22.5 weeks

Hello all,

Sorry for the delay in the picture this week! We just got back late last night from an amazing anniversary weekend in NYC! We saw many dear friends, and had a great time celebrating our own first year of marriage at the wedding of a wonderfully beautiful and happy couple, Daniel and Irina. Another fun highlight of the weekend was seeing Osei's brother, Khari, and then going bowling at Brooklyn Bowl. I'd forgotten how slow the ball seems to move down the alley when you use the super light kiddie bowling ball!

Here is a picture of us with Osei's parents just after enjoying a delicious brunch in Williamsburg. I also threw in a full belly-shot. Definitely no mistaking that belly for too many cookies now!

Omee is doing great- moving around all the time these days, which is a really fun experience for all of us!

Hope everyone is having a great week. Lots of love and hugs to all.

Love,

Amy, Osei & Omee

One Reason I like Boston better than New York-Winter Preparedness

Since I moved to Boston from New York last March, I am most excited about a few subtle changes that have made my life so much more bearable here, especially in the winter. Namely, practical shoes and weather-appropriate attire.

In New York, one of my New Year's Resolutions was to not walk to work in high heels. Yes, I was lucky enough to live within a 12 minute walk of my office building (quicker if I timed the walk-signs perfectly). And yes, I would walk to work and back in high heels, thus necessitating a Resolution to wear flats to work.

So, I compromised with flat dress shoes. Not tennis shoes or practical walking shoes, but high-heels without the heels. I'd jump over puddles and walk on snow, and my little feetsies would absolutely freeze in the winter because I couldn't wear more than nylon stocking socks.

Now, I commute to work by train, with a 10-12 minute walk on either side. And I wear warm, practical shoes. Sometimes even sneakers. When there is snow, I break out my Sorel boots. Did I even own boots in New York? Only black leather zip up boots with a 3" heel. This is exactly my point- in Boston, people wear practical shoes and boots in the winter. In New York, the selection of winter boots for sale are practically all a) leather b) uninsulated (but sleek) and c) with pointed toes and high heels. My heels (the bones, not the shoes), arches, and cold feet are forever thanking me now that I'm a proud Boston resident.

Also in New York, I had a stylish black dress coat. Sleek, fitted. And thin. Obviously, too tight to throw a few wool sweaters and fleeces under that baby either. Not so good for a Northeast winter, but very elegant. Just like all the other New York women wore too. I had a winter jacket with a hood, but a hat would have messed up my hair too much. Ear muffs- perfectly acceptable. But a big ole' furry wool hat that actually keeps your head warm? No New York Lady would dare look that silly.

Since I moved to Boston, my hair has remained in a pony-tail since the weather dipped below freezing. The other day I wore TWO hats out in public. I now own (and wear) long underwear, and hardly remove my company-issued LL Bean fleece jacket. Sometimes I think I should just wear my jammies underneath my fleece jacket, which has now become my new Boston-winter uniform. I wear wool socks to work, and every winter morning, I bundle up into an unrecognizable snow-woman before my trek into the cold. I am far from sleek, and nothing close to stylish. Buy for the most part, I manage to stay toasty enough in all of my bulky layers.

Not to say I'm loving Boston winters, but after spending 5 winters in New York, I realized that I unnecessarily suffered through cold, slush, city blocks, and other hazards to my overall comfort and warmth. And why? All in the name of being a fashionable New Yorker. Now, I've happily traded my pointed-toe "walking" dress shoes and thin coats for some honking clunky shoes and poofy jackets. Score two points, Boston.

They don't sell jeans like these at the Gap

I caught this storefront while driving through the Bronx earlier this year on my way up to Boston. Note the "J" is a little bit hidden by the No Parking sign.

How could I resist the opportunity to fully enjoy the lengthy traffic light?

A Columbian Dark Roast to start the day

Since moving to Boston in March, my coffee drinking habits have changed dramatically. In my New York City condo, Starbucks was literally adjacent to my building lobby, and my baristas knew me by face and by my coffee order- grande drip coffee in a venti cup with cold soy at the bar. If I needed more coffee, there was also a Starbucks in the lobby of my office building.

Daily between 9:00 and 10:00 am, my Coffee Buddy and I would rendez vous in the elevator bank for a coffee run... I'd get a refill (free, of course) of my drip coffee, and he'd get a single-shot expresso (double if the week was really tough). Keep in mind, I worked on Wall Street at the time, an industry that has perfected the dysfunctional balance of high stress, low sleep, and intravenous caffeine drips.

Just before I left the city, I even received a gold credit card with my name engraved on the front in size 16 font. Preferred Customer. Basically, Starbucks was probably going to ask me to run the company, because I had earned gold card status for my loyal coffee consumption.

And then I moved to Boston, where I'd maybe pass by a Starbucks once a week. Certainly there were none in my neighborhood. But all was not lost. I shortly after married a former-Starbucks-barista, who brought not only his coffee expertise, but a stainless steel coffee press.

We registered for a Cuisinart expresso maker, and my fabulous hubby now makes lattes for me in the morning, swirling the tip of the foam milk just so as to make the treat delicious and aesthetically appealing.

Today I attempted regular coffee in the coffee press, for the first time in a solid 3 or 4 months. I guess I underestimated the capacity of the container, because this brew is as thick as sludge. Since beginning to write this, my typing has increased by about 20 words per minute. My heavy eyelids no longer beg me to return back to bed- in fact, I'm probably about ready to go take on Wall Street or something like that.

The Thirty Nine Steps

Last night my mom and I saw Alfred Hitchcock's The Thirty Nine Steps.  Incredibly clever and funny.  Highly recommended.  

Next Broadway show on my list will likely be Shrek the Musical (this summer when my sister and brother-in--law visit.

Good times

Excuse me, can I lock up my unicycle next to your Kebab stand?

I saw a guy riding a unicycle this morning on the way to work. We were BOTH on our way to the office, it seemed. He wore dress slacks, black dress shoes, and his coat tails were sort of flapping, perfectly symmectrically behind the wheel. Couldn't see under his coat, but I imagine there was a tie too.

It was quite a tall unicycle too. No helmet though.

The guy rode on the sidewalk along 52nd street, so seeing him on this particular route, unfortunatley, left me still a little unsatisfied about the logistical details of how exactly does one ride a unicycle to the office in New York City?

For example...

* What happens when you get to a stop light? Do you just hop off the thing, or just kind of "balance" in place?
* What if you can't avoid a sidewalk with scaffolding? Can you lower the seat, or do you have to stop and walk to avoid hitting your head?
* Hills? Both inclines and declines?
* Can you ride with a purse or briefcase? Do they make little unicycles with baskets?
* Where, exactly, would you put the lock on your cycle?
* Do they make a special helmet with an attached mouthpiece-whistle-contraption since you can't exactly attach a bike horn to your (non-existent) handlebars?

Darn those spring snowstorms!

My mom is visiting me from Colorado this weekend (my birthday is next week, and well, that's just what mom's do!)  She emailed me last night because there is a big snowstorm en route to Colorado and they cancelled her flight...

But the excellent news...she was booked on a different flight arriving 2 hours later!  See, not even Colorado spring snow can get in the way of a mother visiting her daughter in NYC!

Have I already mentioned Lee's Art Shop?!?!

Here we are on the first day of Spring.  Besides the fact that it is snowing, I noticed the wall mural on the side of Lee's Art Shop.  For what it was worth, I was also walking the opposite direction

Feeling Goovy

This would be the 59th Street Bridge (any Simon & Garfunkel fans?!?)

The NYC marathon runs over this bridge.  I swear, the incline felt like we were running up Mt. Kilimanjaro and back, but you'd never be able to tell by the picture

Grab a taxi!

March.. in like a Lion.

Breakup on March 1, Snowstorm on March 2.  Rough start to the month

Fortunately, we've got Daylight Savings, Spring, a trip to Madison, a visit from Mom, and, of course, my birthday all coming up.  So as the saying goes, out like a lamb.  

Artwork!

A lovely horse carriage in Central Park 

A tile mosaic of Upper West Side brownstones

22 miles in Central Park this morning to ponder the meaning of life

I get to spend a lot of time in Central Park.  Good thing I like the park so much

It is like a troop of tone-deaf gnomes are doing bad karaoke in my furnace

When I lived at Smith, our house (Gardiner!) was heated by an old steam system pretty common to older building.  Under the house, in a maze of basements that connected our house to 2 other houses in the Quad, was a huge boiler room.  One year I lived in the first-floor study (sigh... it was my own little library with built-in bookshelves), and when they turned the heaters on, you could hear the clanking of the pipes traveling all the way down the long hallway.  

Naturally, I imagined that there were little men who lived and worked inside the venting system, and those freaky noises were the men hammering and chiseling away on the metal pipes, so that the whole house would be heated.  

Well, here I am in New York City, and my little men are back inside my furnace.  Except instead of clanging, they are all drunk, and singing miserably.  And no one knows the words, so they all just hum.  Loudly.  Except for pauses to get a new pint of beer or something.   And then back to it.  Truly, I'm not sure how much more of this I can take.

Art in Columbus Circle

Just a picture that caught my eye in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle

Oh, right... meet me at the place with the NOSE

I was walking to practice tonight and noticed this gigantic nose on top of an Italian restaurant at 57th and 7th Avenue.  What in the world?   

8 weeks until Paris Marathon!

I did my second 20-mile run this morning.  I can't say it was easy or didn't hurt.  The emphasis for my long runs has basically been to finish stronger and faster than I started, and I've consistently been running negative splits (meaning that if I ran 4 loops, each one was faster than the previous.)  

The benefit to doing this is that it teaches me to run strong when I am tired.  Today I tried to imagine what it will feel like in the race, where I will most certainly be tired and hurting much worse.  I imagined what it feels like to run totally fresh, and thought about "fresh" posture and stride, and tried to make my body move the way it moves in the first few miles when I step outside my door.  I also reminded myself to acknowledge the pain, but keep on running, because it is supposed to hurt- that means I'm doing it right!  Also, it doesn't hurt any worse to run faster (or at least to maintain my pace) when I'm tired as to slow my pace into a shuffle, but I'll finish the run sooner.  

Pacing is definitely an art form.  One of the reasons I am able to finish so strong is that I probably start out a little too relaxed.  In the marathon, my biggest challenge will be finding the right pace.  Though they place you automatically with a pace group, they are only in 15 minute increments, so I am with the 3:30 group, which is faster than I want to start the race. However, I have the benefit of my Philly 1/2 marathon experience where I was forced to rely on my own internal pace and ended up with the best race of my life.  During Paris, I'll be able to "check in" every 5K to the time clock.  There will be no way for me to gage my miles, but I know that my 5K splits should be right around 25 minutes each. 

The run today was inspiring for another reason too... the gorgeous weather.  I left my jacket, gloves, headband, and tights at home and ran with my sleeves pushed up my arms, wishing I'd worn shorts and a t-shirt, not capris.  I saw more people running in Central Park yesterday and today than I see in 2 weeks of cold weather.  It is hard not to lift your knees a little higher and drop your shoulders a little lower when you run past collegiate cross country runners (as in, cross paths with, or are passed by, but never pass), who glide by in an effortless pack of perfect running form.  I saw dads huffing behind baby joggers, and men double-take when a very fit new mother pushed a double-jogger past them up a hill as if it weighed nothing.  A few brave runners who attempted the dirt paths were easily identifiable by marked legs completely tattooed with splashed mud. 

Central Park in February

I brought my camera on a run again... this time it was sunny, crisp, and beautiful

Guggenheim Museum with a blue sky background.  No matter how cold the winter can get, I always appreciate the sporadic days of mild sunshine to help you remember that spring always follows

Pond at the very North end of Central Park

I'd been running past these ice sculptures for weeks now always meaning to stop and take a picture.  You'd think you were up somewhere up in the woods... not just across the road from 11oth and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, Manhattan, New York.  

We've had a lot of snow so far this winter, so there is probably about 20 different layers of ice melted and frozen here.  The ice sort of wrapped around and curled as it froze, as if it were a stiff blanket draped off the corner of a bed

Clever organizational gadgets

Those little boxes are actually shirts.  I first saw the sleek Japanese design of Muji at the MoMA design store, but happened to stumble across the store in Times Square

My heart sometimes starts palpitating when I see displays of kitchen and home accessories

More fun design-ness.  Amazing

Out and about the town

The Art Students League of New York on 57th and 7th Avenue.

Bryant Park, including the new BofA tower in the background, at 42nd and 6th Avenue.  During the 2 months we were in the new office before moving to BNP Paribas building, my commute doubled.  If I hit every "don't walk" light, it took me about 27 minutes.  Then again, I could still walk to work. 

Ah, good ole' Times Square taken from 42nd and 7th Avenue.

All the news that's fit to print at the New York Times building, at 42nd and 8th Avenue

The mail must go through.  Post office at 34th and 8th Ave