Sunday afternoon, we went with our friend, Michelle, to the White House and toured the grounds/gardens. Here are some of the pics...(and no, you weren't supposed to go on the grass).
Oct 19, 2009
Oct 16, 2009
Oct 13, 2009
Home sweet home
We have been in our new house for a couple of weeks now, and we are loving it. The major and best feeling I have isn’t so much a sense of ownership – knowing that the place is ours – but it’s a feeling of space and comfort, being able to spread out and feel truly at home. It’s a feeling of being settled and being able to use a space fully without feeling cramped or that I’m there only temporarily. I love having a lot of space now, room to spread out, having many rooms, each with its own purpose, as well as having all of my belongings together, every little comforting thing that I have and want, all together in one place (especially all of my favorite cooking “toys”).
I have yet to really spend a full weekend in the house. We did start officially living in the house two weekends ago, the second weekend that Sarah’s mother was visiting to help us make the move. But things were chaos inside with boxes coming from so many different places, and we were so busy the whole weekend moving in. Last weekend I went to Seattle to see my family again. This past weekend I was around nearly the whole time, until I left late Sunday afternoon for a business trip to Orlando.
But we are settling in nicely, and we are getting boxes unpacked and finding places for things. One thing that we are having to do is buy and install towel racks in the bathrooms (all 3 ½ of them) and shelving in most of the closets. When we get these necessities taken care of, then we will turn to more cosmetic improvements, such as painting. We are fortunate that the house, built in 1911, has been totally renovated inside and all walls are gleaming white, so the entire house is a blank canvas waiting for our personal touches. We love color, so we will have a lot of fun with our many rooms and walls. Then we can hang our pictures and display the many items we’ve collected on our travels around the world – our cuckoo clock from the Black Forest, my large ebony mask from Malawi, and our photos of the Matterhorn, the Old City of Jerusalem, the Pyramids at Giza, and the Great Wall of China, among many other souvenirs.
One of the greatest pleasures for me on weekends is having the time to cook (i.e., being able to take my time when cooking, unlike on weeknights when we just try to cook dinner as quickly as possible after work). Our house has a large kitchen, so it’s great to have space to cook in. However, we went out on Friday night and tried a pizza place in Columbia Heights, the lively neighborhood just south of ours, where there are lots of stores and shops and restaurants. But Saturday night we made dinner at home, and I was able to resume making a coffee cake for Sunday morning breakfast. With my stuff that was stored in my parents’ basement in the Seattle suburbs (that came in a moving van two weeks ago) was a new Kitchen Aid mixer, and I’m loving it. I’m also thrilled to have my automatic bread machine again. I can start baking a different kind of bread each week for the lunches I take to work. And I can cook as much as I want and have the dishwasher clean everything – I’m still thrilled to have a dishwasher, which my family did not have when I was growing up. We’ve got all new appliances in the kitchen, so they work well (although we’re still trying to figure out the personality of the oven – how it bakes best).
While outside cutting the lawn on Saturday, a new chore for us with a real, single-family home, a neighbor from a few doors down stopped and introduced himself. His name is Banks B. Banks. Seriously. He promptly pulled out one of his business cards and handed it to me, explaining that he does ironwork.
Banks B. Banks
“The Iron Man”
his card reads. I wonder if his middle name is also Banks. If so, I wonder why he didn’t put Banks Banks Banks on his business card. He told me, “Welcome to the neighborhood.” I should have responded with, “Thanks, Banks!”
We’ve met a few other neighbors over the past couple weeks, but none of them seem to have such colorful names (or nicknames).
So, we are settling in and doing quite well with our new digs. We hope you will come soon to visit us (okay, if you’d prefer to wait until spring when the weather will be nice again).
I have yet to really spend a full weekend in the house. We did start officially living in the house two weekends ago, the second weekend that Sarah’s mother was visiting to help us make the move. But things were chaos inside with boxes coming from so many different places, and we were so busy the whole weekend moving in. Last weekend I went to Seattle to see my family again. This past weekend I was around nearly the whole time, until I left late Sunday afternoon for a business trip to Orlando.
But we are settling in nicely, and we are getting boxes unpacked and finding places for things. One thing that we are having to do is buy and install towel racks in the bathrooms (all 3 ½ of them) and shelving in most of the closets. When we get these necessities taken care of, then we will turn to more cosmetic improvements, such as painting. We are fortunate that the house, built in 1911, has been totally renovated inside and all walls are gleaming white, so the entire house is a blank canvas waiting for our personal touches. We love color, so we will have a lot of fun with our many rooms and walls. Then we can hang our pictures and display the many items we’ve collected on our travels around the world – our cuckoo clock from the Black Forest, my large ebony mask from Malawi, and our photos of the Matterhorn, the Old City of Jerusalem, the Pyramids at Giza, and the Great Wall of China, among many other souvenirs.
One of the greatest pleasures for me on weekends is having the time to cook (i.e., being able to take my time when cooking, unlike on weeknights when we just try to cook dinner as quickly as possible after work). Our house has a large kitchen, so it’s great to have space to cook in. However, we went out on Friday night and tried a pizza place in Columbia Heights, the lively neighborhood just south of ours, where there are lots of stores and shops and restaurants. But Saturday night we made dinner at home, and I was able to resume making a coffee cake for Sunday morning breakfast. With my stuff that was stored in my parents’ basement in the Seattle suburbs (that came in a moving van two weeks ago) was a new Kitchen Aid mixer, and I’m loving it. I’m also thrilled to have my automatic bread machine again. I can start baking a different kind of bread each week for the lunches I take to work. And I can cook as much as I want and have the dishwasher clean everything – I’m still thrilled to have a dishwasher, which my family did not have when I was growing up. We’ve got all new appliances in the kitchen, so they work well (although we’re still trying to figure out the personality of the oven – how it bakes best).
While outside cutting the lawn on Saturday, a new chore for us with a real, single-family home, a neighbor from a few doors down stopped and introduced himself. His name is Banks B. Banks. Seriously. He promptly pulled out one of his business cards and handed it to me, explaining that he does ironwork.
Banks B. Banks
“The Iron Man”
his card reads. I wonder if his middle name is also Banks. If so, I wonder why he didn’t put Banks Banks Banks on his business card. He told me, “Welcome to the neighborhood.” I should have responded with, “Thanks, Banks!”
We’ve met a few other neighbors over the past couple weeks, but none of them seem to have such colorful names (or nicknames).
So, we are settling in and doing quite well with our new digs. We hope you will come soon to visit us (okay, if you’d prefer to wait until spring when the weather will be nice again).
Oct 6, 2009
Portion of Ingrid Hovick’s Ashes Scattered in her Former Home of Washington, D.C.
This is an addendum to an earlier post on this blog - A Tribute to a Great (in More Ways Than One) Aunt.
At the time of her death, Ingrid was living in Edmonds, Wash., where she had moved four years earlier from her longtime home of Washington, D.C. Ingrid had lived in Washington, D.C., for most of her life, for many decades, from the presidential administrations of FDR to George W. Bush, a remarkable span of history in the 20th century.
Following her death, Ingrid’s body was cremated, and her ashes were being kept in Seattle. But because she had spent most of her life in Washington, D.C., I, her great-nephew, and my wife, Sarah, had volunteered to take a portion of her ashes back to the city, where we now live, so part of Ingrid, at least, could be laid to rest in the city she loved so much.
On the night of Saturday, September 26, 2009, Sarah, our daughter Alexandria, Sarah’s mother Paula, who was in town visiting that week, and I gathered to scatter a small portion of Ingrid’s cremated remains on the National Mall. We recited a short liturgy from the service of burial/scattering of ashes from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s worship book, which included two Scripture readings – Psalm 23 (the beautiful language from the King James translation of the Bible) and Mark 7:24-37, the story that includes the account of Jesus healing the deaf man. I had chosen this Gospel reading as a reminder of how Jesus heals us and because of its relevance to Ingrid’s longtime hearing impediment.
The spot I chose for the scattering of Ingrid’s ashes was near the corner of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, just down the grand steps from the Lincoln Memorial, in view of that majestic monument as well as in view of the Washington Monument and near the Vietnam War Memorial, the World War II Memorial and other well-known sites of the capital. These are icons of the city and the nation, and I felt it was appropriate that part of Ingrid came to rest near places that exemplify the greatness of the city that Ingrid so dearly loved. Although it was raining steadily during the short service we held, the backdrop of the monuments lit up at night provided a dramatic backdrop to the occasion.
I later learned that Ingrid enjoyed taking first-time visitors to the city to the Lincoln Memorial at night on the first night of their visit. So my choice of location for scattering her ashes was appropriate but entirely arbitrary outside the reasoning I give above.
Also, my brother Andy had told me about a Chinese tradition in which a deceased person’s hearse brings the body by his/her former houses for one final visit. In a modification of this tradition, on our way to the Mall to scatter Ingrid’s ashes, we drove by her final two homes – two large apartment buildings on Connecticut Ave. And on our way back home, we drove by one of her earlier homes, the Chastleton apartment building on 16th St. NW, several blocks directly north of the White House.
Coincidentally, the day on which we scattered Ingrid’s ashes was the first day we officially began living in our new house, which we purchased in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was a day to mark endings – the coming to rest back in her beloved city for Ingrid – and a day of official beginnings – the establishment of a home for us in the same beloved city, a place I was choosing to live largely because of Ingrid.
As the service for the committing of ashes says:
In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to almighty God our sister Ingrid, and we commit her ashes to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
The Lord bless her and keep her.
The Lord’s face shine on her with grace and mercy.
The Lord look upon her with favor and give her peace.
Amen
Stephen Hovick Padre
September 2009
At the time of her death, Ingrid was living in Edmonds, Wash., where she had moved four years earlier from her longtime home of Washington, D.C. Ingrid had lived in Washington, D.C., for most of her life, for many decades, from the presidential administrations of FDR to George W. Bush, a remarkable span of history in the 20th century.
Following her death, Ingrid’s body was cremated, and her ashes were being kept in Seattle. But because she had spent most of her life in Washington, D.C., I, her great-nephew, and my wife, Sarah, had volunteered to take a portion of her ashes back to the city, where we now live, so part of Ingrid, at least, could be laid to rest in the city she loved so much.
On the night of Saturday, September 26, 2009, Sarah, our daughter Alexandria, Sarah’s mother Paula, who was in town visiting that week, and I gathered to scatter a small portion of Ingrid’s cremated remains on the National Mall. We recited a short liturgy from the service of burial/scattering of ashes from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s worship book, which included two Scripture readings – Psalm 23 (the beautiful language from the King James translation of the Bible) and Mark 7:24-37, the story that includes the account of Jesus healing the deaf man. I had chosen this Gospel reading as a reminder of how Jesus heals us and because of its relevance to Ingrid’s longtime hearing impediment.
The spot I chose for the scattering of Ingrid’s ashes was near the corner of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, just down the grand steps from the Lincoln Memorial, in view of that majestic monument as well as in view of the Washington Monument and near the Vietnam War Memorial, the World War II Memorial and other well-known sites of the capital. These are icons of the city and the nation, and I felt it was appropriate that part of Ingrid came to rest near places that exemplify the greatness of the city that Ingrid so dearly loved. Although it was raining steadily during the short service we held, the backdrop of the monuments lit up at night provided a dramatic backdrop to the occasion.
I later learned that Ingrid enjoyed taking first-time visitors to the city to the Lincoln Memorial at night on the first night of their visit. So my choice of location for scattering her ashes was appropriate but entirely arbitrary outside the reasoning I give above.
Also, my brother Andy had told me about a Chinese tradition in which a deceased person’s hearse brings the body by his/her former houses for one final visit. In a modification of this tradition, on our way to the Mall to scatter Ingrid’s ashes, we drove by her final two homes – two large apartment buildings on Connecticut Ave. And on our way back home, we drove by one of her earlier homes, the Chastleton apartment building on 16th St. NW, several blocks directly north of the White House.
Coincidentally, the day on which we scattered Ingrid’s ashes was the first day we officially began living in our new house, which we purchased in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was a day to mark endings – the coming to rest back in her beloved city for Ingrid – and a day of official beginnings – the establishment of a home for us in the same beloved city, a place I was choosing to live largely because of Ingrid.
As the service for the committing of ashes says:
In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to almighty God our sister Ingrid, and we commit her ashes to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
The Lord bless her and keep her.
The Lord’s face shine on her with grace and mercy.
The Lord look upon her with favor and give her peace.
Amen
Stephen Hovick Padre
September 2009
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