This Heat

Yesterday, I was up far too early. All week I haven't been sleeping well, not able to return to my slumber after Lily wakes me in the middle of the night. She's been sleeping longer stretches, but I've found myself awake for three or more hours, waiting for sleep. After I fed her, I tried to get another hour or so of shut eye to no avail. I rolled my tired self out of bed, took Penny outside, and sat down. It was 7:30 or so. The back yard was still shaded from the tall water oak and a tiny breeze blew through. With Adam and Lily still asleep, I grabbed my bible and the novel I'm reading and made myself comfortable on the back deck with a strong cup of coffee.

Since our trip to New York two weeks ago, I've had an awful hankering to return. I miss it a lot and didn't realize how much I did until we moved away. As I read yesterday, passing a few hours until the sun was beating down on me, I imagined myself on a crisp June morning in upstate New York, reading on a porch swing or, maybe, a hammock. It was enough to sustain me as I sweated away. Mornings in Alabama, the temperature lately is no less than 75; in New York, it's in the 50s with a daily high of 75. I'm jealous.

I'm just not cut out for Southern weather. I like layers and jackets and winters. I hate wearing shorts. Even more, I'm not a fan of skirts and dresses, the summer uniform for many women around here. Today, I even put on my jeans to protest the hot weather, but found myself sweating inside the house and had to switch to something shorter and lighter.

I wish I could say that I'm making the best of it. Really, I'm a whiner. I don't think I'll ever get used to the heat and humidity. Even living near the Gulf of Mexico and white sandy beaches isn't enough to make it better. I'm already counting the days until autumn.

Four Years

On a scorching summer day in upstate New York, a pair of twentysomethings got dressed up and said their vows before their families and a handful of friends. This was four years ago, before we moved to Alabama's gulf coast, when Adam was a brick mason and I was a graduate student, and we honestly thought that our love would carry us through life.

So far, we've been right! Now, four years later, we have a daughter, a dog, and a cat, still live in too hot Alabama, and are still best friends (homeys for life is how I usually phrase it).

We celebrated by dining over Subway sandwiches. We are just that cool.

Hello, Strawberries

It's strawberry season in upstate New York. I have fond memories of strawberry picking when I was young, and while we were visiting last week, almost made Adam pull over so we could scavenge a field, or at least pick up a pint or two. But we didn't. We made it back to Alabama, where strawberries are in season in April, and found them on sale. I snatched up two pints and decided to bake drop biscuits to go with the sugar-covered berries. Adam cooked dinner, and I put on Weezer's blue album and whipped up a dozen biscuits. I threw them in the oven and, while we ate dinner, the oven flipped to Autoclean, locking the oven with my biscuits inside. By the time we figured out how to get them out, they were a bit overdone, but they're delicious nonetheless. They made a superb breakfast this morning (and late afternoon snack, and probably dessert).

Have I mentioned that it's hot in the Southeast? Well, let me take this opportunity: It. Is. Hot. The high was 100, tying the record set in 1891. Today is not a lick better. I just ran outside to pull laundry from the clothesline and even Penny, who likes to lie in the sun on the deck when it's too hot to walk on, was asking to go back inside.

Yesterday, we packed up the munchkin and took her to the mall to wander around in the air conditioning. Ours is still running nonstop and not cooling the house well. The thermostat read 85 at one point, and I asked Adam to run to the store to buy a box fan so we could try to circulate some of the hot stagnant air through the house. It feels much cooler in here, though the air conditioner is still running (and running and running).

Tomorrow, I have plans to take Lily to the beach for the first time. It's supposed to be a bit less hot, and I'm hoping to be out the door earlyish in the morning to visit a friend who has a house on the beach. I'm looking forward to working on my tan since this will be the first time I've been in a bathing suit since the peanut was born. Either way, it should beat the pants off of sweating to death in the house all afternoon.

Father's Day, Sewing, & The Curator

Today is Adam's first Father's Day. Unfortunately, he's spending it at the emergency room working one of his rotations for school. It's hotter than Hades here, leaving me, Lily, and the animals indoors. Being inside, though, isn't much better than being out. The house we rent isn't insulated well, so the air conditioner has been running almost nonstop and the thermostat reads 82. I have the blinds most of the way closed and have done little more than finish watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, take a nap, and snap a few dad's day pics of the peanut.
We're hoping Daddy might come home for dinner tonight!

I am also hoping to get some sewing done. I was given a gift card to Barnes & Noble and immediately ran out to buy Lotta Jansdotter's new book, Simple Sewing for Baby. It's fantastic and has a lot of projects I'd like to tackle. I also got some fun new fabric. I washed it this morning, so I just need to press it, sharpen my scissors, and get sewing.

In unrelated news, my newest Curator article went up on Friday. I interviewed a friend from college who is getting her Ph.D. in addition to having her own sewing business. Talk about ambitious!

To NY and Back

Monday
Adam and I woke up at 1:30 to the alarm in the building across the street wailing. The power had gone out, leaving us with clocks blinking 12:00. We set our cell phones then tried to get back to sleep, but Lily woke to eat at 1:50. I nursed her, put her back to bed, and attempted sleeping until 3 o'clock, unsuccessfully. We woke Lily, packed the car, and got on the road to Mississippi where we boarded a plane by 6. The entire morning and part of the afternoon was spent traveling. We drove an hour to Gulfport, flew through Atlanta to Syracuse, then drove an hour and a half to Fairport, where my mom lives.

Lily was a fantastic little traveler. She slept most of the time and didn't fuss much. I carried her around and sat on the plane with her in the sling, and it worked wonders. (I recommend anyone having a baby get a ring sling to carry your baby around. Lily loves ours and even fell asleep in it while I was vacuuming last week. Seriously.) The downside to our travels was that Lily got majorly overtired and wouldn't nap that afternoon. Somehow, when kids get overtired, it's nearly impossible to get them to sleep. But she slept almost eight hours in a row that night, a first. I spent the evening catching up with my mom, stepdad Mark, and brother Alex, while Adam went to a meeting in Syracuse (three more hours of driving).

Tuesday
Adam and I went for bagels while Lily slept. We did little more than sit outside and chat. That afternoon we went on a little date to an Irish pub for a brew and walked along the Erie Canal. Dinner was fajitas and quesadillas on the patio at my mom's house. The air was cool and the conversation was a mix of hilarity and candor. Adam left early to pick his dad up from the airport in Syracuse (seriously, more driving), and Lily and I stayed behind. It was a nearly perfect day.

Wednesday
We went to breakfast with my dad at a restaurant called Simply Crepes. It was amazing. I had a strawberry crepe and French vanilla coffee -- not a bad way to start a day. Our next stop was my mom's work so all of her coworkers could dote over Lily before we went to Adam's parents house. His mom watched Lily while Adam and I ran a few errands, then we picked up his dad from work.

That night, Adam's brother Shawn and his wife Laura brought their kids over for dinner. My friend Amy joined us. It rained but we had all the windows open. Everyone talked and ate and drank. No one in Adam's family had met Lily yet, so she was carried around and kissed and missed more sleep, but it was worth it.

Thursday
Up at 4. On a plane at 6. Home at 11:30. Naps from 1-5.

The trip was too short and left all three of us dead tired yesterday after returning home. I love upstate New York, especially when the weather is cool enough to stay outside all day and into the evening. We returned to temperatures in the high nineties in Alabama. Our air conditioner literally ran all day. It's going to be a long, long summer.

January 2010
We already have another visit to Rochester in the works, in January when Adam is done with school. We'd like to spend two weeks and see all of our friends (in addition to our families), so mark your calendars.

So Much Silence

So, this blog is very much neglected. At the beginning of the year, I had a lot to say and wanted to enter into daily conversation that would connect me to others (whereas my previous blog was a frazzled mess, if you ask me). When I created it, I had what I thought was a focused vision, and I think I did all right for a while. The 365 project helped, but then our camera went on the fritz and the project was temporarily thrown out the window (I've since restarted it, though I'm not pressuring myself to get a photo every day -- just most days). Then I got very pregnant, had a baby, and quit my job. Quickly, everything was about the baby -- even before she arrived -- and I didn't want to constantly be writing about pregnancy or, now, mommyhood.

I used to sit at a computer for eight hours a day and didn't have eight hours of work -- I had plenty of time to browse around the internet. Now, time is precious. When I get time on the computer, I don't check all the blogs I used to or peruse Flickr photos or read articles on the NY Times website. I hit a few websites, then move on. To what, you ask? Tending to Lily, doing the most basic and necessary chores, resting, and occasionally flipping through a few pages of a book. It doesn't sound like much, but it fills my days. And, honestly, it's pretty mundane: What should I post about today? I took a nap this afternoon. Fascinating!

Things have settled down. I've gotten Lily into a routine where she eats, is active for a bit, then sleeps (repeated three times daily), so I have some time carved into my day for what I want. It can get almost overwhelming to choose what to do.

I would like to say that I'm making a new commitment to blogging or that I'll actually write about something interesting rather than post pictures from our excursions, but I'm not ready for that. So, it'll still be on the quiet side here.

I just need to take a moment to say thank you to those who actually read this. I hope to be back on track eventually.

Out to Lunch

It's been a whirlwind of a day. Adam suddenly has to go to New York next week, so Lily and I will be joining him for a short trip to upstate Monday through Thursday. Lily will get to meet some of our family that hasn't been able to visit, including Adam's parents.

And since we hadn't been out to eat in over a month, we walked a few blocks over to Callahan's for lunch. Lily got a chance to show off her new sun hat, and Adam and I had a chance to talk while she napped in her stroller. It was the kind of thing all afternoons should be made of.

Corn Harvest

Adam was so excited to plant corn this year. We've never tried growing corn before, so it was a bit of an experiment. Unfortunately, it's one that's not going well. Some of it got quite tall, but it isn't yielding what we hoped. Today, he picked this pitiful little ear. It's only half developed and will never fulfill its destiny as sustenance for our family.

Reading Material

When Molly Wizenberg's book A Homemade Life came out a few months ago, I was bummed that it wasn't available at the library. It seemed that almost every blog I follow was touting the book's greatness, a combination of personal stories and recipes from the Orangette blogger. So, on a whim, I checked to see if it was at the library and, low and behold, it was. I ran to the library and immediately questioned when I would find time to read this gem.

In the past week, I have learned two important things. Breastfeeding can be the loneliest part of new motherhood and it can be the best time to sneak some reading in, especially at night when baby is dozing. So, I find myself about halfway through A Homemade Life, wishing I had more time to savor its pages and wishing even more for the time and energy to make several of Molly's recipes. Instead, I get a snipet here and a bit there (its short vignettes are great for this), marking the recipes I plan to scan into the computer for later, grateful that even as a new mommy, I can carve out time for books.