Adventure: Mt. Vernon by Candlelight

Every year at Christmas, there are tours of Mt. Vernon by candlelight and with a focus on events that took place there at Christmas. The actors in the various rooms telling their stories were great and gave a good glimpse into life back then.

I learned some things I didn't know. The 12 days of Christmas originally started with Christmas day and ended on January 6, the day of Epiphany. I liked the story at the end with the person realizing that George Washington gave him his desk because that is where GW had written him a letter (one of his last letters) where GW asked him to do something to help GW serve the country. The message of the end of the story was to remember your friends and family.

I liked the tour and being there with Mark and Julie and Mom and Dad. It was a really nice evening.

Currently Reading: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I started reading this book on Saturday and I love it. This is the first book I've read that is all letters. I've been thinking how much I miss writing letters. E-mail is just not the same.

Reading for a long time: The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Ok. I have been reading The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James since this time last year. I enjoy the book. It's just not very easy to carry around. Nor is it light reading. I feel like even though the book has always been interesting, I am finally getting somewhere.

Spinning

Made it all the way to 4:46 p.m. before I started spinning around in my chair in my office. Days the boss is out of town are a different kind of stressful, and never excessively slow.

Currently Reading: A Sense of the World

I've been reading this book since about July. It's very interesting to see how Leut. Holman was able to travel so far with limited means and without eye sight. I will finish reading this book tonight. I recommend it to adventurers and those that are less adventurous.

Adventure: Chicago

I went to Chicago this weekend. It was a great trip. I met some cool people at the MidSingles conference and I will probably go to more MidSingles conferences. But here's some things I saw in Chicago.

I had spent most of Friday walking around Chicago. I started out at the Magnificent Mile.
This was the first thing I saw when I left my hotel. I thought it was really funny, and yes, all the burgers are named after a Three's Company character. I did consider going to this restaurant, but it was a little too icky looking.

I wandered around for a little while with no real goal in mind. I ended up here at this park by Delaware Place. I thought it was just a really pretty park. And I especially liked the lamp.

I went to Millenium and Grant Parks after the Magnificent Mile. I was actually looking for the metra entrance and ended up walking through the parks all afternoon. Mainly because I found out the parks have some pretty cool stuff.

"The Bean" is in Millenium Park.

And this garden with the butterflies.

Then there was this other garden in Grant Park with things like chard and kale and other edible plants.

On Friday evening, we went to the South Shore Cultural Center. It was a nice location, though it was kind of cold outside for the BBQ.

On Saturday morning, I went to Lincoln Park for the service project. It was over pretty quick since the Northwestern first year law students were also working on the same project.

I ended up with some extra time on my hands on Saturday morning, so I went to the Newberry Library. The Newberry Library is one of the largest humanities libraries in the world. There was an exhibit there called Origin. The exhibit was about Darwin's Origin of Species and also several other influential works that were published the same year: Adam Bede, A Tale of Two Cities, Self-Help, and 2 other books.

Saturday afternoon at the Art Institute was great. I met up there with some people from the conference and "we saw priceless works of art." My personal favorite was the Cy Twombly exhibit in the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute.

The weather was perfect on Sunday. Would have been the perfect day to go to the Sears Tower, but I figured I should go to Church with my fellow MidSingles Conference attendees.

The trip was great and I would definitely go again. I already have my list of stuff started of things I want to do next time I'm in Chicago.

What's Cooking: An Update

I've been cooking a lot more than I've been blogging lately. These are some things that I've made during July and August.


All the items in this salad are from the Farmer's Market. It's one of the best green salads I've ever made. I'm not a huge fan of salad and usually when I go to restaurants, I have a no salad policy. The salad is either all salad dressing, or boring, or iceberg lettuce with a few withered carrots. Fresh and interesting ingredients make all the difference.


And this is purple cauliflower that I found at the Falls Church Farmer's Market.



And when it comes to pancakes, I've had as many successes as I've had failures. I didn't try to make pancakes without an electric waffle maker until I was in college. I could just never get them right. But this time that I made pancakes, they turned out great! I made the pancake mix from scratch using a recipe from "How to Cook Everything: The Basics." There wasn't even a "sacrificial pancake" at the beginning.


When I was making these cupcakes, I was just thinking about how far I had come as a cook. A funfetti cake out of the Betty Crocker box with frosting out of a can was something that I frequently made when I was a teenager.

Currently Reading: The Time Traveler's Wife

One of my favorite phrases is "space-time continuum." It's in this book. And that's what this book is about. Great story.

Currently Reading: Northanger Abbey

This book is the first ever by Jane Austen, though it was published posthumously. I have been reading it for the last little while and it's great. It is Jane Austen's spoof on Gothic novels. The second part of the book is just making me giggle as Henry sets Catherine up for an adventure that is all in her imagination while she is staying with his family at Northanger Abbey. And let me just say for the record that I am a fan of Henry Tilney in this book.

Currently Reading: My Life in France

I picked up a copy of My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme yesterday so that I wouldn't be bored on the train. Let me just say that this book is a delight. It's a fun read and very insightful. I'm enjoying reading about her years in Paris with her husband, Paul, and their jobs, and their views of the city shortly after WWII. A great read and a book I plan to finish.

National Gallery of Art

I went to the National Gallery of Art this morning with some friends from Church. We started out at the West building and saw a special exhibit, "Jaromir Funke and the Amateur Avant-Garde." Jaromir Funke was a leading photographer in Prague in the 1920's, 30's, and early 40's until he died in 1945. It's a very small exhibit, but great photos.

On our way from the West building to the East building, we stopped for gelato. I tried the mint and the white chocolate flavors. Excellent.

We went to an exhibit called "Heaven on Earth" in the East building. This exhibit was Renaissance art from books. I really liked a picture of Saint Christopher and the Christ Child. The legends say that Saint Christopher was the tallest person and helped people cross a river. He helped the Christ Child cross the river and was surprised at his weight. Christ identified himself and Saint Christopher realized that he had carried the weight of the world on his shoulder.

We walked back through the West building and we went through the late 19th century and early 20th century art rooms. I really liked some of the John Singer Sargent pictures and I really liked those pictures. I had always kind of walked on by them.

It was a great adventure to the Art Gallery and I plan to follow it up with more visits.

Transition: Front Bathroom

This is the front bathroom before painting and after a really major deep cleaning, so basically when it was finally ready to paint.



And this is the front bathroom after it was all finished. I really like the shower curtain, and everything about that room was decided by how it went with the shower curtain.

Transition: Dining Room Chairs

This is a before shot of the dining room chairs that needed to be reupholstered.


These are the things that my mom and I used to take the staples out of the chairs so that we could remove all the fabric.


And this is how the chairs look today thanks to Mom, Mark, and Dad, who put all the new fabric on the chairs. Mark and Dad were the staple gun operators.

What's Cooking: Crustless Garden Vegetable Quiche

This is one of my new favorite meals. I made this quiche about a month ago and I made it again last night. It was the first thing that I cooked in the oven at the new apartment. (I moved in about 2 weeks ago.) It turned out almost as well as the first one, though I think I may have been a little too heavy on the cheese and not heavy enough on the broccoli this time.

Transition, Part 2

The bathrooms and bedrooms are painted. The painters' tape is still on the walls. The front room officially looks like a tornado has gone through. Things have to get messier before they get more organized, right?

Currently Reading: The China Study

The China Study provides the largest nutrition study ever done. It goes over 30 years, studying thousands of people in China. I've been reading it for the last little while and I get so interested in the studies and charts and graphs that I almost miss my metro stop in the morning.

Transition

I am moving out of my townhouse with roommates and living at my grandma's condo without roommates for a while. I think it's going to be a great move. I'm getting ready to do some painting before I move in. Yea for new place to live.

Tradition: Grandma's Rolls

I made my first attempt at making my Grandma's Rolls this weekend. They didn't turn out exactly right, but they were great for a first attempt. I need to add the flour differently and make arrangements to have less humidity (or at least no rain) on the day that I make the dough.

Happy Easter!

What's Cooking: Artichoke Chicken Linguini

I tried a new recipe tonight that I found in an e-mail from National Geographic Foods. National Geographic didn't have any pictures of this recipe, (I know...you're surprised, too, right?) so I've included a picture of my own.

I only used one can of artichoke hearts and it wasn't the exact brand specified in the recipe. Next time I'll use more artichoke hearts because they absorb all the flavor and they're wonderful.

Current Project: Mom's Quilt

I was working on some applique work on my mom's quilt today and I suddenly remembered how to do the real applique stitch, rather than the hem stitch I had been using. It really looks a lot better. So now I'll finish the rest of it correctly. Yea for remembering.

Currently Reading: Mother Teresa by Kathryn Spink

I'm currently reading a really great book. I am fascinated by how Mother Teresa faced obstacles and was able to take them on. I also think it's amazing that the people that worked with her first were the people that she taught first. I've only read the first two chapters, but I think it's going to be a great book. Really looking forward to reading it.

Flowers in the Front Yard

I was walking up to my house this morning and saw these purple flowers. Crocuses. Always the first sign of Spring.

Motorcade

The Vice President's motorcade just went by. If he's leaving work for the day, so am I.

Have a great weekend!