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Archive for September, 2011

Now what the heck do we do with all these apples?!

Posted in Family, Photography, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 25, 2011 | 12 Comments »

Where I come from (where Mexico borders Texas), there are two seasons: Summer, and Christmas.  The former consists of 10 months of dry temperatures of over 100° and lots of gray dead grass.  The latter consists of 70-100° temperatures and about 2 months of grass that’s actually alive.  Now that I live in New England, I’m being introduced to this strange season called “Fall,” where eventually the foliage will neither be gray nor green—weird!  To fit in, Jeffrey and I decided to embrace one of New England’s classic fall traditions: Apple Picking!

We had no idea what we were doing, so we paid attention to what all the 6-year-olds around us were doing… and copied them.  And we followed the “Apple picking that way” signs.

What I did know how to do was how to dress for the chilly 70° Christmas—I mean, fall weather: mustard yellow shirt, brown vest, and my conquistador boots from Italy.  Ok,  I had no idea what I was doing with my clothes either.

Apparently, step #1 to apple picking is finding a ladder and reclining it against a tree that has not already been selected by fellow apple-pickers, like so…

Then you climb up (preferably at a slower and more careful pace than the 6-year-olds around you are doing), and start picking!

First apple of the day!  It had a funny apple name we’d never heard of before—like Golden Supreme, or something.

There were big apples, little apples, red apples, green apples…

And pears!  This apple orchard had some random pear trees too!  We grabbed a few of those as well.

They were not nearly as cute-looking though, so we focused on the apples.  Jeffrey, annoyed as he was with all the picture-taking, was still a good husband and would polish the apples with his sleeve for me while I set up my shots.

SEE THE DIFFERENCE?  HOLY CRAP THAT’S RED!

By the way, we were the only apple-pickers carrying around a full-size camera tripod and taking pictures with a remote control…

“Act natural!”

“What, like I’m eating an apple? This is stupid.”

“EAT IT!”

—SNAP!—

It’s true.  He spends most of his time around me in an embarrassed state of existence.

Two hours later, our 10-pound bag was filled with 25 apples.  And we have no idea what to do with them.

We don’t even eat apples.

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DIY: Sweet tangle-free necklace holder!

Posted in DIY, tagged , , , , on September 18, 2011 | 4 Comments »

Several months ago I convinced my mother-in-law that her new furniture needed some cool-looking knobs from Anthropologie (not exactly, but similar to these).  $84 later, her new furniture was really awesome-looking.  You’re welcome.

She asked if I wanted the old knobs or if she should throw them away.  THROW THEM AWAY?!?!  Why, of course I took them.  There’s always SOMETHING I can end up using random stuff like that for.  Well, inspired by this and this project by Emily (from the blog “Cupcakes and Cashmere”), I decided to combine the two into a handy, tangle-free necklace holder.

So this is what I started with…

Before: Six plain ol' black knobs

 

You will need (click to see pictures of each item):

  1. Several furniture knobs of your choosing (if you can afford it, I highly recommend getting sweet ones from Anthropologie)
  2. A plain unfinished piece of wood in the shape of your choice (from any hobby/craft store): ~$3
  3. Sandpaper
  4. Paint supplies: wood paint in the color of your choice, a brush, and a paint tray; I used my left-over paint from this project
  5. Steel wire
  6. Wire cutter
  7. Ruler
  8. Pencil
  9. Drill
  10. Necklaces (or trust me, you’ll feel stupid at the end of this)

Easy breezy steps:

  1. Play around with the knobs and roughly decide where you want to place them
  2. If you lean more towards the perfectionist side, use a ruler to measure out exactly where you want these placed, and mark the spots with a pencil
  3.  Also, mark 2 spots through which to feed the wire which you will ultimately use to hang this whole contraption on the wall; I decided to place the two wire holes a square inch from each superior corner of my piece of wood, like so…
  4. Time to drill the holes; start by choosing a drill bit that matches the diameter of the screws on your knobs
  5. Next, drill a practice hole on a scrap piece of wood to make sure you are drilling holes the right size (you don’t want your knobs to end up looking wobbly!)
  6. Drill all the holes!  (Note: You will probably want to use a smaller diameter drill bit for the 2 wire holes.)
  7. Your piece of wood will have lots of little splinters after you drill the holes, so sand it down carefully!
  8. Now you can paint it; I wanted it to look like an old piece of driftwood, so purposely did a sloppy paint job…
  9. Place the knobs through the holes
  10. Cut a long piece of wire with the wire cutter
  11. Feed the wire through the 2 holes on top, twisting the excess wire around itself (I spray-painted my wire black so it would match the knobs)
  12. Go untangle all your long necklaces!  You’re done!

 

And the big reveal………………………..

After: Sweet tangle-free necklace holder!


What do you think?!?!!!!  It’s the perfect addition to my closet.  And for once, my long necklaces hang in peace.

For specific questions, message me and I’ll do my best to offer helpful tips.  If you’d like emails about my new posts, type in your email in the “Subscribe” section on the right-hand sidebar.  And follow me on Twitter @doctorontheside.  Thanks for reading and have a great week!

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High five friday

Posted in High Five Friday, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 16, 2011 | 10 Comments »

❶ freshly picked flowers from a walk around the neighborhood with Jeffrey ❶

With explaining to drunk 15-year-olds that having sex 2 weeks ago counts as “being sexually active,” and that I’m about to call their grandma to come pick them up from the emergency room, residency comes with a wonderful little treat: vacation!  I spent the past 2 weeks on vacation, and packed so much stuff into my 14 little days that it was really difficult to pick just five things for this week’s high five friday.  Just so you get an idea, I started out by flying to my cousin’s wedding in Mexico, hanging out with all my family, and eating delicious Mexican food; spending the weekend pretending to be a tourist in Boston with Jeffrey’s brother; and further taking a break from reality with Jeffrey and Wolfgang in a small Maine fishing town (pics coming soon!).  That said, I had to expand it to my top eight!

❷ sleepover + gossip + laughter + my best friend since I was 6 years old ❷

❸ a cup of saltwater taffy from Kennebunkport, Maine ❸

❹ raspa de tamarindo con chile with my dad (the Mexican version of the sno-cone) ❹

❺ awesome cake-topper = my cousin’s wedding = crazy night with my cousins ❺

❻ hanging out with my turtle, MacGyver ❻

❼ sifting through old family recipes with my grandma ❼

❽ Jeffrey cooking dinner while I walk around the house taking pictures, uploading them to my computer, and putting together “high five friday” (aka: “winning the husband lottery”) ❽

(He made peppercorn pork tenderloin, the Pioneer Woman’s crash hot potatoes, and caprese salad.  Chi-CHING!)

…¡Y QUE VIVA MEXICO!

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The weekend tourist approach (to Boston)

Posted in Photography, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 11, 2011 | 10 Comments »

Jeffrey’s brother, Tyler, flew in to visit us for the weekend. So we decided to accept the excuse to experience The City in a 100% tourist fashion (even though at the end of the day we came home to a cozy 1930′s abode, instead of a generic hotel room). In discussing the issue with my cousin, Claudia, over dinner earlier tonight, we agreed that it is TOO easy to take a cool city for granted when you actually live in it… and that visitors are the BEST opportunity to go out and enjoy it! So as soon as Tyler arrived, I packed up the camera and we headed out to explore Boston. So let me show you just a few of the reasons why, in a short 3 months, I have already fallen head-over-heels in love with this place. We started our tourist odyssey with a good ol’ Duckboat Tour!

These things are amphibious, so half the tour was on land, and half on water! Yes, these truck/boat things float. Awesoooooome…….

We drove past Boston’s major landmarks, and ended with a sweet float along the Charles River. The best part is that the tour gave us ideas for places to visit on foot the rest of the day…

Such as an old Chocolate Shoppe!

Any chocolates you bought came in a unique, hand-painted chocolate box!

chocolate boxes

We also visited Acorn Street on Beacon Hill, the “most photographed street in New England.” It was tiny and adorable and smelled of fresh flowers and sounded of fresh piano music. (Really.)

Acorn St.

50% of the time, the boys smiled for my photographs. The other 50% of the time…

…they reminded me of how handsome a family I married in to.

I was especially in heaven at the Boston Public Gardens.

Because I totally love animals. Other reasons why I’ve fallen in love with Boston:

sweet vintage clothing stores...

...full of vintage shoes

stores where EVERYTHING they sell is orange

and H&M. need I say more?

We ended the day with delicious pizza from the North End (Boston’s “little Italy”), and cannoli from Mike’s Pastry (BEST ITALIAN DESSERT EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Mike's Pastry = kinda popular

We enjoyed our cannoli at a park overlooking the Boston skyline before heading home for a night of Eddie Izzard and margaritas.

Day #2 with Tyler was equally awesome. Ty’s friend from Rhode Island came in to visit, and we enjoyed the Boston Arts Festival at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park all day together.

picnic in front of the sea

art vendors galore

We also met Liz, from Made In Lowell!  Her stuff is everything I love about crafts: neat, colorful, pleasing to the eye…

Made In Lowell, as seen on Martha Stewart!!!

ha... ha.

percussion concert

and YAY for running into friends from the hospital!!! (who, coincidentally, are ALSO "Alexandra and Geoff"... WEIRD!!!

We finished up with a quick walk-through of Harvard, and dinner at Mr. Bartley’s hamburgers (as seen on “The Social Network”).

When you have 50 first cousins (as I do), you have twice as many second cousins and thrice as many third cousins. Therefore, it’s not difficult to fly into any random place in the world and run into family. That said, nothing made me happier than meeting up with my cousin Clau, who happens to be getting her masters at Harvard, for dinner.

And at the end of a crazy touristy weekend, we rode the “T” back home and avoided all traffic.

And THAT is why you should move to Boston.

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Picture story: Mexican Spanish under Rome

Posted in Picture Stories, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2011 | 4 Comments »

Mexican Spanish under Rome

I jumped into the packed subway in Rome just as its doors were closing.  “La siguiente parada es la de nosotros,” I heard behind me.  Recognizing Mexican Spanish, I swirled around and excitedly exclaimed to the woman standing there: “Usted es de Mexico… ¡Yo tambien!”

(You’re from Mexico… So am I!)

Pleasantly surprised, she immediately responded:

“¡Si!  Llevo 2 años viviendo en Europa… ¡Extraño a los Mexicanos!”

           Yes!  I’ve been living in Europe for 2 years… I really miss Mexicans!

“Estoy en Italia estudiando historia del arte este semestre con un grupo de Texas A&M.”

          I’m in Italy studying art history this semester with a group from Texas A&M.

“¡Mi esposo tambien graduo de Texas A&M!  Mira, John!  Una Mexicana estudiando en Texas A&M!”

          My husband graduated from Texas A&M too!  Look, John!  A Mexican who goes to Texas A&M!

John and I automatically directed our line of vision to each others right ring finger, and were pleased to find matching Aggie rings.  At this, the subway train stopped, and a throng of tourists and Italian fashionistas squeezed in as my new “friend” and her husband, John, squeezed out.  “My name is Beatriz,” she yelled as she held out a wrinkled piece of paper with her phone number.  “We live in Vienna.  Call me if you visit Austria while you’re here!”  As the train doors closed between us, I yelled back: “¡Me llamo Alexandra!”

Four months later, my best friend and I found ourselves on a train from Munich to Vienna—with nothing each but a backpack stuffed with 5 pairs of underwear, a tiny blanket to share on train rides, a camera, an iPod, the wrinkled piece of paper Beatriz had reached out over the crowd and given me, and my rented European cell phone.  In Mexican Spanish…

“Señora Beatriz?  This is Alexandra.  We met for a minute and a half, under Rome.  Remember me?”

For the first time since we’d started our backpacking extravaganza 3 weeks earlier, for 3 whole days Cullen and I enjoyed the luxury of separate bedrooms (as opposed to a small hostel room with 5 bunk beds and 8 other smelly, traveling strangers), filtered water (instead of tap water in a Nalgene bottle from public bathroom sinks), free toilets (instead of crawling under public bathroom doors to avoid paying 1.50 euro to pee), and home-cooked meals (as opposed to splitting 4 euro kabob sandwiches from a street cart for dinner.  Beatriz and John dropped us off at the subway stop each morning, and picked us up at the end of each Mozart-and-Freud-filled day to eat, sleep and be merry in their home.  The night before we left for Prague, host and hostess threw us a carne asada and beer going-away dinner party.

I guess they could’ve technically been mass murderers.  But they weren’t.

So on we went to our next adventure…

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High five friday: travelling with an iPad project/edition

Posted in High Five Friday, tagged , , , , on September 2, 2011 | 2 Comments »

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❶ new passport ready for action ❶

My cousin gets married in Monterrey, Mexico today, so I was ecstatic when my program was able to give me my requested time off so I could join the rest of the fam in celebrating!!! Besides, I love Mexico, will always love Mexico, and no matter what happens, what’s in the news, or how many people are shocked about it, I will always jump on the opportunity to return home. Unfortunately, Jeffrey was unable to get time off from his hospital, so he’s missing out on hanging out with my loud family, and enjoying the tastiest food the world has to offer. (Sorry USA… Hamburgers and hotdogs just don’t cut it sometimes!)

I recently purchased something that has, in a short 2 weeks, revolutionized my life: an iPad. I will tell you why you need to get off the couch and go buy one ASAP in a later post. For now, humor me and enjoy my attempt to write a post 100% from the comfort of my awesome new toy ::AHEM!:: study tool. All pics taken, and all text written on the iPad via a free WordPress app I downloaded 2 seconds ago.

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❷ best invention EVER: jewelry travel-pouch, hand sewn in the best color on earth by Nana’s crafty friend! ❷

20110902-073543.jpg

❸ easy breasy travel reading, courtesy of iBooks… it’s so much easier to pack an iPad than a huge heavy book! ❸

(Sorry, people. I couldn’t figure out how to flip the book picture horizontally!)

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❹ mmmmmmm! Tortass de pan arabe, accompanied by Joya de manzana, of course! ❹

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❺ dried mango covered in chile (chili powder!) ❺

I love home.

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