Calling all Plant and Weed Enthusiasts!

Ok, so the sudden gift of a couple of pots of herbs/useful weeds from a neighbor a few doors down has inspired me to wander around our own property to try and identify what green growth we've already got going on here at Fellows. Most seem to be common weeds but some are definitely useful ones (ie dandelion, plantain) and I think we may even have a couple leftover pretty perenials from a previous gardener. So I am calling upon the knowledge of the aunties, the mommies, and anyone else who might be able to help me identify these plants. Here goes!

I'm pretty sure these are two kinds of plantain - the first, more round-leaved one I believe is common plaintain, the second one with more narrow leaves a buckthorn plaintain???

This guy (from my brief internet searchings) looks like some sort of Dwarf Columbine?













I'm having trouble figuring out what this next one is - at first I thought it was some kind of 'dock', either curly dock or a broadleaf dock. But none of the pictures I've seen so far online look like they are big enough to match up to these big boys - they are huge! A little hairy on the top of the leaf, just a bit tho. I don't think they are hairy on the underside. No flowers yet, just these big broad sprawling leaves. And it's not like there are a bunch of them - they seem to be plopped invidiually throughout the yard :)












We had lots of pretty pretty violets in early spring - you can't see the flowers here but you can see the heart-shaped leaves. We've got them pretty much spread throughout the entire yard - they were one of the first bits of color after a long winter!







So, the last one I can kind of identify looks like a yellow woodsorrel. I thought it was clover at first, but after looking it up (plus it does have some yellow flowers!) I think it's woodsorrel instead.











These last couple I have no idea! There's a spikey weed that comes up all over the yard, a mint-looking (but not smelling!) leafy plant that grows everywhere, a a viny, round-leafed thing that looks like it has some small purple flowers, and a semi-daisy look-alike. Tho the white petals are very thin, almost aster-looking. Any ideas?

Thanks all! Will post more weed pics if there are requests!

luv luv
caitlin

PS - If you haven't figured it out already, you can click on the individual pictures to make them larger for your viewing pleasure!

Our Kitchen - Part Two!

Our kitchen at Fellows has undergone so many transformations. First it was the ripping down of the gunky wallpaper. Then it was scraping the rest of the gunkiness off the walls and cabinets! Then it was painting our lovely 'Caribbean Sunset' (yellow) and 'Soft Cream' (off-white) theme on the walls and wainscoting . . . and just when we'd gotten used to that we put on the final touch - our 'Deep Peri' (blue!) cabinets!! It really makes the room pop (think 'Holy Blueness Batman!' whenever we enter the room) and it IS nice to have doors to hide all our kitchen stuff - tho suddenly we DO have to make the effort to remember where we put everything; it's not all just freely accessible anymore!

And it was all done with the help of Jesse's Dad and Olga! For this past Memorial Day Weekend, we managed to strike a balance between relaxation and productivity! First on our TO-DO list was the cabinets: cleaned, primed, painted, installed, CHECK! Jesse and Olga even managed to make our yucky cabinet hardware shine like new! The large upper cabinets (see photos!) did become quite the production. If you think that it shouldn't be difficult for 4 grown people to install 4 SEEMINGLY IDENTICAL cabinets with holes for two OR three screws and hardware for two OR three screws . . . think again. Despite the Aunties' efforts a few months back to lable the cabinets (for just such a reason), we still had to play musical cabinets and shimmy things up and down and take two of the 'cooks' out of that crowded kitchen (the ladies left the boys scratching their heads) . . . .and it ended up LOVELY! The cabinets close and everything. Though if you ask Pops Goodglass, he might tell you the last cabinet on the left is about a 1/4 inch too low . . .and don't swing on it . . .

Next was painting the porch (CHECK!) and painting the last color in our bedroom - Old Rose #6 (definitely NOT pink). I think that color will go down in infamy . . . truth be told, in most lights it looks a little TOO similar to the rest of the bedroom (Porcelein Red) for my taste, but it's lovely just the same :) Finally, Jesse's Dad gave all our plants some breathing room in bigger pots and a good soaking outside. I think he must have whispered sweet nothings to them all as well because the next morning they all looked perky and happy to be green! I've been charged with their dosage of TLC and have promised to send regular picture updates - here's hoping none of them kick the bucket on my watch!

After a very productive weekend, we sent our merry painters/planters home to Jersey and loaded up a picnic to take down to Barry Park. Surprisingly our fellow park-goers on this holiday weekend were few and far between - so we got to sit down amongst the lilac forest growing there (most, sadly, already past peak) and munch on turkey sandwhiches and leftover sweet potatoes and sauteed brussel sprouts. We determined the weekend a total success and strolled back home to Fellows :)

Our kitchen!

We had taken Renee's advice during the lead-up to our official move-in and wanted to get at least 2 rooms done in order to have a "sanctuary" even though the rest of the house may be a disaster. Well, the rest of the house is certainly a disaster -- the living room, dining room, hallways, and other bedrooms all have paper on the floors and are filled with boxes of overflowing stuff, most of which we don't know where to put yet.

But the kitchen, yes the kitchen! We had Lukey Dukey up here for a whole 4 days of backbreaking work where he taught us how to spackle and paint like a pro. He put in hours the likes of which Steve and Robbie would quiver at! Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (a week and a half ago) he didn't let us leave the house until at least 10pm and on one of those days it was midnight! He worked us to the bone (or was it the other way round?)...

The trim work and the cabinets are still left to be done, but here's a progression of the work the kitchen has seen over the last few months...Bedroom post soon to follow.

Love ya!

And It Begins . . .

Ok, so the fact that I'm using this blog post as - yet again - a means of procrastination (although, thanks to my Neuro prof, I am more inclined to call it a necessary break, during which my brain can fully absorb and integrate all the info I have been packing in there . . .hmm . . .) DOES NOT mean that we don't love you all and want to be sharing all the fun and excitement of the past couple weeks.

It does, however, mean that I'll be attempting to keep this post short in order to get back to neural system development and basal ganglia and memory and plasticity (be glad you have plasticity folks - I'll have to devote another edition of 'Fireside Chats with a Student DPT' to that!). No worries - we've got loads of pictures that we'll be doling out piece-meal (?) . . .

The re-finished hardwood floors came out beautifully - our floor guy managed to get almost everything up: the scratches, the stains, the blobs of paint so casually drip-dropped all over by whomever attempted the last decorating job, etc. Only a few dark spots (we suspect puppy pee) remain, and we've decided that they add character :)

We do have a long laundry list indeed of all the jobs (little and big) that we'd like to get done on this new-to-us brick colonial - hopefully a good portion of it this summer when Jess and I will both be sharing 6 weeks off from school and work at the same tim (!). We've already had some help tackling THE LIST from family - we are so excited and grateful for their help! The aunties (Renee and Jan) were our first visitors - and they came armed to the teeth! Bearing armloads of woodworking, paint, design, and home furnishing magazines; fresh cut flowers; a steam-cleaner; seeds, seeds, seeds; and a LARGE bottle of wine, they helped us de-creepify the basement (no small feat), purchase our first shop-vac (he looks like R2-D2 but I believe we are settling on something like Niles or Jeffrey - yes, we do seem to have a strange urge to name inanimate objects - what?), AND strip ALL the old yucky, ugly (mostly yucky) wallpaper in the kitchen. Liz got to join us for about 24 hours (sorry for all the bus-time tiz!).

Since then, we've also had Stevo and his assistant Robbie Jr come up from South Jersey - Jesse's mom was nice enough to share him for the week AND to load up half Stevo's plumber truck with food for us all - thank you Margaret and Mary! I had school during the week so I'd toodle on over when I was done and join Jess, Stevo, and Robbie Jr over at the house. They stayed the whole week and were able to get some big projects done - a few of which included reworking the plumbing in the basement so our kitchen drain did not run uphill anymore, retiling and refurnishing the upstairs bathroom (sadly, we did NOT keep the purple wooden toilet seat that had previously graced that dubious throne), and . . . fixing the front porch! The porch turned out to be quite an adventure - I think maybe a bit more so than the boys had anticipated, tho I mostly tried to nod in sympathy at the mysterious multple layers of materials they managed to pull out of the roof (hey, at least I could recognise that rotten wood = bad). The porch is now safe, beautiful, and waterproof and later this summer Jess and I will be painting it. We had a lot of fun spending the week with them and getting ideas and advice for some of our other projects. Tho Robbie Jr may never want to see that porch ever again, he's always welcome back, even without his toolbelt! In fact, I'm going to have to be sending some care packages to them both as another thank you for all their help :)

Ok, so this is already longer than I intended, and we still have to tell you about paint choices and neighbors and Jesse's recent adventures in masonry! All will soon be revealed . . .





love love love
caitlin and jess

We . . . Are . . . HOMEOWNERS!!!

Wow, it's been a while! We've been in a whirlwind for the past few weeks - and failing on our promise to deliver an update - til now!

We officially closed on our first home together last Wednesday, with BIG/HUGE help from our real estate agent at Keller Williams, Jeff Roney, and our attorney Jim Casazza (aka Uncle Jim!). Everything went smoothly - and our hands didn't even get tired from signing our names over and over and over . . . When it was all done, we shook hands with all the lawyers and bank representatives present, took our manilla envelope of keys, and immediately drove over to our new (to us) house on Fellows Ave. It was pretty amazing to open the door on our own for the first time and scamper upstairs and down as if we hadn't already explored every inch of the house on our multiple previous visits with Jeff acting as chaperone :)

The house is so cool!!! Most of you have already seen lots of 'before' pictures - don't worry, by the end of all this we will have hundreds (thousands?) of 'before' AND 'after' pictures to thrust upon you all for years on end.

On our first night as homeowners, we honored a little tradition we had unsuspectingly started with our very first visit to Syracuse - on that day we had been looking at apartments in preparation for my move in May to start my DPT program at Upstate, and after spending a few hours driving up and down the streets of the University neighborhood, we were at a bit of a stalemate with which apartment we wanted to rent: I was ensnared by the hardwood floors, checker-tiled kitchen, cosy sunporch, and the "woman-of-independent-means-and-mentality" factor of our landlady. Jesse was leaning towards the cheaper apartment with the saggy porch.

(Let me just insert here, the cheaper apartment burned down at some point this year, so who had the better instincts, huh? Huh?? Plus, if we'd moved into that place, you all would have been tragically deprived of all the adorableness of 203 Hawthorne. Am I wrong?)

In order to sit down and really hammer out the pro's and con's of each place (yes, we live to make lists - a bit of the Rory Gilmore in us) - and to banish any cranky's with some food - we went into Alto Cinco's on Westcott St FOR THE FIRST TIME. It was a fortuitous start to a long love-affair with Alto Cinco's (insert here: catfish burrito, jalapeno cornbread, tofu BBQ burrito, spinach enchilada, etc) - we scribbled our notes regarding size and location and price and vibe-factor over a basket of sweet-potato fries and loaded nachos. The bartenders put in their 2-cents which quickly became 63-cents when they heard that the Hawthorne place had laundry machines on-site. They both liked the neighborhood too, and Alto Cinco's was, afterall, only about 3 blocks from the Hawthorne place.

Sooo - ever since then, we seem to find ourselves making plans, making decisions, dreaming about houses while perched over the copper-covered bar at Alto Cinco's, sharing a beer (a small but good and changing selection), a cheese plate, more sweet potato fries, whatever. We thought it only right that we celebrate our first night as homeowners with takeout from Alto Cinco's and a bottle of Herman Wiemer wine while sitting on blankets on the floor of our future bedroom.

This has already turned into a long post - and there's so much more to tell! Stay tuned for more pictures, more stories, the gory details of our whole-house clean-up!

Love to you all
Caitlin and Jesse

My Big Girl Crush on Garrison Keillor

Yes, that sultry, robust voice has made my little heart go all a-flutter. The website for 'A Prairie Home Companion' is amazingly extensive and organized. I believe you can listen to every past show they've had, rifle through Garrison Keillor's weekly column writings, see pictures and video clips of live performances . . .

The inspiration, however, for this particular post of mine is the ditty in Segment 1 written and performed by Garrison Keillor and 'The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band' in honor of our new President. It's a tribute to the tune of "You're The Top" and it is sweetly joyful, slightly bawdy, and a perfect example of why President Obama is, as GK puts it (and I may be paraphrasing here), "a man half the country believes they have a personal relationship with."

Check it out - and enjoy!

Holiday Extravaganza

Wow - so we have a LOT to share about our activities over the past month and a half! We've got Christmas, New Years, the whole month of January . . . . yipes!

Jesse and I were fortunate enough to both have a good chunk of time around the holidays to travel (thank you syracuse city school district and suny upstate!). While we didn't get to see ABSOLUTELY everyone we wanted to, we did manage to traverse to North Jersey, South Jersey, relatives in New York, friends (and fam!) in Brooklyn, the catskills . . .Wally got quite a workout! (Which reminds me, I believe we are due YET AGAIN for an oil change . . .)

Christmas Eve we got to spend time with Margaret and Stevo down in Barnegat, NJ. It was pretty wild going from freezing temperatures in Syracuse to balmy South Jersey sweater weather! We had a great time seeing Margaret's twin sister's kids - Rachel, David, and Mariah. I believe they all whooped me at air hockey, though Jess and I did reign supreme at Taboo (that whole telepathy thing we've got going on was helpful). We were even there long enough for me to go for a 'run' with Rachel and Jesse's sister, Lauren. I say "run" because mine was more of a lop-sided, wheezy jog and only about half as long as the loop Lauren and Rachel did! Ah well . . . the DPT needs to start livin what she's preachin!

Post Christmas activities included going up to spend the day with Jesse's dad in Saddlebrook, NJ. We stuffed ourselves silly on drink, his famous holiday salmon, and boardgames. We also visited Montclair for the first time - to see Jilly and Tom in their carriage house of wedded bliss! The morning after an evening of good wine, Rock Band, and looking through wedding albums, Jill and Tom took us to a great breakfast/brunch place down the road - I can't remember the name of it now (Jill you're going to have to post the name in our comments section here!). I had a gi-normous arugala, goat cheese, cranberry salad that I had to wolfishly protect from wandering forks on all sides. Big portions of sweet potato fries and homefries made my morning :)

We also got to go into Brooklyn for a couple days! We were soo excited to catch up with the Roomie at 12 Parkside Court (aka Johnny Love) via an excursion to Barcade (think Pacman+beer or Frogger+beer or Galaga+beer). The next night we even had a crew hoppin around Park Slope where we terrorized Georgie's lovely lady friend Ana (anna?) at her bar and then Nally and Amanda trounced several pairs of surly hipster boys at Bocci ball at Union Hall. It was very entertaining to watch.

One of my favorite parts of the trip to Brooklyn was just walking across Prospect Park again. It really is a beautiful public space - I appreciate it even more now that we are in Syracuse. The parks near us are nice - Thornden and Barry - but they are just not used in the same way as an NYC park. They lack the athletic trails, old trees, concert groves, and PEOPLE. Oh well. I guess it will be up to us to help improve Syracuse city park awareness! And I am grateful to get to walk across Thornden to school every day.

Though we had missed to annual extravaganza that is Christmas at Grammie and Grandpa Steeves, we did get to have a smaller, less chaotic dinner date with them a few days later. Of course, the fact that it was almost New Years didn't stop Grammie from putting on a full turkey dinner :) I got to carve the turkey!!! The guys and gals who may have had a few things to say regarding my methods of attack were gentleman and lady-like enough to keep mum and applaud my enthusiastic efforts. Cousin Margaret even helped me find the wishbone :) Speaking of! We were glad that Margaret, David, James and Mary were also able to join Grammie, Grandpa, Uncle Bill, Jesse and I for dinner - David was just a day or so away from jetting back to Europe, I believe for a sojourn in Spain before heading back to Oxford where he's been studying abroad. I can't remember if he actually HAD elbow patches on his sportsjacket or if I was just remembering it that way ;)

After Washingtonville, NY it was up to Lew Beach for New Years! And though we had a lovely time at New Years (despite my catching something nasty the last day or so), the Lew Beach gathering I want to tell you about was the Lew Beach Bridal Reunion 09 two weeks later!!!!!!

We had such a great time at Lew Beach a couple weeks before our wedding, we wanted to try and gather up the bridal party again for round 2. Snow+woodstove+good food+drink+Stover family love+house full of friends and fam=Good Times at Lew Beach!~ We've got a shutterfly picture site up with photos from the weekend - I think there may even be some from the original Lew Beach Bridal gathering of 2007 as well. Well worth checking out would also be Ellie's facebook page where she has posted a rather fabulous video of me eating it off a ski ramp while tubing in the snow. You can hear Nally shrieking in the background, Jesse shouting instructions, and Johnny laughing maniacally as my face meets tube, then plows four feet of snow. Of course, you do have to be Facebook friends with Ellie or any of the rest of the bridal party to view it ;)

It was the first time in a while we'd had so many of our far-flung friends together and we even had Jan and Don and my parents come up for a bit as well. As usual, we brought too much food - gastronomical highlights would include Renee's sausage and biscuits, hot tomato soup and grilled cheese after a full morning of sledding and tubing, homemade (store-bought crust) pizza, Renee's sausage and biscuits again (sorry guys, that's what you get for leaving early! no second helping of sausage and biscuits for you!) . . . .we ate well that weekend.

It's been about two weeks since the Lew Beach Weekend - Jess and I have been working hard back home - he for his 3rd grade classroom, me for my own PT classes. For my part, the semester is going really well. Neuroscience is about the most intense class I've ever taken in terms of content volume and complexity. However, our professor is amazing at teasing out the best ways people learn material and caters to all our learning styles during her lectures and lab sessions. We also just had a teleconference with two military PT's from Fort Drum (where I'll be doing my first clinical experience in the Fall!) today in our Differential Diagnosis class. The military model of physical therapy is particularly interesting because PT's there have much more autonomy than civilian PT's. They get to order imaging tests such as Xrays and can prescribe certain meds like anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants. Because they are the first health care professionals that a lot of people go to on the base, they have to be really good at differential diagnosis, ie be able to tell when a neuromusculoskeletal (NMS) condition really IS NMS as opposed to something that could have similar signs and symptoms (systemic diseases such as heart problems, infections, cancer, etc). I did manage to make a slight fool of myself in front of these PT's (who I may be soon working with!eep!) during the teleconference, but I came out of it being more excited for my first clinical experience than ever! It's going to be a unique and valuable chance to make mistakes, learn, make mistakes, etc. I have a feeling it's also going to help me develop a bit of a tougher skin (if the ball-busting I received today was any indication)!

Well, what else is going on with us . . . .oh, yeah, we're buying a house too . . . .

!!!??!!!

Yep, Jesse and I have found a single-family house in the University area that we're hoping to close on by the end of March. It's a house that needs a lot of cosmetic (and not so cosmetic) fix-up work, but with a little help from our family and friends (you guys all want to come up and help paint a 1900sqft house, right?), it will be B-E-A-UTIFUL. We love that its in the University/Westcott area and still close enough for me to walk to and from Upstate. We'll keep you all updated and let you know when ALL IS OFFICIAL, but for now, just keep your fingers crossed for us.

That might just do it for this post. It's 7pm on a Friday. I've been puttering around with this post over the course of a couple hours while Jesse's been alternating between talking with our broker, our mortgage guy, and playing Rise of Nations on the computer. We may have an evening of well-deserved laziness at home (Iron Man on netflix!!) or we may venture downtown to our favorite bar, The Blue Tusk, to try out another of their draft beers (we may make it through all 100+ of them by the time I'm done with school, maybe not). Love to you all - goodbye to January and Happy February!!!

besos
Caitlin and Jesse