I (heart) NYC!

One of my favorite things about living in Central New Jersey is that I am only an hour and 15 min train ride from New York City. I love visiting the city. I love the energy. I love the shops and restaurants. I love the yellow cabs. I love that I am all alone when surrounded by hundreds of people. I love exploring the different neighborhoods. I just love the city. I think it's beautiful.

Every two months or so, I like to take a day for myself and visit the city. I try to do something new each time. This time the plan was to visit the East Village. So, last weekend, my friend and I took the early Saturday train to the city and spent the whole day exploring. F U N !

First visit was the absolutely gorgeous Marimekko flagship store on the 5th avenue. LOVE it!!

Next we walked (while sipping our ice cold Jamba Juice) to Union Square Green Market where we enjoyed the bounty of beautiful farm fresh items and Finnish rye bread by Nordic Breads . Yum!! And, we almost saw Ted Allen from Food Network. (He was going to be doing a demo on canning, and, although we were interested in seeing him and the demo, we did not want to wait 45 minutes.)

We continued our walk to Washington Square Park where we found a street fair and bought some yummy fried dough, and took a well needed rest.

Our journey then continued to Soho where we happened to stumble upon this crazy looking doorway that was spray painted all over and had the neon orange sign "Kiosk" also spray painted on the sidewalk. I got super excited. I told my friend, "Oooooh! I read about this place. It's supposed to be really cool. Want to go in?" The trusting friend that she is, she followed me through the doorway into the staircase that looked nothing like a cool store nor a place where two young-ish women should have been without bodyguards. As I walk up the stairs determined that I knew exactly where I was going, I kept telling my friend, "It's OK. Just follow me. I read about this online."
And, sure enough, at the top of the stairs was the store called Kiosk. It is not an ordinary store. The items in the store are displayed like in a museum with a cool little description or a story of each item. The items are collected and brought to the store from all over the world. I was able to find few exciting items from Finland. If you are ever in Soho, you should definitely stop by Kiosk. It's super cool store.

After Kiosk, we finally made it to Purl Soho which was one of the main stops of our day. I just love going in there. I always buy something, but just being there is awesome. It was my friend's first time, and I think she fell in love. And, how couldn't you when they have green belt material with white polka dots on one side and white stripes on the other. Sigh!! Beautiful. 

By now, we were starving so we walked and walked and walked through Soho to East Village past BabyCakes Bakery to Ludlow street to have lunch at Katz's Deli. My new favorite at Katz's - brisket sandwich. Yum! Yum! Yum! 

On our way back from East Village and Soho to Penn Station, the day was starting to get darker, but we were still in search for some ice cream and maybe some shopping. We found Haagen Dazs store and had ice cream to keep us going. And, I also got to take my friend to another favorite store of mine in NYC. Fish Eddy. Super fun. Super cute. Super reasonable.

One of the funniest items in the store were plates that said things like "for the love of god stop eating" and "big mistake." LOL!

I bought one of these (pink) for O. So cute!

We had a great day exploring the city even after walking about thousand miles, and we can't wait to go back. And, one of the reasons is that we found this place on our way back. Chocolate fondue. Chocolate drinks. Chocolate desserts. CHOCOLATE.

Oh, how I love this city!

The day when we did nothing

This morning I woke up to darkness. It was 6:30 am. It reminded me of the dark winter mornings in Finland. Dark!! But, it was a summer morning in August in New Jersey, and it shouldn’t have been that dark. Nevertheless, it was. I pulled my blanket up a little bit more and continued to snooze while O was sitting next to me in bed playing Angry Birds on the iPad. After a few minutes go by…OK, maybe 30 minutes…I start to really wake up and figure out what is going on around me. Wow! It’s really dark. K is putting his socks on and is ready to go to work. “Is it raining outside?” I ask him. “Uhm. Yeah!” Oh ok. And, was it ever. It was dumping. We even got a flash flood warning sent to our cell phones. I had never gotten one of those before. The East Coast weather can be so dramatic. 

 So, it was going to be a rainy day I think to myself. In a dark and stormy summer day like this, we must have a permission (from whom, I don’t know) to stay home and do nothing. Right?  This sounded great! Day with nothing to do…well, you have to do something. You can’t just lay in bed. I mean what a waste of time that would be. And, with almost four-year-old, you have to do something. I soon find myself thinking about things that we could do on this gloomy rainy day. We could paint. Or, we could watch lots of TV. Or, I could sew and O could play. Maybe I need to get some laundry done. Wouldn’t today be the perfect day for baking some pulla (Finnish cinnamon rolls)? And, on and on, my mind goes. After awhile, I am happy with my plan for the day: We are not going to do anything. 

It is 8 pm as I write this now, and here is what happened today: O watched 3 hours of TV (including her iPad time while I was sleeping), I took a shower and sorted all the laundry, O painted her new treasure box for her rocks while I started to cut tulle for her dress-up ballerina skirt, I finished a pillow cover that I had started last week, O played with multiple different toys and created a huge mess in the playroom, we cleaned the playroom, I finished the ballerina skirt and texted my friend about it, we drove to my work and O’s preschool to pick up materials for the coming session and checked out O’s new classroom, we visited the library and picked up new books to read, we stopped by Stewart’s and got some milkshakes, we drew outside with chalk, I made dinner, O took a shower by playing on her new $5 slip n’ slide on the backyard (which is now broken and explains why it only cost $5). 

And, as it turns out, we did something. We did a lot of things today. And, it was a fun day

Here is our day in pictures:

O painting her treasure box

Finished treasure box. A new home for O's rocks. The box is from A.C. Moore and the paint is acrylic paint.

Dress-up ballerina skirt. I got the idea from my sister's blog Terhin Tekemä who got the idea from nettikauppa Punahilkka.

Whales by O.

Peaches

I love Jersey summers…when it is not so muggy (and, that’s hardly ever) that the first second you walk out the door all your clothes get glued to your skin and not peel off until you walk into a freezing air conditioned car or building. Couple weeks ago it was blazing hot and humidity was unbearable. The man in the radio station said, “It is 93 degrees right now, but it feels like 113 degrees.” Yes. Jersey summers are grrrrreat. 

 For real though, the real reason to love Jersey summers is all the berries, vegetables and fruits that grow in all the great farms and orchards. There are lots of them. New Jersey IS the garden state after all.

O and I have a favorite orchard near us. It was the first place we visited when we moved here. They have farm animals outside, and it is free to check them out. They also have lots of kitties roaming around the yard. And, O loves kitties. They also have little peddle tractors and cars for the kids to ride on, and cool old tractors that the kids can climb on. All free. The farm store has produce, but the favorite of ours is their cookies and apple cider slush. Not free. But, yummy! We always get a cookie before heading home. They also make fantastic apple cider donuts. Yum Yum!! Another great thing that the orchard does is a Read and Pick program every Tuesday morning. We have been able to attend now two of them this summer. You pay $7 per child, and the cost includes a fun story time during which the orchard lady talks about the animals on the farm and all the different produce they have available that week or month, a few songs which are not actually sung because I don’t think the orchard lady can sing (why else would she not sing head, shoulders, knees and toes?), and kids imitating animal sounds to wake up the farm. After the story time, the children get to go and pick whatever the theme happens to be for that week. And, this week we got to pick peaches.

Each child got a small paper bag, and they were allowed to pick the whole bag full. With some guidance from us moms (well…in my case a lot of guidance), the children picked about 8-9 peaches. I had never been picking peaches before. I have picked plenty of apples in my life (we used to have 13 apples trees on our yard growing up), but never peaches. I did not know that they grew attached to the branches. And, they smelled so good. And, they were all so beautiful. The kids had a great time; although, they were more interested in the cookies and apple slush that was waiting for them at the end of picking than the actual peaches. Oh well! 

The plan was to make peach pie. My friend was going to make peach gobbler. I was going to make my super easy Finnish pie with peaches on it. I had never tried making it with peaches. I always use apples. It turned out OK. I prefer the apples. However, since this recipe is so ridiculously easy. And, absolutely fantastically yummy, I thought I would share it with you here. I got this recipe about 17 years ago when I was working at a child care place in Finland. If I remembered still who gave it to me, I would be more than happy to give credit to that person. But, since I barely remember what I ate last night for dinner, I am going to just say that this is not my original recipe; although, I have added one extra ingredient to it. I prefer to make it with apples, but you could use any fruit or berry. Use whatever makes you happy. Also, the original recipe is in Finnish, but I measured everything in cups which means that the amounts are a bit strange. So, just go with it. It will taste fabulous at the end.

Super Easy (Apple) Pie

¾ cup    milk

2/3 cup  sugar

1 ½ cup flour

3 tsp      baking powder

1 tbsp    vanilla sugar (I have not tried vanilla extract, so I wouldn’t know how that would work)

5 tbsp    butter

             sugar and cinnamon

2-3       apples (or other fruit or berries)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
2. Thinly slice your apples. Or, if you are adventurous and using berries, you may want to wash them first.
   
3. Take a round pie dish, butter it, and sprinkle plain bread crumbs so that the whole pan in covered. (NOTE: Using Italian bread crumbs may add an odd flavor to your apple pie.)
   
4. Combine all the dry ingredients and milk together. Mix until they are all combined.
   
5. Pour the batter into your buttered pie dish.
6. Add apple slices to the top of the batter. I like to leave space around the edges.
   
7. Add little bit sugar and cinnamon on top of the apples. (I did not add cinnamon on the peaches, but I did put some sugar on top.)
8. Put the pie in the oven for 15 minutes.
9. While the pie is baking, melt the butter.
10. Once 15 minutes is up. Take the pie out of the oven and pour the melted butter on top. I start from the edges of the pie and move inward.
    
11. Put the pie back in the oven for another 15-25 minutes. My oven seems to be temperamental, so I never know how long something takes. Once the pie is nice and golden brown on top and not too runny in the middle, it is done.
    
12. Enjoy with vanilla ice cream and think how super easy this pie was to make. And, plan to make it again the next day. That’s how good it is!!

Welcome!

Almost three years ago, my husband was looking for a new job. He came home one day and said, “There might be a job in New Jersey.” My reaction? “New Jersey?!?!!” I am from Finland, and I have lived in Boston for a year, but all the other years that I have lived in the U.S. have been in California. I had always said that if we moved anywhere from the Bay Area, we would move to San Diego or Boston. Now, we were thinking about New Jersey. As it turns out, my husband ended up getting and accepting that job in NJ which meant that we would be packing all of our things, leaving our house, leaving all of our friends and family, and moving across the country. It also meant that after 6 years of me being a full-time tenure community college faculty member teaching ESL (English as a Second Language), I would become a Jersey housewife and stay-at-home-mom to our then 20 month of daughter. Not only did I need to settle in to our new rental home and find new friends, but I also needed to find something to do with all the newly freed free time that I had in my hands. As a full-time community college instructor, I had worked from 8 am until 9 pm most days except on Saturdays when I would allow myself to have some fun time (but, yet, still thinking about how many papers I would need to grade the next day). Now, I was home with a toddler with no work. 

Aaaaaaaawesome!!!!!

When the first Sunday in September came, and I realized at 5 pm that I did not need to create a lesson plan for the next day, I was beside myself. It was a strange feeling the first and second week, but oddly enough somehow I got used to it. 

What was I going to do with all this free time???? I started to knit. I had learned to knit in elementary school in Finland. I love knitting socks and toys. I also got a sewing machine for my birthday that year. I knew how to sew, but I wasn’t super comfortable with my skills. Now, I can make a dress for my daughter. I re-learned to crochet and discovered the love of crocheting toys. And, I love to plan. I will plan anything. So, when my new Jersey friends asked me how do I have time to do all of the things that I was making and doing, I would say, “After working full-time at a community college and knowing how much time it takes, I feel like I have more free time in my hands than I can handle.” 

Since then my daughter (I’ll call her O from now on) has started preschool, and I am still a full-time Jersey housewife, I have a new adjustment ahead of me. O will be going to preschool three days a week which leaves me nine hours a week of childless time. What shall I do? I could do laundry, go grocery shopping, clean the house. But, instead, I am going to start blogging. Yep. I will be a blogger. 

Welcome!