HELLO OCTOBER

 Another weekend has flown by and we have officially entered October.  To kick things off for the month, I headed uptown to have lunch with my boss.  We put the luncheon on our calendars a few weeks ago so we could discuss my return to work.  I dropped Annabelle off in Times Square with Nathan, thew on a pair of heels and cut across Bryant Park and up 5th Avenue to my office for the first time in months.  For a minute I was the old Cathi, minus the Baby Bjorn sticking out of my purse.  My feet and heart instantly began to ache - my feet from the heels and my heart from knowing that I have less than two months left at home with our little girl.  I plan to enjoy every minute of that time, because when I return at the end of November I will have my work cut out for me.  The company is restructuring the Marketing Department and rather than return to my old position as Marketing Director of Styling they have offered me the Director of Haircare position.  I will have a new team as well as a much larger budget and product portfolio to manage. Such begins my role as a working mother, forever searching for that perfect work/life balance.  In the spirit of taking care of business, later that evening we solidified a nanny for Annabelle.  She came to us through a referral and has a reputation for being incredibly loving, responsible and awesome with children.  I feel good about our choice and am also relieved to have found her so early on.  Such a major check on the check off list.

Saturday was one of those beautiful, sunny fall afternoons.  The sky was a magnificent blue with a crisp breeze blowing white clouds across the sky.  The Village was bustling and everyone was out and about getting their fix of outdoors before the weather turns frosty.  The three of us headed to the Charles Street Pier on the Hudson for a picnic and game of smash ball.  One thing I love about New York how much the locals utilize public spaces.  On the same short pier there were kids and adults alike practicing yoga, playing tag, football, soccer, whiffle ball, and doing calisthenics -- a whole lot going on.  After hitting our 2010 summer record of 86 smashball hits, we headed indoors for a ratatouille dinner inspired by the lovely meal Diane cooked for us in Petaluma last week.   Here's the prep. Delicious.

Sunday we hopped the subway to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.  One of the exhibits featured stick structures that look like something from Where the Wild Things Are.  These monumental huts were created by the artist Patrick Dougherty.  They were supposed to only be in the Gardens through August, so we were pleasantly surprised to find they were still there.

Dougherty crafts large-scale sculptures from saplings: weaving, snagging, and flexing sticks into playful, nestlike architectural forms that evoke themes of shelter, habitat, and sustainability. Created of organic matter, his works have a natural life cycle, changing over time as the sticks settle and decay, eventually returning to the earth they grew from.

Here are some other shots from our visit.  Hoping you had a lovely weekend, too!