Holiday House Tour 2010

I love these little red bells

Wow, what an incredibly busy year! I am only going to include pics of our new home in this post, as my holiday letter will highlight the ups and downs of this crazy year. It was a blast trying to figure out how to use our favorite decorations in our new indoor and outdoor spaces.  We used to have a fence that circled our property and we loved to hang white pine roping with white lights and big red bows out front.  This year we decided to be relatively low-key and just hang a wreath and some roping around the door, and light up the

Our first-ever fireplace and big-arse tree

little shrubs outside our entry way.  The container is full of stuff we found in the woods behind our house and some artificial poinsettias.

Happy Holidays to everyone!!  Here’s wishing for a peaceful and family-filled holiday season and a wonderful 2011!

Silver chest in dining room

New stockings this year!

Hung from the chimney with caPatience Brewster table that I totally heart!

re…

This is the biggest tree we've ever had!

Thoughtful risked life and limb to climb up and hang the big wreath!

Happy Holidays 2009

This is a more "petite" tree than we usually cut down, but we're pretty happy with it.

I am late to the game and scrambling to join the fabulous Jen on the Edge http://jenontheedge.com Holiday Home tour.  I snapped some photos of my barely-decorated home to share with you here.  Check them out:

I foraged in our local fields to find bittersweet, thistle and other cool natural stuff for this arrangement.

As much as I love the smell of pine and the way the interesting, twirly lengths of bittersweet look in an arrangement, man do they make a mess!   Good thing it’s only once a year.

Every year we go to a farm in nearby Grafton, MA to cut down a tree.  It’s a tradition that my husband and I have kept up since before we were married.  It’s crazy to think that now my husband doesn’t even cut the tree down–that task is left to our 13-year-old son who insists on doing it himself.  It makes us smile…

I have been trying to upload some other pics but wordpress is refusing to save them, argh.  So, I guess this is it!

I love the handmade stockings that our friend Jil made each boy when they were born.

Tam Bam

She even cleans up well!

If I’m the reluctant athlete, my sister is the polar opposite.   I feel compelled to share her story, because she continually amazes me.  The funny thing is, she credits me for getting her back into racing.  When she was in college, she was on the marathon team and a fierce competitor, even breaking the school’s record for a female marathoner.   After college, life and a family quickly happened and racing was left behind.

About 8 or 9 years ago, a couple of friends were planning on running a 5k, and I talked my sister into joining us.  We all started out together, but Tam got her speed on and quickly went out ahead.   With barely any training, she ran sub-8-minute miles and tore it up.  And she was hooked.

Then my company sponsored a triathlon and my boss at the time said, “You’re a runner.  You’re on this relay team”.  Um….ok.  I knew Tam would be up for the challenge, and of course rather than just doing one leg of a relay team, she did the whole thing and rocked it.  We both ended up with trophies from that day. (I was clearly the weakest link on the team, but I had the good fortune of speedy teammates!)

Fast forward to today.  She’s done countless sprint, olympic, half-iron and 3 full Ironman triathlons and has more hardware (medals) than she knows what to do with.  Yes, all while raising two children and working full time.  But it gets better!  Triathlons lost a little of their appeal and she wanted to do something more “adventurous”.   She got connected to a team out of Annapolis that was looking for a female to join their Adventure Racing team.

Adventure racers are a unique kind of crazy.  You basically run/orienteer and bushwhack for the “running” legs of the race, kayak or canoe for the water legs and mountain bike over insane terrain during the bike legs.  A 6 hour race is considered a sprint (!) and she’s recently done a race that lasted 60 hours.  Yes, people, 60 hours of continuously trying to navigate to find checkpoints (GPS NOT allowed), whether that meant being dumped out in the middle of rapids, taming the single track or fighting their way through the woods.  Oh, and most races have the added bonus of some kind of heart-stopping challenge like rappelling down a 7-story building or rock face, ziplining across a ravine or climbing up a sheer rock face.   And she not only participates in these races, she is GREAT.

Here are some shots of her in one race or another:

Just before the AR Nationals

Good clean fun!

Her most recent race, last weekend, was the American Zofingen.  From their site:  “American Zofingen has been created to fill the glaring void in the US duathlon race calendar, i.e. the lack of an ultra distance duathlon a la Powerman Zofingen in Switzerland. Mark Allen, 6 time victor of Ironman Hawaii, has been quoted as

saying the hardest race he’s ever done is Powerman Zofingen. Powerman Zofingen’s severity is due more to its terrain (mountainous road bike course, hilly trail runs) than its formidable length (10K run / 150K bike / 30K run). American Zofingen, although slightly shorter, is arguably harder. New Paltz, as a venue, offers stunning scenery and a grueling challenge. Late October in the Hudson Valley is a wondrous time of flaming foliage, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, hot cider, headless horsemen and, now, one of the toughest duathlons on the planet. “

She took second place for the second year in a row and is the only female to finish the long course 3 times.  Amazing!  The fact that she can hang with the big dogs in an event like that, and clean up in her sassy black dress and heels is pretty freaking great.

2nd place!

The Incredible ICA

We had a great day yesterday, checking out the Damian Ortega exhibit at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art.   The museum itself is a work of art, perched on the waterfront near the World Trade Center and constructed of concrete and glass.  Rich and I visited the museum a couple of weeks ago, the day they were installing the Ortega work, so we were given free passes to return after the exhibit was open to the public.  It was definitely worth the return trip!

ICA building

We were disappointed that we missed the Sheppard Farrey exhibit, so we wanted to be  sure to catch the artist’s work that included what looked like an exploded Volkswagon Beetle, chairs stacked interestingly on each other, and other cool and clever pieces.

Before we headed into the museum, we walked along to water to check out this cool 3d sculpture that we’d seen on the news.  It’s a 40-foot metal sculpture called THE FISH, made from repurposed sheet steel, metal rods and exhaust pipes.  It actually sits out in the harbor on a raft, and will only be on Fan Pier until mid-October.    This is a crappish picture, but you get the idea:

THE FISH

Then we were on to the museum, where I am so bummed that you aren’t allowed to take photos!  We headed straight to the Ortega work, and man, was it cool.   This is the Volkswagon that I referred to:

Ortega Beetle

And then there were the 120 blown glass variations on the classic Coke bottle–so amazing how that one form could be manipulated in so many interesting and beautiful ways.  And the three metal barrels balanced on each other so precariously we couldn’t figure out how they stayed together.  All of the art was life-sized and just drew you in.  I absolutely loved the spontaneous art that he created as they were installing his work.  He took the $100 expense fee that the museum gave him, and turned it into art.  He got it exchanged into pennies, and taped all of the penny rolls together like a long snake on the floor.

We also saw some of the longer term work that lives at the ICA, including “Acting Out: Social Experiments in Video”.  My favorite was a film that Phil Collins did in the UK of a laughing contest.  It was creepy and disturbing, showing the contortions that people’s faces went through as they tried to continuously laugh to win a pot of cash.  Most of the contestants looked truly pained at different moments during the contest.

Smiles cracked me up by saying, “You know, I need to be here because I’m just one of those people that sees art in everything”.  Mr. Grownup.

What is your favorite museum?  Is there an upcoming exhibit that we can’t miss?

Inspiration

About 2 years ago, I was on my usual Friday morning run with my great friend Diana and my faithful lab Max, and she was describing a blog that featured daily photos of a woman’s dog with various items perched on his head, as well as social commentary that was hilarious.  Of course, she was referring to www.dooce.com, who is the rock star of all rock star bloggers.   I got completely sucked in, and checked back every few days.

At about the same time, I was getting google alerts about blogs that mentioned my company.  So I became a little obsessed with the spiderweb of interconnected blogs out there, and happened upon my very favorite blog, www.jenontheedge.com.   I really have no idea what magical link lead me to click on Jen’s blog, but I’m so very happy that one did!  Jen’s outlook on the world very closely matches mine, although she actually IS a very green person, where I only aspire to be at this point.   She’s a prolific blogger, which I love, and she actually writes on another blog, Eco Women: Protectors of the Planet! http://ecowomen.net/.  She’s so freaking funny and snarky in all the right ways–I have literally found myself giggling, snorting and guffawing at her posts.

I have to tell you, I lurked there for a long time, but then finally mustered up the mojo to write a comment.  And, much to my amazement, SHE REPLIED!  I felt like a celebrity reached out to me–it was so cool!  And since that first interaction, we’ve had some wonderful conversations, and I consider Jen a friend.  She gently pushed me to start this blog, and I am excited to finally have made it happen.  Talk about inspiration–she was it!

Diana and I talked about each starting blogs, and she is my other inspiration.  She moved back to her native Canada over a year ago, and I still miss her terribly, but we will always be friends.  We harass each other on Facebook and stay connected to each others’ lives.  Her blog, which has been put on hold, is here: http://besidethebutter.wordpress.com/ She is a witty, smart hard core athlete and I could rely on her great mind to help me with any work-or family-related drama or stress that I was dealing with.  We did everything from coach a Destination ImagiNation team to biking and road racing together.

Before we met, I kept seeing her name at the top of the results of local road races that I ran.  I was like, “Who’s this Diana bitch from Franklin that is scooping up the hardware at every race??!”  Hee.  I’m proud to call that bitch my friend!

Tae kwon Mom

Low block!

Thoughtful has been doing TKD for a long time, which I talked about here:  http://pearlywag.tumblr.com a while ago.   So now, Smiles and I are in on the fun.  Thoughtful was in the process of testing for his junior black belt this week and the pressure was on!   The Martial Arts center where we all practice changed up the process, which is really cool.  Now, rather than having to test in front of a room full of friends and family members, they test during the week, at regular class time.  He had to demonstrate his knowledge in his complicated “form” by performing it perfectly in front of his instructors during the week.  It had at least 20 separate steps that had to memorized and performed in the correct way and sequence.

Saturday was the ever-so-fun Belt Ceremony!  We got to watch him break some boards and get presented with his shiny new black belt, embroidered with his name, even.

Meanwhile, Smiles and I are working our way, ever so slowly, towards our next belts.  Of course Smiles is more dedicated than I am, so he has earned his yellow belt and is on his way to testing for his high yellow.  I’m still a lowly high white belt, but have more time on my hands, given that I’m unemployed a renewed dedication to TKD.

Smiles approaches the board he needs to break with a side kick

Smiles: Newly minted yellow belt!

So, twice a week, there are three family members attending three different classes.  Which means lots of trips back-and-forth-and-back-and-forth to the dojang.  Thankfully it’s about a mile and a half from our house and Thoughtful typically rides his bike to and fro.

Oh, and I’m the only slacker that only goes 2x/week.  Thoughtful and Smiles each go at least 3x/week.  I think it’s time for me to step up, especially after seeing the incredible coolness of the forms and kicks that you get to do as you progress through your belts.

Check out the three boards that Thoughtful broke with a punch–so cool!

Downward punch--the boards never had a chance!

There were about 30 students at the belt ceremony and we got to see some amazing breaks.  I think my favorite is the flying side kick, where the student sprints across the dojang, and throws a side kick in the air to break 2 or 3 boards.

The newest junior black belt!

The junior black belt, like everything in the martial arts, is one step in a longer process.  There are three levels of junior black belt, and each level takes 9 months to a year to reach.

After that?  The real deal: a true tae kwon-do black belt.  We’re all pretty excited about that–and Smiles and I hope to make it to that level at some point ourselves.

I love what it does for core strength, coordination (I have none, so there’s nowhere to go but up from there), and self defense.  Having worked in a relatively sketchy part of Boston, I loved knowing that I could at least get an attacker away from me; if not doing some damage myself!

A Moment of Clarity

You know when something strikes you; a thought that pops so quickly and completely into your brain that it almost stops you in your tracks?  I had that moment on Wednesday, August 19th.  I knew that the company that I was working for was hitting some difficult financial times, and I knew at that very moment that I was going to lose my job within the next few weeks.

I was right.  My last day of work was September 4th.

I have gone through a roller coaster of emotions, but strangely, anger wasn’t on the list.  I hadn’t been completely happy for some time, but for a variety of reasons, felt like I needed to stay there, plugging away.   At first I was simply panicked–nauseous and sweaty, with my heart rate going through the roof any time I let my brain settle on the fact that OMIGOD I DON’T HAVE A JOB.  I lost five pounds and drank buckets of wine in the first week after getting confirmation that my epiphany was indeed fact.   That’s when I knew I needed to get my ass in gear and reach out to my network and at least get some networking meetings going.

The response was one that almost brought me to tears.  I sent out 50 emails, to people I hadn’t talked to in over a year in some cases, and within 24 hours, I had 37 replies.  Then, God love social media, I changed my status on Facebook and LinkedIn and more meeting requests came in.  And the love.  Good lord, the love I have been shown by my friends and family is insane!  The panic gave way to hope and that’s where I am right now.

Now I have the freedom to pick my head up and check out some seriously cool opportunities.  I have had at least one meeting or phone screen every day since I finished up.  I am in the running for 5 opportunities right now, ranging from Division Director to VP, Product to CEO.  I am meeting seriously cool, smart people and having fun introducing other co-workers that lost their jobs to people who could help them find new ones.  The good karma is flowing and I am only getting the “squirrely stomach” feeling occasionally.

Stay tuned!

An Amazing Experience

Phil's Phriends, 4am, morning of PMC kickoff

A few weeks ago, I participated in my third Pan Mass Challenge, which is a two-day, 185+ mile bike ride to raise money for cancer research.  I thought I’d share my experience here, since I can’t stop thinking about it.

First, let’s talk about my team,Phil’s Phriends.  This is a collection of 15 fantastic, wonderful, fun and funny friends that I’ve been riding with, each of my three seasons.   The team has been riding together for 7 years, ever since a dear friend and neighbor embarked on, and lost his battle with prostate cancer.   They are a diverse group, including a town administrator, a nurse, a yoga instructor, lawyer, a few engineers and two school committee members just to name a few.

The thing that made me love them even more is that they embraced a first-time-ever teenage team member, my 13 year-old son Thoughtful with open arms.  I was petrified that I was breaking some unspoken team rule, or changing our team dynamic, by asking if Thoughtful could tag along on our first training ride back in March.  I should have had faith in our team.  He wasn’t dismissed, but rather celebrated by the team for putting in the effort and performing like a serious biker.  And man, did we laugh on those early Sunday rides!

Importantly, we had the joy of friendship with our Pedal Partner, Emily Taylor and her wonderful family.  Pedal Partners are pediatric cancer patients that Dana Farber matches teams up with each year.  The Taylors continue to be an inspiration to us—their positive attitude, strength in the face of ridiculous adversity and sense of humor were a driving force for all of us.  The Taylor’s spent a very hot day at the Lakeville water stop, greeting each group of Phil’s Phriends with big hugs and photo opps. How cute are Emily and her little brother Sam?

Phil's Phriends and the Taylors

Sara, Emily’s mom wrote a note on Sunday:

“WOW… We are so very proud !! You guys are our ultimate inspiration. Tears are welling as I type. Please give a huge hug to everyone for us. Em felt like a princess yesterday… We love you all and feel like we’ve know you for years. Thank you for all you do….team emily oxox”

The ride itself was both a physical and emotional challenge.  I felt like I’d been riding for enough weeks, but not for enough miles.  We’d done many 50 mile rides, but not further than that.  On Saturday, I was so high on adrenalin that I flew up hills that I normally was mumbling obscenities about , so thrilled by the supporters along our route.  Really, the support on Saturday is amazing, even starting at 5:30 am leaving Sturbridge!  But nearing the 100 mile mark, I was not quite so energetic and was trying desperately to unkink my shoulders and cool the fire on my toes.  All the while, I was choking back tears at the signs and personal stories that I’d encountered along the way.  I was very happy to reach our first day destination at Bourne!  We hung out as a team that evening at the Mass Maritime Academy and enjoyed the incredible karma of this 5000-strong group of riders.

Sunday was really exciting for me.  I knew that Thoughtful was bummed that he was relegated to a one-day, 50 mile ride, starting and ending in Wellesley, so I was eager to meet up with him and have him connect with the team that he’d come to love.  The roads from Bourne to the alternate route to Wellesley were pretty, but a very different experience than riding into the heart of PMC support, further down on the Cape.  Thankfully the team members that opted for that ride all stuck together and we enjoyed the camaraderie.  I was pushing myself to get to the Sharon, MA water stop where we would hook up with Thoughtful and ride the last 25 miles together.

Thoughtful and Me

I couldn’t have been happier to roll into Sharon and see him, rested and ready to go, and husband Rich and younger son Smiles there as support crew with cold drinks and anything else we might need. Those last miles to Wellesley felt like a culmination of a season riding and training with T and the team.  And yes, I was staring at his back for those last miles, because he’s now much faster than me!  I never imagined how satisfying it would be to fulfill a challenge like this with my child.  Thoughtful’s first statement after we crossed the finish line?  “Argh!  I want to ride more!!!”