Ode to October and a Giveaway

You know what drives me bonkers? (I mean besides the careless misuse of homonyms such as "your" and "you're"?)  When people- other people- go on and on about how much they love October.  Listen up: No one loves October more than me.  I discovered October, just like I discovered Mumford and Sons.  October has been my favorite month since before Starbucks introduced the pumpkin spice latte and J.Crew declared tweed blazers fashionable.  So don't tell me all about the amazing time you just had at the Mumford and Sons concert at the Barclays Center, in your fedora hat and ironic overalls.  I saw them two years ago when they were a bunch of banjo-strumming nobodies playing Webster Hall.  I love October and I love Mumford and Sons more than anyone else.  Got it?

For me, October is a month-long festival that I observe with several hallowed rituals.  

Below are my 31 favorite.  All month on the blog I will be sharing pictures, stories, and recipes from our October celebration.

1. Go to a local apple orchard and pick apples;

2. Make homemade apple sauce.  (Minnow's nursery school class recently made apple sauce, and each child brought some home in a baby food jar.  Minnow and I ate it after dinner one night for dessert and it was delicious.  Minnow wanted to know why Daddy wasn't having any, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that Daddy doesn't care for boogers in his apple sauce.);

3. Bring home a jug of apple cider;

4. Warm the cider in a saucepan with one or two cinnamon sticks and enjoy on a chilly fall evening;

5. Throw in some bourbon and make it a hot toddy;

6. I like my cider or toddy with some Sweetzel's spice wafers.  If you're from Philly you know exactly what I'm talking about;

7. Go pumpkin picking at a local farm;

8. Take a hay ride and enjoy the sensation of straw poking your body through layers of flannel, corduroy and tweed;

9. Carve pumpkins and put them on your doorstep for the squirrels to get to;

10. Toast the pumpkin seeds and make pumpkin seed granola because, sadly for your children, you're that kind of mom, and not the kind that makes pumpkin muffins;

11. Feel bad about the pumpkin muffins and make it up to your kids by making yummy squash muffins.  They taste just as good, I swear;

12. Speaking of squash, make homemade butternut squash soup;

13. Decorate your home with plenty of gourds and mums;

14. Build a bonfire and toast some marshmallows for s'mores.  Or toast them over your gas burner in the kitchen, either way;

15. Drink a pumpkin spice latte.  I really try to hold out for October for this, but Starbucks makes it increasingly difficult each year.  This year pumpkin spice was available the day after Labor Day.  There is something inherently wrong with an iced pumpkin spice latte;

16. Drink a Sam Adam's Octoberfest.  Even though I grew up on Yuengling and it feels like cheating, I allow myself one Sam Adams Octoberfest each fall;

17. Drink pumpkin ale.  Pumking by Southern Tier Brewing Company, NY is my favorite;

18.  What are you drinking to?  Minnow's birthday is in October and this year we are celebrating with a  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse themed birthday bonanza.  Mama will definitely be tossing down the toddies that day;

19. Look, the trees are changing colors!  Load the kids in the car and take a Sunday drive to marvel at the radiant reds, fiery oranges, and vibrant yellows;

20. Collect leaves and make leaf prints by placing them under white paper and rubbing the flat end of a crayon over them;

21. Rake leaves into a large neat pile, then jump in and destroy it;

22. Okay, now rake them up again and stuff them into oversize pumpkin trash bags to decorate your lawn for Halloween;

23. Speaking of Halloween, it is never too early to start thinking about costumes.  Minnow will likely be trick-or-treating in her Minnie Mouse costume from last year because a) it still fits;  b) she is currently going through a Disney phase; and c) we didn't get to use it last year because of Super Storm Sandy. Peanut, like most babies her age, will be going as a pumpkin;

24. It is also never too early to start thinking about Halloween candy.  Don't be that house handing out Tootsie Rolls.  Tootsie Rolls automatically get tossed in the trash, along with every other piece of candy your mom suspects may have been poisoned, drugged, or inserted with tiny razor blades;

25. Don't forget to get an extra-large bag of candy corn for yourself;

26. And to burn off all that sugar, you may want to consider going for a long, brisk run at dusk;

27. Or run a marathon!  My husband and I are hoping to run the Chicago Marathon together next October;

28. Or if you're not the running type, you could do a scary movie marathon.  My scary movie pick is It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  That's as much scary as I can handle;

29. Watch fall sports.  October is the only month I actually care about baseball.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy attending the occasional baseball game in the summer (mostly for the ice cream served in tiny batter helmets) but what's the point in fretting over standings in June or July?  It's a long season (and it seems to get longer every year, sort of like summer itself);

30. Go to a college football game.  Even though I'm several years out of college, I still enjoy going to homecoming on the years I don't happen to have a wedding, which has been most years now that wedding season, like baseball, stretches into late fall;

31. Paint your nails pink and observe Breast Cancer Awareness month by making a donation to a reputable breast-cancer research foundation, like Susan G. Komen for the Cure.  

If you're like me and you love October (although, clearly, not with the same intensity), I have a giveaway for you.  All month long I invite you to share your favorite October rituals on Instagram with hashtag #athloctober.  Each tagged photo will be entered to win a $25 iTunes gift card. (Perfect for discovering the next Mumford and Sons!)  I will draw the winner at random on November 1, 2013.  I can't wait to see how you're celebrating the best month of the year.  Good luck!

Unwinding with a Catalogue

It's Monday night.

After a half dozen escape attempts, your toddler is finally sleeping soundly (albeit upside-down) in her bed. Your seven-week-old has just nodded off in her swing.  You've survived another day that included a tantrum in the cracker aisle at the supermarket, sore arms from rocking a fussy baby for four continuous hours, and a leaky pipe that required your plumber to take a sledge-hammer to the living room wall you recently spent thousands of dollars to paint.  And despite all that, you were still able to prepare a nutritious dinner for your family, even if the salmon was a tad charred and the quinoa a bit soggy.  You kick up your feet eager to indulge in the treat that arrived in the mail this afternoon: The Williams-Sonoma catalogue.

Pictured on the cover is the latest iteration of the iconic Kitchen-Aid mixer.  Like a Louis Vuitton bag it is something you must own eventually, even if you don't bake and wouldn't know the first thing to do with a dough hook.  The mixer comes in French blue and looks good on a counter; that's really all that matters.

On page 11 there is a suggested menu for a wine-tasting party.  You turn to your husband.  "We should host a wine-tasting party," you say.  "Sounds expensive," he replies.

Page 35 features several font options from which to choose for sets of monogrammed linen napkins.  You wish you had the disposable income for monogrammed linen napkins.  For now, it's paper napkins bought in bulk from BJ's for you.

On page 48 a picture-perfect stack of skull-shaped pancakes dressed in maple syrup and walnuts seems to mock you.  You do not have room in your ugly blue kitchen to store skull-shaped pancake molds and, therefore, will almost certainly never make skull-shaped pancakes for your children on Halloween morning.  You're starting to feel pretty crumby about that.

Before long you are accelerating down the self-deprecating spiral.  Two smiling girls on the following page are eating homemade organic whole wheat waffles off immaculate white plates resting on a reclaimed-wood kitchen table that also contains bowls of plump mixed berries, sliced apples, and a vase of fresh-cut flowers.  Breakfast at your house is cereal eaten out of (BPA-free) plastic bowls off an Ikea table that also contains a weeks' worth of mail and last weekend's New York Times.  On page 55 a child using a citrus press to make a single glass of orange juice makes you feel guilty for not serving fresh-squeezed juice to your children, even though you don't allow your children to drink juice because of the sugar content.  The gleaming espresso machines on pages 64-67 make you wish you knew how to make your own lattes, instead of spending $50 a month (according to your last credit card statement) at Starbucks.  Perhaps this is why you can't afford sets of monogrammed linen napkins.

Because of the braised ribs simmering in a slow-cooker pictured on page 70, you experience pangs of remorse that, due to its inconvenient location at the back of the cabinet above the refrigerator, you've hardly used the Crock-Pot you registered for when you got married.  The pictures of autumn wreathes on pages 98-99 remind you that fall is coming and you should probably think about how you're going to decorate the house, because you can already tell that this is the type of neighborhood where neighbors compete to have the best-looking seasonal house on the block.  The picture of the Miele rotary iron on page 104 reminds you that you should probably iron the stack of khakis in the laundry room so that your husband has more than one pair to choose from this Labor Day weekend.

And you're spent.  You decide to leave the Pottery Barn catalogue, waiting on the coffee table, for another night.

Homestretch

It’s hard to believe, but we are moving into the new house this Saturday, almost two months to the day after we moved out of our Bronxville apartment and into my inlaws’ home on Long Island.  My in-laws have been so gracious and accommodating during our transition into homeownership, and I know they will miss the way Minnow’s exuberant singing, ukulele playing, and knock-knock jokes can fill a big home, but I think they’d agree that eight weeks is just about the maximum amount of time that three generations can comfortably reside under one roof.

When I say it’s hard to believe, I mean that I truly cannot fathom how our house will be ready for occupants in four days.  Every time I walk through the rooms I am overwhelmed by the number of moldings that need to be scraped and painted, the boxes of furniture that need to be built, the layers of dust that need to be eradicated.  I’d analogize it to a paper in college whose submission date is looming.  You know that it’s due by a certain date, and you know that you will submit it by that date, but you have no definite idea how that will happen; you just sort of trust in miracles.  

What doesn’t help is that all of my contractors like to begin phone conversations with, “Mrs. C., we have a problem.”  They then go on to describe said problem, which rarely amounts to much of a problem at all.  It’s like they’re constantly hedging my expectations, as a means of insurance.

For example, on Friday my floor guy, Stanley, called while I was waiting on an infinite line at the DMV to change the address on my license.

“Mrs. C., we have a problem.”

“What’s the problem, Stanley?”

“It’s raining outside.”

“I’m aware of that, Stanley,” I said, staring at my soggy Hunter boots.

“Well I’m trying to apply the second coat of polyurethane to the floors and it’s not adhering.  The weather is too wet.  The floors are not dry.”

“Okay…”

“So I will have to turn up the thermostat in your house, allow the floors to dry overnight, and come back in the morning.”

“That’s not a problem., Stanley,”  I replied.

And it wasn't a problem.  Because we don't live there yet.

Similarly, this morning, while at Starbucks, I received a call from my paper hanger, Tony.

“Mrs. C., we have a problem.”

“What’s the problem, Tony?”

“Your hot water is not running.  If you don’t have hot water, I can’t wash the glue off my brushes.  If I can’t wash the glue off my brushes, I can’t hang your paper today.”

“That’s not a problem, Tony.  We turned off the boiler.  The boiler switch is at the top of the basement stairwell.  Turn it on.  You’ll hear the boiler kick in.  Wait a half hour.  You’ll have hot water.”

And I was right.  I’m a freaking genius.

Of course, usage of “We have a problem” is not exclusive to my home contractors.  When I called the body shop last week to check on the status of my Jeep repair, the owner began with, “Well, we have a problem...”

“What’s that?” I asked, feeling like I just might lose my marbles. 

“When we inspected your car more closely, we found additional damage to the suspension.  The insurance company needs to resend its adjuster to make a secondary estimate.  We’re looking at another week, at least.”

Unfortunately, this is one problem I cannot solve, and I so desperately want my car back.

All of this is to say I really don’t know where mothers found respite from life’s little “problems” before Starbucks.  I am there at least once a day, sometimes twice if the day is shaping up to be particularly “problematic.”  Minnow has become so familiar with the green mermaid logo that she points it out from the backseat whenever we pass a store. 

“Oh, Mommy!  There’s Starbucks! We go get coffee now?”

Minnow likes Starbucks because it usually means a treat for her, as well.  When we walk through the doors she immediately struts toward the cold case, grabs a Horizon organic vanilla milk box, and places it on the counter.  “And a bagel with cream cheese,” she tells the cashier.  Sometimes she mixes it up and orders a bag of organic dried mango slices instead.  Truly, we are (or at least I am) raising the Starbucks generation.  But what can I do?  Even the strictest moms have to make concessions sometimes, and lately I've been making a lot of them.

I’m just trying to be a good mom, in spite of all the problems.  Today I had to take Minnow to the new house while I awaited a furniture delivery for the nursery.  I brought snacks and books and movies to watch on the laptop during the two-hour delivery window.  We sat on the floor in the playroom, which is the only room in the house not being worked on, and which is currently serving as the holding area for the furniture and boxes that have been delivered to the house.  “Don’t touch anything, “ I commanded.  “It’s very dusty.”  As we watched an episode of Wallace and Gromit, I became aware of a cloud of dust swirling above our heads.  That’s when I realized that the painters were sanding the moldings and trim down the hall.  The old moldings and trim!  Laden with lead paint!  Creating lead paint dust!  Causing lead poisoning!

“We have to get out of here, Minnow!” I said, gathering the laptop, her diaper bag, and her organic vanilla milk box in my arms.  We would have sat outside in the yard, but it was raining, so instead we sat in our parked car.  Rain pelted the windows I had rolled down a crack for ventilation while Minnow watched her movie in the backseat and I checked emails on my iPhone.  She never made a peep of complaint, but I still felt like all of my new neighbors were spying on us and thinking, “What a dreadful mother!” 

And while I am confessing my deficiencies as the mother of a toddler, let me also say that during this time of upheaval, it has been extraordinarily difficult to even remember that I am pregnant with a second child.  I mean, who forgets that she is pregnant?  But I do, during most waking hours of the day.  (Nighttime is a different story.  Kicks to the bladder as you’re trying to fall asleep are powerful reminders.)  This morning, as I unlocked the front door for the painters, one of them grinned at me and said, “She’s almost here!”

“Who is?” I asked, glancing over my shoulders.

“The baby!” he said, and pointed to my stomach.

"I hope not!" I replied, but then I realized, he’s right.  Peanut will be here in just over four weeks and I am so unprepared!  It is impossible to indulge the nesting instinct when one doesn’t have a nest.  I haven’t washed a single onesie to date.  I don’t have appropriately sized diapers for a newborn.  All of the nursery furniture is in storage.  At this point in my pregnancy with Minnow I had Crockpot meals prepared and in the freezer.  I had washed and rewashed her entire miniature wardrobe.  I had assembled all the baby equipment I naively believed were essential to her baby amusement.  Don’t even ask me where the travel swing is right now.

It sounds awful, but my thoughts have been so consumed by what’s been happening at the new house that I hardly have the energy to give poor Peanut a second thought.  On the one hand, managing the renovation of an old, quirky house certainly helps speed up the tedious third trimester.  On the other hand, holy cow!  I am having a baby, like, next month, and every time I answer the phone someone is telling me, “We have a problem.”