NOW what's blooming

I have to start posting quicker if only to accurately put up what is blooming in my flowerbeds - the plants blooming here have just about finished!


Here is Alex posing next to my biggest azalea. I love this bush - who wouldn't? Last year most of its blooming was obscured by the big dumpster in the driveway from the garage construction, so this year we got to see it in all its glory.


Smaller red azalea on the side bed. It is being overtaken by three low-growing rose bushes next to it. I really need to relocate the roses, but I realized for the safety of my skin it will be much easier to move the azalea instead.


Alex next to the red azalea in front of the house. This one had gotten very penned in with weedy shrubs around it, so we cut a lot of stuff back - hopefully it will grow even bigger with the space it has now.


My new absolute FAVORITE plants in my yard - my lilac bushes. I discovered that they probably didn't bloom last year because we pruned at the wrong time of year - they get cut back in early summer when the blooms are done. The scent from these bushes is amazing. I would smell it every time I walked out the back door. We've had a couple trees next to the driveway that had to be taken out, and I decided that I will fill the space in with more lilacs.


Alex checks out the bleeding heart hidden behind the lilac bush. This was one of the plants that was relocated last year when we got rid of the flower beds along the sidewalk in front of the house, and I am very glad to see that it survived. The flowers are just so neat to see in Spring. Once those blooms are done I'm moving this one to the front of this bush so everyone can see it.


This is what the beds in front of the house currently look like. The hostas are huge, and the tall spiky plants near the back are the tiger lilies that will bloom (most likely when I'm visiting Texas - I think I missed the best blooming last year). Unfortunately I don't know how much of this riot of green is supposed to be here and what should have been weeded out. I just figure it should be apparent soon enough.


Another favorite thing - look at all these poppies about to open! One actually did open yesterday, but the picture I took today didn't do it justice, so I'll try again tomorrow.


And if anybody has an idea what this could be, please let me know. I figured it was weeds at first, but then these cute little flowers started blooming on it so I decided to leave it for now. It's growing at the back of the driveway, so we are just about the only people seeing it anyway.

America's pastime

So Alex finally started playing a sport I can really enjoy watching. Well, I suppose I'll really enjoy watching it once we get past these early stages - let's face it, t-ball is NOT a very exciting sport to watch.

Now if I can only keep Alex interested in it. He's not much of a team-sport player. He's tried soccer and basketball; didn't hate them but didn't love them either (in fact probably only really liked it because his friends were playing the sports with him).


Posing before the game in full uniform.


Check out the form on this boy. He looks even cooler now that we've bought him his own shiny red batting helmet.


"Ready" stance in the field.


The "quit-taking-pictures-mama" stance in the field.


The BEST part of the game, of course. Ice cream afterward with your best friend.

Comfort Food

The note from the editor in the most recent Cooking Light was very interesting, lamenting the fact that upscale chefs have hijacked the notion of "comfort food." As he said, the idea of comfort food has been "roped to spectacular quantities of cheese, meat, fat and sugar when, in fact, the emotional dopamine of the perfect dish can just as easily come from chicken soup, or Proust's cookie, or, in my case, a bowl of wild raspberries."

I thought about this as I marveled at the internet's ability to provide even the most obscure bit of information. Living up here in NJ, one thing I REALLY miss are all the good restaurants back in Dallas. Because for all its faults, Dallas has a great selection of restaurants. And one thing that has been on my mind lately is the dal with rice that I used to get from Cosmic Cafe on Oak Lawn. When I was pregnant with Grace this was one of my lunch staples (a very spicy "comfort food", if you will). So I Google "Cosmic Cafe dal recipe", and sure enough I actually get a hit. Not for the restaurant's recipe per se, but for a dal recipe that had a comment saying it tasted just like the dal at Cosmic Cafe. So very soon I will try to make it, accompanied with some jasmine rice with toasted cumin seeds, to see if I can replicate that awesome taste.

I also found a recipe that is supposed to approximate the cashew tamari dressing from Mother's Cafe in Austin. I used to buy it at Whole Foods in Dallas, but it's not carried at the Whole Foods stores up here (probably because it's refrigerated with about a 2 week shelf life - not real good for shipping 1500 miles). This is the salad dressing that would actually make me eat salads. Don't get me wrong - I love salads, but don't like the amount of work that goes into making one for lunch when it is so much easier to reheat leftovers from the night before. I just got the rest of my ingredients yesterday, so tomorrow I shall try making the dressing to see how it turns out.

Thinking again about comfort food, probably the one I think of most from my childhood would be grilled cheese sandwiches. Or tomato soup with cheddar cheese in it (maybe with a grilled cheese on the side?). Or the ultimate, though I bet it wouldn't give me too much comfort to eat it now because my palate has hopefully matured a bit, Spaghetti-O's with a slice of buttered bread on the side. Sigh.

Zoo!

We had our first zoo visit since moving to New Jersey, and we made it a good one. The Bronx Zoo! We went with Alex's two best buddies and their siblings and mothers (three moms and seven kids total aged almost-9 down to 2 1/2). It was our Wednesday-of-Spring-Break activity, Wednesday being the day at the Bronx Zoo where you donate whatever amount you want for admission. Surprisingly it wasn't crazy crowded like we thought it would be, probably because NYC schools were not out this week.


Here's the three musketeers, ready to start the day. SO happy to be at the zoo together. In fact, I think they were so happy to all just ride in the car TO the zoo together.


Everyone (except for Donald) at the beginning of the day.


The big rope spider web in the children's area was a huge hit, as seen by climbing participation with the entire group. They probably would have stayed on this for an hour or so if we didn't have a school group right on our tail.


I like this picture of Alex and Peter on the web, because you can see that Alex is "webbing" me Spiderman-style.


For some reason the turtle shells were also a huge hit. Lots of climbing fun.


Pretty Kate the turtle.


Grace specifically wanted to get a picture with the white llama (or alpaca - I'm not real sure what they were) at the area where kids can feed the animals. It was very friendly, probably because it was thinking it was sure to get some food pellets. Unfortunately it was disappointed this time (we moms decided it was too much hassle to coordinate seven kids feeding at the same time).


Everyone posing with sad faces upon discovering the reptile house was closed for the day. They really wanted to get inside to see the cobra that escaped a week or so ago.


Grace made a new friend in Peter's older brother Matthew. Even though they are a grade apart, Grace is only about 3 months older than Matthew. So they bonded over their extreme devotion to all things Harry Potter, and shared irritation at the three 6-year-olds with us.


Good thing I shoved an entire package of Chips Ahoy cookies into my pack. They were used for all sorts of incentives, whether it was a sugar pick-me-up or as a bribe (seen here) for keeping someone in his stroller.

It was a VERY fun day, though I have to admit I was exhausted by the end of it. Don't know if it was from all the walking or just the stress of keeping up with all those kids, but it was totally worth it.

Spring blooming

Time for the annual posting about what is springing up this Spring in the garden.

This should be a fun year with the yard. Due to the downsizing of Hutchinson household finances and the increase in Jim's time at home with the new MUCH reduced commute, we ditched the lawn service and are going back to doing it ourselves. Now I'm very excited to get started, and frustrated that planting is done about a month later here than in Texas, so I still have to wait even though I'm ready to DO IT.

For now I have to be content with seeing what sprouts up that had been planted by previous owners, and really start thinking about what will be moved/yanked out/supplemented.


Our snowbells are the first thing to show up each year (as you can tell by the ragged look of these last remaining few). The biggest group of them is actually a strip that snakes into the back yard, left over from the incredibly overgrown beds that we yanked out when we moved in (we needed more grass in the yard for two kids and a dog). Each year I'd be surprised when they poked through and bloomed, but always missed relocating them because the lawn guys would show up and mow before I had a chance to dig them up. So this year I took a stab at moving them. Hopefully they will show back up next year in their new locations.


The crocuses are my other early bloomers. Just a few of them left in the beds to get pictures of.


The forsythia are blooming brightly all over town. This one is next to the corner of our house. We also have one in back and one right between our house and the neighbors.


Daffodils are in the middle of blooming right now. We have a lot of basic yellow ones.


We also have some of these really pretty lighter ones.


We have a scattering of these beautiful hyacinths.


And some fairly large mounds of grape hyacinths in various areas around the house.


And THIS was the bane of my existence on Sunday. All the darn leftover pokeyballs in the back yard. Very hard to get up - they like to just spring back away from you when you pull the rake over them. And I only did about a third of the yard. Tell me again why am I excited about this?

Acclimation

First a note to say that I know it has been a while since I've posted. Honestly when dealing with the reality of your family having no income it makes it hard to get your head in the game and do all the little things you were used to doing when life was "normal." And once our situation corrected itself (yippee!) I had a bevy of house guests. So now life is approaching boring old "normal" again, which is truly grand in my opinion.

Now with regard to acclimation, it's funny how our bodies can do that so quickly to where we live. After living through a few COLD winters up here we now find ourselves like those people that once the temps hit 45-50 degrees and sunny we are outside in short-sleeves ready to enjoy the day. I can honestly say I don't believe there was ever a 50 degree day in Texas when I was out in just a t-shirt. And don't even get me started on that first summer back visiting Texas when it was 100+ on the 4th of July (I can tell you my kids probably wouldn't have seen fireworks that year even if they hadn't been diagnosed with strep that day!).

So after a couple bouts of snowfall that occurred AFTER the first day of Spring this year, we have two weekend days to kick off Spring Break that are sunny and in the 50s. Meaning yardwork for me and Jim and an outside lunch on the deck for the kiddos.

Here's my two kiddos enjoying a 53-degree afternoon (note Grace in just a tank top!). Yay Spring!

Bookstores

Today I was saddened to read in the paper about the bankruptcy of Borders book stores. Apparently the company hasn't done what it needed to do to keep up with the digital revolution in books and has lost its way over the past 10 years. Of course this sadness is haunted by the knowledge that I probably haven't shopped in a Borders in the past 10 years. Am I allowed to talk about how sad the situation is if I have been part of the problem? My life has changed enough now that I'm primarily a library user, an Amazon user (dang those books are cheap, and you have to love the convenience of ordering from your living room couch), and a local independent bookstore user (though I'm probably not doing enough to help THEM stay in business either).

But I have a soft spot in my heart for Borders. Enough that I often found it hard to go to Barnes & Noble instead, even once we moved up here and had a B&N that was much more convenient to go to than anything else (even that independent bookstore). Back in the early 90's, Borders was the first bookstore "experience" I got to enjoy - go just to browse, have a coffee in the cafe, find a good deal. It was just such a calming event. Not as quiet as a library so you didn't have to tiptoe around, though how could it not be soothing with all that printed material everywhere? Plus they were the first place I'd ever seen promote a "banned books" week, featuring titles that have been crazily banned in various places around the country. I still have my 15+ year old t-shirt from that.

So I'll be a little sad about it and hope they can get their act together. But I still probably won't shop there. And maybe I can hope that my little independent bookstore will some day get big enough to add more in-store stock and a little cafe in the back. Then I'll be in bookstore heaven again.

Snow snow snow

Another big snow storm last night. Between the few inches that fell yesterday and what hit last night we ended up with a little under 15". Average snowfall for New Jersey is about 24" for the season, which we've surpassed in the first month (still almost two more months to go). Apparently this very snowy winter is caused by the North Atlantic Oscillation - a phenomenon that is an " interaction of subtropical highs and polar lows that control the flow of air along the East Coast" (I pulled this from a quote in the Star-Ledger - I'm not THAT knowledgeable about weather patterns). The colder air turns precipitation that would normally fall as rain into snow.

So another snow day from school for us. We are luckier than other towns in the tri-state area - many have already used up their snow days and will be soon eating into Spring break or Summer break. We have at least one more day left (luckily the first bad snow storm hit during Christmas break).


Our snowy street. Wonderful neighbors on either side used the snowblower to clear the sidewalks AND our driveway. We don't mind shoveling, but when it's this deep that blower sure can make short work of it.


My buried trash cans. My problem I have now is figuring where to put the snow I shovel (you can see the enormous pile next to the house already.


The kids venture into the backyard, checking out the trench dug for Lucy's benefit this morning.


You can see the amount of snow from this storm on the roof (and light) of the garage. It's hard to gauge snowfall when it doesn't all melt away between storms.


Alex shows how deep the snow is. This is the cut made by the snowblower. Isn't the bare driveway under Alex's feet lovely?!


Jim found the perfect spot for a snow fort for the kids. Big pile of snow in front from shoveling over the past few weeks. And support in the back from the section of fence.


Lots of sibling fun making the "rooms" in the fort.


Grace peeks over the side with a tiny snowman standing guard. She is probably sitting on her knees here.


Poor Lucy whimpering because she wants to be part of the snow fort too.

Quite a good cut

Grace had her very first visit to an actual hair salon (versus a place that caters to kid haircuts). She and best friend Annie both needed haircuts, and I found my hairdresser on recommendation from Annie's mom, so we figured why not take both girls together.


Here is Grace getting her hair shampooed for the first time. Apparently Annie puts up a big fuss about this, so her mom was glad to be able to point out how calmly Grace took it.


There it goes. Lots of hair being taken off, so it will be a big surprise for her classmates when she goes back to school on Tuesday.


The new hairdo. And the new jacket - North Face like everyone else in creation wears up here. She was allowed to get it if she paid for half the cost.


Now for the real meaning of the title above - Grace was able to cut 8" off, which is the minimum amount to donate to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program, which makes wigs for cancer patients. Here is her hair which I need to package up and mail off on Tuesday. I'm very proud of her because she ended up having to cut a little bit more than she originally wanted to be able to donate.

She LOVES her new haircut, mainly because she discovered how few tangles end up in hair that only goes to a little below your chin.

Feel-Good Blog

Have you seen the blog 1000 Awesome Things? Simply put, the author is listing each day some everyday thing/item/event that when you really think about it is "awesome." Things like #345 (When the Christmas tree give the only light in the room) and #759 (Dropping a glass and then sticking your foot out so it hits your foot and doesn't break on the ground) and #919 (Hitting a bunch of green lights in a row.

The author is a wonderful writer, so even better than just reading through the list is actually reading what he wrote on each blog entry. I dare you to read these entries and not smile or nod your head in agreement.

Plus you may actually learn something - Jim and I never knew about #998 (The gas arrow).

If you like the blog and want to see more of the author, check out his TED talk here.

Big ol' blizzard

Time for some snow pictures. We got a blizzard the day after Christmas, which apparently isn't real common here in New Jersey. A "perfect storm" (if you will) of conditions that included very cold weather (making the snow very light), crazy strong winds, and a dumping of almost 2 feet of snow in many areas caused a lot of headaches for a lot of people. We managed to run out to Target the morning before it started to spend Christmas gift cards and pick up some last minute bread and milk, then we hunkered down to watch the snow fall (and fall and fall and fall).


This is what we woke up to the next morning. You can see the snow is up to the bottom of the chairs.



Jim kindly got out and shoveled a path so Lucy could take care of business that morning. The snow is over Jim's knees and over Lucy's back. She wasn't too pleased by this turn of events in her backyard.



A neighbor had parked a car in front of our house, and we watched it slowly get buried deeper and deeper as the snow fell. This is what it looked like the next morning - a combination of snow falling and snowplows plowing. We still have a rectangular parking space in front of our house where they shoveled it out a few days later. I think it's quite the coveted spot at school pick up time.



While Jim was working on the driveway I took the kids across the street to the big hill behind the school for a little sledding (this picture was taken with the kids standing on our driveway with just a path shoveled through, so you can see how deep the snow was). But it wasn't a very good trip. The snow was light and fluffy and not packed yet, plus the school was not plowed so it was VERY slow going to trudge through the snow there. We were all trying to create sledding paths on the new snow. Plus the wind was still really strong, so you got a lot of big blasts of snow blowing in your face. So after a bit the kids and I returned to our warm, cozy home for big mugs of hot chocolate.


The next day the wind had died down so we headed across town to the big sledding hill (along with half the population it seemed). The kids had a great time, and luckily the cheap sleds I'd bought Sunday at Target were light enough that there were no complaints about lugging them back up the hill.







One last picture. These are our little lollipop snowmen decoration in front of our house. This is about four days after the big snow once we'd had a lot of melting. For a couple days they were totally covered in snow - the only indication that something was there was every evening starting at 4pm there were four very faint lights glowing in that spot, changing colors and patterns. Finally now, more than a week after the snowfall, you can spot some ground at the bottom of them.