Summer Viewing

Last night I realized that I had a “perfect storm” of sorts with my guilty summer viewing. Someone commented about the British shows I watch and the implied culture (or higher quality) that goes with all things British. I want to set the record straight that although I like the quality stuff, I also sometimes feel like being a complete vegetable and enjoying something light. Yesterday, I found three things hit all at the same time:


1. Big Brother 15. The latest episode aired Sunday so was in my queue for watching online on Monday. I love the social gaming aspect of this show - strategically figuring out the human chess moves. My brother can’t stand the show which means I should like it even more, right?

2. Whodunnit. This is on Sunday’s too and so was in my queue on Hulu on Monday. This show is just really bad it’s good, if you know what I mean. It’s loaded with over acting and the plot is pretty thin, but it’s still fun watching the social games and seeing the players sleuth their way around the mysteries. My bet is on Cris or Melinna

3. Best Song Ever Video. I don’t know how this happened, but I am hooked on watching the 1D boys - they’re so funny and lighthearted. If I need a break from stuff, I check out interviews of them and have a chuckle. Their latest music video was released yesterday and was a hoot! It was fun trying to figure out who was who in their acting roles.

So there you have it - full disclosure about my summer time fun.

Summer Swimming

This weekend the weather finally broke and it’s like a certain type of freedom was given back. Like a weight was lifted. Saturday, I found myself running some errands so when I had down time, I just kept a low profile. At one point I was just sitting, working on my ipad and felt a drip on my leg. I couldn’t figure out where it came from, looking all around me, and then I realized it came from me, my knee to be exact. It was so hot and humid, the inside of my knee was dripping sweat! I also started realizing that I should rethink one of my ways to stay cool. It’s a great strategy, so simple but I was starting to realize dangerous. I cool down by ingesting something cool, specifically ice cream. I had a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and a pint of Italian gelato. A nice way to cool down, but I realized that it probably was contributing the belly pooch. Next heat wave I think I’ll switch over to sorbet. That’s less fattening, right?


Sunday I had a great time hanging by Lake Boon with Cece and the kids. I was worried it was too cool to really enjoy the beach and swimming. But really, it was a perfect summer day. It was just warm enough you weren’t cold when you got out of the water, and the water was all nice and warm from the summer heat. The kids and I had a blast swimming around and playing. It was so nice to just to hang out play in the water like a kid. There were noodles and kick boards and other floaty devices that made it entertaining. I even jumped off the dock, which wasn’t that much fun since I completely forgot how to jump into water. I really haven’t been swimming much these years. I jump in and totally get water up my nose and a contact slipped (but didn’t fall out). I need to practice that again but was pleasantly surprised that I remembered all my swimming strokes. I swam on my side and my back (I suddenly blanked on what those two strokes are called). And seemed to be pretty good in the water. Treading water after awhile got tiring but once I got my handles on a noodle, I was good.

At one point later in the day, we were all floating around in the deep section and I was figuring out a way to float on my back with a noodle under my legs. I was facing away from the beach and the gang, towards this one side of the lake were part of the land juts out. It was a picturesque, tree lined shore with the dock between myself and the shore - like something out of a movie. Except the sky was a little dark, ominous dark, like I was not in a fun summer time, relationship, coming of age movie, but the beginning of some Stephen King, horror film. And to make things worse, when I turned around, I found the gang had floated over to the other side of the swimming area. It was a perfect set up to those horror movies I love. Needless to say I swam quickly back to them before my imagination got the better of me. And the sun came out from behind the clouds and all was forgotten.

After, the kids and I were swimming around and Cece was still floating in the deep part. I suggested we sneak up to her and scare her - quietly swim over. The kids loved the idea, but just when we agreed on it, she shifted her peaceful floating and saw us scheming. She asked Cam what he was doing, knowing he was up to something because he was smiling so much. His response, “I was smiling mom, because your hair is so beautiful.” What a cover! And quick thinking too. Of course mom didn’t buy it for a minute and we had scrap our plan. It seemed like Maggie’s favorite thing to do was pull me around. I’d get a kick board or noodle under me and be able to float. I’d grab her swimming shirt and she would just trudge along the shallow part of the lake, pulling me behind her. It was a win-win, since I loved the free ride and she loved giving it.

All in all a great day, although Cece and I didn’t get much time to sit on the beach and catch up. Unfortunately, my water-proof sunscreen didn’t work so well. It might have something to do with me being too excited to wait 15 minutes after putting it on before hitting the water. I ended up getting burned on my shoulders and arms. Funny since I was wearing a bikini that my legs, belly, lower back and everything else didn’t get burned. But makes perfect sense since those parts were underwater most of the time. Nothing like the reflection of the water to amplify the sun’s rays. I put a nice layer of aloe lotion on last night and had to carry my bag into work by its handle (instead of on my shoulder).

The kids and I are hanging out again in two weeks and if weather permits I have a feeling we’ll be back down at the beach again. I’ll be sure to apply sunscreen properly. And I was thinking later in the day we should have played marco-polo. I was thinking of digging up some of the sleeping masks that I’ve been collecting from my flights. They’d make a good way to cut down on the peaking. Any other fun water games?

Lessons Learned - Bike Riding

I’ve been riding my bike to the subway station and cutting out the bus part of my commute.  It’s a really nice, safe, quiet commute along an old converted rail track that is now a tree lined bike path.  Here are my main lessons learned:

1.     1. Riding the bike is faster than taking the bus.  This morning I was running late for a meeting and was torn.  It takes a chunk of time to unlock and relock the bike at each end of the trip.  I ended up riding the bike and was surprised that booking it turned a 20 minute (if you’re lucky) bus ride into a 5 minute trip along the lush green wildlife.

2.    2.  Speaking of wildlife, don’t be disarmed by the quieter pace, there still can be road kill.  Luckily I haven’t witnessed any yet, but yesterday there was a squirrel that seemed to have a death wish.  I was watching it as it was sniffing around in the lane going the other direction.  As I was coming up to it, so was another bike coming the other way.  Instead of darting to the side of the path nearest, it decided to dart across the whole path, right in front of my on-coming bike.  I actually had to slam on the brakes.  I couldn’t believe it.  In the end all was good and I was just left with my heart racing.

3.     3. Be careful about how late you stay out. Last night,  I had met up with friends for drinks on the steps of the ICA museum, looking out at the harbor and enjoying the live music.  It was so nice and cool by the water so by the time we headed home dusk was approaching.  By the time my subway stop arrived and I emerged from the underground, dusk had moved to full on night.  It was pretty freaky riding along the pitch black bike path - the shady trees creating a tunnel that is so gorgeous during the day make the night ominous and block out any light from the sky.  I ended up just going along the bike path a little and then taking the streets all the way home.  At least at that time in the night the busy streets weren’t that busy.  Next time pack a headlamp or leave earlier.

4.    4. This morning was the first time I didn’t wear a dress to work.  And man does that make a difference biking in this weather.  Pants are the opposite of nice and airy, letting your body breath with the humidity.  Don’t wear pants!  I knew this, but it was long enough since the last time I rode with pants I forgot how bad it was.  I need some more dresses.

5.    5.  I’ve been strapping my bag to the back of my bike (on my new bike rack).  I really need to make a bag basket.  It takes just as long to get ready to go/or leave than the actual ride.  Locking the bike up or strapping on the bag so it won’t fall off.  It would be so much easier to just have a basket to through my bag and lock into. 

6.   6. I’m surprised at how many people leave their helmet with their bike.  In some cases it isn’t even locked up.  I still bring mine with me, since they’re not cheap.  I am thinking of putting my headlamp onto my bike.  I was worried someone could easily steal it, but I’m not using it so might as well try it out.

The heat wave is miserable - never ending.  The heat index is supposed to be up to 110 today.  I didn’t realize this when I left (would have worn a dress for sure).  And am a little worried about my furry friends at home.  I left one fan on at home but don’t think that will make a difference.  I’ve been finding each of them taking turns sleeping in the tub - coolest spot in the house.  I made arrangements to go swimming with my god-children this weekend to beat the heat.  Unfortunately it worked out to be Sunday which looks like it will be in the 70s - so still fun at the beach but not as much cooling off.

Mom’s coming to visit next week (yay!) and the good news (fingers crossed) it looks like the heat will stay away her whole visit and stay in the 70s.  Which is good news.  I’ve gone from trying to think of good AC places to visit back to just regular stuff to visit.  Stay cool!

Weekend Recap

This weekend I had absolutely nothing scheduled.  The plan was to tackle some house projects (chores and renovations), run some errands and even maybe see the new Sondheim show in the area.  By the end of Saturday I had recharged the battery but that was about it.  I was berating myself that I should take advantage of Saturday being cool and dry and accomplish more.  Sunday was going to be hot and humid and completely sap my energy.  But I eventually gave up and took an afternoon nap and hunkered down Saturday.  I should know better now that Saturday is my day off and Sunday is my day to accomplish things.  That’s just the way my internal schedule works. 

Well Sunday ended up turning into one hot and muggy day.  I had gotten up early and had started cleaning.  Cleaning the bathroom, and the kitchen and the kitty litter area. Cleaning up the bedroom, doing laundry and cleaning out the back room (that is my wool holding room - before things get deep freeze - the pile is getting smaller).  By lunch I had pulled out the steam cleaner and was vacuuming and steam cleaning the living room rug.  It took some time and I only got half way done before Nick came over.  He was moving into his new place on the 15^th (Monday) but he was trying to see if he could get in early the day before.

We spent an hour or so moving furniture around.  I finally got rid of the spare bookcase awkwardly waiting by the front door. I was getting itchy about it looming in the small space but didn’t really have anywhere else for it to live temporarily.  And of course the shelves got quickly filled with projects.  I ended up just dumping that stuff in the guest bedroom so my clean place started to go downhill.  I also moved the family dresser from my sitting room down and moved the new credenza I picked up last month into its new home.  Also a good shift, since I had piled it into my bedroom which was getting crowded with furniture.  I only have a before picture at the moment.

And here's a picture of the credenza I replaced it with.

We opted to just load the car at first, and not the pick-up, since there was a chance of afternoon/evening summer showers.  It took awhile to get the keys to the new place and by the time we had unloaded the carload of stuff and picked up his stuff from his current place we were both tired and hungry.  Ended up breaking for dinner and decided to press on and finish the last trip.  It was getting close to 8 pm but luckily we had the long summer days on our side.  The truck got loaded up pretty quickly, but it did take some time to unload everything.  By the end it was dark out and we were both exhausted.  If it wasn’t so humid we both agreed we would have been fine.  I got home, showered the layers of sweat off and fell into bed exhausted.

This morning I woke up with the nice ache of sore muscles, a less crowded place (moving the furniture out made a difference) and a bit of a sunburn.  I didn’t even think of putting sunscreen on and I’m religious about applying the stuff.  I think I would have been fine if we hadn’t waited around for almost an hour outside getting the key situation worked out. 

It was fun this morning putting everything away into the new credenza.  I love putting everything away into its new home.  And the nice thing was that although the piece is narrower than the dresser, everything still fit with some space to spare so no editing was needed. And the room seems a bit bigger.

So in the end, I got a bunch of the chores done, no house projects but did help Nick on his big house move, and I found a new infestation of moths! They were in the back stairway closet with all the cleaning supplies living off of my feather duster.  I was thinking of repainting the interior of the closet and this moves the project up to the top of the list.  I taped the door close yesterday when I discovered the issue since I didn’t have time to properly clean it out.  These things just never go away!  I also found a wool blanket I had picked up in England years ago attacked by the buggers.  Early on I had moved it downstairs to the basement in the hopes of keeping it away from the main areas of issue, not realizing that it didn’t matter.  I had forgotten about it so when I stumbled upon it, it had a bunch of holes.  I put it through the wash (and everything else) and it’s in line for the freezer.  Slowly but surely I’ll have everything moth-proofed.  Oh, I also found they live off of the pet dander/fur that was in the corner, under the couch that I don’t clean too often.  I’m feeling like I’m getting closer to the end.  I just hope I can quarantine all the susceptible pieces long enough and extensively enough before winter comes and I start needing to pull things out of their bags.  It’s been good for me to go through and do some thorough cleaning and reviewing everything I own, tucked away in corners.  Plus it gets me to repaint everything sooner rather than later.

They say there is another heat wave descending on us for a week.  I think I’m going to give up on the loft project - it’s too hot up there.  And instead, I’ll just start painting closets and getting to the bottom of the moths.  It’s me versus them!  And I’m bigger!

P.S. I found this when cleaning out my pictures folder, had to post it!

T-shirts

Guess what was waiting for me tonight in the mail!

Six of my new favorite t-shirts! Yesterday I called the outlet mall in Vermont and they didn't have any more in my size. I'm pretty sure I had cleared them out.

They referred me to the outlet in Wrenthem. And I was in luck - they had a bunch. But I was torn because although the outlet is in greater metro Boston, it's a 45 minute drive minimum. Plus I'd be tempted to check out the other outlets. Wrenthem has a great line up of stores.

So I asked if they could ship the shirts assuming they don't - but it never hurts to ask. And they do for $6. I got 4 more grey and 2 more black and instead of buying $6 shirts they were $7 each. Still not bad - 75% off and I saved tons of money not being tempted to buy other stuff.

And I can't believe they showed up on my doorstep under 24 hours later. A nice little win for the week.

4th of July

Nothing like a heat wave to celebrate the 4^th of July!  This summer I headed up with my brother to Vermont to visit my dad and Barbro.  They had also invited up my step-sister Karin and her family.  They had come up the day before on the train from Richmond (and swear it beats driving).  Mateo is about 3 and a half and dealt with the heat by running around naked - mostly because he was in and out of the water.  I was also able to meet my new niece, Marianna who isn’t quite 2 months old, but is already growing out of 3 month old clothing.  She’s very long!  I’m always amazed by babies, how they just sleep, eat and poop with little bits of consciousness in between.  But most of their life at this age are just the bare necessities. 

We also had my cousins Catherine, Barry and Tyler up for a few days too.  They arrived right after we had pulled out the kiddy pool and had pulled our chairs up to the edge so we could cool down with our feet in the cold water.  It was so muggy and humid, it was the only way to make it tolerable.  Needless to say the heat and humidity limited our activities.  We hung out and chatted and ate and did not do much else.  Although Adrian, Karin’s husband, had brought up a bag of tools (on the train mind you) and rebuilt the front steps - quite impressive!

Barbro's friend Jane also popped over for the fourth and hung out in our low-key festivities.  I brought up both of my fans and we still ended up picking up an extra air conditioner.

Mateo loved Tyler.  He kept asking where the boy went.  And Tyler was great with Mateo - very patient and put in time playing with him.  It was a nice break especially with the heat.

Nick and I packed my car up and headed back home to Boston with the pick-up truck loaded with some furniture for Nick’s new apartment.  I was quite glad I was driving with Nick, since I ended up driving behind him to make sure everything stay put.  Which also meant I drove much slower.  There were a ton of police out waiting for speeders.  I’m still trying to recover from the speeding ticket I got last year.  I was on my way up to Vermont for Christmas and the police pulled me over for the speed I was going when I was passing this really slow car.  I was very bummed but didn’t try hard to talk my way out of it.  It was a $100 but figured it helps out the small town and their budgets.  It wasn’t until this spring that I realized it cost me something like $2,500 due to the increase on my insurance.  I no longer qualify for the clean record discount and it takes 5 years to get back to where I was. 

One way to escape the heat was shopping.  My step sister and I made a run to the outlet mall in Brattleboro.  I’ve been visiting for 10+ years and just visited it this spring.  I never gave it any credence - it has four or five stores - a Van Huesen, Carters (baby clothes), Dress Barn and a Bass.  Not stores I usually visit.  This spring I had to pick something up for a baby shower and was pleasantly surprised by Bass - got a great pair of super clearance boots.  This visit I picked up a pair of wedges (which I’m wearing as I write this) and some t-shirts.  Wedges weren’t on my radar but then I saw Kate Middleton wearing the cutest outfit and I had everything but the shoes - they were wedges!  I started to reconsider my apathy towards wedges.  And I cleared out their v-neck t-shirts.  They were just the right thickness (not those paper thin stuff that shows your bra), cotton (not that other material that shows all the love handles) and the right length for a long torso girl like me.  And they were on super sale - $5.99 from $28!  I’ve been wearing them non-stop and loving the new staple.  Only wish they had more I could stock up on.  I bought 3 white, 1 grey and 1 black.  I might have to do some sleuthing.

It got me thinking about staples for the closet.  I had been searching for another white v-neck t-shirt and was amazed how long it took to find something.  The other staple I’ve been circling around but not finding was a new bikini.  I finally just searched and searched and searched online and bought something last night.  I actually bought 4 bikini’s from Aerie (they’re with American Outfitters) and seem to have some cute push-up bikinis.  I like the way I look in my bra and undies but in a bikini, not so much.  I realized it was the wonder that push-up bras do these days.  I ordered a few (Brooke, Emma and this other Emma in two different styles)  in the hopes that one will fit and I can return the rest at my local store.  They were on sale and free shipping, otherwise I would be reluctant to order something like this online.  I did start to wonder if I ordered the right size bottoms.  I will soon find out.  Fingers crossed.

The other staple I have is this blue chambray shirt I picked up in London.  I’ve been looking for this kind of shirt for about a year and a half but never finding just the right cut, color, material.  It’s my new favorite piece of clothing (which I’m also wearing as I write this).  And I love that it’s a sample from this boutique designer I found in Notting Hill.  So that means I own the only one in the whole world!  (I have a better picture on my camera but decided to take a quick pic in the bathroom at work at lunch - not great lighting).

Getting ready for Nick’s move next week - he’s moving from his sublet to his apartment.  I realize this is an opportunity to do a little more purging of my stuff.  I have a ton of linens that I could share.  Like that beautiful green blanket I got but then realized I could never use due to the cats snagging the weave.  And the duvet cover I got at Ikea but rarely use.  And those extra knives and the lamp I don’t have a place for.  For some reason it’s easier to let go of stuff when you know where’s it going instead of just donating it.  The only issue is that I’m in the middle of projects so finding some of this stuff is challenging.  I think the box with the duvet cover is buried in the back of my loft.  Thank goodness the heat wave finally broke yesterday and I now have the courage to brave the heat of the loft and rummage through things.  Enjoy the heat and summer!