November 20, 2015 by Pointes of View

Reflections of Fall

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News of our first snow storm coming tomorrow gave me the push I needed to get my Fall photos up! We had a beautiful Fall (it’s not quite over, I realize that, but many trees are bare now). Not quite as amazing as last year and not because it’s no longer new. The colors just weren’t as lush, probably because the leaves were drier, is my guess?

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Fall always brings a great moodiness to it that makes for much more interesting photos. Summer is beautiful in its bright, fresh way, but Fall and Winter make my camera happy.

As we head into Thanksgiving, I am feeling extra grateful for the ease of my life and the beauty that I get to see every day in the Lake, the trees, the sky. I will never take for granted these simple joys of life. Wishing you all a very lovely Thanksgiving holiday.

October 30, 2015 by Pointes of View

The October List – 2015

1) The fall foliage this year is beautiful per usual (my per usual is one year’s worth), but the leaves haven’t been great for collecting. Most of the ones that have fallen are already wrinkling or crispy or have black spots on them. Although in the last few days I’ve seen fresher ones. I remain hopeful.

2) Mums the word. In a big way. How should we decorate for Fall? I’ve got it – mums! In planters! Flanking the front door!
(To prove my point, the first three photos were taken on the same block!)

I’ve always been annoyed by mums. I have no idea why. They annoy me like carnations annoy me. I get that they are one of the only flowering plants around this time of year and seeing their pops of color around town is kind of nice, but it’s a trend I just can’t get behind. (I will probably be eating my words next Fall as I decide what color mums to buy for our porch).

3) I turned 43. So that.

For my birthday, my husband bought me a new iPhone. I’m not a big tech person, so I don’t know about all the other upgraded features, but I was excited to try out the new camera. At first, I didn’t notice the difference, but after a couple days, I picked up my old phone and flipped through the photos and wow, huge difference.
4) I bought these fabulous shoes as a present to myself. I was so thrilled to have them (I’d been on the waiting list for weeks) that I wore them to go run errands one afternoon. It felt very Real Housewives.

5) Sort of also for my birthday (I like to celebrate all month), I took a solo weekend trip to San Francisco. I am usually really freaked out about flying, but this time I was giddy when I got on the plane. Five hours all to myself. What a treat.

It was so nice to be surrounded by familiarity. The sights and sounds of the city, and the people who know me to my core. It felt like home.

6) My friend Erin and I stopped by Baker Beach one day to kill time and she made me get out of the car (I didn’t want to). I surveyed the trail I used to run every weekend, the cold Pacific Ocean, the glorious Golden Gate Bridge and the homes of Seacliff perched above the water.

It was too much to take in and I quickly jumped back in the car. Next time I think I can handle it. And I’ll be sure to pack my running shoes (which I purposely left home this trip).

7) Artisanal toast has not yet made its way to Grosse Pointe. A woman whose kids went to preschool with my oldest was on the cusp of this trend eight years ago (NPR even wrote about it here). But, San Francisco being San Francisco, the $4.00 toast is so yesterday (and when I say toast, I mean a piece of toast with butter. For reals).

Enter the $7.00 avocado toast. Some come with an egg or soft cheese or other garnish. Mostly all of them have olive oil or citrus oil or insert fancy oil name drizzled on top. I split one with Erin. Ours came with poppy seeds (and ricotta). It was delicious. Was it $7.00 delicious? Of course not. I figured out the profit on this meal and it’s pretty darn high. I’m envisioning a food truck parked on Mack Avenue, selling dry cappuccinos done right and avocado toast. I’d keep it in business.

8) I haven’t spent much time in Sausalito, so it was fun to spend a morning there with a friend who recently moved in to the cutest apartment that almost (I said almost!) makes me wish I were single again. On top of the quaint architecture, the apartment offers sweeping views of San Francisco, Alcatraz and Angel Island that are to die for. We walked down the hill to town and along the docks. I felt like a tourist (I was a tourist) – it was awesome.

9) When I told people I was co-chairing the Book Fair this year, they would look at me like I told them I was a heroin addict (I’d have said cocaine, but heroin is the new drug of choice, at least at the local high school. But I digress).

It really wasn’t that bad, especially since the other chair had done it before and knew exactly what we were supposed to do and when, etc.

Side note: our school’s Book Fair is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) in the region. Pretty impressive.

10) I finally went to Seldon Standard, one of the most talked about restaurants that has opened in Detroit within the last year (and there are a lot).

There were lots of scotch choices (and my husband enjoyed the $25 a pop one. hope it was delicious), the service was great and the food was delicious. Even though the experience was superb, we still think Chartreuse’s food is the best we’ve had here so far.

11) I’m in a book group – wahoo! I started it with a friend of mine who I don’t know very well, which was part of the point. To get a group of women together who might not otherwise hang out. We are 10 strong (which is kind of a lot for discussions, but we will make it work?) and picked a spooky first book for Halloween.

It was….entertaining and amusing. A light read in terms of character depth (not much) and plot (meh). But it was a page turner, so I’ll give her that. I may start a monthly “what I’m reading now” blog post or I may just include it in my monthly lists, but expect to see more book “reviews” in the future.

12) The Grosse Pointes are all decked out for Halloween. Even this fairy garden has a ghoulish visitor.

Wishing everyone a safe and Happy Halloween!

October 4, 2015 by Pointes of View

The September List – 2015

September flew by. It was one of the craziest months I think we’ve had since moving to Grosse Pointe. Our oldest started first grade and our youngest (who turned four this month) is in preschool. Doctor appointments, school shopping, teacher meetings, lunches, homework. I am finally finding some kind of rhythm to the school day as we settle into Fall.

1) When I was out trimming our dogwood, I looked down and saw this little nest. I think maybe the vibrations of the hedge trimmer made it fall out of the tree, but it had been long vacated anyway. I really wanted to take it inside for decoration because it was so perfect, but my fear of potential bugs and germs trumped that thought.

2) Went to Eastern Market and got beignets from the food truck for the first time. Oh MY. The guy in the truck was a little bossy, telling people exactly where to stand and getting grouchy if you stepped out of line to throw away your coffee (um, so sorry), but the deliciousness of the beignets made me think his crabbiness was actually kind of cool.

3) There are several little pedestrian pathways in Grosse Pointe that I’ve come across on my runs/walks. At first I was afraid to go down them (would I be trespassing?), but after seeing a couple other folks use them, I decided it was okay (although the second pic lies behind a wrought iron fence. Definitely private). Now I use them all the time, just because I can. And because it’s fun.

4) The first time I witnessed the dinner napkin as guest towel was during my first visit to Grosse Pointe in 2006 (my husband then boyfriend brought me home to meet the family). I was part confused (am I really supposed to use this beautiful napkin just to dry my hands?), part flabbergasted (but the trees!) and part intrigued.

I didn’t realize it was a thing until I moved here and started seeing dinner napkins in people’s bathrooms! I’ve never seen this outside of Grosse Pointe (although Oklahoma friends, help me out? I don’t remember it, but maybe I just never noticed). And, now I’m thinking of getting some for our powder room downstairs for special occasions. IF I can justify the environmental impact (better to waste water on washing hand towels or better to kill a tree? Hmmmm).

5) My husband and I went to a bowling clinic. And he bought a bowling ball. And I bought bowling shoes. So that.

6) Just when I thought it was safe to put away my garden supplies, I saw Shirley over the fence one day and of course she offered me more plants. She dug them up right then and there. They are called corydalis and are used a lot for ground cover. Hoping they will take root quickly and come back next Spring with pretty yellow flowers.

7) HOWEVER. I don’t even know why I bothered to plant them because the stupid squirrels have been digging them up EVERY DANG DAY in order to bury the acorns that have been falling by the hundreds each day. From our neighbor’s oak tree. That mostly hangs over our house. And no they won’t trim it because they love their trees so much (we offered to pay 50%). Sigh.

8) Speaking of squirrels, another one died in our yard. My husband buried it in the exact spot where the girls like to dig. Really?!?

9) Did I ever show you this? Our four-year-old likes to draw and color pictures for our dog. We tape them to a piece of cardboard near his dog bowls so he can enjoy them. It’s really cute.

10) We bought a new console table (and cute little succulents – yay!) to replace the bench that was in our entryway (which you can see in the second pic). Now if only we could find a rug to replace the maroon one that we inherited from the previous owners. I will say that the rug is very cushy and feels nice underfoot. Still…I can’t look at it very much longer.

11) This is what happens when you see the lunar eclipse and you only have your iPhone camera. Hahahaha. My husband and I sat outside by the fire with drinks (whiskey for him, bloody mary for me) and chatted and checked on the moon every now and then. It was pretty great.

12) Fall is slowly making its way through the foliage. It’s definitely sweater weather now (okay, sweater weather for ME), and yesterday we turned the fireplace on for the first time since winter. I’ve said this before, but living with seasons makes life seem to go back that much more quickly.

Wishing everyone a wonderful October!

September 20, 2015 by Pointes of View

Freighter on Lake St. Clair

A few weeks ago we went out on Lake St. Clair and went by a freighter named American Integrity. It was neat to see a freighter up close. They already look huge from far away. The enormity of them (and the fact that they can stay afloat!) is incredible.

September 2, 2015 by Pointes of View

The August List 2015

August got away from me. I was on vacation in upstate New York for half the month, so I’m excused. But now I have a post to write and all I have is spiders. So I’ll start off with that and see where it takes me…

1) We’ve had a terrible amount of spiders this summer. All the landscape and plant shop people have confirmed this. We’ve already sprayed twice (and yes SF, it’s safe for kids and animals), but every morning we walk into new webs. This guy posted up on our back gate. As I opened the latch, I disturbed it and actually said, “oh sorry” out loud. I get that they control the bug population (although not doing that great of a job in our garden!), but they give me the creeps.

2) This flower popped open, giving us a beautiful surprise. I didn’t know what the blossoms would look like when I planted it. It’s a monarda and one of the plants I got from my next door neighbor, Shirley (don’t ask me about the spots on the leaves. I can’t go there).

3) Speaking of Shirley, I was in her garden at the beginning of the month and spied an eggplant growing. I commented on how nice it looked.

You want it? Here. Is what she said and so I had an eggplant. I made eggplant parmesan and it was delicious. Even my husband liked it and he doesn’t like eggplant. I really hope to grow a vegetable garden next year (those darn bugs, though).

I mentioned to someone the other day how it has been hard for me to read people here because everyone is nice. As in cordial, super polite, well-mannered, etc. And so I can’t tell who is actually nice and who is just acting nice. Plucking your only eggplant and handing it to your neighbor without a second thought. That is genuine niceness, people. Take note.

4) This is someone’s actual vehicle. As in, not a working truck, but the car that you would drive to the Yacht Club for a day at the pool. God Bless America.

5) Shoutout to our dog, Sam who is the best traveler. Eleven hours in the car and he did not make one peep. Or say that he had to go to the bathroom 20 minutes after we left a rest stop.

6) I love barns. I’m obsessed with barns. My dream house is a renovated barn. So of course I loved being back in dairy country for vacation. We drove past this barn whenever we went into town and one day I finally stopped to take a couple photos. I would have taken more, but I was technically trespassing and I’m not a risk-taker. In that sense, anyway.

7) While on vacation,we drove to my cousin’s spot on Lake Ontario one afternoon. I do love the quietness of my Dad’s place on Chase Lake, but being on a boat (and jet ski) was so fun, especially for the girls.

8) Remember how I complained about my yard guys last month? I met with our landscape company and went over what I’m going to start taking care of vs. what they will handle. Hedge trimming now falls under me. I’d never used a hedge trimmer before, but it wasn’t difficult to get the hang of.

However, after about 15 minutes, I felt like my arms were going to fall off! Haha. Good workout. (Also, I realize this photo is hideous. I don’t have a better one, sadly. I’d just gotten back from a run and am wearing a stained maternity shirt (why!?! I kept it because it was “cozy.” I threw it away within minutes of seeing this photo).

9) I never heard anything back from the Yacht Club about the letter I wrote urging them to implement a recycling program, but I did see this blurb in the latest newsletter. It’s a start.

10) We got a new orb. Excuse me, magical orb. The old one we inherited from the previous homeowners was silver and in perfectly good condition, but we (my husband and the kids) decided that we needed a new one because something about old magic vs. new magic so… now we have a blue one.

image via missouribotanicalgarden.org

11) I had our magnolia tree treated for scale. Which are tiny little white bugs that don’t look like bugs but that are definitely bugs. Yucky bugs that wreak havoc on the tree. It was $120. It helped. I think. Yesterday I noticed that one of my lilac bushes was covered (I mean covered) with scale. I’m done spending money on the yard this year (budget is spent and cold weather is coming soon), so I’m hoping and praying it doesn’t die. It’s my favorite. Please, please, please.

12) Acorns are already falling. Noooooo! Our neighbors have an oak tree that mostly hangs over our yard, driveway and garage. So plunk, plunk, plunk they go, all day long. When I was out planting the other day, I put a bowl on my head like a hard hat. I wasn’t taking any chances.

Here’s where I say I can’t believe it’s already September, but the truth is that I have been waiting for September for the last couple of weeks. I had the best summer, but I am so ready for school to start and excited for a new season to roll in. Have a great month!

July 31, 2015 by Pointes of View

The July List – 2015

1) July was a quintessential summer month. The 4th was spent at my husband’s Uncle’s house, with family, swimming and hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill. If I had been more ambitious, I could have made the day even more ideal with a homemade apple pie. But I brought store-bought guacamole instead because sometimes momma just can’t.

2) Speaking of holidays, there’s one house along Lakeshore Drive that goes all out in the decorating department. Christmas, is of course the big one, but the 4th of July display was definitely impressive (for lack of a better word). The girls call it “the silly house” or sometimes “the crazy house. Indeed.

Sweet pea ricotta and warm cabbage salad. Mmmmm!!

3) I’ve been dying to go to Chartreuse, a new restaurant near the Detroit Institute of Arts, since it opened in late spring. My husband and I made it down a few weeks ago and we were not disappointed. It was on par with our favorite San Francisco restaurants, which speaks volumes, if you know San Francisco. Or me.

From appetizers to desserts, everything was fresh and flavorful and the portion sizes were not too small or too big, something that a lot of places don’t get right. Can’t wait to go back.

4) Our Rose of Sharon is in bloom! It has beautiful lavender flowers (which was a fun surprise – we didn’t know what color they were since we moved in after they had bloomed last year) and is doing well considering its shady location.

However, since it is in a shady spot, it has grown SO tall in its attempts to get sun. So the only way to really see the flowers is from one of the bedrooms upstairs or by standing in the driveway. Might need to remedy that at some point. How, I’m not sure yet.

5) Because I’m a gardener now (HA-ha) and because Shirley told me to, I went to the annual (24th) Grosse Pointe Garden Tour. There were six gardens on the tour and I made it to five. My Dad’s and his wife Lyn were visiting at the time, so she and the girls came along on Friday for three and I went solo the following morning in a nasty rainstorm to see two more (I’m so hardcore).

It was nice to see different aesthetics,which ranged from simple to eclectic, manicured to wild. Like going to a museum, it was inspiring to see these gardens and they gave me some ideas as to how I might want ours to look someday.

6) At the Garden Tour shop, Lyn bought us this cool strawberry plant (potted by Shirley – she’d put together dozens of potted plants for the Tour, including a couple Crocs as planters, which were very cute).

We’ve gotten a few strawberries, but I have to fight the squirrels and birds for them. I ran out of the house one day, shaking my finger and yelling at a little black squirrel who had just scampered up the maple tree with a strawberry. He tsk-tsked back at me with his beady eyes. The struggle is real.

7) I wrote a letter to the Board at the Yacht Club, asking (begging?) them to please plan for a recycling program. The containers you see above (and no, I do not always eat like this. Usually I also get a side of onion rings and finish the little ones chicken tenders.)… that’s what food is served in when you eat outside (not just take-out. And the Styrofoam! I can barely stand to look at it).

Hundreds of these containers get thrown in the trash daily during warm-weather months. The way I see it (thank you, San Francisco) not recycling is pretty much littering. I have yet to hear back.

8) My girlfriend Sara from SF (now living in Ireland) came for a quick visit! I took her to Sister Pie, a favorite spot. Although not a favorite because of the pie.

I know, I know! You love the pie. I don’t love the pie. I’ve tried to love the pie. What can I say. Either I’m wrong (which doesn’t seem possible because I feel like I know pie?) or my pie taste buds are out of whack. Either way, I do love the cookies and this time I tried a coconut lemon, thyme mint, ginger and shortbread. All yum.

9) There are tiny little weeds like this one all over our yard (not bigger than an inch or two). I usually give a pull and that’s the end of it. Sometimes I need the help of a shovel. One day, I decided to figure out where this weed was coming from exactly – how far its roots went and all that. After 30 minutes of ripping up a big section of the garden, I had a bucket full of roots and still did not get it all. Maddening.

10) Most valuable gardening lesson I have learned thus far: when pulling a particularly stubborn weed, keep your eyes and mouth closed. Number of times I have regretted not following my own advice: too many to count.

11) In the middle of a blah part of Detroit (gas stations, fast food restaurants, freeway on-ramps) near the Grosse Pointe City border, lies this pretty little farmhouse. I posted the pic to my Instagram account and people recognized it immediately. It definitely grabs your attention when you pass by. I’ve always wanted to snap a picture of it and got a chance one evening during a break in the rain. I wonder what its story is.

12) I got out on the water for the first time last week on a friend’s boat. It was divine. Lake St. Clair is a beauty. I’ve said this before, but one of our criteria for moving was that we needed to be close to the ocean or other large body of water. In Hawaii, I was 20 minutes away from the beach. In California, five. Here, half a block. If we follow the natural progression of things, we will need to retire on a lake house. Not a bad prospect.

We have another month of summer, but I’m already seeing oak leaves on our lawn from our neighbor’s tree (nooooo!). We leave for a road trip to upstate New York next week, so the blog may be a little quiet in early August. I’m sure I will have a lot to share about our adventures.

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