i LOVE to get prizes… i think this stems from the fact that i wasn’t a sporty kid and didn’t participate in activities that got rewarded with trophies or medals. i may have gotten a couple of “participation” ribbons the summer i was nine and did swim team, but i never placed. so i am thrilled and GRATEFUL to receive this service award again from houzz. i DO wish they would send me a big, fancy ribbon with my name on it or some kind of statue, but an email notice is nice as well. x0x
my grandma had the most beautiful handwriting. i saved all of her letters and cards - even the ones that just reported the kind of weather she was having - because her script was a wonder.
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when my son was in second grade, we joined our local temple. we had always agreed that we would raise our children jewish, the faith of their father, with santa and the bunny thrown in in a nod to my secular upbringing with christian-based holidays. we signed up for the “family school” program which meant that once a month all four of us spent most of a saturday at temple learning about judaism in both large and small groups, finalizing in a service. we made this decision because i am not jewish and wanted to participate in what my kids were learning and because the rabbi leading the family school grew up in the same town and same synagogue as my husband in long island… a crazy, small world synchronicity that we embraced.
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my SUPERSTAR client, emily bossert, of compass was featured in the december 2019 issue of boulder county real producers as one of the leading real estate sales managers here in boulder. the profile shares her heartfelt journey to both boulder and compass. AND she was photographed in the interior of one of my favorite projects on pine street. CONGRATULATIONS emily … i have so enjoyed working with you and can’t wait to see your home completed as well.
photos: julie kruger
(this photo was probably taken right before they polished off MY burrito!)
it’s a wonder that i am not perpetually passed out on the floor dehydrated and starving because my children are always eating my snacks and drinking my water. whatever i may have, they consider theirs. to be fair, when they were little i frequently poured my water into their glasses because i didn’t feel like getting up once i finally got to the table. likewise my spaghetti or chicken nuggets. but they are bigger now and both of them can reach the glasses and the sink and they are perfectly capable of serving themselves. alas, these poor habits are deeply ingrained, despite my recent campaign to change them.
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when my daughter’s teeth came in they were perfect little white chiclets with lots of small gaps between them. her smile was ridiculous, exuberant and huge. she seemed to understand the power of bestowing her grin on random strangers and reveled in the big, positive reactions she received. she was not shy.
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hank and i are very comfortable with routine. week days, i typically wake up pretty early (6ish) and head right downstairs for coffee. i always set the machine the night before so all i have to do is press one button. hank usually sleeps a little longer and comes trotting down by 6:30. he likes to have his breakfast straight away, while i need my one and a half cups before my scrambled eggs. after eating, hank likes to go outside for his potty. he is pretty quick about this and then goes back to sleep in his favorite sofa corner. sometimes, when he’s had a particularly arduous playdate the day before with his girlfriend dharma, (this is his second girlfriend… ellie moved away) he goes back upstairs and returns to [my] bed. it throws me when i don’t see his big bat ears poking over the arm of the sofa and i walk around the house calling for him until i remember his secondary routine. (unfortunately, hank doesn’t really understand about weekends when i would love to sleep maybe all the way to seven. he sits over me and sighs and breathes noisily until i open my eyes to find his face hovering mere inches above mine.)
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my vacuum is my favorite appliance. some people meditate or exercise or journal or juice fast to restore themselves and i try to do those things too (except the juice fasting, i would never do that voluntarily, only when i am ordered to for a colonoscopy and i have to say i found the juice fasting MUCH worse than any other aspect of the colonoscopy, so that’s pretty big) but what really calms me down is the crickle crackle sound of unwanted mess or dirt or crumbs being sucked off my floors. i feel this peace spreading through me as i methodically circle my dining table and work my way in neat lanes around my house.
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the BEST breakfast of the year is always christmas morning because of my mother’s sticky buns. they are coils of cinnamon deliciousness with a sticky, brown sugar topping baked on. she makes two pans each year - one with pecans and one without (my nephew has nut allergies.) i prefer the ones with pecans, but i would NEVER turn down a plain one. we think about and anticipate the sticky buns all year long… rehashing how many each of us ate the year before and whether someone selfishly snuck a third before everyone else had seconds. when the pans are cooling we circle round them like sharks, peeking under the tin foil covers and trying to count how many there are (it always varies depending on the girth of the buns) - my mother protectively swatting us away and shooing us out of the kitchen.
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SEE’S SCOTCHMALLOWS
growing up in california, one of the most exciting things was to walk into the classic black and white sweet shop, see’s candies, on shattuck avenue. it always smelled outrageous in there and the sales people (in their crisp white uniforms) greeted you with a free sample of your choice. today, this candy company created by charles see in 1921 featuring his mother’s (mary see) original candy recipes is just the same. the iconic black and white checkerboard flooring inspired by mary’s own kitchen takes you back to another time. see’s first candy shop was established in los angeles and in 1936 see’s candies began opening up all over northern california as well. now there are shops across the country (including DIA boulders!)
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last spring i took my kids to the studio of photographer, george lange. he had been living in boulder after a storied career as a celebrity photographer whose projects took him all over the world and was preparing for yet another move back to his hometown of pittsburgh. he was clearing out the prints from decades of work shooting all kinds of interesting people: the cast of friends, tom hanks, sophia loren, a young uma thurman, the seinfeld gang, kermit the frog, bill gates and steve jobs (together!) andy warhol, athletes and rappers and rockstars and jazz musicians, authors and politicians. we spent hours there pouring over the different prints and deciding which ones to bring home. at some point, mr. lange wandered into the room where we were organizing our choices and started chatting with theo about going to summer camp. (theo was wearing his camp kee tov hoodie.) he was unassuming and warm and i thought he was another customer. but then he asked me if i would mind if he took a couple of pictures of the kids and i realized who he was. we went into the garden where he set up the backdrop and he clicked away for about five minutes. he took my contact info so he could share the photos with me later.
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(my girlfriends in the berkeley high courtyard spring of 1987, senior year)
i have known these women since i was fourteen years old… some even longer. they have seen me through events big and small: first kisses, braces, horrible haircuts, losing the spirit cup (a TRAUMATIZING experience at berkeley high) unreciprocated crushes, minor car crashes, getting drunk, getting grounded, getting lost (A LOT), cross country drives, cross country moves, international moves, getting dumped, getting cheated on, getting sick, getting married, accidentally eating a raisin, fertility struggles, having babies, getting divorced, getting myself back together. they have shared cups of tea and glasses of wine and lots of advice. they have supported and laughed and scolded and called me out and they have LOVED. and as my fiftieth year comes to a close, they have FINALLY all joined me in this decade. i am the oldest in this gang and was the first of these women to have to celebrate this onerous birthday. as each of them stepped into their new decade i breathed a little more easily and i am MUCH happier now that we are all in our fifties together. i LOVE these women.
* not all of my girlfriends are represented here… notably missing is miss margaret x0x
i moved to new york to go to grad school when i was twenty-three or four. i felt like i needed to stay after i completed my program because my studies had been so intense that i might as well have been in kansas for all i saw of the city. thus began the cycle of my tortured clashesque dilemma: “should i stay or should i go now?” that i revisited each summer. the appeal of california was strong - my whole family was there, it was the landscape of my childhood and i am generally a sunny person in keeping with the california persona. but new york offered so many freedoms - the ability to pop into a taxi without worrying about the directions, a numbered grid geography that also alleviated my navigational challenges (unless i was too far downtown where the streets are a jumble of unalphabetized names), the potential to be both anonymous (not having to smile and say hello to everyone you pass on the street as is customary in california - i find this friendliness EXHAUSTING) and known (by my dry cleaner, my bodega guy, my corner take out) and, of course, the SUBWAY - such an easy system that even i, who continues to get lost in my own hometown, could competently traverse the city. my california/new york conflict was so strong that for a while, i would only date transplanted californians, in case i decided i wanted to move back.
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each fall in boulder, there is at least one wednesday morning when you are supposed to bike your children to school. i live on 7th between the “c” and “d” streets and school is on the “h” street and 9th… so really, school is only six blocks away. that may not seem like a lot (especially since we lived in amsterdam for nearly six years and i biked everywhere), but you have to take into consideration the hills and the severe altitude we have to deal with here in our mountain town. when i was married, i always pushed the “bike to school” responsibility onto my husband. when we got divorced and our parenting plan was set, giving me the kids every wednesday, i considered asking for a special stipulation exempting me from those particular wednesday mornings. but we had enough to sort out and i kept my mouth shut.
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as the holidays approach, stress levels elevate for most of us with all of the extra planning and socializing and spending and obligation to celebrate with perhaps less than favorite family members. and of course, there is always the possibility that you will be invited to share thanksgiving at the home of someone who puts raisins in their cranberry sauce, which is really the tipping point for me. so i am sharing my mother’s delicious raisin - FREE cranberry recipe once again. you can always bring it as a hostess gift to insure that you won’t be subjected to that dreaded dried fruit at your holiday meal. happy, happy thanksgiving!
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(carefree in new york when i knew everything about parenting, but didn’t yet have children)
when i was living in new york in my twenties spending sundays enjoying boozy brunches (after taking an early yoga class and wandering through the chelsea flea market - which is sadly now all condominiums - clutching a giant coffee from the bodega on my corner) i had all kinds of ideas about what my life would be like when i had children. i would, of course, still live in the city, but i would have a giant loft, rather than my run down holly hobby sized apartment and my children would just slip into my life without disrupting my routines. they would come to brunch with me wearing adorable outfits and contribute witty, charming stories to the conversation, enchanting the waiter so that we were sent a plate of free beignets each week. they would use their cutlery properly and keep their napkins in their laps and they would NOT whine or cry at the table like all the other bratty, poorly-parented children in the restaurant. they would be like this because i was going to be a GOOD mother who paid attention and set boundaries and generally just had my shit together.
i am so excited that a piece i wrote about using textiles as wall art is the cover story for boulder county home + garden magazine’s fall-winter issue. THANK YOU to heather knierim of HBK photography for the beautiful photos, to my clients for allowing me to share these projects and st. frank and the super talented fiber artists: my mother, aysun and aysel demir of wallknot and designs by filia for their creations.
(*the editor did add two artists to the article - the first and last projects included in the story are not my projects.)
halloween in boulder is outrageous. when we stepped out to go trick or treating our first year in colorado, i thought we’d wandered onto a movie set. literally EVERY house in our neighborhood was decorated, and not just with a pumpkin or two but with strings of orange lights, giant spiders and webs stretched across the houses, skeletons and zombies and werewolves emerging from the lawns and ghosts and ghoulies hanging from the trees. and when you ring the bell, the homeowners answer in full costume. sometimes they jump out at you and sometimes they just smile and offer the kids candy and the parents a glass of wine or a beer. yes - if you accept all the libations presented, you will be quite tipsy by the end of your neighborhood rounds. there are even a few famous addresses that do full spook houses… i took lucy to the one on 10th street when she was a little too young and we were both traumatized … i nearly peed my pants when a gazillion enormous spiders dropped on us and she let out a wail that lasted for at least two blocks. we had to retire for the evening after that.
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one of my favorite take-aways from living in amsterdam for six years was the notion of “gezellig,” the dutch word for “coziness,” also encompassing social concepts like inviting or friendly. i loved the idea of a “gezellig” meal (roast chicken for me) or a “gezellig” afternoon (sitting out the rain at my beloved chocolate shop, pompadour) or a “gezellig” cuddle with my children (lots of blankets and story books piled onto the sofa), but i was most fascinated with the “gezellig” interiors of the dutch apartments.
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shayna larsen has been doing realistic, soulful watercolor animal portraits for some time. the aspect of the medium shayna finds most compelling is that she doesn’t have full control… she can make a suggestion with her brush and then the paint goes where it will, generating a life of its own.
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