RIP, Behemoth

Our house is a 3-story townhouse. The first floor is dining room, kitchen, living room, laundry nook (my beloved), a half-bath, and a closet. The second floor is master bedroom and bath, Claire's room, guest room, and Claire's/guest bath. The third floor is kind of like a really large, finished attic space. It's a large room with a couple closets, a half-bath, and a very strange open nook hovering over the stairs. Awkward nook hovering awkwardly over the stairs. 

When we moved into our house, we inherited quite a few items. Things like a working mini fridge, a GROSS deep fryer, an assortment of random vases and platters, AND the most monstrous TV imaginable (a professional junk remover estimated it to weigh 300
lbs). Housed in the awkward third-floor nook. It's been a nagging frustration for the past year. It wasn't exactly functional for us, and we thought that nook could be put to better use as a storage space (with a curtain to conceal the storage, obviously). We nixed the idea of asking friends to help us remove it, because, well, we like our friends and want them to stay our friends. We also couldn't come up with a good way to remove it without a lot of help because the nook is suspended about 7 feet over the uneven landing of the staircase. Such a head-scratcher.

Eventually, we decided to bite the bullet and call professionals. Brad even found a coupon that would knock a chunk off of the estimate the guy gave us over the phone. It looked like it was going to be a breeze, and we were patting ourselves on the back for just deciding to cough up the cash and get it done.

The guys showed up and evaluated the situation. For a looooong time. After a long period of looking, measuring, and weighing, they deemed our situation a head-scratcher. The owner told us he had never seen a situation quite like ours and was going to need to go home and puzzle over it for a while. He was thinking scaffolding was going to be needed...and our estimate was going up by several hundred.

Brad and I moped for a hot minute and then resolved to GET IT DONE. Ourselves, for free. So, Brad monkey-ed up into the nook, I passed him tools, and he took that dinosaur apart piece by piece. It took all of Claire's nap time (2.5 hours) and quite a bit of elbow grease to get the SOLID wooden base out of there, but we got that sucker out.

The question we keep getting (and asking ourselves) is HOW did it get up there in the first place? The best theory we have going is that when the attic was being finished, the nook was customized for this particular tv. The room is set up for surround-sound, so we're guessing the third floor was a rec room of some kind (we use it as office and sewing/Christmas and outgrown clothes storage, occasionally extra guest room). 

We don't know if the tv still worked, and we would have liked to have salvaged it rather than stripping it down to its nuts and bolts. However, it was a model from the early 2000's (not currently in popular demand), and we weren't going to pay upwards of $500 in order to have it removed. Therefore, it had to go the hard way. Don't worry, though: we took it to the appropriate city site for electronics disposal. We're friends of the environment. We were also very careful in the monkey-ing, shimmying, and hefting. I promise.

Now, for some perspective and befores/afters:

This is the best "before" that I have. See how Brad looks like a little Elf on the Shelf? That's how big the nook and tv are! In this picture, he'd already turned the tv to the side, so please imagine it facing forward with about 6 inches to spare on the sides. BIG, right?

Finished product. We were so proud. I think we high-fived.

RIP, Behemoth. You aren't missed.

Boston still has my heart.

We've been in North Carolina for a little over a year now. As much as I would like for it to feel like home, it still doesn't. And, as much as I would like to be "over" Boston, I'm not. Not to be overly dramatic, but I still feel like Boston and I were forced to break up. I'm still a little heartbroken. Sometime, I'll reflect on this a little more, but today, I'll focus on our most recent trip to Boston and what a glorious time we had.

Two of our favorite friends, Tim and Jess, got married, and we went to CELEBRATE! We've been around since the beginning of their relationship and wouldn't have missed the wedding for the world. Brad went up a day early and was able to be there for Tim's bachelor party, and I held down the fort until my parents got to Durham for 4 days of Claire-sitting. My sister (who had a few days of break) flew in to hang out with my parents and daughter while I was going to be out of town, but the good news was that she and I overlapped by 4 hours between flights. Yay!

Ice cream and Target with Bo before I got dropped off at the airport.

Just like our trip back in March, each day we were there was packed to the gills with visits with favorite people in favorite places. We stayed with our former upstairs neighbor, Anne, which is always a blast. She's one of THE most interesting people I've ever met and is an absolute hoot. It's always fun staying with her, but it is a little hard for me to be in our old building, knowing it's not ours. Such a bittersweet thing.

The wedding was in our church, which is a gorgeous old building (hello, it's Boston) but oh so extremely hot in the summer. It has this beautiful, tall ceiling (that traps all the hot- yes really hot, even up north- summer air) and no air conditioning. We knew ahead of time that it was going to be miserable...because the wedding was scheduled for 12:00 noon. This caused us to ask, "WHY??" The answer made sense: Fenway is, quite literally, right across the street from the church, and there was a game scheduled for 2:00, which was the originally intended wedding time. During games, there is basically no parking for blocks in any direction. Thus: the hardest part of the day.

Go Sox!

The ceremony was lovely and so sweet. She looked beautiful, the decorations were so them, and we got to celebrate their wedding with so many of our dearest friends. 

Now, remember how the wedding had to be at noon because of the baseball game? The reception had already been booked for 4:00, so we had several hours to kill between the ceremony and the reception. Therefore, we had a multi-hour tapas lunch with friends! Things you do when you're in Boston without kids...

We drove out to Concord for the reception, which was on a farm (the bride grew up on a farm in Iowa) and was SO FUN! Excellent food, great conversations with friends, lots of lawn games and dancing. Could not have been more fun.

Brad and Tim

Tim and Jess: the first dance

The next day, Sunday, was BUSY. Brunch (Mexican brunch...SO YUM) with friends, a quick pre-honeymoon-flight hangout with the bride and groom, Settlers and snacks with Bobby and Karli, church (yay!), brief post-church visit with more friends, and a long chat with our friends who currently live in our old apartment. It was a ridiculously long day but one of my favorites in recent memory.

Views that I love

A few favorite friends and a favorite game

Silhouette of our church's steeple

Monday started off with a long coffee and chat with Sam and Edith, who are natives of Massachusetts, live in the most quintessentially New England-style home, and have lived there for decades. They are full of wisdom and lively conversation. Brad and I both left so encouraged and uplifted. Wish we could hang out with them every week. We lunched with our friend, Elissa, who is just a gem of a human being. She ministers to students at MIT and is on staff with her church. Given that she is one of the busiest people I know, I was thrilled she had a few open hours for lunch with us (at Regina's, of course!). Lunch was entirely too short. We followed it up with cannoli and window shopping on Newbury St. before heading to Cambridge to meet Drew and Hannah for supper at Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage. Great food and conversation. We miss our friends.

My favorite bridge, just around the corner from Regina's

The Harbor Walk: a great place to eat cannoli.

I miss these buildings.

Little break on a hot day

My favorite thing about Harvard Square. And, yes, I have a mug like that on my shelf.

We took a quick walk at the reservoir, an old haunt of ours. You can see Gasson Hall (at Boston College) peeking over the trees.

We grabbed ice cream before heading back to visit with Anne for just a taddy bit longer before heading to bed; our head-to-the-airport time was 4:30 a.m. Oi. It got us home by 8:00, so I guess it was efficient. Mom and Dad picked us up from the airport, and we headed to Monuts for morning donuts! A very nice consolation prize for having to leave Boston and then (almost) immediately sending my parents on their way home. 

Fun at Monuts! If you come visit, I'll take you, too.

I'm so very thankful that the Lord has allowed me two return trips to Boston within a year of our move. I've been grieving our move in a very real and very hard way since we found out that we were moving from Massachusetts to North Carolina (as excited as I was for Brad to get into Duke because DUKE!). I wish I could say it's gotten easier, but it just hasn't. We've found ways to cope and things to like about our new home, as well as new friends. We're so grateful for those blessings and are looking for new things to love about this new city we call home. Despite those things, my heart breaks a little every time I watch a movie or tv show set in Boston or when I find out people we know are moving there or when people ask me if I like North Carolina. It's miserably hard; just as hard as it was last July. It's also really hard for me to wrestle with the fact that as a very Southern girl, it's expected that I'm happier to be back in the South. I get asked about that a lot. And the truth is: I'm just not. (side note: I don't consider the Research Triangle area of North Carolina to be the South, but that's a ramble for another post)

But on a fun, less serious note, when we got home, Claire asked to wear her Red Sox hat and lobster shirt and kept saying she wanted to go to Boston. That's my girl! She's a Yankee by birth, but don't worry: she can drawl like the best of 'em!

Around here lately: August 2015 edition

Oh my goodness. Claire. She is such a mess. A talking, busy, hilarious mess. I'm not even sure I can remember all the hilarious (or, at least we find them hilarious) things that she does and says. Here are a few, a mere drop in the bucket:

The first real piggy tails.

(while assembling an arching section of her train track) "RAINBOW!"

(anytime we pass an American flag) "A-meh-can fwag!"

Watching planes from the observation deck while waiting for Daddy to land.

Early in the summer, Brad played us some songs from his running playlist, and one of the songs was "Honey, I'm good" by Andy Grammer. She LOVES it (don't worry, we cough loudly over the three swear words). She dances like a wild thing and anticipates what's coming next, saying things like, "Are you ready, Mommy?? Here it comes!!"

Wearing the 'mingo shirt.

(when asking permission to do something) May I wanna ____?

(while cooking at her kitchen) "I making you supper, daddy."

Da-Ta!

"Craze-on" (translation: crayons)

"Mommy, it's Lightning McQueen. Ka-CHOW!" (Imagine a saucy hand-on-hip situation)

Posing with Mr. Bunny at a local donut shop.

"Bo-tex" (Claire's name for Texas. She calls it Bo-tex because Bo, her Aunt Amiee, lives in Texas)

"Cofaganana" (translation: North Carolina. Bless)

A strange but endearing past time: carrying on conversations with her toes.

She's recently started pretending, and it's awesome. She makes up storylines for her dolls, cars, and stuffed animals. In a very telling maneuver, she puts a lot of them in time out.

"Chick away! Mr. Cow!" (translation: Chick-fil-A! Mr. Cow!)

Dressed up for Cow Appreciation day.

Mr. Cow!

(after taking all the pillows on my freshly-made bed and rearranging them) "It's better now, Mommy. I making a tall tower."

Tower collapse

"Pocseeul" (translation: popsicle)

Popsicle on the Panda towel. Note: this popsicle was in celebration of a very big potty training milestone. Just look at that face. We were partying.

(on a morning while Brad was in Michigan and I was recovering from a middle-of-the-night migraine by letting Claire watch "Curious George" on my Kindle in my bed) "Mommy, you wanna build a snowman?" *Please imagine her pulling up one of my eyelids and getting very close to my face.

Favorite past time at Home Depot.

(when hiding under blankets/pillows/piles of laundry) "Where's Care?"
(she answers her own question) "I found me."

(when bumping into the railing post at the foot of the stairs) "Excuse me, stairs."

"You wanna biiiite?"

"Let me get annuver book." (said many times throughout the day)

"Pwaygwom" (translation: playground)

"Picky you" (translation: peek-a-boo)

Seriously. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried, y'all.

Claire at Uni-ber-sal (and a few bonus things about our trip)

We really had such a blast with Claire at Universal, despite some misgivings that I had about taking a two-year-old to an amusement park. She was so much fun and so much fun to watch. She found everything to be rather magical. A few favorites:

It's ok, Nana, it's ok. (when standing close to a roller coaster that was loud and a little bit scary to a small child)

So, technically, this is Poppy, not Nana, but they were having the "it's ok" conversation.


TWAIN! (at all times. It was an enthusiastic request to ride the Hogwarts Express. Again.)

The twain station in Hogsmeade.


Uni-ber-sal seeping. (translation: Universal is sleeping. This is how she comforts herself when she can't be immediately gratified with something she wants; she says that it's sleeping.).

George Uni-ber-sal! (her excitement over the Curious George play area in Universal Studios. We heard this refrain a lot. Correction: We hear this refrain a lot. She remembers it well.).

Dancing in the George splash pad.

Her happy place!

The ball factory. It was a dream for Claire; the whole premise is to clean up balls (so they can be dumped out on you). She LOVES cleaning up balls.

Amiee even got in on it.

It's adorable. And tucked in a less-trafficked corner of the park, so it's a low-stress, super fun family area. 

Ducks! (in true 2-year-old fashion, one of her favorite things at the theme park was the duck pond behind the Three Broomsticks. Bless.)

The duck pond: a hidden gem for parents of toddlers.


Again! Again! (her reaction when the One Fish, Two Fish ride finished. We all rode it approximately 29384 times.)

The first of many trips around the fountain.

Nana and Poppy took their turns, as well. If you pull out your magnifying glass, you can see them.

We spent a decent amount of time in Seuss Landing in Islands of Adventure, as it is a favorite of ours, as well. It has all kinds of super fun (and colorful and crazy) Seuss-themed rides. Even though it's geared for kids, we all really love it. Everybody took turns riding the Caro-seussal with Claire, those of us tall enough rode The Cat in the Hat (it's a fun ride, but it's also got AC, which is equally important), and we caught one of the Seuss shows and character meet-and-greets. Amiee really enjoyed meeting the characters, while Claire eyed them all with suspicion. Except the Grinch. She loves the Grinch because of this past Boswell Family Christmas party.

Seriously. How fun is this?

Daddy and Bear on the first go.

As much family as we could get in one moving carousel shot.

The Lorax (which she hasn't seen or read...so she was wondering why she needed to snuggle up to a fuzzy orange fellow.)

Amiee has a special connection to Green Eggs and Ham. It's a good story.

Claire saw absolutely no reason for a picture with the narrator. She is for sure not a Seuss character. Imposter.

The Grinch!

By the last character picture, she was finally getting the hang of it.

We also managed to snap a few good family pictures. Claire is in a less-than-helpful camera posing stage, so it's always a success if she's even looking at the camera. Two-year-olds, man.

At Hard Rock Cafe on our first night.

35th anniversary celebration!

The rare Brad-and-Erin shot.

Just about the closest to posing for the camera that we could get from her. Claire, not Amiee. Amiee is good at pictures.

Group shot!

Family selfie on the way to Florida! Claire actually smiled.

On the water taxi from the resort to the park. It was great fun, despite the look Claire is giving the camera. She loved it.

On our last day in the park, we got separated for about half an hour while Brad, Mom, and I took Claire to Seuss Landing while Daddy and Amiee rode a roller coaster. For some reason, I got separated from everyone for a few minutes, and on my way to meet up with Brad and Mom, I got waylaid by a gal recruiting volunteers to screen some promotional ads for a network. They were paying $15 a person, so Brad, Mom, and I decided to go for it. We figured we would be able to pay for lunch on the way out of town the next day. After we'd been in there for about 20 minutes, in walk Dad and Amiee. They'd had the same "pay for lunch tomorrow" idea, and in the end, we walked about of there with $75 cash. Yay, us!

And finally, a couple gratuitous shots from Hogsmeade.

Hogwarts.

Until our next family adventure to Universal!