A New Hope

New Hope, PA is one of my favorite little towns for so many reasons:
1. It's pretty.
2. Vintage, vintage, vintage.
3. Food, food, food.
My sister and I have been here on a regular basis for years, my parents used to come here for their getaways, we were here when I got the phone call that my offer was accepted on my house!  It's a fun place that makes me happy.  We went there on Sunday, which made me a little nervous at first, because it was pouring rain on our way, but it ended up being a beautiful day, not too hot, and perfectly sunny.  I bought books, Erin bought a dress for her upcoming vacation, and we visited 2 new shops that we fell in love with: Zinc Home + Garden, and Mill Crest Vintage.  It was a good day.

karla's (we didn't sit in the greenhouse this year)

karla's bar

karla's

karla's

karla's junkyard fries (yum!) 

looking towards lambertville

lambertville station

church

put away your cellphone (we saw this a lot)

t

these guys were dancing when we left the bookstore...

their only accompaniment was a woman playing an accordian and their own bells

the most UNBELIEVEABLE vintage shop - I was afraid to take more pics!

bridge

babies!

african violet ice cream 

lambertville, nj

Please, Rain on my Parade.

On a commercial just now, the newscaster gave a 15 second weather report, in which he said something like, "Good news, the line of storms is weakening."  Why is this good news?  I mean, really?  It's 9:30 pm, no one is out having a picnic.  We don't need sunshine, we can't have it.  It's night time right now.
As a small child, I was not a fan of thunderstorms, and I know several small children who feel the same.  They're noisy, they're scary, they set my mom's house on fire when she was a teenager.  But you know what?  At some point I realized how completely fascinating they are.  The science involved in a thunderstorm is AWESOME.  I mean that in the actual definition of the word, not just in a Ninja Turtle kind of way, like how I usually use it.  I am in awe of the meeting of hot air and cold air and moisture and light being faster than air, and all of that.  It's incredible what our world can do.
And right now, since it's not ruining our day, and it's cooling us down so that we aren't sweating through our pj's, can we just take a second and ENJOY it?  What did that weatherman want, anyway?
(This opens up a whole other set of questions, and my brain immediately goes to the way society is right now, and how we're always looking for something to complain about, etc., etc., etc.)

My point, right now, is this:  There is no better lullaby than the rain.  Good night.  I mean it.

CHOP, CHOP

always be prepared

My cardiologist is at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.  When you call to make your appointment, they say "May I have your child's date of birth?"  And then I have to say "I am the child."  I am not, however, her oldest patient.  I asked.  The check-in guy said she has patients in their 50s and 60s.
  
All 4 of the children in my family have the same heart condition, Long QT Syndrome.  It can basically be explained, according to the Heart Rhythm Society, as "a disorder of the heart’s electrical system, in which the heart muscle cells take longer than normal to recover electrically after each beat."  For me, it means I have to take medicine, and stay away from caffeine, and that I got out of gym class every once in a while in high school because I "didn't feel good."  (Usually, I just had homework I hadn't done the night before...)

So on Wednesday, I had a stress test (and a few EKGs), which is when the doctors watch you do a lot of cardiac exercise, and measure what your body is doing, from your oxygen intake and your CO2 output to your blood pressure and your heartbeats.  The EKG, done laying, sitting, standing, and riding the bike, measures those pesky electrical signals.

I couldn't take pictures of the stress test itself, since there were other people (a little boy who did a really good job at running on a treadmill) and it's all HIPAA non-compliant.  But I took as many as I could:

abandoned belle

university city 

t wave issues

it is not a toy

waiting

Recently: This Weekend

My sister and I spent the weekend together, both in and out of the city.  Saturday night, we went to one of my high school friend's birthday (as the class of 2000, we are all old this year) in Center City, at Time, a fancy restaurant, club, and whiskey bar.  It was a night with some of my dearest friends, drinking absinthe (yikes!) and having fun singing American Pie at the top of our lungs.
Sunday, we laid low, had brunch at Terrain (one of my favorite places in the whole wide world), did a lil shopping, and then went to pick up my Kinfolk magazine at my parents' house.

Staycation!

My friend Lisa and her mom were in town for 2 days to shoot a commercial for an unnamed non-local gas/convenience store very similar to our beloved Wawa.  (They are food stylists!)  They invited me to tag along last night, so I was given the opportunity to be a tourist in my own city.  We ate like there was no tomorrow, wandered outside of City Hall, sought out unlocked ballrooms, and slept, among feathers, on the 15th floor of the Ritz Carlton.  Then the sun came up, and we went to work, like any other day, and the 13 hour vacation was gone.

Snippets

This weekend was very hot.  I spent most of Saturday inside, avoiding the sweaty world.  I snuggled with the cat, and we read Ted Hughes extensively, interrupted only by my having to access Wikipedia to check on questions I had re: Birthday Letters.  I'm about halfway through, and am thoroughly enjoying it.  It's beautifully written (composed?  I know you physically write poems, but how do you describe it, really?) and I think really helps to understand his point of view in the controversy and sadness of his and Sylvia Plath's lives together.
I ventured out later to get dinner with my sister, and discovered that Becky had sent me book in the mail, which I am very much looking forward to reading.  I love new books, and will be diving into this one when I'm done with Ted.  (I can tell they will be VERY different from each other, but I'm glad to switch it up.)  When I'm done there, I should probably read the other books I have that Becky's given me.  I forgot about them, and this reminded me that I should stop rereading Anne of Avonlea and read something new.
My sister and I also stopped at Urban Outfitters, where I bought shirts I don't need and, on a whim, some Polaroid film.  Unfortunately, I didn't read the box, and it's not the right film for my camera.  So it has to go back.  However, this inspired me to get the camera out, change the batteries, and discover that it had a few frames left in it.  The photo isn't very good, but at least I know the thing works!  (It's been sitting in the closet for 3+ years.)  And thanks to The Impossible Project, I can still get film that will fit in this camera, I just have to order it!
Sunday was baseball day, and Dad and I braved the heat to watch our Phils lose to the Braves.  But we still had fun, and got to talk about stuff that drives my mother crazy (e.g. Leave it to Beaver) and I got ice cream in a helmet, so the day could not have been better.  I'm preparing a post about baseball soon.
Hope everyone out there had a lovely weekend too!

Let Your Colors Burn

The 4th of July has always been kind of an in-between holiday for me.  When I was a little kid, it was a sign that summer was really starting.  It was like 2 weeks after school let out, and it meant that we were really in the thick of the hot, easy days.  When I got a little older, I dreaded the 4th, just a little, since it simply meant the summer was moving along.  It was the beginning of the end.
Now that I'm a "grown-up" it doesn't mean a whole besides a day off, and this one was just confusing, being in the middle of the week.  Now, the day after, my brain has no idea what day it is.  The fun is found less in where the day lies in relation to the rest of the summer, and more in just enjoying the day itself.  A day with my family, eating tons of barbeque, having the police stop by to warn about the dangers (and illegalities, in PA) of fireworks, is a welcome change.  Plus, I got to play with my camera!

justin & joey

bonfire prep

claire, instagramming

inside the fireworks

my brother, inside the fireworks 

the grand finale

we used all the sparklers

smoldering

brothers