Sunny Side Up

Suprise Adventures

2011-02-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

You know that cabin fever has gotten the best of you when you find yourself wistfully daydreaming about childbirth because it will get you out of the house for a few days. I'm coming to accept that small, frequent outings are the cost of mental health maintenance for an extroverted stay-at-home-mom and her extroverted children. It's something we are simply hardwired to need.

Last night we went on what our family likes to call a Surprise Adventure. Surprise Adventures are exercises in spontenaiety. Sometimes Zach and I plan them in advance, notifying the kids only at the last moment, and sometimes we just get up and go with no real idea ourselves of what the outing will bring. Some are big deals, some are a trip to the bakery or a drive in the country. The only rule is that there is no complaining. Adventure is about going with the flow, following where the trail leads you and appreciating the journey. It's not about getting exactly what you wanted or planned.

Last night kids had taken their baths and were ready to get dressed for bed when we told them that instead of putting on their pajamas, we wanted them to get dressed. They excitedly obliged, wondering out loud if they'd need socks or fancy dresses or outdoor gear in an effort to prise some kind of information out of us on where we might be headed.

We piled into the car, the kids guessing which direction it would go and how long it would take us to get there. We arrived at our originally intended destination, a kid-friendly coffee shop in St Paul, where we realized that Daddy had forgotten his wallet. Back in the car. Back to the house. We still had an hour and fifteen minutes before they closed, so we'd be fine. The kids stayed postive.

When we arrived back at the coffee shop we found, to our dismay, that it had inexplicably closed an hour early. Deep breaths. That is, after all, what Surprise Adventures are about, rolling with the punches.

We ended up at Perkins drinking cocoa and eating mozzarella sticks. There is no disappointment, in my experience, that cannot be soothed with deep fried cheese.

Their cocoa, laced with a bit of canned whipped cream, reminded me of a roadtrip I took with my grandparents as a kid from Phoenix to Disneyland and San Diego. It was the first time I ever had hot chocolate with whipped cream. I told them how we arrived in San Diego at night and my grandparents couldn't find our hotel.

I kept seeing the sign for the hotel exit, only to be sushed repeatedly because of course, the grown-ups were talking. After half an hour of searching and an accidental intrusion onto a military base, we ended up at a run down motel with a hole in the wall diner attached that served what to my memory is still the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted. My sister and I drank four cups of it while my grandparents and great-aunts griped about having to stay at this low rent motel. I told them I had seen the sign for the other hotel six times only to be scolded, "well why didn't you tell us?"

One story lead to another, from Zach's first taste of cocoa with whipped cream (in which an entire can of whipped cream was obliterated) to the kid's own memories about our travels with them and finally, on to plans of future travel and places we wanted to see. Physically our adventure took us about five miles from our house, but it had all the effect of a vacation to far flung places.

We got home two hours after their bedtime, both of the older kids asleep in the back seat, the baby, who is made of steel, still wide awake for the moment. And the coffee shop we originally intended to go to? That is now today's adventure.

Little Things

2011-02-04T11:44:00.000-08:00

It is so completely and utterly February. Everyone I know feels it. I feel it, Zach feels it, the kids feel it. There's a heaviness in my brain and in my step and I find myself fighting hibernation, struggling to find the right balance between quiet and activity. I am not fooled by the predictions of a certain rodent in Pennsylvania (Punxatawny Phil, you know who you are), six more weeks of winter would be an early spring this far North. That these six weeks coincide with my last six weeks of pregnancy will likely make them move even slower. We won't be out of the woods for a while.

So I'm biding my time, looking for the little things in life that bring contentment. I woke up this morning thinking I had overslept. It was brighter outside than my circadian clock believed it should be at 7AM, but 7AM it was. The light is returning. The sky was streaked with pink and it was clearly morning.

Zach was out the door and I had a full cup of coffee before anyone spoke to me. Bliss.

Beauty

2010-10-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

Beauty is a need, not a luxury. It took me a really long time to realize that and I'm not sure why. I think it's because like most modern day city dwellers, when I thought about "beauty" I associated it with something that could be purchased and owned. A beautiful dress or beautiful things for my house, even a bouquet of flowers from the Farmer's Market. When money is tight (which it perpetually is) it's hard for my practical side to justify purchases that don't have immediate and concrete value.

The problem is that when I am starved of beauty, I am starved in spirit. I get listless, restless and a little depressed. Then I rebel, and usually that involves thoughtless spending that doesn't actually make the problem any better. A cup of coffee while I'm out running errands or a dinner out because I'm cranky and don't want to cook. I'm impatient and occasionally, unkind.

The reason I have associated beauty with purchase and posession, I think, is a longing for permance, a reminder that my soul is made for an eternity this world just doesn't offer. Beauty is a source of hope, comfort and inspiration as I tread on the sometimes difficult journey towards home. It's a gift from God to sustain me on the path, and it doesn't come with a price tag if I am willing to accept it as it comes, in nature, in a gift from a friend or a in a new point of view. Seeking it and recognizing it instead of forcing it. Trusting that tomorrow will bring a different sort of beauty and new experiences that bring me ever closer to home.

Home as Sanctuary- Nourishment for Body and Soul

2010-10-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

I've been meditating on what it means to create a sense of "sanctuary" in the home. As I said before, with a large family full of tiny children, it's not going to be a quiet, contemplative atmosphere. I don't even think I'd want that. I love the adventure and life that young children bring into a home, the unbridled creativity and humour.

No, if it's going to last, a sense of sanctuary has to be based in reality and it has to be durable. It has to leave room for people to be themselves. We need sanctuary the most when life is the most chaotic and difficult, when sanctuary is the most difficult to maintain.

I think the building blocks of sanctuary are these; nourishment for the soul, nourishment for the body, and of course, a strong connection to God, the sustaining hand that holds us through all of life's ups and downs. Healthy, delicious food shared with people we love, fresh air, rest, prayer, affection, creativity, beauty, selflessness, rhythm, routine and tradition are just a few good things that come to mind. Some of them, many of them, actually, are good for both body and soul.

With this in mind I have decided to start simply by working on cultivating beauty, nourishing my family with good healthy foods, getting outdoors for some fresh air every day, rain or shine, giving real time and attention to our creative endeavours and spending more time in prayer both for myself and with my family.

Year of Hospitality

2010-10-15T10:08:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday was the beginning of a new year for me, my 32nd (or is it my 33rd? Yes, I suppose it is.) and with it the beginning of a new intention. This year is to be my Year of Hospitality.

I've been praying and meditating on this theme for a month or so now. It's a departure from my usual pattern, which is to choose a virtue I struggle with and spend a year cultivating it. Hospitality is actually something of a spiritual gift for me, but it's something I feel called to make better use of. This year, instead of just focusing on personal growth I am embarking on a larger project, to sow the seeds of hospitality in my home and community and watch it grow.

I've settled on a four part plan for this year, each part of which I will elaborate on further in future posts.

1. Create a sense of sanctuary for my family. This includes myself. In order to have something to give to the world, we first need a space where we can be renewed and uplifted. I'm not naive enough to think that with three adults, three kids and another baby on the way I'm going to create some kind of quiet, contemplative environment where we can all meditate on the mysteries of life. Four kids under seven years old and under is nothing if not a recipe for a busy house. What I do want is a space that feeds us, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

2. Invite others into that space. I want this to be a place where friends and family, especially the kids' friends, feel welcome and comfortable. As a friend pointed out to me, all kids really need a neighborhood of moms and dads. That is something I grew up with and the benefits of it have been huge in my life. I want to pay that forward.

3. Spread that sense of "home" into the larger community. I talked last winter about my plans for strengthening my community and since then a lot of progress has been made. I think as this process unfolds some really amazing things are going to happen.

4. Expanding that neighborhood good will and kindness to the world at large. Maybe we can "adopt" soldiers to send care packages to, or raise money to build wells in third world countries. I want my family and community to see everyone on earth as "neighbors". In this digital age, that is more true than ever before.

I have an excellent feeling about the coming year.

Now We Are Six

2010-03-09T15:00:00.000-08:00

"Can you believe I'm six?!" I've heard that sentance at least a hundred times today and no, I cannot believe she is six. In honour of her sixth birthday Miss Cheyenne wanted to make a chocolate layer cake with purple frosting. Yes, there is purple frosting under all of that. She and Bella spent the whole morning decorating it themselves. Not fans of the minimalist school of cake decorating, obviously, but I think it's a job well done. It makes me happy, anyway.

Stephanie Saves the World Part One

2010-03-04T16:12:00.000-08:00

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/ / CC BY 2.0
'>Nasa Space Center

Thanks to my recent foray into local (micro?) politics I'm doing a lot of daydreaming about what the world would be like if I were Queen. Wouldn't it be fun if we could take this broken economy and turn it into something cool?

Not that anyone necessarily cares, but here are a few thoughts I've been having.

First, after reading Shannon Hayes' article in the Simple Living Newsletter I am really enamored of the concept of Radical Homemaking. It's a concept I have practiced for years, but never had a name for. Essentially the idea is that radical homemakers (and these are both men and women) see the family as the central unit of life instead of the workplace. In many cases both parents work at home and the home is, in a sense, a microbusiness, not just a place where consumer goods come to die. There is cooperation and interdependence as all members of the family use their extensive domestic skills to keep costs for the family's needs low and, in some cases, to produce goods and services to support the family. My favourite quote from the article, "she who doesn't need the gold can change the rules" succunctly encapsulates my feelings about Simple Living.

While the article seems to focus largely on farming families (my friends the Dervaes' of Path to Freedom urban homestead are an excellent example of this, it seems to me that there are a wide variety of jobs that can be done from home.

It has always baffled me that there isn't more talk of telecommuting in "green" circles. Even more than public transportation (which I love beyond reason as I hate driving) telecommuting has the potential to not only reduce the number of vehicles on the road, but to change the the communities we live in for the better. Telecommuting, in effect, reduces a vast redundancy of resources.

From the business side, telecommuting greatly reduces overhead, eliminating the need for huge office buildings that need to be lighted, heated, cooled and plumbed.

From a government standpoint, it lessens the need for ever larger roadways, since a large number of vehicles are off the road and rush hour bottlenecks are no longer an issue.

From a worker standpoint, telecommuting, at the very least, eliminates driving expenses, reduces wardrobe expenses, shaves the nearly four hours per week of commute time the average worker spends in transit and allows greater flexibility in the home.

The communities in which people live benefit because people are home more and have more ability to invest in the place in which they live, and people have greater flexibility in choosing where they live when they are not tied down to a specific location for work. I think this has the potential to really revitalize neighborhoods and smaller communities, possibly creating smaller, more connected walkable and bikeable communities and making public transportation within a community a much easier and less expensive to implement. Community services and small businesses would likely have much more support in this model of community too.

Anyway, that is Step One of my daydream and from my vantage point, my community is getting ready to take hold of that vision, or one similar to it, and run with it.

Strengthening and Greening My Community

2010-02-13T13:38:00.000-08:00

I live in a really wonderful neighborhood. It's an interesting place, built in the 1960s, in part by my own grandparents. The idea was to create a community by essentially building a neighborhood set in the middle of a park. The houses were, at the time, luxury townhomes, 1500 or so square feet at the smallest and 2500 square feet or so at the largest. The neighborhood shares use of two pools, two tennis courts, a basketball court, a volleyball court, a playground, two duck ponds, several formal gardens and quite a lot of walking paths. It's a lovely place to live. It's in a tiny first-ring suburb (I can walk to Minneapolis from here) and convenient to everything and it's in a fabulous (and very tiny) school district.

A few weeks ago, on a particularly difficult day, my husband turned me out of the house and sent me to the coffee shop at the park, where I ran into an old friend and neighbor. We sat by the fire for about an hour with our organic herbal tea chatting about the neighborhood. There is so much potential here for both building community and reducing our environmental impact. Even as it is, the houses here use a lot less energy than the typical house in our area. My house, for example, is built into a hill. Two of my six floors are underground, insulated by the earth. Two sides of my house are insulated by my neighbor's heated spaces leaving only two sides of the top four levels exposed to the elements.

The homeowners association has taken steps in the last few years to reduce the number of chemicals it uses, opting for environmentally friendly products for salting the roads and making other similar changes. All organic materials collected by the groundskeepers; leaves, branches, grass clippings and such, are taken to the local compost site to be composted. Clotheslines are encouraged.

We do have some community events (the more we can do right here, the less we tend to drive) like our National Night Out (which routinely wins awards), our neighborhood book club and our monthly coffee hour, but when I talk to the neighbors I can hear them hungering for more. The wonderful things we already do feel like just the tip of the iceberg.

I've composed a list of ideas I plan to take to the board.

Community Builders:

-Create a neighborhood website, blog and facebook page. We could have a craigslist style section for classifieds where people could post things for sale, things they want to give away, services they have to offer. The blog could have announcements, an online version of the neighborhood newsletter (to save paper) and possibly minutes from the neighborhood meetings.

-Neighborhood wide participation in the National Wildlife Federations Great American Backyard Campout. We could pair with the park and have some outdoorsy activities like canoeing, nature programs and marshmallow roasting.

-A neighborhood prayer and meditation group. My friend, who is a spiritual director, came up with this one. We're planning to alternate meeting at people's houses, and in the summer in the gardens.

-A neighborhood exercise group. We could walk or swim in the summer and snow shoe or cross country ski in the winter. We could also possibly put together a yoga or pilates class outdoors in the summer or join the yoga class at the park.

-A group to bring meals to sick, injured or post-partum neighbors. It's always good when a community can pull together to help each other.

-Lobby the city to bring back the puppet wagon! The puppet wagon, which I know for a fact they still have in a neighboring community. The puppet wagon is a big truck with a puppet theater cut out of the side of it. It travels to various parks around the city putting on puppet shows for kids. When I was a kid Peter Krause (from Six Feet Under) was an actor for the puppet wagon. While it's doubtfull there's anyone of that caliber still working on the puppet wagon, it's still a classic good time.

-A chess club or card club

-A Mommy and Me coffee hour. There are lots of moms of small kids here. We need to get to know each other better. I'm envisioning us meeting at each others houses, outside or at the coffee shop at the park.

-A neighborhood garage sale.

-A Handmade Holidays craft boutique. This area is home to more crafters and artists than you can shake a stick at. It would be nice to have an easy way of supporting them.

-Potluck Christmas party at the park.

Green Initiatives

-There is a big lawn on the East side of the neighborhood I've been itching to turn into a community garden since I was about 6 years old.

-Lobby the city for more frequent recycling pick-up. Every other week is not cutting it, and I suspect people throw things away just so they don't have to find storage for all that recycling.

-Recycling bins at the pools and playground. Make it easy for people.

-Neighborhood composting of household organic materials.

-Negotiate with a CSA to provide drop off at the HOA office. If we got enough people together we could probably make it worth the stop. There is already a group of people who go in together to buy large boxes of sweet corn in the summer to split. Why not take it a step further?

-Apparently we already have a neighborhood book swap. I found this out the other day when I went to the office. I've lived here on and off for decades and I never knew that. I think it should be better publicized.

-Offer classes on weatherization and other simple techniques for greening our homes.

-Work with the architectural control comittee to come up with a list of improvements that can be made to houses for the purpose of making them more environmentally friendly that are deemed acceptable by Architectural Control. Things like skylights for passive solar lighting, solar panels, and passive solar greenhouses.

So that's my plan to launch this neighborhood into the 21st century. We'll see how it flies.

Latin

2010-01-21T19:52:00.000-08:00

Image courtesy of Svadilfari

Ever since my father bought my kids Rosetta Stone Latin for Christmas I have been fielding the question, "Why do you want your kids to learn Latin of all languages? Why not something useful like Spanish?" So here are a few of my reasons.

1. It's the linguistic foundation of the Western world. Note that the word linguistic comes from the Latin "lingua" meaning tongue of the land, language or speech and the word foundation from the Latin "fundatio" which is the past participle of "fundare"- to lay the groundwork for. Latin is the basis for a large portion of the English language

2. It's significantly more useful than the first foreign language my kids learned. That would be Welsh.

3. Latin is structured, elegant and succinct. It's not loosey-goosey and full of slang like modern day languages. It's a great tool for learning grammar.

4. Once you've learned Latin the rest of the Romance languages should come pretty easily. I plan to add Greek in a few years and then German. I figure that should give them the basics for most European languages. Maybe not the Slavic languages. I'm not sure. We may have to add Polish to the list somewhere down the line.

5. Learning any new language, even a dead one, helps you to learn more languages in the future. Just the process of learning it is valuable, and you know, if they are going to be super secret agent spies some day they're going to need to know a whole bunch of languages.

6. The only copy of Green Eggs and Ham I happen to own is in Latin. Someone has to be able to read me this great work of literature.

Second Place

2010-01-19T10:51:00.000-08:00

This is our beautiful snow mermaid that took second place at the 1st Annual Martin Luther King Jr Day Snowman Contest at the park. What snowmen have to do with Martin Luther King Jr I'm not entirely sure, but it was a lot of fun and will probably become a tradition around here.

I was actually more pleased with the second place prize than I would have been with a first. I'll admit it, this is one homespun little snow mermaid and some of the other entries were technically speaking much better. Those, however, were made by adults, not little girls, and the judges clearly took that into consideration. Second place feels like a good, honest reward for a good, honest effort.

Road Tripping

2010-01-10T18:19:00.000-08:00

It has been decided. This is the year the kids will meet their father's family. Yes. I said meet. Only the girls have ever met their paternal grandmother (Bella only once, in the hospital when she was two days old, which almost counts) and none of the kids have ever met their paternal grandfather. In fact, I have only met him once, on our honeymoon, camping in the Arizona desert.

Zach's family is a splintered one. I won't go into the details of his parents painful break-up when Zach was just a baby, but the result has been a family spread far and wide across this country. For years this has seemed like a huge obstacle. It's one thing to visit family across country when they are concentrated in one place, but quite another to manage the hassle and financial burden of visiting so many people in so many different places, especially with very small children.

The other day, while I was laying down to take a nap, it hit me. I need to start looking at this as an opportunity. All over this beautiful country of ours there are spare bedrooms, couches and floors waiting to be crashed on with willing, even eager, owners who would love nothing better than the opportunity to put us up for free and show us around their neck of the woods. How is that a bad thing?

So begins a year of grand adventures, starting in February with my first ever solo trip in the 6 years I have been a parent. My mom is using some of her frequent flyer miles to fly me out for a fun filled weekend with her, my sister-from-another-mister Kathy and my actual sister at mom's little bungalow in San Diego. We're going to hang out at the beach, drink margaritas on mom's porch, see the sights and, best of all, sleep in. The whole thing should cost me approximately $20 for a fast-food meal at the airport during my layover. Mom is footing the entire bill for this trip.

When I get home on March 1st I will have exactly two weeks before trip number two, a roadtrip to Arkansas to meet Grandpa Phil. Grandpa Phil is....there are no words. I have a soft spot in my heart for quirky, crumudgeonly old guys and Phil is the ultimate in all categories. As I alluded to in my last post, he is a one time farmer, one time carpenter who now spends his time prospecting for gold and diamonds. He lives on cigarettes and organic green smoothies and won't take any medicine that isn't Swedish Bitters. He's a history buff extraordinaire, an amateur geologist and an opinionated old coot. It's time his grandkids knew him.

Phil lives near Crater of Diamonds State Park, according to their website, the only diamond producing site in the world open to the public, and a "rockhound's delight." I can only imagine the fun Cheyenne and Isabella, who count among their favourite passtimes, digging in the dirt and collecting rocks, will have prospecting for diamonds with Grandpa. the mapquest fuel cost estimator puts the fuel costs at about $200 round trip. Accomodations will be free, except for the one night we will spend in a hotel with an indoor pool for $60 and the $14 we're planning to spend to see an old Native American village.

September brings the family reunion in Indianapolis. Zach's mom has agreed to pay for lodging and gas. This reunion will be big. Zach's mom is one of seven kids, many of whom are already grandparents. Zach's grandma, my kid's great-grandma, will also be in attendance and we will stop on the way in or out to see Zach's 94 year old great-uncle Tom, who apparently still bowls a 250 average. For the record that is about ten times my bowling average, but we'll roll a few balls with him anyway for the fun of it. Nothing like getting your butt kicked by a 94 year old man to teach you a little humility.

Finally, we are traveling to Wyoming to visit Zach's uncle Ward. Ward rocks. Ward sends care packages periodically ranging from a bag of marbles and seven sizes of clips to two brand-new Radio Flyer wagons and a book on the life cycles of the rainforest. He has variously been a pilot, an airplane mechanic, worked on an oil rig and delivered newspapers and his only method of transportation is a semi truck. This will be our most expensive trip because we are staying at a hotel. The words, "I'd love to have you visit. I'll even try to find where I put all my guns so I can lock them up," did not inspire a lot of confidence and as a 72 year old bachelor I think he'll be less stressed out if we get a hotel. Still the meals will be home cooked (probably by me) and the fun will be cheap or free and Miss Cheyenne will finally get to see the city she is named for.

So that is the plan. For the cost of one of us traveling to some packaged resort in some warm and sunny place we get four different adventures and a lot of memories. If this works out we are hoping to follow this up with trips to California, Nevada (Tahoe area) and Alaska in the coming years.

Family Writing

2010-01-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a link posted on facebook by my friend Anais of Path to Freedom, I have spent the day perusing The Girlhood Home Companion magazine website and waiting for my digital copy to arrive in my e-mail box.

I'm feeling particularly drawn to the idea of Family Writing, where members of the family record stories from their daily life for future generations. Today I started with a letter to my oldest daughter. It's not something I plan to give to her today or even next year. At the moment I think it would be good to pull together a collection of these letters for each kid for their graduation day or wedding day.

Dear Cheyenne,

It's 3:55 in the afternoon and I am waiting for you to come home from school. Your Dad went to pick up Bella from St John's and is stopping at the bus stop to drive you home. It's cold today, single digits with below zero windchills and I am planning to have tea with you and your sister in a few minutes. I think I'll heat the water in my Grandma Rosemarie's teakettle. I'm feeling nostalgic today.

I've spent the afternoon planning a trip for you, Bella and James to finally meet your Grandpa Phil. It came to me today, I think from the Holy Spirit, that it is time for you to meet your father's family. Further confirmation that this message was, indeed, divine came this afternoon when your father called your Grandma Elizabeth, who we have been somewhat estranged from for a few years, and received an invitation to Indiana this summer for a family reunion, expenses paid. I think you'll like Grandpa Phil. He's a real character. He's retired from farming and construction and taken up prospecting. He gets as excited about geology as your Dad does about electricity.

I worry lately that we are being too hard on you. You are my oldest kid, so we are always figuring these things out together. I apologize for all the mistakes I have made and will undoubtedly continue to make as a parent. Know that even when I discipline it is out of love.

You are such an amazing kid. Much better than I was at your age. You are smart, creative, outgoing and inquisitive. I just love that about you. You are nearly 6 years old now and on the threshold of being able to do so many fun and interesting things. I'm so excited by the possibilities I am afraid I may push you to do too much. It's just such a fascinating and interesting world out there and I am excited to introduce you to it.

The first five years of a child's life are focused inward towards the home, towards nurturing and safety. From then on, it seems to me, the focus is on ever greater levels of independence. I won't lie. I think as a parent my strengths lie more in the second stage. Like you I am very extroverted. I'm a person who enjoys being out in the world meeting new people and doing new and exciting things.

This week your new obsession is with the human body. In fact, I'm not entirely sure I haven't accidentally sent you to medical school instead of Kindergarten. Everyday you come home telling me some new fact, for example, that there are 206 bones in the adult human body. Today you learned about muscles. I asked you yesterday if you wanted to be a doctor, fascinated as you are by human anatomy. No. You'd like to be a cake decorator. A cake decorator well versed in human anatomy and Latin. You have no idea how cool I think that is.

Anyway, you are home now. Your Daddy is dishing up ice cream (only Daddy would think of ice cream in this weather) and it's time to put the kettle on. I love you Miss Monkey. Never forget that.

Love,

Mom

No Toy 2010

2010-01-06T05:12:00.000-08:00

I admit it. The photo has very little to do with the post, but how cute is she.

Enough. It's a concept I've been struggling my entire adult life to get a handle on. It's a difficult one in a culture of advertising and competition where the center of our economy and our collective self worth revolves around the idea that there is no such thing. That's a hard lesson to undo and it's taken me years to get to the point where I finally think I am getting it.

Every year before the holidays I do a sort of informal inventory of the kids' posessions, looking to see what they have, what they use and what they might need. This year it became clear that the kids have reached the point of Enough.

Cheyenne and Isabella's room is a joyful little place. White wrought iron daybeds with pretty old quilts line either side of the walls, pillows and stuffed animals propped up for reading and snuggling and a basket tucked under each bed for books. There's a sweet little vintage school desk that holds their drawing pads and coloured pencil rolls as well as their "rock treasures" and other little baubles. There's a play kitchen with little pots and pans, play food and dishes, a doll bed and a miniature sized table with ice cream parlor chairs. There's a drawer in their dresser for dress-up clothes, one for doll clothes and one for Barbies and My Little Ponies. On their window seat there is a fully outfitted wooden dollhouse and a small basket of miniature animals and wooden snakes with baskets underneath for stuffed animals. There is a hook behind each of their beds for their mom-made nature walk backpacks and their binoculars and each of them have a wooden beanbag game they made with their Daddy. It's Enough.

Then there is James. How many times when the girls were 6 months to 18 months (the span of ages James will pass through in 2010) were they perfectly contented with nothing but a mixing bowl and a spoon to bang on it with or a box to explore?

It is with that in mind that we have instituted our No Toys in 2010 challenge. We want to put the focus on doing rather than on aquiring. The things the kids will really remember are our adventures; camping, daytrips, trying new and exciting foods, meeting new and exciting people and spending time with family and friends. That's the fun stuff.

For Cheyenne's birthday, the first birthday of 2010, she and her Dad are enrolling in karate lessons together and she and I are going to a "kicksledding in the full moon" event at the park. Grandparents will be paying for her summer knitting class.

As I was thumbing through the American Girls catalog, something I've daydreamed about having since I was a kid, it struck me. We spend a lot of money in this country imagining the fun and exciting things we could be doing. We'll buy the American Girl's doll a pair of cross country skiis instead of going cross country skiing or we'll buy Barbie a horse instead of going horseback riding ourselves. There's something a little off about that. Something I'm hoping to change for me and my kids.

New Year, New Discovery

2010-01-05T07:51:00.001-08:00

Image from Betty's Pies

New Year's Day we had about enough of cleaning and organizing and moving and just being stuck inside the house, so we decided to go out for a little culinary adventure. We discovered, when driving around White Bear Lake, that Betty's Pies, a Northwoods institution, has opened a second restaurant here in the Cities. Of course we had to stop. And there we discovered something glorious. The Polar Pie Shake.

It is a piece fo Betty's famous pie blended with vanilla ice cream. So simple. So wonderful. Between us we had a Blueberry Cheesecake, a Butterfinger and a 5 layer Chocolate. Even James loved it. And now I know what to do when I have leftovers after baking pie. Because there so often are leftovers when I bake a pie....

Experiments in Multigenerational Living

2009-12-28T20:28:00.001-08:00

Just in time for the new year we have embarked on what can only be an interesting experiment in the Griffith household. We are trying our hand at multi-generational living.

My dad, who we all adore, has moved in with us. He has a few years until he can retire in Franciscan simplicity to the hermitage of his choice or, the current thought, to a house full of like minded single Secular Franciscans in a mansion owned by a priest he is friends with. This span of years coincides almost exactly with the amount of time Zach has left in school, so we are combining households for the next few years to save money.

The cool thing is that it's not an absolute financial necessity so the pressure is low. Our expenses with dad here make up about 12% of our income and dad's are an even lower percentage of his income, so if anyone isn't happy for any reason things can change. So far, though, it has gone even better than I had expected.

The kids are excited out of their little minds to have Grandpa here and Grandpa seems to enjoy holding the baby while I cook or take a shower, so a lot more is getting accomplished. Surprisingly, given their opposite backgrounds, Zach and my dad get along really well. Dad appreciates Zach's handyman abilities and Zach appreciates Dad's intellectual and spiritual outlook on life.

I'll say this, it's giving my kids a well-rounded education living with the lot of us. These kids are going to grow up knowing how to bake a cake from scratch, fix the brakes on their car and fluent in Latin. How many kids can say that?

Random Thoughts on Decluttering and My Year of Temperance

2009-12-18T12:53:00.000-08:00

I can never think clearly when I declutter. I usually stop writing when I am working on a big decluttering effort because as much as I wish it were different, the state of my kitchen and the state of my mind are generally a pretty accurate reflection on one another.

In one week my father is moving in with us. This is a good thing. I promise. My dad is great. He's crazy as a junebug, but in a good way, and a way I think will compliment the nuerosis of the rest of the family quite nicely. The thing is, we are giving him our bedroom. Our lovely master suite tree house room with the lock on the door.

This means that Zach and I have to build a new room for ourselves in what used to be the storage basement. Two years ago when we moved in this room was 450 square feet of what I refer to as Ancestral Clutter, a mix of everything from fine, well made antiques that used to belong to a great-great-great grandparent to my third grade spelling test to, I kid you not, a pewter armadillo.

There's a big lesson in here somewhere and I'm sure a year from now the actual text of that message will be clearer, but for the moment it just feels like a big pile of wrong. This morning I boxed up 75 pieces of stemware. 75. Pieces of stemware. And not wine glasses, because I got rid of 50 of those last year. These were brandy snifters and cordial glasses and toddy cups (I just heard my mother's voice in the back of my head, 'you didn't get rid of the toddy cups? Now what will you do when you want a nice hot toddy? Um. Use a coffee cup?) and even 6 glasses who's purpose is a complete mystery to me.

On the odd occasion when I indulge in a glass of wine or a scotch, I drink it out of a juice glass, a habit that confounds members of my family but one that has never once inhibited my enjoyment of a drink. I drink beer from the bottle.

I'm not trying to be a bummer. It's freeing, in a way, to see all of this stuff go out the door, the ceramic Christmas village and the 12 nutcrackers that will be sold by my favourite thrift shop to support victims of human trafficking, but it does bring up a lot of concerns.

Temperance, the virtue I have been working to cultivate this year is meant to be employed at the point where pleasure conflicts with reason. Clearly, it is a virtue that would have come in handy at some point for my family, but I know that this story isn't really unique. They wouldn't have made pewter armadillos with the symbol of the state of Texas on them if they weren't reasonably sure somone would buy them. How have things gotten so out of whack that the manufacturing of such a useless item would be considered a good business risk?

Sigh. See, this is why I don't blog when I declutter. I'm such a wet blanket. No worries. By next week I'll have worked through this misanthropy and I'll be back to my sunny happy self, minus 75 pieces of stemware and a pewter armadillo.

Let it Snow

2009-12-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

Real, Unadulterated Minnesota Winter is finally on it's way. Nothing too severe, really, but 10 inches of snow plus wind plus below zero temperatures are good enough for me. I'm actually looking forward to it. I'm hoping they declare a Snow Day for the girls tomorrow. You never know around here. I remember hopping on the school bus one winter in -50 degree windchills cursing the school administrators as the feeling left my fingers and toes.

Minneapolitans like their kids to be hearty. This is something I've worried about with my California Girls. The first time Cheyenne saw snow she cried. Bella looked at me like I'd betrayed her, bringing her from Pasadena to this frozen black and white land. I needn't have worried.

We decided to take advantage of the last reasonably decent weather day this week to walk in the woods. I spent an hour rounding up long underwear, mittens, hats and scarves and making sure everyone was properly dressed. Five minutes into the walk Bella was complaining about feeling hot. My native Los Angeleno babies have finally acclimated to their mother's home climate. Apparently three years of being stuck inside all winter long has convinced the girls that there are worse things than cold weather. I couldn't agree more.

My New Stationary

2009-12-04T17:23:00.000-08:00

Back in October, near my birthday, I talked about wanting to do a better job of correspondence this year than in years past. Well, that particular goal is something I've done only marginally better at so far, but it is only two months into my 31st year, so I figure I still have some time to catch up. In an effort to do better, I bought myself this stamp set for about $15 to make my own custom stationary.

I've always wanted to have stationary with the name of my house on it, but I've never really stayed in one place long enough to make that a reasonable purchase. Now that we plan to stay put until our kids are grown it makes a little more sense. Just a little. I'm not kidding myself, I know it's a little frivolous.

So far it is working. I've had the stamps since yesterday and already I've written a thank-you card to a friend and a letter to my aunt. Good stuff.

St Nicholas Day and Gift Tag Madness- A New Tradition

2009-12-02T18:51:00.000-08:00

This Sunday, for St Nicholas Day, Cheyenne and Isabella, who happily do not read mommy's blog, are going to wake up in the morning to find their shoes stuffed with these pretty little gift tags. My original thought was that, while I want to keep my childhood tradition of a visit from St Nicholas, I really don't want to the focus of this season to be all about getting presents.

Since the girls really enjoy making gifts for people, this year Jolly Old Saint Nick is helping them out with a few supplies. Each of them, in addition to the gift tags, is getting a set of 6 small empty candy boxes, pink for Isabella to go with her flamingo girl and blue for Cheyenne to go with her mermaid. Saint Nick will leave them a note explaining that this is a gift they can give away to six people of their choice. Mommy will help them make the candies to fill the boxes and they can deliver them to anyone they think might need a little holiday cheer.

While preparing this gift I started looking around at various gift tags for my homemade gifts and I think I've developed a slight addiction. Maybe it's because I'm completely and totally gift-wrap challenged, but I just love the idea of popping a cute little gift tag and maybe a little bow onto a bottle of my homemade cinnamon apple pancake syrup or a box of my homemade caramels and marshmallows and being done with the whole gift wrapping thing without looking like I don't really give a you-know-what. Plus, gift tags are cheap. Most of them were about $1 plus shipping.

I got these specifically for Christmas.

I'm not entirely sure why I bought octopus gift tags, but I did and I like them. If nothing else, I'll use them for gifts for the kids. Cheyenne with her mermaid fetish and Bella with her love of all things random and just a little scary would probably appreciate them.

And then, of course, there's the bird tags. I have kind of a thing for birds.

These I bought to go on Easter treats or May Day baskets. I know, that's a long way off, but look at how cheery that looks! Winter will come eventually and these will be $1 worth of happiness when it does.

NaNoWriMo Update!

2009-11-29T21:13:00.000-08:00

That's right! I won! I wrote 50,000+ words in a month. I actually really like the story that developed in this novel even if I'm going to have to rewrite and edit almost everything I wrote. This was a great exercise in persistence, which has never been my strong suit. I can't believe it! I actually did this!

Things I'm Thankful For

2009-11-28T13:04:00.000-08:00

-Funny little girls

-Smiley baby boys

-My thoughtful, hardworking husband

-My kooky but very interesting father

-My kooky, but very interesting mother, sister, grandparents and other family

-My kooky but very interesting friends

-Sunny, warm days in November, when by all rights it should be cold and snowy

-A hot cup of coffee, an organic pumpkin ginger muffin and some theraputic knitting

-42,000 words on my novel

-New friends

-The return of my cat shadow who was missing for 6 weeks

-Fabulous neighbors

-Christmas shopping that is wrapped up before Black Friday

-Naps, and the husband that makes them possible

-Parents who understand that we don't need a million blinky light toys and thoughtfully purchased Rosetta Stone Latin software and personalized bookplate stamps for the kids instead

-Two incredibly good parent teacher conferences

-Good public radio stations

-Candy cane hunts, snowman building contests, kicksledding by the full moon, organic food dinners and candlelight walks in the woods all within walking distance of my house

Life is good.

Prayer Tree

2009-11-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

So this is the Prayer Tree I talked about in my Advent Conspiracy post. I really kind of stole this idea from my friend Lisa, who every year in the fall, leading up to thanksgiving, makes a Gratitude Tree for her three kids. The idea is that if, by Thanksgiving, you've got a month or so of really mediating on what you are grateful for under your belt, you begin the Christmas season with a better attitude.

As you can see it's just a simple brown paper tree taped to the wall. I have a jar of leaves I made out of scraps of scrapbooking paper (construction paper is fine too) and every day at dinner we sit down and talk about what we are thankful for, who we are concerned for that we'd like to keep in our prayers, questions we have that we'd like guidance on and other good stuff like that. Then we write it on a leaf, talk about it, pray about it and put it on the tree. This picture was taken about a week ago on the first day the tree was up, but it is now full of all kinds of pretty leaves. It's really been a great conversation starter for us and really helped the kids (and maybe the adults too) to think beyond their own wants.

Plus now that the fairies have moved back inside for the winter, it's a great little shade tree for their winter home.

So Proud

2009-11-20T08:38:00.000-08:00

The girls have really taken to our Advent Conspiracy challenge. Earlier in the month we had discussed giving each of the girls a Christmas allowance so that they could buy their brother and sister each a gift. The girls were really excited about that idea and quickly decided that they were going to give each other each a headlamp they had been wanting for a while.

After the Advent Conspiracy talk, however, they decided that they really don't need the headlamps, and there's nothing James really needs, so they should pool their money and buy things for people who really need it.

So this is what they bought baby James. A dozen baby chicks to give to someone in a developing nation. They were so excited about this idea that they decided to give their saved allowance money in addition to their remaining gift money and pay for the care of an orphan child for a month. It was so cool to see them so pumped up about doing something good for others.

The Advent Conspiracy

2009-11-18T16:20:00.000-08:00

This year my church is participating in The Advent Conspiracy, a movement started by a group of pastors from Oregon to reduce the commercialism of the Christmas season and bring it back to it's original intention, celebrating the birth of Christ. I'm really very excited about this. The idea, as it says on their website, is to worship fully, spend less, give more and love all. I mean, who couldn't get behind that!

When we first had our oldest, Cheyenne, five years ago I felt kind of bad that we'd likely never have the resources to give her (and eventually her siblings) the kinds of magical, gift filled Christmases I'd had as a child. While I was deeply comitted to the idea of Simple Living at the time, Christmas had always been such a time of anticipation and wonder for me that it was one area I was reluctant to simplify.

In the end, I am a practical person, however and with Zach working construction and getting laid off shortly before Christmas each year, it didn't make sense to spend a ton of money when what we had needed to last until spring. It turned out to be the best thing for us. We've found other ways of making Christmas a magical experience for the kids, ways that don't rely on big expensive gifts.

This year, though, I want to take it further and really get into the spirit of giving. I think this fits in with my Year of Temperance quite well. I look around at everything I have and it makes me want to go out and do good for the world. I am so incredibly lucky. My kids are so incredibly lucky. We have such a beautiful, wonderful life.

During this Christmas season we want to focus our efforts on looking for need and filling it. I want us all to get into the habit of stepping up to the plate and making good things happen for others. I want us to spend more quality time as a family and more time focusing on teaching the kids about the wondrous and miraculous event that was the first Christmas.

Some of our plans:

-Make a family gift to AFINNET, a charity close to our hearts and the heart of our church. Bishop George and Father Michael who run this charity are two of the most good-hearted people I've ever met.

-Actively look for small ways to help people. Hold a door for someone. Watch the neighbor's kid for an hour while she goes to her parent-teacher conference. Visit the elderly. That kind of stuff.

-Play the Generosity Game

-Storytelling around the fireplace

-After dinner advent ceremony

-Prayer tree (I'll be blogging about this later in the week)

-No Toys in 2010 Challenge (I'll be blogging about this too)

-Lessons and Carols at our church

I think this is going to be a very fun Christmas. I have areas, like my crazy Christmas party, where I'll go all out, but for the most part I really love a more paired down holiday.

National Novel Writing Month Update

2009-11-13T04:05:00.000-08:00

21,063 words so far! This has been much easier than I expected, although a bout of H1N1 last week really slowed down my progress. I am still on track, although I'm a little afraid to go back and read what I write while I had the flu. I was a little loopy at the time. Oh well, National Novel Writing Month is not about writing a masterpiece, it's about getting something down on paper and I have certainly done that. I can edit in December.

I Have Parted Ways With My Sanity

2009-11-09T16:37:00.001-08:00

It all started with these beauties. I've been browsing at the Bake it Pretty Website for a while now daydreaming about actually learning how to decorate cakes and I stumbled onto these, the Vintage Village and Magical Forest cupcake topper sets.

So I bought them. That's right. I spent $30 (including shipping) on cupcake toppers. So of course, now I actually have to do something with them because otherwise there's really no way to justify a purchase like that. So I thought about it and decided that I'm going to throw a Christmas party for my kid's new school friends and the cupcakes will be the star of the show.

Picture it. My dining room table lit up with white Christmas lights on top of my vintage Christmas table cloth. Fake snow strewn across the table and little Christmas village cupcakes strategically placed to resemble a fantasy Christmas village. But wait. You can't have a Christmas village without a tree. A big one. Right in the middle of town square. But I hate storing things long-term, so I want something edible. Enter, the Cookie Star Christmas Tree.

Now, I may actually print that off and take it to my friendly local bakery to see what they would charge me for something like that, but if not I'm probably just going to go ahead and attempt it myself. Well, now that I have the Christmas tree and all the little villagers, I need an actual Village. You know, at least a church and some houses.

And an ice skating rink, which I'm planning to make out of a circular mirror. And Christmas music. And hot chocolate. And egg nog. And maybe A Charlie Brown Christmas to watch on DVD. And you know what, I told the kids my grand plan so now I'm really committed. It's going to be spectacular. You know, if I'm still awake to enjoy it after all that work. Oh well. I put on a holiday tea for 100 people last year at my church when I was 5 months pregnant. This couldn't be any harder than that, right?

Way to go Barbie!

2009-11-06T06:48:00.000-08:00

It is now officially jacket season here in Minnesota, and along with that comes the frequent reminders (to both parents and children) that coats belong on the hook and books belong in the shoe closet. One member of the family seems to have gotten the message loud and clear. Way to set the standard Barbie!

Another Christmas Gift Completed

2009-11-04T10:22:00.000-08:00

This set of napkins and pretty handmade (by someone else) soap is my Christmas gift for my friend Janelle. Janelle and I were best friends in our mid teens and then something stupid that neither of us remembers caused some sort of fight and we drifted apart. Over the last 6 months we've reconnected and it is so much fun to have her back in my life. As we' said after the first time we got together again, "it's just like old times except we're not nearly as screwed up." What can I say, high school was not kind to either of us.

I invited her over for coffee, with my mom's pretty German coffee set, of course, and gave her the present early. Her birthday is the week of Christmas, so I want to keep the birthday and Christmas gifts separate. I just love this pattern, and the soap turned out to match almost perfectly.

The Adventure Begins

2009-11-02T20:35:00.000-08:00

So two days into National Novel Writing Month and I'm feeling pretty good. I've managed to write just over 10,000 words and they don't all suck. I am at the very least entertaining myself, and I've managed to give the kids and the husband their basic quota of love and attention at the same time. So what if the dishes are still in the sink. It's the price you pay for greatness. Or in my case, adequacy.

Halloween Fun

2009-10-30T04:40:00.000-07:00

For some reason I haven't been quite as excited about Halloween this year as other years. Maybe it's the early snow that has put my brain in "winter mode" about a month too early. Anyway, I decided this week that it was time to stop being a Halloween scrooge and have a little fun. Thanks to Valerie's excellent idea I saved myself some money by making Halloween gift bags out of envelopes. Mine aren' quite as fancy as hers as I lack the ability to fold corners and just left them bottomless. They look really cute and the girls both loved them.

Cheyenne and Isabella have been having spooky playdough fun with google eyes and my Halloween cookie cutters. I love this bat.

I have replaced one cup of my morning coffee with a homemade version of a Hot Apple Blast. We got the apple cider at an apple orchard this Sunday when we went on an adventure. We took a road we had never taken before and ended up in Red Wing, a cute little river town south of the Twin Cities. Along the way we stopped at an apple orchard. In addition to the cider we got some of their homemade honey roasted peanut butter. Amazing! The hot apple blast is just hot apple cider with whipped cream and caramel ice cream syrup.

Tonight we are having a friend over to make jack-o-lantern pizzas, Halloween cupcakes and Purple Mermaid Punch.

For Aunt Fran

2009-10-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

This post is entirely for the benefit of Zach's Aunt Fran, who I just e-mailed the link to my blog. I knew I had been bad last year about correspondence, but apparently I've been worse than I thought. It turns out we had neglected to inform Fran of the birth of the newest Griffith baby! Really. What kind of niece does that?

Anyway, I promised that the blog would be chock full of pictures of my kids and then realized that, since school started, I haven't posted many pictures of them. I'd post more of James, but I'm not kidding, he never sits still and they're almost all a blur.

So here you go, Aunt Fran. Can you even believe how big they've gotten.

Fall

2009-10-27T04:05:00.001-07:00

Well, Fall finally arrived. I think the leaves were utterly confused. We went from 75 degrees and sunny to snow to 50 degrees and rainy in the span of about a week. Fall is my absolute favourite season even though it lasts, at best, for about six weeks. This week it was more like two. Some of the trees are already bare. I did manage to get out and capture a few nice fall shots though.

Outsourcing my DIY Holiday

2009-10-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

Knowing my limits is not something I've ever been good at. That's why I was forced to give up Martyrdom for lent last year. I tend to take on too many tasks and then end up throwing myself an ice cream and hot fudge pity party for myself at 3AM trying to pull everything together.

No where has this been more true than Christmas. I love handmade Christmas gifts. Every fall I get crafty little daydreams and create big lists of things I will make by December 25th, like the year I decided to hand embroider monogrammed tea towels for each of my coworkers in their favourite colour.

This year I have had to concede that my DIY basment remodel isn't going to leave me adequate time for an entirely DIY Christmas, so I've decided to outsource some of the crafting and just buy stuff on Etsy. The first of my treasures arrived today. I bought two of these mermaid soaps, one in purple for Cheyenne and one in pink for Isabella. This is going to be a Santa gift.

This is the year the girls decided to ask if Santa was real. I wish they would have asked their father. I give entirely too much information. It turned into a big explanation about how Santa Claus is really a third century bishop from what is now called Turkey who supposedly gave dowry money to a poor man who had three daughters. Which led to the inevitable questions, "what is a dowry?" and "so Santa Claus is dead?" Neither of which, I am sad to say, had a handy sugar coated explanation. Suffice it to say my cheerfully morbid little girls have been gleefully showing off their newfound knowledge by telling just about everyone they meet that "Santa is dead!" Why couldn't I have left it at "yes?" It wouldn't be a lie. He was real, and if I'd thought of that in time I'd probably have spared a few of their little friends some trauma.

On a lighter note, I also ordered this lovely for two of my closest friends. That's right. It's glow in the dark Eric Northman soap. Mmmmm.

Swim with the Fishes

2009-10-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

Last week Zach took a 10 year old kid he mentors to the Mall of America's Underwater Adventures Aquarium to participate in their Swim with the Fishes program where people 10 and older get the chace to snorkle in the Rainbow Reef tank with a guide from Underwater Adventures.

The kid, who I'll call G, wants to be a marine biologist when he grows up, but he doesn't have a lot of confidence and he struggles some with school and friendships. In my opinion nothing motivates a kid to learn more than excitement and this kind of experience would give him a taste for the real thing.

The staff were great. When I called to reserve a spot they made note of his interest in marine biology so the people helping him could encourage him and answer any questions he might have. As the woman on the phone said, "there's nothing like a stingray swimming right by you to get you excited about the ocean."

I'm a little jealous, really. Maybe someday I'll give it a try. It could be a good birthday or Christmas present for the kids when they get older too.

He Finally Sat Still Long Enough to Get a Photo!

2009-10-21T16:13:00.000-07:00

This post is really nothing but a shameless "look at how stinkin' adorable my baby is" post. I have nothing useful to say. Just sit back and enjoy the cuteness.

A Party at the Park

2009-10-16T07:31:00.000-07:00

The first Friday our new neighbors, Silverwood Park, host their Fireside First Fridays event. It's an evening time party with a nature theme. This month's theme was The Moon. We gathered in the by the gallery fireplace to sing songs and watch a shadow puppet show about the moon.

This was followed by a chance to make our own shadow puppets and try them out with the moon shaped shadow puppet theaters that had been placed in the event hall. Bella made a bat. Cheyenne made a bunny, a girl and a tractor. The moons were made of freezer paper taped onto a big wooden circle. I bet I could do this using one of my very large embroidery hoops and one of Zach's LED shop lights as a light source. The puppets are made of construction paper, brads (to make the parts move) and bamboo skewers. They were really easy and we had a lot of fun. Even our neighbor, a woman about my mom's age who's kids are grown and gone, had a great time making them.

Finally we roasted marshmallows in the patio fireplace. We will definitely be attending more of these Fireside First Fridays. It was a great chance to get out of the house and meet the community and it was a lot of fun.

Experimenting with Applique

2009-10-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

I've never done applique before, but I have a couple of tea towels that have been sitting in my UFO basket ever since I messed up the iron on embroidery pattern on them and I decided that, one way or another, it was time to deal with them. Since pattern ink doesn't really wash out, applique seemed like the way to go.

It was ridiculously easy and cheap. I used a scrap of fabric I had leftover from another project and a free printed template from the internet. It worked like a charm. I think I may have found a new hobby. Because I really needed another one.

So Wrong

2009-10-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

This was the scene I woke up to on Monday. OK, I know I live in Minnesota, where it has snowed in every month except July, but this is just wrong. I haven't even taken my fall photos yet! Luckily, not everyone shares my negative attitude. Cheyenne woke up, looked outside and proclaimed, "It's snowing! Goodness this is a wonderful world!"

Birthday Sewing

2009-10-13T07:40:00.000-07:00

When it comes to birthday presents my husband and I can be pretty unromantic. Neither of us really understands the ins and outs of each others hobbies, so we often just buy our own birthday presents. As nice a gesture as it would be for him to go to Crafty Planet, buy something and wrap it, it's actually more fun for me to do it myself. So that's what I did and I spent the weekend in sewing bliss.

I decided it was time to make myself some cloth napkins. I just love these two fabrics. They are so kitchy and cute. The napkin pattern came from Amy Karol's Bend the Rules Sewing. It's essentially just a hemmed rectangle of fabric. I have seen other patterns that are double sided, but I decided this was just as cute and much easier. Really, they're a utilitarian object. They don't have to be complicated. The bowl covers are just a circle of fabric with an elastic band.

I have enough fabric to make napkins and a bowl cover for my mom for Christmas too. I think these could be cute in a gift basket also. Maybe a breakfast basket with fresh hot muffins or caramel rolls and whipped butter. Wouldn't that be a lovely treat some chilly winter morning?

National Novel Writing Month

2009-10-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

So I signed up to participate in National Novel Writing Month because, God knows, I need more to do. Actually I am really excited. I've been hanging out on the forums reading posts like "Can you make cheese from dolphin milk" and "How many stains can I work into one novel" and I'm thinking I've found my people. I don't really care if my novel entertains anyone but me. I think the experience will be fun.

The Year of Temperance

2009-10-07T18:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of a photo. I really can't think of what to photograph that aptly represents Temperance. Intemperance, sure, I have a blog full of pictures of that, but temperance is a stumper.

Anyway, my 31st birthday is on Friday and, as I've mentioned before, this is the Year of Temperance. Just a little background if anyone needs it, temperance, is one of the four cardinal virtues along with prudence, justice and fortitude. It's essentially moderation, or the taming of unhealthy desires.

This is going to be a hard one for me. At first, when I was contemplating this theme, I thought about all of the practical things. I broke down the areas where I am most likely to be intemperate; food, coffee, the internet, pulp fiction, and made a list of strategies to go with each one. For example, for every two pulp fiction novels, I have to read something of substance. I was pretty proud of my efforts, but I'm getting old enough to recognize when I'm BS-ing myself and as I looked at my neatly ordered list the alarms were quietly sounding. If it were really that simple, I'd have done it by now.

I have a love/hate relationship with those moments, the ones where I realize that I can continue to pussyfoot around the truth, but it isn't going to get me anywhere and the only way through it is to roll up my sleeves and really do what I need to do. They're an odd mixture of overwhelming and freeing.

The truth is that the habits that have led to things like overeating and drinking a half a pot of coffee a day are my safe havens. They're what I use to cope in times of crisis and fear. They're the morphine masking the pain of old wounds that I don't want to admit haven't really healed. My neat and tidy little list of strategies isn't going to be much help if I'm not being honest with myself.

So maybe I am gaining a little wisdom with age. I'm pretty sure that at 21 I would have swallowed my own BS whole and gone about my business checking off my strategies for two or three months before I gave up and reverted to my old ways. Maybe it's not so much wisdom as a lack of energy. I'm young yet, but I'm too old to be building houses on sand and pounding nails in with my head. If I'm going to do this I'm going to do it right.

Early Birthday Present

2009-10-05T18:16:00.001-07:00

My birthday isn't until Friday, but Isabella couldn't wait. I woke up to find her already awake and working on a secret birthday surprise for me. "Happy Birthday Mommy! It has crayons inside so you can colour!" How cute is that? I am definitely saving this one.

Fall Leaf Books

2009-10-01T05:48:00.000-07:00

I made these last week as a way of dealing with Cheyenne and Isabella's daily "collection" of fall leaves brought in from outside. We did something similar to this in elementary school and I figured I could google the directions.

The books themselves were simple. I used scrapbooking paper as the cover and cut printer paper down to size for the pages.

The directions for leaf pressing can be found , but it essentially involves pressing the leaves between two sheets of wax paper.

Here's the final result. The girls and their friend were thrilled with these and I am thrilled to no longer have the leaf collection on the dining room table.

What I've Been Up To

2009-09-29T19:16:00.001-07:00

My posts on this blog have been a little scarce lately because of a big cleaning and organizing project I've undertaken and I'm so excited to share the results! Tonight. Before my kids and the two kids I'm babysitting tomorrow undo it all.

When my dad moved out of this house he took a suitcase of clothes, his laptop and a few kitchen implements and that was it. We moved our stuff in on top decades of what I like to call "ancestral clutter." A lot of this was good stuff; lovely antiques that belonged to great-great-great grandparents, old photos, good dishes and things of that nature. A lot of it was junk. It's taken me nearly two years of sorting the wheat form the chaff, but I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. Here are just a few corners of the house that are now in good shape. This house is six levels, and these pictures represent 90% of the two main living levels.

The Kitchen:

The front hall closet

The kitchen level bathroom

The Dining Room:

Craft stuff, school stuff, playdough, legos and tinker toys

I use my Grandma's punch bowl for fruit

The hutch, which serves as my craft cabinet

The Living Room:

The view from my favourite chair

Easy, Naughty Spinach Dip

2009-09-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

This is one of those recipes that everyone requests for potlucks and I'm embarassed to tell them the recipe because it's so incredibly easy. I learned this one in college from my friend Mary who worked at a restaurant that served this. It's to die for.

1 c mayo

1 c parmesan

1 package frozen spinach

Mix together. If desired, top with extra parmesan or a little shredded mozarella. Bake until bubbly. Serve with tortilla chips or bread. That's it. See, I told you it was easy.

Reflections on My Year of Love and Joy

2009-09-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before that every year on my birthday I select a different theme for the year, something I need to cultivate or learn. I have found it so helpful to give myself and God a full year to really focus on a topic and work it through in my daily life. 30 was the Year of Love and Joy.

This sounds like such an easy theme, but I was raised by a Dad who is suspicious of Love and Joy and much more comfortable with suffering. Until this year I had never been able to shake the feeling that if I wasn't suffering I wasn't working hard enough.

Dad comes by these feeling honestly. He was born with a birth defect that took 13 years of surgeries and hospital stays to fix. Meanwhile, one of his three sisters had a bone disease that kept her in a body cast for nearly two years. His parents were working to pay the hospital bills and taking care of their other two kids and going back and forth in the hospital between him and his sister. He spent a lot of that time alone and in pain, a state that became, if not comfortable, at least familiar enough to become a habit. One of the biggest blessings and surprises this year has been that both my dad and I seem to be overcoming that mindset.

When I started this year I had an idea that it would be like a year-long party, a break from the more serious goals I had set for myself in my twenties. It was going to be a year free of all that work and worry and stress where I could finally just relax and enjoy the fruits of my labours. Naive, I know. God must have found that pretty funny.

The reality is that I've spent most of the last year held on the edge of suffering, forced everyday to actively choose love and joy. There was the fear of being told my baby (conceived on my birthday between the Year of Trust and the Year of Love and Joy) could have problems because of a complication with my pregnancy, the trust to know that I would and could handle that situation no matter how it turned out and the absolute joy of having a healthy, normal child.

We've had a year-long unemployment, which, while a little nerve wracking, has actually been a blessing that has allowed us so many amazing moments as a family and showed us the amazing support circle we are lucky to have. It's also given Zach the push he needed to go back to school to pursue the job he really loves.

Finally, there has been a huge change in my relationship with my dad. We've always been close, but this year there has been a shift of sorts. Dad has started on the path to becoming a 3rd Order Franciscan (a lay Franciscan) and has expended considerable effort in living a life of simplicity and service. He gives away huge chunks of his income to charity, volunteers every week and has joined several groups and committees at his church, the result of which is that he is finally breaking free of his loneliness and beginning to live a life that isn't centered on himself.

Every weekend he comes over and excitedly tells us about this project or that project, about what the Brothers of Peace are doing this week, or how he took a friend he volunteers with out to breakfast to cheer him up when he was laid off. Watching him find real, unadulterated love and joy after 60+ years of pain has been the most dramatic experience of this year.

The net result of this year has been so much better than I could have anticipated. Instead of a year long party I got a lasting lesson in how to find and cultivate love and joy that isn't dependent on perfect circumstances that will likely never arrive. I got a lesson in the power that real love and joy can have in transforming even the oldest and most deeply set scars. That is something I will use for the rest of my life. What a birthday gift!

What I Made Wednesday- Back to School Skirts

2009-09-16T11:47:00.000-07:00

This week's What I Made Wednesday is another round of skirts. These simple little skirts are the workhorses of my girls' wardrobe and for Back to School I decided to let them pick out their own fabric at my beloved Crafty Planet. They both chose Cloud Prancers by Michael Miller. I don't blame them. I love how 1980s little kid retro these are. It just screams "I play with Rainbow Bright and watch Jem and She-Rah Princess of Power on TV." This Kindergarten stuff obviously has me feeling a little nostalgic.

First Day

2009-09-14T17:45:00.001-07:00

She doesn't look like she's up to any mischief does she? If you only knew the kind of trouble I was as a kid you would know how funny this picture of Cheyenne waiting for the bus on her first day of school really is. She's headed to my old elementary school, a den of nepotism where the teachers have either been there for 300 years, were students themselves or are married to former students or teachers. Cheyenne's teacher (who seems like a very nice person) is the wife of a former classmate of mine. Like all small towns once you have a reputation in St Anthony it's hard to outlive.

We've been joking all summer, well, half joking, that the teachers of St Anthony are going to wet themselves when they see that I've spawned. Lucky for them this little monkey is much better behaved than her mother. I mean, how could you not like a kid who's all mermaids and rainbows and unicorns and who's hobby is sorting laundry?

The Cleaning Book

2009-09-13T17:47:00.000-07:00

Well the first week of school is over and I am back. I decided to use the time wisely and give the house a good scrub down. I sort of succeeded. While I was down on my hands and knees scrubbing I came up with an idea I think will help the kids (and maybe even Zach) become more autonomous in their chores. I call it The Cleaning Book.

For each room there will be two pages, one page with an 8x10 photo of the room cleaned the way I want it to look when chores are done, and on the other a laminated checklist.

The photo is meant to be a visual aid, like one of those "What's Wrong With This Picture?" books. They can look at the photo and look at their room and notice, "hey, there's a sock on my floor" or "My shoes are in the living room" and fix it to look like the picture. The purpose here is not to be rigid, but to give them clear expectations. My parents changed their idea of what "clean enough" looked like frequently and I found that frustrating. By giving them a visual idea of what we'd like the room to look like I hope to avoid that kind of frustration and teach them to notice when things need to be cleaned.

The checklist is an idea borrowed from the years I spent working in coffee shops. We always had a laminated checklist of chores for each person that could be checked off with a dry erase marker as we went along. I loved this. I get a sense of satisfaction from checking something off a list, and again, it provides clear direction. It also aids in remembering what has been accomplished already and what is still left to be done. Right now, while they are little, we'll go over the checklist with them, but as they get older and learn to read, they can check the list off without help from us.

It sounds a little obsessive, I know, but it's really not meant to be. It's more of a guide than a command. Zach even thinks it will be helpful for him.

Super Frugal September Week 1

2009-09-04T11:07:00.000-07:00

I have spent most of my alloted non-food $100 already, but it was mostly on the things I knew I would have to pay for. So far this month we've bought/paid for

-A tank of gas $37
-Toiletries (diapers, toilet paper, etc) $28
-My birth certificate $25
-A cup of coffee out with a friend $1.75
-A redbox DVD $1

That's a total of $92.75. Luckily the only other thing I know we'll need to pay for this month is $6 to Cheyenne's school for headphones. We may also need laundry detergent, which would put us a few dollars over $100, but not so much I'd feel uncomfortable about it.

We've kept busy this week with lots of frugal projects.

We brought apples to the food shelf.

We made chicken pot pie and apple pies from scratch.

We worked on some embroidery. This is Isabella's handiwork.

And of course, we fell back on an old frugal mom staple, homemade playdough. Mermaid blue and lavender, of course.

Just for fun if anyone is reading this and doesn't have a recipe for homemade playdough, I've been happy with this one.

1/2 c salt

1 c flour

1 T cream of tartar

1T oil

1 c water

food colouring (optional)

Cook over medium heat until it reaches the consistancy you want it, then cool. Easy. Child's play, really. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Hooray for Useful Souvenirs

2009-09-01T19:39:00.000-07:00

When I was a little kid and my dad would go on trips for business he always bought me a snowglobe. It was our little ritual, but sweet as it was, there really is a limit to the number of snowglobes a person can comfortably own.

Thankfully, now that I'm an adult we've developed a new tradition and both of my parents tend to bring me something food related. The last time Dad went to California he bought me the book 12 Months of Monastery Soups, by Victor-Antoine D'Avila LaTourette. I use that book all the time. When my mom went to France she brought me herbes de provence and a beautiful apron. Last week Dad once again visited California to see my sister and brought me home some lovely California Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

This is so much better than a crappy vacation t-shirt or a shot glass, or even a snowglobe.

What I Made Wednesday- Apple Cinnamon Pancake Syrup

2009-09-01T19:22:00.001-07:00

I've decided to start participating in What I Made Wednesdays from This Wasn't in the Plan and this week's entry is apple cinnamon pancake syrup.

I hate wasting anything, so I make this every year with the apple peels from my yearly apple pies, sauces and crisps. It's very simple and very cheap, especially if you have an abundance of apples. It's simple one part brown sugar to one part water (I usually use two cups sugar and two cups water per batch), a few handfuls of apple peels, plus cinnamon and vanilla to taste. While it's cooking the house smells like heaven.

This batch is going to a friend as a birthday gift, but I think I'm going to package some smaller jars to put in my gift baskets at Christmas.

Apples

2009-08-31T20:23:00.000-07:00

In an excellent preemptive score for my Super Frugal September, I got 10 grocery bags of free organic apples from my Great-Aunt's orchard for free. It must be a bumper year for apples, because all 10 bags are from a single tree, and they represent only about 1/10th of the apples on that particular tree.

I put both my kids and the kids we were babysitting today to work peeling apples with my apple peeler/corer. That thing kicks serious butt. Even taking into account the "no it's my turn" fights, the apple peeler/corer cut the hassle factor of preparing apples for pie and sauce by at least half.
I save the peels and boil them with brown sugar, water and cinnamon to make cinnamon apple pancake sauce. I think I might make this for Christmas gifts this year. I certainly have enough apples.

We made two pies today, one for our snack and one for the boys we were babysitting to take home as a birthday present to their dad. They were very excited about that.

All told today I made two pies, half a gallon of apple cinnamon syrup, froze a large bag of apples for crisps and pannekoeken and made a couple quarts of apple sauce and I'm about halfway through a single bag of apples. I may be visiting the food shelf for a donation before all is said and done.

The Gateway Trail

2009-08-28T05:57:00.000-07:00

The Gateway Trail stretches 18 miles from Downtown St Paul to Stillwater, MN on the Minnesota/Wisconsin border. For probably two years now Zach has been bugging me to take the kids the full 18 miles, but I've always declined. This past weekend we decided that even if we couldn't make the entire trip, we'd like to at least check out the trail. It is just beautiful, and much flatter than I had anticipated. Apparently it used to be a railway corridor.

Bella rode on the tag-along bike, Cheyenne rode her own bike and I walked and pushed James in the stroller since he is too little to ride in a bike trailer.

We packed some popcorn, raisins, pistachios and a gallon of water for snacks, which was a good thing because round-trip we made it 5 miles. That's not a ton by adult standards, but I was pretty pleased with the girls. We heard not one single "I'm tired" complaint the entire time. I think once James is old enough to ride in the bike trailer we may indeed be able to make it the entire 18 miles.

I'm enamored of the idea of non-motorized travel. When the kids are much older we'd like to take them all on a biking and camping trip from my mom's hometown on the Wisconsin side of the St Croix river all the way North to Superior Wisconsin. Eventually, when the kids have moved out Zach and I would like to follow in the footsteps of a friend of mine who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. You know, before we set off on that sailing tour we want to take. Yeah, I like to dream big.

Super Frugal September

2009-08-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

Image courtesy of r-z

I have joined a challenge on a message board I post on to try and have a Super Frugal September. Since October, November and December are looking to be pretty tight months financially, buckling down in September and putting as much money away as possible seems like a pretty good plan to me. I've talked to Zach and we've decided to see if we can keep our non-food and non-bills spending to about $100 for the entire month.

I decided to break our spending down into categories and see what we need and what we can come up with to save money.

Transportation

We really only need to drive on a regular basis to church (twice a week) to preschool and on Friday nights to my friend's house for Girl's Night. The bus will take Cheyenne to and from Kindergarten and the grocery store, pharmacy and bank are all within easy walking distance of our house. On nice days Zach could actually bike Isabella to preschool too. I suppose I really could bike to my friend's house, but I usually leave there after dark and I'm not so comfortable riding home from there at night as it involves a busy street. My goal is to try to make it an entire month on one tank of gas.

Toiletries/Household

We are actually pretty well stocked here. We will need toilet paper, diapers and possibly laundry soap, but we have plenty of soap, dish soap, shampoo, razor blades and conditioner. We're low maintenance people on this sort of thing. Diapers will be about $20, toilet paper about $10 and laundry soap (cheap stuff) will be about $5.

Entertainment

This is one of the areas I enjoy spending money on, but realistically there's no reason I can't go a month without spending money in this category, especially when school starts. Not spending so much time on fun stuff will also give us a chance to tackle a few projects we really want to tackle, like organizing the garage, for example.

I have my Friday Night Girl's Night which consists of hanging out at my friend Martha's house and watching movies or talking about everything from politics to Vampire theology on her back porch and occasionally having a bonfire. Other than the gas to get over there, it's entirely free.

We'll continue to use the park to go fishing, bike riding and walking and we'll attend the free Grand Opening. I will, however, bring my own coffee and avoid the brownies. That will be good for my waistline anyway and it won't cost any money.

Saturday nights my dad takes the girls to Perkins to see the clown, get their faces painted and have Rainbow pancakes so DH and I can have a date. Instead of going out to eat for our dates I will cook and we'll go for a walk or rollerblade or something.

I'm going to do some stash busting for my crafts, which is good. I have a lot of stash to bust in fabric, yarn and embroidery. It's time to tackle some of that anyway. DH's main hobby is games, from video games to chess. These are free.

Miscellaneous

This is the category we'll be spending the most money on. We have some odd one-off expenses in September.

-$6 for earphones purchased through the school for Cheyenne
-$40 to replace our lost birth certificates

That's all I can think of right now.

My goal is to make this Super Frugal September as pleasant as possible. Now that I've written it all out, it doesn't seem like it should be all that hard.

Gigantic Man-Eating Cinnamon Rolls

2009-08-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

In an effort to resist the scrumptious organic caramel pecan brownies at the coffee shop at the park, I decided to whip us up a Saturday treat before we headed out for the day. I turned to my favourite source for all things bread related, The Fresh Loaf, for inspiration and was once again blown away. These lovely, gooey, enormous cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting were a hit, to say the least. Better than Cinnabon, I'm not kidding. They did the trick too. I wasn't even remotely tempted by the brownies. We followed this breakfast of champions up with two and a half hours of walking which might have burned off half of the calories we consumed at breakfast. It was worth it, though.

Green Hour- Park Exploration

2009-08-23T18:49:00.001-07:00

As I expected we have been at our new park every day this past week. We've gotten to know a lot of the workers there from Michael and Paul, two very nice groundskeepers, to Christine, Janelle and Marilyn, the fabulous coffee shop staff and Rosemary, the information desk lady who turns out to be the mother of a friend of mine from high-school. They've come to expect us. Everyday the girls report to Rosemary and tell them whether they've been good or not and everyday we make a game of searching for Michael to say hello. Even if it just means waving to him from outside the maintenance shed.

We're there in rain

or shine

We've brought old friends (I'm still jealous of Julian's grandma-made schnitzel sandwich)

And made new ones

And explored both inside

and out

And it's only been a week! We've met a lady and her parrot, stopped and listened to musicians playing on the Great Lawn, chatted with neighbors over coffee and embroidery on the patio and seen all kinds of animals from turtles to bats. I can already tell that this park is going to be the source of many fond memories for my kids.

Happy Little Tea Towel

2009-08-23T18:31:00.000-07:00

I've been working on embroidering this tea towel most of the week and I've decided I'm keeping it. I never keep anything I make for myself. I have some sort of guilt complex that makes that impossible. It's like I can only justify the expense of something if I give it to someone else. Well, I'm done with that. I like this happy little tea towel and now it's all mine.

Green Hour- Our Very Own Letterbox

2009-08-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

Ever since our first outing, Letterboxing has become one of our favourite hobbies, so when our fabulous new park opened up I decided to scope out a spot to put our very own letterbox. I think checking out the messages left by other letterboxers would be a fun thing to do on our walks through the park, and may give us motivation to get outside more even in the winter when the walking paths turn to skiing and snowshoeing paths.

I am still deciding between this one, which is relatively easy to get to and could be accessed by very small children and one deeper in the woods that would be more complicated. The stamp was an easier decision. I found this one on Etsy for a mere $2.25 plus $1.50 shipping. I've mentioned before that Zach and I have daydreams of sailing around the world and if we somehow won the lottery we've both agreed we'd love a ship like this one. Of course I have no idea how hard those may actually be to sail, but it's a daydream, so it really doesn't matter.

Now all that's left is to get the stamp pad and log book and write the clues. Oh, and we should probably check with our new friend, the groundskeeper to make sure it's OK.

I'm very excited to see what kind of messages we get!

Silverwood Park- My New Hangout

2009-08-15T15:03:00.000-07:00

I am beyond excited about this. Across the street from my house there is a large patch of wooded land that used to be a Salvation Army camp when I was a little kid. It was always a source of intrigue for me because, like most little kids, I found nothing so interesting as a "Private Property, Keep Out" sign. We'd sneak over the fence and look around, ducking behind trees when we heard someone coming or paddle over from my friend Geneva's house on the other side of the lake. It was great fun.

Then the camp closed and the lot sat vacant. I, like a lot of people I knew, was afraid that the land would be developed. It's lakeside property in a great school district 10 minutes from downtown Minneapolis. It's just the kind of place developers love. Fortunately, the county park board bought the land instead to turn into a combination park and center for the arts. The idea is that the park will give Minneapolitans a sort of arts based urban retreat.

The park has been closed for a year and a half for construction and opened this week. They tried to rehab the park in an environmentally friendly way. For example, the visitor's center uses geothermic heating and cooling and the rainwater is directed into a 5000 gallon cistern for reuse and to prevent runoff into the lake. There are also compost and recycling bins next to all the trash cans. The hope is to bring the park to as close to a zero waste facility as possible.

I think this is my new hangout. It has a coffee shop with fair trade organic coffee, compostable cups with recyclable lids, organic, local milk, wifi and a killer view. Excuse the dark pictures, it was a really gloomy day today.

A beautiful patio with rocking chairs and lounge chairs

an outdoor fireplace

And, again, a beautiful view

It has a beautiful event hall overlooking the patio

A gallery with lots of natural lighting (the woodwork is from the trees that had to be taken down in the park's construction)

And an outdoor amphitheater for summer concerts

They are going to have both art classes and nature classes at the visitor's center, both of which I am really interested in.

And then of course there's the hiking, fishing, canoeing, birdwatching, picnicking and walking. And the first Friday family nights and community events. I think this is going to be a huge asset to our community.

Marshmallow Mermaid Pie

2009-08-13T19:02:00.001-07:00

I have a weakness for marshmallows. It's not even so much the flavour, especially with store bought marshmallows, as it is the texture. I love the sweet, airy creaminess. So two years ago when I saw the movie Waitress I filed away the idea of Marshmallow Mermaid Pie in my head, only to randomly retrieve it last night when I was rolling pie crusts. I looked it up on the internet and found the recipe on the movie's website. I decided that this is the kind of thing I should get out of my system before my Year of Temperance begins.

Marshmallow Mermaid Pie

9 graham crackers
1/2 C. sweetened, flaked coconut, toasted
5 Tbs. butter or margarine, melted
34 lg. marshmallows (8 oz.)
1/2 C. whole milk
1 1/2 C. heavy or whipping cream
1 oz. unsweetened chocolate, grated

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine coconut and graham crackers in food processor until coarse crumbs form.
2. Combine crumbs and butter with fork. Press to bottom and side of 9-inch pie plate. Bake 10 minutes and cool on wire rack.
3. Heat marshmallows and milk in 3-qt. saucepan over low heat until smooth, stirring constantly. Remove saucepan from heat. Cool completely (30 minutes.)
4. In large bowl with mixer at medium speed, beat cream until stiff peaks form. Fold marshmallow mixture into whipped cream with grated chocolate. Spoon filling into cooled crust. Refrigerate pie at least 3 hours or overnight.
5. Top with mini marshmallows, maraschino cherries and rainbow sprinkles.

Good Lord, was this a good pie. It wasn't nearly as sticky sweet as I had imagined it would be. The girls and Zach all agreed that this is a winner and one we will definitely be making again.

Frugal Cooking- Squirreling Away Food For Winter

2009-08-12T19:54:00.000-07:00

This is my great-aunt Beulah. I want to be just like her when I grow up. Beulah's one of those old-fashioned Grandma types who makes everything from scratch and always had a freezer full of stuff like butter sponge cake and homemade twice baked potatoes and strawberry sauce, you know in case there's a winter storm and twenty hobbits are stuck at your house and in need of provisions. I love it.

In my efforts to be like Beulah, I've been working for years on coming up with a similar system to hers for freezing, canning and otherwise preserving and preparing food for the winter months. In my case it's not a necessity. I live in the city within walking distance of a grocery store, but it does help to make weekday meal planning a whole lot easier. There's been a lot of trial and error. I've learned that there are plenty of things I really don't use, things that don't can or freeze well and things that are just not worth the freezer space. I feel like I'm starting to hit my groove now.

This past week I've been working hard on this project. The school year is less than a month away now and life is about to get a little more hectic.

Tonight I made and froze some pie crusts. Eight pie crust, to be exact.

In the winter I like to make quiche and pot pies, as well as sweet pies, of course. The Pillsbury stuff just isn't the same. While pie crust is easy, it's messy, so I have to be in the right mood to make it. Once it's made I roll it out on wax paper, roll it up and put the crusts in a ziploc bag for freezing. It makes it easy to store and easy to retrieve.

One of my experiments this year is with freezing dough for fruit tarts. It's crumbly, so I stored it in a ziploc bag. When I'm ready to use it, I'll unthaw it and pat it into a tart pan. It's really not very different from pie crust, so I am hopeful that it will freeze well.

My neighbor has been bringing me tart cherries, so I've been using them to make cherry freezer jam and cherry pancake sauce. I love cherry jam. It's one of my all-time favourites, especially on jam cakes and in jam tarts.

Beans are another thing I like to cook ahead and freeze. These are baked beans. I made enough to fill four bags with enough in each bag to feed 5 people in a meal. I have some black beans with a little onion and a dried pepper in the crockpot now. I like those for black bean chili and black bean burritos.

Finally, they had overripe bananas on sale at the grocery store, 4lbs for $1. I froze them individually and then put them in a bag to use later in smoothies or banana bread.

I've been thinking about what else I'd like to make ahead and I've come up with the following list.

-Cinnamon/caramel rolls
-Dinner rolls
-Biscuits
-Pizza dough
-Cookie dough
-Twice baked potatoes
-Raspberry freezer jam
-Raspberry pancake sauce
-Pumpkin puree
-Leeks
-Pesto
-Herbs
-Cornish Pasties
-A few batches of Potato Leek Soup

Colouring Book Holder

2009-08-11T06:37:00.001-07:00

We have so many colouring books and notebooks that things tend to get a little messy in our dining room. I was leafing through Family Fun magazine and came across a picture of a magazine holder made from an old cereal box and decided it was just the ticket for solving my storage problem.

The directions are simple. Take a cereal box and cut it at an angle so that it looks like a magazine holder. In Family Fun, they left it like this, but I wanted to make it look a little more attractive.

I decided to decoupage. Decoupaging 3-D objects makes me nervous. I am living proof that the gift-wrapping gene is not standard-issue on the second x chromosome and this process is very similar. On the other hand, I was decoupaging paper I had gotten for free onto an old cereal box, so if it didn't work out I was out the maybe $.05 in Mod Podge it took me to coat the box.

I think it turned out nicely.

National Night Out

2009-08-07T13:34:00.001-07:00

I am pleased to announce that my town won second place in our category for this year's national night out. We have always had a big turn-out, so I'm not surprised. It was a fun evening. James was passed around the whole night from neighbor to neighbor, so I actually had a chance to eat a meal in peace. It was lovely.

There was plenty of food, games for the kids, prizes, ice cream and swimming. The kids went home about 9PM, but I stayed out talking until well after 10:00.

Later that evening we got a chance to see our town's fire department in action as no fewer than two fire engines, four cop cars and three fire rescue vehicles rushed to change a neighbor's smoking light bulb, thus answering the age old question, "How many firefighter's does it take to change a light bulb." Oh well. At least we know we are safe if anything does ever happen around here.

2009-08-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

Image courtesy of feverblue

One of the things I'd like to work on in the next year is correspondence. I am spectacularly bad at this. I cannot count the number of times I've gotten Christmas cards filled out for 25 people, only to have them sit in a drawer until Easter when I finally get rid of them out of frustration. I am also bad with birthday cards, baby announcements and, as noted in my last post, thank you cards. I mean to change this. I love recieving real mail, the kind that doesn't request money or advertise a product. To this end I've decided to take on written correspondence as a sort of hobby. I've set aside time for it on Friday afternoons, and I've asked Zach to buy me a few related products for my birthday.

I want to get an address stamp with the name of my house (Bryn Dial), our family name (Griffith) and our address, a signet ring, some sealing wax and some nice paper and envelopes. I like the idea of communicating by snail mail. Sure, I can e-mail, but it's just not the same. I am hoping that by approaching letter-writing as a pleasant, enjoyable enterprise I can get over this life long aversion I have to mailing things.

Manners

2009-08-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

Really and truly, I am not one of those people who sits around complaining about younger generations. I'm not old enough for that yet, but I have noticed lately how many kids don't seem to know much about the subject of manners. Mine included. We're pretty casual around here, and although I like that I do think my kids would benefit from learning proper manners.

This is good for me too. As we've done this I have come to realize how casual I have gotten. I frequently catch myself with my elbows on the table and I've never ever been good with Thank You notes. I've sworn to rectify this, as it sets a bad example for the kids.

In thinking about how to teach this I've broken it down into a few categories. I'm sure more will occur to me, but for the moment I think this is enough for the kids to take in.

1. Table Manners
-How to set a table
-Please and thank you
-No complaining (I was a stickler for this already)
-Elbows off the table
-Chew with your mouth closed
-If a strange food is offered to you, at least try it
-If you are at someone else's house, thank them for inviting you and for their efforts
-Wait to be excused
-Hands to yourself
-Help clear the table (at home) offer to help when at a friend or family member's home

2. Playtime Manners
-If a friend is over, let them pick what to play
-If you are at a friends, clean up before you leave. At home, clean up when you are done.
-When leaving a friends, thank them and their parent for inviting you
-Please and Thank You
-Follow other people's house rules, even if they aren't the same as ours
-Listen to the adult in charge
-Never be a sore loser or gloat when you win
-No arguing
-No whining

3. Correspondence and Communication
-Answer the phone politely
-Take a message if someone can't come to the phone
-Be polite to people who have dialed the wrong number
-When someone gives you a gift, thank them in person and send a thank-you note
-Don't interrupt
-If someone is talking on the phone, be quiet so as not to disturb them
-Don't talk on the phone to one friend while another is over

It will take some time, I'm sure, but I think this will be a really valuable exercise for my kids.

Sisterly Love

2009-07-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I mentioned this on the blog, but about two weeks ago James had to go back to the hospital with a respiratory infection. He's doing fine now, but his sisters have been worried and are going to great lengths to ensure that he is a happy and healthy baby. This is one of their latest attempts at making him happy. An entire gallery of Hello Kitty pictures above his bassinet. If you look closely you can see that the tape that holds them up is in the shape of a cross. It's supposed to be a red cross, because my little Clara Bartons are setting up their own domestic disaster recovery unit right here in our house. They are thoroughly convinced that their intensive regimen of dances, songs, bad jokes and Hello Kitty pictures has helped the patient turn the corner and start down the road to recovery. Maybe they are right.

Thoughts About Motherhood

2009-07-29T20:08:00.000-07:00

I get a lot of joy out of motherhood, but I don't always feel like a "real" stay-at-home-mom. I think my kids are interesting, cool people and I love them to pieces, but I can't say I feel like motherhood defines me. I struggle with this because, essentially, I have made motherhood my career.

It's like "motherhood" is this fabulous cover story I've concocted as an excuse to stay home and write nonsensical stuff like this and and bake and colour with the girls and chat with my friends. It's like I've forged a note to the principal and I'm playing hooky. It's like the respectable front business that hides my mafia activities and launders my (non-existent) money. I keep thinking that if I don't buck up soon and learn to fold laundry and and make beds like a good housewife they're going to find me out and haul me off to that jail they call Work.

I spent the day hanging out by the pool with my friends while the younger kids swam and Zach taught the older kids to play chess. Sure, that kind of stuff is great, but it's too much fun. There's not enough suffering in it to make it feel legit. Where do I get off discussing vampire novels at 2:00PM on a Tuesday? Or wait, it's Wednesday, isn't it? See that's what I mean. I don't even know what day it is. I don't even own a watch. That can't be right. This kind of irresponsibility will catch up to me eventually.

It's not that motherhood isn't work. By 10AM yesterday morning I had cooked fried eggs, toast and coffee (or milk) for four people, washed the dishes, fed and changed the baby, washed and dried a load of laundry, dressed the kids, brushed their hair, arranged the new reading nook and I was just getting started. It just doesn't feel like work.

I'm not entirely sure what that says about me. Maybe it means that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. There is that old chestnut about loving what you do and never working a day in your life and the kids do seem pretty happy and well adjusted. Maybe it means that I'm lazy. Either way I think I'll ride this train as long as I can.

A Reading Nook

2009-07-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to come up with ideas to use the $100 my grandma gave Isabella for her birthday. The kids really don't need any more toys, we're pretty well stocked on books, clothes and craft supplies and Grandpa is renewing her Children's Museum membership, so I decided to hold onto it until the right idea occurred to me.

Yesterday, as I was perusing the back-to-school and dorm stuff (I love that stuff, don't ask me why) I saw these pillows and an idea popped into my head. I'd make them a reading nook.

There's a space at the top of the staircase on the way to their room that has always bugged me. It's too large to leave empty. It looks blank and cold, but it's really too small for anything useful. Inefficient, unused spaces drive me nuts. A reading nook is the perfect thing for this space and, with the girls sharing a room, it's something that can give them another place to hang out.

The space is simple, two $12 reading pillows, a $3 IKEA rug, an old wicker basket for books and a set of $20 IKEA decals I had bought for another project, decided against and forgotten to return. I think it looks pretty good and the kids just love it. Finally, that awkward little space will be put to some use.

Baby's First Name Day

2009-07-28T04:40:00.001-07:00

A Name Day is an old European custom, similar to a birthday, but celebrated on the feast day of whatever saint you happened to be named after. I'm the kind of girl who is always looking for a reason to celebrate, so we have celebrated our name days as long as we've had kids. Cheyenne and Isabella's are actual holidays, so they have been easy to celebrate. Isabella's falls on the 4th of July (St Elizabeth of Portugal, otherwise known as Isabel or Isabella) and Cheyenne, who's middle name is Nicole, celebrates on the feast day of St Nicholas, which, given our German heritage is like a mini version of Christmas.

Saturday was James' first name day, the feast day of St James the Greater. There is an old tradition for the feast of St James of building grottos with sea shells, sea glass and candles to raise money for travelers making a pilgramage to the burial place of St James in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. I had some shells and sea glass on hand from Cheyenne's Purple Mermaid birthday party, so we decided to give a nod to tradition and decorate the table with shells and sea glass, primarily scallop shells, the symbol of St James.

Next we had to figure out the food. Coquille St Jaques (scallops in a white wine cream sauce), the traditional food of the day, is way out of our budget, so Cheyenne and I headed to the bakery to see what we could come up with for a treat. We decided that the cream cheese coffee cake looked sort of shell-like and at $5.99 it was in our price range.

Grandpa came over and we had our treats, said a little prayer for James and spent the rest of the day in the pool. I'm not sure James really noticed, but the rest of us had a great time celebrating.

Alaska

2009-07-22T19:59:00.001-07:00

Image courtesy of Noel Zia Lee

My camera is temporarily lost and nothing terribly interesting is happening here this week, so here's another poem I wrote. I'm having fun with this.

Alaska

Larger in my own mind than I am in reality, I step off the ferryboat, embarassing grandmother and other baggage in tow.

We eat cheeseburgers at an old cafe with a rainbow on the sign and the faint odor of dead salmon on the patron in the seat behind me. Farewell to civilization.

I am 12 years old and far from home, driving the 10 mile road past ruined cemeteries full of prospectors and fishermen, forgotten names on whitewashed tombstones, to the house my uncle built by hand when tales of his grandfather's travels lured him North and West and into the woods, never to return.

I am loosed from 20th Century moorings and vaguely uneasy, awed as I am by Cathedral Peaks and trees that stretch to heaven. It's a wilder wilderness than I have seen before, older and more fearsome and I can see now in its treatment of the old rundown fishing shacks and the wary eye the dog casts to the woods what is meant by the words "fear of God." It is magnificent.

In a plane the size of a minivan we soar above ice the size of fear. Above pools of water that ring in purple, green and indigo like the drawing of a child who is tired of the colour blue.

I wonder if it is really possible that thousands of miles away there is such a thing as a suburb and a home. A strange calm washes over me as I see myself for the first time in the right proportion, properly small.

I feel shaken and hungry, held on the edge of a vastness reason cannot explain and certain that I will never again worry about getting to math class on time, or the price of milk. Set apart by sanity to wander all my days.

The Year of Temperance - Part 1

2009-07-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of yomi995

I've mentioned before that every year I set an intention (and sometimes one or two sub-intentions) for the year beginning on my birthday. This year is the Year of Love and Joy and last year was The Year of Trust. Well, my birthday is about two and a half months away, so I've been kicking around ideas for year 31 and I think I've come up with a winner. 31 is going to be my Year of Temperance.

It's amazing how one year flows into the next. I don't think I could have tackled this before my year-long focus on love and joy. Like a lot of people, I tend to use indulgence as a cheap substitute for love and joy. Hot fudge and marshmallow sundaes are much more easily attained in times of crisis than real joy and require an outlay of only $3 at Culver's versus the much more expensive humility, trust and sacrifice required to obtain actual virtue. The problem is that the hot fudge and marshmallow sundaes don't really do the trick. 8 months into my experience with the real thing and I don't think I can stomach the substitute any longer. My heart wants more.

Zach, who's birthday is four days after mine, is joining me in my intention this year. We've identified a few areas we want to focus on for the year.

-Food. This is a problem area for both of us, although Zach's metabolism hides it well. I gain weight watching him eat. It's also a hard one to fight in our culture. Not that I'm complaining. An over-abundance of food is a problem most people in the world at most times in history would have loved to counted as their biggest challenge. I was reading the introduction to a cookbook I own that was written by a monk and I was struck by the simple wholesomeness of their diet. The monk, Victor-Aintoine D'Avila Latourette, talked about how Benedictines eat a (mostly) vegetarian diet, in solidarity with the poor. While we will not be going vegetarian I do want to bring that spirit of gratitude for what we have and appreciation of "enough" to our table. That whole "starving kids in China" thing may have been a bit abstract when we were kids, but at 31 and 27 I think it may prove to be a much better motivator.

-Clutter. While there are many lovely things about living in a house passed down through generations, one of the downsides is that you tend to have some clutter. We've been sorting through our inherited belongings for a year and a half now and we are not yet where we would like to be. This coming year we would like to tackle the ancestral clutter once and for all.

-TV. This one isn't really a problem in the summer, but in the winter we watch more TV than we should. Now that the girls are going to be in school we are cutting out TV on school nights except in rare cases.

By cutting things out of our lives and learning new habits we hope to make room for better, healthier blessings.

A Poem For James

2009-07-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

I am not a very good poet, but I liked this one I wrote....

I cradle you in delirious arms, seven pounds of milk filled sweetness born a little to early and a little too small, wondering, not for the first time and not for the last, what it is you want from me

Blueberry blue eyes, echoes of your sister and grandmother, stare at me demandingly, your furrowed brow insistent and indignant

For a moment you look like a Jim. A little old man with a bald patch and double chin, with hard candy and a driving hat leaving church just after communion in a race with the Lutherans for the best seats at breakfast.

You grunt and squirm and I am humbled by my own ignorance as I offer you breast and blanket and pacifier and your consternation only increases.

Just go to sleep, I think impatiently as you scrunch up your face, bleating a little lamb cry in frustration at my impotence. Not for the first time and not for the last, I want to fix this but can't.

And then, out of nowhere your eyelids close and your body is still and there is nothing but the sweet rhythm of your breath rising in your chest and the sweet peace of hard-fought and well deserved sleep.

Frugal Chair Rehab

2009-07-14T19:33:00.000-07:00

My grandma bought these chairs at an antiques auction when I was a little kid. For years they occupied a space in the lingerie department of her little dress shop. When she retired from the clothing business they were passed on to my mother, who eventually passed them on to me. I love them. I love the carved wood detail and the beautiful clawfoot table that accompanies them, so for over a year now I have kept them out in plain view in spite of the fact that the colour of the fabric fights with everything else in my living room. No more. $15 of Amy Butler Royal Garden Fabric has transformed them into this.

I was a little nervous about this project because I wanted the updated chairs to stay true to their Victorian roots. I think we accomplished that. Now we have the perfect little table and chairs for playing chess or sipping coffee in the morning sunshine.

Bella's Birthday

2009-07-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

Miss Isabella is four years old today. She's a funny little thing. Mostly quiet with streaks of red-headed hot-temper and an interior life I think I will never be entirely privy to. She is sneaky, eating a bite out of every slice in a loaf of bread or peeing on my shoes because she is mad at me.

My sister jokes that Bella is a changeling because

1) She looks like a baby faerie

2) She's mischievous and unpredictable and

3) She'd rather be outdoors than anywhere else. She's beautiful, fearless, smart and resourceful. I am so grateful that I get to be the mother of such a spunky, fun little girl.

Frugal Deck Redo

2009-07-13T15:27:00.000-07:00

My poor deck has been badly neglected this year. It's always been my favourite "room" in the house, but we have been busy with the baby this year and didn't have much time or money to devote to it. Thanks to mom, we got it whipped into shape this weekend for under $50.

I got this table off of craigslist a year ago with the intention of fixing it up and painting it, but it hadn't happened yet. A $10 can of outdoor paint and some clearance rack outdoor cushions later...

I am totally in love with it.

I found this adorable little cake stand of a table at a garage sale this summer for $5. The schoolbus yellow didn't really go with my stuff, so we used the extra paint from the table and voila....

Finally, my mom bought me a bunch of herbs to fill the two weed ridden pots that sit next to my favourite, ugly old lounge chair.

There are still a few things I'd like to get, like a coffee table for the sitting area and a nicer lounge chair, but overall things are looking much, much better and all for about $35.

Party Central

2009-07-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

Grandma is in town and that means one thing. Party Time. We've had an impromptu margarita (and chocolate milk) party on the deck with steaks and corn on the cob, a breakfast tea party complete with cookies (cookies for breakfast is the ultimate sign that grandma has arrived) and an upcoming picnic to celebrate Bella's birthday hosted by great-grandma and a great-great-aunt. This will be an all-out affair, I can assure you. By themselves each of these women cooks for an army. Together, there's no telling. I've already been informed that several turkeys are being slow roasted to fall-off-the-bone perfection for the picnic sandwiches. It's a good thing four generations of Montgomerys will be there to eat it all.

All of this indulgence is fun, but the most interesting of the parties on the itinerary this summer is one my friends and neighbors Mary and Sherry are devising. Mary and Sherry are the mothers of two of my childhood friends and in recent years I've developed a friendship with them in my own right. We were chatting today, as it's Old Home week around here, about a friend of Mary's who's son, Greg Mortenson, wrote the book Three Cups of Tea and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. While recovering from a difficult mountain climb in 1993 Mortenson dedicated his life to building schools in war-torn Afghanistan and Pakistan and has so far succeeded in building over 90 schools that educate over 34,000 children.

In support of this mission we have decided to throw a party and invite all the neighborhood kids (and adults) to come and gather their change, allowance and collected donations to give to Pennies For Peace, Mortenson's charity organization. I think it will be a great lesson for the neighborhood kids and a good counter-balance to our somewhat hedonistic summer.

Allowance

2009-07-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

image courtesy of jenn-jenn

A while back we started giving the girls an allowance. I went back and forth about this for a while because they are pretty young, but they often get money from relatives or, in Cheyenne's case, the tooth fairy, so I decided it was time to teach them how to use it.

There are so many valuable, complex lessons for kids to learn from allowance. Saving, giving and delayed gratification, to name a few. I have strong feelings about money and this is one of those areas where I'm tempted to micromanage. It takes a lot for me to pull back and let them take their lumps and learn their lessons.

Well, it turns out the girls are natural savers. When we instituted allowance, both of the girls picked a toy they wanted to save for. Cheyenne wanted an Ariel doll she can play with in the pool and Isabella wanted a smaller, less expensive fairy mermaid doll to play with in the pool.

We discussed that the Ariel doll is bigger and more expensive, in part because it is a Disney character, and that at $1 a week Isabella would be able to afford her doll sooner than Cheyenne would be able to afford hers. Ever since, whenever we go somewhere and the girls want a cookie or an ice cream or a dollar bin toy I remind them that if they spend their money on what they want now, they'll have to wait longer for their toy. Shockingly, they have decided every single time that they wanted their pool toy more than they wanted to indulge their latest whim.

This weekend the day came for Isabella to get her pool toy. We went to Target, picked it out, brought it to the counter and she proudly gave the cashier the money. She had accomplished her goal. Cheyenne was a little upset at first. We looked at the Ariel doll and I explained that if she wanted something now she could get something cheaper, but she'd have to wait for Ariel. In the end, she decided to wait.

I'm very proud of the girls. I think this allowance thing has been good practice for them.

Prayer Walk

2009-07-04T14:02:00.000-07:00

Every year on my birthday in October I set an intention for the year. Without getting into weighty details, I spent a lot of my younger years in the grip of serious depression and darkness and have worked very hard to free myself from that over the years. Year after year in my twenties I have shed the old, unhealthy patterns, shaking up my life and allowing the pieces to reorder themselves into a bold new future for myself, and as they came along, for my family.

Finally I arrived at my 30th birthday, healthy and happy, but still on some level, skeptical that all the beautiful, wonderful things I had cultivated in my life could really be true. It came to me one evening just before the beginning of my new year that this year would be my Year of Love and Joy.

This year has thrown serious challenges my way. 9 months of unemployment, a challenging and sometimes frightening pregnancy, the birth of our tiny little boy, financial struggles and health struggles for both me and the baby. And yet, I think this has been my best year ever. I think the difference between this year and others is a sense of perspective. I'm learning to slow down, pull back and take the long view of things. To stand in this moment and see it for everything it is, the beautiful and the frightening and not back down from it. With this in mind I have been taking Prayer Walks lately. I got the idea when a friend and I visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in LaCrosse, WI and saw the Rosary Walk.

As I walked today I couldn't help but feel grateful for this life I lead. There is such magnificent beauty all around me. It was nice to quiet my mind and just take it all in, the holiness and and peacefulness of it. The heron standing peacefully in the pond, the wild raspberries growing on the edge, the gardens and the trees.

I've Been a Bad, Bad Girl

2009-07-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

I am on a dessert kick. The other day I made this rosewater pound cake. It's basically just a regular old pound cake recipe with a hand full of almonds and two or three teaspoons of rosewater tossed in. You can get rosewater at Middle Eastern markets. Mine cost about $2.50. They also sell orange blossom water, which is good in pound cake too. I should not that instead of vegetable shortening, I use a full pound of butter. I figure if I'm going to do something this wrong I might as well do it right.

I added some fresh strawberries bought earlier in the day from the strawberry patch and some fresh, homemade organic whipped cream and I was good to go.

Back to Homemade Cooking- This Weeks Menu

2009-07-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

I was raised in a family that spared no expense with food. My parents shopped at tony grocery stores and bought all kinds of lovely foods at outrageous prices. Unfortunately (sort of) I've been broke pretty much my entire adult life. One day, when I was complaining about my first-year-of-college diet of ramen noodles and rice my dad said to me, "I don't want to hear it kid. Every major cuisine in the world is based on making magic out of whatever happened to be cheap and available. If they can do it you can do it." Not exactly the sympathy I was fishing for, but it was an eye-opening moment for me. Ever since that day I've made it my goal to eat what I like on a budget I can afford. With two kids and two adults eating, right now that hovers around $300 a month, give or take.

I normally really love to cook, but while I was pregnant I kind of lost my mojo. Between exhaustion and gestational diabetes, cooking from scratch lost it's allure, and we paid for that big time in the budget. Now that I am recovering from having my baby I am finding myself once again drawn to the kitchen. I am back in the game.

My first rule about cooking is that I have to know my limits. Right now one of my biggest obstacles to cooking from scratch is a lack of predictability. I'll go to make a salad and the baby will cry. I'll go to chop carrots and a kid will come and tell me that her sister just broke a glass in the bathroom. With this in mind I decided my best defense would be to plan ahead and prepare as much as I could in advance. Of course, this involves having a menu.

Monday-Roasted chicken with Northwoods Seasoning, mashed potatoes and gravy and carrots
Tuesday-Creamy chicken and wild rice casserole (Hot Dish for you Minnesotans) and carrots
Wednesday-Thai style noodles with broccoli, carrots and grilled chicken
Thursday- Pasta with garlic and shrimp, salad
Friday- A lady from church is bringing a hot dish, salad
Saturday- Date night. Zach and I will have asian beef lettuce wraps
Sunday: Cheeseburgers, salad and chips

Lunches: Salmon spread sandwiches, baguette with blue cheese pecan spread and sliced apples, leftover thai noodles.

Breakfast: Homemade cherry almond meusli, banana bread, hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt.

After the menu was made, I sliced up the veggies. I chopped the lettuce for salad and peeled and cut carrots. I left one of the romaine hearts whole for Sunday's lettuce wraps.

I decided when I was grocery shopping that instead of cutting up veggies for the noodle salad, I'd just use the Trader Joes broccoli slaw. It's $1.79 and we'll get two full meals from that salad. Some convenience items are worth it to me.

I hard boiled the eggs for breakfast and baked the banana bread and made the spreads.

It's been a week of lovely meals and I only spent $60 at the grocery store. It's good to be back!

Story Writing

2009-06-30T17:50:00.000-07:00

It probably shouldn't surprise me that my eldest daughter spends almost all of her time "writing" stories. From about five years old on if I didn't have my face in a book I had my pen in a notebook, writing. There are whole boxes of stories like these sitting in boxes in my basement. Cheyenne is definitely my kid.

Although at barely five years old her actual writing ability is limited, her imagination is not. She locks herself in her room or hides in the tent on the deck with a notebook and pens, gathers with crayons and journals at my feet while I feed the baby, or at the breakfast bar while I cook and all day long, she writes and draws stories about mermaids. This one is about a mermaid who meets a young man traveling in a submarine.

"Mom, how do you spell move?" "Did I spell Mermaid right?" "What letters did I miss?" Her natural curiosity for language and how it works excites me. She's really understanding writing not only as a tool for communication, but as a form of creative play. I love it.

Frugal Cooking- Graham Cracker Pie

2009-06-29T15:48:00.001-07:00

I was rummaging around in my pantry looking for something else when I noticed a graham cracker pie crust that was about to expire. Well, what is a frugal girl to do? I couldn't just let a perfectly good pie crust expire, so I made my Great-Aunt Beulah's Graham Cracker Pie. Confession time here, I spent the entire day accidentally calling the new baby by his dad's name, but I was still able to make this pie from memory. I know, it's kind of wrong. This recipe is obviously taking up valuable storage space in my brain that could be used for higher priority items. Like my kid's name. But it is a really good pie.

Here's the recipe.

1/4 c cornstarch
2/3 c sugar
1/4 t salt
2 c milk, scalded
2 beaten egg yolks
2 T softened butter
vanilla

3 egg white
6 T sugar

In a saucepan, mix cornstarch, sugar and salt. Gradually add scalded milk and heat until thick. Temper egg yolks (add a little of the hot milk mixture to them) and mix into the custard. Cook 5 minutes. Cool a little. Add vanilla and butter. Pour into pie crust.

Beat the egg whites and sugar into a meringue. Top pie with meringue and bake at 350 until golden brown (maybe 5-10 minutes. I don't keep track of these things).

Luckily the baby demanded to be fed as soon as I was done with the pie. It gave the pie time to cool and set. Normally I am of the opinion that waiting for pie to cool before eating it is for suckers, but it was nice to have it solidified instead of running all over my plate.

Green Hour- Great American Backyard Campout

2009-06-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the National Wildlife Federation's Great American Backyard Campout. We started the event by spending some time with our friends the ducks at the pond in front of our house

followed by a dip in the pool

and hot dogs on the grill.

The whole family pulled together to set up the camp site. Cheyenne and Zach even put together our new outdoor table, which has been sitting in a box in the garage since April.

We played go fish and made popcorn on the camp stove.

We played with sparklers.

and ate s'mores, which Bella had renamed "choc-clouds"

During a brief rain shower we came inside and read The Boxcar Children, Surprise Island, a favourite of mine from childhood.

Then it was off to bed.

In the morning we made egg sandwiches on the camp stove. We grilled the bagels.

It was a blast! Next year I'm thinking of organizing a neighborhood campout with games, songs and plenty of food. There is a huge park across the street with 20 acres of oak forest for hiking, a lake for canoeing and a brand-new visitors center that is reopening in August. I wonder if they would be interested in participating?

Little Mommy

2009-06-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

When Cheyenne first found out that we were having another baby she was so excited. She told me "You can be the big mommy, I'll be the little mommy and Bella can be the big sister!" She has certainly lived up to her promise. Baby James is a very mothered little boy. In fact, I think both the girls have taken to the roll of little mommy quite well, playing with him, giving him pacifiers and blankets and kisses on the head. It's fun to see them together and it's fun to see how grown up and responsible the girls are getting.

Bryn Dial

2009-06-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

That's the name of our house, Bryn Dial. It's Welsh for Hill of the Leaves. I've always wanted to name my house. Particularly as this house has now been inhabited by three generations of my family, it feels right that it should have a name. Today, while brushing up on my Sesame Street Welsh using the BBC's Learn Welsh website I came across this house naming application. I plugged in a few facts about my house, like the fact that it's on a hill with a view of a pond and woods and it gave me a few suggestions. I liked Bryn Dial, firstly because I can actually pronounce it and secondly because it really fits. I'm thinking of making a plaque to hang in front of the house. Maybe try my hand at painting or wood burning. Maybe something like this.

Perpetual Childhood-Embracing My Inner Peter Pan

2009-06-24T20:12:00.001-07:00

We are really a very silly bunch of people. I was thinking about that tonight as we were swimming and goofing off, only to look up at the clock and realize that it was 7:00PM and we hadn't so much as thought about what we were having for dinner.

As I hungrily scarfed down my mac and cheese, carrot sticks and rainbow jello (Cheyenne's brilliant dinner suggestion) I felt like I was 6 years old again, playing outside until the last possible minute before running home for dinner, hoping I'd be on time and my mom wouldn't be mad. Only now I'm the mom and there's no one to be mad at me. The thought made me smile.

I remember thinking when I was a kid, "when I grow up I'm going to play outside until dark and eat macaroni and cheese and ice cream every day and never make my kids go to bed." Of course, as happens to most people, I have become more serious and less fond of macaroni and cheese (although not so much the ice cream) as I've aged. Still, I love those moments where I don't act my age, where I do something silly or irresponsible or just plain fun without a thought to bedtimes and nutritional value. I love momentarily inhabiting a world where the dishes are less important than cannonballs into the pool. I hope I never get too old for that.

Domestic Bliss

2009-06-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

Something has come over me the last few days. After over a week of running back and forth to the hospital I'm thoroughly enjoying being home. My domestic side has kicked into full gear. While the baby sleeps and the children play I've been baking, making tea, tidying up the house, fluffing pillows and making beds. While he eats I've been reading stories to the kids, catching up on my reading and writing and just watching him, completely in love. I'm loving all the simple little moments; the smell of a freshly bathed baby, the sound of the girls playing happily in their room together, the site of James and his Daddy napping together on the couch. I'm even considering having company this week.

I don't remember being this pulled together so soon after having the girls. It's kind of surreal. I gave birth 11 days ago. It seems impossible that we are already finding our rhythm as a family, but we are. This baby seems to have folded himself nicely into our lives. I feel so much more confident this time than I did the last two times. It's a big deal, yes, but I know how to care for a baby. I don't sit around all day worrying that I'm going to mess him up for life with every move I make. I don't feel guilty for taking time for myself. I don't have the time or energy to waste on useless guilt and worry. It's very freeing.

This kid, being my third in five years, gets less attention than the other two ever did as babies, but paradoxically, he is happier, easier and we are all enjoying these baby days much, much more. There's probably a lesson of some kind in that. I'm a little to tired to figure out what it is right now, but no doubt it will come to me with time and better rest. :)

Strawberry Pancakes

2009-06-20T09:32:00.001-07:00

We have a family tradition of having a pancake breakfast the first Saturday after bringing home a new baby. Cheyenne was born in Maple season, so she got maple syrup pancakes. Bella was born in blueberry season, so she got blueberry pancakes. Well, James was born at the beginning of strawberry season, so naturally we had to have strawberry pancakes. We stopped at a strawberry farm on the way home from the hospital and picked up these beauties. We managed to keep from eating them all in a sitting, which is something of an accomplishment for the girls. OK, and for me. I admit it.

There is nothing like pancakes from scratch. I made a double batch, thinking there would be leftovers to freeze. I should have known better.
For an added touch of elegance I served them on my grandmother's cut glass luncheon set. Because, you know, newborn baby boys appreciate that kind of detail. :)

Thoughts on Father's Day

2009-06-20T06:32:00.000-07:00

I think my husband is an attractive man all the time, but moments like this absolutely melt my heart. Zach really is an amazing father. He was young when we had our first kid, just 21 years old and even then he was amazing. At a time when most young guys spend their boundless energy partying until dawn he spent his rocking babies to sleep and taking over midnight feedings. He worked 50 hour weeks and then came home and insisted that I rest.

Zach is a really fun dad. He's the kind of dad who pretends to be the Pirate King at the playground and has all the little pirates following him around battening down hatches and setting a course for the wild blue yonder. Neighbor kids wait outside with squirt guns ready to attack and have more than once been surprised that he was ready with a loaded squirt gun of his own. He takes the kids canoeing, fishing, swimming, sledding, skating and builds intricate snow forts and sand castles.

He's passionate about everything he does. Passionate about me, passionate about fatherhood, passionate about work and passionate about fun. He sets a good example for the kids, stopping the car to shovel a driveway for a little old lady or moving all of our neighbors furniture after a 12 hour workday because he found out the man had recently had a heart transplant.

The highest praise I can bestow upon my husband is that I hope that someday my daughters find a man like him and I hope that my son follows in his father's footsteps.

A Few More Pictures

2009-06-20T06:10:00.000-07:00

OK, just indulge me. I know by now you are probably sick of all my baby gushing, but Sweet Baby James finally made it home from the hospital yesterday and, well, I'm in the mood to gush. I also thought it would be nice to post some pictures where he doesnt, as my nephew put it, "look like a robot with all those wires and things."

Look at how absolutely tiny he is sitting in his infant car seat!

Even his preemie clothes are too big for him. Luckily it's going to be 90 degrees this week, so he won't need much in the way of clothing.

I"m guessing the odds that I'll ever get a picture of these three kids sitting still are slim to none. James can't even move much and I still couldn't get a single shot where someone wasn't moving.

Frugal Baby

2009-06-17T06:32:00.000-07:00

Baby James is getting ready to come home in a day or two. He arrived a little early so we have been using this time between my release from the hospital and his to get things ready for him. This includes making sure we have everything we need and getting anything we are missing. While I was sorting through the gifts and hand-me downs it occurred to me that Zach and I haven't really spent much on this baby. Just for fun I added up what we spent and it totaled all of $.49.50, not including medical costs, of course. I am blown away by the generosity of our friends and family. $49.50? I've spent that on dinner and a movie.

Here's what we did that saved us some cash.

-Most of the things we bought for ourselves were secondhand. For example the bassinet was purchased at the church garage sale and the bouncy seat (which my kids liked for people watching more than for bouncing) was purchased at a thrift store. There's no sense in paying full price for stuff they outgrow quickly if you don't have to.

-We have received so many hand-me-downs it's incredible. Almost all of James' wardrobe is made up of hand-me-downs and they are all in really good shape. We have a hand-me-down sling, a hand-me-down nursing pillow, a borrowed swing...you get the picture.

-Well-targeted gifts. People have been great about asking me what I really wanted and needed and getting me those items. When we did our baby registry I tried to be really judicious about what I added to it, making sure only the items I really needed made it onto the list. I also want people to feel like they can celebrate the baby with me without buying a gift. It's no big deal as far as I'm concerned. Non-traditional gifts are great also. My bible study group gave me a gift card to the grocery store to help with increased food expenses while I'm too tired to make everything from scratch. Another friend brought me a Jimmy John's sandwich when I was sick of the hospital food and has offered to watch the girls sometime for free. Stuff like that is greatly appreciated.

-We thought carefully about what we need and don't need. There are so many things marketed for babies that are really unnecessary. Some of it is nice to have, don't get me wrong, but it's not necessary. We tried to weed out items we hadn't found useful yet or could do without. For example, neither of my girls liked the baby bathtub. G.G.B. is the sink-bathing master, so instead of getting a baby bathtub I've opted to have her refresh my memory on her sink-bathing technique. There's something beautifully simple about it. It's just a baby, a sink, a towel and a little baby wash. It's easy on my back and there's nothing big and bulky to store.

-We went with a not-so-babyish room theme. This was Zach's idea. I have to admit that at first I didn't like it. I wanted something cutesy and....well... a little less masculine. Zach, who never puts his foot down on anything, told me no. He wanted input this time and he wanted it to be a boys room. Consequently, we are going with a classic car theme. Zach is ordering a sleek custom decal of a vintage sports car for the wall decoration and making a clock from a hubcap. He's making it a room that he, as a 26 year old man would appreciate. This lessens the chance that James will hit 5 years old and think his room is too babyish.

Overall the preparation for this baby has been incredibly simple and incredibly inexpensive. I wish I'd known when I had baby #1 how simple all this could be. I could have saved myself a lot of money and hassle.

A Few Pictures

2009-06-13T19:08:00.001-07:00

He's Here!

2009-06-13T10:06:00.000-07:00

James Steven Griffith was born June 11, 2009 at 8:29 AM. He weighs 4 lbs 8 oz and he's too cute for words. He's in the NICU for breathing problems probably until mid next week, so any thoughts and prayers would be greatly appreciated. I'll try to update with a picture later tonight!

Happy Birthday to G.G.B.

2009-06-09T06:59:00.001-07:00

This is my Grandma Barb, known to her six great-grandchildren as G.G.B. (Great-Grandma Barb). The kids absolutely love their G.G.B. and the feeling is mutual. She is Bella's semi-imaginary friend, joining her for tea parties even when she isn't here.

She is not your typical granny. She lives in Las Vegas and loves her sequins, fast cars and buffets. She is the queen of organization. I remember her futile attempts to teach me how to iron a shirt or smack all of the wrinkles out of a perfectly made bed and I wish I had paid more attention.

She's a woman to be reckoned with, a force of nature. I won't tell you how old she is because it's impolite to mention the age of a woman older than me, but I will tell you that in spite of our age difference she runs circles around me. The woman cannot sit still. She'll come to your house and, restless after a half hour chat, she will climb up on a chair and wash your windows just to have something to do. She's the last of the Old Guard who grew up in the days of hard manual labour and very little luxury. Sometimes the vastly different worlds we have inhabited makes it hard for us to understand the other person's perspective, but we love each other and that gets us through.

So here's to you grandma. Here's to a woman who was an entrepreneur at a time when women didn't do that sort of thing. To a woman who made it from abject depression-era poverty to an American success story and still makes a mean rhubarb torte. Happy Birthday from your loving family!

Beauty

2009-06-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

I love peonies. They are one of my very favourite flowers. Every year when they are in season I buy at least one bouquet of them at the farmer's market. They are expensive, but worth it. Not this year. This year there are other expenses that need to be met and there just isn't room in the budget for extras like peonies.

I've decided that instead of being disappointed I am going to make a spiritual (and fiscal) exercise of enjoying beauty without having to possess it. That's always been something of a problem for me. When I see something beautiful, I want to own it. Maybe it's just part of the human condition, longing for permanence and perfection in an impermanent and imperfect world. There's something about the transient nature of beauty that makes it all the more irresistible, and even when I can possess a thing I find beautiful I often find that the act of capturing it dulls my appreciation rather than increasing it.

Instead, I am letting myself be awed by it's grandeur

it's fragility

it's brilliance

and it's splendor, and leaving it just as I found it.

A Date with Bella

2009-06-07T06:16:00.000-07:00

Every now and then Zach and I like to each take a kid and have a special parent/child date with each of them. Yesterday I took Bella to the St Paul Farmer's Market. We wandered the aisles enjoying all the beautiful displays of flowers and vegetables, stopping occasionally so mommy could buy some lettuce or Bella could buy a honey stick with her Christmas money.

I don't have the energy to garden this year, but the girls have their heart set on a "marigold garden" like the one Ruby of Max and Ruby has. I decided that a few marigolds, and just for fun a few violets, wouldn't break the bank and would give them something they could care for over the summer. Bella picked out yellow marigolds for herself and orange marigolds for Cheyenne.

We enjoyed a hot toasted bagel and a lovely conversation with the woman sitting across from us at the community table and retired home for a farmer's market lunch of summer sausage on fresh baguette with farmer's market butter, cream line chocolate milk and sugar snap peas with homemade ranch dressing. It was a wonderful morning with my girl.

I love people who have too much time on their hands

2009-06-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

For example, the people at the Ramsey County Compost Center who found the time to label all the trees.

And, just so we wouldn't all get confused, the light pole.

Chocolate Hazelnut Zucchini Muffins

2009-06-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

I've been working on using up last years frozen produce, so today I took out a jar of shredded zucchini to make these Chocolate Hazelnut Zucchini muffins. They are loosely based on this Chocolate Zucchini Cake I made about a million times last year. They were a huge hit on our afternoon canoe trip.

Here's the recipe. Or, rather, the directions since I didn't really measure everything exactly.

1 1/2 c Flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/3 c cocoa (approximately. I just guessed)
3/4 to 1 c sugar (one of those things I don't measure exactly)
1 c shredded zucchini
1/4 c oil
1 egg
a splash of coffee (a tablespoon?)
a splash of vanilla
two handfulls of chocolate chips
1-2 handfulls of chopped hazelnuts

Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix. Fold in hazelnuts and chocolate chips. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Enjoy

Hidden Treasure

2009-06-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

We are almost done with a year-long clean out of the basement. It's been an interesting process, sorting through all the flotsam and jetsam of my childhood. As of this morning only one corner was left untouched, and this afternoon it revealed it's hidden treasure. Books. My books. All of them, from birth to my teen years. This is a rare and valuable find to be sure. Included in the booty are:

-The entire works of L.M. Montgomery, author of the Anne of Green Gables series
-All the Nancy Drew Mysteries I spent every summer searching for at garage sales and thrift shops
-The entire works of Louisa May Alcott
-Several Doctor Seuss books
-The Gnome Book I was enamored of as a child
-Several books by Robert Louis Stevenson
-The American Girl's Handy Book
-Peterson's Field Guide to Birds
-Several Little Golden Books
-The Boxcar Children
-The entire Little House on the Prairie series
-G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown Mysteries
-Some Edgar Allen Poe

This is good stuff. I doubled the Children's and Youth Fiction section of my home library in one go today, and for free. I am feeling good!