Our Wonderful 2012

The last year has got to be the best I've ever had, which is saying a great deal because I seem to remember 2009 and 2010 being two years that were pretty hard to top.  But now that I have have my Rob and Olive, the two things that made those years so completely wonderful, things can only go up from there.

To start, I managed to not run my new business venture into the ground in its fledgling year under my control - a feat in and of itself.  I'm proud of how I've been able to successfully grow the company, especially since entrepreneur had never been a role I imagined myself filling.  And I love it!  We're eager to see what changes, big and small, 2013 will bring to our little family olive oil business.

In March Rob and I took our very first significant trip alone together, which was both a blessing and a hardship being away from Olive for a whole week.  However, Napa was like a dream, and seeing our friends, Bruce and Romeo and exploring their ranch, enjoying incredible food, and learning about olive oil at the Olive Center at UC Davis was really a perfect vacation.

I ran my fourth marathon in May (and am eagerly looking forward to my fifth in - yikes - just over four months, despite the fact that I haven't run since that leisurely 3-miler I did with my dad on Thanksgiving).  Though it becomes easier each time I run 26.2 miles, it's still an accomplishment, not to mention a nice way to help raise money for charities.  Stay tuned for more on that later.

I had what was, without a doubt, the best summer in all of my thirty-one years, spent with some of the finest folks in Pittsburgh.  Wonderful foods were made and consumed, conversations had, and bonds forged that will last a lifetime.  These are the people that Olive sees not just as my friends, but hers, as well, and are very much like family to all of us.

My sudden urge in July to take a family trip to Europe was one of the best ideas I've ever hatched, if I do say so myself.  Such an excursion might have seemed too far-fetched for us at one time, but I figured    we should take the opportunity to make more memories.  The three of us still regularly go through the photographs we took and talk to Olive about what we did there just so it doesn't become too vague a memory as she gets older.

I welcomed my third niece, Opal, in late October.  Though we haven't seen much of her since her first week (despite living 25 minutes from my sister, our schedules are rarely in sync enough to allow for many visits and our paths didn't cross in Maryland the day after Christmas as we'd hoped because of some pretty nasty weather), she is an absolute doll with the widest, most inquisitive-looking eyes I've ever seen.  Olive loves her and is constantly asking to look at pictures of her youngest cousin.

And finally, I've started regularly producing artwork again.  I've been looking around our house at the artwork, noting that most of it has been done since becoming a Pittsburgher.  While it's overwhelming at times, it feels really good knowing that I have the ability to create things that affect other people in a positive way, and to still be using the gift I was given.  Olive seems to enjoy watching me work, too, and gets inspired to paint, herself, which delights me much in the way my own artist mother must've loved watching her children create works on paper.

 Basking in the early spring sunshine in Napa

 Olive with two of her favorite people, Keith and Alex.  Bagel making was in progress.

 Giving a squeeze to Shackleton, our friends' house bunny

 Exploring the creek in our friend's back yard.  I wouldn't at all mind having a house with a creek one day.

 Getting a visit from Alex at the Pittsburgh Public Market

 On a walk around Alpine Lake while visiting Mimi and Pop Pop at their lake house in West Virginia

 Our spur-of-the-moment Labor Day trip to Lake Erie 

 Making their way up to the Rock of Dunamase near Port Laoise, Ireland

 Looking out over Dingle Bay off of Slea Head Drive on the Dingle Peninsula in western Ireland

 My two loves, delighted to be at the Rock of Cashel, a pretty impressive Irish castle

Crawling through a rope tunnel at the Tiergarten Schönbrunn, the zoo in Vienna, Austria

Giving a kiss to Pink Cat, Olive's companion, near the foot of the Eiffel Tower

 Olive was always wanting Marie, our hostess in Prague, to read her stories.  I think she enjoyed her accent.

Opal!  She arrived during the hype of Hurricane Sandy on October 29th at the Midwife Center.  She is such a dear.

Christmas Eve

We got a later start getting to Maryland for Christmas this year; our plan was to leave when I got off work last night but a family-wide flu delayed us till this morning.  Boy, was it a nasty bug we caught!  I thought it was something I'd eaten when I got it on Friday evening since I didn't have most of the other symptoms, but on Saturday morning, as I was leaving Rob and Olive to work the stand at the market, Olive was acting unusually upset and Rob said he was starting to feel sick - a rare occurrence indeed.  I went home to make up for the night of sleep I'd lost and waited for his call.  It came a few hours later; Olive was vomiting all over the place so I got up to go relieve them.  I'd gotten enough sleep to recharge me to the point where I could work the last few hours without too much difficulty.  I returned home to a house where the virus was in full swing - a troubling situation for a mother and wife - so I immediately commenced preparing my very first chicken stock from scratch.  We all needed to replenish our fluids and I figured that was the best - if not the quickest - way.  I roasted the chicken then picked it apart and simmered nearly all of it in a broth with an onion lots of garlic, salt, and rosemary, and let it slowly cook all night.  Its hot, salty fattiness was unbelievably soothing on my empty stomach.  

So this morning we decided we were all well enough for the 3 1/2 hour drive to my parents' house.  A busy day was in store for us with an afternoon stop into Baltimore so I could see my old friends-employers at Amaryllis followed by a visit with my old friend Rita.  It had begun to snow lightly before we left my parents' house but the roads were just wet and posed no threat.  While we were in Amaryllis (the best jewelry store in Maryland - wait - the country), Olive busied herself leafing through magazines and admiring the inventory while I caught up with Allie and AnnMarie.  Rob had been keeping an eye on her but she suddenly disappeared.  We looked all over the store and she was nowhere to be seen.  I poked my head outside and didn't see her, but when Rob did the same we heard a car horn and then we saw her, up the block and a across the street, being taken into the care of an officious-looking gentleman on the corner.  Rob dashed across to retrieve her and she appeared to be oblivious to the danger of the situation and our fear.  I suppose she'd simply wanted to check out the feathered deer in the Anthropologie window display (I could hardly blame her).  Still, another brush with something like that made me that much more conscious of how easily and quickly terrible accidents can happen with children.  I'm so thankful that it turned out the way it did and that my dear child is safe and asleep, warm in her crib.

We ended up nixing church and my longtime tradition of my friend, Natalie's parents' Christmas Eve party, and stayed home because the roads had become too horrific.  Fortunately our car performs well in wintry conditions, and Rob and I have plenty of Alaska- and Maine-driving experience, but we saw an alarming number of cars off the road so we opted to play it safe and relax.  Being in Maryland this year sure beats the way I spent Christmas last year, laid up in bed with the flu (?) while Rob worked.  There was nothing Christmasy about it.

December with the Cramers

This month has gotten off to a pretty great start.  It began with my mom visiting the market where I work to do a signing for her book, But the Greatest of These is Love.  It was nice to have here there for a few hours so she could experience my workplace and meet some of my friends.

I have just discovered, after nearly five weeks of going without wheat in my diet, that the itchy condition on my legs has drastically improved.  I was waiting to talk about it for fear that I'd jinx myself, but it's been nearly a week of relief and it's so much more comfortable at night without all the scratching and bleeding.  What's more, I no longer resemble a dog with mange from the knees down, which is great.  It really hasn't been all that much of a sacrifice like I'd thought.  I didn't give up gluten which frees me up to continue to enjoy many of the foods I love, like oatmeal.

I'm feeling like an artist again, after a few years of taking on very few side projects.  I was asked by a friend who manages our neighborhood coffee shop, Tazza D'Oro, if I'd be willing to show my work there during the month of January and I eagerly accepted.  My plan was to reproduce a collection of photographs from our trip in October in watercolors, so I have my work cut out for me between now and the first of the year.  I'm really excited about creating a fresh body of work for the occasion, and have carved out a small studio space for myself in our living room.  In addition to working on paintings for the show (which will also be hung in March for another show at my friend's book store), I have on my plate a large-scale watercolor portrait for a client who won a painting at a benefit auction back in the spring and a very special scratchboard portrait for a dear friend's Christmas gift to another dear friend.  I'm busy.

Work has really picked up with the onset of December.  People are getting serious about their gift purchasing now.  One gentleman came to my stand for presents and bought twenty-seven bottles of olive oil and balsamics!  I just had my best Saturday ever - and perhaps weekend, though I haven't compared the total numbers yet.  I'm still on the hunt for a storefront space but I've gotten a few very promising leads, so hopefully by the beginning of the new year I'll have found the place where my business can call home.

Rob's been doing some hands-on work with Julie, the female kinkajou in the zoo's education department.  She's aggressive and not very friendly, so his goal is to tame her and get her better adjusted to human interaction.  He teaches a lot of classes and yesterday led two groups of three year-olds, an age with which he's especially familiar since Olive is only two months shy of that mark.  One of the parents told him afterwards that it was the best class she'd ever seen conducted.  He puts so much into his work and I'm exceedingly proud of him for bringing such enthusiasm to his job.  He excels in whatever he does.

Olive's been a little funny thing lately.  Yesterday, after waking from a good nap at the market, I suggested we go to the restroom to change her diaper.  "You stink," I told her.  "I smell beautiful!," she replied.  She's so filled with joy so much of the time (her down moments are rare and short-lived, thankfully).  I cannot imagine a more pleasant child.  We are so blessed by her each and every day.

The Tempeh Can't Wait

Lately, since Olive has transitioned from her crib to a bed, she's been getting up and starting her days especially early - often before Rob and I are ready to get up, so she busies herself happily until we are.  However, she's taken to opening up the refrigerator to examine the contents and consider what she'd like for breakfast.  Yesterday we heard the refrigerator door open and some clattering ensue so Rob went to investigate.  What he found was Olive, on the floor with a slab of tempeh, setting to work boring a hole in the packaging with a knife she'd selected from the utensil drawer.  She had a very specific plan, that one.

Shortly afterwards, when Rob had made her eggs and vegetables for breakfast, she looked up and asked him, "But where's the tempeh?"

Remembering Europe

Yesterday while Olive was recounting our trip to Europe (as she often does), I asked her if she drove a car in Austria.  "No!  I drove in Vienna!"  It's true - she did get to drive a car in Vienna during our visit to the Prater, the amusement park there.  It was one of those little cars that went around on a track, and she was most amused by it, at least after the first time around.  She also rode a horse (on a carousel and a real one with me on the back), a carousel swan, a giant fan (Ferris wheel), ate a pretzel, sat down, and saw a fountain.  When talking about her first day in Vienna, she mentions all of these things.

We've been back in Pittsburgh for nearly four weeks and I'm still amazed that we were able to pull off such an extensive vacation.  It was truly the best I've ever taken and will be difficult to match, though we plan on returning in five years.  If we can make this a regular happening as often as that we'll be thrilled.  And next time, when Olive is seven or eight, she'll have even more stories to tell.

Here are some highlights (as told by me; I'm sure Rob and Olive have their own accounts):

Slea Head Drive, Dingle, Ireland.  After checking out of our delightful B&B, where we had a delectable Irish breakfast, we drove along this scenic road that winds around the peninsula on the western coast of Ireland.  I was awestruck as we made our way around the curvy, narrow roads, marveling at every turn at the breathtaking scenery that surrounded us on every side.  The ocean, the cliffs, cozy cottages and craggy rocks and hillsides dotted with white sheep.  I think Rob has a mind to retire there one day and I wouldn't be opposed to joining him.  

Paris.  Our single full day spent there was a full one, indeed, and though we didn't get to do half the things we would've liked to have done, it still made such a wonderful impression on me.  The catacombs and sewer tour were at the top of Rob's list of things to do, but since our day coincided with the Louvre's free admission day (the first Sunday of the month), we felt we needed to take advantage of that.  Though we arrived just after the doors opened, the line wound through the inner courtyard and out onto the street.  The estimated wait time was 2-3 hours.  I didn't know that I wanted to spend that chunk of time waiting in line but Rob was willing to earn his trip, so to speak.  We'd only waited about twenty minutes when a guard approached us and told us to come with him; because we had a small child we were ushered to the entrance, a gesture of such generosity of kindness we had not expected.  The museum itself was impressive - mostly because of its size.  I'm glad we went, but next time we're there I'm going to make a beeline for the Musée d'Orsay.  

Afterward we made our way to the catacombs.  After a bit of trouble finding the elusive underground tombs, we arrived at the door to find a sign telling us it was closed to the public because of ventilation problems.  We went to the Eiffel Tower instead.  Too exhausted to climb the tower's stairs (we'd already walked for miles and I'd gotten little sleep; a Saturday night with open windows facing out onto the streets of Montmartre made for a restless night for this light sleeper), we opted to enjoy the view from the bottom, stroll along the Seine, and hunt for lunch.  Choosing a restaurant even ten block from the tourist haven was a mistake, and we suffered through a less-than-mediocre meal, but we redeemed ourselves a few hours later when we happened upon a festival near our Metro station.  We browsed the tents with vendors selling a manner of edibles, then selected a slab of tomme cheese, three baguettes (the best I'd ever eaten), and some olive and tomato tapenade, brought it back to our hotel and picnicked on our bed.  I felt a twinge of guilt for turning in at 6 pm, but after schlepping around for nine hours with a worn-out - yet still pleasant - child, calling it a day was the wisest thing to do.  And Paris, despite living up to its heavy-smoking stereotype, turned out to be a city where I felt very much at home.  The Metro system was so efficient and easily navigable, the residents friendly and not at all rude to us Americans, and even my few years of middle and high school French came very much in handy, both in reading signs and communicating with the locals.  I tried to use their language as often as possible - so much so that long after we'd arrived in Austria I still found myself saying "Excusez-moi," when maneuvering through crowds.  That I didn't know the German translation was also a factor.

The Hotel Salzburger Hof in Salzburg.  While our time here was dampened by chilly rain, making our Sound of Music tour less enjoyable than it could've been and obscuring our views of the mountains and lake, we were fortunate to be able to hunker down during the worst weather of our trip in the nicest hotel imaginable.  Just a three minute walk from the train station, we settled in to our comfortable accommodations in the theme hotel (guests stayed in either Salzburg, Mozart, or Sound of Music rooms).  I wasn't sure whether ours was a Salzburg or Mozart room since it had a scene of the city on one of the walls but Mozart's profile on the frosted glass bathroom door, but it was nice, nonetheless, with a foyer, lounge area (where Buggy slept on the couch), our bedroom, and a pretty decked out bathroom with heated floors.  The best part of all was the breakfast, a smorgasbord of morning treats on which we gorged ourselves both days we were there.  I grew especially fond of the yogurt, fruit, and muesli, there were plenty of eggs and fruit for Buggy, and breads, cheeses, meats, and endless coffee for Rob.  I've never been one to skip out on breakfast so this was perfect.  We're looking forward to staying there again the next time.

Vienna.  I'd set my sights pretty high on this city for a long time, but it only lived up to my expectations.  We stayed in a beautiful and comfortable hotel on a nice street that was convenient to nearly everything.  We had two full days to spend there, both of which were perfect (with the exception of my birthday dinner, which we ranked worst meal on the trip, but I won't talk about that.  Nothing too terrible, just the worst of what we had).  On the first we set off on foot to the Upper Belvedere Palace, an art museum housing an impressive Gustav Klimt collection.  I thought the physical museum itself trumped the Louvre in every way, but I was disappointed that no photography was permitted.  The Klimt exhibit was amazing, as I'd expected.  We walked through the gardens outside, lamented the fact that we didn't have someone there to take our picture (so there are no photos of the three of us in existence, which I think is sad), then decided to forgo public transportation and walk to the Prater, only 2.5 miles away.  This was mainly for Olive's benefit, since she'd never been to an amusement park before, but I was pretty keen on seeing the Ferris wheel, which has been in operation for over one hundred years.  I have a real thing for those structures and old amusement parks in general, and I liked that we were there in the off season while there weren't too many visitors, even through many of the rides weren't open.  That evening, craving some good, clean, meatless fare, we found a vegetarian Taiwanese restaurant called - don't laugh - Vegetasia.  We ate like kings there, savoring every bite of our mock-meat dishes, steamed vegetable dumplings, miso soup, and sorbet for dessert.  It certainly wasn't local fare, but it was the best food I ate in the entire two weeks.

The next day, Rob's birthday, we went to the Tiergarten Schönbrunn, Vienna's zoo, the oldest in the world.  While not as impressed initially, we found the deeper we explored the grounds the better the exhibits became.  The orangutan enclosures were exquisite, to say the least.  It made us so happy to see the amount of space, the enrichment, and cleanliness that those particular animals were given.  Rob was especially delighted to see a mixed exhibit of his all-time favorite trifecta of species: tapirs, capybaras, and giant anteaters.  I kept thinking of how much he'd love to be in the position of caring for these animals and began to encourage him to learn German and apply for a job there.  

Prague.  Through couchsurfing.org we found the most compatible and gracious hostess, Marie, who met us at the train station when we arrived.  She gave us her bedroom, which doubled as the living area in the flat she shared with her brother (their parents lived on the ground floor), made us a simple but delicious dinner of beet and cabbage soup, and gave Olive books and toys to play with.  The next day she accompanied us downtown to the Mucha Museum, which was a big inspiration for me to go to Prague in the first place.  Having spent her entire life in Prague, Marie had never been to the little museum and was eager to tag along.  I could have spent the whole day there just ogling the works, absorbing the colors, tracing his delicate and meticulous lifework with my eyes, fawning over the beauty of every mark he made.  Marie, also a fan, described his work as "kitsch", which I could understand.  While not exactly fine art, his work was very commercial and still tends to be.  Still, I can help but  adore the elegance of it, and all around the city were echoes of his influence in the Art Nouveau decor that adorned the buildings.  

Best of all, though, was having over two weeks of completely uninterrupted time with Rob and Olive and to be able to turn it into such an adventure.  Some people were skeptical about the idea of us bringing a two year-old to Europe, and there were certainly times before we left when I wondered if I might later regret the decision, but having her along made it better, not to mention proved that international travel with a young toddler isn't as daunting a task as one might presume.  We crammed in a lot in two weeks but it never felt like too much, and looking back on it, through the hundreds of pictures we took, it really was the perfect family vacation.

Oh, and there are no pictures because the ones I would've posted here are already on Facebook.  It's taken me this long just to post about the trip and if I went to the trouble of adding photos this would never get done, so here it is.

Things a Sweet Girl Says

I've hit a block while typing a blog about our trip.  I'm trying to keep it concise while wanting to include the highlights (which were abundant).  In the meantime, here are a few recent sayings from Olive:

-While on our longish drive from Dingle, on the west coast of Ireland, back to Dublin, she was making requests for me to draw things for her - Papa, me, a cup of yogurt - and when I handed her the pad with the sketch of a strawberry yogurt she praised my efforts: "Ah, good job, Mom!"  "Mom" has become a sort of saying with her, much like man or dude, and doesn't apply necessarily to me.  I'm still "Mama" to her, for now.

-When leaving Marie's house in Prague (Marie hosted us through couchsurfing.org), she began wishing her a happy birthday (we'd just come off of Rob's and my birthdays and she was finally prepared to wish someone a happy one, even if it was two months early).

-Yesterday I told her I liked her blue eyes.  "I like your brown eyes!," she replied.

-"Oh, beautiful Gray!," she's been saying lately to our cat, Wendell.  It wasn't an adjective we'd ever used in reference to him, that's for sure.  Not that he's not a handsome cat, but his dopey ways override his good looks.

-Overheard while playing with her Quantum Leap globe (If anyone knows a kid that is passionate about geography, I suggest getting this toy.  It's great).  "Mongolia!  Good job, Mom!"  She's also been asking for help locating "Opiopia" (Ethiopia), bringing me back to the time in my childhood when I couldn't get enough of our globe and finding the countries in Africa.  She's delighted that she can pick out Prague and Vienna amongst the crowded mass that is Europe.  Despite bringing her at such a young age, I believe she'll retain quite a bit of it, as long as we continue to revisit through stories and photographs.

-She's proving to be an effective tool for quitting my near-lifelong nail biting habit.  Today in the car while I was gnawing on a fingernail she chirped from the back seat, "Don't put your fingers in your mouth!"  Busted.

-While waiting at the post office this morning she was saying, to no one in particular, "Hi.  My name is Wanda."  We're not sure where this Wanda business came from, but it wasn't the first time she'd made an appearance.

Itinerary

Being the sort who is most productive when time is slipping away from me (we leave on Monday), I've just about nailed down all of the details of our trip.  For those who are curious, here's our schedule:

October 1: Fly overnight from Pittsburgh and arrive in Dublin in the morning (what will feel like 3:45 am to us.  I'm dreading this part.
October 2: Rent a car and drive west to Galway and stay with my boss, Lisa's, aunt.  Here we'll explore the coast and take in the scenery that, for reasons still not clear, never called to me.  I think it's the food that's been the biggest deterrent - so boiled, so white.
October 4: Return to Dublin and stay the night.
October 5: Take ferry to London.  Spend the night.  That's it.
October 6: Take train to Paris.  I'm excited about this one.  I've been told many times that I should go.  I love the language and feel like I know enough of it to get by without needed to be coddled in English.  I know how the French are, and I like it.  The Louvre and Musée d'Orsay are biggies, as are the catacombs, a tour of the sewers, and, at Bruce's urging, St. Chapelle.
October 8: Take train to Salzburg.  Austria alone was the driving force behind this trip - for me, at least.  After hearing Gi-Gi speak so fondly of it I developed my own vicarious interest, bolstered by my love of The Sound of Music.  It goes without saying that we're signed up for the four-hour official tour on the 9th.  I decided that we should stay an extra day to take in the magnificent landscape of Alps and lakes.
October 10: Take train to Vienna.  This is a city that, thanks in large part to John Irving, my favorite writer, many of whose novels are set there, also lodged itself in my imagination and became a destination I longed to visit.  It stands to reason that I should want to spend my birthday in both Austrian cities because, you know, you only turn thirty-one once.  Vienna is home to the work of some of my favorite artists - Gustave Klimt and Egon Schiele, specifically - from the Secessionist movement. Cool, weird, beautiful stuff.  There's also the Prater, the hundred year-old amusement park, and the zoo, and the Opera House (from 'The Hotel New Hampshire!')
October 13: Take train to Prague.  I set my sights on this city because of - why else? - the Mucha Museum.  Alphonse Mucha, a prominent figure in Art Nouveau, was Czech and many of his works can be seen around the city.  Prague itself, from what I've heard and seen in pictures, is stunning, but I needed no other reason to go.  We're also staying with Marie, a woman who offered to share her bedroom with us in the flat she shares with her brother and cats.  This will be extra fun.
October 16: Fly to Dublin and stay the night.
October 17: Fly to Pittsburgh.

That's it in a nutshell.  I'm growing more and more eager as October gets closer.  We have our cat-sitter and rides to and from the airport arranged.  Rent has been paid.  My pal Alex has the stand covered, and Olive, that funny kid, decided to quit taking naps at the most opportune time.  Not that she won't be completely thrown out of whack by the jet lag, so it probably won't make a difference either way.

See?  Just like Rob and me.  Maybe if he's feeling extra sweet he'll reenact that scene from the movie that's always made me feel ill.  Of course he will.