The *new* Soundtrack to Our Days

We slipped, and now there's no going back. We played our first Sesame Street video on YouTube and it was a complete and utter hit. Little A couldn't take his eyes off the screen, but with a mathematician as a pops and a song about counting, who could blame him?

Artist : Feist
Song : 1,2,3,4 {Sesame Street Edition}



Happy Wednesday*

Mid-summer Update

It's been quite the summer so far. I feel like the whole month of June was one big soggy, rainy mess. And there was hail. The biggest hail I've ever seen. The storms made every walk a gamble; more often than not, we ended up drenched.

Then there was the day we planned on grilling steaks for dinner...


When we couldn't stand another drop, we packed up the car and took off for the shore.

Once we arrived, Alex and his best bud Jeffers were up to no good.


We were treated to a 4th of July weekend full of uninterrupted sun, sand, and waves! Alex did his best to be the cutest little one on the beach, and we did our best to keep the sand off his pacifier.

Of course we couldn't help but dip his toes in the ocean, and, of course, a killer wave took us by surprise.


Once home, we were engulfed in the same heat wave that swept the nation... and we handled it like adults. That means a daily round of radlers and dips in the pool. I've since switched to Shock Top's Lemon Shandy and am loving it.

Poor Ca$h, he's no longer the absolute center of our attention, but he's a pretty close second, and we've been sure to spoil him to plenty of hikes in the cool, cool woods.

It has been a great summer, but nothing compares to our Sunday mornings. C has been teaching Alex to flip a mean pancake, and I spend the first few moments lingering in the background and adoring these two while coming to life with the biggest mug of coffee I can find.

Finally - we've fixed our photo storage/backup problem {whoop-dee-do, I know, but I'm recording my fix here in case I ever need these links again}! This is a problem that's been plaguing me for years, and I got the big wake-up call I needed this past January when we were on vacation and my {not backed-up} hard drive with last year's photos began to fail. After six months of researching my options and dragging my feet on making the big purchase, we are the proud owners of one of these guys. It's set to RAID 0, which means it stores mirror copies of our files onto both of its hard drives. Before the move, my files were split across three iPhoto libraries, two of which had problem files. I used the iPhoto library manager to rebuild and fix those libraries while moving them to the new drive. In addition, the Lacie drive is partitioned, and I'm using a portion of it for backing up my full system with Super Duper's software.

Winter Foliage on Knitty!

Do you remember the time I modified the child's Trellis sweater, turning it into an adult version and gift for my sister?

... Notice the blurry photo? This may have also been the last Christmas using my old camera.

Well, Julie of Knitted Bliss fame featured my sweater in her Modification Mondays series! That was about three years ago now, and I may have been a little too shy to mention it here.

If you haven't looked at Knitted Bliss or her Mod Mondays, please do. This series is one of those things that makes me crazy happy about how knitters and makers use the internet: to share their work and inspire ideas in others. My adventures in knitting were ho-hum at best before I found the first few knitting blogs out there and saw what others were doing!

And just yesterday Knitty did a story on the Modification Monday series and they featured my Trellis sweater! I love that this fun project is still getting attention, especially on Knitty, since they published the original Trellis pattern.

Once I discovered the world wide web of knitting, I quickly stumbled upon Knitty and the free patterns they published. Then they started to publish calendars with photographs of finished Knitty projects. I came *this close* to having a photograph of my finished clapotis featured in their calendar contest {winning photo below}, but the photos from my darn camera {yes, the same one that took the blurry photo above!} did not meet the resolution standards! So, I guess we've come full circle, I may not be hanging in the kitchens of knitters everywhere, but I made it to the Knitty blog.

I knit the modified Trellis sweater this during my last year of grad school. I'm sure the spark for the idea came as I was supposed to be doing research, and then it lead to a few hours of procrastination as I ran off to Windsor Button for the yarn, and knit furiously to get the sweater done in time for giving that Christmas. It was a simple idea that happened to work out, and now I want to knit another!

My favorite time and place ~

Our beach weekend captured on my phone. After weeks of rain, this weekend spoiled us with some real sun.

More to come from the big camera once I finally {finally!} pull the trigger and solve the photo storage problem that's been hanging over me since a hard drive crash in January. 

Links! Philly Edition

First, some Friday music!

Artists : Lumineers
Song: Ho Hey

Now small selection of the new-to-us eateries in Philly::

I was introduced to the Lil' Pop Shop by a friend with kids. It's all popsicles, all the time, and the flavors are fantastic! I got a lemon, blueberry, buttermilk pop.

We had dinner at Tinto. The plates and hard cider left me wanting more, more, more... but I ended the dinner out on the sidewalk nursing and rocking a tired Alex.

We met up with Kris and Ryan for lunch at Panini's after our long walk through the city. This was one of those places where we ate before, but didn't realize it until we showed up again {both times it looked like a good choice when we were looking online, and it didn't disappoint!}.

Want some Greek food? Or a fresh fish made to order? Go to Zesty's!

Walking Philly

Long summer weekends in Philly put a smile on my face.

This one was that much more special because Alex got to meet his grandpa Frank for the first time (Little A's bucket list: meet all four grandparents, check!). 

This weekend was also different than other Philly trips in that we walked almost everywhere! We walked the 20+ blocks from our hotel in center city to the sites in old city, meandering through city hall and a few parks along the way. 

City hall, designed by the grandpa of Calder's namesake::

Once we were in old city, Alex was hungry, so we sat down on a bench for a snack. After the snack, it was time for the Little A show ~ he smiles, and talks, and keeps us entertained with the stories of all he has seen and heard. I'm soaking this in, knowing that in only a few short years, I'll be lucky if he tells me anything about how his day went!


Then, while his pops and grandpops did some work, Alex and I took a stroll around West Philly, visiting our favorite campus along the way.

Before that walk, I set up shop in the van and did a touch of work from the best mobile office a working mom could have! I was working, but I was also sitting there thinking about how amazing technology is that we can work online (without a line!) from almost anywhere.

Of course, all of that walking was fueled by long naps in the park, espressos at our favorite joint, and plenty of meals outside... And Chia Sarah will appreciate that both Alex and I were pooped on by the birds! 

I don't know if he could fully appreciate it, but Alex saw his first firetruck, and construction site!

And that, that was our weekend of walking around the city. 

Garden Update

This week we added some succulents and the water plants to the deck... It's never too early to start teaching little A about habitats {desert and water this week}.

The succulents were a spontaneous move ~ I wanted something that could handle a water stressed environment and BAM these were at the entrance to the grocery store. I've had flowers and basil in this planter in the past, but they were always wilting because it dries out so easily {I have the grass planter lined with plastic, but it still dries so fast}. I have joined the succulent craze.

And the water garden has been installed, tucked in behind our pots of nasturtiums and sweet potato vines, just like last year. I can't get over how well this combination flourishes in this corner of the deck.


In the water garden, I stuck with the water lettuce and fairy moss because they were so successful last year, and I added hornwort. It's an underwater oxygenating plant, which I'm hoping will help to create a more hospitable environment for the goldfish {I think they suffered last year from a lack of oxygen}.