(Belated!)Ladies Night Out in Brooklyn

Can you think back to the middle of December? Where you were? What you were doing? Good. Because that's when this post was actually written - enjoy!

I am writing this perched on Liz's big-girl bed in the Ditmas Park area of Brooklyn. She and her lovely roommate Julia have just moved in a couple weeks ago, so the whole apartment right now looks much like Liz's room - boxes, clothes, appliances galore! Even in their semi-unpacked state, the two of them have already managed to make things homey. The kitchen is probably the most complete with a new microwave that looks like a spaceship, the spices lined up over the stove, Julia's German espresso cups peeping from the top of the fridge, and a creative storage system that gives a fun minimalist-like, ladies'-in-the-city vibe to the decor.

Hey Tiz - hope you don't mind I snapped a few pictures while you were at work!

Some other nice tidbits of Lizzie's new apartment:

- the bathroom is nicely long with a heating pipe right next to the toilet to keep your knees warm on cold December mornings (a definite bonus in my book!)

- being located on the 3rd floor, it is a nice daily climb for a bit of exercise but not too grueling for the stagger home from the pub (tho Liz never staggers - she's been known to waltz!)

I'll leave the rest for Liz to reveal. Nally and I had a nice time with her and Julia out at the Grill. Johnny was behind the bar, making us giggle, making us drinks. I don't miss the close quarters and noise of Brooklyn, but I do miss being near my favorite people, living with family. I think Jesse and I occillate back and forth between enjoying playing 'House' on our own and wanting to live in a big old house with all our sisters and roomies :) Who knows what the future will bring? Syracuse probably won't be forever - tho if the past few months are any indication, I do believe we will be enjoying Upstate for the next couple years.

Don't know if we'll be posting before we get back up into Syracuse after the holidays - we'll see, we may be inspired.

Have a wonderful holiday season everyone. We love you!

Caitlin and Jesse

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

On this shortest day of the year, I lay in bed watching a blizzard blanket Hawthorne Street of Syracuse, wondering at what point do I begin the shoveling. You clear the sidewalk at the end of the storm, not in the middle. I've shoveled more snow in the past month than I have in the previous 10 years combined, even having lived in the northeast that whole time.

We'll get exactly 9 hours of sunlight today. Not including the dim visibility of dawn and dusk, we'll have 9 hours for outdoor daylight activities. Our schedules have adapted so they don't rely on the sun to tell us when to wake up and when to go to sleep. But my poor indoor plants that I move around the house to get as much light as possible will be starved today with only 9 hours to feed them.

They don't like this frigid cold either. Syracuse lies just southeast of Lake Ontario, and winds from the northwest bring cold Canadian air across the lake, picking up its water, and dumping it in snow form in the Onondaga Valley. We average about 12 feet of snow each season and just below the freezing point for well over the next month. Tonight those winds are supposed to reach gusts of 50 mph.

When Percy Shelly wrote his Ode to the West Wind he was embracing seasonal changes.

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!"

We loved our open air farmer's markets of October and November; choosing between 8 varieties of local tomatoes rocks! But on this first day of winter, I'm looking forward to pulling on my winter boots and gloves. I can't wait to get a really good snow tube to try out in Thornden Park.

I'm also excited about the return of the sun, as on Thursday my plants will have 1 more minute of light than they do today.

Happy Winter Solstice everyone!

Sunday Funday

Howdy folks - we're glad Sunday Funday has come 'round again. Jesse has managed to roll his way into the semi's (Lebowski shout-out) of our fantasy football league - as have Damian, Lauren's boyfriend Dan's boss Dean, and - to everyone's consternation - Nally. May the best motley crew of hand-picked NFL players and teams win!

And yes, if you were wondering, Plaxico Burress (who shot himself in the leg with his own gun at a nightclub a few weeks ago), was on MY fantasy team.

I am COMPLETELY shocked that my team - HungryHungryHippos/Maude - has put-putted sadly into 8th place in our league. My players did, however, give a stunning performance on their way out last week - 120 points! Ironically, the most my team has gotten all season and one of the highest league scores as well. So, I went out with a bang (no pun intended) and had the satisfaction of crushing Jesse. Once, just once.

We had a decent covering of snow this past Friday (sorry to everyone else who got ice!) and I couldn't help but go out and take some pretty pictures of the winter wonderland scene. My LLBean boots have been serving me well - I've been wearing them in pretty nicely on the tramp back and forth between my finals! 6 Down - one to go! They will ALL BE DONE as of tomorrow at noon - and I will be rejoicing in the streets. Seriously, there may be some jigging and some high-stepping.

Also! I recently visited Food Democracy Now and signed a petition asking President-Elect Obama to appoint a Secretary of Agriculture who would be committed to moving our nation's food and agriculture policy towards more sustainable practices, ie less harmful pesticides, local/regional food, supporting CSA's (community supported agriculture) and small-business farmers.

Lots of Americans (not to mention farmers and consumers around the world) have jumped onto the local/organic/slow food bandwagon - but it shouldn't be a luxury reserved for the few who can afford to farm in safer, healthier ways or to keep up with organic prices at the supermarket. Jesse and I are fortunate enough to be living in a region of Upstate New York that boasts lots of small, family-owned and run farms, markets, stands, orchards, and vineyards. There's a lot going on up here and in other rural and urban settings - hopefully this focus on good quality, healthy, DE-licious food can spread to the rest of the nation!

Can't wait to see a lot of you during this Holiday Season! For those that we'll be missing this year, I refer you to the wise words of Buddy, The Elf:


The best way to spread Christmas cheer, is singing loud for all to hear.


(by the way, this advice works for the holiday season in general - not just christmas!)

Lotsa love everyone,
Caitlin

Addendum to Previous Post

Ok, ok - so I promise this is the last post today. I just couldn't help myself - I am completely running with the idea that you are all positively fascinated, need-to-know riled up about what we are eating on a regular basis, sooooo . . .

a big beautiful bowl of chili! This is what my desk looks like right now:

We actually made the chili a couple weeks ago - we've been freezing a good amount to dole out in small batches for those nights (like last night) when neither of us has the energy or mental focus to prepare anything other than left over chili or maybe mac and cheese. We wanted to make a turkey chili but at the groccers we ran into a lovely, lonely little package of beautiful "all natural" ground lamb. So the chili turned out 2lbs turkey and 1lb lamb - the perfect proportion to get that lamb flavor in the backround without totally overwhelming that good chili taste. Success!

And now, really this time guys, BACK TO WORK!

-the student DPT

Christmas Bells are Ringing . . . .

Well, in my head at least!

So here is the (long awaited, I'm sure) promised procrastination post. I've got my coffee cup refilled, the heat is cranked up in the apartment, and I've desperately tried to find things around the house to take pictures of for this post! The first of which you see here:

Your mission is: can you find the first 203 Hawthorne ornament of Christmas? We put it up before heading to Massachusetts this past weekend - I've been nagging the boys in my life to get into the Xmas spirit this year which I think must be working because it was Jesse who got out our tiny single box ornaments! So . . .that means that all nagging will work in the future, right?

Found it? So now that you have - here is the second piece of Christmas Joy! I've never been one for smelly candles (I guarantee you will never catch me walking into a Yankee Candle factory) but all that goes out the window during the Holiday season! I LOVE the smell of the trees, all with their piney goodness. I'm the crazy lady leaping from the sidewalks to go hug three at once, piney pokey needles be damned! So, this year we got a nice big smelly "Christmas Tree" candle. It is the appropriate shade of green and not even from Yankee Candle - it is in fact a "Village Candle" candle. Knock-off gi-normous candle = several bucks in savings.

Next up I want to get a bitty tree to put somewhere in the apartment - something to hang our small but growing pile of ornaments on so that I don't have to pathetically hang them on old nails, window sashes, and thumbtacks about the living room like I did last year in Brooklyn.

So far, I think, excellent procrastination has been accomplished. I'm due for it though! I'm half-way through finals - only 3 left to go with the last one on Monday. After that, I am planning some serious decompression time. We're talking baking, sleeping, movies, XC skiing, annoying Jesse with my 3 weeks off while he still has to work (sorry babe!), reading an actual book, writing letters . . . it's going to be a busy vacation ;)

Alright folks, while I'm still motivated to plow ahead, I shall return to my studies. I figure I get a solid couple hours done now, I can reward myself with 'The Office' tonight! You know what I'm talking about Nals . . . :)

Love you all - keep warm!

Caitlin

Family to the Rescue!!

Well, Wally will soon be snug as a bug in a rug.

We had some significant Wally wobblage on the way from Jesse's Dad's house and Warwick over Turkey Day Weekend - turned out we had two tires that were inappropriately lumpy - not flat, per se, but lumpy and concave where they should have been convex! We can't blame Wally - those tires were the originals from 1985!

Aunts and Uncles to the rescue!! We were lucky to be close by the Stovers that night, who graciously took a look at all of Wally's underbelly parts and let us crash for the night. As fate would have it, the Jan and Don C. also happened to have 2 new Wally-sized tires in Uncle Don's garage (aka Car and Motorcycle Paradise) and with a little help from our friends we got Wally fixed up for the drive home to Syracuse.

Thank you thank you Aunts and Uncles for feeding us and providing a large dose of automobile TLC. It actually ended up being a nice sojourn for us - we got to spend some more time with you guys (and got a look at Jan and Don's lovely new countertops and appliances! Whoo hoo! Next up: the flooring!) over what had been a busy holiday weekend.

So our next step will be to get a pair of snowtires to put on the back of Wally - then he will be snug as a bug in a rug for the Syracuse Winter.

Lots of love to you all - it may be a little while before we post again as I've got finals coming up on Monday. Then again, I may be desperately looking to take a break from studying, so you may hear from me after all!

Caitlin

Fireside Chats with a (student) DPT: FAT: Friend AND Foe

Aren't you lucky? You get the inside scoop on weird body functions, esoteric muscle length-tension relationships, and need-to-know health and fitness tidbits!! From a real, bonafide, enthusiastic pie-in-the-sky first year student doctor of physical therapy!!!! Lucky you!!!!!


Also, Jesse is starting to glaze over from my frequent interjections concerning fat, obesity, hormones, and insulin resistance, so I'm going to share it all with you instead.

Hence . . .the official inauguration of the much acclaimed segment: "Fireside Chats with a (student) DPT" Our first edition is entitled: FAT: Friend AND Foe.

Let the learning commence . . . .

(Also, Jesse is now pointing out the fact that I am not actually sitting next to a fire while I write this post - USE YOUR IMAGINATIONS PEOPLE!)

SO . . .

I was being a good DPT student and reading the latest publication of Physical Therapy: Journal of the American Physical Therapy Association. Yes, I am a card-carrying member of the APTA. This was the Diabetes Special Issue. Diabetes is a huge concern for PT's because of its high prevalence in the patients we see. Follow my train of thought here: there are two kinds of Diabetes, Type I (where pancreas doesn't make insulin, which helps move glucose around in your body so it can be used for fuel) and Type II (where your body's cells are resistant to insulin and the insulin then can't move blood glucose). Type I gets a lot of hype because of the insulin injections needed to regulate blood glucose, but Type II is becoming more of a problem because it is mainly caused by a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet habits - both of which have increased in the general population and -frighteningly - even more so in kids!

I could 'chat' for hours about this stuff, but I'll try to keep to a few key points in regards to the link between fat and insulin resistance.

First of all, fat is not just a storage site for excess calories (ie a passive mass). That's right, folks, it doesn't just sit there taking up space. In healthy, lean people, fat is your FRIEND - it releases hormones that tell the brain when you're full, regulate your bloodpressure, and play an active role in your immune system! Fat also cushions stuff like your kidneys and reproductive organs to protect them!

In overweight and obese people, excess fat becomes your FOE. I think this is so wild - fat cells release hormones that have a DIRECT ROLE in promoting diseases like diabetes and problems with the cardiovascular system. Some fat hormones stimulate inflammation in the fat cells themselves and in other tissues like your liver or your skeletal muscles. While inflammation is a natural part of your immune system when it wants to hunt down and clean up bad stuff in your body, chronic inflammation leads to a lot of cell breakdown and toxic substances staying in tissues. These toxic substances cause insulin resistance (were you paying attention to this term before???) and general damage to your healthy cells.

Ok - because - again - this could go on forever, I'll try to use bullet points now! These are some factoids that I thought were really cool, ie PAY ATTENTION!

• fat cells release hormones that promote inflammatory factors that interrupt insulin's ability to regulate blood glucose

• some fat hormones actually fight against obesity (too low levels = obesity)

• abdominal fat is much more dangerous than subcutaneous or thigh fat (yay for me!)

• women are more likely than men to distribute their fat intake to their thighs rather than their abdominals (yay again! sorry jess . . )

• some fat hormones respond to exercise alone - some to weight loss alone - some to both! (aka you need to exercise for fitness AND actually lose fat mass to keep normal fat cell hormone levels)

• this means it is technically very difficult to be "healthy and fit" and overweight at the same time (sorry)

• obesity causes fat (lipids) to be not only in actual fat cells (adipocytes) but also in your organ and muscle tissues

• in athletes, these lipid droplets are used as quick sources of energy, but in sedentary, obese people the lipid droplets just sit there and actually cause damage (ie cell death!) to the tissues they are in

So the bottom line is: in people who are overweight, fat is not just a passive glob of stuff that weighs you down, puts undue pressure on your joints, and displaces your organs to weird places - it actually releases hormones that WILL actively damage your body's cells! Both REGULAR exercise and weight loss are needed to put these hormones at a healthy level, at which point fat will actually promote health and wellness.

If anyone has any questions - please ask! I tried to keep things simple yet accurate. For better or worse, as a DPT student, it is now part of my professional duty to promote health and wellness for everyone. You can look forward to many more obnoxious rantings in the future - rantings with love!

Again, not that many pictures - I'll have to wrangle up some more for the next installment of 'Fireside Chats with a (student) DPT" - stay tuned!

References

Stehno-Bittel L. Intricasies of fat. Physical Therapy. 2008;88:1265-1278.

http://www.3planesoft.com/img/fireplace_screen01.jpg

A Blustery Day

Well, we've had our first 'official' snowfall of the year up in Syracuse. Not much accumulation - but it stuck! I broke out my brandy-new LLBean snow boots for the first time and tramped back and forth from school in them - funny how new winter boots can make you feel like whistling "Jingle Bell Rock". And I'm not even in the Christmas spirit yet! I maintain that no-Xmas-yuletide-carols-must-be-sung-til-the-strike-of-the-day-after-Turkey-day. I think the reason it drives me nuts that businesses (and radio stations) seem to skip over Thanksgiving is because it is my favorite holiday! I guess there isn't that much Thanksgiving music out there - tho they always seem to play that 'Same Old Lang Syne' by Dan Fogelberg - why is that?

Walking home through snow-globe-like precipitation today I was getting flashbacks of Nutcracker season at Eleanor Connell's. Baggy pink tights, scooting beneath the ballet bars (near the heat vents!) while the 'grownups' practiced Act I . . . that music! I think I'll always have the Nutcracker score whirling through my head at this time of year. It's a little sad that Mrs. Connell has passed on, but my memories of her at the studio are so strong, so imprinted in my feelings about the place.

I guess I'm feeling pretty nostalgic today! I was thinking about Smith too. About coming home to Capen house and my girlies on cold Massachusetts evenings. I used to have a system down to an art and a science: I would wrap my long, cream, tasseled scarf from Mommy Harrison, wrap it several times 'round and tuck the ends in behind my head. My black fuzzy turtle fur hat from Conrad on top of that, my big green LLBean winter coat zipped up to the top, hood on - hands in pockets, no gloves! It was perfect and the same every time I stepped out the door. ( I should probably also mention it was around this time of year that I started wearing my long underwear 24/7) I'm probably going to have to instill a similar system for the Syracuse winters.

So, yes - I am looking forward to a lovely Turkey Day. The food, the family, the food, the food! Sorry for no pictures this time around - and for the disjointed feel of this post!

Love to you all,
Caitlin

The Night Before You Vote . . .

Eep! I'm so excited! I'm anxious, a little sweaty, scared, hopeful - mostly hopeful. This post isn't about who you should vote for - though I could go on about that as well :) - I just want to remind you to VOTE. Period. Do it. It's delicious. We all want to do more, but for what it's worth, once every 4 years, we can join our voices to the many in order to effect change.

So get out there! Before work, during lunch, after work - whatever it takes! You have no real excuse - barring bizarre events involving evil gnomes, a misplaced patch of industrial super glue, or the realization that you can bend time and space but have no real control over it yet and thus you end up in 17th century Japan accidentally . . ..

other than any of the above scenarios - do it!

Love to all
Caitlin

Down on the Farm

My DPT class wanted to take a much-needed break from midterms a week or so ago - so we went to Abbott Farm! It was definitely geared towards the kids (and their parents' wallets!) with face painting, a petting zoo, bags for sale with which to pick lovely orchard apples, a couple of corn mazes with crayon-rubbings stations hidden within . . . but all the 20-somethings (and above!) had fun too.

My favorite was the petting zoo - we saw goats climb a seriously high tower to eat from a cup that you could hoist up to the top by rope and pulley, big pigs, a very hairy bunny, and two sweet, soft nosed cows. I"m a sucker for animals - but that doesn't mean I didn't scrub my hands between the cows and our cider donuts! It was a really pretty day - Jess and I even got a little warm while wandering in circles in the corn maze (we only found four "stations" - no prize for us!).

October Weddings

We personally think that October is a fabulous month in which to be wedded in marital bliss :) We're glad our cousin Dan and his bride Maya agree! Their wedding on October 4th in Hoboken, NY was a lot of fun. They were married on a grassy pier overlooking the NYC skyline - cocktails, dinner, dancing, and cigar bar to follow! No matter how you slice it, cigars smell like burnt a*s, so despite the dashing figures we cut, neither of us will be making a habit of it! It was fun to see family and party-hardy with the Steeves side. Jess vowed to outlast the girls and stay awake but didn't quite make it - I think Nally won that bet.

Speaking of October Weddings . . . we celebrated our first year anniversary this past Monday October 13th! It was a beautiful day and we happened to have a lot of family in the area, so we spent the day hiking around Green Lakes State Park (where Jesse 'accidentally' got us lost so we ended up walking out onto a golf course) with Mom, Dad, Liz, and our family friend Patrick.

A leisurely lunch at Alto Cinco' s followed and then we finished up the night - once we'd packed Mom and Dad on their way back to Jersey - with a true Brooklyn-style Horror Fest! For those of you who haven't had the pleasure yet, a Brooklyn Horror Fest is comprised of bad (preferrably B-grade) horror movies, good beer, and Ben and Jerry's icecream. We made it a mini-marathon and watched two back to back - 'The Ruins' and then 'Shutter' - and we only had to stop the first movie once for me because the cutting-creepy-cursed-mayan-killing-vines-out-of-my-own-flesh-with-a-hunting-knife-stuff was getting to be a LITTLE MUCH for my queaze-factor.

So yes! We did spend our actual anniversary watching horror movies with family, but we did end up doing the fancy dinner downtown earlier this week - sushi at 'Ambrosia'! We were also hoping for some year-old wedding cake (cheesecake - the best I've had!) but Patrick "couldn't find it" when he was housesitting for Kat at home in Jersey. Whatever, Patrick - I know you found that luscious cheesecake and served it to your dinner guests!!!

:)

Love to you all
Caitlin and Jess

PS - How do you like these mini-posts?? Let's get some comments! :)

Syracuse Regional Market

September also brought our first trip to the Central New York Regional Market. Think several big, long pavilions, packed mostly with fresh produce, milks and cheeses, specialty spices, wines . . .We weren't in a big shopping mood but we mostly wandered around, enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells. We did pick up some funny 'torpedo' red onions and a pumpkin or two that eventually ended up in a yummy soup (quite a few of you had it since we had to cart it everywhere we went for about a week due to the quintuplet-batch we made!).

Cider Day at the Stovers felt like a much-needed vacation for all. I happily stuffed myself on such eclectic fare as chinese spare ribs, pineapple salsa (thank you, Damian!), the requisite sausage and peppers on a roll, and (seemingly) gallons of fresh pressed apple cider. And yes, you CAN stuff yourself on cider. I don't know how, but cousin Margaret and I were waddling around half the party, waiting for enough digestion to occur so we could go back for another glassful! I'll have to refer you to Miss Nally for pictures - she has quite a few fabulous ones of the ladies posing with official Cider Day apples - authenticity guaranteed. Also, there MAY have been some apple juggling . . .but you didn't hear it from me, it's just the word on the street.

So that will bring September to a close for now - our first in Syracuse! I guess there will be a lot of 'firsts' this year - I'm afraid you'll have to put up with that for a while! That's the catch, the rub about being a captive audience - YOU ARE AT OUR MERCY!!! (in terms of we rely on you all to care about our goings-on here otherwise we are blogging into the void!)

Well I guess you can tell I'm feeling a bit punchy tonight - love to you all! More will follow - we have to make it through the first part of October before we can start posting about current events.

Muah :)

We Are Not MIA!

Eep! It's been inexcusably long since our last post - and there's been plenty going on in the months of September and October! I've decided to not overload everyone with one gi-normous post but instead to do a bunch of smallish ones - makes for more enjoyable perusing, right?

As I'm writing this, Jess and I are bundled up in sweatshirts, wool socks, and winter hats; cheerily in denial about the need to turn on the heat already! We're going to hold out for as long as possible, ie warm blankets, hot cider, and snuggling!

Where to start since our last post . . . we hosted newly-weds in September! Our fantabulous friends Jill and Tom came up to visit Syracuse, bearing updates and honeymoon pictures of their first month as a married couple. We love Jill and Tom and it was extra fun trading early-marriage stories and post-wedding escapades! Plus, we got to share two of our favorite Syracuse-area pasttimes with them - wine touring and berry picking! With Wally loaded down with friends, wine, raspberries, and orchard apples, we even took in a peek at Taughannock Falls.

To add to the fun, The Aunts (Renee and Jan!) were up in the area for a Master Gardener's lecture, so Saturday night we had a full house at 203 Hawthorne! In addition to the good food and wine we debuted Renee's berry crisp recipe and made a heaping double batch that night, starring a that-day-fresh-picked mix of raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries from Grisamore Farms. Though Jill and Tom had to scoot the next day, we got to keep The Aunts for a while longer with bribes of shopping and an inaugural trip to Dinosaur BBQ. Has anyone heard of 'salt potatoes' before? They're big up here in the Syracuse area - makes sense considering Syracuse was the salt capital of America in the early 1800's - and are basically just whole, skins-on potatoes boiled in super salty water. We had them 'cajun-style' with spices and the requisite melted butter for dipping - delish!

I could keep going, but the Giants game calls - so does studying for my Movement exam! Plus, I have to keep you all in suspense - just what HAVE Jesse and Caitlin been doing for these past few weeks? What kind of shenanigans could they possibly have gotten into? Stay tuned, folks.

Moe.down and More

Hey all - it's been a while since we posted to 203 Hawthorne Street. I've started writing this post about 4 times in the last couple weeks - and then more stuff keeps happening so I start all over again :) So, I'll attempt a report on our goings-on in chronological order - but I can't promise anything! I'll have to look back on our calendar to retrace our steps from the middle of August til now . . .

Almost immediately following Jill and Tom's wedding was our trip to the Vacation Villages in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. We spent about 4 hours resisting an timeshare sales pitch (Thank you Daddy Steeves!) and the rest of the few days we were there visiting our Massachusetts family, driving along beautiful country roads, hiking, canoeing, and cooking in our fancy Vacation Villages condo. Because I hadn't been hiking in a while, rediscovering the joy of walking in amongst the trees, pointing out strange-looking mushrooms, and working up a pleasant sweat - truly the best way to exercise! We even found a path called 'Hawthorne Trail' - coincidence? I think not . . .

My Fall semester at Upstate's DPT program has started in earnest! I'm taking 17 credits including: Interventions I (we started with our 'soft tissue unit' - ie massage!), Movement Analysis I (biomechanics, therapeutic exercises, etc), Foundations of Patient/Client Management I (assistive devices, bed and wheelchair transfers and safety), Research Methods (how to be consumers of scientific literature!), and Bioscience (the workings of the body, pharmacotherapeutics). While some may be more "fun" than others (getting a massage 3x a week vs learning about control groups and experiment validity? you get my point . . . ), all my classes are very interesting, and, going into our third week of classes, I'm excited about gettin' into the 'meat' of the subject matter for each class. It helps that my professors are passionate about what the do, each with their own styles, quirks, and readily-admitted biases. And they want us to be passionate about PT as well! I'm afraid you will all have to endure over the coming years my rah-rah-health-and-fitness rants that I promise will be coming soon to a theater near you.

Jesse has started his new position at Hughes Elementary here in Syracuse. I'll leave him to fill you in on the details, but needless to say after finishing his first couple days (2 with the teachers and 2 with the kids), he was pretty pooped come Friday 6pm.

The start of school also meant participating in the 'White Coat Ceremony' at SUNY Upstate Medical University. All the DPT's, along with the other classes within the College of Health Professions, received a white lab coat from their Department Heads, signifying each students' entrance into the Health Care profession. It was actually quite a nice ceremony - my classmates and I definitely felt a palpable shift of responsibility laid upon our shoulders - to our future patients and to the profession! It was exciting and a little scary, as in, now I actually have an obligation to help people! Jess was there to support his wifey and to document the solemn occasion ;)

Over Labor Day weekend Jess and I attended our first music festival together! It was my first and Jesse's first in a while - Moe.Down 9. We joined about 15,000 Moe. fans and converged upon Rome, NY with our bitty tent, a cooler of food, and a grill. We hadn't listened to a lot of Moe. but was recommended the festival by Chelsea, our downstairs neighbor, who described the whole event as "funky mountain music" - those may not have been her exact words but that was the gist. The music was great, the weather beautiful, and the whole festival was based at the Snow Ridge ski resort with the main stage based at the bottom of a ski slope, so people were listening to the music all up and down the slope! It was a way to enjoy live music that we'd never before experienced, and we enjoyed watching from the top of the slope (quite a hike I'll let you know!) as much as being a few heads from the front of the stage - which we were for the first of Moe.'s sets! Our favorite group was actually Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet which consisted of two banjoes, a cello, and a violin. Abigail has a jazzy soulful voice - kind of an edgy Norah Jones - and one of our favorite musicians, Bela Fleck, played on the 6-string banjo. We didn't know the rest of the Sparrow Quartet, but they were truly amazing musicians in their own right - we got to see the violinist wail away on a traditionally 'classical' instrument. Definitely check them out for some great music. We also saw and enjoyed Yonder Mountain String Band and a group called Cornmeal - both seemed to take "hillbilly music" to an entirely different level - who knew you could jam out on a banjo or a fiddle? The entire weekend was filled with good music, good food, and meeting new people (music festivals draw some interesting characters).

And with the coming of Fall also comes: bah-dah-dum-bah-dah-dum-dah-dah-dum-dum-dahhhhhhh-buum-dah-dah-dah-dahhhhhh-DAH-DAH-DAH-DAAAAH-DAH!. . . yes that's right, football season!!! Now Jess and I may not seem like your typical football fans (maybe that's because we're not), but due to living as New Yorkers for a while and being subject to the fanaticism of our friends (thank you Johna nd Damian), the sport has grown on us :) This is our second year joining a Fantasy Football team so in addition to rooting for the Giants we'll be spending our Sunday Funday's tracking our individual 'teams' compiled of players from all over the NFL. Especially for a football novice like me, it gets me watching more games and makes it exciting. For someone like Damian, it's a chance to smack talk the rest of us :) So - on the condition we find a good new hot wings joint - we'll be enjoying the season along with the rest of the players in our 'league' - we even got Liz and Nally to join!

I think cooler weather triggers some sort of baking urge in me. I've been making energy bars with the food processor (think ginger, dates, toasted sesame seeds, raisins, walnuts, etc) and Jess and I have been sharing the oven - he for an out-of-this-world batch of granola, me for two batches of Giada's chocolate chip hazelnut cookies. I even harvested some fennel seeds from the gi-normous plant in our front garden, dried/toasted them, and have been throwing them in random things like pasta dishes and salads. Domestic Goddess am I. Eggplant-Tomato Casserole was another Giada dish (though the recommendation came from Renee!) and we've been grinding up and quickly eating multiple batches of scape (baby garlic!) pesto. The stuff is so delicious and pungent - Jess and I contentedly radiate a scape aura where'ere we go.

And that just about brings us up to today - which we realized is our first weekend together - just the two of us - up in Syracuse. We love all our guests and our travels to and fro, but there is something special about just 'being' at home together. We were so looking forward to the down time we even elected to forego the longish drive out to the Ithaca Brewfest (eep!). So far this day we've been highly productive in our coffee drinking, Economist perusing, organic "Four Season Harvest" gardening reading (stay tuned!), and Internet browsing - a perfect lazy Saturday in our book.

Stay healthy everyone. Be good to each other :)