Category Archives: Charlottesville

Weekend Snapshots 34

Friday

I love my book group. We read a book every month and then meet to have rarefied, high-brow discussions about what we’ve read. We NEVER for a second let the conversation drift to things like our children or what’s going on at work.

IMG_8031In keeping with the lofty nature of our gatherings, we make an effort to dress up for the occasion. In fact, we have a rather strict dress code:

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Saturday

The day started out so well.

IMG_8029We were all lazing about, soaking up the sun streaming through the windows…IMG_8038Taking kids to their indoor soccer games…

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Taking photos of this, that, and nothing at all:

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Suddenly I realized it was time to take my daughter to her soccer game. As soon as we got back, it would be time to go serve dinner to the group of homeless men who are being hosted by our church for the next couple of weeks. I was supposed to have prepared a Chicken Enchilada dish in advance so that it could just be reheated in the ovens in the church kitchen, but I had lost track of the time. My husband was taking my oldest son to his soccer game, and then almost immediately to his piano recital. They would be meeting us at the church as soon as the recital was over.

I only had time to chop up the chicken breasts and open a can of enchilada sauce. It was up to my thirteen year old son to save the day. I handed him the recipe as I ran out the door, begging him to follow the instructions and to finish making the dish while I  took my daughter to her game.

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I was sweating bullets as I drove back to pick up my son and hopefully the Chicken Enchilada dish. Proving once again that he is the adult in our household, he was in the kitchen when I ran through the door, waiting to take the finished dish out of the oven.

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My hero!

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Sunday

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Brunch at Bodo’s Bagels

We made a pit stop at MarieBette Café and Bakery to pick up a few things like a baguette:

And a crazy looking thing called a brioche almandine studded with mysterious pink chunks my daughter described as looking like wads of chewed up bubble gum:IMG_8074IMG_8080

And then, because we clearly did not have enough dessert, we whipped up a batch of our new favorite cookies from the Princess Pinky Girl website. The recipe’s main ingredient is strawberry cake mix. We substitute coconut oil for vegetable oil. IMG_8059

To be honest, the only reason I made the cookies the first time was because they looked so pretty in the photo. Mine always end up being aesthetically disappointing, but they never fail to be delicious!

Silliness while waiting for the cookies to bake:

It’s snowing now as I finish up this post. We’ve already gotten the call from the county to announce that there will be no school tomorrow. My husband recorded and emailed to his students a video of the lecture he was going to give tomorrow. Here’s hoping I get to stay home with them too!

Colorful Weekend

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Weekend Snapshots 32

Friday

A friend from my high school days came for a visit this weekend…

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Back in the day, Victoria and I shared a locker, worked on plays together, and sang duets in the hallways after late night rehearsals when everyone else had gone home. It was a sad day for me when she left Yorktown High School to go back to her beloved Waldorf school. She knew back then that she wanted to be a Waldorf teacher, and that’s exactly what she is today.

She speaks so passionately and eloquently about the beautiful, organic way she teaches her students, it makes me sad to have never had that kind of educational experience myself. From our conversations I got the sense that the marking of time and the observance of cycles is an important part of a Waldorf education. I heard her casually mention terms I’d only ever read before, like Michaelmas and winter solstice. One of the first things she asked me when she walked into my house was, “Where’s all your advent stuff?!”

Ummm…in a box buried under other boxes deep in the bowels of my basement maybe?

OK, so we’re not entirely ready for Christmas, but we did go to my husband’s early music ensemble Christmas concert…

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The photo reminds me of an article I forwarded to my very tall husband this weekend. It summarizes the finding of researchers at Konkuk University in Korea, who conclude that for a woman, the greater the height differential with her husband, the happier she is in her marriage. The effect, however, entirely dissipates after 18 years of marriage, which is exactly how long we’ve been married. But hey! This shortie is still happy after 18 years of marriage with her giant of a husband!

After the concert, my friend and I stayed up late into the night, chatting and folding and glueing stars together from special kite paper she brought, because that’s the kind of thing that happens when you hang with a Waldorf teacher!

Saturday

My friend Katherine came over for lunch and we played with our food!

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Peeling a massive Korean pear in one piece…

Did you know there’s a little bunny inside every peanut?

And a star in every apple?

Katherine left with a gift from Victoria:

A gift for Katherine!

Victoria and I made a quick trip to Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall…

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IMG_7517Sunday

I found some pictures on my camera that I didn’t recognize. My early-rising son had captured this gorgeous sunrise.

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The gift that keeps on giving:

We made Waldorfy North Stars in Sunday School

My children and I sang in the choir for the candlelight Lessons and Carols service, which means that the Christmas season is now officially upon us.

For the first year ever, we, or rather I‘ve decided to have a real live tree that we can plant after Christmas. We got it at this magical place just down the road from where we live:

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Behold our adorable chubby little Baby Blue Colorado Spruce:

O, Christmas tree!

Now if only we could get motivated to actually decorate it!

Birthday

For my birthday this year I got a new old house, a miserable cold from my daughter, and an extra year of life! My iPhone wished me a happy birthday and informed me that I just turned the age I thought and said I was all last year. Hooray for declining faculties working in your favor for a change!

I dragged myself home from work today and wasn’t sure I was feeling up to going out, but I’m glad we did! We went to Lampo Neapolitan Pizzeria for dinner, where the only sure way to get a seat is to show up at 5 pm. We may have disgraced ourselves just a tiny little bit by inhaling shocking quantities of the thin crust wood-fired pizzas…

Margherita D.O.C.
Funghi Pizza – Love the awesome pizza shears!

We had to try the desserts too, of course:

Budino – a magical concoction made of chocolate pudding with hazelnut brittle and olive oil.
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We ended the evening back at home where I got to take some birthday pics with these kids, the very best, most priceless gifts I ever got:

 

Picnic at Ash Lawn-Highland

It was a gorgeous day for the annual Mary Ellen Brown Family Picnic. Mary Ellen Brown was a conversation group leader at the Lorna Sundberg International Center at the University of Virginia. The family sponsors the picnic for international students, scholars, and their families to honor her memory. This year for the first time, it was held at Ash Lawn-Highland, home of President James Monroe.

Weekend Snapshots 29

Friday

Packing…

Saturday

More packing…

We took a break from packing to go to my friend’s annual hops harvest party. Every year she grows a crop of hops for a local microbrewery. With a little help from her friends, this year she harvested 150 lbs.

The cut vines were laid out on long tables and we got to work like a bunch of Pick-a-Little-Ladies from the Music Man: “Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little, cheep, cheep, cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more!”

Sunday

Still packing…

In the afternoon we took another break to celebrate (belatedly) our daughter’s 10th birthday with a trip to Mint Springs Lake and Chiles Peach Orchard…

Now back to…packing, of course.

Weekend Snapshots 28

Friday

My colleague has been on leave for a couple months. We decorated his office in preparation for his return…

Saturday

That moment when you discover that your brother has posted this super flattering picture of you on Instagram:

We signed a contract on a new, (actually very old) house. We’ll be moving in early September, which is why I probably won’t be around very much for the next month or so. It’s going to be crazy busy around here!

My best friend came for a visit. No pictures, because we spent the whole time drinking tea and catching up.

I did manage to dig up this photo though – this is us in the beautiful, enchanted Riverside Drive apartment we lived in when we first became roommates in graduate school. It’s where we first began our late-into-the-wee-hours-chats-over-tea:

So many good things began there!

Sunday

We went to MarieBette for lunch, and had to try the new and improved brioche feuilletée (“bronut”), now available with a delicious crème diplomate filling…

Checked out the ever-changing IX Art Park…

Strange things afoot in this artists’ studio:

Hmmm…

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Met up for dinner to celebrate this baby’s:

…10th Birthday!

Pink Noodle Soup

My son used to subsist on nothing but air and a few Cheerios pulled from a baggie I would tote around with me wherever we went in the hope that I could ply him with a few every now and then. Food was of absolutely no interest to him. At times, he would get so skinny he was practically transparent. When he was a toddler, his pants would sometimes fall down to his ankles as he walked. I’m not exaggerating when I say that as an anxious first-time mother, I would sometimes weep over my child’s unwillingness to eat. Just when I had finally resigned myself to the fact that he would waste away on his meager Cheerios diet, he underwent a dramatic transformation. Suddenly, he began to devour astonishing quantities of food, the weirder and more exotic the food, the better.

Nowadays, it’s so much fun to go out to eat with my budding epicure, because he’s so much more adventurous than the rest of us. Yesterday we tried Thai Cuisine and Noodle House here in Charlottesville for the first time and while I ordered my usual boring old standby – Pad See Ew, he ordered one of the Chef’s Specials, Yen Ta Fo, or Pink Noodle Soup. I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like, and when it arrived at our table, it didn’t disappoint. We both couldn’t resist whipping out our phones to take pictures.

“I know I’m being so basic, but I can’t help myself,” my son said. “It’s going on my Instagram and I’m going to be made fun of for it, but I don’t even care.”

“Me too,” I said, busily snapping away, “This is really shameful what we’re doing and we look ridiculous, but I mean, come on! Look at it! It’s PINK!”

You can choose between wide rice noodles or bean noodles, and it comes with barbecued pork, squid rings, fish balls, some cracker like things, bok choy, green onion, and cilantro. The pink tint comes from tomato sauce added to the broth. It’s deliciously sour in a subtle, unexpected way. There were a few transparent stringy things he fished out of his bowl that he couldn’t identify, even after tasting it.

“Jellyfish?” I guessed, “Or some kind of vegetable, maybe?”

“I have no idea what it is,” he said, “But it tastes really good.”