As of last week, John and I have lived in the Triangle of North Carolina for seven years. That is a long time!! I grew up in Connecticut, and I think if you had asked me as a child where I would live when I was an adult, my answer would have been somewhere in New England. But, here we are :)

To mark seven years, I thought it would be fun to share a few things I miss about New England, and a few things I love about North Carolina. First up, 12 of my favorite things about New England in general, and particularly the lovely corner of southeastern Connecticut I call(ed) home:

1. Living near the water. There’s a reason this one is first. Growing up, the ocean was 10 minutes from our house, and a backdrop to so many of my childhood memories. I think living near the water just makes everything better and more scenic — a picnic, an early morning or early evening walk, ice cream, a first job selling shaved ice (speaking from experience here), a bike ride… I really miss not having easy access to the ocean, the sound of crashing waves, and that wildly beautiful salt air smell.
2. Dels. The perfect accompaniment to a day at a Rhode Island beach!
3. Plush, soft grass. In New England, the cool, green grass just beckons you to sit on it — unlike Southern grass, which, if you’re able to keep it alive at all, is usually dry and scratchy. The smell of fresh cut grass is also my favorite smell in the world, so I like that it has to be cut more often up north!
4. Charming downtowns. Every coastal community in Connecticut is more charming than the next — from Stonington, to Mystic, to Noank, Madison, Chester, Deep River, and right on down the line. Quaint storefronts, flag-lined streets, stone seawalls, beach roses, general stores, geraniums overflowing their pots, picket fences… you know the look :)

5. Screen doors. I miss screen doors so much!! A neighborhood full of screen doors just seems friendly – it’s easier to see who’s home, and you can hear that lovely summer mingle of sounds (insects buzzing, kids laughing, lawn mowers mowing…) even if you’re inside. Unfortunately, screen doors are just not practical here in the land of AC and spring pollen!
6. Giant trees. Because the neighborhoods in New England are older, they generally avoided the fate of new neighborhoods down here — where every single tree gets razed to make way for building :( (I can rant about this for hours.) I LOVE New England’s huge old trees, tree-lined streets, and tree-shaded lawns so much.
7. Better ice cream shops. For starters, on balance, New England ice cream is just straight-up better than North Carolina ice cream. The shops tend to be in more scenic locations, too. Secondly, I have found that New England ice cream scoopers are uniformly more delightful than Southern scoopers. In New England, scooping ice cream is at the top of the teenage job pyramid — the best, brightest, most smiley and sparkling get the jobs. In the South, those kids go to work at Chick-fil-a :)
8. Stone walls. Few things warm my heart more than a centuries-old stone wall. My parents’ house and John’s parents’ house both have them in abundance, but that’s nothing particularly noteworthy — they’re everywhere! They run along the road, divide pastures, border hiking trails… and look adorable and stately while doing it.

9. Apple picking. It’s not fall for me without a visit to a pick-your-own apple orchard and a cup of cider and a cider donut at Clyde’s. There are orchards in North Carolina, but the best ones are a few hours away, in the mountains — as opposed to Connecticut, where there’s almost literally an orchard in John’s backyard! Delicious apples + crisp, cool fall air and blue skies = fall perfection.
10. New England architecture. Give me weathered shingles, classic colors, granite front stoops, and copper lanterns anytime! Of course, this house is my favorite example :)
11. Larger lots, woods, and open space. Growing up, my house sat on an acre of land, and our lot backed up to an overgrown farm. This is very common in Connecticut, and I adore it. I think having the freedom to roam through woods and streams is so important for kids, and I wish more of these types of neighborhoods existed in the Triangle.
12. Proximity to the Island. Finally, being just five hours from this pretty place would be a dream!!

This post might make you wonder why I don’t still live in New England — but I assure you, there are many things I love about North Carolina! They’ll be coming to a blog near you very soon :) In the meantime, I’d love to hear: if you’ve visited New England, what was your favorite part?

Hello, friends! May and June are always two of my busiest months of the year, and 2016 has been no exception. They are usually filled with some of my favorite things, though, so I can’t complain. However, as I commented to my Mom on the phone last week, pretty much all I’ve had time for this month are things I absolutely had to do, with little time for wants – and blogging falls into the latter. (The only reason I got June’s birth story up was because I had already written most of it a few months ago!) To jump back in here, I thought I’d share a little bit about what I’ve been up to.

June started school at the beginning of the month. It has been going really well so far! She always gives me a big smile when I drop her off and pick her up, and her teachers are smitten. We are so grateful for a smooth transition, and that we can afford care we feel so confident in!

John’s parents and Natalie and Joe and their daughter came to visit Mother’s Day weekend, the first time for June to meet Miss Maisie! Our two gals are only about four months apart, so it was a fun peek into what June might be up to by the end of the summer. We had brunch at Lucia in Durham and picked strawberries across the street from our neighborhood!

Week two was my company’s annual team retreat, so John and June accompanied me to The Carolina Inn for a few days. It took some extra effort to get her to school and back, but it was worth it to get in evening snuggles! I also scored some Lake Pajamas, which I was pretty pumped about. I’ve been wearing them around the house ever since; I feel pretty fancy walking around in matched jams.

My Mom arrived at the beginning of week three just in time to accompany June and me to The Greenbrier in West Virginia, a work trip for me. Have y’all even been?? I had done a bunch of research on it beforehand, but it still blew my mind – I think it’s the kind of place you can’t really wrap your head around until you experience it in person. The color and pattern are incredible! We laughed ourselves silly, and it was really fun to have June by my side while I did one of my favorite parts of my job. (Only possible because of my Mom – so thankful for her!!)

My Mom flew home the same day Marget, Seth, and Weston flew in! Two of John’s aunts also drove down for the weekend, and we had fun taking walks, cooking at home, exploring playgrounds, and riding the Pullen Park train. And reading bedtime stories in a tent, as you can see below.

We clocked our final two overnight guests last week, before another big work day for me. We were planning to finish out the month much like we did last year, with a weekend trip to Wilmington and Bald Head Island, but the rain scared us off. (Poor decision – the Triangle ended up getting more rain than the coast!) To console ourselves about the missed beach time, we ate almost every meal out this weekend, including an afternoon tea break at the Honeysuckle Tea House. Little muffin loved the open air seating!

And that’s that! As you can probably imagine, all of these adventures meant I didn’t make a ton of progress on my May goals… but that’s a story for tomorrow! :)

P.S. Another life lately post

At the end of the day yesterday, I turned to John and said, “that was the best birthday I’ve had in a while!” We didn’t do anything particularly fancy, as you’ll see, but over and over I was reminded of a current favorite Zac Brown song: “I got everything I need and nothing that I don’t.” Each text that rolled in from a loved one reminded me of the amazing people I have in my life and how lucky I am to have their love. I’m the type with a small group of close friends, and boy am I grateful for each one of them (and, of course, for my beautiful family).

We kicked off the weekend with dinner for eight (plus three littles) at our house on Friday. I made a favorite meal – beef ragu with papparadelle, salad, cheesy bread, pink lemonade, prosecco, and chocolate raspberry cake for dessert complete with homemade batter, filling, and frosting. It wasn’t exactly easy to pull off the preparations with June in tow – getting everything ready was pretty much all I did during the day on Thursday and Friday, aside from feeding her – but it was so worth it to have great friends sitting around our table. An extra special treat was having our Alabama friends Mattye and Woody in attendance, since they just so happened to be in North Carolina on the right weekend!!

I went with my favorite color on the table, and the Whole Foods fairies were smiling on me – they had two beautiful varieties of pink garden roses in stock last week! Aren’t they beautiful??

On Sunday, my actual birthday, John played with June all morning while I slept in. Then we picked up lunch from a favorite Mediterranean restaurant and ate it on the banks of a local lake, basking in the 65 degree sunshine. Next, at John’s suggestion, we loaded June into her stroller and walked a beautiful Raleigh neighborhood with picturesque houses – always one of my favorite activities, and this was a neighborhood we had never been to before. That man knows me well :) We finished the evening off with fruit smoothies, a bath for June, a new episode of The Walking Dead, and delicious leftovers from Friday.

In the past, I have unfortunately thwarted my own birthdays with unrealistic expectations. In this new season where I am trying (and, thankfully, mostly succeeding!) to let go of expectations entirely, a simple and extremely satisfying birthday was the happy byproduct. My wish for my 29th year is that I would continue to delight in the simple luxuries all around me, and to remember every day how very lucky I am – and I wish the same for you!

The first name I can remember wanting to bestow on my future daughter was Lemonade. This was probably around age four or five, maybe at the height of my driveway entrepreneurship.

The next name that came into favor was Scheherazade, in elementary school. Scheherazade was the name of my favorite horse at my aunt’s farm. She was a beautiful dapple gray, and I was in love with her, so obviously it made sense for my future child to share her name.

Later, I fixated on the name Ava. My aunt was pregnant, and if it was a girl, they were going to call her Ava, and I fell in love with that name alongside them. They ended up having a boy, and Ava ended up becoming massively popular, so it eventually lost its luster for me.

The next and final name I fell in love with was June, sometime in high school. And, well, here we are. There’s no grand story of why I love this name so much, or why it’s stuck with me for so long, but there are many smaller reasons:

I love that it’s sweet and feminine without being saccharine.

I love that it’s simple, everyone knows how to spell it, and everyone is familiar with it, but it’s not that common.

I love that it’s a little old-school without sounding too hipster-ish.

I love that it works for a little girl as well as a grown-up lady.

As an adopted Southerner, I love that it has a light Dixie flair, thanks to June Carter Cash — and that I now have my very own Johnny and June :)

I love that John, who loves summer more than anyone I’ve ever met, will always have a little piece of sunshine in his life.

And finally, I love that I’ve only known one other June, and that I’d be proud if our daughter were to share some of her characteristics. She was a fairly distant relative (the grandmother of my fourth cousins), but one I grew up seeing every summer. That June was strong, courageous, gracious, smart, a loving wife and mother, a woman of faith, a talented piano player, a beautiful singer, and a true Southerner. We didn’t name our June after her, but I’d be proud for our girl to take after her.

Which brings us to her middle name, which actually was chosen because of a relative – John’s mom. My sisters and I all have family surnames as our middle names, and though I hated this when I was younger, I now, of course, love the tradition and want to continue it. My mother-in-law’s maiden name is Chen. She was born in China, then, under pressure from the communist party, escaped to Taiwan with her family. She immigrated to America in her 20’s and went on to earn her Ph.D. Aside from honoring Mama Jean, a fantastic lady, John and I love that our June’s middle name will speak to the larger story of the hope, possibility, freedom, and opportunity that’s always been found in America. We want her to know the power of that story, the power of resilience and hard work, and that she has the ability to make her life all she wants it to be.

So far, it seems to fit :)