Photo Friday: Taking Too Long

All is calm as I begin to take photos ...

... but if I take too long ...! Aug. 27, 2015

Wedding Anniversary #12

It's difficult to believe that Paul and I will have been married 12 years on this coming Sunday. It seems like a long time ... until you compare it to my grandparents. One pair celebrated 60 years this summer. The other, 65 years. We've been through a lot during the last dozen years, but it's clear that we have a lot to learn.

This anniversary also means that we've spent more than half of our married life in Ohio. We spent just a few months short of six years in New York. Of course we were never full-fledged New Yorkers -- how could we be, when we were both born, bred and educated in Ohio? -- but it is the place where we were alone together the most. And so this seems like another milestone that takes us further away from our time there.

A lot has happened in 12 years: two kids, two states, two houses. And we're just two ordinary people who hope to have many more years and adventures together.

Photo Friday: Siblings

Aug. 17, 2015

Talkative Edith

It's time to watch what we say around Edith.

She hasn't said anything bad (so far), but she's listening. Just the other day she told me with a straight face and even voice to "calm down" -- something Paul has reason to say to me all too often.

Edith has yet to work on her negotiation skills. Here's one of our recent early morning conversations:

Edith: Cookie, please?
Me: Nooooo.
Edith: Two cookies?

And she's getting more curious. "Where Jesus go?" she asked me in the middle of mass this past weekend. (How do you answer that?) She hasn't yet begun to ask "why." Instead, it's "what's that?" After every - single - noise.

She's 2 years and 9 months old, and I'm learning firsthand that toddlers are definitely more mentally exhausting than physically so.

Photo Friday: Minnie Jump Up

Atticus barely has been in the jumper we recently attached to our doorway, but Minnie Mouse already has had a turn.

Tiny Baby Makes Tiny Changes to House

As the day of Atticus's birth got closer and closer this past spring, I remember feelings of sadness mixed in with the excitement. Of course, I couldn't wait to meet the baby boy, but I also felt sorry that Edith would no longer have my undivided attention. I knew this wasn't the end of the world -- and would probably even be good for her. But, for lack of a better term, it seemed like the end of an era.

Looking back on these last four months, however, it seems that little has changed.

Atticus is so easy going that he demands little besides milk, sleep and a roof over his head. Edith is certainly not lacking for attention. If anything, I feel sorry that Atticus doesn't have more of it.

I've been told that this will change as soon as Atticus is on the move. I've seen a little of this already, since he began rolling over a few weeks ago. I already have to make sure Edith's crayons are far away from tiny baby hands that love to grab things.

But the changes that a baby brings have been gradual and did not result in the instant 180-degree turn that I expected. I don't know Edith's thoughts on the matter, but I know that I already can't imagine our household without Atticus.

Photo Friday: As Atticus Finch

With the release earlier this summer of "Go Set a Watchman," along with all of the news about the name "Atticus," I had been seeing a lot of photos of Gregory Peck in the old movie version of "To Kill a Mockingbird." So I did my own photo shoot of my Atticus as Mr. Potato Head as Atticus Finch.

July 23, 2015

Finding Okonomiyaki in Columbus

One of my best vacation memories happened in Japan almost six years ago, when we were visiting friends who lived in Hiroshima at the time. They took us to a restaurant that we never would have found on our own, and we sat around the grill eating okonomiyaki. We ate a lot of new foods during that trip, but that was probably the best.

Since then, I've tried to find a place that recreated the okonomiyaki I remember from then. We found one place in New York City, in the East Village. It tasted similar, and it was cooked in the Hiroshima-style, with the layers of cabbage and toppings piled high, almost like a warm salad. After we ate there once or twice, the restaurant shut down.

I was excited to find one place in Columbus that served okonomiyaki, and we finally tried it last month. Unfortunately, it was made in what I understand to be the Osaka style. It was pretty much a savory pancake. (In my head, I think of it as Kyoto style -- we had it in the train station there, and I remember it pretty much being like pizza.)

Nevertheless, ZenCha Tea Salon was good. The okonomiyaki was filled with vegetables and topped with your choice of protein (I got tofu), along with a type of mayo and sweet sauce. While it was fun to fulfill my okonomiyaki fix, the real star of the show was the tea of the day: an iced rose latte. I don't drink much tea, and I drink absolutely no coffee (yuck), so I don't know much about them. In fact, I thought that latte referred exclusively to a type of coffee. My bad. The rose latte sample the server brought to the table was delicious and is worth a trip back to ZenCha on its own.

So maybe the okonomiyaki wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, but I'll be back for the rose latte. And maybe next time, the blueberry lavender pancake.