Category Archives: true love
a sunny monday!
I woke up this morning to see the sun streaming in our front door, and I instantly turned the TV on to check the temp. Mid-fifties and rising! I could not be happier about this.
It was a beautiful weekend here in NYC, sunny and warmer than it’s been in recent weeks, but to wake up on a Monday to bright blue skies and temps even warmer than the weekend – well, that’s my jam right there. I hate to think that I’m so impacted by the weather that I lose a solid two months at the beginning of every year to the doldrums, but that’s just the reality. This spring-like weather makes me ridiculously happy. I feel hopeful, I feel inspired, I am focused on what’s possible rather than on what needs to get done. It’s amazing how that works.
I plan to go for a walk/jog in the park in a few minutes, after I finish this post, finish the Fanny & Jane books (I do the books on Mondays) and throw on some exercise clothes. But when I woke up, I knew I couldn’t wait until I was finished with those tasks to get into the sunshine. So I had breakfast on our stoop.
The sun shines down onto the front of our house for most of the day, which is a lucky thing for a girl who likes to sit on her front stoop. It’s not even 60 degrees out there, but I had breakfast wearing only a tshirt and jeans. It was heavenly!
Fair trade coffee from Trader Joe’s…
And a spinach smoothie with banana, soy milk and flax seed.
And look who joined me for some sunbathing!
Chawser LOVES to hang out on the stoop with us when it’s warm out. We’ll open the door a bit and he’ll venture out at his own pace. We’ve (miraculously) trained him to only stay on the stoop, not to go off onto the driveway or the surrounding gardens. I’m sure if we weren’t out there to regulate him, he’d dart off in whatever direction, but he will sit right next to me for as long as I’ll let him. It was so nice to have a breakfast mate.
My other breakfast mates were two succulents that I have managed to make ill with my incredibly inept green thumb. I was hoping the sun would inspire them back to health. I thought you weren’t supposed to be able to kill these things!
Nothing whatsoever is perfect in my world and I have constant stresses and worries, but this day makes it all seem a little bit simpler. Also? Days like this are why I quit my job. Because I would wake up back then, and head into work, enjoying the heck out of my commute for its amazing views of the city from the Manhattan Bridge, for its ten-minute walk from the subway to the office through a bustling, energizing midtown Manhattan. And then I’d always feel my heart sink a little as I walked into the dark, gloomy office, knowing that I wouldn’t re-emerge for nine hours. And as much as I loved the salary, I always thought, This is not a reasonable trade-off for me. This is not good enough.
Today, even though I have a To Do list ten miles long, a budget to worry about, a bank account I’d love to add a few more zeros to, and an all-around imperfect life, I’m thrilled to get to go for a jog in the spring weather, on MY schedule, when I feel like it. Imperfection is perfect today.
sunday in pictures
mostly just cat photos
I went out with friends from improv last night after our rehearsal and had a great time. I’m paying for it a bit today, but I’m so glad I got to chat with those people, swap stories, share mini dramas and major dramas and talk about our lives. It’s so lovely to do that every once in a while.
The final Valentine’s Day deliveries are being made today and then we will officially be DONE with Valentine’s Day as a company. What a relief. Kevin and I cannot wait to spend Sunday cleaning our apartment (we’ll see if we get to that…but we really should) and relaxing. Maybe we’ll go catch a movie too. And then on Monday night he’s taking me out for a special surprise date. Yay!
salted peanut butter BUCKEYES!
If you’re not from the midwest you may never have heard of the Buckeye. I have several native New Yorker friends who didn’t know what they were.
Well, I’m pleased to announce that the newest edition to the Fanny & Jane menu is our special version of this classic chocolate bon bon. Announcing the Salted Peanut Butter Buckeye! (Cheers erupt, the crowd goes wild!)
This, believe it or not, is the first new item we’ve had on the menu in quite some time!! Having been totally overwhelmed with and blessed by tons of holiday orders, we didn’t add anything new during November and December, so this is a very exciting day for me, personally. Mostly because I’m a Sweet Treat Geek.
When I was home for the holidays and stopped by my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Kel’s house (Hi, Aunt Lisa!!) for a visit one afternoon, my uncle offered me a Buckeye. They’d received an adorable box of them as a gift from a family they’re close to. I ate one and then drifted off to heaven to enjoy the peanut butter goodness. Then I ate another. Then I split another one with Kevin. Oof. They’re divine. Plus, I’m a huge peanut butter person, thanks to my grandmother, from whom I most certainly inherited my daily semi-medical need for the stuff.
And I got to thinking: We definitely need a peanut butter item on the F&J menu. I wonder if I could come up with my own recipe for these.
Then, I forgot about them. When I got back to New York a few weeks later, I was brainstorming one afternoon with my good friend, colleague, and a very knowledgeable pastry chef, James (Hi, James!!!) about what new item I should add to the menu next. And he, out of the blue, suggested the Buckeye! I couldn’t believe it. First of all, I was shocked he even knew what they were, since he’s from New Jersey. (But this guy really knows his stuff, so it wasn’t THAT shocking.) And secondly, I was so delighted that I’d had these little peanut butter wonders on the brain and he’d thought they’d make a great edition to the line too. So, of course, I’m not one to deny synchronicity. And I got to work coming up with the Fanny & Jane version.
Our Salted Peanut Butter Buckeyes are dipped in luscious milk chocolate. For a crunch, we’ve added graham cracker bits to the peanut buttery center. Also, since salty + sweet is a match made in heaven, we added a little Fleur de Sel to finish them off. They’re delicious and I’m crazy about them. I have to hide them from myself because I will literally consume dozens otherwise.
You can order some here.
a few last vacation photos
This is my cousin Trisha’s dog, Claire, who traveled with us (and without her mom!) to my grandparents house for Christmas. She’s adorable, snuggly, and afraid of everything. She’s a lover.
Two grown men who love their girlfriends very much have been joining my family for Christmas for the last few years. And they’re troopers about it. They wear their holiday headbands with confidence. They also did almost all the shoveling.
Kevin’s new hat is arguably his favorite addition to his wardrobe in recent months.
The natural light in my mother’s house is tremendous. Our apartment doesn’t have a lot of natural light so I felt spoiled to wake up in it several days in a row.
good pizza, good life
I love not having a traditional job anymore!! I just had to tell you that. I went to see a movie around 6:30pm tonight, a time during which, had I still been at the desk job, I would have still been at work.
The first few days of January have always been historically hard for me ever since I became part of the working world. I have always struggled with returning from the warmth and comfort of the holiday break to come back to whichever office job I held at the time. I just felt blue. Lonely, sad, missing my family and my freedom. It would usually last, in some respect, into early Feb. I’m sure part of it has often been due to the cold weather, the lack of sunshine. But it’s also because I felt a general bleakness about the day to day routine I was returning to. That very feeling was part of what made me decide to quit my job and follow my bliss to begin with. I didn’t want to feel bored and totally uninspired ever, not even in winter.
When I said in a post a few days ago that I’d be easing back into a regular routine during these first few weeks of 2010, I meant it. And oh boy, have I eased. I’ve certainly done some work every day, but I’ve also taken some yoga classes, spent time with some friends, and relaxed. And my “day” tends to end around 6pm or so, when I end up making a simple, healthy meal (lots of that going on at our apartment lately – loving it!) and camping out on the couch for the evening. It’s been a pretty spectacular way to start the year. For me personally, it fits. Because my busy season just ended, I don’t currently feel pressured into any insane workload that I might not be mentally ready to tackle, I can take some time each day to be with myself and focus on feeling good – take a yoga class, sit in a sunny patch in the park, and I feel like I’m really taking care of myself. It’s nice.
In other news, because both Kev and I are trying to be frugal and healthy right now, eating out regularly isn’t something we’ll be doing for a while. So as a last hurrah for the time being, I thought I’d regale you with tales of our anniversary dinner at Franny’s pizzeria in Park Slope.
First of all, it was delicious and wonderful and I loved it. We’ve been wanting to go there for a while, especially since it’s relatively close to our apartment, voted one of the best pizzerias in New York and sources all of its ingredients consciously and many from local vendors.
We went there for dinner on the evening of our third anniversary, after spending the afternoon seeing Sherlock Holmes. The ladies who own our house and live on the top two floors gave us a generous gift certificate for the holidays so we figured an anniversary dinner would be the perfect occasion to use it.
It was packed when we arrived but after we enjoyed some lovely glasses of red wine at the bar, we were seated pretty quickly. Let me first say that the service was delightful and attentive – we really noticed that. Even the bar service was great, which is hard to do in a small, busy restaurant where everyone is “grabbing a drink at the bar” while they wait for a table to open up.
Look at the flame inside that pizza oven!!
Once we sat down, we drooled over the small but impressive menu and decided to order the special appetizer, which was brussel sprouts with onion and bacon (omg), another small appetizer which was a crostino (one big piece of toast) with white beans and something else I can’t remember on top. They were both divine and we enjoyed every single flavor. The wine (second glasses for both of us!) complimented the flavors perfectly. We were very happy.
Then the pizzas came out, one for each of us. Just entree-sized portions, but still plenty of food. We shared these.
Picante parmesean with red onion. And buffalo mozzarella with sausage. SO. GOOD. It was heavenly. Together, we ate all of it.
And then we got dessert! Ah!
This photo does not do justice to the perfection of this dessert. This was a panna cotta, something I’d never had before. Our kind and knowledgeable waiter told us that he loved panna cotta, but this is some of the best he’s ever had. It was cool, refreshing, light, delicious, flavorful – amazing. The brown sauce was a balsamic type thing – who knows – but it was also delicious.
This was one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time. And I got to share it with this guy, who’s just as sweet and funny as can be.
And who just now absentmindedly scraped his fork like nails on chalkboard on the bottom of his rice bowl while watching TV on the couch next to me. And I’m going to kill him. RELATIONSHIPS!
Har har.
january 1, 2010
Happy New Year, all!
You may have noticed that I took a little vacation from the blog. Truth be told, I took a vacation from everything. And I’m still riding it out. I return to “work” on Monday, January 4, like much of the rest of the world will. The last two weeks have been many things, but they’ve mostly been blissful.
First, I have to mention that this blog turns 1 year old on Tuesday, January 5. That fact has been on my mind, along with the memory that this time last year found me finally making some concrete decisions about what the next 12 months would bring into my life, and deciding to write a blog about it. It’s amazing what can happen in a year.
That bit aside, there are so many things I want to tell you guys about my journeys over the last two weeks, but I’ll save them for upcoming posts. I got lotsa great pics I’m excited to share too.
I will tell you that Kevin and I left our apartment to head to the airport at 5am on Saturday 12/19. We hadn’t slept a wink when we got in the cab to make our 7am flight. A snowstorm was about to hit the East Coast and our Saturday afternoon flight had been canceled. So we spent all Friday night and early early Saturday morning cleaning the house and preparing to leave on an earlier flight that might beat the storm. It was a most appropriate end to the insane two weeks (er…two months?) that had just graced our lives. In retrospect, it was almost ridiculous to have assumed that anything other than a crazy late night of rushing around and never sleeping would have occurred.
Still, we arrived in Crystal Lake, Illinois, my hometown, around 9am Saturday morning and in one piece. I was so grateful for the huge, warm bed my mom made up for us, the delicious breakfast she prepared for us, and the amazing nap we took all afternoon. When we woke up we were finally – FINALLY – on vacation. And I didn’t look back.
Flash forward to last night, New Year’s Eve, when Kev and I arrived back in New York late at night and barely made it to our apartment in time to grab some late night take-out and catch the ball dropping on TV. I crashed into bed shortly after that, and woke up today eager to greet the new year, and excited to celebrate Kevin and my three-year anniversary.
Now that we’re home, I’m planning to ease back into my normal life. Although traveling isn’t always stress-free, I ate up every moment of this two week break. I haven’t been out of the city for that long in over seven years.
Today, January 1, 2010, was a wonderful day in my life. I told Kevin last night that I’d noticed a yoga place in Park Slope was holding a detox flow class at 12:30pm on New Year’s Day, and that I was going to go to it. Luckily, he didn’t mind, which was very good of him considering it was our anniversary. After my yoga class we met up for a movie and a nice, long dinner. We saw Sherlock Holmes, which we both loved, and then went to dinner at a popular and critically acclaimed Brooklyn pizza place called Franny’s. We’d gotten a generous gift certificate for Franny’s, a place we’d been dying to try, from our landladies for Christmas and we figured this was the perfect night to use it. The food was incredible. We literally oohed and aahed over each dish. And I can’t wait to tell you about the whole experience. Soon!
We’re now tucked onto the couch watching Lord of the Rings and doing computer stuff. And I could not have asked for a more perfect day. Also, I love this guy. He’s my best friend.
The yoga class I took today was wonderful. It was exactly what I needed to mentally and physically feel like I’d made a good choice on this first day of the year. On my way there, I remembered the first ever yoga class I took at Bend & Bloom, the simple little studio a few subway stops from our apartment. It was almost a year ago that I timidly walked to their studio, unsure what to expect. I hadn’t been practicing yoga for very long and I certainly hadn’t been to many (if any) formal classes beyond the ones my gym offered. My friend Jen was going to be teaching the class and I was also eager to ask her some questions afterward about her experience as a yoga teacher. I had just begun my search for What Would Come Next in my life, and being a yoga teacher was near the top of the list of things I wanted to explore.
That day a year ago, I snapped a photo of the classic Brooklyn street I walked down on my way to the class and I wrote this short blog entry afterward. And today, almost a year later, I took a photo from a similar perspective.
I knew the streets themselves, just a year apart, probably wouldn’t look very different. But my perspective has changed. I remember walking to that class a year ago feeling a sense of sadness and uncertainty. I was sad to have returned to work after the holiday break, I was facing the gloom of January as best I could and failing, and I just felt like discovering a new direction was going to be tough.
Today when I took a photo of the street I walked down on my way to class, I felt peaceful and content. My life isn’t perfect, but as 2010 begins, as the first day of the year draws to a close, I’m happy, healthy and looking forward to what this year will bring. What more could I need?
I hope you all had a nice holiday season and are gearing back up to return to real life, if you haven’t had to already. Enjoy these last few days of relaxation, if you can. One of my resolutions for 2010 is to take loving care of myself and my body whenever possible (and it’s always possible). I hope you will spend some time doing the same. It’s important to make yourself your first priority.
vacation earned
The Fanny & Jane end-0f-year madness is finally coming to a self-imposed end. I think I’d be in traction right now if I hadn’t put some boundaries on the work load. But we got it done. Kevin, James, Katie, David, Blue, Marina, Faryn, Meg, Tim, Clayton, Rebecca, Billy, Jessica, Matt, Steve and Daniel. We all worked tirelessly and got it done. I have an amazing group of friends.
Kevin made over 3000 cake bites, ran dozens and dozens of errands all over Manhattan and Brooklyn, shipped countless packages, made business decisions, designed packaging, directed troops and never faltered. Katie baked hundreds of cookies, made pounds of batter and offered to come back to do more again and again. David made SIXTEEN pans of brownies in less than eight hours. Marina did any job I put in front of her with ease and grace, including baking over 1000 cookies in less than three hours. Meg packaged sweets and assembled boxes like a pro. James saved my life on numerous occasions and was a sounding board, a work horse, and a wealth of knowledge. He also quietly rolled hundreds of cake bites in one afternoon without my even asking him to do so. Faryn made heavy batches of cookies and ran errands in the pouring rain. Tim made countless batches of cookies, packaged brownies, wrapped cake bites and filled boxes nonstop. Blue made so many red velvet cakes that I lost count, and kept Kevin and I laughing and cheerful the whole time she was here. Steve and Daniel both worked diligently with our boxes and tissue paper, and both schlepped out to Brooklyn when they probably didn’t want to. Billy carefully sliced ten pans of brownies into little bite-sized pieces, which might not seem like a big job, but is actually one of the most awful parts of the process. It took him five hours and he did not stop once. (If I had done it instead, it would have taken me eight hours plus, no doubt….Hmm…I think I might need a new brownie slicing method, come to think of it.) Jessica and Matt, who’d both generously helped out with baking earlier in the week, were here the morning of one of the big shipments and were part of the most intense little assembly line this apartment has ever seen. The understanding postman basically waited at the door as we wordlessly taped and labeled too many boxes to count and got it done in a flash.
This is a messenger taking away one of the two big corporate orders we shipped. This was the smaller of the two orders, but it still filled three massive boxes.
Those huge boxes are filled with baked goods! And that was the smaller order?!
I am eternally grateful for my supportive, generous friends. And let me tell you – you really learn who your true friends are when you’re up against the wall in a situation like this. I cannot say thank you enough times to the people who saved my butt. They’re probably sick of hearing me say it – but THANK YOU, ALL OF YOU. You are wonderful friends and I hope for an opportunity to someday return the invaluable favor.
Yesterday marked exactly two months since my last day at the desk job. It feels like a lifetime. So much has changed in such a short period of time, and more interestingly, I have adapted so quickly to this new way of life. I barely remember what it was like to commute an hour to work every morning, to sit behind a desk answering phones for 9 hours a day, to leave the office when it was dark and wake up the next day and do it again.
I am a lucky young lady.
Kevin and I leave Brooklyn for Chicago this afternoon in fifteen minutes! (our afternoon flight was canceled!) and as I’ve said several times in the last couple weeks, I’m really looking forward to it. All the bakery madness meant I didn’t get out to soak up quite enough Christmas spirit this December (and Kevin vetoed the overplaying of Christmas music in the apartment…What a scrooge!), so I’ll have a lot to make up for during this next week at home. I’m excited to see my fabulous family, to spend time catching up with my cousins who are some of my best friends in the world, and to relax, eat, sleep, exercise, see movies, shop, chat, see old friends, give big hugs and be surrounded by warmth, love and home.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
the silver lining
I can’t remember what day it is. I’m grouchy, exhausted and I have insomnia. My bones ache. There are bakery boxes stacked all over the the living room. I’m awake at 5:16am. I have been working nonstop. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
As promised and as usual, I will be honest with you on this blog about my experience first to leave my desk job, and now to continue to navigate that journey. And today, it all hurts. That’s what’s honest today. I want to snap my fingers and be anywhere else.
What’s interesting about this experience, though, is that I have no choice but to move through it. I cannot speed it up, I cannot wish it away, I cannot cancel it or get out of it by making a phone call. I have no choice but to walk through the fire, if I may be so melodramatic.
My left knee is killing me. I have no idea why. I haven’t exercised in a week. I’m going to strangle someone over it. THERE’S NO TIME TO EXERCISE. I’ve missed birthday parties, record releases and holiday parties. I’m up at 5am because I cannot effing sleep. But I just have to move through it.
I’ve started saying to Kevin, who, by the way, has been literally by my side for all of this, “Two more days. Just two more days.” Because in two days, we will have shipped out the second of our two big corporate orders. We won’t be done then, but things will slow down significantly. We won’t be spending every waking hour of every day working toward this.
I do not mean to sound ungrateful for our success. I hope everyone knows that. I am so grateful for so many of the wonderful things I have in my life, including the opportunity to have had this experience. I’m venting tonight though. I have a splitting headache tonight.
If it weren’t for Kevin, who has been just incredible, I would be lying under the kitchen table crying. Kevin is a hard worker, a thoughtful partner and he’s been invaluably committed to this journey with me. Thank you, my love. And then there are my friends. I’ve had no fewer than nine close friends come over to my apartment to help Kevin and I get these orders out the door. This is nothing short of beautiful to me. These people are amazing people. Thank you Katie, James, Marina, Blue, David, Tim, Meg, Matt and Clayton. You are generous, big-hearted people. You are the silver lining.
