Anne & May

 
 
 
 

February 7, 2010

When Chanting Goes Wrong…

As you guys know, I recently became Episcopalian and I’d say that I’m charmed by about 99.98% of my newly adopted denomination’s traditions. The boys’ choir! The incense! The soaring cathedral! But I’m really struggling with the chanting thing.

No, not the concept of chanting, which I actually rather like; more like the practical application thereof. You see our old deacon, who I simply called The Very Rev., had a beautiful, melodic voice. And when he retired I found out that he got his start in the church family as…wait for it…wait for it…a choir boy! But since he retired, a whole host of good-hearted, very awesome, very intelligent people have been filling in and let’s just say…not all of them can carry a tune.

Today, the priest who married us presided over the choral eucharist–which is what they call “big church.” I’m probably this priest’s biggest fan. It’s why I chose him to marry us, but bless his God-fearin’ heart, the poor guy sounds like an out-of-tune instrument in the hands of a three year old with an attitude problem. I wish I could say that I don’t notice, that my heart and mind are dwelling on higher things, but when someone’s voice cracks on a note only achieved by wild dogs, you can’t help but cringe.

We miss you, Very Rev!

In other news, it’s happened yet again. Poof! It’s almost Lent. As you know, I typically use Lent not as a time to give something up but more as a time to draw closer to God with mental discipline. Hey! I’m an adopted Anglican! Cut me some slack! Plus, what could be more Anglican than marching to the beat of your own drum, right? (Oh, religious humor!)

And this morning, while I was wincing in my pew, listening to my poor friend belt out a wonky chant, I decided what I’m going to do for Lent. I’m going to read The Book of Common Prayer. And in a hilariously modern twist, I’m going to read it on my iPhone–not because I’m making some weird statement. I’ve just renounced paper books. My Christmas list this year said in big bold letters at the top: NO PAPER BOOKS PLEASE! I’m obsessed with the Kindle App on my iPhone and since I discovered it, I read and buy more books. It’s just so darn convenient!

common-prayer

Anyway, The Book of Common Prayer is a masterpiece first published in 1549 and my fellow Episcopalians speak of it only in hushed tones. I’m awfully late to the party on this one, but I’m looking forward to tackling it.

Are you celebrating Lent this year?

Filed under : Holy Moly, Pop Culture, Reading and Writing
By May Vanderbilt
At 9:42 pm
Comments : 6
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

February 3, 2010

Knit One

Are there any knitters out there?

I am, as a rule, not a crafty person. I tend to not have the patience required for intricate or elaborate projects. But as I’ve mentioned here before, I learned to knit to give me something to do with my hands while sitting around at my in-laws, and now I’ve extended that to while I watch TV. It’s good to have something productive to do while sitting on my butt, I think.

This Christmas, I finished the scarf I started LAST Christmas, and while it’s kind of a weird shape and just the very basic knit stitch, it’s warm and soft and I love it.

Anne Dayton blue scarf
This winter, my mother-in-law taught me to purl, so now I can knit and purl, and I made this red scarf for Wayne.

Anne Dayton's red scarf

[Originally, I went to a yarn store in Manhattan and spent $45 on this nice blue yarn because that was the cheapest kind in the store. I just assumed that’s how much yarn cost. Then I went to Meijer’s in Michigan and found this bright red yarn for $3 a skein, which mean that instead of the perfect shade of blue, Wayne’s scarf was obviously going to be bright red. I made this entire scarf for $6, which seems like the right price for a task designed entirely to help me learn patience.]

But now that I’ve mastered the basic stitches, I don’t really know what to do. The patterns I find online are all too hard. Remember, I’ve only ever made two scarves in my life– well, plus a few small pratice pieces that I like to tie to the cat– and I want to try something new, but I don’t know what the next step is. I’ve got this hilariously BRIGHT orange yarn

Anne Dayton's orange yarn

with which I plan to make a scarf for my younger brother, who refuses to wear scarves, but I don’t know where to go to learn how to do more (and my mother-in-law, sadly, is too far away to help me on this.)(Don’t worry Nick, you’ll get your own ugly scarf you don’t want soon.) Any suggestions? How do I learn to knit for real?

Filed under : Girl Stuff, It's a Family Affair
By annedayton
At 8:51 pm
Comments : 14
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

January 31, 2010

Recipe Swap!

I think it’s high time we indulged in yet another recipe swap on Anne & May. If you’re anything like me you’re a little over fed but time starved, so what I’m looking for here is easy and/or healthy recipes to add to my repertoire.

I’ll kick things off first! I’ll do a lunch and a dinner recipe for you.

The World’s Best Low-Cal Egg Salad Sandwich:


Leading up to my wedding, I invented a little something I like to call the Skinny Lady Sandwich and if you need to lose weight fast NOTHING works better. BUT I have completely burned out on them. Just the thought of scrambling Egg Beaters makes me a little nauseated, and so I went looking for a new low-cal lunch option.

I did a little research on the Weight Watchers site and learned that if you discarded a few of the yolks and swapped in low-fat yogurt for the mayo, egg salad is a very healthy lunch option. Next, I started tinkering with this recipe from Epicurious and I think I have found the perfect low-calorie egg salad. I make a batch every Sunday night and eat it all week on those new Sandwich Thins from Oroweat (only 100 calories). Not only it is easy and healthy, it’s very budget friendly and vegetarian too.

For egg salad

  • 6 large eggs (minus two yolks)
  • Dollop of low-fat yogurt
  • 2-3 green onion shoots (white and green parts)
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh tarragon, or to taste
  • Splash of white-wine or champagne vinegar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste
  • Dash of Dijon mustard

For sandwiches

  • Sandwich Thins from Oroweat
  • Arugula or crunchy green

Follow the Epicurious instructions for boiling the eggs, and be sure to peel them while they’re still warm. It makes the job MUCH easier. Discard two of the hard-boiled yolks to bring the fat content down. Chop the remaining eggs, egg whites, and veggie ingredients–then toss in a bowl. Next add the yogurt, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper to taste.

Pile a little egg salad on a Sandwich Thin, top with arugula, and off to work you go!

Todd English’s Fig-and-Prosciutto Flatbreads


This dinner recipe is from celebrity chef Todd English. My husband fell in love with this dish at English’s NYC restaurant Olives and asked me to make it for him. It isn’t really terrible for you but it’s also not super low-calorie either.

The first time I made it, I was looking for the perfect dinner party recipe. I wanted something that would impress my guests–but I also didn’t want to spend the whole night in the kitchen. This recipe was the perfect balance and was incredibly delicious. Plus, since you can make it ahead and it only bakes for 10 minutes, it’s perfect for parties.

Don’t like figs? ME NEITHER. The fig jam just adds a pleasant sweetness to the otherwise salty prosciutto and Gorgonzola and doesn’t really give the flatbread an overly figgy taste. I promise.

Follow all of the instructions listed here, but then make a few easy tweaks. Buy refrigerated pizza crust. Personally I don’t like those Pillsbury crusts. Instead, I go to Whole Foods and ask for two of their pizza dough balls, which they sell at the pizza station. I also like Trader Joe’s refrigerated pizza crust.

Roll the dough out on your counter with a good amount of flour, then transfer it to your pan. DO NOT PUT THE TOPPINGS ON UNTIL YOU HAVE THE DOUGH ON THE PAN. This is a classic mistake and you will regret it when you try to transfer your dough, watching the toppings slide off.

Also, don’t put the prosciutto on until the last 5 minutes of baking. It gets too tough if it bakes the full 10 minutes. Voila!

Do you have any recipes that you can share? My repertoire needs expanding! Bonus points for easy/healthy/fancy-ish dishes.

Filed under : Girl Stuff, It's a Family Affair, Reading and Writing
By May Vanderbilt
At 5:07 pm
Comments : 10
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

January 29, 2010

Best Video Ever

This video is pretty much the coolest thing ever.

Thanks so much to Tatie, Ashley, Helen, and Jackee for their tribute to The Miracle Girls!

Filed under : Reading and Writing
By annedayton
At 11:02 am
Comments : 6
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

January 28, 2010

Fashion Crisis 2.0: February

I have a party coming up for work in a week or so, and it’s kind of a big party. This is immensely exciting, and totally scary. Why? Well, I’m not the most outgoing person, and working the room isn’t my thing (see May’s post that). But the part I’m most dreading is actually the whole What to Wear debacle.

I have tons of cute dresses. I have one dress I particularly love—it’s short and pink and vintage and very Jackie O, and it’s got long sleeves which kind of makes up for the fact that it’s technically too short to wear to a work event. Oh, and I bought it at a garage sale for $1, which is my favorite part. So what’s the problem?

February.

February makes my life hard. For one thing, it’s cold, which makes a short dress tricky anyway. But beyond the whole freezing my butt off thing, you cannot wear a short dress in New York in February without tights. So tights there will have to be. And black tights look ridiculous with a short pink dress. Which means the pink dress is out. Obviously, right?

Or… is it? I don’t know. If this were California, I’d just throw on jeans and call it a day, but New York is different. Can I skip the tights and just be cold for the two minutes I’m outside? Will I LOOK like I’m cold even if I’m not and therefore look stupid?

The back-up dress is black and cute, but sleeveless, and I don’t know how I feel about sleeveless while having dinner with the CEO.

And then there’s the whole shoes thing. Here’s me explaining to my husband why I have to buy a new pair of shoes for the party:

Me: Are the heels on these shoes too high? Do they make me look like a streetwalker?
W: They make you look like you’re going to fall over.
Me: I can’t find any others I like better, though.
W: You already have dressy black high heels. Just wear those.
Me: But those are open-toed dressy black high heels. With tights, you have to wear closed-toed shoes.
W: Wear your boots.
Me: This is not a boots party.
W: Wear your flats.
Me: Not dressy enough.
W: Whatever.

So, any fashion advise you all have is appreciated. I know, just six months ago you gave me help for a wedding, so consider this Fashion Crisis 2.0: February Edition.

Filed under : Girl Stuff
By annedayton
At 12:48 pm
Comments : 10
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

January 24, 2010

Learning to Accept Death

planeAs you know, my New Year’s resolution was to conquer my fear of flying. You guys suggested some really awesome bible verses I could repeat to myself while in the air and I finally got a chance to try this strategy out.

And though I totally loved the words I had chosen, they were difficult to remember while my plane was bumping its way through the stratosphere and visions of a water landing went soaring through my brain. In a panic, I whipped up a makeshift mantra and it really did the trick:

If it’s my time to die, it’s my time to die and I will go and be with my father in heaven.

Short and sweet–and completely effective for some reason. But it wasn’t until later, when my toes were safely back on the ground and I had a little space from the incident that I realized why this mantra worked for me.

Flying is not really the root fear. What I really fear is dying.

Sure, sure. We all fear death on some level, but I’m the kind of person who panics when she comes down with anything that isn’t easily identified as a cold or the flu. I’m always sure this is going to be it for me, that I have contracted some horrible disease without a name and I’ll be dead within the hour.

I don’t think I was always this way. In fact, in my twenties I seem to remember thinking I was SLIGHTLY invincible. Death? Pshaw! That was for old people, which I was clearly not! But then you hit 30 and people you know, people you love to the moon and back do die, sometimes very suddenly and often very unfairly. And you look around and think, I can die. It absolutely can happen. Tomorrow. Or the next day. A week from yesterday. And if not then, someday. I will die someday. It’s a fact.

I’ve always admired those people who say, “Oh, I don’t really worry about dying. If it happens, oh well.” And I know as a Christian I am supposed to feel comforted by the promise of life everlasting but still I can’t shake my fears entirely.

So now, I’m expanding my New Year’s resolution far beyond my fear of flying. This year, as dark as it may sound, I am going to try to make peace with death.

I know death can and will happen for me someday. I know I will have no control over it (that’s the scariest part I think). I just have to live my life and trust that there’s so much more beyond here, and today, and bagels, and babies, and chocolate, and sunny afternoons.

Have you already made peace with this? I don’t know if this is a normal thing for a 30-something to grapple with or if you’re supposed to do it in your golden years, but whatever, I guess. I don’t want to be beholden to this fear any longer.

Filed under : Holy Moly
By May Vanderbilt
At 10:24 pm
Comments : 11
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

January 20, 2010

Hello, You Missed the Point

On Friday, I mentioned that I was heading to a monastery for the weekend to sit and think and contemplate God and stuff. And, well, I did. And it was ok.

The place was this nice building right along the Hudson River, which at this time of year was partly frozen and very pretty. Points for that.

Hudson River in January

In my dreams, I would live the kind of life where I can sit and live on a very strict schedule and pray all the time. But in reality, that’s not my life, so being thrown into it all of a sudden kind of felt like getting a case of whiplash. It was hard to adjust, and a weekend is not really enough time.

Plus, there were a few obstacles to my quiet contemplation.

For one thing, when we signed up, the monastery “forgot” to mention that there would be no talking allowed for the entire weekend. Usually, the monks and guests observe silence from 9pm-9am. This weekend, it was 24/7. That seems like the kind of thing you would mention to a group registering for the weekend looking for fellowship, but apparently not. So anyway. I’m not a naturally outgoing person, and I sort of appreciate the quiet, but not being able to speak to the people I came with, including my husband, was a little ridiculous (we talked in our room). And it also prevented us from asking the monks (who were, but the way, not observing silence) HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU END UP HERE? Which is what I really wanted to know, along with WHAT’S THE NOT TALKING THING ALL ABOUT? And WHAT DO YOU WEAR UNDER YOUR ROBES?

The food was delicious—a rarity among Christian retreat centers, in my experience. In general, Christian event + vegetarian diet=watch out. This was the opposite. It was prepared by a chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America, and it was good and healthy. There just wasn’t enough of it. I didn’t expect four-course meals, but I do expect to not leave lunch hungry. I suppose maybe they see not over-eating as a discipline, but I saw it as OMG why didn’t I bring snacks? I suppose in the end it wasn’t a terrible thing—I probably lost a couple pounds over the weekend. I have an event coming up in February that I need to fit into a nice dress for, so I suppose I should be thanking them. But still.

There was no hot water. This wasn’t intended as a sort of monkly-self-flagellation thing. The hot water actually just didn’t work. They promised a plumber would come, but for most of the weekend, everything that came out of the tap was ice-cold. In New York. In January. Awesome.

Which wouldn’t have been a big deal except that my room was not properly heated. When Wayne went down to ask about it, they told us to just be patient, but alas, patience did not make the room warm. I eventually just stole a space heater because I couldn’t take it anymore.

So, ok. I know at this point I look like a big whiny whiner. Especially considering everything that’s going on in the world, whining about being hungry and cold seems kind of ridiculous. There are people literally dying for healthy food. I get that. I already feel like a jerk. But my point is that overall, I didn’t love the experience. I was pretty much ready to come home (and, you know, talk). Some of the people in my group loved it and can’t wait to go back. Enh. I probably won’t seek it out. I think this probably means there’s something wrong with me spiritually, but apparently a monastery is not the place to fix that for me.

The best part of the weekend was this, sold to me by a monk at the monastery’s gift shop, which is just all kinds of wrong.

Holy Water

Filed under : Holy Moly
By annedayton
At 4:55 pm
Comments : 17
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

January 18, 2010

The Book of Jane: The Ultimate 100 Chicklit Collection

Last night at dinner, my sister in law said, “By the way! Huge congrats on making that chicklit list. You were right there with Bridget Jones’s Diary and Shopaholic.”

Me: (Blink, blink.)

Her: “That chicklit list! I thought you sent it to me. Wait…maybe it came from Amazon? Our cousin? Mom?”

Me (finally remembering to talk): “We made some kind of best of chicklit list?”

Some rapid Googling ensued and SURE ENOUGH. Apparently The Book of Jane made Chicklit Club’s Ultimate 100 Chicklit Collection. I mean, sure, we’re sliding in at #92 but I’ll take it. Plus, we are the only Christian chicklit to make the list so I think that’s pretty solid.  (Well, I think we’re the only Christian chicklit. Anne may have to confirm that.)

So thank you, Chicklit Club. In honor of the Golden Globes, I’d like to thank all the little people, and my dog, and Anne, and our agent, and everyone who ever bought a copy of The Book of Jane. You’re beautiful! You inspire me! Huck, Cumulus, Pineapple, Zorba–go to bed!

(See what I did there? I made up fake Hollywood kids’ names?)

In other book related news (since we’re already going down a very self-promotional path here), we finally have a cover for the last Miracle Girls book, Love Will Keep Us Together. And it’s gorgeous! Check it!

This time it’s Riley’s turn to tell the story and I promise you things don’t wrap up exactly like you might think. There are twists! And turns! And Riley’s got some growing up to do. Life, as she will come to find out, is never handed to you on a nice golden platter.

Filed under : Girl Stuff, Reading and Writing
By May Vanderbilt
At 3:31 pm
Comments : 9
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

January 15, 2010

On a Monastery

This weekend I’m headed to a monastery to hang out with monks. A fellowship group I’m in is all going together to hang out and pray and enjoy the quiet and solitude.

Frankly, I’m scared.

Not about the monks, although they might be kind of scary too. It’s more the idea of being completely cut off from everything and having to focus on nothing but God. On the one hand, it sounds delightful.

On the other hand… I never get to do that. I’m not sure I know how to do that. I don’t know what I’ll do without the Internet (I have my iPhone for emergencies). I’m not at all sure I’m on board with the “great silence” they observe every night, which means we can’t talk from 9 pm to 9 am. I’m kind of dreading the whole thing.

Which probably means it’s exactly where I need to be.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Monks, here I come.

Filed under : Holy Moly
By annedayton
At 1:17 pm
Comments : 5
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

January 12, 2010

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Chihuahua

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT ANNE AND WAYNE GAVE US AS A WEDDING PRESENT. Oh, what’s that you say? Stop screaming at you?

Okay, I’ll try to take a deep breath or two but this is exciting! For the reals!! Are you sitting down? Well, could you? Because this ain’t no toaster from the wedding registry. No sirree. Wayne, as we have mentioned before, is an artist. Specifically he paints gorgeous images in oil on canvas–that kind of artist. Not like, the kind that smears himself in silver paint and flops around on a stage acting out the incredible malaise of humanity. A real artist.

Behold! A portrait of my favorite creature in the world.

Here’s the real life version. My husband and I agree, Wayne really captured Buster’s personality, his essence, if you will. I believe the Mr. said, “The portrait really shows his wisdom.”

Here’s a tip from me to you–invite Anne and Wayne to your wedding. Not only are they super nice folks, they give AWESOME presents.

Filed under : Girl Stuff, It's a Family Affair, Reading and Writing
By May Vanderbilt
At 10:49 pm
Comments : 7
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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