Alternative reads from your lazy hostess

Since I'm certainly not giving you enough to read this summer, try the following links for some Buffalo and housing-related reads:

• Where the Urban Dream Life is Going Cheap: What could make someone want to leave New York and move to Buffalo? You'll recognize some familiar faces in this New York magazine article, most notably our friend Aaron.
• Should you become a Co-ho? A Time piece on the growing trend of buying a house with a friend. We know a thing or two about that.

Scenes from this summer's CSA share

The first week's share. Check out the garlic scapes!

Baby beets and my new tablecloth (found at a garage sale!)

Sean models this lovely little squash.

Wherein I reveal myself to be a crazy plant lady...

(Apologies for the cross post)

I'm a sucker for mornings. My house, a rarity in the tightly packed neighborhoods of Buffalo, has only backyards on either side of it (it is behind another house). The sunlight pours in throughout the day, switching sides of the house, switching rooms.

In the morning it hits my bedroom, gently nudging me out of my sheets so I can find what, for me, is often a breathtaking site: my home office, with its wooden table, bathed in brightness. As I write this, my desk is covered in a rectangular patch of sunlight; the window looks out on the building a few doors down. I've been told it was a dairy, now it is home to a Burmese family. The back half remains vacant.

Because the house is behind another house, there is no backyard. It is on the backyard. For this reason, I have attempted to grow a jungle of houseplants inside by the windows, and have only recently begun fiddling with the patch of grass we have between the two homes. I started my house-jungle with the ficus and Christmas cactus that had both survived my post-college moves and abandonment. Brynn gave me a branch of her enormous jade tree and last fall, with a $50 gift card to Lowe's left over from my June birthday, I brought home all the sickly and marked-down plants I could fit in my car.

For months now, I've done battle with one of these plants. It sits on my desk, close to the window I am at right now. I refer to it in my head as the Crazy Plant but according to the information card it came with, it goes by "jellybean plant," sedum, or Aurora Borealis (yeah, I did a double take on that last one too). It is a succulent, therefore more delicate than my viney and leafy darlings, and I've been a bit obsessed with its well-being.

Its little jellybean leaves are very fragile and often fall off when I touch them. As the plant has grown, its branches droop over the sides of the pot, with tiny white roots extending out, looking for something to plant themselves in. It has doubled its size and little miniature bunches of leaves pop up around its base; sometimes I drown them when I water the plant. A few months back, I realized that one of the drooping branches was headed on a road to nowhere so I picked it up, dropping leaves as I did it, and twisted it around another, smaller branch. It's doing ok now. After that though, I decided that unless I interfered, my Crazy Plant was going to kill itself. Each time I looked at it, I became stressed.

This morning though, after a week away on vacation, I came into the office and found the plant and its companion, another jade, thriving in my absence. I don't have much to explain for my sudden change of heart--my mellowing out about its obviously natural characteristics--but I now love the Crazy Plant. I suppose I always loved it, hence my obsession with its health, but now I love that it is crazy. It droops over the sides, in what I assumed was vain, but instead of dying, it just adapted. New branches have sprung from the side of the drooping branch. It's green and solid and really beautiful in its chaotic growth.

I've been sort of having a hard time lately, feeling like I can't see the path ahead of me as clearly as I'd like. This morning I am laughing at myself, at my obsession over this house plant's path--a sort of small example of my worry, unfairly placed on this lovely little succulent and its growth process. I don't really know what zen means to other people but to me it means letting the chaos of life wash over me, taking moments to notice the way a plant grows and apply that same lesson to my life. I'm going to be zen about this plant from now on, and I'm going to try to be zen about me.

I'm a sucker for mornings.

We love advice: bike storage style

There are many great things about our weird--but not weird for Buffalo--house behind a house situation. For instance, we get tons of sunlight because there are no houses next to ours, just backyards.

There, as well, some downsides. With the warmer temperatures and an increased need/desire to do yardwork and gardening, a problem with storage has arisen. Before Steve and Sara moved in to the downstairs apartment, we threw all of our crap--including rakes, shovels, bikes, ladders, and more--into the front hall. Now that front hall is their entryway and well, it don't work out no more.

I'm not asking for you readers to solve all our problems this morning, just some help on one front: bike storage.

Tough times: our bikes in the early-December elements.

It's been raining like crazy lately and my and Sean's bikes are getting hit hard. Rust is even creeping in a little bit. As Steve likes to scold us, we're bad bike owners.

We could bring them upstairs into our hallway but the hallway is not very wide and it already sort of bursting with shoes, coats, and my dear houseplants. We're thinking of erecting some kind of tarp/outdoor shelter in the back of the house between the fence and house--any thoughts or suggestions? Anyone have luck with those hooks you hang your bicycle on? Help!

Silver lining

I've been meaning to share this photo for awhile, from the early spring when the lilacs were blooming. We now have roses bushes in bloom all over the West Side and it's fun to see them pop up all over, even the vacant houses.

I went on an explore with my camera in the vacant yard next door. The grass is overgrown and full of wild flowers, crazy weeds, and even morning glories. Please don't confuse this excitement with my endorsement of slum landlords though--just trying to find the silver lining!

A window in...

I made lentil soup for dinner tonight--it's still cool enough for it to make sense--and wrote a letter to a friend while it bubbled on the stove. I got up occasionally to stir the pot and add a little more black pepper, a little more thyme.

On one of these trips to the stove, I looked out the window near the sink and spotted three girls tiptoeing across the roof of their back porch. They were covered, from head scarves to long dresses touching their toes, in beautiful flowing fabric that played with the wind quite well. They soon saw me through the window and started waving excitedly. It was very sweet, the whole scene.

And now, my lentil soup recipe (it's all improvised):

1 tbsp butter
2 medium red onions
2 medium sized potatoes
one bag dry lentils
4-6 cups of water (you pick thickness)
3 celery stalks
1 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup brown sugar
about 1 tbsp hot sauce (or a couple dashes of cayenne)
black pepper and salt to taste
2 tbsp thyme
dash cinnamon

Cook onions and potatoes in butter in soup pot until onions are soft. Add water, lentils, black pepper, and salt and boil for 30 minutes or until lentils are softened up. Add carrots, celery, brown sugar, hot sauce, and rest of spices. Cook until desired consistency and adjust spices accordingly. Enjoy over brown rice or with a piece of whole wheat bread.

Scenes from our first West Side winter...

Somedays it was just beautiful.




Sean and I battled my car every morning: frozen shut doors, doors that wouldn't shut when driving, refusal to start, doors of which one would work, etc.




New friends moved in, including Micaela and wunder-dog Umi.




More Umi dog.




The discovery of a snowsuit I bought for cold winter mornings on the farm made a day of sledding more...interesting. The flared legs aren't too visible in this photo but wow, this thing was clearly a snow bunny uniform in its day.




Lots of bundled up conversations on the front porch.




The space between our house and next door was verrrrrrry icy this winter. Sara nicknamed it "the glacier." Rock salt wil be bought in bulk next year.

Spring lilacs

Spring has come to our backyard: lilacs everywhere! The white and light purple are technically from my neighbors yard (shhhh) and the dark purple from a potted lilac tree my Dad and Terrie gave me at the housewarming last May. Plans are underway for its permanent home by the porch.

You may be from the West Side if...

I found this jewel, "You may be from the West Side of Buffalo if..." while looking for something online at work. It appears to have been written when the West Side was more of an Italian neighborhood than Hispanic, as it is now. Maybe ten years ago?

Anyway, enjoy.

Hang in there...

Spring-flavored update--complete with photos--coming soon!