Identification

I am starting to get a feel that lots of people here identify themselves to the world by brands
- more than just brands of clothing, but stickers on their car, universities on their clothing, key chains, mugs, car licence plate frames, etc. Lots of veterans have caps that record what ships they were on, in what war, and I see quite a lot of "Navy mom" or "Proud Parent of XX school honor student". And of course, there is the ring thing - rings that say you've graduated from the Naval academy, rings that say you won the football, rings that say you're married to someone who graduated from the Naval academy, etc. I'm assuming its some sort of club identification or subtle (and not subtle) preening.

Two steps forward?

I must post an update on Mr Indescribable.
Tonight we had salmon again - which was eaten without tomato sauce...
Also, he ate the head of the broccoli bit I had put on his plate (when he objected to having it on his plate, his father told him he just had to practice looking at it, to which he replied "oh, ok" - tip for future). This was after pulling off a tiny bit with his chubby baby fingers and trying it, and exclaiming 'I tried it! I like it!' with such surprise and joy. Thank you Yo Gabba Gabba.
And, just to round out the evening, he ate a quarter of an avocado (he has previously refused to even try avocado. I was a bit put out, because I had sat down with every intention of eating the whole thing on my own. I'm still suspicious that was why he suddenly needed to share.
So yes, it was one of those nights where I felt we took a couple of steps forward.
Photo is of this mornings activity - pulling pots and lids out of the cupboard, again.

Cool Art from School

This is for all the discouraged art teachers out there... You're so great! How awesome is this mask?

Great Falls

Instead of being at home getting huge amounts of stuff done this Memorial Day, we opted for a day out at Great Falls National Park, which is part of the C&O (Chessapeake and Ohio) Canal that appears to run from Georgetown to Cumberland. Great Falls is in the Potomac river beside the canal, where there is a 40ft waterfall. So big contrast between the tranquil canal path and going on the bridges over the rushing water! First bit of bushwalking (hiking) with the three year old not in a back pack. He is not such a good walker, but easily distracted, so he walked a fair bit more than he wanted to (but we gave a lot of piggy backs too, for both the kids)!
My overwhelming impressions, apart from the beautiful scenery, is of exercise clothing, because there were huge amounts of locals there jogging, riding bikes, kayaking and walking the dog. Even the kids were wearing exercise logos.
And if you weren't wearing exercise clothing, you needed to be wearing a shirt with a logo that indicated you had taken part in a run/paddle/cycle recently. There didn't seem to be many people in between the super fit and the completely unprepared for the terrain (you know, the ones with chunky good shoes, no water, no hats, no sleeves, and possibly jeans on an 82F day?)
Hoping to return here, and maybe take a canal boat ride.
First photo is of the lock keepers house, enlarged twice to make a hotel (before it became National Park), and second photo is of the top of Great Falls, looking across to Virginia. Yes, there were kayaks going down that whitewater.

Brandy and lemonade

The lemonade here is like flat solo, and the homemade stuff is made by squeezing lots of lemons, and adding sugar and water. (Hot water to dissolve sugar, but otherwise cold water). Adding brandy makes an enjoyable afternoon cocktail (yes, we're that classy - I sat in my chair and everything).

Strawberry picking

This is what I value - being able to show my kids where the food comes from, and how much better it tastes fresh off the farm. This strawberry farm is about an hour south, and well worth the drive. Beautifully appointed with more berries than you can poke a stick at. Blueberries in about a month, closer to home! Can't wait.

My Lovely Chair

Unfortunately I don't have some sort of enclosed verandah overlooking my beautiful back garden, where I can sip mint juleps. But this is a very comfy chair. I feel sort of classy every time I sit in it...

Blue Angels Airshow

Ahh, the joy of having slightly irritated ears because you got to stand on the beach and watch an airshow... Six F/A 18 Hornets and one C-130 Hercules, plus a preshow flyover of seven L-39 C Albatros jets. They are so fast and so awesome and so clever, and I guess some of the fascination is that they are deliberately doing something very skillful, yet very fast, very loud and very dangerous, right over your head.

First 'summer' outing

I have successfully smashed my nostalgic memories of last summer, by going into town on the bus with the baby. It was hot, sweaty, dirty work, with pram, and bag of food/spare clothes/waterbottles/hats, plus, extra green bag of rain jackets and umbrellas, just in case, because it was one of those days.
The bonus - I have overcome the little fear that was growing over using the bus, which hasn't been used since last August.
And, useful to realise, put sunscreen on before you leave the house, even if it looks grey and threatening, because the cloud cover burned off, and the baby got lightly burnt knees.
The piece de resistance - seeing the Blue Angels arrive and warm up...

Commissioning Week

It is graduation week at the local college. Only it isn't 'just' a local college/university, it is the United States Naval Academy (USNA). The flavour down town was so fascinating.
Take sailing - it is a town on the mighty Chesapeake. Lots of people sail. Add the Navy.
Take colleges - we have two, so young people, doing presumably hip young people things. Add the Navy.
Take Annapolis - sailing, icecream, crabs, loovely (but expensive) unique clothing stores, mysterious scottish/irish heritage that I think is there because people like either drinking, wearing kilts, or both, historic down town, the Maritime Republic of Eastport, and a huge link to the creation of the USA as we know it. Add the Navy.
And to all that, add a Commissioning week (rather than Graduation Day) where the Blue Angels turn up to do an airshow... In addition, there are drill displays, sailing displays, pipe and drum band concerts, the Herndon Monument climb, various awards ceremonies and receptions, something called a color parade, and, and a graduation that will have the Vice President giving a talk.
And what you get is this unique mix of nautical/young/fit/hopeful/patriotic (with undertones of manly men) pride. The town is all gussied up in flags and flowers, and all the shop windows have patriotic (ie, US flag)/nautical/expensive everything, from the usual Maryland flag crabs, to tervis mugs, to dresses with anchors and, of course, Navy and Blue Angel everything. The town is filled with SUPER proud parents and extended family, all dressed in some variation of Navy branded gear (proud mom/dad/grandparent shirts/bags, for example).
Photo is from the USNA Pipes and Drums Performance that I went to with the baby. He was rather impressed.
Update - changed speaker at graduation from Defense Secretary to Vice President. I think the Defense Secretary was last year.

Spring soccer

Lesson learned - don't do spring soccer... it seems to be the poor cousin of Fall soccer. Possibly because it is competing with Lacrosse in a Lacrosse town? Scheduled games - 1pm (with 30 mins practice beforehand)- so for eight Saturdays, we're standing on the sidelines, in increasingly sticky heat, instead of rushing out and having adventures now everything is reopened and it isn't freezing.
On the upside, we're having some 'quieter' Saturdays where we get (lots) of errands done, before early lunch and heading out to soccer.
Photo is of the snack time after the game, which both boys look forward to.

Red White and Blue...

Approaching Memorial day, the unofficial long weekend start to summer. Catalogues are full of everything red white and blue - patriotic buntings to decorate your house, throw away partyware for the memorial day gatherings, and random, patriotic household things - ie, front door mats with things written on them.
And of course, the candy. I'm starting to think, if you take all the drinking holidays in Australia (New Years, Australia day, ANZAC day, Easter long weekend, Christmas day, Boxing day, to name a few) and replaced them with candy (in appropriate colours), you'd get the same effect.

Ugly Pie

Without the flour/butter crumble that you put on top

The final product after cooking and serving

This is an actual book, with an actual recipe in the back. Ugly Pie, by Lisa Wheeler and Heather Solomon. It is sort of apple pie, with molasses syrup, and as promised, "you will have the most delicious, most beautiful Ugly Pie you have ever saw". It is very easy to cook with kids, so long as you don't make the pastry too. I think that would be one step too far.
In addition, the book has taught my children important phrases such as "Itchin' for Ugly Pie", "wa-hoo!" and "My oh my oh my".

Fire fighter training exercises

The firefighters where our babysitter lives spent a week doing drills on how to rescue people from balconies in apartment buildings, so she and the baby spent two very happy days watching, inspecting all the different trucks, trying all the different front seats and saying hello to all the fire fighters. In full uniform of course.
There is a huge willingness to show little kids the workings around fire engines. I love it!

Spring colour

We had blossoms (and pollen - our car has a fine dusting of yellow!) and now we have green - aggressive, spring green. And all the landscaping/lawnmowing companies have come out of hibernation!! I think lawnmower ownership is a rare thing around here (except for the contractors...).

Blueberries are back

$2.50 per pint (about 300g). Read and weep!! We're eating them on our cereal again. Happy days.

Helicopter seeds

A kind child at the bus stop introduced us to one of the joys of spring - helicopter seeds. Our gutters are awash with them right now. You throw them into the air and they spin on the way down.

Voting for the President

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/07/barack-obama-speech-full-text

This has taken a while (6 months) to come up with, because I just didn't understand it, and no amount of reading carefully worded explanations on the internet appeared to help me get my head around it.
Here is my best explanation that I can think of for how the President of the United States of America is voted into office.
The Presidential vote is not a direct popular vote. The president is voted in by a group called the US Electoral College, and each state gets the same amount of electoral college votes as they have representatives in Congress (ie, population based) EXCEPT territorial possessions (Guam and Peurto Rico) who don't get any say what so ever, and Washington DC (District of Columbia) that isn't a state, but gets the same amount of representatives as the least populous state.
I can't clear up whether the US Electoral College is made up of people, or theoretical people. I think I will go with the theory that it is actual people. Somehow this group is elected, and then they pledge votes to either side (generally, since 1868 it appears to have been a two party election between the Democrats and the Republicans). I don't know how they decide to pledge votes, but I'm guessing this is where the state election comes in - to decide for them? Then, the person with a majority of votes from the US Electoral College is the President. This is the same way that a Vice-President is selected, although I'm unsure if this means a lot as I presume that the VP chosen by the President will get in, since the voting obviously favours the President in the first place. States get to chose how their electoral college votes are decided - which is why people talk about a candidate 'winning' Ohio. And there is that map of the USA divided into red and blue. It is also why it is confusing as to exactly how the election for Electoral College goes, because there are a million and one (fifty two, max, I guess) exceptions to any method described.
But... There is a popular vote for the President, and I don't quite get the connection between this popular vote and the voting for the US Electoral College, and it is possible for someone to win the popular vote, but lose the US Electoral College vote. Although this happens rarely.
One downside is that voter turn out doesn't affect how many Electoral College votes a state gets, so voter participation isn't that important except in swinging states.

Martinak State Park

Spent a very full weekend at Martinak State Park, about an hours drive East from here. Not any bush walking, but we hired a canoe and took it out on the river, and the kids enjoyed riding their bikes and playing with the rest of the kids from the group we were in. And of course, there were campfires and S'mores...
State parks are run by the state (as opposed to the National parks run by the National Park people), and seem more to be nature reserves for leisure activities - that is, fishing, bike riding, hunting (I think), boating etc.
On the way home, we went half an hour out of our way into Delaware, to Vanderwend's Icecreamery. Highly recommended!

Throw Away Culture

I'm seeing how there is more throwing away here. This entire setting at a brunch for mums - tea cup and saucer, bigger food plate, a knife and fork, a little spoon, and tablecloths, was disposable, and chucked out at the end of the brunch. I think an entire wheely garbage bin was filled.
Our office has very limited crockery etc, and supplies paper plates and plastic cutlery.
Bottled water is all pervasive, and super cheap (like, $10 for 30 bottles sort of cheap)
Parents were specifically requested to send their child in with a 'reusable water bottle' for a field trip, which sent me slightly cross eyed until I realised I could just send my child in with his normal water bottle.
Church morning teas, dinners, you name it, all use disposable. I felt like the trend in Sydney was to put in a commercial kitchen with commercial dishwashers and have a mountain of crockery to be able to serve the congregation food and drinks. Here, they have approached the problem from the other end by buying disposable everything.
Even in smaller groupings inside the home, there is a tendancy to use disposable rather than deal with the clean up. I remember having to help with washing up when I was younger at the end of an evening with friends. That doesn't seem so fashionable any more.
On one hand, it is incredibly easy, and does make the clean up easier.
On the other, however, I never feel completely comfortable with contributing so much to all the full bins.

Back sheds

The back sheds here look like little cottages!! or mini barns (think, Little People barns). So much cuter than the corrigate iron sheds back home. I love the windows with the planter boxes...

Lets plant that garden

Home Depot's nursery is empty during the winter, but right now, it is in its peak. They have some sort of supply arrangement with a professional nursery, and they've taken up some carpark, and people are buying. Not just one or two plants, but whole palets, whole trolley loads of plants. Because the winter kills off pretty much everything, lots needs to be done in the spring, it is a really busy time. They also sell predone mixed flowers/grasses in pot arrangements for the front steps, and a whole heap of fruit and flowering trees down the back.

Mayday in Annapolis

On 1st May, there is a tradition to put a flower arrangement up on your door in down town Annapolis - not just the businesses on Main Street, but also the houses in the down town area. I think there is also a competition, and maybe a garden club judges?
While the arrangements done by the businesses tended towards the thematic, and were quite clever, I enjoyed the private ones better. This would also be because I had a tired 3 year old with me, who was struggling to cope, and there were crowds on Main Street making it worse.
I loved the concept of purposefully celebrating the spring with some flowers, and a bit of gussying up of your front steps (often there are pots of pansies around now).

My reading lately

I have read some books recently (in the last 3 months...) that I would love to recommend:
1) Curly Girl - Lorraine Massey. She is a hair dresser who has created a method of looking after curly hair. As a result I have made some changes to my hair care, and am hoping my hair will appreciate it and stop being quite so unmanageable.
2) Overwhelmed - Work, Love and Play when no one has the time - Brigid Schulte
Part documentary, part self discovery. Brigid looks at "time pressure and modern life" according to the inside cover. She looks at the family, and work and leisure, and how no one feels like we have any quality time any more.
At the end she has a section of practical suggestions in the area of "Work", "Love"(family, roles, etc) and "Play" (which relates to having hobbies, remember them?)
One thing she mentioned was being aware of unconscious bias - on roles in the family. She mentioned gatekeeping by mothers which prevents fathers from having more than a 'helper' role with babies. And for work she mentioned chunking time - and committing to building up the muscle to sit there and concentrate on work/one thing, without checking emails every 5 mins. I know I have the Twitch - to check news websites when I'm frustrated with my work, instead of looking out the window, stretching and getting a glass of water.
And when I was looking for strategies for decluttering, I found The Minimalists - two american guys who have (they mention often) left their thing centric life and their 6 figure salary and found peace in minimalising, and are now, I guess, preachers of the lifestyle.
3) All That Remains - Joshua Fields Millburn - written as a series of dated essays over the two year period that he started being minimalistic. I don't always enjoy the writing style, especially the "conversations" that sound a bit preachy, but as an exploration of the idea of not organising 'stuff', but simply not owning it, the book is quite intriguing, and the length is such that you can read once, then go back and reread sections. A compelling argument for not owning as much is that it frees up time and money to spend with your family, because you're not having to clean, organise and look after all your stuff.