Hard to believe that a week ago today, we were enjoying our last dinner in Seattle with family and friends. Isn’t that the way vacation goes? Upon your return you feel like you’ve been away so very long, but just 3 days in (or thereabouts) you feel like you never left.

It’s sort of fitting that our last dinner was at Delancey, the pizza restaurant, perhaps not unlike Franny’s here in Brooklyn, that was opened a year ago by Molly from Orangette and her husband, Brandon. I know that when we begin to think about the store more seriously sometime after the holidays, I’ll be going back and re-reading those entries leading up to the opening day. There are other similarities, like cross county moves but in opposite coasts, and Mark, like Brandon, was a music composition major who decided to focus on food.

Now, we don’t plan on opening a restaurant or even anything with table service, but it was really nice to sit in their wonderfully minimalist dining room, feasting on delicious pizza and feeling the buzz of happy customers. Dreams, a vision, hard work, and maybe a sprinkle of fairy tale magic do pay off.

One last thing I want to say about our trip. It’s really interesting to see a space, a home, and a view that you’re used to seeing in photos, with your own eyes. I’m not sure how many photos throughout the seasons I’ve seen of Lecia’s boys out on their street, taking a walk after dinner or headed down to the beach. Now I have one with my kids now too.

This was my Friday:

Perfect 82 degree weather, no humidity (we were owed this one, for suffering through all of July).

A Korean Day Festival in Central Park. Drumming, music, a five foot circumference bowl of bibimbop (what?). Kalbi and Kimchee tacos, Korean Fried Chicken, Rice Cakes, Noodles, Aloe Juice, Honey Melon popsicles. All free to the public. Leave it to my dad to find any Korean-related event around the tri-state area. Leave it to RJ to drop everything and make a beeline up there as soon as I tweeted about the event. Girl takes her Korean food seriously. Plus she got to meet my dad.

Drinks and food at the Standard in the Meatpacking District with 2 of my favorite ladies in the late afternoon. I ordered the Penny Drop, a delicious gingery concoction made with ginger beer, ginger cordial, lime juice and vodka. (OMG!)

Watching the sunset from the High Line, closing the place down, scheming all sorts of ideas and new business plans. I must have about 100 business ideas that I’ve brainstormed with various people over the years. Yes, the wheels are turning up there…

Sara Jensen gave the girls these glasses when she and her family came over to stay with us for a few days. Aren’t they funny? The girls wanted to wear them to the barbeque at Unha’s to surprise the hosts when they rang the doorbell. Kenny laughed and laughed. I think the last thing you’d expect when you open your door to guests is see a couple of kids in groucho marx glasses.

It’s been a pretty amazing week despite the mid-week bump – I played catchup up with a dear old friend from my grad school days and had more first meetings. Sara and I met Anna and Evan for the first time over dinner on Monday night. Anna is as amazing in person as she is on her blog. We kept groaning over the word “tweetup”, but I guess it totally was since I got to know both Anna and Sara on Twitter. Sara and her family are making their way back to the NW right now. We’re going to miss them.

On Tuesday I met Molly for a late lunch, who despite only meeting for the first time that day, has been just amazing to me all week. Her generosity and willingness to brainstorm ideas and help is something that I will never forget.

I think this is one of the things that I have learned this year. It’s okay to reach out to people for help. I have a tendency to try and solve everything on my own, but sometimes you really need the support of people around you even if it’s a nice word or two from people you barely know on Twitter or here on the blog, or the generous offers from people that you just met but feel like good friends you’ve known for years. It’s been really fun to meet so many people for the first time this summer, like Holly, who has always been a great supporter of our business. She is sweet and lovely as you would expect and I was inspired by her humbleness and her devotion and support of artists and designers.

I only hope that I can return the favor.

When you meet people through email or online you can sometimes tell that you will just click. There is no mask or disguise and what you see is the people they really are when you finally meet in person. I feel like I’ve made some good friends for life. All of this – the blog, twitter – all of it, makes us feel like we are never alone.

I went to the New Museum with my friend Karen yesterday. On the ground floor was an installation from Brazilian artist, Rivane Neuenschwander, called I Wish Your Wish. As a visitor, you get to select a ribbon with a wish that speaks to you, which you then must tie around your wrist. You then replace the ribbon with a wish of your own, written on paper. Tradition has it that when the ribbon falls off, your wish will be fulfilled. Karen told me that hers fell off already. I still have mine on and I’ll be waiting patiently. What wish did I choose?

I wish my fears would not limit my actions.

Have a great weekend everyone.

I guess this is the norm for July. The days have been hazy, lazy. With Mia off from camp and work being slow, it’s truly been a carefree summer. Mark had a really good day at the Brooklyn Flea on Saturday and we went to our friend Unha and Kenny’s house for a barbeque yesterday. It’s funny to hang out with friends you’ve known for awhile and look around at the gaggle of kids in the room. It’s like, “We made these”.

She looks like a natural, huh? We couldn’t tear her away from the kid-sized drum kit at their house. She was really into it. I don’t think the neighbors would appreciate all that noise coming from our apartment, but it did make me think that at some point the kids should get music lessons.

I started piano lessons when I was about 8 years old. I went over to my friends house every Saturday because we didn’t have a piano back then and we shared a teacher. We didn’t like him though and we always hid in her room with the door locked when we heard the doorbell. We didn’t like the way he wrapped his arms around us to reach the keyboard when he wanted to show us how to play something. It felt like we were being cornered, so when he came knocking on my friend’s door to announce his arrival, we made zipper sounds by rubbing our fingernails on our cords and shouted that we were still getting dressed. A year later my mom bought us our own piano and my brother and I took piano lessons with a new teacher all the way through high school. Half the time I found lessons to be annoying, but I’m glad that I pushed through them, considering I would eventually study music in college after art school.

I can’t tell what instruments the girls might be into. If your kid takes music lessons, how did you decide?

(p.s. btw, Mia hasn’t been wanting to be photographed lately which is why she hasn’t appeared too much. I see the seeds of adolescent self consciousness starting to creep in.)

I could use a jump in the lake right about now. Do you know that NY is going through one of the worst heat waves in history? People, today was 100 degrees. That is actual temps. Even at 2am last night the temperature hovered near 90.

The weekend seems so far away, but it was only 2 days ago. We’re back to the daily grind of hectic mornings getting the kids to camp, work meetings and deadlines and rides on cramped subways to Manhattan. I look at these pictures and will treasure that weekend. I found an old post that Sara wrote earlier this year where she talks about the lake house among her other favorite things, and feel even more privileged to have spent time at a place steeped in such family history. Thank you Sara, Thor and Henry for inviting us in.

There was a moment during the weekend when Sara and I both admitted that we were a wee bit nervous about meeting each other for the first time. After all, someone’s online persona may not be what they are like in real life. There’s always that chance you’ll be disappointed or let down. I think this is why I feel a little bit awkward when I meet blog readers. I usually feel like a dork and don’t know what to say. I’m more anti-social and private than perhaps I might appear online (or maybe you can tell). But you also have a gut feeling for these things and in the past, I have had very good luck meeting people who have become such awesome, trustworthy friends in real life.

You take a chance and sometimes what you gain is worth its weight in gold.

ps. a video of Claudine at the lake house doing her special “bow”.

We just got back from one of the best weekends we’ve had in a long time. This is the summer of first meetings – people that I’ve gotten to know online, but are meeting for the first time and who have generously invited us to stay with them.

Sara Jensen and her family used to live in NYC, but they moved to the San Juan Islands in Washington state a year and a half ago (take a look at their wonderful shop. I’ve been using their pomegranate tote bag all summer). I didn’t know her when she lived in NY and I had only really started to get to know her earlier this year, but she invited us to her lake house over the 4th of July weekend while on their cross country road trip back East (yes, she single handedly drove her 2 year old and husband to NY in 6 days from the San Juans).

The lake house is a special place. It was built in 1906 and has been in her family ever since. There is no electricity or running water, there never has been. Life is stripped down to the basics – cooking, eating, swimming, talking and hiking. There were about 15 people staying in the 5 bedroom house and the girls had the best time. Claudine kept saying “it’s so quiet here” and Mia learned how to swim with a life vest on. We couldn’t get her out of the water so she happily paddled around by herself collecting lakeweed when all the adults got too cold from swimming. We warmed up in the sun and watched her from the dock with our coffee and beers.

The days really slow down when you have no regard or care for time. Though this wasn’t camping in the woods, this was as close to camping as I’ve gotten in probably 18 years when I did some serious camping and hiking for weeks at a time in the summers during college. It was a reminder of the importance to stop, unplug and just breathe.

More photos tomorrow…

Guys, the weather in NY this weekend was hot. No, no, you don’t understand. Don’t complain to me about your warm 85 degree weather when I’m talking temps in the 90s H.O.T. Still, even though I would personally have rather stayed home with the AC on, we spent most of the weekend outdoors. While Mark was down at the Food Film Festival, I was at back to back birthday parties in Prospect Park and playdates with the girls on Saturday, and back to the Park for another class picnic on Sunday where Claudine got a little diploma. It was a busy social weekend, even if I did have to take 5 showers over 2 days just to cool off. Also, this all day activity and running around in the sun all weekend is for the birds. Or at least young people. My aching back, feet and sciatic pain is making me feel really old.

We ended our weekend with a lemonade stand in front of our building. Mia’s been asking to do one for ages so we set up some leftover limeade and cookies from Saturday’s event. The girls held their attention in and out of those 2 hours so Mark felt like he was back at the Flea as he ended up pouring Limeade and ice in cups to “customers”. If you were lucky enough to pass by, you would have had regular Flea goods at a highly discounted price. In the end, the girls made $18 (not bad!) and yes, it was mostly from neighbors who came out after I posted on Facebook. But that’s what neighbors are for, right?

Speaking of neighbors…one of our neighbors put out some free books on the sidewalk for taking and Claudine grabbed this:

She sat in that little lawn chair with a serious expression for about half an hour, thumbing through the pages of this American Girl book on “our bodies”. I glanced over at one point and noticed that she had been staring intently at 1 page for quite some time. I walked over to see what she was looking at. Well, I didn’t expect to see THAT – an illustrated, 4 diagram spread on how to insert a tampon. Okaaay, then. Let me put that book on the top shelf and save it for another 5 years. I’m not ready for this. Just not ready.

The last full day of school and a slight break in the heat are 2 good reasons to have one of our impromptu sidewalk parties, but this time around, one of our neighbors rolled out the grill. Watch out, the summer sidewalk parties are getting serious, yo. We laughed at how trashy the whole scenario was as we rigged a few extension cords from the 2nd floor balcony down to the sidewalk to plug in the electric grill. Mark brought down some ribs and marinated spicy Korean pork and we chowed down as we talked about the new teacher assignments for school next year while keeping an eye on the kids to make sure they didn’t hose down any passerbys (there were some close calls).

Summer vacation is officially here.

Now, you didn’t think I wasn’t going to acknowledge what yesterday was on this here blog, did you? To be honest I wasn’t sure how I would feel on the 1 year anniversary of MJ’s death. You all know how hard it hit me last year and for a long time afterward, so I won’t go into it much more except to say that Anna does a superb job of putting into words what I can’t right now. I will say that listening to and thinking about MJ as this anniversary drew near really helped me get through those hard, traumatic weeks I had recently. Music can heal. Just ask my teen angst filled 16 year old self who hung onto every word of Morrissey, Depeche Mode and the Cure. I don’t think I relied on music like that since my high school days.

So instead I chose to celebrate. Aside from a few reflective moments when I caught myself staring absently into space, it worked. Can’t say that I got anything accomplished on my list of tasks yesterday…but I had a really good day.

I don’t always have it. But I have some now.

I promise I won’t waste it.

But sometimes it’s good to just hang out with a friend all day. To go to the museum and not really see any art, but sit in the cafe or the sculpture garden for hours surrounded by beautiful things and talk, bitch, scheme, plan, commiserate, celebrate.

And it’s also good to end the day by joining up with another friend to go see a mindless movie that can only be seen with a group of girlfriends (OMG, how ridiculous was Sex and the City 2?). We were greeted with a sliver of waning light as the day transitioned into night when we left the theater, and we sought after a place to sit outdoors. We ended up at the Coffee Shop in Union Square and talked about all the stupid shit we did back when we were younger, here in NYC. The movie may have been over the top ridiculous (really, whose lives are like that? How completely silly), but escapism doesn’t necessarily have to be deep or even good to be enjoyed. If anything, it reminded me that girlfriends have your back.

87 degrees. Might have been a record. This heat so early in the year is crazy. My work schedule is very light these days so I met a friend in the park with Claudine for a picnic except shade was scarce because there were no leaves on the trees.

But this sudden hot weather means after school sidewalk stoop parties are back! Neighbor kids, bathing suits, sprinklers, pizza and beer. A pleasant sunset over the vintage metal billboard and elevated subway tracks off in the distance. A perfect summer evening. In early April.