Chillin' at the wedding

It’s been two years since our awesome wedding in Inwood Hill Park!  We’ve decided instead of getting each other wedding gifts each year, we will get something together.  We’re using the traditional gift ideas found listed HERE as a guide.

For year 1, Paper, Jesse created a wedding album with photos of all the different events.  We have had a technical difficulty, so it’s not printed yet, but HERE is the digital album.  Thought you might want to check it out

And year 2, Cotton, we got new bedding and curtains.  They are so perfectly us (except that the curtains are a little thin and Jesse is worried about voyeurs– oh well, we’ll have to line them).  Thanks for reading!  :)

Cozy new bedding

This is what we did:

40 apples... at least

Thursday:

In preparation for their arrival, Jesse and I volunteered at the CSA so that we could get all the extra apples that people didn’t pick up.

Friday:

We cleaned the house like wild people and the family arrived around 11pm.  The girls had slept in the car, so they had a bundle of energy and ran around like a herd of elephant!  (I hope the downstairs neighbor didn’t notice.)  Admittedly, Jesse and I were so excited to see them that I’m sure we didn’t encourage the settling down much, lol.  Oh, the joy of being the fun Aunt and Uncle.  :)

Saturday:

The PURPLE train!

We had a LONG day!  I was up in the wee hours of the morn, because I needed to get ready for my friend’s film shoot.  (I played a yoga instructor extra… stills will be coming later.)  Then, Hannah, Kayla and I made the most delicious breakfast.  (Go ahead and use this idea, because it rocks!)  We went our separate ways.  The group (minus me) took the PURPLE TRAIN and went to this really cool jazz around the world concert for kids at the symphony space and then we met up for lunch.  When anyone in the group mentions the jazz, Kayla will immediately pop up and tell you she danced.  And, from what I’ve heard, that is no lie!  She danced and danced and danced!  Hannah very much enjoyed herself as well, and the grown-ups thought it was pretty cute.

At lunch, the girls got balloon animals, which was cute, and — thank goodness– distracted a bit from the fact that it took 500 years for our food to come (and it was wrong).  Not super impressed with the Saturday staffing of that

restaurant, but it gave us plenty of time to talk about Occupy Wall Street :-p.

Kayla with her flower balloon

We had planned to follow lunch with this Halloween Festival, but I pulled the plug, because we were all tired.  Kayla slept for a bit, but the minute we walked in the door, Hannah was like, “uh, Aunt Mary, we’re making applesauce now”… Did I mention she was up before me?  Where does she get that energy?!?

So make applesauce we did!  We began with 40 apples, and after Kayla ate 2 bowls at breakfast on Sunday, we made 6 FULL JARS of applesauce.  And, this is no lie, Hannah cranked the applesaucer (Thanks Grandma Deb for the cranker) for almost the WHOLE ENTIRE TIME!  There was a bit of time when Hannah fell asleep (not kidding, maybe 20 minutes) and Kayla woke up and was able to crank a few too, but Hannah did not leave her many…

After the applesauce, when everyone but Aunt Mary got a second to chill out (LOL, no sleep for the coolest Aunt ever!) we got dolled up for a night on the town.  – but not before Kayla went to the bathroom on the potty: really funny, she had a lollipop as a reward for going on the potty, and this woman was talking to her on the train and Kayla took out the sucker and was like, “I went poopoo on the potty”, and put the sucker back in.  Hilarious!–

For dinner we went to the famous Thai place here in Woodside, Sripraphai, and it was amazing!  Even the girls liked it.  – Except when Kayla stuck her finger into the spiciest dip and put it right into her mouth and no one knew what was happening until she was making this horrible face!  It was terrible in the moment, but really funny once she was ok, poor thing.  IN OUR DEFENSE, the waiter set it down RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER, I mean, come on!  She was in a high chair!  She’s ok though, she drank some of Uncle Jesse’s Thai Iced Tea, which had milk, and she relived the horror a few times, but she trouped it out.

Then, as if we hadn’t had the longest day ever, we went into Times Square to see the lights, get t-shirts for the girls and have some ice cream.  (Not me, I’m dairy free, but there was sorbet.)  It was so fun for the girls to see Times Square at night, and, again, they trouped it out like it was no thing.  Until they fell asleep on the subway ride home.  Uncle Jesse carried Hannah all the way down the steps and up into the apartment– a massive test for his after bootcamp body.

Sunday:

This sort of began on Saturday night.  Kayla and Hannah slept on a twin mattress in our room.  Kayla woke up crying around 3 in the morning.  I thought I heard someone else dealing with her, so I went back to sleep.  Then, a few minutes later, I realized I was wrong.  I got up to look.  She had sleep crawled under this wicker chair next to her bed and had become lodged.  I thought she was awake, because she was crying for her mom.  So, I got her out and went over to open the door so that I could easily carry her into the craft room to her parents.  I turned back for her and she was asleep again on the bed.  After a few hours, she was crying again in her sleep and I got up, but she was still sleeping, so I let her be.  I can’t stop laughing about finding her under the chair.  How silly!

Believe it or not, Hannah made nearly all of this!

Then, we all woke up on Sunday and the girls helped me mix up the waffles.  During this breakfast, Jesse mastered the perfect waffle, so that was pretty exciting.  I canned the applesauce so that they could take some home with them.  We had a slow morning, swung in the hammock a bit, packed up the car and they were on their way.

It was a great visit.  It’s so sad that we’re so far away, but it’s great that we are able to connect with them when we can.  This is the second year we’ve had this October visit and I hope it’s something that continues.

These are all the photos I have, so more might come when I get Aimee’s album.  Thanks for reading

Can you believe, 2 years already?

Ok, so I have made some new-leaf-turn-over-changes as of today, which you can read on my personal blog Sweet Mary K.  And, I will fill you in on some awesome stuff we’re working on in the next few days.  One of my life changes is to blog daily.  I think mostly my blogs will be on my personal site (so you should subscribe to that one if you haven’t) but sometimes I’ll blog here if it’s about me and Jesse-kins .

If you were wondering, we’re still going strong after 2 long years of marriage.  One of my blogs this week will fill you in on what we’ve been up to at the Urban Homestead here in Woodside, Queens, including the major changes in our craft and bedrooms, which lead to our 2-year anniversary gifts to ourselves… how are you liking this run on sentence?  ;)

Anyway, here we are, alive and well, and about to be filling you in on some awesome details from the past few months.  Stay tuned!

Nighty Night.

The article says the winner can choose to take the money in installments for 25 years, or take a cash payment of $202.9 million right now. I worked it out (as I do) and broken up over 25 years (this is IF the total was actually 319– it doesn’t account for taxes, etc) the pay out would be $12.7 million a year! That is an amazing amount of money! I mean, crazy!!

We would make a blanket of money! (just kidding, read on to see how we would spend.)

So… being a Baxter, of course, my mind started to wander. What would I do if I won that kind of money!?!? And here is a list of things I could think of, not really in any order:

- The first thing I would do, without question, is get all my major people in the same room for a pow wow. What do we invest in, where do we save it, how much could I spend each year, etc. We’re talking Dad, Suz and Mom, plus Bampa and Mommom, Mimi and Tim, TJ, Ron and Ellen, and the list goes on. (Might get some financial friends from NYC involved as well… Devin and James P. and more!)

- I would have to purchase an apartment for us in NYC (probably moving back to Manhattan, and if it happened right now, on the Lower East Side– if it was in a few years, might be the upper west?)

- We’d also buy a place in the Poconos. That’s probably the place we’ll have our country home eventually, but with this amount, the house will probably be a lot more substantial…

- Mom and Hannah will have to get a house in LA. Something big enough for us when we’re there. I’m thinking a five bedroom condo, maybe a penthouse? That’s their style. Hannah would also get college money, of course, and probably a travel fund.

- Liz is definitely a question. I would have to put aside money for her to travel, maybe just set up a fund for her to choose what she wants to do with it– but there will have to be an agreement that she will travel to at least 20 countries with it :-p.  Probably also a new car, and money for a house, or a farm somewhere.

- Matt would get money for a place in San Fran of course, and again, more of an “at your discretion” kind of a thing– he might want to do something different, and that would be fine.  As well as money for D’s college fund.

- I don’t know what I would do for Dad and Suzanne… they don’t exactly ‘want’ for anything– and the debate between ‘fixer-upper’ and ‘fulling finished’ for their winter home in Florida is not something I want to get involved in, lol– at least they’re good sports!  I think I would get them each something they wouldn’t get for themselves.  Like, maybe a boat for my dad, or an airstream trailer.  And for Suzanne, well, as much as I love the Camry (and you know I do), that woman needs a new car!

- I have no idea what to do for any Baxter’s… I’ll leave that up to Jesse to decide, and if he wants to day dream about it, he can write some of his answers on here  I guess the only thing I’d say goes without saying, which would be money for our nieces’ schooling.

- All of my cousins would get more money in their college funds.  The Hylen’s each have a little egg from our grandparents so that would be an easy boost, and the Redington’s would get a little dump into their respective funds to use for travel, study abroad stuff, books, or whatever extra’s come with being a well rounded college student.

- TRAVEL!  We will be on the next plane to Eastern Europe.  Jesse says “Eastern Europe” or the name of some country in EE at least once a week.  I don’t know that he even realizes it, but his time there really has affected his life.  I want to go and see the place that has changed his world view so much.  And so, we would.

- We’d also travel a poop-ton of other places!  Right now we have dinner with our friends one at a time to catch up, like, double date dinners.  Well, we’ll start having double date get-away weekends and take our friends to resorts all over the world for a short little trip.  Couples massages with my best friends?  Heck ya!

- Share the wealth!  We would donate 5% per year to different charities.  It would probably change over the years, but we would definitely send to the Red Cross, they’re always doing worthy things, and probably Susan B. Komen foundation.  I would also want to set up a fund for our immediate family to access when they wanted to donate to something.  A lot of our friends run in charity events all the time, I would want them to be able to pay entry fees without sacrificing something else in their lives.

- I would donate 5% per year to DAT. This worked out to roughly $638,000 and would pay for a good salary for everyone and all the projects we could ever dream up.

- I feel like this is the time to say, “we’ll save”, but I think I said that at first.  Jesse and I are very diligent about saving 10% of everything we make, and this would be no exception!

- This might come as a shock to a few people, but, we might have a baby.  (We’re still talking about winning 319 million dollars, not for real what we would do.) We want to have some more ducks in a row before we make that crazy leap.  (( You know though, now that I’m thinking about it, we probably would still wait a few years, because of the few things I just thought of… :-p))

- Jesse would go to survival camp.  It’s like 4 weeks out in the desert learning how to live on the land.  I think the place he wants to go is in Colorado.  He would definitely do that.

- My mom and sisters and I would go to Belize, maybe with some of my girl friends too– it’s just something I have always wanted to do.

- We would get a new TV, and a piano… a nice one!  :)

- Jesse would go to a SITI company intensive.  He did this thing in NY a few years ago, but I think there is a longer one, and he loves them and everything they do, so we would definitely make that happen.  He’d probably go on one intensive thing per year.  Maybe traveling all over the world?

- I would buy a studio space in NYC.  (Maybe this would be part of a big thing for DAT, but I want my own studio.)  I could have private dance lessons there, or a crafting workspace, I don’t know, whatever I want.  This might be one of my “splurges”.  :)

- Of course there are the normal things, like new clothes and stuff, but really- I like the simplicity of our life, and I don’t think I’ll want to live somewhere really fancy or different.  Urban Country Cottage is really our style, so that’s probably something that will stay the same.  (And I’m sure we’ll still bring home trash treasures!)

Wow- this was really fun!!  I would love to know what you would do with this kind of money!!

Jesse and I have begun posting photos of our new place and the renovations on our Facebook Fan Page (Being the Baxters).  For those of you who don’t have facebook or aren’t yet “fans” of ours, I thought I’d post the links on our blog.

Click on the links below to see photos of the different rooms.

The Bedroom

The Craft Room

The Office

The Living/Dining room

The Bathroom

The Kitchen

Please note that some albums have more than others, and they’re waiting on photos from Jesse’s phone and our camera.  There will be more to come.

Enjoy for now

When we ran out of games to play, and still had 45 minutes before dinner, she had a new idea. She would tell me what to write, and I would write it down. Ok, I was game, what am I writing. Ok, so there’s a dog, and a person, when it starts the person says…

I realized we were writing a play.

This is the play we (she dictated, I scribbled) wrote:

Characters:
Dog- a 7-yr-old
Person- the babysitter

At rise: Person is in her home

Person
I wish for a dog. I am gonna get a dog… tomorrow… if I have enough money. I’m gonna go to sleep now, and when I wake up, I’m going to count my money and see if I have enough money to get a dog. Goodnight.
(sleeps)
(wakes up)
I’m tired. I’m gonna count my money now…. ((this was a rewrite->)) 20, 20, 20, 400, 400, 400, 400! YAY, I have enough money! I’m going to the pet store!
(goes to the pet shelter ((<-another rewrite)) )
Yay, I want this dog! *kiss kiss* come on, come here dog.
(the dog comes up and kisses and licks her)
Yay, there you are.
(happily ever after)
END OF PLAY

She gave me some great tips on how to memorize my lines, and she also had some directing advice. I needed to make sure I remembered how much all of the money was (nickels were 20, pennies and dimes were 400- I was quizzed on this right before show time) and I was thrown a last minute purse prop right before we openned, I think I handled it well.

We rehearsed the play 15 times, I’m not exagerating! (She thought we should do it 20 times to make sure we were really ready, but we were distracted by bath time, tourchering the cat, and dinner. ). When Mom got home we (and by ‘we’ I mean ‘I’ because she conveniently didn’t give herself any lines) performed for her (and two little neighbors who came for the show).

It was an awesome night- apart from the screaming, she whooped me BAD at TicTacToe, and that she kept telling me I had a boyfriend (no, I have a husband, ‘no, he’s your boooyyyyyyfriend!’, lol, ok)- and I hope I’ll get called back soon!

xoxo

Babysitting in the city is not like babysitting in ‘The Middle’ or out in the boonies. People here don’t really have kids until 35- and that’s early- so the parents we encounter are in their 50′s normally with 10 year olds. Also, out in the country, a 13/14/15 year old might be the babysitter, but here, they still need supervision. I guess we keep our kids ‘kids’ a little longer here.

So we’ve been babysitting, and making bank, and having some really crazy stories and all, but the topic of this blog is the G train.

The G train is the achilles heel of the New York City transportation system. It is the worst train in the whole subway line! Sure, homeless people pee on the A train, and everyone forgets that the J and Z trains even exsist, but the G train… wow.

I feel truly sorry for anyone who lives off of the G, if that was my only MTA connection with the outside world, I would get a car/bike/roller blades too! (So, sorry to all you Greenpoint people I make fun of, your roller blades are probably significantly more reliable then the G!)

I’m on the way to a babysitting job. (I wish there was a more ‘grown up’ name for it, but that’s what I’m doing.) I hopstopped the address this morning… ‘The G,’ I thought, ‘¿en serio?’

This is why the G train sucks:
1- metro card transfer only
There is no tunnel from the 7 (our new train) to the G. This means, you must get OUT of the subway and walk 4 blocks to transfer, then walk the distance of the underground tunnel to get from the entrance to the train, basically, another 4 blocks.

2- No passengers
Everytime I get to the G, there is a train sitting in the station that is not taking passengers! Everytime!!! This means it sits there, mocking us, while we must STAND on the other side waiting for the train that IS taking passengers.

3- The Wait of Waits
In the middle of the night, waiting for the 1 in Times Square or the N at NYU or the 7 in Grand Central, the wait time is shorter then it is on the G platform during rush hour! I don’t know if it’s a rule, or what, but most trains come within 7 minutes– I must have just waited 27 minutes for the G– *Reminder, I’m headed to a booking, I don’t have time to burn!*

4- The slowest train in the NY Metro area
THIS IS THE SLOWEST TRAIN IN THE NEW YORK METRO AREA!!!!! It pulls up to the station in it’s own sweet time, like, ‘I’m here!’ what do you want?A parade?!? I’m a New Yorker, OK! I’m in a hurry! Every stop on this train is like the waving of a parade float- ok, we get it, throw the candy and let’s get a move on!
The conductor just made an announcement: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, the train was almost delayed because of a battery suck in between the doors. Thanks to a kind passenger who kicked it out of the way, we are now moving and on time (if this is ‘on time’ I would hate to see what ‘delayed’ would be). The moral of the story is, please throw all trash, especially batteries, away in the proper receptacles’.

I laughed out loud! Seriously!? Just conduct the train. I’m going to be 30 minutes late because of your ‘on timeliness’ and the battery is just ridiculous!

5- They just take it!
The people on the G train have nothing to say on the matter! The 1 train would never run like this, there are too many crazy upper westsiders who would never take this lying down! The majority of the G passengers are just content with their headphones on, probably don’t need to be to work until 2 pm tomorrow, they’ve just given themselves ample time! Most others are MTA employees, just too tired from their 16 hour day that they couldn’t care less so long as it’s moving!
Speaking of MTA employees, two guys here telling train horror stories! Engines blowing up, skipping tracks, yeah, can we talk about this later… Thanks! One guy just suggested they put elevator music on the train. Oh. My. God. Do you want people to go crazy and start shootin people on the train? Thanks, let’s just leave it like it is.

Update:
Made it to the booking on time, barely, but still hate the G, looking for another way home.

ANOTHER UPDATE:

found this awesome photo on facebook

So, on the first day of the Conference, we put on our clean pants, Jesse in a polo and me in my “Jesse’s Girl” tee with my button up safari shirt over it, and we just went to the conference. I stopped stressing (as best I can) and we just went–

They were handing out luggage tags as name badges.

I don’t know if people will understand the level of comfort that expresses for me… but, what I mean to say about that is the luggage tags made me feel instantly like I belonged with this group of people.

Jesse and I go to events, large group gatherings, all the time. Being here in NYC, and playing the roles we do in our company, it’s a situation that we find ourselves in quite often. Sometimes, I feel like I fit in at these gatherings, and sometimes I don’t.

Because of the limitations set on us, because we have a tiny selection of clothes to choose from, we couldn’t dwell on that issue. We had to just go and be. The clothes we did have are things we wear all the time, items we pack when we know we’ll have to wear them at least once a week- because of the limitations set forth by our backpacks.

What I’m getting at is this- I didn’t tug on my pant leg, never walked strangely in my shoe. I didn’t adjust my shirt to see that my boobs weren’t looking weird. I was comfortable in my skin!

The conference was great. It was really a rejuvinating reward to see so many people who do what we do, whether they have been doing it for 40 years, or if they just sort of have this crazy idea and want to know more.

We went to this lunch conversation on the emerging generation of artists in this type of work. I don’t quite understand what they wanted us to talk about, and that’s another conversation all together, but what I found interesting was that when we were able to get called on, the convo turned into ‘what is DAT’ and Jesse and I were comfortable and confident talking about how we are essencially honing this emerging generation of like-minded artists.

Ok, enough about DAT, that’s not the point of this post. My point is that I felt comfortable and confident throughout the whole 4-day conference. I felt like I belonged there and that I had something to say. I felt good in my clothes, I didn’t worry about being too this or that or formal or in flip-flops- I was me and not only was that OK, it was awesome!

I often talk about wanting to be 30. In some way, for some reason, I feel like that age is the marker that I need to reach to become a ‘grown-up’. (Jesse gets a break here, men mature later, so 35 would be ‘grown-up’ for him… in my mind.). This is all in my mind. I have peers with 10-year-old children, I don’t feel like they aren’t grown up… just, I think I, myself, need to be thirty.

But after this weekend, I’m like, WAKE UP SISTER! You have organized projects taking over one hundred theatre artists to foreign countries! For 4 years you have run this company and got it off the ground and because of you (and partners) Dramatic Adventure Theatre’s name is in the mouths and on the minds of theatre professionals all over the country! (Not to mention all those bios and resumes!)

So, wake up I did, awake I am, and above all else- comfortable in the way I’m carrying myself as I walk around this crazy world!

Thanks for reading

It’s no secret that we’re on a budget right now… who isn’t!?  So I was in the cereal aisle the other day and I was trying to find a reasonably priced option (we live in NYC, ok, Kellogg’s is like $4.50 a box) that was also somewhat healthy.  I looked at the off-brand Cheerio’s and noticed that for the same price, I could by twice as much of the off-brand sugary cereals.

I immediately started to have a break down.  Why is this the way of the world?  Why is it more expensive for me to buy something that grew on a tree, completely naturally, than it is to buy a huge bag of sugared, chemically produced, cereal?!?!  It’s CRAZY!

I thought about Jesse’s Mom–this is where I immediately go when I think about how terrible this system has become.  When she was my age, she had 4 children below the age of 6!  Raising that big of a family, no matter what your social standing, costs money, and requires budgeting.  What are families like that supposed to do, how are they expected to provide a healthy lifestyle for their children when POP (Soda, Coke, whatever you call it) is LESS EXPENSIVE  than juice!?!?!  It just makes no sense to me.

So, I didn’t like cry, or anything, but seeing this did stop me in my tracks.  I could have gotten twice the amount of cereal if I decided to go for the less expensive Magic Stars… I did fight the urge to save, however, and ‘splurged’ on the Toasted Oats, a decision I am grateful for now because I am not sick from the sugar.

It’s just a bit of a frustration… and, confusion more than anything.

Well, I just need to finish the place so we can get into the back yard garden and get some delicious plants ready for next year.  :)

This work is exhausting!!!

I had a moment early on in the day where I thought, ‘wow, I’m channeling my mother, circa ’97.’ That’s when she and my step dad, Hurley, bought this HUGE house dated at least 1850′s. The place had 3 fully functional floors. There were 5-6 bedrooms, depending on how you counted it, 2 bathrooms, 2 kitchens (they took one out as soon as we got there and made it a bedroom). The place was enormous. Mom spent the next, almost ten years, in paint clothes, biting off a little bit of the house at a time, finding 20 minutes here or there to paint a trim or spackle a corner.

I don’t want this project to go on for 10 years. Granted, it’s like 1/5th the size of that house… I’m just saying, I’m ready for it to be over.

The only clean clothes I have are my pajamas, so every night the routine is go upstairs to Ben and Stephs place, shower, brush our teeth, and get into jammies. Sometimes we stay and watch TV, sometimes not.

Wow, the routine sounds really nice, I bet you’re wondering what I flipped out about? Well, the routine IS nice, and B&S have been amazing through all of this- especially this week, since our ENTIRE BATHROOM is EMPTY! (Its getting totally renovated.) I’m just getting to a point where I’m tired of needing to ask for help.

We’re THAT couple who you call when you’re moving, or you’re having a fundraiser, or you need a place to stay last minute in NYC, or you need online votes– I like that role, I’m comfortable with that role. This summer, I have not been in that role. I have been at the mercy of friends who have taken us in for a day, a week, even a month at a time. I have felt so supported by everyone.

Here’s the flip out– I can literally feel my Kharma Bank running out of chips! I have cashed them all in!!

I want to get back to being that couple!!

Ahhhh, and the place was crazy today! Trash bags full of bathroom tile piled up in my living room were what I woke up to. The craft room ceiling looked like someone had thrown baloney all over it, and the bedroom– don’t even get me started on that disaster!!!

So, I had a meltdown- I want to get the stuff out of storage, I don’t want paint all over my hands, there is a HUGE Theater Without Borders Conference this weekend and Jesse and I are going to look like we’re from the slums– I don’t even have a sweater to wear in this crisp Fall weather!!

As I sat on the floor priming the bedroom walls, my sister called me. I’m sure she saw my facebook status, which read, “Mary K is too stressed out to function– paintbrush up, paintbrush down”. We talked for less than five minutes. She reminded me how lucky I was to be sitting next to Jesse through all of this and that we are here to support each other, and, most importantly, this was all going to be well worth it when it was finished.

I like the look of my hands with chipped nail color, covered in primer, they look like my moms. Strong, capable, and rediculously creative!

She was right, as she most often is. So, I put down the 5 gallon tub of primer I was about to pour on myself, and I kissed Jesse. We finished the priming of the bedroom- tag team style, as is our way. I did the walls and the trim, and when he was finished spackling the ceiling in the craft room, he came and primed the ceiling in the bedroom.

We decided to not stress out. The stuff will stay in storage for a few extra days. We’ll finish the floors first, a decision I know we’ll be grateful for later.

All will be okay. We just need to take it one day at a time.

Thanks for your support with all of this! We have lots of photos of the process, so we’ll blog some crazy before and after blogs when everything is done.