WordPress just notified me that today is my blog anniversary and not just any anniversary but my 10th. Since 17 October marked a decade since my kids and I emigrated to the US, I knew that my blogging anniversary must have been coming up but had no idea it was today.
I initially embarked on blogging as a way of sharing my new experiences in navigating life in a new country with family and friends. While I still share new experiences here, my subject matter has evolved and become more expansive within the span of these ten years. Everything was unfamiliar back then – I didn’t even know how to use a garbage disposal or how to post a letter without walking a mile to a mail box – and there were lots of frustrating bureaucratic hiccups to overcome that generated rants. Nowadays everyday life is mostly settled and humdrum – no complaints from me about that!
Since I started blogging, I have bought a house, become a US citizen (in 2018), raised two of my sons to (technical, legal) adulthood, adopted three cats, lived through a tornado and a global pandemic, and visited an additional 16 states for a total of 40, and created a new travel bucket list involving presidential graves.
What I got out of blogging has also involved since that early period. While it started as a way to process and record my experiences, which helped decompress some of the overwhelm, I learned that I just enjoyed the excuse to write every so often and that I enjoyed the interaction with others in the blogging community, whether on my own blog or theirs.
Now, however, on this ten year anniversary, I have decided to somewhat mothball this blog. I never remotely expected to be blogging for this long – my initial objective was merely the first year of living in the US – so it feels like the right time for it to go into semi-retirement. I anticipate blowing off the cobwebs and writing a post whenever I do something that truly qualifies as a new experience, which probably means travel, but otherwise this blog will go dormant.
I am not quitting blogging altogether, however, as I will still be sharing my art on my other blog dedicated to my creative doodlings and I will remain an active reader of all of the blogs I follow.
So thank you for reading along for anywhere up to a decade. Thanks for engaging through likes and comments. Thanks for community and friendship. It has all been very much appreciated.
We recently had a weekend break away in Pittsburgh, my first time in that city since the start of our 2016 road trip. We had only spent a single day there then so we had lots left to explore. Since we travelled over on Friday evening and had to leave on Sunday morning in order to return to the Philly suburbs, we really only had Saturday available to us and were determined to make the most of it.
The reason for our trip was to visit our son’s girlfriend for her birthday. He spent his time with her and therefore doesn’t appear in any of the photos I am sharing here. However, we did have a surprise visit from our oldest son who flew up from Atlanta (where he is on Co-op) to meet us.
We started our day in the university area of the city centre, where the buildings of three universities are clustered together in close proximity. I found Gene Kelly’s star at the William Pitt Union building, a plaque honouring this famous alumnus, but the focus of our visit was the Cathedral of Learning.
The Cathedral of Learning is the most iconic of the University of Pittsburgh’s buildings. It stands at 42 storeys and 535 feet. The common room area contains vaulted ceilings and gothic style details and somewhat mimics an ecclesiastical buildings or a stately great hall. I was pleased to see so many students using the desks, including nooks and crannies illuminated by stained glass. I would have loved to have had such an atmospheric and interesting space in which to study during my university days. My quiet study space was a neglected, shabby, dusty floor of a 1960s library.
The Cathedral of Learning is famous for its Nationality Rooms, 31 classrooms decorated in styles suggestive of the countries with their name plates on the doors. This project was embarked upon in the 1920s and is still ongoing: the most recent room – named for the Philippines – was completed in the last few years. Frustratingly, with it being a Saturday, the classrooms were all locked up and I had to satisfy myself with peeking through the spyholes to see what details I could make out. (I actually had a day of thwarted plans as several pieces of public art I wished to see were roped off and, therefore, inaccessible). I will need to visit on a weekday some time and arrange to be on a tour.
That exploration and frustration completed, we decided to see how high up in the building we could get. Sure, we could have googled to find the answer and headed straight to the relevant floor but we decided to make some fun out of trial and error testing. Since each elevator only went to certain floors, we would punch in a random floor number, head to the designated elevator, travel upwards, and then repeat until we reached floor 35. This floor was the last we could access as mere members of the public – or perhaps it was floor 36 since we could ascend some wooden stairs within that space. We got some great views over the city and its architecture from that height.
Next up we headed to Grandview Overlook in the Mount Washington area of the city. We had visited this area in 2016 by taking the Duquesne Incline but this time we drove. This meant my husband also got to experience driving the steep gradients of some of Pittsburgh’s streets. The narrowness proved to be a bit more hair-raising than the actual incline and it was definitely less stressful than driving uphill in San Francisco but I was glad it was not me driving. Anyway, the Grandview Overlook is the perfect spot to take in the geography of Pittsburgh, built as it is at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers where they combine to form the Ohio River.
After several of my plans were derailed, we plumped for a visit to the Andy Warhol Museum. Although none of us are massive Warhol fans – or even fans of Pop Art generally – it felt apt to visit a museum dedicated to an artist from Pittsburgh. We were directed to take the elevator up to the seventh floor and then gradually work our way downstairs so that we could view the chronology of Warhol’s life and art. I appreciated that structure and how well organized and well curated the exhibits were. It really did help tell the story of Warhol’s life and the evolution of his creative output.
The hit exhibit for all of us was Silver Clouds. This is an interactive space filled with metallic balloons which, being filled with helium, float around and catch the light and bounce reflections. It was somehow both fun and soothing, maybe even contemplative. We spent a lot of time in that room because it was so entertaining. I was further amused by the seated docent who was using a pole to poke any balloons back into the room before they could escape.
I have only been to a few museums that are dedicated to a single artist and I do think my preference is with galleries with a broader and more diverse remit, since this invites comparison and generates more dialogue between pieces. Nevertheless, it was interesting to focus in on one artist’s creative journey. Perhaps if we were bigger Warhol fans it would have had more impact but we all found it interesting and enjoyed our visit.
After a celebration dinner (when we met up with our other son and his girlfriend) we returned to Mount Washington to see the sunset and view the city by night. While it was an opportunity to burn off some pasta based calories, the menfolk instead decided to double down instead by getting ice cream for dessert. It was a pleasingly sweet way to end our second family visit to Pittsburgh.
We have expanded our family this Summer by adopting another cat. Meet Remus.
Our youngest son is cat-obsessed but – being the fickle creatures they are – the two cats we already have favour our two middle sons. The youngest, therefore, has been campaigning for a third cat for ages and we finally relented. It didn’t take long for my son to find an appropriate cat in one of the rescue shelters he visited. Remus was found, abandoned and alone, in a field just two days before we adopted him.
We kept him in our son’s bedroom so that there was a transition period before the other cats met him. We also hoped that would help Remus form a secure and specific attachment to the cat-daft kid. I am happy to report that it seems to have worked. We are still in the early stages of all three cats getting used to each other. Remus has a lot of kitten energy for the other two to get used to and Satchi and Peanut are such besties that they can be a bit of a clique. We are, however, definitely making progress. I am hopeful that they will all become buddies with a bit more time.
We have (touch wood!) had a mild Winter. We have certainly had days of perishing temperatures but no snow. No shoveling is a win for me. This has given us the opportunity to get out and exploring – even though my instinct is definitely to burrow in and hibernate. This weekend’s wanderings took us to Wilmington, Delaware, as its a place we have passed through a lot but never stopped.
The two offspring who were accompanying us vetoed a few suggestions so out first stop ended up being the Marian Coffin Gardens. These are the gardens of a 19th Century mansion named Gibraltar – because it is built on a rock – that is now a decaying ruin. That was actually the appeal of the place for me because the gardens are also largely abandoned, though maintained as a preserve and green space.
Marian Coffin, the landscape artist who designed the gardens, was an impressive person. Self-educated, she was one of only four women to be admitted to MIT in 1901. Despite those educational credentials, she was rejected by all of New York’s architectural firms. Not to be defeated, she founded her own business and made it a complete success. The terraced gardens of Gibraltar was a commission she undertook in 1916. They must have been gorgeous in their heyday but they have been deteriorating for 50 years so it was hard to imagine how splendid they must have looked. I do imagine, however, that we chose the worst time of year to visit because so much of the plant life is also dead or dormant.
Next stop was the Brandywine Zoo. This small zoo has free entry off-season and that was definitely a smart time to visit because it is pretty small. We had been concerned that the animals might all be cosied up in their indoor enclosures but actually the opposite was true and they were all out and moving around, enjoying the blue skies and sunshine despite the cold. Highlights were the red pandas, the serval, and the lemurs. The focus of our visit, however, was the capybara. We went to the zoo precisely because it has capybara and our 15 year old is obsessed with them.
We barely scratched the surface of Wilmington on this visit. In fact, we barely poked the surface. We will definitely need to go back for more exploration.
The long weekend of President’s Day afforded us the extra time and, therefore, the opportunity to take a day trip. We were a little limited in our space and time scope because our 17 year old was working and we are his transport to and from work. We, therefore, elected to visit a place not too far from home but where we have never been: Bethlehem and its historic steelworks. I had chosen the focus of our last trip (a cemetery, of course) so a bit of industrial history was my husband’s choice.
The Bethlehem steel works – previously iron works – were around from the mid-19th Century through to its gradual decline and final closure at the turn of this century. The visitor centre was closed to us as it was being used for a ticketed event (areas of the site are now a concert and event venue) so I did not have the same opportunity to learn any of the history of the company but honestly my brain doesn’t really absorb that kind of history anyway. In fact, I was reading information boards during the visit and immediately forgetting what I had just read.
I do, however, like abandoned structures and all of the textures of rust and flaking paint and grime. As such, I was happy just to walk around the site on the raised gantry-style walkway that mostly followed the old train tracks that would have brought the raw ingredients to the site back in the day.
Having found myself accidentally “collecting” the graves of American presidents, last year I decided to turn it into a purposeful assignment. Unlike my mission to visit each of the 50 united states, however, this is a much more relaxed and less driven bucket list. I am certain I will never visit all of the graves but it gives me inspiration for trips and gives me another excuse (as if I needed one) to explore cemeteries.
This presidential graves project is why my husband and I took a day trip to Princeton, New Jersey. The teenagers elected to stay home. Our destination was Princeton Cemetery, established in 1757 and filled with notable people, including almost all of the deceased presidents of Princeton University. Knowing these facts, my husband was anticipating a very long walk and an arduous task in finding the graves we were interested in. He was relieved, therefore, to see how compact the cemetery is and delighted when he saw there was a map available in a kiosk at the entrance. It took us no time at all to find the graves – just as well because it was perishingly cold.
The president who was the focus of my trip was Grover Cleveland, notable for being the only American president (thus far, at least) to have served two non-consecutive terms. Another tidbit about Cleveland is that, rather than being conscripted during the Civil War, he opted to pay a substitute to serve in his stead. Thankfully George Benninsky survived the conflict. He was also the only president (so far) to get married while in office. His wife and oldest daughter are buried alongside him. The latter – Ruth who died in childhood – was purportedly the inspiration for the Baby Ruth chocolate bar though timelines suggest it was actually named for the legendary baseball player, Babe Ruth.
Among the other historic graves we sought out, we visited the grave of Aaron Burr. Burr, of course, was a prominent participant in the Revolution, a Senator, and served as Vice President under Thomas Jefferson. Obviously nowadays he is most (in)famous for killing Alexander Hamilton during a duel. Possibly more scandalous, however, was his involvement in a complicated conspiracy that led to him being tried and acquitted of treason.
I also visited the grave of John Witherspoon. Like me, he was born in Scotland and emigrated to America well into adulthood. Witherspoon was a president of Princeton but he is probably more notable as being a Founding Father and the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence.
After our cemetery wanderings, a short walk took us to the centre of the campus of Princeton University. I have never visited an Ivy League university before so perhaps this will be the start of another collection – but probably not. Talking of which, I had never actually thought to look into the origins of the term “Ivy League”. I had assumed it was something to do with the progeny of colonial families being in with the roots, maybe something about social climbing being like ivy on walls, or maybe just a reference to the very old buildings of such colleges being covered in ivy. Turns out it is because of the tradition of each graduating class planting ivy around the institution’s buildings.
I enjoyed wandering around all the buildings because I just like architecture (just as appreciation, not as one of the many things I research and read about). The focal building of our excursion, however, was Nassau Hall. It was built in 1756 making it the oldest of the University’s buildings and, at the time, the largest building in the entire of New Jersey. When the Congress of Confederation had to leave Philadelphia in 1783, they reconvened in Nassau Hall and that made it the nation’s Capitol for four months. I had read that it was possible to still see the pock-marks of canon strikes that the building received during the Battle of Princeton but between all the ivy and my eyesight I was unable to spot any signs of damage.
The majority of buildings were closed to visitors because of it being a federal holiday (Martin Luther King Jr Day) but we were able to get out of the biting cold by entering the Chapel. The word “chapel” led me to believe it would be a more modest building but it was vast enough to be a cathedral. The light was hitting the windows beautifully, highlighting both the stained glass and dappling the walls with wonderful colours. It was a very pleasant space full of wonderfully crafted stone- and woodwork.
We would both like to return to Princeton as it looks to be an interesting town with further opportunities for exploration – but with milder temperatures.
Our other Winter break trip was to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Our last visit was in 2015 so it was time for a return and all four boys were agreeable to coming on this outing.
We made an effort to visit the galleries we had either missed or only flitted through in our previous visit. I was surprised by how into medieval and renaissance art the boys were so we spent a lot of time in the early European art section. There were entire furnished rooms from historic buildings and things like church screens on display but later we discovered that there were entire chunks of ecclesiastical architecture, including a whole cloister, and a Japanese temple from the 14th Century. How had we managed to miss such massive exhibits on our previous visit?
I don’t think it is necessary for me to write at any length about our visit. We wandered around, appreciated works of art from diverse cultures, a wide variety of periods, and different media, and had some good quality discussions along the way. Everyone got to see something that was a highlight for them – such as my 17 year old seeing one of Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings – and we did not push everyone beyond their tolerance by insisting that we visit every single nook and cranny of the museum.
When the boys were younger, we always used to keep them occupied and engaged in museums by giving them pencil and paper and encouraging them to draw; once they got older, however, we evolved a new family challenge: each person has to find an exhibit that they try to replicate through mime or tableau. I will, therefore, close this blog post with some of our attempts from this trip.
Given our desire to keep Winter break low-key and low-demand, we decided to curtail our usual bent for travel and exploration and instead play at being tourists in our own area. Despite having lived here for 9 years now, I had still never been to Independence Hall. We decided, therefore, to head into the city for a visit there.
Although I am generally very interested in history, the Revolutionary era is not one that captures my imagination. It definitely feels more like a homework assignment or chore to absorb that learning. I think it is because so much of that era is dominated by military history which is very much not my jam. However, the importance of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to American society and culture means that I really did want to visit Independence Hall. I was accompanied by my husband and our oldest and youngest sons.
The Ranger for our tour group did a great job of providing an accessible precis of the relevant history, focusing on the more engaging highlights and peppering in some jokes about the nature of group assignments. It was also a very brief tour, which was welcome to our sons. Now I can check Independence Hall off my list!
My husband suggested that we take a walk down to the 9th Street Market area. I liked the idea of having a good walk and I needed to restock on vegetables post-Christmas so that seemed like as good a destination as any. My oldest son was bemused by my excitement when I was able to buy parsnips, massive leeks, and fresh figs.
Of course, I should have known that my husband had an ulterior motive when he suggested 9th Street because what he was actually aiming for was cheesesteaks. I don’t eat meat so this was of zero interest to me. The boys, however, joined their dad in ordering and munching cheesesteaks. Although Pat’s is one of the famous Philly purveyors and they did enjoy the food, they all agreed that they have had better cheesesteaks elsewhere.
City murals and celebrations of cheese are much more my thing.
Justified by the fact I was very burned out and running on empty, I spent most of Winter break in hibernation mode. I decided to participate in a manageable festive art challenge in order to force me to make time for art at least every couple of days. The one I opted for was Yuletide Witches created by Heather Mahler. The magical theme appealed to me.
The first prompt was “Ice Witch” and I think I started pretty strong with my illustration. She maybe looks a bit more like a pixie or some such than a witch but I was pleased with how the ice crown turned out.
The second prompt was “Ghost Witch” and I was disappointed by my efforts. I got carried away with all the shroud wrappings so the effect is much more mummy than witch and I am not happy with the face either. The good thing about an art challenge is there is always another prompt waiting and the opportunity for improvement.
I was much happier with my “Bow Witch”. She turned out much closer to the vision I had in my head. Since that prompt was for Christmas Day, I opted for traditional Christmas colours of red, green, and gold – not a combination I would usually use – and I think it is quite effective in this context.
The next prompt was “Reindeer Witch” and I decided to make her a bit more spooky. I used a photo reference for the reindeer skull but – true to form – I got the proportions all wrong. I think visually it still works well as a headpiece and overall I am pleased with how this drawing turned out.
The penultimate Yuletide Witch was a “Dried Fruit Witch” and I had actually been dreading that prompt because I had zero inspiration and no idea what I was going to draw when I put pencil to paper. Then I thought of all of those garlands of dried citrus fruit and how they could mirror chunky necklaces and that led me to think of cranberries as beads and that whole aesthetic of bold jewellery made me think of Endora from ‘Bewitched’ and gave me the vibe for the witch herself. And so the witch drawing I had most been dreading turned out to be the one I enjoyed drawing most.
The final witch was a “Wishing Star Witch” and I decided to challenge myself to create a sense of glowing – something I knew I would struggle with. I think I made some progress in that area with this illustration.
So those are my Yuletide Witches. I enjoyed working on them and having some quiet time at my art table every couple of days. They have photographed horribly because of the grey, dull light but the editing adjustments have them close enough to reality for sharing purposes.
A Pict in PA 
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