before baby

while my mom was still here she graciously offered to watch baby b while AWD and i had a few last dates. like to dinner and a movie for our anniversary. or to costco. every time we came home we just sat in the car for a few minutes thinking about how, in the good old days, we would have just walked into the house and done whatever we wanted. like go to bed and sleep in. but now when we walked into the house there was a baby and that baby needed a lot of time and attention and not a lot of consecutive sleep.

more on this later, but those first days and weeks (ok, a month at least) after you bring a new baby home are hard. like, majorly hard.

luckily, even though i was tired and increasingly swollen and huge and even though humid summer in d.c. is not the greatest for pregnant ladies or anyone else, we did manage to squeeze in some decent pre-baby fun which i will recount here. for posterity.

fourth of july barbecue at willards (still not as good as austin, tx barbecue, but good) and patriotic desserts.

a kennedy center date with dinner on the roof and the world's greatest performance of anything goes.

a movie theater with reclining seats! (this was actually a date with EH while AWD was out of town. still counts.)

truckeroo.

a nats game.

a soccer game.

and a blue crabs game.

and then, almost just as summer ended, so did our pre-baby life. at least we went out with a bang.

merry (first) christmas and a happy new year

while i am well aware that stores already have valentine's day candy (aware because i have already bought some), i still haven't blogged about christmas so let's just proceed as if i am not terribly behind.

shall we?

we had a lovely first christmas together, as you can see in this hard-won photographic proof.

the weather in denver was divine and we had a full schedule with lights at the botanic garden...










the nature and science museum, a tour of the hammond candy factory...






IMAX movies, indie movies, lunch downtown, bookstores and ranch wear stores and lots of yummy cooking at home. oh yeah, and a full day of outlet shopping (AWD brought a book).

i have always loved going home to visit, and i love it even more now that i get to take AWD with me. it just feels good and right somehow.

on new year's eve the mama bear and i went downtown to watch the 9p.m. fireworks display (the countdown was a little anti-climactic) and were home in time to watch the ball drop and toast the new year with our husbands.

and now, here we are. the year of our lord two thousand and twelve. i have a few resolutions in mind-- to be more consistent, more conscious, less covetous-- and i have a good feeling so far about the way things could go.

hope the same is true for you, my babies.

look who came to dinner

we put some good work into the house this week and weekend (kitchen unpacked! artistic dining room lighting design accomplished!) so we were ready for our first dinner guests on sunday, just in time to celebrate lance and robert's birthdays.

emily h. got a grill for her birthday last month, so our motto these days is "grill everything." (maybe we should make it "grill, baby, grill." thoughts on this?)

sunday's grilled menu included chicken, corn, zuchini and squash and melon (indeed! you can grill melon! and it is divine!) and then homemade raspberry frozen yogurt and grilled (!) angel food cake for dessert. we made a creamy chili powder sauce for the corn, which i thought i might hate but ended up loving, and squeezed lime juice in the melon once it was off the grill, which gave it a perfect little zip and made it even more delicious, despite the fact that such a thing seemed impossible.

laura's homemade garland added just the right touch of festivity, and was a lovely complement to our new paper lantern montage in the dining room.












it was so lovely to have people over to our new home and to feel like it actually is a home after a couple weeks of boxes and terrible work schedules. grilling adventures on the horizon include grilled pizza and shrimp sandwiches. and the ice cream maker is always at the ready. stop by any time.

this old house

yesterday was day five of life at the new homestead, and we finally got the gas connected.

for reasons i cannot discuss in too much detail without risking a homicidal rage, the gas people came on the day i requested and then decided there were too many people around and left without doing anything, and so off our gas went.

naturally.

we suffered through cold showers for one day before decamping to MJ's for a few mornings. and i have to say, if you are forced to shower at someone else's house, MJ's is not a bad place to do it because she'll play the ukele while you get ready.

just saying.

project numero dos has been ridding the house of new paint and carpet smell, mingled with the vague scent of smokers-as-previous-tenants. not great, but a vinegar/ammonia/baking soda concoction sprayed on the ceilings and into the vents seems to be doing the trick quite nicely. a few vanilla bean candles and i think we'll be in good shape.

also on the list of new house projects: assembling my massive wardrobe, which emily and i tackled last night and did a pretty good job of on our own until the top had to be inserted into the sides, at which point emily was nearly decapitated twice and we were forced to admit some level of defeat. luckily, jed was just around the corner and up for a nighttime furniture assembly extravaganza, so he came to our rescue and helped us finish the rest.

i even got my first piece of mail at the new house, courtesy of jaron's aunt kathy and the impending delivery of my big-girl mattress (any minute now!) will cap off the first week. so i would say we are off to a good start.

i mean, our kitchen is still entirely in boxes and we've been eating cereal out of plastic cups for a week, but what is that they say? don't sweat the small stuff? all right. i won't.

i like to move it, move it

tomorrow is moving day and i am only mildly terrified about the ratio of things i own to the space in which they must now fit.

gulp.

i can tell you, though, that planning for a move across town is significantly easier than planning for a move across the country, so this experience has been approximately 1 zillion times less stressful and sad and bittersweet than my last one.

and, concerns about closet space and ugly ceiling tiles aside, i am completely thrilled to be moving into my own space. (not that life at the chez bennett is not wonderful. i mean, i've done that gig for three out of the past five years, so it can't be that bad.) but i am really stoked to see my paintings and my dishes and my refrigerator magnets again. and to not be displaced by japanese flute teachers and various other houseguests. and to live with emily h. and, maybe most of all, to sleep on my new, amazing, swear-it's-a-cloud mattress. makes me happy just thinking about it.

once the suitcases and boxes and plastic tubs are unpacked and the chaos has settled, i'll let you know how it went. until then, keep your fingers crossed that i don't have to give away any more shoes.

sleep-in

moving day is fast approaching and i only have a few more major tasks to accomplish before i am ready to fly the bennett coop. today's mission: buy a mattress.

this will be my first grown-up, not-a-twin mattress, and will also be the first mattress i have ever purchased by my own, adult self. it's a big day. i've been listening to this song to get myself ready.



wish me luck! and feel free to come sleep over any time.

the first 1,000 years

this saturday marked one year since i moved to d.c.

one year since sallee and i pulled into bob and joyce's driveway and went out to dinner at red, hot and blue to celebrate.

one year since i said good-bye to most of what i knew, and hello to things mostly unknown.

one year.

it seems impossibly long ago, and like an impossibly short amount of time has passed, all at once.

it has been a year of good and bad and up and down, as most years are, i suppose. i have desperately missed familiar things and people, and desperately wished that they were closer when i needed and wanted them. i left more behind me this time than any other time and i have felt it.

but i have also felt like i was going to explode with all the excitement and discovery of a new life, new friends, new adventures. i have looked back a time or two, but i have never wished i could go back. and that, i think, is the test.

so here's to one full and happy year down, and many more to come.

et, voila!

happy new year, internet family, and happy new blog (for frances)!

what do you think of the new design? if you think it's awesome, you should tell my cousin, trevor, as it is all his handiwork. if you do not think it is awesome, i invite you to leave. right now.

personally, i am thrilled about this new blog (for frances) for the new year. what's that, you say? you'd like a little tour? i thought you'd never ask.

right now, we are in my new and improved content space. you might not notice anything different right now, but this space is a lot wider, which means it can better accomodate the big and awesome picture collages i am going to learn how to put together before the end of this new decade.

now, if you'd care to direct your gaze up(stairs), you will see my smashing new banner. in the middle we have me (natch), a photo snapped by the ever-so-talented-and-lovely dallas graham. if you have any major life event coming up that requires photographing (like maybe a wedding or a wednesday afternoon) you should call him. right now.

on the right, we have a branch of japanese cherry blossoms, japan being one of the places closest to my heart, and cherry blossoms being one of the things in japan that i love the most. and, on the left, we have the venerable abraham lincoln, one of the more well-known former residents of my current home and, if i might add, not a bad-looking statue.

and that concludes our tour. there are still a few minor tweaks left (i'm looking at you, sidebar), and the identity of the blog as far as content and structure is still evolving a little in my brain, but i would say the blog (for frances) is off to a good start in 2010.

speaking of which, the year itself is off to a pretty good start, wouldn't you say? except for one thing. is it just me, or were we supposed to have flying cars by now?

there goes the fear

{the turkish evil eye, which protected us on our long journey east}


it is now one month and one day since sallee and i pulled into uncle bob's driveway and my new east coast life began.

mind you, we barely made it to the driveway as the gas light came on right at the beginning of a rush hour traffic jam on the beltway. but all's well that ends well and all that.

i don't think i have appropriately lauded sallee's contribution to the trip, which i will now rectify. she was a lifesaver over many hours and many days of driving. i couldn't have done it without her and still maintained my sanity. plus, she is an excellent map-reader/navigator.

the only downside was that she was on a health food kick, so i was forced to eat peanut butter m&ms and taffy and red vines all by myself.

due to a tight time table (that would be the whole country in three days), we didn't have any time to stop and do fun things (sorry 800 pound prairie dog, six-legged live steer and many a railroad museum. we'll have to catch you on the flip side). besides, of course, getting some free popcorn at the kansas state line. (correction: i got free popcorn. sallee ate a yogurt.)




the rest of the trip looked basically like this:

{hello, kingdom city! we also passed "brazil" and a kansas/colorado border city called "kandorado."}

{is there a town more awesome than effingham? answer: no.}

{i almost killed us taking this picture. really.}


{the first sign of home, sweet home!}

in addition to sallee's great company, the trip was also greatly aided by trashy magazines from every state we drove through, and fantastic road trip mixes from all my dear salt lake friends.

one month down. cheers to that.

walk this way

i have been walking to work for almost three weeks now.

walking to work is heavenly.

walking to work is, as my friend adam would say, the holy grail of urban living.

walking to work looks like this.

out the front door, usually with a piece of fruit or a rice cake in my hand. head phones in. comfortable shoes on. dressy shoes stowed in my bag.

walk up the street and down some stairs. small fantasy about being in a scene from a romantic comedy. (you know the one where the no-nonsense career girl walks out of her hip brownstone in trendy clothes and heads to her high-powered job at a fashion magazine or an ad agency? that one.)

say hello to the construction workers on nash street.

jaywalk across key boulevard.

jaywalk across the other part of nash street.

cut through the gas station.

jaywalk across meade street.

walk into the lobby of my building.

get in the elevator.

ride to the penthouse.

punch in the office code, open the door, walk to my desk.

total travel time: approximately four minutes.

like i said. heavenly. the holy grail.

especially when you need every last minute of sleep you can get because you got home late the night before after a dinner theater performance of "high school musical."

(yes, you read that right. and no, i am not going to say it again.)

just, you know, for example.

tea and sympathy

{enjoying some pomegranate juice and a toffee granola cookie at teaism, one of my weekend adventure stops.}

i woke up on saturday morning feeling pretty sorry for myself.

for one thing, it was 7 a.m., which is ludicrously early to be awake on a saturday. (if this whole, be-a-real-adult-and-get-to-work-on-time thing has killed my ability to sleep in on weekends i will be, as prince humperdink would say, most put out.)

for another thing, it was a saturday and i had nothing to do and no one to do it with.

and for the first time since i moved, the "if i were in salt lake..." thoughts started rolling.

if i were in salt lake maybe i would have been meeting some people for brunch at the blue plate diner. or maybe i would have been going to the farmers' market. or maybe i would have been riding my bike up city creek canyon. or maybe i would have been doing any number of other things with any number of dear, and dearly missed, friends.

but instead i was lying in bed. in arlington. at 7 a.m. with nothing to do and no one to call.

my first solution was to go back to sleep. because everything looks better after 9 o'clock. or 11 o'clock. or noon. whatever the case may be.

then once i woke up again i spent a few minutes toying with the idea of employing the sleep-it-away technique for the whole day.

but then i mustered my courage, girded my loins and decided to just make something happen. (something besides an all-day mope-fest, that is.) because when you are the new kid on the block, it's up to you.

so, i called dana and we filled the afternoon with a stroll through the american history museum, a quick tour of the department of justice and an early evening snack at teaism.

next was dinner with an old friend of my parents', who regaled me with tales of singing with my mom on the street for money.

then it was swimming and movies at a swanky hotel for michelle's birthday.

sunday was a new ward filled with all sorts of friendly people, and then emily invited me over for a homemade cafe rio dinner, which is way better than real cafe rio. especially when it is accompanied with a side of new friends.

i finished off sunday night with aunt joyce and "harry potter and the goblet of fire."

and so it came to pass that my potentially disastrous and demoralizing weekend turned out to be pretty great. and so it came to pass that i was pretty grateful.

i am sure it is not the last time i will feel a little sad and lonely for the familiar things and people i have left behind. i am sure it is not the last time that i will run down a mental list of ifs. and i am sure it is not the last time i will have to put aside fear and insecurities and reach out to new people and experiences.

but it feels pretty good to have conquered it this time around, at least.

quack, quack

first off, i am most pleased to report that i have won the wireless war (thanks, obama!) and my blogging will return, effective immediately, to its usual, fabulous status. (that is, of course, if i am not preparing documents for the deputy secretary of defense until 10p.m. every night. and you better believe i am going to brag about that every chance i get.)

and, i have more good news. (it just keeps coming!) in addition to a recounting of the rest of the terrific turkey trip and a full debrief on the cross-country drive (the billboards in kansas alone are worth multiple posts), you can also look forward to a very detailed retelling of my upcoming trip to duck beach.

duck beach? you ask. what's that?

well. in addition to being a well-known geographic location in one of the carolinas (i can't remember off the top of my head which one, but i am not leaving until tomorrow so i have time to figure it out), duck beach is also the premier east coast singles extravaganza.

twice a year, over memorial day and labor day, hundreds (this is not an exagerration) of mormon singles descend on duck beach for a weekend of mixing, mingling and general debauchery. you know, mormon-style.

the goings-on at duck beach are legendary. everyone who is anyone is there. you go to duck beach to see and be seen. duck beach is to east coast mormon singles what the white party in the hamptons is to the characters on "gossip girl." it is serious social business.

and ever since i heard about it... i thought it was the dumbest. thing. ever. i believe my exact words have often been, "i wouldn't be caught dead at duck beach."

as i don't plan on dying this weekend, at duck beach or otherwise, i guess i'll have to eat those words. but the thing is, friend-beggars cannot be choosers and i was invited by some truly lovely people. so i have decided to embrace duck beach.

(and thanks for not rubbing it in.)

(also, quack, quack.)

the first day of my life

today i prepared a briefing and sent it to the pentagon.

today i got a crash course in acronyms. JEC, CAC, PM, WIIJEC, COB, POC and counting.

today i made a new friend at work.

today i used an access code to get into my new office.

today i ate a lot of candy.

today i said funny things and people laughed.

today i worked late and it felt good.

today i wore my most flattering and stylish suit.

today i heard the phrase, "we still don't have the necessary resources committed from all the assets."

today i will relax with aunt joyce and "dancing with the stars."

today i am happy.

wired

this might not come as a big surprise, but connecting a wireless router to a computer with internet provided by the united states senate is a little bit tricky. especially for someone who can barely tell the difference between a wireless router and an answering machine. (that someone would be me. also, do people even still use answering machines?)

all of this to say, i still have loads more to tell you (with pictures!) about turkey (remember that?) and my recent drive across the country (remember that?) but i am afraid it's going to have to wait until i get connected to the web of the world wide on my own computer.

in the meantime, though, i can tell you that i got a little teary when i was driving to church today and the washington monument rose out of the skyline right in front of me. to be perfectly honest, i am not really one for outright patriotism, but that was pretty awesome.

i can also tell you that uncle bob makes delicious pork chops for saturday dinner.

i can tell you that carrying all my earthly possessions up four flights of stairs is totally exhausting and i would have given up were it not for sallee and her brute strength.

i can tell you that i have already made some new friends and one of them, magellan, mounts right on my windshield and tells me how to get around this crazy place. (we're not on the grid anymore, toto.) i think he and i are going to be pretty close.

life, elevated

i drove to denver yesterday and cried all the way from cheyenne to my parents' driveway.

because, after a whirlwind week of packing and seeing friends and finishing work and selling furniture and having parties and filling my car to the absolute brim, there on the empty road it finally sank in: i don't live in utah anymore.

(though i have yet to inform the united states postal service of that fact. i better get on that.)

that's right. the chapter of my wonderful life in utah, filled with some of the best people and best times i have known, has come to a close. can you blame me for shedding a tear? (the answer is no, no you cannot.)

when i first moved to salt lake, i told myself i would stay as long as i wanted to, and not worry constantly about when it was time to go, but just trust that when the time came, i would know it. that i could feel it. 

and so i stayed for longer than i ever thought i would, and had a happier life than i ever thought i could. and then the time came. and i knew it. and i felt it.

and it's still hard.

hard because i will miss letting myself in elliott's back door, and holly and evan stopping by with baby kyle and FOE with the girls.

hard because i will miss riding my bike to work, and up memory grove, and out to saltair and around liberty park.

hard because i will miss a ward where everyone knows me well enough that i can use "battlestar galactica" references and no one thinks i am weird (right?) and i will miss a workplace where we can laugh all day long together about quotes from "the office."

hard because i will miss crawling into bed with briana and brushing my teeth with ck and going to the d.i. with sallee. 

hard because i will miss lunch with my grandma, the hot tub with uncle john, visits with kathryn and keri and family gathering.

hard because i have no idea what lies ahead, but i love everything that lies behind. 

i believe in mourning. but i also believe in doing hard things. and i believe that my life in d.c. will hold just as many unexpected and happy surprises as my life in utah did. i have plenty to look forward to.

por ejemplo.

cheaper international flights! H&M! a bus to new york and a train to boston! new relatives close by! free museums! cherry blossoms! possible obama sightings! the metro! new/old friends! an excuse to buy new work clothes!

not to mention an exciting new job that will take me in exciting new directions, teach me exciting new skills and get me into the pentagon. 

not to mention knowing that, even though it is hard, my life is moving bravely forward.

not to mention that all my favorite people are going to come and visit me.

so really, it will be like i never left.

mexican train

{this is not actually my homemade flan. though i am positive mine was just as delicious.}

the event: my last sunday friendinner (*sniff, sniff*)

the menu: a mexican potluck, with chicken and bean tostadas (they had a more fancy name, but it escapes me), a delicious salad with pears and grapefruit, strawberries as big as my head and dipped in whipped cream, my homemade flan (first try!) and homemade fried ice cream to boot.

the players: ricky, the gourmand and mastermind; stephanie, who had to leave just as the fun began; elliott, the salad-master; briana of the berries; amy of love and friendship; laura and jake of the mistakenly forgotten tortilla chips; jaron of much chicken-shredding and dish-washing; georgia, who slept through it all; ryan, the hometeacher and repairer of doused pilot lights.

the conversation: various but including why it is so difficult to remove eye liner; the recounting of awkward sunday school moments; what it takes to be an alpha male (peeing off elliott's front porch plays a prominent role); siblings; recipes; something medical and gross i couldn't listen to; how everyone will miss me terribly when i go.

well that makes two of us.

the district sleeps with me tonight, part 2

i did manage to do a few things in d.c. besides have a bunch of interviews and decide to totally uproot my life.

namely...

a little stroll past the white house (thanks, obama!)...



and a visit to the capitol.



though you might not know it by looking at this picture taken by a well-meaning but ultimately less-than-helpful stranger.



also, we had a delicious dinner of lebanese food, and a delicious brunch at asylum, a truly strange family-friendly/biker bar establishment with a vegan menu and red velvet and plastic bone decor. (the mango pancakes were divine.)

sarah and i did a quick tour of all the big monuments...





{i thought i was going to leave the vietnam memorial without crying for the first time in my life, but then i saw a young man, wearing fatigues, kneeling down and matching the name on a pair of dog tags to a name on the wall. and then it was over.}



(did i mention we saw honest abe himself? shortly before he was inexplicably escorted off the premises by the police.)



and we also celebrated easter with chocolate-eating and egg-dyeing.







in other words, just the way it is meant to be celebrated.

to fill in the holes, there was a lot of hysterical laughing, singing while stuck in traffic, metro riding, internet spying, catching up, breathing deep, hugging, exploring and deciding.

not a bad introduction to my new home.