Seinfeld Finale Night

As I know I’ve mentioned ten million times before, and will keep on mentioning until it is no longer reality, we move a lot. It could be pretty easy to give in to the stress and frustration of that, but we prefer to take it as an adventure. This requires a fair bit of effort, but what’s the point of living if you’re not living, you know?

Anyway, one of our secrets to happiness is to always look for a way to include fun adventures in our life. Having to move to yet another new city? Time to buy a guidebook and set out exploring (that’s my way), or just go for a long afternoon wander (that’s David’s way). Spending too much time working on separate projects? Share some articles or books with each other and then have a coffee date to discuss them. Forced to spend months apart? Share dinner dates over Skype. These are all things we’ve done in the past and they help. A lot.

David requested that I blog about one thing we did recently. We’re short on funds and can’t easily get a babysitter, so our lives revolve around reinventing the night-in. In the midst of Thesis Madness, David suggested that we watch Seinfeld from start to finish, all nine seasons. He purposefully never watched the finale when it aired years ago, because he wanted to save it as a treat for one vague future day. So I upped the suggestion by saying we make an actual Seinfeld Finale party night, since we weren’t together for the finale when it aired.

We both love pizza so the obvious solution was to have a pizza party. We spent a few weeks (ok, months), discussing topping options. This is the poor-man’s foodie art form, along with the burger, right?

We eventually settled on Spanish and seafood inspired pizzas. I made the sauce from scratch, because we wanted something that packed a spicy punch. Then it was time to load ‘em up. Our Spanish one sported chorizo, black olives, peppers, tomatoes, goat cheese, red onions & ‘mild’ cheese (similar to North American cheapo mozza). The seafood one had mussels, shrimp, spinach, mushrooms (on my half), mozza (the good kind), and more of the cheapo cheese. Verdict: delicious. Washed ‘em down with a bottle of red wine.

Homemade spicy sauce!

David used his mad chopping skillz

awkward selfie of the cooks (Walter was a taste-sampler)

Oven-ready, aside from the final dose of cheese

Seafood Pizza

Spanish Pizza

 It’s the little things like this that keep our sanity.

English Christmas (in England!), 2013

So... Christmas! Or, as I’ve been calling it in my head, The Year We Wanted to Go Home but Couldn’t So I tried Extra Hard to Make things Nice. David tells me that I succeeded, which is great because it means my title isn’t a total waste of brain space.

This was our fourth English Christmas, but it did not contain the following things which I’ve associated with English Christmas: Clare College Advent Service, Clare College Christmas Formal, M.R. James’ Ghost Stories at the Leper Chapel, Christmas Dinner with my work team, and Christmas week hijinks at the office. All of these things were missed but most of them would’ve been impossible with the two babies anyway.

For something completely new, we got to attend the Ely Lights Switch-On. That should be fairly self explanatory. Market Square was absolutely packed with stalls and people, there was a big stage where various performers blared bad music (we are so not down with what kids these days are listening to), and the air was full of Christmas cheer. We shared a bag of roasted chestnuts, with Walter joining in on the action, and eventually fought our way to a nice bit of ground to await the countdown. Then the city lit up with Christmas lights and it was beautiful and magical and actually really special to feel part of the community.

Eating his chestnuts

 

Their Santa Hats from Baba arrived that evening

Our Christmas Pudding!

David really wanted an Advent Wreath, so on the first Sunday of Advent we walked home via the fens and gathered some winter greenery which I then wove into a wreath. I’m so glad that we did this, because it’s one of the first Catholic things we’ve done that Walter has shown interest in. He wanted the candles lit every evening, with supper, and he’d remind me to use the prayer book if I forgot. We caught him trying to cross himself a couple of times as well.

We once again did the tree decorating on the Gaudete Sunday week of Advent. This year Walter was old enough to help, which mostly consisted of him appropriating the Christmas tree box as his new most favourite toy. To save money I handmade most of the decorations and it actually turned out better than I thought. In England people like to hang bright, foil-wrapped chocolates on their trees so we went that route because it made more sense to pay for edible decorations than for ones we’d toss out.

Ended the evening with Christmas baking, of course!

Instead of supper out, we had our pub outing for lunch on Christmas Eve. Then we made ourselves brave and woke the sleeping babies in time for the 11:30pm Carol Service at our church, followed by Midnight Mass. It was funny being out in the middle of the night with the double buggy, all of us dressed respectably for church, and walking past the long bar lineups and the police vans in downtown Ely. When we got home it seemed that Santa had dropped off a couple small packages for the children, although Walter was mostly interested in stacking them and Emily had no idea why we wanted her to rip paper.

We all got to bed at around 2am, but at least the kids didn’t want to wake up until closer to 9. And they’re too little to understand about presents and Christmas morning, so we were able to take things at our leisure. It was a lovely day, with lots of talking to family, and relaxing, and no heavy cooking. Both kids were a bit out of sorts, wanting long naps, so it meant that David and I had a fairly easy time of it once we got them to sleep. Our special gifts for them this year were ikons from the Ely Cathedral Shop: St George & the Dragon for Walter and the Old Testament Trinity for Emily. We wanted them to have something that they could keep for years to come, especially as they are too little to know that we are short changing them on the toy front!

Trying to eat his new cutlery set

 

We saved our big Christmas dinner for Boxing Day, because cooking a big meal for the whole family with two kids is an epic undertaking. The cooking was mostly stress-free and we ended up enjoying a lovely meal together, right before Walter's bedtime.

Hallowe'en / Bonfire Night

I got relatively caught up on “life blogging” only to lose track again. That’ll teach me. Anyway, I forgot to write about Hallowe’en, which is silly because it’s one of my favourite holidays, and in England we get to stretch the celebration all the way out to Bonfire Night (which should be on November 5th, Guy Fawkes Day, but is always stretched to the weekend following).

Right. Hallowe’en. Hallowe’en in England is not the big thing it is in North America. There seems to be some custom where you take the kids to the houses with the lit jack-o-lanterns if you want to guarantee candy. As I’m not really versed in this custom, and as the kids are too little to be allowed candy (yes, I’m that mean mum who tries to keep control over their sugar intake), we thought we’d give costumes & trick-or-treating a pass yet again. Yes, I long for the day when I can dress the children up in costumes, but it seemed more prudent to stay in and have our own celebration.

We did get Walter a little pumpkin to carve. It was one of those silly things where he won’t remember doing it and we didn’t use it, aside from lighting it on Hallowe’en, but it was good family fun anyway. Walter was interested in the whole process, he didn’t eat the pumpkin seeds, and he gave it many benevolent smiles from his highchair (the finished product being perched in the middle of our table).

lid on, lid off

On Hallowe’en Day we ended up having to make a trip to Cambridge, as David’s University Library card was expiring and, given his odd status as a non-student-non-alumnus (because he’s submitted his thesis but hasn’t graduated) it was necessary to speak to a Librarian in person about how best to renew his card. The kids & I went on an epic adventure to buy some shoes for Walter (and thanks to St Anthony found a super pair of Clarks for 50% off and Emily’s Christmas dress at Marks & Spencer for only £3 – trust me, it’s not that trivial to ask St Anthony for shoe finding help, as I’d been trying for months to find something Walter could walk in and we were getting desperate). On our way home we decided to drop into Fitzbillies and pick up Hallowe’en themed pastries for afternoon tea: a fairy cake for me and a fondant toad for David. Delicious.

the frog got a bit bashed on the journey back -- makes it look my Hallowe'eny

Supper was one of my special treats – Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good (bread, cream, bacon, & cheese). The pumpkin, being one of the mass market carving ones, was lacklustre but the filling was delicious. We also had Hobgoblin beers & a dish of Hallowe’en candy.

David suggested we watch a spooky movie, so we settled on The Skeleton Key. There’s always a big debate in this house when it’s time for scary movies. I’m a huge fan of vampires, but not really of other monsters. I don’t like watching movies, or reading books, that have a heavy dose of supernatural evil in them. David doesn’t like watching movies about serial killers/mass murderers, even though this is my favourite kind of horror/thriller movie. So to find a movie that manages to strike the right balance is a bit of a challenge. Skeleton Key ended up being a great choice. It had a supernatural element, but it was one that I could handle (it’s movies about demonic possession etc that I really can’t watch). It was cheesy but also managed to be creepy. I’m still going over the plot a few months later, because I thought that the story was interesting even if the movie wasn’t worth watching again.

Once Hallowe’en was over it was time for the English to break out the Guy Fawkes traditions. David’s viva was on November 5th, so we had no trouble scoring a box of fireworks to set off in honour of his pass. When we went to the park to light them, we were able to watch the fireworks from elsewhere in the city. Walter loved watching the beautiful explosions and it was a really fun little expedition.

Ely was having a big charity fundraiser fireworks display on November 9th. We’d planned to go, but when I looked online that day I discovered that they were charging £8 for a family entrance fee (in Cambridge it was always “by donation”), and we don’t have money for those kinds of extras, especially as the kids are too little to really care. It worked out just as well – we were able to watch the whole display from Walter’s bedroom window. The fireworks exploded over Ely Cathedral and it was just gorgeous. Walter perched on his windowsill and had a great time watching the event. I think we got a better view than if we’d gone to the park.

we were heading to a wedding after the fireworks, hence the suit

2013 in 13

After finally catching up I am, once again, woefully behind on blogging. I still need to post about Hallowe’en, and Christmas, and all that other stuff. But the kids are being normal kids, instead of those ones that baby experts seem to base their books off of (dolls, maybe?), so sleep is short around here and time is shorter and and and...

And and and, it makes sense to cover off 2013 in a picture post! Because I can look for pictures with one hand while feeding Emily with the other. So here we go, and if you like the idea you should join the link up.

2013 in 13 Pictures

I love this picture, mostly because it makes my mum look like a hobbit. Also because the back story is literally a back story – she was having all sorts of weird pains with her back and neck and could barely move, but it didn’t stop her from trying to finish the kitchen renovations. Anyway, that’s not why I picked this. I picked it because the hominess of it sums up all the wonderfulness that is just being at home with a loving family. Even if the circumstances that brought me home weren’t ideal, it was wonderful being able to spend so much time with my family:

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This picture has been affectionately titled “Walter Needs a Visa”. The expression on his face pretty much sums up how I felt for most of last winter when I let myself dwell too much on the uncertainty facing our family. This is Walter’s visa picture, so it was taken when I at least knew where I was going, and that I had a job to go back to, and that we wouldn’t have to be away from David any longer. I knew the upcoming months would be difficult, but at least we’d be together:

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This is Easter, 2013. Walter & I were both horrendously sick with the ‘flu and couldn’t make it to the Easter Vigil, which broke my heart. We were also still in transition, not yet settled, and everything still seemed dark and dreary. So I sang. I sang the Exultet to Walter, to welcome in Easter Morning, and as I sang the dark cloud lifted and broke and I felt as if there was hope again. And miraculously enough, that was the day our flu cleared up:

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We moved to Ely, thus fulfilling my dream of living out in the English countryside. It’s been marvelous:

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David & Walter at the Eel Festival. Why? Because it was one of the first outings we had once we got settled in. But more than that, because it’s my little boy back with his daddy, having the time of his life. Two months apart was way too long:

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A bump! And at this point in time I was still hopeful that I would give birth “on time”. And I finally was looking pregnant. And the ultrasounds were looking good and the pregnancy was on track and it seemed that despite some worrying in the first trimester, Secunda was here to stay:

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Ely Folk Festival, which kicked off the start of my maternity leave. This family loves folk music. Being able to take Walter to his first festival and experience it with him was amazing. It was one of the highlights of the year, especially because it was so nice to just be doing fun things as a family again:

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Emily, less than two hours after birth. So thankful I had to be induced, because it kick started natural labour while I was at the hospital and I went from 4cm to Baby in about three hours, which would’ve been a nightmare if we’d been driving from Ely. And it was so nice to experience a normal birth and to have that special time where the three of us could get to know each other:

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My mum came to visit, for a month, and although most of that month was a blur of me being super exhausted and grouchy and way too pregnant, it was still lovely. She got to spend so much time with Walter and that is really special, especially since she was the first person he saw when he crashed into the world the previous August:

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Aside from Emily’s birth, this would have to be the highlight of the year – David completed & submitted his dissertation on time, and passed his viva, and very very soon I'll be able to sign myself "Dr & Mrs". I still cry when I think about the day we went, as a family, to submit his dissertation. To take all the blood, sweat, & tears, particularly of the last two years, and see that the sacrifices really did accomplish something... words fail:

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I got my nose pierced, after wanting one since I was a teenager. And I finally feel as if I look like myself and as if one more key to understanding my personality is visible:
 

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I turned thirty!

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Being able to celebrate Christmas in England with my England Babies. It was special to have our own Christmas this year, to introduce them to our little traditions, and to enjoy watching them experience the holiday:

2013 was a hard year. But it wasn’t as hard as 2012 and it at least brought us forward instead of keeping us in a horrible limbo. I don’t know what to expect from 2014. I’m nervous about this next stage of life, with everything so uncertain and unsettled, so I am trying to take it one day at a time. But I think we're going to be ok.

Apple Festival!

The City of Ely hosts an annual apple festival. David and I stumbled upon it by accident in 2011 – I’d just returned to England with my new visa and a daytrip to Ely was our big date after nearly a month apart. Needless to say, I was really excited to be heading out to it again and was especially looking forward to experiencing it with our little apple-munching-monster.

Still trying to get the apple stains out of his shirt collar...

The day was grey but the weather held (David credits my prayers). There was a stall outside of the Cathedral where a Christian group was giving away free coffee, tea, & Jesus-prayer tracts. We took advantage of their hot drinks although I had a mild qualm of conscience about participating when I already knew the drill. Then I thought back to my childhood and figured that as I’m now Catholic I may no longer count as Christian to certain other Christians, and therefore I’m still open game for evangelisation, so I could drink the tea without feeling that I was stealing it from the mouths of lost souls.



Once we’d warmed up with our hot drinks, and once the liquids had decreased enough that I could safely push the buggy without spilling tea everywhere, it was time to check out everything apple. David & I split the festival monies so that we could each pick out treats for an afternoon feast without feeling the need to negotiate. So, as soon as I spotted the booth I was hoping for, I ran off to buy some Wobbly Bottom cheese. They make their cheese primarily from goat & sheep milk and have a great range of flavours. Goat cheese with nettle is my favourite (a certain friend brought me some a present shortly after Walter was born), but this time I went for a log of soft goat cheese with garlic. Delicious! The garlic & cheese combo was sweet, nutty, and creamy. Certainly satisfied this little Ukrainian’s constant need for garlic.


While I was busy ‘negotiating’ (ie trying to break through a sea of Angles who suddenly all needed cheese right away) the crowd at the cheese counter, David & Walter were busy checking out an apple display at a booth set up by the Ely Farmer’s Market. The woman who was manning the booth was busy feeding Walter samples of different apples, and he was busy thinking he was in paradise (pre-fall, post-snake perhaps). David also squired Walter off to check out some birds of prey (owls & falcons), although Walter was too little to hold them.

He'd totally have won any competition for how much apple one could cram into their mouth...

cheeky monkey

There was an apple shy (like a coconut shy, only with apples) with the money going to the Christmas Light Up, so David decided to take part in a show of town spirit. He managed to knock down a couple giant bramley apples and won four sweet apples as a prize. He presented them to Walter who seemed unable to quite believe his good fortune of Papa handing him four apples at once.

Sharing one of David's prize apples

We toured the rest of the festival, picking up treats for an afternoon feast – apple & blackberry crumb cake, apple cider, Cambridgeshire honey, and a kilo of fancy apples (egremont russet, michaelmas red, & orange pippin). Then us adults chowed down on some pork & apple burgers while Walter tried to convince us that he was old enough to enjoy the same treat (ha – he wishes).

plunder!

It was only a short part of our day but it was really fun. We came home and had a feast of local foods, watched a few episodes of Seinfeld, and just enjoyed being together as a family. I am so grateful that we live in a community that always has little things like this going on. It’s fun going out and experiencing this aspect of English life – with the Town Crier dressed up & clanging her bell, with Morris Dancers congregating in the street, and with other families just out with their kids on a Saturday morning. Days like this go a long way to making up for the sacrifice of living so far away from home.

My Thirtieth Birthday

A scarce two months and a day after Walter’s birthday comes mine, and this year it was a big event as I was turning thirty. Puzzling over what to do with my birthday had been on my mind for months – with a new baby and David just completing his work I wasn’t sure if a big party was the way to go. So I thought about it, and thought about my introvert personality, and decided to skip the party and aim for a family day. It meant a lot less stress and something different from the usual.

By a stroke of divine grace both children slept in until after seven on the morning of my birthday. And then they gave me a fuss-free morning. David made breakfast, Walter went for his nap, and Emily cuddled on me while I stayed in bed reading The Return of the King and feeling spoiled.

I’d hoped to go on an autumn picnic, but the day was gray and the parks were insufficiently dry. So we spent a picnic lunch indoors. As I was assembling our lunch, Walter came barreling down the hall with a gift for me – a box of truffles from the local choclatier. Emily, meanwhile, was holding a giant card and a limited edition Loreena McKennitt cd for me. The cd has all of my favourite songs on it and is a real treat (I’m a big fan).

After lunch (moroccan humous, cheese baguette, french brie, tomatoes, victoria sponge cake, crisps, and cherry cola) we went for a walk. Over the past few weeks, David had been scouting out a fenland nature walk for us to take on my birthday. He wanted to ensure that we could get the buggy down the trails and that the route was one that could get us home easily at the end, in case the kids were freaking out or I was really tired. Knowing that I was on a custom-planned walk was one of the best gifts of the day. The weather cooperated beautifully, the kids were well behaved, and we prowled in the fens for nearly two hours.

My boys

standing on a bridge over the Ouse

enjoying the fresh air

The area between the River Ouse and town is, to the naked eye, mere pastureland with cows, horses, and the railroad. In actual fact there are hidden lakes, where water has flooded the deep clay pits. There are sail boats, fishermen, and all manner of flora & fauna. Brambles overhang the path, and at this time of year they are full of delicious berries. It was so wonderful to be out in the country and gave me a very memorable birthday treat.

boats moored in the clay pits

Ely Cathedral across the Water (sort of what the medieval view was like)

pasture on the way home

bramble berries! I love feeding these to Walter on our walks

Because we don’t eat meat on Friday, and because I’m very fond of our normal Friday routine, I opted to postpone my birthday dinner until Sunday and we went ahead with our regular pizza night. As it was my birthday, David obliged me in my movie choice and we watched the 1985 Anne of Green Gables, which is one of the first movies I remember seeing.

Fast forward to Sunday – David spent the afternoon cooking my birthday dinner (made to order, no less!). We had roast beef, roast potatoes, beans & carrots, yorkshire pudding (which I made, because we long ago agreed that every couple needs some secrets and my yorkshire recipe should be one of those), and my favourite chocolate cake (with many comments on the butter & sugar content, because some people don’t understand that when it’s birthday cake the sugar & butter NO LONGER COUNT). It was a lovely meal and such a treat to have it all cooked for me.

My twenties were jam-packed with adventures. I got my BA & MA, lived in seven different cities and three different countries, found a career that really suits me, married my soulmate, had two children, and got to participate in a style of life that my wildest dreams had only touched on (balls, formals, garden parties, punting, etc). My resume has grown with the various jobs I’ve taken all over the world, and my personality has grown with those different experiences. It’s not been without excruciatingly hard parts: verbally abusive work environments that made me sick with stress, the pain of realising that the Academic Dream wasn’t for me, and the dark uncertainty of the last year of David’s PhD. But the memory of the hard parts fades, and the beauty of the life that I am creating with my husband and our children remains.

I hope that my thirties bring us to a place where we can be a little more settled. Moving every few years is expensive and tiresome, even if it is exciting to discover new cities and countries. I’d like the opportunity to pay down our debts, to really get involved in a community without knowing that it was only for a short period of time, and to focus on building our home. These are, I guess, my material goals.

I hope that I’ll be able to spend the next decade indulging my creativity a bit more. I want to learn to play the harp, and I’d like to get into better physical shape through some sort of dance class. I’d like to have a couple, or a few, more babies, and if there is any time remaining I wouldn’t mind learning a new craft, like mosaic making. And, if circumstances come together in the right way, I would like to join a choir again. These are my goals for continuing to develop into the person I want to be.

I hope to spend the next decade learning how to raise a Catholic family. I want to see my children learn from my example, and I want to see my own faith deepen and grow as I try to express it to them. I want to increase my prayer life into something meaningful and important. I want to increase the happiness and joy of those around me. I want to take part regularly in Adoration, sitting face to face with Christ and learning to commune with Him that way. These are my goals for developing into the holy person God wants me to be.

I’m looking forward to it.