We went to Silver Spring yesterday to check out the street festival, get some Coldstone Creamery ice cream for Anna, and visit the semi-new Marimekko store. We bought a cute watering can at Marimekko, but unfortunately, it leaks. (It also says "Made in W. Germany" on the bottom.) We can't decide whether to return it or try to fix it ourselves.

Latest culinary efforts include banana cupcakes and a red bean and sweet potato curry. Anna gives the curry 4.6 out of 5 stars.

We're attempting to toilet-train the cats. The book we have on the subject says to gradually raise the height of the litterbox until it's level with the toilet, then put the box over the toilet seat, and then finally get rid of the box altogether. We're in the preparation stage right now, that is, we're getting the cats used to using their box without the cover on top. In a few days, we'll switch to a shallower box moved next to the toilet. Stay tuned for toilet-training updates!

Reminder to DC friends: the Green Festival is next weekend, as is the Takoma Park Street Festival.

A Bright Yellow Kettle

As Erin went to New York this weekend to visit friends, I had envisioned myself finally getting some work done on that paper I am supposed to be co-writing – but oh, how wrong I was… Besides feeling obligated to fulfill the weekly cleaning requirements that we agreed upon (which I did Saturday morning), moving into a new place brings with it all kinds of other distractions. Hence, it is 3:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon, and I have yet to start working on the paper and preparing tomorrow’s class…

Examples of fun things to do to get your home in better shape after a recent relocation are: cutting off curtains to the right length; cleaning and replacing the carbon filter in the air purifier, desperately moving around the pot with recently sown oregano into random spots of sunlight inside and outside (my mom claims that it knows that it is not the right season to be growing! I would appreciate any comments on that!); hanging pictures; attempting to unpack that last moving box that just doesn’t seem to want to be unpacked; and last but not least, traveling for almost an hour to get to that one store where you suspected that you might find that perfect tea kettle that you have been in need of ever since moving. Guess what. I found it. And it is bright yellow. Now that we pay both electricity and gas separately, it makes sense to get rid of that old defunct electric kettle and replacing it with one that does not risk setting the apartment on fire if you don’t turn it off on time. So, here it is! For those of you who live close enough – consider this an invitation to a tea party!


ps. Here are some more pictures of the new apartment. Enjoy!

ode to our kitchen

Here are some pictures of our kitchen, i.e., where the magic happens:



In my quest to find meaning (and distraction) in Life After School, I've taken up cooking. Anna has always done most of the heavy lifting in the kitchen, but I feel that in the past few months, I've started to pull my weight. I've been cooking and baking recipes from Vegan with a Vengeance, Vegan Planet, and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. We're not vegan--Anna eats fish and we both eat dairy when we're out and about--but we do like eating vegan at home. Tonight I made banana cupcakes with chocolate ganache icing, yum.

Anyhoo, our new kitchen is teeny-tiny, but features an enormous oven and refrigerator. The fridge is so big, in fact, that we've taken to storing things in it that don't really need to be refrigerated because of lack of space elsewhere in the apartment. We use the crisper as a sock drawer. Nothing like a cool pair of socks on a hot summer morning. I kid!

We hit the Takoma Park Farmers Market this morning. (I feel this should be written "farmers' market" but no one asked me.) We were on the hunt for eggplant, which we found, and some more of the awesome pears I got last week, which we did not find, probably due in no small part to the fact that I couldn't remember what type they were, only that they were brownish in color. We also picked up some apples and corn on the cob. Anna only recently had fresh corn on the cob for the first time, corn cobs coming only in cans in Sweden--the horror!

"berkeley of the east."

Hi all, friends and family. As most of you know by now, we just moved to Takoma Park, MD. We've fielded a lot of questions about the move, which I think we've answered in a different way every time we've been asked. There were a lot of great reasons for us to move outside the city (bike paths, cleaner air, quiet, darkness) but the gritty truth of the matter is that the price was right. That phrase has become a running joke between us and a few days ago, when I proposed starting a blog, Anna suggested our new tag line as the title.

coworker: So, how's the new apartment?
Erin: Good. We're finally unpacked and starting to settle in.
coworker: That's great. How much shorter is your commute?
Erin: Well, it's actually longer than it was before.
coworker: Oh, ok. But your new place must be a lot bigger.
Erin: ...
coworker: (puzzled look)

Right. The new apartment is smaller and farther from my work and Anna's school. But we now live next to a park with a paved path perfect for biking and skating, we're only 7 miles from IKEA, parking and laundry are both free, and we have beautiful hardwood floors, crazy vintage bathroom tiles, and ceiling fans. We also have windows on 3 sides, all with windowsills just wide enough to fit a 12-pound cat or two.

Apart from being about the Benjamins and the factors mentioned above, this move is also important to us because it marks a new beginning of sorts--Anna has finished classes and comprehensive exams, and will now begin the work of dissertation writing, and I am beginning my first fall as a non-student, a big change for me after 21.5 straight years of education. We both feel we're making a fresh start.

We're launching this blog to share a little of our daily life as we enter this new phase. Check back soon for apartment photos and other updates. Hej så länge!