A surprise inclusion in a NYC Partnership For Parks booklet on volunteerism

I joined the Washington Market Park board for our local Tribeca park in 2004, and have done volunteer work in various capacities over the last eight years. My most loved volunteer event which I head up twice a year is It's My Park Day's children planting events. A few months park, Kirsti Bainbridge of the  Partnership organization asked me to write a paragraph (or two) on the planting events for inclusion in a possible brochure. I did and much to my surprise it was published. I was given a copy of the booklet last Saturday, on It's My Park Day appropriately enough. Here is my little piece of writing. The joy of volunteering, I hope comes through.

Hearts in the Right Place: Valentine's day doings in Tribeca

                                         Treat Time in Tribeca

NYC spray painted heart on a pedestrian bridge walkway.

Valentine Day doings begins days ahead of time. On Monday afternoon, I started baking the 24 cupcakes for my sons school's annual Valentine's day bake sale.

I was frosting until 11:30pm, then in the am put them all in 

my 3-tiered cupcake carrier for the walk to school. 

Even before that though, a week ago, our son Max took it upon himself to design valentine's day cards for all of his classmates (plus a dozen more for his grandparents, cousins and pals outside of school.)

Max had learnt how to do design work online, and took a photo of an R2d2 Star Wars mini-fig holding a blank sign. Then on this cool website picnik.com, he created custom cards for all with stickers, text, textures and effects. I sat next to him while he designed some of them, and I can't tell you how much fun he was having. Every time he discovered a new texture (like all-over bricks) or effect (heat-map) he called, "look at this." When Max was done, I uploaded them to a print site that had a discount deal, and 5 days later we had an orange envelope filled with cards at pennies each. Max really wanted to attach a treat, "coz that's what the kids are doing," so I bought some tinfoil covered milk chocolate hearts

 and he and his dad taped them to the cards. Here are some of the cards Max designed. 

I was really proud of him for all the hard work he put into these.

Each card started with the R2d2 figure, but then different effects
 like pixelating or doodling was added.

My sweet friend Diana had given me a beautiful op-art patterned French Bull tray to display

 baked goods on. I embellished it a bit with cut pink paper hearts to go with the 

bright pink candy hearts I used as decoration.

My candy heart embellished cupcakes. The pink was a little more salmon hued
than the bubble gum  I'd envisioned but the buttercream flavored frosting tasted yummy anyway.

The sale area was festively decorated by the lovely ladies in charge of the bake sale, Melissa and Stacie. And the tray, dishes and pans of baked goods came pouring in from moms and dads who had been baking up a storm the night before. 

Other outstanding treats at the sale included these delectables.

Wow! A Valentine's Ginger Bread house to use as a centerpiece.

Gluten-free goodies.

Prettier pink cupcakes. I bought the one with the big chocolate kiss smack dabbed on the top!

Gone is the day that kids with allergies were excluded or had
to be satisfied with a less-than-cute treat. 

The boys made a beeline for anything that looked like a brownie, the chocolate covered ones
 were gone in 5 minutes, dollar bills were flying at us. The girls went for cupcakes,
the pinker, the girlier, the more embellished, the better. 

The ladies with the big hearts helping to raise money for the school, chair persons
of the bake sale committees, Stacie (left) and Mellissa (right).

--Monica Forrestall

Dahlias, impatiens and roses still blooming on December 6th in Tribeca

I've had a community plot in local park, Washington Market Park for several years. It is the park, where I have served as a volunteer on the board of directors for seven years. Usually by mid-November the flowers are long, long gone. But with the unusually warm November and December weather we're enjoying in my neighborhood here in Tribeca, the mini-purple Dahlias and the purple New Guinea Impatiens in my plot are still going strong.
Here are a couple of snaps I took yesterday when I did a walk around the garden with the park gardner, Chris. (Clearly I have to go back with my good camera with the flower shooting mode.)

New Guinea Impatiens plant in my community plot at Washington Market Park is still producing new flowers! 

Elsewhere in the park, this pretty pink rosebush has dozens of flowers on it, and the white rose bush in my other area of the park, the children's garden had two perfect white roses blooming yesterday.

--Monica Forrestall

Our Film Noire doorway

One of the most old world film noire looking areas of our home is the landmarked doorway to our apartment. At night, when the street lamps cast shadows through the transium window and the door onto the interior wall, it looks like a set from a 1940's film. Romantic, old world New York at best.

You Can take the Boys out of Tribeca...

Autumn in New York means leaving the somewhat treeless area we live in to go to a park, famous for its trees. In the slush storm on October 29th, 1000 trees were damaged in Central Park, but we went up with wiffle bat and ball and soccer ball to enjoy the 65 F degree day when leaves are starting to turn in the big park.

BOO! The annual school Halloween Bake Sale in Tribeca

Working the bake sale at Max's school is fabulous fun, because the treats are so creative. Plus once the 8:30 crush of customers come and go, the volunteers get to buy!

Some of the outstandingly cr-e-e-e-e-e-e-py/ delicious baked goods at this years sale below:

My friend Erica and her 48 cupcakes with gummy bloody fingers, teeth and other body parts.

Stitched mouth ghoul cupcakes.

Spider and Fly infested cupcakes. 

I loved these mummy cupcakes, I bought 2. 

Ghost, bat and pumpkin cookies.

Simple and clever: Dracula brownies.

Elaborate chocolate cupcakes with RIP cookie tombstones, candy skull and bones coming out of the grave.

Bucket of (sugar cookie) bones.

Simple, spooky chocolate ghost cookies with orange eyes.

Ghost chips made by the same mom/volunteer who made the bucket 'o bones cookies. 

Soy, nut, seed, gluten free and vegan section. Great that kids with allergies aren't excluded
from the FUN of a ghoulish treat!

Lovely organizers of the Halloween Bake Sale, Stacie and Melissa.

---Monica Forrestall

DIG IN: City Gardening with Kids

Twice a year I head up a children's gardening event at Washington Market Park. This fall, it happened last week on October 15th, to coincide with the NY city-wide It's My Park Day. I worked with Chris, the park gardner, who gave a nice, helpful talk to the kids about how to plant bulbs.