Where we've been...

Travelling lately...

St. Augustine

Sanibel

Savannah

A Reprieve...

My main client called on Wednesday - the day I was supposed to be furloughed - and they need some more work done. So I have been granted a stay of execution. For now.

All of this hasn't given me warm fuzzies about work. I am trying to decide proactively what I want rather than reacting to the situation. Fortunately Philip's job is fairly stable.

We watched (500) Days of Summer last night, which wasn't brilliant but did have some very funny bits. Overall, I liked Away We Go better. But this was a cute sequence from the movie after Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets together with Zooey.

Furloughed.

Well, it happened at last. I am finally unable to outrun the dire predicament of the architecture market any longer.

Tomorrow is my last day in the office. Supposedly I will be back in a week and a half - only to be asked to do more work than they pay me for (and that's without the paycut earlier this year) and put my family through horrendous gyrations while I travel halfway across the world.

We will see - the last person to go out on furlough left at Thanksgiving and isn't back yet. We were recently taken over by another company, and their way of doing business is $*!&. They have recently made some really dubious decisions that make me question whether I even want to return. Too bad since I have been with them for years. I don't feel like I can write too much since I don't want to burn my bridges.

But I have to say it sucks.

I Have the Most Easily Interpreted Dreams...

I have the most straight-forward dreams of anyone I know. I had my first dream/nightmare about Chloe growing up last night.

In my dream I was taking her to school. She pulled away and ran into the building, telling me she knew where she was going.

I ran after her, but at every door I tried to open, a teacher told me I couldn't enter there. I finally made my way to the front entrance of the school and got to her classroom. I could see all of her classmates there, but not Chloe. I was in tears, but then she came in with a group of students - last in line. And she was fine of course.

No need to read a book of interpretations for this!

Ideas for Dinner - Pinching Pennies

I love to cook, but it can be expensive. Here are some of my favorite cheap go-tos for dinner:

Get a package of bacon & split it into 3 portions - use for any of the following:
- blts with oven roasted potatoes
- Pasta with bacon & parm cheese
- Mark Bittman's Pasta with Potatoes (a pasta & potato kind ofstew flavored with a bit of bacon & spiced with red pepper flakes)

green salad with poached eggs & hash browns

quiche or frittata

baked potatoes with broccoli, cheese & green onions

meatloaf or sloppy joes

chili

pasta with red sauce made from canned tomatoes, herbs & black olives

Lemon fettucine

Mark Bittman's Pasta with Charred Onions & Cilantro

The Urban Peasant's Pasta with Sauteed Mushrooms (using button mushrooms), flavored with soy sauce

Pasta with Roasted Vegetables

Cheese Quesadillas with Green Salad

Pancakes with Fruit

Noodles with Spicy Peanut Sauce

Rice with spinach & feta

Egg-fried rice with peas & green onions

Potato soup (homemade) with garlic bread

Pumpkin soup (homemade) with a green salad

Tomato soup (homemade)

Social Media Revolution

This video is getting on for a year old now, so some of the numbers are out of date. It is still incredible to me. Chloe's teacher showed it to us at the beginning of the school year. It's amazing to me that in second grade all the kids have a laptop in class for computer time, do video conferencing with other schools, have a blog, and make movies to post (on secure sites).

Be Afraid Gen X: Getting Off the Up Escalator

No... Not that Generation X! A fairly depressing look at the financial picture for those of us who are Gen X:

From the December 30th Philadelphia Inquirer by Maria Panaritis

Vexed Generation X, going for broke

You are somewhere between 35 and 45 years old, give or take, and you can’t shake the feeling that things just aren’t adding up for you, your family, your generation.
The bosses and politicians in charge — many of whom are older than you — don’t talk about you much, even as your job bites the dust or you gripe about money in the cubicle next door.

You’re still so young, they say. (No hair dye yet.) You can reinvent yourself. (Presto, change-o!) You don’t even like job security. (You Pearl Jam-loving free spirit!) The real sad sacks, they say time and again, are the Baby Boomers. Don’t you read the papers? (You little brat.)

Well, to all 45 million of you sandwiched between the 80 million Boomers and their 88 million kids, I say this:

You are not hallucinating. You are in trouble. And I have the facts right here.
You don’t read the papers, true. But they don’t talk much about you, and neither does TV news. Maybe an uncle, parent or co-worker would be a darling and share? A Facebook post also would do.

Because listen to this, Generation Xer:

If you are a man born between 1964 and 1974, you were earning 12 percent less in 2004 than your father was when he was your age three decades earlier, according to a study by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Let’s attach a dollar figure to that — so that we truly register the generational grand larceny here.

Fathers were making $40,000 as thirtysomethings, compared to $35,000 for their Gen X sons. With help from an Inquirer colleague, I tabulated that Gen Xers lucky enough to continue making that meager $35,000 for the next 30 years without a single pay raise (but at a 2.2 percent annual inflation rate) will have pocketed $227,680 less than the dad who told them to believe in the American Dream.

And that was before the stock market crash of 2008.

In the immortal words of Sex Pistols front man Johnny Rotten (a Boomer, no less): “Don’t be told about what you need / No future, no future, no future for you.”
If you think I’m an alarmist, take comfort in the fact that Pew considered this finding “very disturbing,” too.

“This suggests the up-escalator that has historically ensured that each generation would do better than the last may not be working very well,” wrote authors Isabel V. Sawhill of the Brookings Institution and John E. Morton of Pew.

And yet, the May 2007 report got little coverage, despite its horror-show revelations. Scanning the print-news archives was like a trek through the desert.
In an interview last week, Morton said the finding was “surprising” because, among other things, the economy was doing pretty well during the three decades when Gen Xers became, in my words, Generation Hexed.

“This is a cohort of people who were selected because they were at their prime earnings years,” Morton said. “And yet, over a full 30-year period, they have double-digit declines in income.”

Think about it: $227,680 less in the bank at age 65. And for a generation of workers who, more than those before them, are saving for retirement mostly on their own because pensions are history, 401(k)s are scary, and houses still cost a ton.

Uncool.

Making a Zine

Chloe and I made little zines over the weekend. With one 8-1/2 x 11 sheet you can make a cute little book - all without staples. This will give you a front and back cover and 6 interior pages.

Step 1: Holding the paper with the long edge to the top, fold the page like a book so the two short ends meet.

Step 2: Fold the book from top to bottom.

Step 3: Fold the left side to meet the right side.

Step 4: Unfold the last two fold. It will look like it did at the end of Step 2 with the first fold still folded.

Step 5: Cut the horizontal fold you just unfolded halfway across the page (from the fold of your paper to the vertical crease- between the pages numbered 3 and 8).
Step 6: Unfold the paper completely.

Step 7: Draw the story. (see numbered panels for orientation of drawings.)
Step 8: Fold the paper in half this time so that the long end meets the other long end.

Step 9: Push the two ends in to make a diamond shape from the cut-out area. Push the diamond closed, and press the pages making the front and back covers the exterior of the book.
And you're done!

A Trip to New Castle

I can't resist writing more about this little city because it was such a great place to visit. As I mentioned in my previous post, it's located on the Delaware River south of Wilmington.

The city was first known as Fort Casimir when the Dutch who founded the town in 1651. It was subsequently conquered by the Swedes and then the British. When William Penn came to America in 1682, it was his first point of landing.

New Castle really is as if it has been frozen in time. Its historic architecture and cobblestone streets reminded me of other early cities, like Alexandria, VA, but on a smaller scale.

Like a lot of early American towns, it has a village green. The Green was laid out in 1655 by the Dutch Governor, Peter Stuyvesant and was the location of the market, the jail, and the gallows.

Just off the green is this little house, the Dutch House, built in the late 17th century.

The Town Hall and Market House, built in 1823, is typical of the late 18th/early 19th century form of the building. Like it's British precedents, it features a large open area at the street level with municipal functions housed above.

The Old Court House, built in 1732, was Delaware's Capitol until 1777. The building's spire is the compass point for the arc that forms the northern edge of the state.

The oldest church is Immanuel Episcopal, which is located on the Green. It was founded in 1689, and the original structure was built in 1703. However, it burned in 1980 when cinders from a marsh fire ignited the steeple. It has been reconstructed to its historic appearance, incorporating the remaining foundations and walls.

There is a receiving vault - something I had never heard of - in the church yard. Apparently the receiving vault could serve to hold a body if interment was in dispute or could be used to hold bodies through the winter for spring burial.

Between the church and the market house is this monument, made from railway sleepers and honoring the New Castle and Frenchtown railway, built in 1832 and one of the country's first railroads.

Nearby, there is also a statue of William Penn holding "the key to the fort, one turf with a twig upon it, a porringer with river water and sovle." The gifts symbolized his proprietorship of Pennsylvania which at that time included the three lower counties that became the state of Delaware.

From the riverside Battery Park, you can see the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the longest twin suspension bridge in the world.

It was freezing while we were there, but the trip was well worth it!

What I Did Over Winter Vacation

We've had a busy week. We went to the Comcast Center - the tallest building in Philadelphia. In fact, the tallest "green" building in the country.

They have installed a form of public art - a 2,100 square foot LED screen with resolution 5 times that of HD tv - in the lobby. They show films there year-round for the public to see, and they have a holiday show. Chloe and I went to the regular show back in August, and we went with Philip and his mom to see the holiday show. It's pretty impressive.

Then we went downstairs to the foodcourt and had Belgian frites from di Bruno brothers.

On Tuesday we went to New Castle, Delaware, just south of Wilmington. It's a gorgeous little town on the river and was the point of William Penn's first landing. Here is a photo from the village green.

On Wednesday, we decorated a gingerbread house and then Chloe and I went with her best friend and her friend's mom to Oliver at the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia - the oldest operating theater in the US. The show was good, but I had never seen Oliver and thought the end was a bit grim for 8-year olds (although I think it kind of went over their heads).

Yesterday I played mah jongg and then we celebrated New Year's Eve (and Philip's birthday) with champagne, cupcakes, New Super Mario on the Wii, and darts. We did the Philadelphia area thing and banged pots and pans at midnight outside - very strange.

I will close with a picture of Summer ringing in the new year. Happy 2010!

A Favorite Cookie Recipe

I make these every Christmas, but they are not just for the holidays. My mom always made these when I was growing up. They are a type of thumbprint cookie - super easy and delicious - tender, not crispy.

I use seedless raspberry jam because Chloe likes it best, but I also do them with apricot. You could of course use any jam or jelly you like.

German Tea Cakes

1 cup butter

2/3 cup sugar

2 egg yolks

2 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar. Add yolks, then flour. Form into small balls. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Make a small hole in each cake and fill with jelly. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

A New Year's Resolution

I know it's not New Year's yet, but one of my resolutions will be to be more organized. To that end, I organized my jewelry today. My mom had given me some racks for jewelry. I put a lot of the silver pieces that I wear most in little plastic bags and organized them by type (necklace, earrings, bracelet) and stone color on my dresser. That way I can find things more easily.

You can also see my two buddhas I found on etsy here.

Next for organizing, my work table and craft area downstairs...

My little star with the star

Here's Chloe putting the finishing touch on our Christmas tree yesterday. And here it is done. We had been going to make our annual family event of cutting one down on Saturday, but the snow got in the way. So we bought one in the dark on a lot on Friday night right before the snow began. We (I) took forever to pick one and it was freezing out. The search for the perfect tree...

This morning Philip and I shovelled the drive. And this afternoon will be more baking (will post a favorite recipe tomorrow) and playing cards with Chloe, Philip, and Grandma, who is here visiting from England.

Still much to do before Christmas. I can't believe I haven't yet written one Christmas card. And I still have presents to wrap, and - horrors - four packages to mail. Fortunately they don't matter too much if they are a day or two late. I don't know what happened this year - maybe because Thanksgiving was so late - I got way behind. Must do better next year.

Snowy Day

It's been snowing here since 2:30 am. Philip is insisting on being out there now, shovelling the drive in the dark like a crazy person despite having a cold.

We decorated our tree, went sledding in the backyard, and made Christmas cookies today. Here are a few snaps from our outdoor adventures.

Rolling with the Punches

Gosh. This is something I wish I could do better. I am a planner at heart. I LOVE to be prepared.

I can't stand when I've spent time planning and things go awry.

On Tuesday, I found out my mother-in-law, who is coming from overseas for the holiday, changed the date of her return flight at the request of the airlines without checking to see if we already had plans for that day. This means she will be going home during the play that I paid an ungodly amount of money for us to see. It also means my husband will be driving her to the airport during the play that I paid an ungodly amount of money for us to see. It was supposed to be the big event we all did as part of her trip. I will be the first to admit I did not take the news well. Anyhoo, now I am seeing if Chloe's best friend and her mom are able to come instead.

Then today I went to pick up photos for our Christmas card at Ritz. Stupid me, I made the file 3 x 5 instead of 3.5 x 5, so the photos are all cropped on one side. And I have 85 of them. Completely my fault, but completely annoying. (I apparently wasn't seeing a preview of the file as it would be printed when I ordered it, just the file as it was.) I have cut the photos down now, so they are a 2.5 x 3.5 of Chloe. It works okay, but again, not according to plan.

I know I need to just let things go. Not everything will be perfect all the time. But I want it to be!

Beginning of the Holidays

Chloe is off all next week, and we will head down to Virginia to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. The holidays must be officially here. In honor of them, I planted my annual amaryllis (red, of course), which kicks of the season for me.

Chloe and I also made our favorite chocolate chip cookies this morning - crisp edges and chewy centers. This is the recipe, which comes from Joyofbaking.com:

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

2 cups (260 grams) all purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (170 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated white sugar
2/3 cup (140 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups (210 grams) chocolate chunks (can use chocolate chips)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C). Place one oven rack in the top third of the oven, and one oven rack in the bottom third of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy (about 2 - 3 minutes). Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg and egg yolk, beating until well combined. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat just until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Stir in the chocolate chunks.

Form dough into balls, using 1/4 cup (55 grams) for each cookie. Place six balls of dough on each baking sheet. Gently flatten each ball of dough into a 2 1/2 inch (6.5 cm) round. Bake the cookies for about 15-17 minutes, rotating the baking sheets halfway through the baking time. The cookies are done when they are light golden brown in color and just set. They will still seem a little soft but they will firm up as they cool. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.

Makes about 18 large cookies.

My poor devoted dog...

I am working on finishing prepping our kitchen ceiling for painting where we had a leak. I have heard more than one plumber think he was a comedian, say...

Well, I have good news and bad news... The good news is your leak is fixed; the bad news is you have a big hole in your ceiling.

To which I say, don't give up your day job.

Poor Summer kept me company while I was working, and here she is.