Despite the fact that I grew up on the west coast, my childhood summers were spent mostly in Philadelphia (if you’ve been reading this here blog for a while, you know this). My mom, sister and I would pile in my grandparents’ apartment and spend three or four weeks eating out, going to the Jersey shore and doing our back-to-school shopping (financed by grandparental generosity).

One of the stores I always looked forward to visiting on these shopping treks was Levinthal’s. Located just a block from the apartment, we simply called it the handbag store. I rarely left Philly without some new item from them (and throughout the rest of the year, my grandmother regularly patronized their designer counter).

In the eight years I’ve lived in Philly, I’ve stopped in at least once a month and nearly every purse, wallet or suitcase I’ve acquired over that time was from Levinthal’s. The shopping experience there was an old-fashioned one. There were always two blue-smocked women who would help you as you shopped. When you made your selection, they’d write out a bill of sale on a carbon-paper pad in pencil and walk you up to the cash register, where one of the male owners would ring up your purchase. I imagine that the experience of shopping there was unchanged from the time the store opened in the mid-forties.

Two weeks ago, I walked by and caught sight of their going-out-of-business signs. I went in to peruse the heavily discounted merchandise and have one final wander around this beloved store. I didn’t buy anything, but before I left, I stopped briefly to offer condolences to one of the owners. I tried to express how much the store had meant to me, without monopolizing his time or sounding like a crazy person.

I’ve been trying to acquire fewer things, so there’s less need in my life for a dedicated bag store. However, I will always be sad that Levinthal’s isn’t in the world any longer.

Ten days ago, I wrote a list of things I wanted to get done, so that I’d feel accomplished and productive in this fresh, new year. And then I was promptly sucked into a black hole of work. Living has been put on hold, as I’ve spent all my useful hours propped up in front of a MacBook, writing, copying, pasting, editing and testing a new version of Philadelphia’s official tourism website.

Thankfully, the site launched today, and while my co-workers and I still have a whole lot of work ahead of us, the extended days (as well as the practice of eating all three meals at my desk) seem to be coming to an end. For this, I am grateful, as I’ve come to the realization that as things stand now, I am one of those people who lives for the moment when she can finally leave work and pick up her “real” life. It’s been hard, not having much time to check in with that side of my existence.

Please understand, I have nothing bad to say about my workplace. It is not a perfect environment, but after five jobs and spectrum of bosses, I’ve learned that every place of employment has its own unique quirks, joys and dysfunctions. You learn how to manage the frustrations, appreciate the good stuff and do the things you truly love during the off-hours. And until I figure out how to make those jars and canning pots generate some revenue (beyond lining them up on the sidewalk and asking for a handout), I’m happy to have a job that typically allows plenty of time for those love projects.

If you’d like to see what my department and I have been working so hard on, please click here. I’m hoping you’ll be impressed. Please do recognize that this site is still a work in progress. Some of the sort/search functions aren’t working as we’d like and there’s more work to be done in bulking up content and photography. But all that aside, we’re quite proud.

My friend Val believes in the power of the list and since a particular conversation last year at SXSW (on a roof deck, when we ate all this beautiful food), I’ve been a believer as well. I have a little notebook that I use for my lists, but in recent days, the only things I am able to cross off the this are the day-to-day, mundane tasks. I continue to carry the larger items over from one list to the next, rewriting them weekly, but never quite getting around to them. So I thought I’d post them here, in the hopes that some level of public accountability will be added incentive. So here we go…

• Clean out the storage unit. It still holds the carpet remnants from when my grandparents replaced the wall-to-wall when I was seven years old. It must go.
• Deal with the Indian blankets that I found in the hall closet, moth-infested, right after my grandmother died (nearly 8 years ago). They’re in the same plastic bags we threw them into as we prepared the apartment for her memorial luncheon.
• Get that damned undercarriage rattle on my car fixed.
• Replace the broken cart in my dining room.
• Organize recipes for a Fork You cookbook.
• Retile the bathroom and replace the vanity (the drain is badly rusted).
• Mail two boxes of pictures and video tapes to my family in Hawaii (they’re all of them).
• Replace the light fixture in the kitchen.

I think that’s it for now. I’ll be back to this list on occasion, for updates, additions and the blessed satisfaction of crossing things off.

Last week, when I was back in Portland, I spotted the Pony Soldier marquee that you see above. I happened to have camera in hand (I was not the one driving at the time) and so snapped a picture of the message. “A goal not in writing is simply a wish*.” So, in the spirit of dreaming big, declaring to the universe what I want and transforming those wishes into goals, here are the things I’ll be working on and towards in the coming year.

Body and Self

• Take vitamins regularly. I grew up in a vitamin-taking family and so my singular act of rebellion in high school and college was to stop taking vitamins of any sort. I was very vocal in my vitamin rejection, announcing to my parents that they were a waste of time and money. However, over the years, I’ve come to realize that I function better when I add a few vitamins to my system, including daily doses of C and D (sitting in a windowless cubicle for 8-10 hours a day means very little sun exposure for this already pale girl).
• Move more. While I was home in Oregon, my mom and I took a walk along the path in Maywood Park nearly every day. It felt so good to be outside and to be moving. This year, getting my body moving every day, be it a walk outside, a run on the treadmill or even just stretching on my ugly carpet, will be a regular thing.
• Time to wind down at the end of the day. So often, I spend the evening plopped on the couch, staring incoherently at the television until around 11:30, at which point, I leap up to do the dishes and get myself ready for the next day. This means that I climb into bed fifteen or twenty minutes after midnight, with my body revved and my mind racing. It is not conducive to good sleep. I will be getting these tasks of life done earlier, so that I can crawl into bed with a little time to read and get quiet before turning out the light.

Work and Creativity

• Write some books. Since last May, I’ve been working with a publishing company in the hopes of writing a canning cookbook or two. As the Magic 8 Ball might say, I “cannot predict now” whether these particular books will get made. However, I will not be deterred. I will write a canning book. Scott and I will self-publish a Fork You cookbook (we’ve been talking about it for years now, it’s time to finally do it). And, I will work on turning all those essays I wrote for my thesis into something more.
• Make canning videos. Scott and I have been making food video since 2006. It’s time to focus the camera on the canning pot and making some entertaining, useful videos. Because, to be perfectly honest with you all, this is what I want to do. My dream is to have a food show (one with sponsors, investors and advertisers who would make it possible for this to be a full-time gig) that features canning, local foods, u-pick farms, farmers markets, homemade yogurt, home-baked bread and the basics of doing it from scratch while living in the heart of a big city.
• Learn to use Photoshop. Back in the summer, Scott upgraded my camera situation, getting me a Nikon D90 to replace my D50. It takes very nice pictures (and, thanks to the ease and relative cheapness of digital photography, I can keep taking pictures until I get something lovely, straight out of the camera). But often I wish that I knew how to tweak those nice photos into the gorgeously vivid images I see all around the internet. I make minor adjustments in iPhoto, but I can’t do much there.

The Woo-Woo**

• Love more. Myself, my body, my husband, my family and my world.
• Trust more. Everything I’ve ever experienced has shown me that it always works out in the end (typically in ways that I’d never even conceived). And yet, I fret. I’m exhausted by all the worry. It’s time to skip it and just trust.
• Hope more. The world is in transition. The planet is warming, we are inundated by stuff and the waste increases everyday. It would be easy to feel hopeless in the face of all that. However, instead I choose to be hope-filled. I hold the knowledge that this is a time of potential and that all is most certainly not lost.

Happy 2010. May it be so.

*This appears to have been said (with slightly more punctuation) by motivational speaker Mac Anderson. I was sort of hoping that it was the brainchild of some poetic motel desk clerk, but no.

**My all-purpose word for the mystical, intangible world of spirit and love.

I’m coming to the end of my time in Portland, and while I’m a little bit antsy to get back into regular life (after what seems like months of irregular life), I’m also pained to leave this city I love so much. Earlier today, I drove around the neighborhood where we lived when I was in high school. It’s been nearly ten years since I spent any regular time in NW Portland, and yet the streets around Wallace Park are as familiar to me now as they were then.

It’s been a lovely visit, filled with family, pets, a party to celebrate the solstice, Christmas Eve dinner with friends so old they are essentially family, many visits to thrift stores and lots and lots of cooking. We lit candles and made our annual Christmas wishes. On Christmas morning, my parents and I chopped veggies, stuffed a turkey and cooked breakfast together, just as we’ve been doing for years. My sister wandered downstairs a little later, bleary from having gotten up at 6 am to drive a friend to the airport.

I’ve walked nearly every day with my mom. I’ve gone through a few lingering boxes of childhood relics. I’ve been to two different New Seasons. I’ve read seven books and slept at least 10 hours a night. I made bear claws for my dad upon his request. I’ve talked to Scott everyday and have wished that he had been able to come with me.

Each time I come to Portland, I look around this jewel of a city and wonder why it is that I moved away. It is clean, friendly and incredibly livable. And yet, Philly calls. Tomorrow night, I’ll answer that call and go home.

I’m on a 6:18 p.m. flight to Portland today which means I’ll be leaving straight from work (this also means that I can print out boarding passes on a dependable office printer, as opposed to rousing my asthmatic home unit). As I dragged my suitcase along behind me this morning on my one-block walk to work, I was beeped at by two different cabs, each hoping I was a potential fare.

My immediate reaction to both instances was irritation, bordering on rage (each driver required a shake of the head to stop their beeping). “If I need a cab, I’ll damn well hail one,” I thought to myself. Experiencing this response makes me realize that I’ve been living in Center City Philadelphia too long. Here’s hoping ten days on the west coast will gentle my soul (even just a little) and help me shake off those protective city layers.

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This morning was this office building’s annual “Tenant Appreciation Breakfast.” I remember last year having an impressive spread, with bagels, cream cheese and multiple kinds of danish. When I finally made my way down there this morning, all that remained were a few cake-y muffins and some watery fruit salad. All week long I had been looking forward to that bagel, so I was a mite bit disappointed that there were none.

I thought about my missed bagel for at least an hour after the muffin was gone and eventually decided that it would be better to buy one than to continue to pine. I stopped by the office kitchen just before heading downstairs and oh joy! There were a few bagels left over from a morning meeting! I toasted up a half, delighted to be getting the bagel for free (and I only ate a half, whereas had I purchased one, I would have eaten the whole thing).

Last night, cousins Amy and Jean hosted their annual Latke Party. Unfortunately, travel and the stomach flu kept a number of the expected guests away. Their absence didn’t keep the rest of from enjoying stacks of white and sweet potato pancakes, topped with sour cream and (my homemade) applesauce. Before dinner, Amy lit the Hanukkah candles and sang the traditional prayers. It was lovely.

As predicted, I have not been able to quite handle posting daily. However, I’m still feeling pretty darn good with the general uptick in writing I’ve been doing over here. It’s amazing how once I start being open to the idea of the mostly daily blog post, the ideas for the blog posts begin to flow in my direction.

For instances, I spotted this post today on The Kitchn, in which Emma recalls what her mother used to do with the leftover bits of pie crust that got trimmed from the crust during holiday baking. It took me hurtling back through my own memories of pie baking with my mom. Whenever we had leftover pie crust, she’d divide it between my sister and me, and let us make tiny, jam-filled tarts. We’d bake them in the toaster oven, a bit of jam would always leak out and burn to the pan, making for a delicious, sticky mess.

I know that I always looked forward to those crust scraps, because they made me feel like the little girl in that chapter of Little Men, in which she’s given a toy kitchen and is taught to cook miniature meals (ingredients delivered by the family dog). I have no plans to make a pie this year, but thinking about those days makes me want to mix up a batch of pie crusts, just to make a batch of jammy turnovers.

I woke up yesterday morning with a sore throat and by afternoon, was harboring a case of something cruddy. I stayed home from work today, and while I’ve been desperate for a bit of concentrated time in the apartment, this is not the way I wanted to get it. I had NO energy and so all I could do was stare at all the messy piles and half done projects.

However, by around 2 p.m., I had to do something. So, I did what you see above. Yes, that’s right. I separated out my rubber bands, twist ties and clothespins (I use them to close bags and clip notes together) by color and size into their own jars (I’m not entirely sure how I came to possess so many rubber bands – I think some have to be leftover from my grandparents).

Happily, after a day of laying around, which brief organizational breaks, I’m feeling much better. The cold (at least, that’s what I think it is) seems to be leaving (although my right nostril is a faucet I can’t quite turn off) and I should be back to work tomorrow.

Grades 5 through 9, my family lived in a house in the West Slope neighborhood of Portland (just off Canyon Drive, for those of you keeping track). It was a quite little pocket of suburbia, bordered on all sides by busy streets. Next door to us lived an elderly woman and her son. For the most part, both generations of this small family were grumpily quiet, keeping to themselves unless we actively engaged them in conversation.

I remember one day, my mom had to go over and knock on their door to ask a question. When she returned a little while later, she reeked of mothballs. The chemical smell radiated from her person as if she’d been dipped in a vat of pest killer. It turns out that this neighbor had wool carpets and her method of protecting them was simply to scatter handfuls of toxic mothballs around her home. “Take that, moths!” I imagined her saying.

This woman has been springing to mind for me of late, because this is the time of year when the William Penn House hallways begin to smell of mothballs, as people pull out their winter things and stow away their summer stuff. There are a couple of days at the change of every season when the mothball aroma seeps through the walls and into our apartment. It takes a while to identify as mothball stink, at first I just notice a slightly off scent and start running around the apartment, sniffing and trying to find an abandoned dirty sock or a rotting potato (there’s little that smells worse than a rotting potato).

Then it begins to get stronger and I’m finally able to identify it. I don’t love it, but at least I don’t have to be on guard, wondering what’s crawled into the drain and died.

However, I still don’t understand how people can live with mothballs the way they do around here (I use a combination of lavender and ceder to keep my woolens moth-free). They are so toxic and awful smelling.