I still support it)
Shoes off time in the park
Chinese food picnics
Free concerts from Celebrate Brooklyn
Filed under: Uncategorized
We rung in Memorial Day with a lovely picnic at Resevoir Park with Marty and Taylor.
Patrick made some yummy ciabatta (his best yet!) bruschetta with two of the basil’s from our garden to go along wit the pasta salad, strawberries, hummus, wine and beer.
T and Marty played hide and seek. T was a good counter for hide and seek.
And he learned how to climb a tree. Well, Marty climbed and T watched.
Patrick lulled us into our food coma’s with some guitar.
So this blog is tracking about 2-3 weeks behind real life for reasons unnecessary to list. To keep in that vein, here’s some delightful tidbits from my girls weekend with Libby and Nell.
I treated them to a hearty Saturday breakfast of eggs, pork roll and toast.
Never heard of pork roll you say? It’s sort of like canadian bacon but tangy-er. Please don’t ask what makes it tangy. It’s delicious breakfast meat and we all would prefer not to know. See, Libby, doesn’t want to know. Let her eat in peace.
(Terrible) Bowling ensued…
as did recreating obnoxious hipster photos ala Last Night’s Party, Cobrasnake, et al.
Followed up by pedicures
and capped off with CHIK FIL A!!!
Now if anyone out there doesn’t think that 1-girls don’t eat fast food because they are watching their figure
or
2-that we are the only people making a big deal about a “stupid chicken place”,
you are sorely mistaken.
Saturday night we celebrated Erin’s birthday with yummy margarita’s!
Sunday we were supposed to go to a Phillies game but the beginning of what would turn out to be 9 days of rain (and a major failure of our roof’s part) started and rained us out. Instead we did what any self-respecting Phildelphians do on rainy Sunday afternoons…eat cheesesteaks!
Hopefully this will all be repeated shortly when the girls come back to the rescheduled game. Love you guys!…I mean, girls!
Filed under: Family
A big thank you to Helen for sending me the official Stegall family robe! I finally feel like one of the family!
I can’t tell if I look like I am about to karate chop someone or serve them tea in the moutains of Japan. Either way this robe ups my asian-ness by, like, 10 points. It also ups my shortness by, like, 100.
Filed under: Home
When we moved into our house it had been vacant for at least a year, possibly 2. This led to all sorts of joyous discoveries of things that had not been checked up on, previously chronicled here and here. Additionally, the various gardens and plots and not been tended too and Patrick and I, not being much into flower gardening, had no idea what was growing. The beds in the front were literally spilling over with long green leaves of undetermined origin as well as some really ugly bush things. We pulled out the bushes and cut back all the leaves to the ground. Mind you we had no idea what we were doing or if anything would grow back but we were more concerned with getting it out of there and figured that if it all died them we would dig out all the root systems and start anew with things we liked. The one thing we did leave were the daffodils, the only thing I was able to recognize from the leaves, as they hadn’t bloomed yet. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the daffodils but mere weeks later all those thick green leaves had grown back and for weeks that was all they were. But just last week I noticed a long shoot and a bud and after all the rain we had they miraculously bloomed into this:
Irises!
On the side of the house we also have a rose bush that just started blooming:
And the tree in the front is filling in with ivy and these little beauties:
Anyone know the name of those?
Also if anyone can help we out with naming these it would be much appreciated:
I’m pretty sure these last two are just a trees trying to sprout because they look just like the giant oak and Japanese maple we already have so let me know if I should just pull it.
Next up – Vegetable gardening!
We went with Erin for our first camping outting of the year, courtesy of her sister and her Grateful Dead loving, joker pants wearing, frisbee golfing friends. Hopefully it was the first of many camping extravaganzas!
Maddie exploring the wilderness, off leash no less!
Erin gathering sticks for the fire.
Said fire, huge and warm on a cold windy night.
Joker Pants!
Deep frying a whole turkey! Apparently other things were fried but apparently I missed that.
Family photo at the amazing rock river. Read about it here.
Filed under: Uncategorized
So the only excuse I’ll give for the lack of posting is busy schedules and exhaustion. We’ve certainly had a nice end to winter and beginning of spring and we’ll try to catch up and post some things. On that note, here’s some fun pics from Bear and Addison’s wedding.
Bear and Ad were old roommates of mine and Nikki’s when we lived on 11th and 2nd in the Village.
Bear is from PA so they came back to Philly for the event. It was at the gorgeous Curtis Center downtown.
The spread was amazing. Above is just a small part of the cocktail hour.
Bear and Ad designed the wonderful table settings, handprinted handkerchiefs to wipe dab our eyes and sweet menus with their own little icon.
They went to Connecticut the week before in order to make it legal but having their bestest friend Shauna officiate really made the event special for everyone.
Congratulation to Bead and Ad! Thanks for letting me be part of your special day!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Last night I went over my friend Erin’s for a clothing swap party. Many of you may have heard about these parties on the news or online but we had such a fun time I figured there was no harm on touting the idea on the blog too. A clothing swap party is exactly like it sounds. You go through your closet and gather up all the things you dont want, aren’t wearing, bought and never wore, always meant to take back and never did, etc and get a bunch of your similarly sized girlfriends over with their items and “go shopping” in their cast off piles. Wine, food and your choice of music (ours was early 90’s girl rap with som Al Green thrown in) and it’s a party! I ended up with a nice flutter sleeve black t-shirt and a very cute white sundress. I also emptied out 2 whole drawers of stuff I had been meaning to bring to Goodwill and just never had the motivation to. In this economy, not spending a dime and getting “new” clothes sounds like a great deal to me!
Everything else we didn’t want was going to go to Goodwill but as fate would have it, a family friend of Erin’s house burnt down just last week leaving a family of high school/college-age girls and a mom with no clothes. They are going to get everything to choose from (a huge amount a stuff even after 8 girls went through it) and then anything they don’t want will end up at GoodWill.
Who doesn’t love recycling AND giving to those who need it?
Filed under: Family
I, like Dooce, don’t love all the crazy meme’s that float around Facebook but this one was a nice way to reflect on my currently absent husband and our past 5.5 years together. I figured since he is working his butt off and sleeping on couches it’s the least I could do.
What are your middle names?
My middle name Marie, just like my mom and my sister. Patrick’s middle name is Phillip, after his dad.
How long have you been together?
Married for 1.5 years, together for 5.5 years.
How long did you know each other before you started dating?
0 days. Haha. No really. We barely knew each other at all before we started dating. In reality I’ll say a month but that’s going with a very loose interpretation of the word “know”.
Who asked whom out?
Well I asked him to give up his free weekend to be the sound guy on a friends film but he asked me to the party after the shoot where he kissed me so…it’s a tie.
How old are each of you?
I’m 25 and he’s 26.
Whose siblings do you see the most?
Mine. When we lived in NYC and Eli and Thomas were still Northeastern-ers we saw them more but now that they seceded to the South (and took our beloved Carter with them) it’s down to less than a handful of times a year. We see at least 1 of my siblings every week and over the holidays my brother Chris basically lived in our guest room.
Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
Hmm. I think that’s a difficult question because we’ve had a pretty easy time of it. I think the hardest things would be work related. Because we were always freelance and now only one of us is we differ on how to handle unemployed time, future planning, etc. I tend to try to be proactive and Patrick just tends to form ulcers.
Did you go to the same school?
Same school, same major, same early graduation date because we just couldn’t handle the idea of school anymore. Oh how times have changed.
Are you from the same home town?
No. I’m from outside Philadelphia and Patrick is from Little Rock. Oddly there are many things about each place that remind me of the other, not necessarily good things, but even though they seem like they should be very different, I don’t think they are.
Who is smarter?
Oh this is a question just begging to be asked. Patrick has an uncanny ability to be able to have an factoid for just about anything you would want to talk about. Little do you all know but I’ll guestimate that he makes up about 25-30% of these factoids. He gives the appearances of intelligence by merely overwhelming you with facts that you wouldn’t know were true or not. That being said, he’s smarter. I’m pretty sure the older I get the less smart I’ve become. My memory deteriorates every day. I’d look into it if only I could remember.
Who is the most sensitive?
Patrick. No question.
Where do you eat out most as a couple?
We rarely eat out but when we do it’s usually somewhere new.
Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
Thailand.
Who has the craziest exes?
Patrick. Not crazy in that bad sense of it, well not all of them. I can’t elaborate on this unfortunately. Just know my ex’s are vaguely normal.
Who has the worst temper?
Me. Bad temper and a short fuse for the wrong situation. Patrick can just take it in and bottle it up and you’d almost swear that he didn’t even experience the thing that would have made any other sane person red in the face with anger. I, on the other hand, get mad if a recipe is written badly and storm around the kitchen banging things and cursing.
Who does the cooking?
We both cook a fair bit but Patrick can attest to me not liking it as much as he does. He lives for an elaborate meal and just his listing of his plan for Valentine’s dinner nearly gave me an anxiety attack. I like things simple, straightforward, delicious and preferably in one pot. This is why noodle dishes are my favorite. Patrick wants and will cook 6 courses and the whole kitchen will look like a bomb exploded in it.
Who is the neat-freak?
Neither. We are both messy. Not dirty, just messy.
Who is more stubborn?
Both of us are very stubborn. We could both argue a point that we don’t even care about for hours just to be “right”. It’s insanely frustrating since I am always right and he just won’t relent. Jeez.
Who hogs the bed?
Hmm. Patrick is almost twice my size so technically he hogs the bed by default but I tend to steal the covers.
Who wakes up earlier?
Me. Patrick used to be the type who would sleep until noon but slowly, over many painstaking years, I’ve gotten him to get up around 8-9 on a weekend. My body doesn’t understand the concept of “sleeping in”.
Where was your first date?
Technically we had be dating for a month or 2 before we really went on a date. On our first official date we went to Cosi. Unfortunately the quality of that particular chain has suffered so much we don’t really go back to reminisce.
Who is more jealous?
Hmm. I have no idea. It’s never erally been an issue.
How long did it take to get serious?
I think we were always pretty serious.
Who eats more?
Hard to believe (I hope) but me. It’s a bad habit I am trying to break. I seriously shouldn’t be able to eat more than him. It’s gross.
Who does the laundry?
Patrick. He’s just not allowed to fold mine because I’m a folding Nazi.
Who’s better with the computer?
Patrick. To me, a computer is just a TV I can type on.
Who drives when you are together?
Usually, Patrick. Sometimes I request the drivers seat but more often than not, it’s him. I’ll cop to being a bad side seat driver and also a bad road trip companion. I’m usually asleep in minutes.
So that’s that. Time for bed. Just me snuggling with Maddie. She’s cute but a poor substitute for Patrick.
