Valentine's Day (and we escape the Northeast!)

On Valentine's Day we had our favorite things: beer and charcuterie. We walked all the way to our favorite beer bar in Williamsburg in the afternoon, munching on beer and pretzel caramels, a new favorite thing. (Next time anyone comes to visit on a warm Saturday we are hightailing it to the Brooklyn Flea to get papusas and candy, and they are just going to have to trust me on that.)

Then we went home to sparkling wine and seafood from the Outer Banks that we've been keeping stockpiled in the freezer.

C is an expert at many things, but in the photo above you'll want to observe how good he is at celebrating romantic holidays and growing a beard.

Since I can only pull it together to blog seasonally, I'll also go ahead and mention that we just took a delightful trip to Atlanta. We celebrated Kate's birthday and followed an amazing itinerary that she custom designed just for us! We are still talking about the food, the cultural events, the beer, the 65-degree weather, the extremely clean Marta trains, the suspiciously friendly people, the yoforia! I'd post a picture of the whole group, but I don't have the express permission of each participant.

So I got this for ya instead, from the Atlanta Botanical Garden:

And here's my backyard this morning!

Just kidding! Here's my backyard this morning:

Autumn in New York

This fall there's been biking in the city,

and fishing in the country,

and pumpkin beer,

lots of pumpkin beer.

Rooftop Farm

Mmmmmm, kale...

with a view at a rooftop farm near our house.

August Garden

Our garden has really taken off recently. Actually, it's a little out of control. Everything is bigger and taller than I ever expected.

I found out that nasturtiums love the North. This is a climbing variety that is winding through the chain-link fence on one side of our garden, and on this side it's tumbling over the brick edging and climbing all over the yew bush.

Zinnias!

I don't think Chris is completely happy with how wild our garden has become, but I love it. Most of our backyard is concrete, and it makes me happy to see all of these plants bursting out of the garden space, even if it is a little unexpected.

I grew everything here from seeds. It was hard to picture exactly how the garden would turn out when I was planting tiny seeds back in April. I mean, I didn't think the Mammoth Russian sunflowers would actually grow to be 12 feet high...

The New York Botanical Garden

Welcome to the Bronx.

You didn't know it looked like this, did you? I didn't either. We went to the New York Botanical Garden to see their Edible Garden exhibit.

I liked this idea for a vegetable garden design:

Another design idea I loved, but didn't get a good photo of, was growing corn in a (huge) container along with peas or another climbing plant so the climber could use the corn as a support. We are definitely growing some corn next summer in our garden.

I also liked this idea for pruning (training?) an apple tree along a fence--easy picking!

This lotus was part of a beautiful exhibit of aquatic plants.

After the gardens we walked to the Little Italy of the Bronx, along Arthur Avenue, which was rumored to be waaaay better than the Little Italy section of Manhattan. We had a good dinner at an Italian restaurant, but my favorite place was the Madonia Brothers Bakery, where they fill your cannolis while you wait. If this place was in our neighborhood I would be in big trouble.

Next up will be some photos of our garden. It is doing well, thanks to Erik, who watered for us while we were on the Outer Banks.

Summer Solstice II

After yoga in Times Square I continued to celebrate the summer solstice at Brouwerij Lane, Greenpoint's finest beer store. They were a part of Make Music New York, a huge city-wide event where 850+ bands played in parks and public spaces. Brouwerij Lane hosted six different bands. Originally the music was supposed to take place on the sidewalk because I think Make Music New York is all about filling the streets with music, but the rain came back and everything was moved indoors. The music still went on all afternoon. I caught the last two bands.

Guess who designed and printed the poster? Find out here.

Summer Solstice

To celebrate the summer solstice I went to Times Square to participate in Mind over Madness Yoga. Throughout the day there were several free yoga classes held in Father Duffy Square. I received a flyer about the event in the mail weeks ago and signed up right away for one of the classes, all of which soon filled up. 

Chris thought it was crazy, and over the weeks leading up to today I wondered if I would really have fun doing this. Not to mention it has rained about 17 of the 21 days of June, which has made it difficult to be motivated to do anything. We woke up to another rainy day, and the forecast didn't look good. In the event information the organizers explained that participating would involve rolling out my yoga mat on concrete, and it would be held rain or shine. 

So if it rained I figured I could end up doing yoga in a puddle on the street. I seriously thought about staying home. But I headed to Times Square anyway. This was what it looked like before the class started.

The class was Bikram yoga, which I'd never done before. Bikram yoga is usually done in a hot room. When we started the class it was cloudy and kind of chilly, but as we got going the sun finally came out and it warmed up. I can't say that I liked the Bikram style, but doing a class that was so different from my usual yoga classes seemed to fit the circumstances. It also helped me to concentrate on yoga in the middle of Times Square because I was learning something new. 

When the instructor came out he stripped down to teeny leopard-print shorts, which was a little unfortunate because I'm sure it helped to convince the onlookers that yoga is for weirdos. But I let go of my own assumptions about the instructor and the Bikram style and really enjoyed the class.  

After the class we were treated to live music and samples of Rachel's Wickedly Delicious yogurt. 

It was super easy to keep up a yoga practice on the Outer Banks, with the great instructors at the Outer Banks YMCA, Outer Banks Yoga and the constant connection I felt with the natural environment. I wondered if I would enjoy yoga here in New York. I've been happy to find a new yoga community at the Greenpoint YMCA in our neighborhood that isn't really much different from the Outer Banks yoginis and yogis. I really wanted to do this event because I thought it would be the perfect expression of my belief that I can bring yoga with me wherever I go. And it was. 

At one point during the class I looked up and realized that we were right in front of a McDonald's. It was two-stories high and I could see people sitting inside eating and looking down at us doing yoga, and I thought, well that's a good reason to be out here too. 

Find more photos here.