daily journaling

I already mentioned my trip to Boston last week. And I feel that any major trip that I take alone with the boys is worthy of dwelling upon for any length of time. So here are some pics.

First of all, you have to know something about me, I obsess over maps and ways to get places. So we've been going to Maine in the summer for the past four years. And this whole time I've been tweaking the route to New England to be the most interesting and the most expeditious. Because there's this big thing called New York City between Philly and New England.

On Valentine's Day I got a call from the chair of the department to which I applied at Boston University. I was enthusiastically accepted. (I'm glad I got the accept before the rejects. ha!)

Today is St. Patrick's Day. Today the chair of the department to which I applied got a call from me to say that I accepted their offer.

Wow, if I don't blog today, the month of February will pass by without a single blog entry! The horrors! I don't think that's ever happened to me in the eight and a half years of blogging.

I hereby declare today Swedish day.

My energy is waning, and the to-do list is getting short either by completion or deletion. I needed to keep today a little bit simpler. My main task for today was to make Swedish Coffee buns (after the Rayburn's recipe). My college roomie and I bonded over Christmas and our shared Swedish heritage. I love these coffee buns she made every Christmas. The secret is cardamom. I made a pile for our Christmas breakfast and sent a text to her. She was making them, too.

Ellis is into playing Santa. He rides around on his Tonka truck (aka Sleigh) delivering cardboard bricks (aka presents) to good little mommies and daddies. Then he carefully arranges them underneath the tree. Dress rehearsal?

I made peanut brittle for the first time!!

I didn't have a candy thermometer. And I've never really made candy. So it took about three tries and lots of drops in a cup of water to get the right temperature. All the recipes that tell you to boil for a certain number of minutes are just garbage! It's actually a mix of nuts and a few raisins.

Thankful for a trunk full of groceries.

Let the feasting begin!!

Also thankful for this guy:

A quick handmade gift. I got some a square piece of fleece (about 56" square--fleece is wider per yard than average cotton). Then I appliqued the hearts and snowflake on it. And fringed the edges. A nice throw for C's aunt.

Speaking of Marlowe and ornaments. He has to say "hi" to all his friends in the ornament aisle of Target every time we go there.

Whoops. Got really behind on posting. But I have a bunch of pictures. So here's my catch-up.

I had to use this day to share one of my new favorite ornaments. This beaded T. Rex that we got at the Natural History museum in NYC over Tday weekend. Or, as Marlowe says, T. Wex.