Weekend warmth

from Megan

I love a chill in the air that nibbles at the fingertips and reddens the nose. It makes me appreciate the warm slippers and hot cup of tea waiting within the warmth of home. In winter, more than any other season, I am perfectly content to stay in on weekends and read, craft and cook. (Or perhaps it's in my genes... and I'm just my mother's daughter through and through?!)

Reading. I read Eat, Pray, Love and Steinbeck's Cannery Row on a reading binge in Maine over the holidays. Last weekend, I read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. I'm now reading Bryson's I'm a Stranger Here Myself which I find amusing to the point of laughing out loud! The book is a collection of essays Bryson wrote as he was re-entering life in the USA after 20 years in London.

Crafting. Well, I'd like to personally thank all of our friends and family for the steady turnout of such gorgeous babies! My most recent baby-inspired creation was a quilt for a college friend's little girl, Amelia.

Cooking... well! Roasted chicken for Sunday dinner followed later in the week by rich, steamy chicken soup (we like to get our $$$'s worth out of poultry), blackberry muffins with orange rind with sweet clementines on the side, eggplant parmigiana, cream of broccoli soup, sweet potatoes, Boboli pizzas with sun-dried tomatoes and fontina-spinach-chicken sausage...

We try to cap it off with a full serving of gym-time. :)

Meteorological vocab lesson

the car: #$#^&%@!!*&?

me: I'm really, really, really sorry.

We've been expanding our vocabularies since mid-December when the first series of winter storms plowed through New England. Hearing any combination of the following terms during the weather forecast usually makes us giggle a bit (and feel eternally grateful for The T) and so we'd like to share the mirth with you all. Besides, expanding the vocabulary never hurts...

Nor'easter - we're starting with one of the more widely-known terms. This is a macro-scale storm whose winds come from the northeast. More specifically, it describes a low pressure area whose center of rotation is just off the coast and whose leading winds in the left forward quadrant rotate onto land from the northeast. (Ooh! Fancy!) These storms can cause coastal flooding, erosion and gale force winds.

Wintery-mix - sounds like something you'd serve at a cocktail party, no?! This is actually an unpredictable mix of sleet, snow, and rain. Combine the aforementioned ingredients and you've got cold slop.

Polar vortex - we thought this sounded like a 5-ticket ride at the Boardwalk. Guaranteed to make you puke! However, it's actually a persistent, large-scale cyclone located near the Earth's poles, in the middle and upper troposphere and the stratosphere. It surrounds the polar highs and is part of the polar front. When this front dips down into NE, it's freeze-your-face-off cold.

Thundersnow - you got it. One particularly dramatic variation is thundersleet!

Absolute zero - If you don't remember this from your high school science class, this is a temperature of -273ºC or -460ºF. Theoretically, there is no molecular motion at this temperature. We're happy to report that this is not a regular occurrence during the New England winter.

Happy New Year!

Welcome, 2008 and hello to any new readers stopping by - thanks for checking in!

We spent the Christmas-New Year's stretch here at home in Cambridge, doing a whole lot of nothing... and it was great! The most complicated decision made each day was, "which direction should we choose for our walk today?"

We dashed up to Portland, Maine for a little vacation and thoroughly enjoyed Portland's charms. It's quite a foodie city, too - so we savored two memorable dates on the town. Street & Co. and Caiola's both lived up to the hype! L.L. Bean's flagship store is located about 15 minutes north of Portland in Freeport, Maine, so we made sure to drop by there, as well.

We rang in 2008 with dear friends Liz and Tom (we met in Copenhagen in 2005 and have serendipitously ended up in Boston together!) and a few bottles of good bubbly stuff.
The holidays have now been packed up and stowed away, the tree needles are all vacuumed up, and the molasses and cloves are back in the rear of the pantry...

We are so thankful for all that 2007 brought us!

Copious giftage and lovely holiday greetings from our family and friends.

Down by the port in Portland, Maine

A cozy coffee break on Exchange Street, Portland