My laundry hell

Just a little something to make you smile. This is my laundry pile. You can't see all of it. This is about 5 loads of washing just for the past 4 days. There are 4 more loads of washing lined up to be processed. This pile lives on the dining room table until I have the time/energy to fold and put away. Quite often the clothes get folded but don't find their way to drawers. Luckily the boys' clothes live downstairs in the drawers behind this pile.

I'd love to show you the rest of my house but, as you can imagine, if I did show you I'd be sectioned under the British Mental Health Act.

Have a lovely weekend mamas and I should get to the laundry xx

Nanny Poppins

Source: www.godutchbaby.blogspot.com

With all of this bedrest and waiting for the twins arrival, I have decided that it is time to staff up the household.

As many of you mamas know, I tend to be a little timid about finding help, but it is time to realize that I need it. Over the last two weeks I have dedicated my time laying in bed to finding the right help for our family. Mister T and my parents have been and will be a tremendous help but I can't ask them to do everything.

The first thing I did was hire a housekeeper. This has helped tremendously. Even before bedrest I quickly realized that scrubbing a tub was not very doable or safe for a pregnant woman. Our neighbors recommended a wonderful housekeeper who now comes in weekly to clean and do the laundry. She has also offered to run errands which will come in very handy when the twins arrive.

The second thing I did was hire a mother's helper for Miss L. This was a hard thing for me to do because I still want to do everything for Miss L. But my mental will cannot outmatch my physical limitations right now. I was very nervous to find the right person that would care for Miss L with the same focus and attention that I do. I was reluctant to use a random mothers board posting for a recommendation. Then I remembered that Mama N had spoken with other mothers in the neighborhood when she was looking for help back when we were neighbors. I followed in her footsteps and sent out emails to the mothers I had met here in SF over the last couple of months.

I found a lovely British nanny who started today and will be helping us two mornings a week. I expect that we will ask her to help more as we get closer to the twins arrival. What really made me feel comfortable, and excited, to have her help us was seeing Miss L's immediate response to her. When she stopped by for an initial visit a couple of weeks ago, Miss L ran right up to her and engaged her in playing. Miss L showed off her dance moves and giggled the entire time. And after just meeting her once for a couple of hours, Miss L already asks for her by name each day and pretends to call her on the phone. I have heard it often, and now I understand that it just clicks and you know it.

Next on the list is a postpartum doula. I interviewed two doulas based on recommendations from my prenatal swim instructor who also is a labor doula. I just hired my doula today. She will come for her first visit the day we come home from the hospital and then will come to help a few days a week for the first two months. Mostly I am looking for breastfeeding support and an extra set of hands as I learn how to care for two little ones at once. I found someone who is warm and nurturing and also very positive and upbeat, which I think will help tremendously in those first few sleep-deprived weeks. Miss L also enjoyed meeting her and wanted to show her all of her toys, which I thought was a good sign. Having a doula will also help me find little bits of time that I can share alone with Miss L even if it is just to read one story together.

While I found the beginning of this process of finding help to be daunting and scary, I am feeling really good about my decisions as the pieces start to fall into place.

On a side note, I also found a great CSA, Farm Fresh to You, that delivers farm-fresh fruit and vegetables to your door once a week. We received our first box of goodies this week and I was very pleased with the variety and quality, including grapes, beets, tomatoes, lettuce, chard, potatoes and peppers. Each box includes a note from the farm and sample recipes. It's not as fun as strolling over to Provisions with all of you for the summer CSA, but it is a great way to keep my kitchen stocked with fresh fruit and veggies.

Greetings from San Francisco

I hope you all will forgive me for my recent hiatus from blogging! My poor excuse is our cross-country move and getting settled in our new home, which takes much longer with an energetic toddler. However, I can happily say that there isn't a box left in the place and everything has found its place and is organized, down to my collection of books by subject matter.

This picture is the view from our new home. It is a delight to sit at our dining table and take in the surroundings of the Marin Headlands and Golden Gate Bridge. And the view is always changing. Here is the same view with a thick blanket of fog. Miss L can now imitate the sound of the fog horn!

We have had a nice transition back to California. Miss L is having fun playing in the neighborhood parks, going to the pool at the JCC which is only a few blocks away, and visiting her grandparents on the coast. She has adjusted quite well, even with her first molar coming in during our first two nights here.

Mister T and I are having fun exploring what feels like a new city since it has been over seven years since we last lived here. We are enjoying the fresh fruits and vegetables from the Ferry Building and seeing old friends. I've been able to take a few day trips with Miss L to visit extended family throughout Northern California. Yes, I am driving our car on a regular basis! It took about a week before I would back the car out of the garage. Mister T said I couldn't keep calling him to come down and park it for me.

While the transition has gone very well, I do miss my mama friends terribly. At the oddest times during the day I will have a deep yearning to go for a walk up the Hudson to Rockefeller Park or take a stroll to the Seaport to pick up summer CSA veggies, and that is when it really hits me just how far away I am. I miss seeing my friends throughout the week and feeling that close bond of knowing everything about their lives in that moment. It is during the week that it feels the loneliest. I know it will take time to make friends here, but I must say that my friends in New York cannot be replaced. So there have been a few tears along the way.

On a lighter note, I am the only one here with a Stokke stroller. I am in the land of the BOBs. I am often stopped on the street to explain my strange, high-tech stroller. It is really odd not to see Stokkes and Bugaboos pass me by on the sidewalk. I also tried to have a bagel last week and almost couldn't swallow it. There really must be something special in that New York City tap water to make such delicious bagels and pizza.

I've been DIYing too!

You can tell that Mama H and I have recently moved with our DIY projects. When we moved into this house the owner asked if we'd mind keeping the table as it didn't fit out any of the doors and would have to be cut up if we didn't want it. Although I love our dining table (that Mr M painstakingly sanded back and stained) I was happy to adopt this beautiful solid timber table. And it meant that ours didn't get damaged by little kiddies. This table was in the house when the current owner moved in 15 years ago so who knows how old it is.

The issue we had though is that our dining table has matching bench seats. We needed to find chairs. Being a rental I don't want to spend a lot of money either. Inspired by my mother in law's love of all things colour, a Peter Jensen scarf I own and the purple splashbacks I've grown to love it struck me that we had to have different coloured chairs.

I thought a simple trip to Ikea would solve this problem but they only had some horrible acrylic chairs in softer colours and I wanted bright. But I saw these chairs that come in red, white and black and decided that Mr M, being the wonderful handyman that he is, could paint them. However Mr M thought the chairs were too hard for his precious behind so I convinced him that I could make cushions for them. So we bought 6 white chairs, 3 different patterned bright fabrics for the covers and 6 cushions (at £2.95 each!!! How do they do that?).

We took my rainbow scarf into the local hardware store and they customised the high gloss paint to match. It took 6 weeks for Mr M to paint them because he could only do it on the weekends and only 2 at a time with at least 24 hours drying time between coats. Plus there was trial and error with just how many coats they needed. In the end he really did perfect it and after 3 coats they look incredible.

My job was to create the bright, vibrant, random cushion covers. My machines had been in storage here in London for over 2 years so they really needed a service before I could use them. Once I got them back I had to develop a pattern and create the cushions. After working on one cushion and being delighted with the result I made the remaining 5 finishing each with vintage buttons I'd bought off ebay a while ago.

Saturday morning we both finished the chairs just in time for the unveiling to friends over for a BBQ. They were really impressed and couldn't believe 1) we thought of the idea, 2) they were painted so well, 3) the cushions were so great and 4) we were brave enough to have all those colours together! We're very proud of ourselves and wonder what we're going to do with these chairs when eventually we move out and have our own walnut stain table with matching bench seats again.

DIY how to brighten an all-white dresser

I decided that Miss L's all-white dresser needed more color so I decided to replace the knobs. Mister T and I went to Restoration Hardware first and bought glass knobs that were tinted lavender, but they didn't fit. Then we decided to try Gracious Home. I found these painted knobs in lavender and green that would match Miss L's room just perfectly. When I inquired about them I was told they were $30 each! A woman on the UWS paints them in her spare time (by day she is an attorney).

Mister T told me I should just paint the original knobs myself. I liked the idea and hoped that I could pull it off. I bought Benjamin Moore paint samplers and a small paint brush. Here is the finished product.

Instead of paying $30 for each knob, I ended up spending about $3 for each! And I had fun painting them!

Excercise on Demand

Happy Mother's Day mamas! So, its been a while since you've seen Mama L posting, but I've been thinking of you, and admit that I just haven't been able to focus, and find the energy lately with some other things happening in our lives. I hope you all enjoyed your day. I felt so lucky to spend some time with my own lovely mom, and family today.

Speaking of time and engergy mamas, I have 3 little incredible words for you that have me fired up. Excercise on Demand! Yes, it's true! Who knew that finding the time and range of excerise options could be so easily available? You see, after the birth of Master L, I became an obsessive fan of Kula Yoga, and found myself treking to the studio several times a week. But, after more than a year of intense dedication, I confided to Mama H that I was starting to burn out from my Kula practice. Then, to my horror, I had let week after week slip by on what was intended as a little break. Before I knew it, it had been almost 3 months since I attended. Though I substituted my fitness regime with other (somewhat fulfilling routines), I started to really miss my practice. As Mama H knows, once you miss a few weeks at Kula it becomes way too scary to go back. I would never be able to keep up. So, desperate for a quick yoga fix the other night, I decided to cruise through our hundreds of unwatched cable channels with the hope of finding some kind of yoga infomecial I could, at the very least, follow along to. Ready to give up, I stumbled on channel 1025. Yoga (all levels), pilates, cardio sculpt, aerobics, sexy beach bod, post baby bod, hollywoood bod, YOU NAME IT, its offered!! Mamas, I tell you its been a yogathon weekend! While its not my beloved Kula studio, at least I'll be able to keep up once I can set foot back there again. If you're in the big apple, Time Warner has most likely hooked you up too!

After this amazing discovery, I couldn't anticpate more for a weekend, but it was also Mister M and my 5 year wedding anniversary. I hope to share more on this in another post. Now, I am heading to the coach to recuperate from it all.

Design on a dime

Mister T, Miss L and I were walking on 18th Street this morning heading to ABC Carpet & Home when we stumbled upon Housing Works Design on a Dime Public Sale.

We entered the Metropolitan Pavilion and walked through a maze of rooms, each styled by a different designer. The showroom is stocked with beautiful furniture, both vintage and modern, as well as artwork and linens.

We found a complete bed linen set, four dining room chairs, a canvas and a bedroom chair.

There are a few more pieces we are mulling over. We have our eyes on a vintage French children's bed for Miss L (not the one pictured above, but one in antique white with lovely carved details). We are headed back tomorrow for the last day.

Yes, this is just a two-day event. There will be further discounts tomorrow, which is hard to imagine given the incredible discounts we found today! Mister T and I were like children in a candy store ripping off the tags to claim our pieces before someone else grabbed them! It was an absolutely wonderful New York shopping experience.

The bonus is that the proceeds go to a wonderful charity. Housing Works is a grassroots AIDS service organization providing much-needed, life-saving services to homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS.

Home (check), playground (check), yarn store (check)

Mister T, Miss L and I had a successful trip to San Francisco to find a home. After six appointments on the first day I was not feeling very excited about any of the places we looked at, just okay. We had only two appointments the next day and when one of them was canceled by the broker I really started to lose hope. We went to the sole appointment that day with absolutely no expectations and as soon as we walked through the door we were blown away. We signed the lease that day. We had found a home that we would love to live in.

Our new home is in Presidio Heights. It is a full-floor flat in a 100-year old home with beautifully restored original Edwardian details. While we won't have a yard or outdoor space we just couldn't pass up the interior space, which is double the size of our current apartment in New York. It will be a home we can grow into. Some of the fun features of our new space is a jack-and-jill bathroom between two of the bedrooms, a working fireplace in the foyer and views of the Golden Gate from the dining room and master bedroom. It doesn't have a built-in ironing board, but I decided to let that pass. I can use Mama N's ironing board that she gave me.

There is a playground a few blocks away in a neighborhood park that borders the Presidio. And I found a lovely yarn store, Atelier, that is about a ten-minute walk. They have gorgeous yarns and offer a number of classes. The bins of yarn contain labels to tell you the needle size and other details, which I thought was a really nice touch.

Now that I have a place to move, something tangible, I am getting excited for life in San Francisco. I just wish all of my mama friends could come with me! It is going to be so hard to say goodbye. It makes my heart feel heavy.

I'm looking for my heart in San Francisco

Source: www.alwaysnewmistakes.wordpress.com

Mister T, Miss L and I are off to San Francisco for a few days to do some house hunting. I am anxious to find a home for us. I've set up a number of appointments to look at places in Noe Valley and Pacific Heights. Here are my must-haves:

1. Garage since we will start driving our car again

2. Yard for Miss L to run and play

3. Built-in ironing board in the kitchen (this may not be a must-have for Mister T) to block my finished objects

4. Formal dining room

5. Three or four bedrooms to allow a guest room for you mamas to visit and a separate craft room (another one that may not be on Mister T's list of must-haves, not the mamas visiting, but the craft room)

6. Very few steps (not easy in San Francisco)

7. Recently renovated kitchen for my cooking adventures

8. Excellent coffee shop ala Jack's in close walking distance

9. Friendly, helpful knitting store stocked with lovely yarns in the neighborhood

10. Lots of neighborhood playgrounds for Miss L since there won't be any playgroups as fun as our Monday and Thursday playgroups

to be continued...

I'm feeling purple - or maybe blue?

No posts from me for a while. But there is a good reason - I haven't had internet access! I've managed to run my business and keep in contact with friends on email and facebook all via my black berry. Amazing really.

I spent the day nursing a sick little man. After gloating that Master R never gets sick, he's now been sick three times since we moved back to London in mid-Feb. It's been the same every time - high fever, running nose and grumpy - and has only lasted 48 hours before he's back to his usual self again.

While we were getting some fresh air in our garden I picked these lovely branches with purple flowers. I'm not sure what they're called but they look beautiful against the purple backboard of our Aga. Then I noticed that the pom poms I'm currently making for my new rug are also the same colour. This image lifted my blue mood slightly...

Miss you all xx

My ode to Shel Silverstein

I am doing some spring cleaning right now, and it's a little more involved this year with a cross-country move looming in the near future. I found a poem that I wrote for Mister T during our renovation of our brownstone apartment a few years ago and thought I would share it. First, let me give you some background.

We bought a floor-through, or a flat as they call it in London and San Francisco, in a brownstone on the Upper Westside. We did a gut renovation, meaning we tore everything out except for the beams that framed the apartment. The renovation took about seven months. We decided to restore as many of the original features as we could, which dated back to the 1890's. This included restoring the original wood accents around the fireplace and doors, as you can see in the photo of the finished fireplace.

We hired three Italian men to restore the wood and they sanded the wood for weeks, and weeks and weeks. I thought they would never stop sanding. As the date approached for us to actually move in to the apartment, they were still sanding, we had no kitchen (no cabinets or appliances just newly painted walls) and I was buying lunch everyday for everyone working in the apartment. The problem was that some of the workers wanted McDonald's, others wanted Chinese or Cuban take-out and the Italians wanted mama's home cooking which was really difficult in a kitchen without a stove or refrigerator.

One day I stopped in to check on the progress and opened the door to the sound of wood sanding. I immediately closed the door and sat on the outside hallway step and wrote this impromptu poem for Mister T. I should also mention that this brownstone was a self-managed co-op and the outside hallways were a mess. It took two years for us to convince the rest of the owners to renovate the hallways. Just in time for us to flip the apartment with only one open house (and a feature in On the Market in the Times), make a nice profit before the downturn and thankfully move downtown where I met all of my mama friends!

My apartment will never be complete
With all the dust it will never be clean and neat
The Italians won't stop sanding
I'll be lucky if any of the original wood is left standing
McDonald's #7, pork fried rice, chicken and beans
We better still live here when our kids are teens
Everyone wants cash and more money
You better get a really fat bonus honey
We won't have a kitchen until summer
Our first contractor couldn't have been dumber
It will be great to breathe in all the fumes
Which will lead us straight to our tombs
The hallways look like a crackhouse
There better not be any bugs or rats, not even a mouse
We'll have no TV or stereo, just wires
And you know they're all just a bunch of liars
Maybe when its all said and done
Our apartment will be worth a ton
And we'll still be together
And New York City will have warmer weather