Currently viewing the tag: "kids"
The Iced Whale ornament waited patiently for the Christmas tree, comforted by the whiff of the salty scent of the Atlantic that wafts to The Electrician‘s home. In protest to a premature holiday kick-off, he waited well-past Black Friday/Small Business Saturday/Cyber-Monday to adorn the tree.
Aaaah, a Poinsettia in front of a frosted window. The gorgeous red and green leaves illuminated by the morning light. More Christmas than I know what to do with.
My adorable nieces inside one of the best gifts I’ve ever given as an Aunt: Buddy Bumper Balls. These zany ladies sure can have fun.
Three batches of my favorite cookie recipe. Check! Winning the heart of palates more inclined to enjoy super-processed snack cake Little Debbie‘s: Not-so check. Oh well, I think it was Princess Leia who said, “Everybody thinks they have good taste and a sense of humor but they couldn’t possibly all have good taste.”
A motherload of cupcakes for my class Holiday Bonanza.
I have a ton of vintage aprons but I much prefer using my pants. Here they are dusted with flour and cocoa. I think I just like making a mess so I can clean it up.
Hilarious card from one of my students. Luckily there is no onomatopoeia coming from that sleeping one next to the tree.
Christmas morning. We watched the Yule Log & listened to WQXR‘s gorgeous choral classics.
Onward to my parents’ house. Their Christmas tree was oozing ornaments: old and new. It looked like a display and served as a timeline.
With the week off, I found myself ricocheting from Long Island to Brooklyn, delivering all my gifts and goodies back to my apt, then thrifting and digging through my storage stowed years ago and delivering that back. Waiting for the parking restrictions to end, I hit Champs for lunch. Brief rant: I can barely breathe in there. There is zero ventilation and a grey, burnt-smelling cloud hovers in the dining area. Nothing is made to order and grows cold within minutes, as microwaved foods usually do. Why, Why, why, New York City?! Why can’t you get all-vegan right like so many other cities have?
After watching a Storage Wars marathon, I remembered I had some goodies in my sister’s storage locker. I paid it a visit and uncovered a slew of my old treasures. Plus I got to play real life Tetris with the space, leaving chaotic and haphazard organized neatly and efficiently. I found a bunch of my old indierock shirts, which I left to increase their value, and my gorgeous accordion… and my banana-seat bike is doing well.
I love teaching. Though it took many years to put myself through college and my student loans for grad school will be with me for decades to come, I’ve never felt more content and have never been more inspired. And it’s not just the vegan chocolate birthday cake running through my body. I have the best job in the world.
But I have to admit, the delicious vegan cake almost brought me to tears. For a foodie, the gesture is grand. As if spending my day with a bunch of 10 year olds wasn’t rewarding enough, there’s cake and cards and a disarming outpour of love only capable from those steeped in freedom and in innocence: children.
Cohasset, Massachusetts is an idyllic setting for New England lovebirds. The ceremony took place in the town’s common, a collection of charming buildings, in a church with a tall steeple poking at the sky.
The staff of the Barker Tavern in gorgeous Cohasset, Mass. were wonderfully accommodating, checking in before and after about my vegan meal.
There is my meal. Wild rice and lentil stuffed pilaf in a canoe of zucchini drizzled with a balsamic reduction. A clean and delicious plate of goodness.
The gang is almost all here! My goddaughter and I, my brother & his goddaughter and the proud pop of all these little ones–my brother, holds his baby boy.
Wild child Kayla poses with her spoon. (How Amelie-esque!) Not pictured–the sundae she made herself.
Curious Baby Linebacker Joey explores the world on hands and knees.
Big sister Ashley has all the right moves. My nieces and nephew are so full of personality! It’s amazing to see them interact with the world.
It was a lovely day of family and fun.
1/1/11
#1: Volunteering.
Now that I have successfully decompressed from years of working and going to school in the evening, I have time to kill, time that often is wasted after work staring at various glowing screens. To make better use of this pool of minutes in 2011 I will incorporate a weekly volunteer position. Thing #1: Errand runner companion for homebound senior for Visiting Neighbors NY.
Update: I have a senior match! Our meeting is set for later this week.
1/8/11
#2: Reading.
I have a hard time reading. During the long span of college and graduate school, leisure reading was impossible. I read journals and research papers, technical writing; I read looong boring books about reading and craft-less writing about writing. It’s no wonder whatever morsel of free time was spent stimulating other senses. I was rebelling from what bound me, draining my energy and time. Now that I am decompressed, I am going to read again, open myself again to the world of books, my thing #2.
Update: My Book #2, Demian by Hermann Hesse, is going a bit slower. Dare I blame the tightly-bound yellowed and funky trade paperback from the 70′s format; it sits rigidly in my hand like a tense mousetrap.
1/15/11
#3: Giving.
I am the Universal Donor. This sounds like some kind of WWF wrestler but no, I am talking about blood type. 39,000 units of blood are needed everyday in America, blood for individuals undergoing cancer, surgery, transplants, as well as accident victims and those with blood disorders. In 2011 I will try to give every 10 weeks. This, along with my being a registered eye, tissue and organ donor, is thing #3.
1/22/11
#4: Crafting.
It’s official! I am running a weekly after-school crafting class! I will be spending 12 weeks with a group of precocious young ladies, making owls, cross-stitching and decoupaging. I am very excited to see what the young ladies can do during our time together, but I am also very excited to know that I will have set time to work on my own crafts. After a shopping spree at Michaels, I am set to go.
For my class holiday party I needed a batch of bright, kid-friendly Christmas cupcakes. Thanks to N.Y. Cake and their bright gel coloring (also used for the World Cupcakes), my cakes were a rich wintery green. Let’s hear it for artificial coloring!
When you have a green cake, you need red icing. Below is a colored vanilla buttercream.
With a selection of sprinkles, candies and colored sugars, the kids decorated the cupcakes to their liking. Dressing the cakes to impress, here are some of their designs: 
For additional cupcake reporting, check my classroom blog!
Peace, rest, relaxation and pedicures involving American flags! It’s Fourth of July, Colorado family-style.
Woken up by the dapper feline Kramer, Independence Day started with a deep long meow. It was a good thing too as top on the day’s itinerary was Om Time‘s Firecracker Flow, a strenuous two-hour yoga session in one of Boulder, Colorado’s top reviewed yoga studios. The class started early and required a 40 or so minute drive, plus getting lost time. After days of my daily movements consisting of pressing the gas and brake pedals, my body was all out of whack. The instructor, who had traveled in from Kansas City, spared us no mercy. Her yogi schpeel included many connections to embodying freedom, both in mind and in movement, and celebrated the joy of liberation and independence. Anyway, I barely survived. But in the end, a yoga class was just what the doctor ordered and justified, finally, a hearty meal. 
After the class, which was very challenging, it was time for Boulder’s best vegetarian restaurant, Leaf. Like WaterCourse the day before, I had been to Leaf last time I was in Colorado. This time around we ordered a delicious appetizer: blue corn empenadas stuffed with a butternut squash vegetable medley. The empanadas sat in a delicious pool of Indian-spiced sauce and bright red chili oil. They were fresh, fragrant and knocked on the doors of almost all sides of my tongue. For an entree I had to again choose the vegan French but I will call Freedom Toast! I had had this dish before but this time the portion was nearly doubled! The stack of four thick slices of bread sat in a puddle of soy margarine and berry juice. Only eating half, the dish will make a great breakfast before heading out towards Wyoming tomorrow, where veggie options seem a bit scarce.
Back at Andrea‘s the kids were pitching in on making some sweet 4th of July-inspired desserts for the neighbor’s shin-dig. Little K was doing her part by making sure the food remnants around her mouth were festively colored and matched her blue and white striped shirts. Everyone was excited for night to come and the fireworks to be set off, including me!
After a long morning of working up a huge sweat and then pumping my body full of pure maple syrup during brunch, the ride back from Boulder had me a bit queasy. Couple that with the altitude difference and erratic weather around the Rockies, I needed a shower and some R&R on the sap. After lounging and being entertained by the kids, CP and I finally focused on preparing some goods for Independence Day dinner. We headed to Sunflower Farmers Market for some festive ingredients. The result: grilled Tofurky Kielbasa, grilled red pepper and onion and blue potatoes… with a side of fire crackers.
Nightfall and fireworks time finally! I haven’t smelled that burning after-smell in years. Happy Birthday America!
To the cutest family in Colorado, many thanks for everything! Tomorrow morning we will be heading north to cut through Wyoming and into Utah. Sleep tight, America.
I’ve said many times that when an omni puts in the effort to accomodate for a vegan’s diet it is considered a high compliment. I was flattered greatly by my Christmas, part II: brunch at my brother’s, home to two of the most darling little gals, my nieces. My sis-in-law went all out, locating brunch recipes from vegan blogs and venturing into the abyss of dairy and meat-feee cooking with much success.
First mention would be her delicious shepard’s pie. Veg beef and the characteristic veggies topped with mash and baked. A meal in a scoop. 
Roasted eggplant garnished to the nines. What does that mean anyway?
My plate of pancakes, shepard’s pie, veg sausage and eggplant. Mmmm. Hearty for that morning after xmas hangover.
The real treat was spending time with my little nieces, such keen and sharp little ones with the best sense of humor.
My nieces are often scared of my home-stitched gifts. Looking nothing like Dora or the Princesses, my plush crafts are often confusing to them, even scary. (Last Christmas my stuffed owl gift was thrown in sheer panic and fear!) With this in mind I began to stitch them up some colorful masks from my huge pile of fabric scraps in the hopes that they’d enjoy my gifts more in the season of creepy, oddball Halloween. Minor success.
I will continue to fight Toys R Us and the notion that little girl childhood is pink, plastic and mass-produced.
The first grade boys get a bit zany as the morning progresses. Experimenting with different means of grabbing their waning attention, I have found they love to be photographed… that the mere act of taking out my camera congregates them in a excited but orderly line in front of me. After which, they’re calm for the next 10 minutes or so. Below are the resulting images.
Disturbingly, a few of the boys think that they are all thug-life and flash gang symbols and guns with their hands. (The new version of cops & robbers?) But most of them are far more interested in making devil horns behind the heads of unsuspecting photo subjects. The kid-finger devil horn is different in Thailand. See the last image for an example.
Vegan Reporting By Location
