Brand Junkie

I tend to get in a rut about where I shop. I lean toward certain vendors, particular establishments, and well... companies that I'm just in adoration of. Let me give you an example.

Situation #1:

Today my husband called and said he needed fuel for his car and since he left his debit card at the Chinese takeout place in the San Antonio airport and has since closed all of his accounts, wouldn't I be so gracious as to lend him my card? I only carry around a driver's license and a debit card, so I led him to where my credit card was safely stowed away in our hurricane box. He called 20 minutes later saying that the card had been cancelled and in my spare time couldn't I call over to the bank and see why all of our accounts had been frozen? As a very obliging personality (not really, but my husband never reads my blogs...) I called over to our bank: USAA Federal Savings Bank. [Please note as a special aside that when I was studying Organizational Leadership and Management for my undergraduate degree we did a research piece on a particular company that was featured in the Harvard Business School Press journal on the topic of knowledge management and information sharing and excellent customer service. The company? USAA Federal Savings Bank. ]

The phone rang once and a middle-aged woman answered the line and I gave her my information and I told her I was concerned about my credit card being cancelled, etc. etc. I returned to the work at my desk and within ten minutes she returns to tell me that she is FedEx-ing my new credit cards (both mine and my husband's) next day and that the debit card that my husband had ordered last week should have been delivered this morning and could she help me further? Let's just say I wanted to send her some flowers. I've dealt with difficult banks, federal credit unions, financial institutions looking for a quick buck and a reasonable excuse to keep you from withdrawing your money. I have never had a negative experience with this bank. For that very reason, we use them for all of our banking, investment, insurance and auto rental needs. They have my unswerving devotion.

Situation #2:

I love Kitchen Aid. I have this ridiculous draw to small appliances that I cannot explain. From my blender to my coffee grinder to my food processor, they all share that sweet little stainless steel label: Kitchen Aid. For my birthday this year, my parents blessed me with a mixer. Joshua has declared for years that I do not need one, that his arm is strong enough for anything that needs mixing, kneeding, blending, whipping or stirring. I entirely agree, but again, I love small appliances. The first thing I made with my new mixer were these ridiculously disgusting "health" carrot-ginger-nut muffins that were supposed to miraculously cure my morning sickness. Well, they didn't. But I enjoyed the blending process anyway. Last week I got inspired to make gingerbread cookies. Of course, muffin batter is quite different from the shortening, molasses, 7 cups of flour concoction that comes with gingerbread cookies. My poor little mixer starting freaking out (as if appliances could do this) and even in the "lock" position, it started moving around and the motor really sounded like it was struggling... and I only had put in 4 cups of flour.

I called Amazon.com this afternoon and said, "yes I understand it's been 30 days since I received this gift, and I would like to keep the product, I just would prefer an exchange as the item I received seems to be defective". The lady I spoke with was exceedingly kind of it being the holiday rush season, she placed me on hold and when she came back she said they had another of my model in stock and that it was being sent tomorrow and that I could wait to inspect it before I sent the model I had and that she hoped I enjoyed making gingerbread cookies with this new model.

This holiday season, I don't know where I would be without them.

Missing Nanna B.

There is something about coming into the holiday season that makes me sad. Pensive, introspective, quiet, withdrawn. I don't know if it has to do with all the memories that are gone and nearly faded or of the people I no longer share my life with. This year looks to be immeasurably harder than most as Joshua and I are expecting our first child and the one I would long to share the delightful news with, it not here to share in the joy.

Joshua lost his maternal grandmother last year and last season as he detailed her holiday habits and those things he would miss, the longing in my heart was so much more quickened. My maternal grandmother left over half my lifetime ago, but she breathes near me always. When I graduated from high school, when I got married, when I found out I was expecting... wouldn't she be jubilant? I have those contented memories of eating blackberries in Massachusetts, walking along the rocks in Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod, and walking through the arboretum in Milwaukee. Though mostly those memories came from looking through picture books in my late youth.

But, I remember canning tomatoes, and the large containers of pickling cukes and a house-filled with the aromatics of dill and fresh garlic that came from old time-tested recipes. I remember visiting during the summer and staying in her guest suite in the dark, cool basement, tip-toeing past my parent's bed and up the shag-carpeted stairs to where Nanna was drinking her early morning coffee and reading the paper. She would set me up at the table with a bowl of cereal and milk that she bought just for us and a freshly dealt hand of cards. We played rummy mostly, and she was brilliant... I was, as a Northerner might say: "slower than molasses in January". We played in the kitchen, the porch, on the deck next to the climbing hibiscus flowers in the shadow of the huge "grandfather tree" whose limbs were low and large enough to climb on.

I wonder if now, "all grown up" and soon to have a family of my own, if she would be proud of me. If she would come to visit and hold my children the way she held me. If she would put up with Joshua's slow card dealing and if she would be my partner while playing Spades. I wonder whether she would like the way I modified her monster cookie recipe and how I never forget to make her spinach balls at Christmas and potato ana at Thanksgiving. I wonder if she would tell me how proud she was of my Mom and her tenacity to finish her classes. I wonder if she would like the wedding china I picked out that reminds me of her Christmas set. I wonder if she would notice that I love wearing scarfs the way the Russian babushkas do, because it reminds me of her. Or perhaps she saw me get married and saw the vase of white tulips set in memory of her?

I'll likely never know these answers or the thousands more that pulse through my mind when I smell that faint smell of lilac and lavender, but I know that this Thanksgiving and Christmas, when my demeanor gets quiet and the tears form, I'll think of all the years my children will get with their grandparents and all the memories they will form together and what a joy it will be.

Market Moodiness

[Let me just start with this cute little disclaimer: I live in possibly the most outrageously over-priced market on the Eastern Seaboard.]

As Joshua and I begin our search for a place to call home for our new family we have run into the most ridiculous dilemma: You can no longer purchase a home for a reasonable amount of money.

My parents purchased their first home for $40k. I think that's about the price of a nice car these days. It was a sweet cottage-style home with an apple tree in the back yard and wild lilacs. It had a two car garage and 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and basement large enough to roller-skate in. It was a midwestern home with a strong foundation and large enough backyard to plant a garden with raised beds.


Where we live, you can't buy a trailer for one hundred thousand dollars more than that.

Our rental lease is due for renewal in February and so the discussion is again brought to the table: how long should we rent? How long do we want to live in Virginia? Where do we ultimately want to rear a family? How much are we willing to pay for a home?

With the current market volatility and increasing difficulty to secure a home loan, maybe our bank will make the decision for us, but I still dream about a beautiful stone home that has a backyard sufficent for our garden: a place Aoife can learn firsthand about organic, sustainable and local.

Too Chic for Chuck?

So... I'm online browsing for maternity wear, sending links to my best friend (who is a mere 10 days more pregnant than I) of uber cute formal dresses and shirts that accent our little wondrous upcoming bump and I find these shoes.

Mind you, I love Chuck Taylor. I got my first pair of "chuckies" when I was in eighth grade and I am sure they were the only things I wore. They were navy blue canvas and the most comfortable things to wear in those Midwestern summers in Milwaukee. I think it was later in high school when I got a pair that was plaid and made of wool. I loved them. I'm not sure one can love shoes, especially of the tennis-shoe variety, but these had affectionate attachments made to them. I wore them until holes had generated in the woolen fabric outside the shoe on the heels and outside my pinkie toes. Sadly, one day I washed them and that sweet wool shrunk right down to beyond my ability to wear them. With such a heavy heart, they finally were moved to my closet from the front doorway...never to see the light of day again.

My husband bought me a pair when we were dating. Dark brown canvas, smelling like fresh rubber and reminding of walking home from middle school with crunchy leaves underfoot. Unfortunately he overestimated my shoe size and had to be returned. I never got around to figuring out what my "boy" shoe size was so I could get another pair.

But fast forward and here I am searching on Gap Maternity and I come across these shoes. No laces, but stretchy elastic for those stubborn swelling pregnant feet. I'm in love. They are in autumnal colored canvas and that bright white that only back-to-school shoppers can love. I immediately jump onto the official Chuck Taylor website to find the shoe and what do you know? They are a Gap.com exclusive. Fair enough.

I send the link to Nic to which I'm sure during the duration of our relationship, the most casual footwear I have ever worn were my Birkenstock clogs that I wear occasionally when we are tromping around leaves in the fall and I know who has never seen me in a pair of "lo-tops", but I figured we were close enough to share such affections, comments: "aren't you kinda too chic for those?"

TOO CHIC FOR CHUCK TAYLOR SHOES?!

Can there be such a thing?

Being Pregnant

There is a fabulous phenomenon with being pregnant. First of all, it's a blessing to harbor a little life inside your body and to know that God is creating a brand new being from within you. It is a reminder to me every moment of the day that my life is not my own. I am constantly aware of how my actions affect the inside of the womb. Whether it be the pickled okra I ate when I got out of bed last night, or the heightened stress from bumper-to-bumper traffic on my way to the OB, or just the amount of time I stay sitting at my desk, there is no escaping the baby's absorption of my life.

Now of course, there is the other side of pregnancy, which we'll call the "lesser glamorous side". Which equates to driving to the grocery store in sweat pants and an old alumni college sweatshirt, Birkenstock clogs and RED SOCKS. [Oh yea... they were comfy and clean and they didn't rub against my ankle, so I wore them. I am not sure why one owns red socks, but I know I got mine at a cute little retailer in Hakkodate, Japan and they have fun yellow stars on them.] The Lesser Glamorous Side also means being late to work because you couldn't convince yourself that breakfast was most delicious the first time.

It also equates to a whole new level of razzing, of which I'm not quite sure where people come up with this stuff. The moment I told people that Joshua and I were expecting, the whole slew of questions came out, the worst of which I dare not repeat but it made me aware of people's lack of understanding in God's greater design. On one particularly rough day after absorbing more than a "fair" share of hurtful comments, a maternal co-worker told me: "just ignore comments that come from ignorance". Though it seemed basic, it has taken me three weeks to adopt it as my own and understand its application.

With only a mere 10 weeks under my belt (pun intended), the learning curve is quick but I'm happy to be along for the ride. Now if only I could convince my breakfast to hang in there with me...

Picking Color

So, the great search begins.

It appears that our little "love nest" won't be able to fit the "three of us" so we have begun our search for a home. Of course, for me that begs the question... what colors will you use? I figure that's a logical question, because before you can move in you need to know colors, as colors set the tone for your living spaces. Will you use cooler tones to make a relaxed atmosphere, or brighter shades to draw attention and to excite or warm colors to invite and envelop? Well... it turns out we didn't change a whole lot from our apartment currently, just brought the shades all down one notch and into one cooler tone range...which means we are still a contemporary neutral-natural household. What else would you expect from the Davis'?

Of course, there was one new room to add to the color wheel and as Joshua and I have decided we do not want to know the gender of our firstborn, we have gone with a green and brown palate for the nursery. We hope the layout and tone will be much like the above photograph: clean, minimalistic and simple. I mean, babies shouldn't need much beyond that, right?