not a podcast virgin any longer...

i have never listened to a podcast in my life, but that has all changed. my mother mentioned the podcast serial a couple of weeks ago in an email…i immediately dismissed it, not really knowing what a podcast was to be honest, until my co-worker mentioned it again this week at lunch. and now i'm hooked. i've listened to all the episodes up-to-date. i've literally sat in my car waiting for an episode to end before i went into the house, they are great for listening to and from work…

currently reading...

i'm back to my usual one-book-a-week reading schedule now that the weather is colder and the night time comes earlier. i literally finished this is where i leave you by jonathan trooper in 2 nights, this was our book group book for november. i know it's been made into a movie (which my friend kate & i have a date to go see), but i haven't seen it yet. i loved the way this was written, very david seders like in my opinion, very funny & somewhat twisted…highly recommended…

yummy...

i have become a "snacker", and this is my current snack of choice (can be found at whole foods). these snapea crisps are addicting, especially the caesar flavor…

currently reading...

at the suggestion of my mother, i've picked up the children act by ian mcewan from the library this week. i plan on starting it this weekend,  in bed…

chicken with roasted sweet potato salad...

i'll be the first to admit i don't always eat healthy, but my stepdad made this for dinner over the weekend and it was too delicious not to share…

Chicken with Roasted Sweet Potato Salad

ingredients:
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into thin slices
1 red onion, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt & pepper
4 6 ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 bunch spinach, thick stems removed (about 4 cups)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

directions:
1. heat oven to 425
2. on rimmed baking sheet, toss the potatoes, onion, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper. roast until tender, about 20-25 minutes.
3. meanwhile, heat remaining tablespoon oil in a skillet over medium heat.
4. season the chicken with salt & pepper and cook until browned and cooked through, 5-6 minutes on each side.
5. in large bowl, toss the warm potato mixture with the spinach, lime juice and salt. serve with chicken on top.

Playing in my head...

I heard a segment on npr over the weekend about an icelandic musician, Asgier Trausti, and I'm not gonna lie…not only is his music beautiful, but he's pretty easy on the eyes too…

In his interview he said he writes the music and then he has his father, who is a poet, fill in the lyrics…

currently reading...

since reading rainbow rowell's other books i've been waiting & waiting for her newest book, landline, to come out. i'm half way through the book and can say with certainty it's a good one...

unfortunately i haven't read as much as i would have liked to this summer. i'm hoping now that the sun is going down earlier and the nights are cooler that i'll find myself in bed with a good book more often.

when you think you hate your job...

burke has arrived!...

a couple of weeks ago my sister & her husband had their first baby, my very first nephew. and maybe i'm biased, but he is SOOOO damn cute. I mean, look at the bald head & those lips! i am super obsessed with him, like, i asked them to send me photos and videos every single day kind of obsessed, no joke. 

burke pennington (we share a middle name!) was born on july 28th, 8lbs 6oz, 20 inches in sunny california. i love every little bit of him and can't wait to meet him in person. 

this might be the most hilarious photo of them all, look at this expression. my husband said all he needs is a scully cap and he'd fit right in here in boston...

and here's a little video of ooma (my mom) teaching burke how to box... i mean, c'mon, how great is this???

fall boots...

and so the fall catalogue shopping season begins... and i picked up these awesome nepal boots from TOMS (sold out on their website but i found them on amazon actually) to kickstart my longing for cooler weather...

mother nature laid the smack down...

within 15 minutes (5:45-6pm) the skies darkened, the wind picked up, thunder & lightening struck, buckets of rain poured and there was a threat of a tornado...and no, we don't live in kansas, we live 6 miles north of boston...and then it was all over. only to find this had happened in that short amount of time...

my lumberjack cut a few of the branches that were putting a lot of pressure on the garage off last night, but then the tree started cracking more so we let it be...

the whole thing needs to come down, the trunk was split right down the middle. i never thought i'd be so sad to lose a tree. it provided the relief of shade and hours of squirrel hunting for our dogs. but i'm grateful that nothing more was damaged and that no one was hurt.

goodbye big ole' tree.

feathers...

i can't tell you how happy handmade stuff makes me. i love it, i love it, i love it. and one of my favorite spots in worcester for finding such handmade goodness is compton collective, where i bought this satined glass feather by sarah brueck williams. it's my goal to have an entire collection of these feathers to fill my kitchen window with...

currently reading...

not going to lie, i've been seriously slacking on reading this spring/summer... lacking in my blog posts as well too. a few weeks ago the movie black mass, based on the book about the infamous boston mobster james 'whitey' bugler, with jonny depp as the leading character, was filming around the corner from my office and i decided our book group needed to read this since half our members live in southie, the hometown of bulger...

the polish american club of cambridge is one block from my office 

they transformed the club into the famous southie bar, triple o's, for the movie

depp as bulger

i've got to tell you, aside from enjoying the fact that i'm reading about a place i've come to know pretty well in my 14 years living in boston, i am fascinated/obsessed with the relationships between these fbi agents and their informants. being the mega-dork that i am, i've also got a little cheat sheet of what mobsters belonged with what gangs, it's a lot to keep straight...and i've googled the shit out of every single person, every single death, related to this story. there's some f@*ked up shit that happened in the neighborhood i've grown to love and have so many friends living in. 

if you know southie at all, this is a must read.

new patio...

not sure if you remember what our backyard looked like before, but it was not that great (oh, and the house was green and yellow, yuck). when i first moved in the entire back yard was filled with wood chips, no grass. there was no where to sit and enjoy the small patch of outdoor space we had...

we eventually pulled up the woodchips and tried out hand at growing some grass (and painted the house), but with 3 dogs the grass never really lasted very long...

enter the newest renovation to our house, the patio. we had a mason that i use for work (and love) come do the work for us...took them only 4 days. instead of using natural stone, to save money we used Pavers by Ideal, theYankee Cobble in the Vineyard Blend color. i love the way it came out, the pavers match the color of the natural stone foundation we have.

for my birthday my mom bought me an outdoor patio set, and we had some adirondack chairs we bought last year so I just dressed them up with some cushions. i love all our planters and the spot for the grill.

and we're trying our hand at growing some more grass...

and my newest favorite part of our backyard is the raspberry plants chris gave me for my birthday (GREAT gift for me). i am a raspberry fanatic, i'll eat a dry pint in one sitting. but these aren't just any old raspberries, these are prelude raspberries from my favorite place ever...geneva, new york, home of our college! we built our little raised bed and trellis and put these babies in the ground a few weeks ago... i can't wait until they start producing fruit! side note, chris dug out an entire tree stump in the very spot where we planted these, it was a massive undertaking, but he prevailed!...

a modern island...

when we were in paris walking home from dinner one night we passed by a storefront for boffi. i'm not typically one for modern decor, but i loved the simplicity of this kitchen island.  The vertical wood on the doors/drawers combined with the stainless steel gave it just enough rustic for me to become infatuated with it...

stepping into spring...

i think i need to purchase these beauties for the arrival of spring/summer, don't you? size 6.5 if my fairy god-mother wants to purchase them for me...

happy 34th to me...

holy hell, i turned 34 yesterday. it was a good, low key birthday. it was nice to hear from many people in my life, sweet phone calls & text poured in all day. even when you think things in your life aren't the way they should be you're reminded of how awesome life really is.... especially when you're husband comes in with a slice of tiramisu with a candle in it, singing happy birthday in his best marilyn monroe voice...

currently reading...

i finally gave up at the library...i'm number 287 waiting for the goldfinch, so i broke down and bought it on my kindle... read 50 pages in about 10 minutes last night...

pre-order your book

did ya'll see Erin Gates of Elements of Style new book is on pre-order today?!?!?! Yup, I pre-ordered the shit out of mine. 

Even though I don't know Erin, I'm so incredibly proud of her. She's candid & honest and creative...we'd totally be friends if we met in real life. She actually doesn't live far from me in real life, but I would feel a bit like a stalker if I tried to pursue a friendship, so I will admire from afar. Congratulations Erin, you deserve all the success you have worked so hard for...now go enjoy it!

kissing strangers...

a friend sent this to me today. at first it was super awkward to watch...who kisses a stranger? sober? with the lights on? in front of a camera? but then it got kind of sexy. and then kind of cute. and then i watched it again...

thanks for sending haley!

lover boy...

my hank wants to wish all his lady friends a happy valentine's day... he's such a lover...

playing in my head...

i've got this one on repeat this week...

i'm not normally into #hashtags...

did you all hear about jimmy fallons #olympicpickuplines? yeah, me neither, until my boss told me about them... and they're pretty funny...

here are some of my favs so far:

Edward Hotspur ‏@Hotspur  Feb 10

I'm going for the silver, because I'll make sure you come first. #OlympicPickupLines

the Merchant ‏@merchantofNYC  Feb 10

Your lips say no, but your ski goggles whisper, "fog me". #OlympicPickUpLines

jeric fule ‏@jericfule_  Feb 10

The slopes aren't the only thing I'm going down on tonight #OlympicPickupLines

Alexis Turrentine ‏@alexistur  Feb 10

Your poorly-constructed hotel room or mine? #OlympicPickupLines

PSS famous...

anyone who knows me and my college girlfriends knows how much we love our alma mater...we may even be mildly obsessed. so when the most recent isssue of the pultney street survey, the colleges alumni publication, arrived in the mail naturally i flipped to the back first to read the class notes and look at the pictures...and there was ours...

i can't tell you how much i have loved being a part of the hws community, even know, in boston nearly 12 years after graduating some of my bestest friends are from that very special place. my husband and i are so lucky to have gone to a school like this...and you'd better believe i'm going to force all my children to go there as well...YEAH 'BART!

currently reading...

i saw this book a few months ago at the airport and finally got around to picking it up from the library. i thought the story line of orphan train sounded interesting, and then i started looking further into the story of orphan trains. surprisingly I had never heard that this was a very real movement in the united states between 1853-1929 where they would literally train out orphans from the overcrowded east to families in the midwest. some would be treated like slaves/servants when they arrived to their new families and others would be accepted as though they were part of the family. i'm only a quarter of the way through this book, but i'm fascinated by the fact that this actually happened...

quotable...

“It is useless to try to make peace with ourselves by being pleased with everything we have done. In order to settle down in the quiet of our own being we must learn to be detached from the results of our own activity. We must withdraw ourselves, to some extent, from the effects that are beyond our control and be content with the good will and the work that are the quiet expression of our inner life. We must be content to live without watching ourselves live, to work without expecting any immediate reward, to love without an instantaneous satisfaction, and to exist without any special recognition.” 

                           -Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island

and the first day of 2014...

as the wife of a hockey coach you'd think i knew how to ice skate...and you'd be dead wrong. so to say i was nervous when he came home with tickets to frozen fenway ice skating on new years day would be an understatement.

we went, i skated, and i came home in one piece. the best part of the day started before we even went when he came home with a used pair of ice skates he bought for me and said, 'no wife of mine is going to be caught wearing figure skates'...hahaha.

it was so exciting to be ON THE FIELD looking back at the empty stands, lights on, music playing... how incredible it must feel when the stadium is packed for game day. but it was a pretty perfect way to kick start 2014...