30/30: Happy New Era!

October 16th

For my last photos in my twenties, I wanted to pay homage to my running status as the world’s last young, old person.  Though, if it wasn’t a Wednesday night in North Carolina (and probably if my sister was around)…I’d prefer to be spending my last hour watching the Thunder Down Under.

I tried to think of something ceremonious I could do.  People like to plant trees.  I recalled a seedling packet for a Japanese Red Maple (I love those trees) that we received as a favor during a wedding we attended when we first moved to San Diego.  I have no idea if the seeds will still sprout, but I planted it right before midnight and made a wish.

Of course, I had to stay up until midnight of my birthday just like you do on New Year’s.  Only I’m the only person cheering, “Happy new era!” like the crazy old lady I now am.

Culinary Experiments on Guests

It was above 70 degrees in Durham this past weekend--gotta love those southern warm spurts in January. We had a friend and her boyfriend over for her belated birthday lunch/dessert and ate outside on our deck.

Tommie made Cap'n Crunch seared tuna--a recipe from Sam The Cooking Guy who has a local San Diego cooking show Tommie used to watch and misses dearly.  

People say not to try out new dishes on guests the first time you make them, but we always do.  What can I say?  We aren't afraid to ruin a friendship or two with food poisoning apparently.  Luckily, it hasn't come down to that...yet.

I'm not sure if I was more excited about the tuna or the Cap'n Crunch--my favorite sugary cereal as a kid, though I rarely got it (Mom.)  

While Tommie took care of lunch, I handled dessert.  I attempted to make one of these beauties, which I originally saw in a Martha Stewart bridal magazine.

Found here.

For the mold I used a bundt pan that I found at the dump where my parents live in Maine.  While some people get out the fine china for their guests, I get out things I found in a trash pile.  Nothing but the best for my friends!  (I do promise it was washed throughly.)

The finished product looked a little more like flan since the edges melted when I ran it under water to loosen it, but luckily sorbet still tastes like sorbet no matter what form it's in.  Maybe next time I can get it to look more like Martha's.

Welcome 2013: A Four Year Review

It took me far too long this morning to figure out that I have been blogging for four years.  (I'm really bad at math.)  Here are some stats about my four year tenure blogging that Google helped me figure out.

Since I began this blog just before the start of 2009, I have moved from California to Massachusetts to North Carolina.  We have lived in four different apartments.  That's almost one state and one apartment per year.  Maybe it's time to settle down.

I blog an an average of 40-50 posts per year, which is half the amount of posts I completed in my first year.  I guess the "newness" blogging rubbed off a bit after that first year.

How to make Soup Can Luminaries is my #1 viewed post of all time, with almost 700 views.  Pinterest surely has something to do with that.

I have 246 comments total--most of which are from my family, though a few brave cyber readers share their thoughts here and there.  Thanks brave cyber readers...I appreciate knowing it's not only my family reading.

Obviously, most of my page views come from the U.S., but the second largest number of views come from Russia.  Who would have thought?  Then it's Canada, The United Kingdom, and India.

Today, I begin my fifth year of blogging and wish everyone around the world a great start to 2013!

DIY State Art: California Love

I have been loving the look of those cute, modern "I heart my state" prints that people sell on Esty, so I decided to try my hand at making one myself.

Even though California isn't our home, it was at one time and it will always hold a special place in our hearts. Plus, it seemed like an easy shape to outline!

Some people create prints on the computer, others paint it on canvas, but I wanted to use an old wooden frame I had just spray-painted white so I decided to make mine using two pieces of scrapbook paper--cheap and easy.

I first found the silhouette image of California from a simple Google image search. After zooming in to get it to the desired size, I printed it out.

The second step was gluing the image to the back of a cereal box to give it some stability. Once dry, I cut out the state and used an exacto-knife to trim the stencil onto the patterned scrapbook paper. The blue piece of paper just had to get taped behind it.

I cut out a little heart (first in green, but it blended in too much so I swapped it with yellow) and put it down near San Diego. 

Back In Town

We are [reluctantly] back from our San Diego vacation. We had a wonderful time visiting, eating, and socializing at our old haunts. Though it did rain a few days while we were there, we managed to get the most of the sun when it was out. We walked around La Jolla, Coronado, and Balboa Park.We met up with my sister, friends, and old colleagues. While taking pictures, Tommie backed into a cactus which I had to pry out of his leg. He's not allowed to be around cactus without supervision now. We stalked our old neighborhood and watched all the happy dogs playing at the dog parks and I felt bad for Maya back in the snow.

It was fun and easy to visit a place that we knew so well. We didn't have to waste any time looking at maps or flipping through tourist books. We knew what what we wanted to do, how to get there and, of course, what to eat. We probably gained 10 pounds each, but it was worth it to get our fill of sushi, Mexican, Thai, New Orleans, gelato...the works. It was a true culinary tour and very relaxing which is exactly what we needed.
Like all vacations, it is hard to come back, especially from a place we once lived...a warm place, I might add. I'm going to catch up on some sleep now and keep the blinds down so I can pretend there are still palm trees outside.

70 Degree Jump

We have made two good decisions this winter: Getting a Subaru for the snow and planning a trip to San Diego in February. Tomorrow I'll be trading 5 degrees for 75. Though I am physically and mentally defeated by this season and a lingering pain in my jaw from tooth complications, I can't imagine anything more healing than sitting right on the swim/surf line at La Jolla Shores, enjoying the view...of the surfers...and soaking in that warm Vitamin D. Maybe I'll even be able to take a dip in the Pacific. The ocean is great for healing and those surfers don't hurt either...I'll try not to get yelled at for crossing over into the surf zone which can easily happen when you're distracted.

Hearty or Stupid?

This week I had my third root canal and we got our sixth major winter storm. (The snow pile in our driveway is over my head). I'd be frowning if it didn't hurt my face so much. I know I like to complain, but come on, even an eternal optimist would at some point say, "Enough!"

This is exactly why I don't think the first snowfall is ever "pretty"...while others see lovely sparkling flakes floating down from the heavens, I see the world a few weeks later covered in muddy, icy mounds of despair. Optimism isn't something I've ever been good at, but I'm not quite in a pit of despair yet (it's more like a giant pothole), and our vacation to San Diego next week is the only thing sparing me from burying myself under the eight-foot mound of snow outside.

We New Englanders try to make ourselves feel better about being trapped in horrible weather by calling warm-weather people thin-blooded wimps, but you know what they really are? Smart!

I was raised in a hearty, cold place; I was raised to think I didn't deserve to be warm and comfortable all the time, or know what the sun felt like except for a few glorious fleeting months of the year. Winter is here to toughen you up...make you remember you can't have it too easy. Well, I get it! I'm miserable. It's not easy; it's not fun; life sucks. So how long do we have to do this for? How many more back-breaking storms before spring?

Let's face it, there is hearty, and there's just plain stupid.

Soup Can Luminaries

To go along with our SoCal-themed reception, I've been experimenting making soup can luminaries. I like the idea because it accomplishes three things: The "tin" look of the cans can be compared to Mexican tin decorations. I like anything that provides unique lighting. And, lastly, they are cheap and obviously a great way to recycle. Here's how I've been doing it:
1. Clean out and peel off the label of the empty can.
2. Fill the can with water (about an inch below the top).
3. Put it in the freezer for the day/overnight.
4. Once frozen, take a hammer and nail and punch away!
5. Once you have finished your pattern, run the can under warm water to melt the ice.
6. Insert a small candle.

* If the ice expanded the bottom of the can, just hammer it back down when you're done. I also read somewhere that you could draw a pattern on paper, wrap it around the can and punch it out, but I found that's difficult when the ice starts melting making your stencil soggy. I just hammer and nail freestyle...I figure it doesn't have to be perfect. I'm also gluing some ribbon on the top so it looks a little less like a can when it's not lit.

Savory Eats In San Diego

Tommie and I are planning our first trip back to San Diego since we left 18 months ago. To give you a sense of our travel priorities, we haven't booked our flights yet and we haven't made our hotel reservations, but we have compiled a list of must-hit restaurants.

Here's a short list of local eateries we intend to visit and which we would highly recommend to anyone living in San Diego or vacationing there. There are a lot of good restaurants in San Diego, and it should be noted that our personal criteria for these must-hit restaurants is based on two things: well-made, unique food for a very good price.

Sushi Deli: Located in Hillcrest, Downtown, and Clairemont, the secret about this place has been out for a while....it's always busy. That's because they offer good sushi for extremely good prices. We used to wait in line before they even opened and get whole platters of sashimi and nigiri for about $.99 - $1.50 a piece.

El Indio: Located at the bottom of Mission Hills (close to Old Town), this place was featured on The Food Network's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" and we know why. They have a way of packing the most deliciously seasoned pulled chicken into a tortilla shell and frying it just right so that it's not too hard or too soft. And it's not San Diego without good Mexican.

Vagabond: This eclectic little place is in our old neighborhood of South Park and offers a kind of world-food fusion menu. The best time to go is during lunch when you can get a reasonably priced panini with their most delicious pom frites and bread with garlic aoli butter...I don't know what's in this stuff is, but it's amazing.

Crest Cafe: A funky place in Hillcrest that offers a unique twist on home style recipes. This place convinced me to like mangos and brie cheese in a quesidilla (it's one of their appetizers). Tommie's family loves their "East Texas Fried Chicken" (a buttermilk, garlic, jalapeno and tobasco batter). Crest Cafe has inspired us all to recreate these recipes at home but there's still nothing quite like the real thing.

BJ's: This restaurant and brewhouse was a favorite when we lived in UTC. The most impressive item here is on the desert menu. My sister and I first went here with our neighbor who told us we had to get a pizookie. "What's a pizookie?" we asked. We were sold on the words "giant cookie pie" and "ice cream on top." The pizookie arrived in a deep dish pizza pan, warm, gooey and delicious (their deep dish pizza is also good, if you don't skip right to desert). Our friend turned for a few seconds and when he looked back down he yelled, "That thing is almost GONE!" My sister and I agree it has to be eaten in rapid speed before the ice cream melts.

Gelateria Frizzante: We've tried a lot of gelato since falling in love with this gelateria in La Jolla and Downtown, but still nothing compares. Tommie was clinically addicted to their mango sorbeto and I never tried a gelato flavor there that I didn't like (mint chocolate chip was my favorite). The nice thing is that they switch up flavors every so often so you have new ones to try. As an added bonus it's healthier than ice cream and a small cup with its dense consistency will fill you up surprisingly fast.

There are a few more places on our list, but I have to stop before I start drooling.

A Night Dedicated to Candy

Some people LOVE halloween. For me, Halloween is like New Year's: some years it's a blast and other years it's just like any other day. As a kid, the measure of a good Halloween was based on how much candy I brought home and if I could find a good spot to hide it from my sister.

A good Halloween also always depends on if you have a good costume ready, and having a good costume doesn't just "happen" it's a matter of serious planning. My favorite Halloweens as an adult (someone too old to get free candy) were those I had the time and interest to prepare for. It's been a while since I've done this. I knew my first Halloween in California would be a busy one so I put extra effort into my Tinkerbell costume and I ended up wearing it for a week straight...not because I was crazy but because we had dress-up parties and dinners and downtown mayhem to take part in. By the time Halloween actually came around I smelled more like a swamp fairy. That was a recent favorite.

This year, I don't have a costume...just bags of candy I'm secretly hoping I'll get to keep for myself. It's a selfish outlook, I know, but I guess without a good costume ready all I have to base things on tonight is how much candy I have left at the end of it and if I can find a good spot to hide it from Tommie.

Creepy On CamZone

Sometimes I visit CamZone (San Diego's live camera feed) in the winter to remind myself that the sun didn't actually die out...it just died out here...which coincidently reminds me that I'm an idiot for moving back to the land of blizzards and ice storms. And sometimes I visit CamZone just to be creepy. I like to check in on the little world I used to be a part of.
It's 8:30 here which means it's 5:30 there; the sun is setting and I can see surfers carrying boards into the waves to catch the last bit of daylight. Couples are walking along the shoreline, and shirtless joggers are breezing by (again, why am I here?). Maybe it's the sudden chill in the air, but I spent far too much time tonight staring into this little window watching the waves and the people and that funny little place I'm so far away from now.

Craigslist Addiction

There are many great time-wasting sites on the Internet like FaceBook and UTuble, my favorite happens to be Craigslist. I justify this by claiming that Craigslist is a productive time-wasting site since I use it to find the things I need or to get rid of the things I don't. Of course, I'm guilty of spending far too much time doing this, which undercuts the productivity argument.

With the knowledge that Tommie and I will (finally) be moving out from underneath my grandparents and into our own apartment in a couple months, I think it's time I admit I'm officially addicted to Craigslist (that's why I'm taking a break and writing this blog...about Craigslist).

Over the years, I've used Craigslist for a myriad of important tasks: I have gotten jobs from there, found the apartments I've lived in (and the ones my family have lived in too), I've furnished apartments, sold furniture, and even met friends using Craigslist (my creepy sister posted a note on Craigslist to the neighbors we had never met and put the link outside their door). Craigslist is popular in southern California because people there are so transient, and if you live there, I would highly recommend using it. Craigslist is catching on on the East Coast, but there just aren't as many people here and not as much swapping going on. I realized I have been living in a Craigslist bubble...it turns out that furniture in the real world costs more than $50. A lot more. Go figure. Craigslist might not be as easy to navigate in the Boston area, but I guess that just means I'll have to spend more time trying.

Maybe I should start going to meetings for this.

Grocery Store Nostalgia

The grocery store in town was playing old songs (and by "old" I mean from the 90's) on the intercom last night, and as I scanned the isle for a good caesar dressing, I suddenly got very nostalgic for California. I think it was because the radio stations out there have a funny way of playing songs from my youth...my sister and I had a good time listening to songs we hadn't heard on the radio for over 10 years being played like they were new hits on the west coast. Grocery stores also make me nostalgic. I missed Albertson's. It was a little known fact that every isle in Albertson's grocery store contained at least one cute single guy doing his weekly shopping. A guy once asked if we would give his cute friend a birthday smooch. That stuff only happened at Albertson's. Then I started missing Henry's because they had really good dried apricots, and it's winter here, and I'm not eating enough fruit.I spent a few minutes on CamZone this morning watching tiny surfers glide into the Pacific waves. It's a selfish outlook, but I always feel weird knowing that a place goes on without me. I remember feeling the same way about Gloucester when I moved to California...I felt like the seasons must have stopped; all the people must have frozen in time. I'm reading "The Lovely Bones," and when Susie watches people on earth go about their lives from her perch in heaven, it reminds me of this. The world continues whether you move 3,000 miles away if you leave the planet for good.Even though it shouldn't be, it's strange to imagine the marine layer over La Jolla right now, pelicans flying over the pier, cute boys grocery shopping, buying the apricots I'm craving. We move in and out of places, changing ourselves and leaving little footprints where we were, and while these places don't freeze in time when we leave, memories of them freeze in our minds and have a funny way of surfacing. I blame winter. This is what happens. One second you're picking out hot pockets in the frozen food isle and the next your daydreaming about enjoying a cup of gelato in the sun.

Aries Parents

My parents are packing up their belongings in California and heading back east this week to start living and renovating the fixer-upper barn house they recently bought in Bethel, Maine.

They are finally realizing a big dream of theirs and I'm just as happy for them as I am worried about them. Not many people move to Maine from San Diego in the middle of January. Even less people move to a house with no heat and a decent bathroom in the middle of January. And even fewer drive a 26-foot truck across the country with a cat who gets motion sickness in the middle of January. This is a recipe for an anxiety attack for an over-prepared Libra, but for two Aries it's simply another adventure.
I once flipped through an astrology book that rated what signs were best and worst matched for parents and their children. According to the book, the worst sign for a Libra to have as a parent would be an Aries. This is probably for health reasons alone. My parents are great fun. Anything that is "great fun" gives me a heart attack.
While I don't operate like them, I've always admired my parents for being able to take big risks and have fun doing it. I joke that if I wasn't raised by two Aries I would officially be the most boring person on earth. I think it's their influence that makes me want to explore, and do crazy things like sail off a cliff with a parachute, and to keep chasing after my dreams. I'm glad they are still chasing after theirs even if the way in which they do it is not for the faint of Libra heart. Happy and safe travels, you two.

2009 In Limbo

2009 was one of those in between years for me. It was in between places (moving between San Diego and Massachusetts). Literally spending time getting in between the country...crossing from one coast to another.

It was a year in between the past and the future. San Diego was once a new future, now it's part of the past, yet, here I am living back in the place of my childhood...so what's my future?

2009 was a year of indecision disguised as a year of decision. We chose to come home to the east coast. Decision, right? Not really. It was a safe choice to make to come back to our hometown knowing that San Diego wasn't the place we wanted to be forever. But now that we're here, we still don't know where that place is, or what we want to do, or how we plan to get there.
I never wait until the first of the year to set resolutions. I've already resolved that I need to make changes in the near future. I have resolved that I can't live below my nosy grandparents for another year. I can't keep working at a place where I think The Devil Wears Prada may have been scripted.

I would like 2010 to be a year of gaining momentum again...give myself a good shove into the new decade. We owe it to ourselves to try to make it a good one.

Virtual Torture

I discovered Camzone when my family first moved to San Diego and I was still at college in Massachusetts. It plays live camera streams from places in San Diego. I used to look at it during snowstorms when I was holed up in my dorm room writing essays with freezing fingers. It provided me with a little virtual escape until my heart practically burst with jealousy thinking about my family sitting down by the pool in February, then it became more a form of virtual torture.

This time I chose to come back to the land of snow and ice, so I can't complain (just watch me try). I don't know if I'm looking at Camzone now more for escape, torture, nostalgia, or just to stalk the surfers you can occasionally catch a glimpse of in the water.

This is what it looks like in the frozen tundra outside my door in Massachusetts:
And courtesy of Camzone, this is what it looks like down at the sun-washed La Jolla Shores:

California Poet: Robinson Jeffers

In a poetry reading I went to the other night, Louise Gluck and Robert Pinksy read some of their favorite poems, including one from Robinson Jeffers whose work is influenced by the natural beauty of the central California coast. I had read some of Jeffers poetry before but kind of forgot about him...I appreciate his work more now that I'm familiar with the Calif. coastline and have seen first-hand how quickly and carelessly we push forward building more developments and promoting more materialism, particularly on the West Coast. So, in the spirit of poetry (and nature), here is one by Jeffers:

Carmel Point
Robinson Jeffers

The extraordinary patience of things!
This beautiful place defaced with a crop of surburban houses-
How beautiful when we first beheld it,
Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads-
Now the spoiler has come: does it care? Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.-As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.

Winter Will Come Again

While I lived in southern California I talked about winter like it was a battle wound I had picked up. I told coworkers about power outages, about shoveling cars from snowdrifts before work and school, and about it being so cold your nostril hairs froze, and they couldn't even believe it. They saw snowstorms on TV but couldn't fathom the way the wind went whipping by those poor people stuck on the highway somewhere in the northeast because when they looked outside the sun was always shining brightly on the palm trees.

And after one- two- three snow-less winters, I too began to forget what it was like. I was at the pool while my friends in Boston were scraping ice off their windshields. I felt like a cheater. I felt like a wonderful, warm little cheater. Winter became this silly, far-off memory. "Oh yeah, I lived in winter once...it was crazy—" as if it were some wild and crazy concert I attended.

Even as I planned my move back to New England I knew that winter would come but I brushed off the idea of it. We were moving back in May...that annoying winter season was a whole world away.

Then September came.

Being back in the land of four seasons, my body has picked up on the subtle shift from summer to fall, then it will be from fall to...(and I swear the little hairs on the back of my neck rose up when I thought about it) WINTER. It suddenly hit me; it's actually going to happen. The sun in San Diego must have burned straight through to my brain cells because I really think I thought that maybe winter had stopped happening all together in 2006...when it stopped for me.

Like a repressed memory, thoughts of winter are creeping back to me and I'm going into disaster planning mode. I had to get Maya a winter coat; I'm restocking my candle supply; I have to dig out my old gloves and go buy boots. There is so much to do before the deep freeze sets in. I feel like calling out a warning, Paul Revere-style, through the streets: "Winter is coming! Winter is coming!" But people here would just look at me and say, "Yeah, idiot, we know." I suppose it's a little early to start worry about it all, but coming back into winter suddenly seems a lot more difficult now that I've accepted the fact it's actually going to happen.

No Place Like Home

I cannot believe that I have been back in Massachusetts for a month. Somehow during the time I was readjusting to my surroundings, reconnecting with old friends, and hunting for jobs, the entire month of May flew by. I realize I haven't written much about being home and truthfully it is because I am still accepting the idea of being (and staying) home. But if you're wondering if I'm happy here, I am.

Sometimes when I walk around the same shoreline I walked around as a kid, I can't help thinking to myself, "This is exactly where I am supposed to be." It's hard not to feel like you belong in a place like this. The Atlantic Ocean has been as calm as a lake lately; the beach at night has no one else on it. I remember when my friends and I would take midnight strolls around the neighborhood during sleep-overs and we'd never encounter another soul (which was probably a good thing since we usually went out dressed up in ball-gowns...don't ask). I think about how lucky we were to grow up in a place that felt like the whole coastline belonged to us...and that we, in turn, belonged to it.

I've been spending a lot of time with my old friends since my return. When I am with them I feel like the three years I spent in California were like years I spent in a dream. It's like I lived an alternate ending to a novel that no one else read or like I was frozen in space for three years only to return back to where I left off. It's not to say that I didn't grow or learn from my time in San Diego; I just think that whole experience is probably meant to be some kind of "secret" shared with a small group of people including my family, Tommie, and those who flitted in and out of my life out there.

I will always look back on my time in CA fondly but I knew that place wasn't "me" no matter how badly I wanted it to be at times (mainly how badly I wanted the surfers to be for me). When my family first told me the news about moving to California I remember feeling a little shocked but also happy. In my gut I felt okay with the news so I knew that was where we were supposed to go. So, no matter what happened to us there and whether we all leave San Diego (my parents and sister are still there), that was the right move to make at the time. The decision to move back home also felt right so I know things will work out. I am home and I am where I'm supposed to be right now.

Guacamole for Dummies

To put my cravings for real (San Diego-style) Mexican food at bay since moving back to New England, I have been making my own guacamole on a weekly basis. It doesn't make up for the bland tacos they serve around here, but it helps. I make the simplest guac ever because I'm not much of a cook...why cook when I have Tommie around to do it for me?

Here are the simple steps:

- Start with one or two ripe avocados. Slice them in half, take out the pit, and scoop out the middle. Mush ("mush" being the technical term here) it in a bowl, mixing in the following ingredients:

- A bit of lime juice (I don't believe in measurements)

- A little salt

- 1 clove of garlic (minced)

- I have been cheating and instead of chopping up tomatoes and onions (which I don't care for anyway), I scoop a little bit of Trader Joe's Fresh Salsa into it, which has small, flavorful diced tomatoes and onions already in it. (*Not every TJ's carries the same items so this might not be in every store.)

- Let it chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes (I place it in the freezer to speed things up...I'm hungry).