we got our Japanese snowbells

 

Our street trees have been planted!  They are styrax japonicus which I’ve had my eye on for a few years.   Now we just have to keep them alive for these next few fragile post-transplant years.  I can’t wait to smell them in a few months!

winter picnic 2017

 

This year’s winter picnic was for the few and the proud… and the ones who weren’t out of town or separated from Lincoln Park by an icy drive.  My great aunt, the last of the OG (original generation) opted out this year, along with several of her devoted picnickers.  As I alluded to, my parents and sister were travelling and my cousin and her family and my aunt and uncle had to cancel last minute because of the wintery weather on their long drives.

Above: 14 people, one dog, missing Chuck who slipped out before the picture

Nevertheless, we had high spirits and a good time.  Jack won at bingo again.  We were short enough on people that we had to get D and my cousin’s new dog to sign, but of course, Jack’s win was all skill.  D’s eight year old cousin was a first timer.

Speaking of skill, Jack and I won the egg toss.  There were five teams and we even had a couple more successful throws after we locked down our win.  I need to practice throwing farther.

four floors

Choosing the flooring for the house was one of the hardest decisions in the whole process.  There are so many aesthetic and practical concerns.  Is it nice looking, durable, slippery, hard on the feet?  Is it affordable and environmentally responsible?   Does it match the cat?   With a bit of a splurge, we managed to find the perfect floor for us!

Above left: Emo with our engineered DuChâteau terra nile, which is certified 100% pure by the Forest Stewardship Council.  Its finish is non-toxic and CARB-2 compliant (California Air Resources Board) and if would qualify for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) as a rapidly renewable and low-emitting material.  So far it hides scratches well and we like how it looks with the fairly modern design of the house.

Above right:  Jasper, Becky and me in March 1986 celebrating Jasper’s second birthday on our shag carpet.  I remember being pretty amused by the cat carpet match, even as a small child.

We have the DuChâteau floor on the second and third floor, less exciting wood in the first floor bedrooms, tile in the bathrooms and entry and glulam wood stained black for the stairs.  The only downside is that the stairs can be slippery for people wearing socks, so we have to be careful to make D remove his socks and warn guests.  Other than wearing shoes or using institutional rubber or concrete flooring there doesn’t seem to be a good solution for stairs. Not having carpet also keeps us more honest about cleaning, especially with our furry friend.

We made cookies.

Tonight D and I made cookies.  It might sound like a small achievement but what it actually represents is that our oven is finally fixed!

We bought the range used last spring, from a store in Auburn for a very good price.  It’s a beautiful, dual-fuel Viking with what turned out to be a defunct convection oven. 

In the store they hooked it up and demonstrated that it worked to me, but all I could really do was confirm that there was heat coming out.   Flash forward to September when we moved in.  We didn’t do much cooking during the busy time where we were unpacking, cleaning up construction messes and finding lost things in the house.  Then when we did try it, it took a while for us to realize that it wasn’t working right.  In mid-October we cooked a beautiful salmon for my dad’s birthday for over an hour instead of the 10 minutes called for by the recipe.  We managed to eat it but it was a red flag for the oven.   We finally bought a thermometer to properly test it.  It heated up fine but couldn’t maintain the temperature at all.

We contacted the store about the warranty in early November.  A technician came out and saw that the problem was some kind of melted connection that failed when it got hot.  He did a small fix on the spot but said that if that didn’t work, we’d need to have the store order a new control board.  That fix did not work, so we got in touch again.  The store ordered the part, but it was back ordered.  Thanksgiving came and went.  Many texts were sent.  Then in late December, the part finally arrived in a surprisingly big box.  The technician came over that same day.  Lo and behold the box contained a control panel with the stove burner dials on it, not a control board.  The new part was ordered and finally came at the end of January.  Now it is installed and everything works.  The $600 control panel it still sitting in our house awaiting shipping instructions.  If we don’t hear back in a few weeks, perhaps we’ll sell it on eBay.

In conclusion, we managed without an oven for five months, but eventually got it fixed without extra expenditure so it probably worked out for the best in the long run.  Now we are excited to bake, roast, broil and toast!

my favorite fish stew

 

Here’s a recipe we’ve made and enjoyed several times.

• 2 leeks
• 6 oz. chorizo (I prefer other, non-spicy sausage) cut in to small half moon pieces
• 4-5 medium red potatoes cut in to bite size cubes (in the picture above I used purple potatoes)
• salt and fresh ground black pepper
• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 28 oz. can diced tomatoes with their juice
• 1/2 c dry white wine
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 lb. cod fillet, cut into four even portions

1. Put the potatoes in a saucepan (not the dutch oven yet), covered with 1-2 inches of cold water.  Salt the water, partially cover and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat a bit, continue boiling until tender (10-15 min).  Drain.
2. Heat oil in dutch oven (medium for 1 minute), add chorizo and leeks  until the leeks are soft and sausage is browned (6 min)
3. Add the garlic and cook for 1 min.
4. Stir in the tomatoes with juice, the wine, 1 1/2 c water and 1/2 tsp salt.  Bring to a oil, partially cover, reduce to medium and simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Add potatoes, salt and pepper, and half of the parsley.
6. Season the cod (S&P) and place on top of the stew, cover and simmer until just cooked through (6-8 minutes)
7. Serve stew on top of cod, with more parsley as garnish.

White Pass

The three of us had a snowy weekend at White Pass in mid January.  Jack is starting to snowboard and D and I tagged along to play in the snow.  My parents were kind enough to lend us their Subaru and I definitely wouldn’t have felt comfortable in our car.  At one point, D was playing in the drivers’ seat and he turned on what turned out to be the special fog lights, which had a switch in an unusual place away from the other headlight switches.  Luckily, every other car in the parking lot is a Subaru so I was able to easily find help when I couldn’t figure out how to turn them off.

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We also got to snow shoe while D rode in a sled and napped.  It was a really nice area with lots of loop options so we could decide to keep going when things were going well.

Check out my wicked icicle!

2016 in review

 

D had a great year.  He talks non stop, started eating raw vegetables over the summer (see the tomato below) and is even beginning to recognize written words like  “dog,” “cat” and “bus.”  He spent five days without us in October, enjoys regular time with his grandparents, has made a lot of progress on potty training and is learning to manage his feelings.  We enjoyed two sessions of music classes together, some community center swim classes and a few weeks of dance class as well.  Here is what a year of growth looked like for him.

Friends and Family

• Jack’s dad passed away suddenly at the end of January: mark/dad/grandpa.   In addition to the loss itself, we experienced some of the responsibilities of death, for the first time.
• My dad also had surgery in January, but happily recovered well.
• We enjoyed Dan and Chrysten’s wedding in New York in October:  Brooklyn trip
• In June a friend from CMU visited from Austin.  Although the house wasn’t finished we had a good Seattle weekend with him, including Folklife.

• We also enjoyed catching up with two work friends and their spouses who came through Seattle. 
• My brother-in-law moved to Seattle in the summer and Becky finally moved back in December, one year after we got the good news that they’d be moving here.
• The new babies among our friends and family are Laura to A&S, Johanna to R&W and Kira to E&J.  Laura and Johanna even share the same birthday.
• Our PEPs group kept going, having the advantage of proximity.   Generally I would say our friendships suffered a bit though due to the amount of weekend house work we had to do.  We’re looking forward to reconnecting with a lot of people.  We saw our families a lot, mostly in the context of them helping us with work and babysitting.
• The winter picnic continues.
• Jack’s mom retired and joined the regular babysitting rotation.  Now D goes to daycare three days a week again, instead of four.

House

• We first slept in the the house the day after Jack’s 32nd birthday, in early September, after moving our possessions there during the last two weeks of August, while the house was very much still under construction.  The move took place during D’s week of daycare closure, so we were especially greatful for all of the friends and family who helped us move and helped watch him so we could work.  I had been prepared to hire movers, but it turned out to be so spread out and complicated by the condition of the house that we just did it ourselves.

• It was a very stressful year, which is best summed up by this handy venn diagram.
• Many friends and family helped us with a variety of house tasks over the year.  My cousin Brad, the electrician, and his dad made several trips and put in countless hours for the electrical work.  So many people helped us with electrical, our Ikea cabinet assembly party, moving away rocks and installing turf.  Jack’s brother, Kirk, helped with all of these tasks.  Jack and I spent a lot of time ourselves, of course, which meant a lot of weekend time away from D over the first 9 months of the year.
• In September we hosted back to back evening and morning open houses, with about 90 people in total, which worked out really well for the number of small children we know.  I knew that it would be a long time before the house would feel settled, so we decided to do the party while it was still new, even though it wasn’t totally put together.   Look at these wild, reading kids.

• We hosted a few family Christmas gatherings too, and it was a treat to have a space big enough for more than five people.

Recreation and Travel

Except for a nice weekend in Portland with our friends and our trip to New York, we spent the entire year in western Washington, which is remarkable, in a way.   Washington is a pretty great state though!

• Jack visited our Portland friends on his own in the winter.
• Anderson Island, near Tacoma  Anderson Island
• Mount Rainier with extended family Mt Rainier
• Camano Island camping with cousins Camano Island
• Iron Springs with extended family Mothers day at the beach
• Deception pass with friends Deception Pass
• New York trip
• Mount Saint Helens Mt St Helens
• Portland in July Portland
• We did a fun and soggy Thanksgiving day Turkey trot in the beautiful arboretum.  I actually ran, which I have not done much of in recent years, and D sang good naturedly in the jogging stroller.
• Only 10 months after the invitiation came, Jack started playing Sunday morning touch football in November, with his cousins and their friends.
• I raced with my dad down in Des Moines in the spring and early summer and he also brought their boat up to Ballard for a two handed race in September. Jack and Jill race
• We successfully started pick up volleyball at the downtown YMCA, and our parents’ babysitting gave us a chance to play together: volleyball

Reading, Thinking and Singing

• D and I, and sometimes Jack, adored going to music classes from the Music Together program.   I’m greatful for the flexibility that our grandparent babysitters afford us.  I took PTO for the classes in the morning and then headed off to work happy while D had time with grandparents.
• For the first time, I served on a jury: no honor among thieves
• After two years, I finally wrote some of my thoughts on the fascinating subject of breast feeding: nursing notes
• Audiobooks were key for us this year.  The best book I read, by which I mean listened to, was The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt.   Jack liked reading all three long books in the Red Mars trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson.  Together we enjoyed listening to The Magicians, by Lev Grossman.  We get most books from the library, but we’ve also climbed on the kindle bandwagon where you can sync progress between multiple devices, including both audio and text versions.  I hadn’t used an eReader since our grand adventure, but now I’m reading on one that Jack gave me for Christmas.
• I am slowly enjoying a subscription to the New Yorker, too.
• It was also a light year for taking in the performing arts.  I quite liked seeing The Little Mermaid, with my mom, but I think that was also the only show either of us saw.

As you may have gathered, the themes for 2016 were “house” and “stress” and we look forward to settling in and recovering, respectively, in 2017.

merry Christmas!

 

We’ve put up our first tree and had our first snow so now we are ready for our first Christmas in our house. 

Making cookies and visiting the market were some of the fledging traditions we celebrated this year.  One that we are opting out of is the Santa Claus myth.  We hope we won’t be ostracized for making other parents have to lie more creatively when D says “Santa’s not real….”

Since college, the holidays have been a fairly stressful time for me and this is the most excited I’ve been about this time of year as an adult.  Is it having a two and half year old?  Is it being somewhat settled in to the house?  Is it living close to family?  Is it not nursing anymore and being able to relax more about D’s sleep schedule?  Yes to all.

watching the paint dry

 

Across the alley from our front door, which is actually our one and only door, there is graffiti.  I don’t really mind it.  It’s changed over the years, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it until recently.  Sunday morning, I stepped outside and was confident that there was new paint.  I was elated that who ever did it did NOT vandalize our house.  The only prior picture I could find was from September 2015.  The addition from this weekend is the orange part, so clearly several other parts were added in the last year.

holiday concert

 

Here’s a picture of D’s toddler class at their holiday concert last week.  Last year he was too sick to go so we were really looking forward to this one.  The cuteness more than made up for the lack of musicality.  Look at those Christmas dresses and D’s clapping and swaying.  He even strummed his ukelele while they sang “I’ve been working on the railroad,” which was one of our household fall favorite songs.

commissioner Jack

Last night Jack was elected commissioner of his division in the Puget Sound Senior Baseball League.  Yes, there was no competition, but I’m still sure he was a good pick for the job, plus he gets his fees paid plus a little extra cash.  My baby needs a fifth pair of cleats!

Here’s a look at his impressively variable stats over the last five years: https://pssbl.com/players/3068/jack-bader

Mount Saint Helens is so impressive!

 

Daycare was closed for Veteran’s day so we headed out for some yurt camping at Seaquest State Park, near Mount Saint Helens.  I last visited in 1999 and Jack went sometime before that.  There are less waves of downed trees than I remember from last time but the landscape is still otherworldly.  Staying close by allowed us to do some short hikes and the weather was great most of the time.

The yurt, which had a heater, was quite comfortable.  It’s a great way to enjoy more winter camping

On the way home we stopped by my cousins’ farm and D rode a large pony.  We learned that horses, or at least some horses, aren’t down with soiled diapers!

I *heart* buy nothing

 

For the past few years we’ve participated in the Buy Nothing Project.  BNP is an network of local facebook groups that “offer people a way to give and receive, share, lend, and express gratitude through a worldwide network of hyper-local gift economies in which the true wealth is the web of connections formed between people who are real-life neighbors.”

In the last few months I have, among other things,:

• borrowed a weed whacker
• lent out a suitcase
• given kids’ pajamas
• received a fitbit charger
• received a laundry basket
• received a kids workbench with tools
• given cat food
• received some rubber stamps
• received an awesome toy construction crane
• given some sweaters
• received some toddler clothes
• given a shower caddy
• received a coffee table
• given hot peppers from our CSA

Every now and then there’s a wildly popular item given away, like a roomba, which will have 50+ people interested in it.  The giver chooses the recipient in any way they choose, ranging from their response to a funny question or just randomly.

Sometimes things are picked up from a porch without contact, but often there is a little bit of conversation, which is a pleasant way to meet people.  Our group has 1600 people, but a lot of activity if from a small set of people and so even online you get to know a bit about each other. 

The groups really are hyper local, so we’re in a different group now than we were in our apartment downtown.  Not all groups are as successful as ours is.  In the south downtown group, people complained that most activity was from people moving out and needing to unload a bunch of stuff at once, which didn’t build community from people that were sticking around.  There were also a couple of homeless people participating and while the project doesn’t elevate needing something over wanting it, it changed the tenor of the group.  On the flip side, I’ve heard that in some wealthier neighborhoods, no one is interested in the gives.   I like that in our group people accept small things like meals when someone cooked too much, or food that needs to be used while someone goes on vacation. 

I like that it’s easier to get rid of things I don’t need when I’m giving them to someone, rather than just giving to goodwill.  The opportunity to lend and borrow is also great.  Lastly, there has been some really touching generosity and gratitude, like the person who offered her airbnb space for people with family visiting for the holidays, or the person who wanted to treat a single mom to a back-to-school shopping trip, or the person who had surgery while estranged from family and was enormously grateful for the support of the group.

volleyball at the Y

 

It’s been almost six months now that we’ve been playing volleyball at the Y, once a week.  We went to a one-time event called “healthy happy hour” where we played and Jack got inspired, so we collected email addresses and drummed up support for more volleyball time.  Now he’s the volunteer coordinator for it, which means that we set up and take down the net and shoo away the basketball players who sometimes try to shoot hoops on the side of our game.  It also means we have to show up every week.

Especially during the stress of this summer and early fall, I found that every single week I did not want to go, but then every single time I enjoyed myself.  I suppose there’s a lesson there.

I think Jack would like to play more in a more competitive place, and I would enjoy that too, but for now, this has been a convenient, inexpensive way to return to team sports and to do something fun together.

We usually have about 10-12 people show up and every single week there is a new person.  The level of play varies considerably, but the inclusive spirit of the YMCA is definitely part of what I like about it.  We have some regulars who are pretty good but some of the better people who came at the beginning stopped showing up, presumably because they didn’t want to risk playing with people that were considerably less skilled.  We’ve had a good run the last few weeks, with some thrillingly long volleys.  Last week I even dove for the ball successfully and a wild hit actually made a basket.

In these Trumped out days, the diversity of the players is also quite welcome.  Superficially, the group and the revolving cast of new players is racially, ethnically and linguistically diverse, but I also have the sense that we are economically diverse.  Part of the advantage of volleyball is that you play in close proximity (without physical contact, ideally) so you can joke a bit, but in the loud, reverberant gym, there is no pressure to actually converse.  I know most regular players’ names, but only one person other than Jack’s job.  It’s simply about playing and being a good sport.

 

Starting today we get an extra half hour of court time!

a Shelton visit

Taking the ferry from downtown to Bremerton, on our way to Shelton, has become our new routine for visits to Jack’s grandma.  We leave early and eat breakfast on the boat while we enjoy the time not being in the car.  Last weekend Jack’s mom and stepdad visited at the same time and we had a nice time, including the ritual of helping with online accounts and passwords.

(Edited to add St Seattle w/ halo pic -JB)