The Emperor of all Maladies

I feel bad I don't take the time to document all the normal happenings here anymore.  Just the great and the awful and I don't know if that is good or bad. 

We have been quite fortunate the last few years and we know it, but this week my dear step father has been diagnosed with cancer of his esophagus.  He has a PET scan tomorrow to determine if it has spread and if so, how much and where.  He is still waiting for his ultrasound.  

He is only 63 and otherwise in good health and has been counting down to joining my mother in retirement.  He is still a nurse at a Mayo Clinic hospital and so will have access to wonderful care, but we are hoping it was caught soon enough for his prognosis to be good.

Praying for David 🙏🏼

P.S. His scan was clear of metastasis!  On to a plan for chemo/radiation/surgery.

Heading back to the Hamptons

Happy May Day!  Five years ago today, we found out we were pregnant with the twins.  Do the years ever fly?!

Though this year marks 20 years since my first summer living in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod, we've decided we are headed back to the Hamptons this August.  We had my MIL here last year, so I did my Hamptons tour sans family, and our last summer beach trip was to the Cape and Nantucket in 2014.  We haven't all been to the Hamptons together since 2013, when the kids were just wee ones (and my forehead was still intact), and now back we go...

Some fun things I'm looking forward to this year...  Taking the kids all the way out to Montauk, a quaint fishing village turned hipster hangout and more importantly home to the Hampton's lighthouse.  Visiting a fave from my old hood, Jayson Home and Garden's first pop up store in Sag Harbor, as well as Coastal Living's Hamptons showhouse in Bridgehampton (Trad Home's Hamptons Designer Showhouse is in Sag Harbor this year).  Ice cream, ocean sand, lobster rolls, and lots of sun (crossing fingers)...

What may be one of the prettiest houses in East Hampton (snapped last summer)

Last time I had my feet in the sand (FWB, FL over New Year's.)

Making the bacon, in our new kitchen

After I finished my full time on-site seven week project in December (my first since the twins, after several false starts), I didn't have any short term plans to return to work, as I had turned down a project extension and another FT job offer.  But then my old CMO (a fellow twin parent and a super nice guy) gave me a shout last month and wanted to know if I could help him out with a project for another former colleague (who I coincidentally helped hire in our last job together and is now running a dept. for a major multinational out of Munich..).  He's a professor at Kellogg now, after being let go a week into his relocation to Switzerland (crazy people, I tell you), but he also does projects on the side. It was a sweet deal, so I was in.  Making (what I assume is) his obscene billable rate (he's Harvard Econ BA/MIT MBA/former McKinsey and has almost 20 years on me) and working bits here and there from home over a few weeks (even if it was spring break)?  Yes please.

Now we are all done with that and my kitchen nearly is too.  We still have to paint and install the new lighting and decide on a stove, but all the cabinets, farmhouse sink, quartz counters, fridge, beadboard, and tile backsplash (the big stuff) are all up and in.  It was in the planning stages since we moved in ten years ago and I could count the active reno in months and years, which I don't necessarily recommend, though it has actually been less disruptive, which was kind of the point.  But this room is truly a testament to my patience, when in doubt...

I have always loved arabesque tiles (that's the shape) and while these mosaics (at under 2"/ea) were smaller than most, I decided they would work in our decidedly smallish space.  They are porcelain with glass iridescent ones mixed in and the colors tie together our new stainless appliances, our slightly off-white cabs and counters, and our blue grey textiles.  Kinda exotic (I fell in love with tiles traveling in Portugal), and kinda beachy. Perfection, finally.

More pics when we are done, now on to the master bath...

If you like this, check out that...

Happy Friyay!  It's almost Spring and daylight savings time!!

One of my most love/hate things about being a parent is managing my kids' stuff.  Of course the shopping part is fun (and a bit of a competitive sport for me), but then you have to manage all of it and get rid of all the clothes, shoes, toys, books, gear, accessories etc. as they outgrow them (not so much fun).  And with same sized boy/girl twins (and no plans for more, and similar aged cousins) there are really no such thing as hand me downs in our family (and as third of four girls, I can appreciate this is good for them, bad for me), so its often one (season) and done.  I also find I tend to buy more gendered things for the purposes of keeping track of whose is whose than I would if we'd had singletons. Oh well.

I've gotten to the point though, where I am fairly tired of buying/dealing with crappy stuff, even it is free with all my BR card rebates or easy because it's at Target (though a Marimekko collab is coming next month!) I've found investing in better stuff (even if it means I want to resell, i.e. more work, rather than give away) is a better investment, as buying on sale (and reselling) means things end up being almost free (and not crap, win/win).

I have a long abiding live for Garnet Hill, which is a catalog based company headquartered in rural New Hampshire.  I first came across them when I lived in Boston in the 90s and the salad dressing heiress/family I babysat for always had their catalogs around (though I wasn't the key target audience back then), so I'd look at them when I wasn't working or studying.  They have great stuff in their own brand (clothing and home), but they carry other great brands too, like Patagonia.  I could just use whether a store carries Patagonia as a barometer of whether they are my kind of store.  I've been wearing them since the 80s (thank you hippie dad, and preppy mom). I especially love Garnet Hill's swimsuits, dresses, leggings, backpacks, bedding, rugs, all in amazing fabrics. They have ridiculous sales (including their sales of the day), as do these all... (Pro tip: if you let something sit in your shopping bag for a bit, they may send you a free shipping email, good for multiple purchases.)

If you like Mini Boden, check out Little Joules...  Both are British and kind of eerily similar (Joules just slightly predates Boden), but I find Joules a little more my taste sometimes (they carry men/women/kids/baby).

If you like H&M, check out Zara...  This isn't really a revelation, as they are both somewhat ubiquitous "fast fashion", the first Swedish and the latter Spanish, but H&M has many more stores in the US.  We finally just got a Zara at our closest local mall.  Their girls' clothes are much nicer than H&M.  I also think of these stores in tandem as I discovered both while in Europe in 2001 before either had crossed the pond.  I mean that jacket, OMG.  We have the most gorgeous dresses from them.

If you like Tea Collection, check out Peek Kids...  Peek recently opened (and then sadly closed) three stores in our area, but they have a good website (they are also based in San Francisco), though I prefer not buy clothes online if I can help it (another reason why I can't live in a retail desert).  I'm not a fan of clothes (kids or otherwise) with lots of words (which they do) or branding (you want me to pay you to advertise, not this one), but they do have amazing Liberty of London print fabrics (more Brit love).

If you like Hanna Andersson, check out Polarn O. Pyret (or POP for short)...  I just discovered this Swedish company when we had our getaway in Minneapolis recently (they are at the Galleria in Edina).  I started talking to the saleswoman about the similarity and apparently the real Hanna Andersson once worked at POP and then left to start her own company (and you can tell).  They've been around since the 70s, but have just recently opened a couple of US stores (also in NYC and MA (Chestnut Hill, of course)).

If you like Skip Hop (zoo), check out Beatrix NY...  I discovered Beatrix (among others) at my favorite kids' store in Osterville, MA, Pocket Full of Posies.  We got them crazy cheap tablet cases there (which we finally filled last Christmas).

Happy Shopping!  Happy Weekend!

Starting 2016

I haven't been much of a blogger lately, but I have been slogging it out for awhile.  I'm entering my seventh year, though it has been much quieter around here since the kids were born.  It says something about my corporate job (and infertility too, I suppose), that the bulk of my nearly 600 posts came in those early years.  This outlet still holds a place for me that my other social media outlets don't and can't.  Facebook is not a blog (repeat after me) and neither is Pinterest or even Instagram.  And since I'm not selling anything over here (or anywhere), I have a little bit of a different take on each.

I'm finally getting around to reading "Quiet", which is amazing so far.  (Introverts unite!)  And looking forward to finishing it, so I can start on "When Breath Becomes Air" (you can read about it more on Cup of Jo and in the NYT) and then "We Should All Be Feminists" and "Between the World and Me".  One of my goals this year is to read more books...and actually finish them.  I've long been the queen of leaving books unfinished, and being on all the time for two busy preschoolers surely doesn't help.

The kids are doing great and we're all keeping busy.  We've done all sorts of classes over the years, but now we are trying to settle into a sport (dance for her since last fall, t-ball for him) and an instrument (piano for them both), though we'll mix it up come summer (tennis, soccer?).  We took a trip to the ENT to have Alistair's tonsils looked at and it turns out they are fine.  We are finally kicking whatever virus(es) have been plaguing us for the last few months.  Round and around it/they went...

If you aren't watching the last season of Downton Abbey, the last episode highlights that (spoiler alert!) having an incompetent cervix/infertility and cerclages are not new things.  And that others have had to move all the way to Boston to find themselves... I'm really going to miss that show (and yes I cheated and already watched the entire UK season online.).  Waiting for new Master of None and House of Cards (thank God for Netflix).

We just marked a decade in our house (and me in the burbs, the same amount of time I spent in Boston and Chicago combined), which means I've just now eclipsed even my childhood home for my longest tenured abode.  And we are finally almost done with the things we wanted to do here.  And in a few short months, it will be our tenth anniversary and my 40th birthday, which is all kind of crazy to think about.  So milestones and goals abound...

I still need to put together a post on our warm and wet holiday roadtrip to Nashville and NW Florida, so stay tuned!

Four times two

The kids turned four last Sunday and we had a nice long weekend in the city (so much good food), save Marielle struggling with a cold.  She fell asleep at our Santa brunch, poor thing, but it was our fourth visit with the big man, so no big deal.

 

We took them to the pediatrician for their annual visit and all is good.  There were lots of shots (their last for years), and Mari decided to get her ears pierced, even though she'd previously been very set on waiting until she turned five (like I did).  She's going to be blowing a lot of my benchmarks out of the water I think. 

 

Dr. Dan said Alistair has "generous tonsils", so while he doesn't seem to be having issues, we'll be taking him to see a pediatric ENT to see if he is.

 

They are each 36 pounds (just above average for their age, though not for their height) and almost identical in height (according to their measure, though I think he has a slightly bigger jump on her which you can see when they stand together).  He is officially 42.5" and she is 42.25", both in the 90+ %ile (their first time since 15 mos.)

She passed out early birthday evening, so Alistair got to celebrate solo with his Sprinkles cupcake.  My sweet little man.

Smiling through tears, our girl's new bling.

Feeling much better the day after

Cupcake time!

She's decided she wants to grow out her hair and now with her earrings, it seems like she's added more than a year.  Time flies!

Merry Christmas!

Wrapping up 2015

The struggle is real...

Our babies turn four next weekend and we'll all be off to the city for a packed long b-day weekend.  We're actually staying at the same great hotel downtown we did for last year's b-day weekend.  The kids are super psyched, particularly about the pool.  I finish up my consulting project this week (thank goodness), though it has been extended through March, I opted out after my original contract, well I did agree to extend for this week to transition.

We'll spend Christmas at home and then it's off on a family road trip!  Long delayed (due to MIL's visit), but we are off to sunny Florida (the Emerald Coast) via Nashville (both new places for us).  We haven't been anywhere new (we're creatures of habit like that) in almost five years (our first trip to the Hamptons when I was expecting the twins), so it was time for some new scenery.  We are all excited for some non-lake sand between our toes.

So I'm returning to life as a SAHM, after my short term FT onsite project, and after turning down another FT permanent job last week that I was recruited for in Lake Forest several months ago.  It was so ridiculous, it's sad.  I actually semi-seriously considered it for a bit (all that money...), but it served as a means for me to flex my long dormant interviewing muscles (they still work!) and at least toy with the idea of trading non-paid manual labor for a position in senior leadership (Sr Director... of never seeing my kids) at a well regarded company.  I guess after all this time, you could call me an intentional SAHM now.  Only 20 months until they start full day kindergarten.

We're finally finishing up our seemingly never ending kitchen remodel, the only missing piece is the perfect backsplash tile, which so far has remained elusive.

Only a few weeks left until 2016, so excited to see what it will bring.  Happy Holidays!