weekly menu – Page 14 – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate – 2021: the dumpster is smoldering

One of my resolutions this year is to go hiking once a month, and once a quarter to go on a new hike. We kicked it off this year by going to Cunningham Falls. While the hike we chose was short in length, it ended up having some challenging rocks to scramble over. The falls themselves were a little more crowded than we were comfortable with, so we just glanced at them and continued on. Definitely looking forward to re-visiting them in more precedented times. As our usual, we brought hot chocolate for the hike. The baby even walked the last half mile while clinging onto the Husband’s hand.

Most of the week was pretty low key. The baby had a fever. Normally this is something we would just roll with, but given.. the times… we called the pediatrician and scheduled a telehealth appointment. It was a pretty inconclusive appointment – basically chances were pretty slim that it was COVID related, but there wasn’t a zero chance. But on the other hand, it wasn’t anything that seemed to warrant going to the ER. The pediatrician said if we were quarantining at home, a COVID test was probably not necessary, but if we wanted that information, there was no harm in having one. We decided to get tested. The Husband and the eight year old went to rapid testing and had their results back – negative – by the end of the day. The two little kids were too young for rapid testing so we went to County testing site, which had a five day turn around, though it has taken longer than that for our results.

I have to say, the nasal swab was briefly, yet intensely uncomfortable. There might have been some eye watering on my part. The two littles, on the other hand, nary made a peep. “She is so quiet!” said the man who gave the baby her nasal swab.

So a quiet week.

Until….

On Wednesday, I turned on C-SPAN, and for a moment, I thought I was watching the next season of The Handmaid’s Tale. Then I realized, that the destruction and violence I was seeing was really happening. I feel like I am still, days later, trying to wrap my brain around what is going on. I wonder what people are so afraid of that they would literally destroy the center of American democracy. There are, of course, the lies they are being fed by the megalomaniac who is our President. One can’t discount the power of his words, but at the same time, I wonder what the new administration represents for some people, and why it makes them so fearful and angry. The whole thing makes me incredibly sad and I cannot believe this is what is happening.

Other things this week:
– I’m taking this online course called the Science of Well Being (also colloquially known as the Yale Course on Happiness). In it, the professor talks about what research has discovered about what makes us happy. Part of the course are “rewirements” or rather concrete and mindful exercises to help you put the research into practice. So far they include things like: Savoring, Gratitude, Connecting with people, Acts of Kindness, Exercise and Sleep. I realized at the beginning of the year that I need to be a little more purposeful in tracking my attempts at rewirements. So I’ve started a page in my notebook to track and be purposeful. I’ve realized that Acts of Kindness is really hard in these pandemic times… that column has been regrettably pretty empty.

-Speaking of Gratitude: I am really grateful for the people who organize and work at the County COVID Testing Sites. It is free, easy, and outside. The day we went to get tested it was drizzling lightly, and the people working the testing center were out there in their rain gear, doing this work that I think is really important.

-My sourdough starter is not as robust as I expected, but I did get a batch of pancakes out of them. I’ll keep feeding it and hoping for the best. It isn’t skunked or anything, just…. anemic. I did try a recipe for apple and cashew stir fry as a topping for the pancakes and thought it was a great idea. The recipe is from Mark Bittman’s VB6 cookbook, continuing my Bittman kick lately.

-I’m trying to be more purposeful with my time, especially where the three year old is concerned. He is great at entertaining himself, but he runs feral a little too often. So I’m trying to plan one or two activities for him throughout the day. This week, we made sourdough crackers and did some painting.

-I also attempted to make some Barbie clothes for the eight year old this week. I was hoping that she would be interested in learning how to sew, but she turned out to be more interested in having me do it. Oh well. I managed to make a wrap blouse and a peasant skirt. I’m always surprised when things I sew resemble something – like it’s some weird alchemy that thread and needle and cloth can transform into clothing. I don’t have an affinity for ironing, and I suspect that my projects suffer for that.

Not bad… I mean the sleeve ripped out after a day, but I think I could make another one.

What We Ate – another week without our produce box and eating up/ eating down what we had.

Saturday: Indian Take Out

Sunday: Kabocha Apple soup and 1000 hole crepes. Soup recipe based on this one, but I threw in a russet potato that I had laying around as well. The crepes were something I saw while leafing through old copies of Saveur magazine. Making them involves semolina flour and letting the batter rest for two hours, but all in all they were quite simple to make. The end result was stunning and delicious.

Monday: Mujadara and Morrocan carrots. The carrots were from the cookbook Cooking at the Kasbah, a cookbook featuring Moroccan recipes. We’ve had this cookbook for a while, and while I’ve enjoyed looking at it I’ve been a little intimidated by the recipes. This year, though, I’ve resolved to cook more from the many magazines and cookbooks that are on my shelves, and these carrots were a simple foray into this book. It just involves boiling the carrots in herbs and a touch of sugar (I used honey) until the carrots are glazed and just barely tender. It was a good preparation for some older, slightly bitter carrots that we had sitting around.

Tuesday: Leftover Chili w/ scallion corn muffins

Wednesday: Tofu and collard green with Soba noodles. Eat down the pantry/ fridge meal.

Thursday: Black and Pinto Bean Soup. Simple – saute onion, celery, carrots and then add broth/water, bay leaves and oregano, and about a cup of dried pinto beans. One pintos are soft, add two cans black beans, tablespoon chili powder, and about a teaspoon of chipotle pepper in adobo sauce. (I used a mix of canned and dried beans because that’s what we had in the house). Eat, topped with cilantro, avocado, and sour cream (or in our case yogurt cut with a bit of buttermilk – see above: “what we had in the house”)

Friday: Pizza (take out. I was going to make pizza, but we were out of yeast), and Star Wars. It is the eight year old’s birthday weekend and she has requested to have a Star Wars marathon so this was the first night of what will be a weekend of viewing.

Weekly recap + what we ate – Good Bye 2020!

Scene from a Winter Walk at the Arboretum.

It’s been a pretty low key week. There was no school, but the Husband worked Monday and Tuesday, and then took the rest of the week off. There was lots of Zooming with friends and family, and lots of family tussles as our energy periodically outgrew the confines of the house. I wanted to make sure to spend lots of time outside, too, and we did manage to go outside for a little bit every day, with some more extended outings. Aside from that, we slowly put our lives back together from the explosion of wrapping paper and toys that was Christmas.

One highlight was the book exchange I had organized with my mom’s group for the holidays. Over the weekend we had our book reveal. I’m actually quite proud of myself for putting the whole thing together. I created a survey online for participants to talk about their tastes in books, and then used a website to draw names Secret Santa style and everyone got someone to whom to send a book. There was also an option to have a book sent to your baby if you didn’t want a book for yourself. The online survey was really fun to put together – I based it on the format the Modern Mrs. Darcy uses for her podcast What Should I Read Next: participants list three books they love, one book they hate, what they are reading now and what they want more of in their reading life. (For the record – my responses were: Jane Eyre, The Great Believers, Between the Desert and the Sea// Gone Girl // Disability Visibility and Bless Me, Ultima// I don’t think I filled out the last question…). A couple days after Christmas we had a Zoom call where we revealed what books we received and talked about reading and books and life. I really liked having the time to talk about something not just our kids and hopefully we can make book discussion a regular thing. I’m thinking not a book club per se, because I think having to read a specific book can seem burdensome – but rather a time to gather to talk about what we are reading and swap book suggestions.

Monday I threw some frisbees in the car and took the children to a disc golf course in the next county. I know nothing about disc golf, but it sounded like a fun activity and as the weather was quite warm, it was a good excuse to explore a new place. I didn’t realize that there are actually special sized frisbees for disc golf, and rules and what not. At any rate, the field was so muddy from rain the previous day that after a few muddy tosses – including having to climb inside a tree to retrieve our frisbee – we quickly abandoned our attempts to play, opting instead for the playground across the parking lot. We ended up being at the playground for almost three hours. I had brought hot chocolate – my usual bribe when the kids are reluctant for an outing. There is something that feels so special about sipping piping hot hot chocolate outside on a (mildly) cold day.

This week I also took the baby to her 15 month check up. She growing and thriving. The pediatrician had some concerns about her lack of words and called in a referral for her to be assessed by the County’s Infants and Toddlers program. Honestly I am not too concerned as the other kids were also late talkers. Our second child received services from Infants and Toddlers when he was two years old, after we had declined services at 18 months. The baby understands us, follows directions and seems very capable. We will probably go ahead with the assessment, but I’m on the fence as to whether or not to actually commit to services. It is a bit of a time commitment for something that I’m not terribly worried about.

One day we went for a walk at the Arboretum. I had, surprisingly, only been once before and it was when the azaleas were in bloom. Winter seems hardly peak arboretum season, but there was actually a fascinating array of things to see. We explored the conifer collection – comparing and contrasting the wide variety of evergreens. Much of the collection had been donated from a private collection in New Jersey. It’s funny – when I think of collecting, I think of stamps and knick knacks. I never thought conifers were something a person would collect. But here was a wide swath of land that proved otherwise. Particularly interesting was reading all the tree tags on which it was documented where the tree was from and when it came into the collection. I was particularly struck by the wide variety of cypress trees.

There was also sweeping river vistas to take in, winter camellias lending a shock of color to the surroundings, bare trees reaching their finger like branches to the blue blue skies. These dormant trees, with their buds coiled tightly waiting for warmer weather, deceptively quiet, when really they are busy getting ready for spring. As I wandered among these sleepers, I wondered how they will bloom and unfurl come spring and resolved to come back in a few months to see.

On New Years Eve, we played Ticket to Ride, ate some cake and then watched some tv as we waited for the ball to drop in Times Square. It was the eight year old’s first time playing Ticket to Ride and I hope we get to play some more as I quite enjoy that game. It’s the kind of game where you can be as competitive as you like, but there is also great satisfaction in just building really elegant train routes.

The Husband went to bed before the actual stroke of midnight. Just in time for the baby to wake up. I had been dozing on and off on the couch as the kids watched various tv shows and cartoon. Once the baby was up, though, I roused myself and watched the ball drop with all the kids cuddled on the couch. I know that there wasn’t a large crowd in Times Square as there usually was, but it was actually quite hard to tell how small the gathering was from the twenty minutes that I saw.

Anyhow, the baby rang in the new year by not sleeping, and so did I.

I know a lot of people are happy to see 2020 in their rear view mirrors, but I don’t know if I can dismiss it with similar vehemence. So many people suffered enormous losses this year – of loved ones, of incomes, of homes, of peace of mind- that all the dumpster fires analogies seem inadequate. In comparison, I definitely am so very fortunate that we came through the year with many reminders of how lucky we are. I mean distance learning has been difficult and being unemployed has been tough. I really miss my work and my colleagues. There are days when I just want to scream and scream and scream from the frustration of parenting. I miss having an identity beyond harried suburban mother. I miss libraries and museums. I miss playdates and grown up dinner parties.

But….
-my mom got to stay with us for four months (plus the two months she was with us at the end of 2019). And having that kind of support with the children and getting to hang out with her was such a gift.
– the Husband got to work from home.
– after an initial snafu, I was able to successfully file for unemployment. I know that a lot of my colleagues had a much harder time getting their government assistance sorted out so I’m glad I had good records and was able to submit the needed paperwork with little difficulty. Then, even after my initial benefits ran out, there was additional emergency assistance that has helped us. Unemployment benefits is in many ways an imperfect system, but I am so grateful for its existence this year.
– we saved a ton of money on child care.
– we discovered so many great outdoor places. I took the kids hiking by myself and no one fell off a cliff or got eaten by bears.
– I read a ton of books.
– I started figuring out my sewing machine. It is a rickety ancient machine, but it has been a workhorse, helping me crank out over 200 masks so far. And a pair of lounge pants for the three year old.
– Before the world shut down, I was working on a really beautiful opera that I hope we will get to bring to audiences when this is all over.
– My mom’s group is managing to stay connected and supportive of each other.
– I got to see my friend Kristen every single week almost. And we agree that our 40s are so much better than our 20s or 30s.
– I took a drawing class and learned so much about how to see the world and put it on paper.
-I started this blog.

Fun things this week:

My parents had sent us some oranges from their tree in California. It was supposed to have arrived the week before Christmas, but it finally showed up on New Year’s Eve. I keep reading about how the mail has been quite delayed this holiday season what with an increase volume due to COVID. My hat is off to postal workers everywhere; it can’t have been an easy year let alone to say nothing of December. I had been concerned that the oranges would be a soggy moldy mess, but they were actually in great condition! I’m sure that despite whatever delays there was with the postal service, the mail was being kept in a cool dry place.

It was my birthday this week. Something that I try to forget about, but which those around me like to remind me of. Which probably makes me sound ungrateful, I realize. Maybe it’s the reminder of the inevitability of time marching forward? Anyhow, I used the day as an excuse to bake a cake. I made a Tres Leches cake from a recipe in our parish cookbook. I was initially drawn to the recipe because it called for evaporated milk. We had an incident a while back where instead of buying the sweetened condensed milk that I needed for Key Lime Pie, the Husband kept buying evaporated milk. Like three or four separate times. So we had several cans of it in the basement. Tres Leches cake calls for milk in many forms – and it was quite delicious.

We’ve started using the whiteboard function on Zoom to play Pictionary while on video calls. It’s been quite a hit. Sometimes I find it hard to make conversation on video chat – I guess I find it easier to talk to people in person. Pictionary has been fun because it’s an activity that we can all participate in and helps lessen the burden of having to make conversations. Also I like that it allows the kids to draw and play on the screen, but is so much more interactive than them just playing with the filters (which, quite frankly, annoys me).

I had made these door hangers last spring to use while pumping at work. Well we all know how much use I got out of them. So this week, when the Husband relocated his work from home set up to a room with a door, I repurposed on my door hangers for him:

I finally got around to playing Mario Kart, which the Husband purchased as a family present this Christmas. I am somewhat abashed to say that the three year old beat me the first two times I played. Perhaps I have some resolutions to make for 2021 afterall.

Mario Kart and matching pjs- How we spent the Winter Break.

What We Ate:
I didn’t really meal plan this week. Plus a snafu with our Hungry Harvest Box led to no box this week. I hadn’t realized how much of my meal plannings was based on what came in our box. So it was a rather scrounge about week.

Saturday: Homemade pizza + The Happiest Season. This was our first attempt at pizza in our new oven. I used both our pizza stone and our baking steel – a luxury of having two ovens. Homemade pizza is so much better than regular store bought! I found some pineapple and anchovies in the fridge and also a can of olives so I threw those on one of the pizzas and was in umami heaven. One of the pizzas I tried to make on the pizza peel and the dough stuck, so I rolled the dough with the toppings into a log and we had a pizza roll instead. It was actually a fortuitous discovery as it made a version of pizza that was very portable and less messy than an open faced version.

Sunday: Smoked Salmon and English Muffins. I used this recipe from the Washington Post for the English muffins. I liked this recipe a little better than the one with sourdough that I had tried last week – these muffins came out with beautiful nooks and crannies, and the whole wheat flour made for a hardy taste.

Monday: Dumplings and brussel sprouts with noodles.

Tuesday: Tofu Banh Mi Bowls. From this recipe, but with baked crumbled tofu instead of ground pork. And soy sauce instead of coconut aminos. Part of my resolve to plane one vegan grain bowl for dinner a week.

Wednesday: Pasta with jarred marinara and garlic bread.

Thursday: Vegetarian Chili and jalapeno cornbread. The Husband cooked. We are trying to eat less red meat and the thought of turkey chili seemed…. not quite what we wanted. So I suggested we ditch the meat altogether and just make a vegetarian chili. The Husband found a recipe that called for black beans, cannellini beans, sweet potatoes and corn. We also had some chili base in the freezer from a previous chili making effort, when we had made too much of the tomato-y part. All in all a good meal to use things up. Though we have a lot left over so maybe there was ultimately zero gain in freezer space.

Friday: Homemade pizza and Cars II (It was the three year old’s turn to pick). I didn’t see much of the movie because I had misread the pizza dough directions and didn’t realize that it needed two rises. So I was still making pizza when the movie started. But on the other hand the pizza turned out well.

Weekly Recap + what we ate – Christmas Week

Ready for Christmas. Incidentally – note how all the ornaments have migrated to the top half of the tree.

It’s the week leading up to Christmas, swinging by Winter Solstice on the way. Someone on a message board I read wrote: “There is more light in the days ahead!” And it feels particularly apt this year.

My brother, a physician in a hospital, received his first vaccine dose this week. I’m so immensely relieved, grateful, excited, and happy. It feels a little unreal that a vaccine could bring us all out of this everything-from-home life that we’ve been leading since March.

“I imagine we are all going to emerge, blinking, as if coming out of a cave,” a friend of mine said the other day. Plato’s allegorical cave come to life.

Life back to normal still seems a long way off, though. Particularly since our state has just reinstated some restrictions such as the ban on indoor dining and stricter regulations on in person gathering. The school district has pushed back in person learning to February at the earliest.

Meanwhile life goes on. This weekend we did a big room shuffle, moving the two older kids to the bigger bedroom where the baby had been sleeping, and moving the baby to the former toy room and the toy room to the room the two older kids had been sleeping in. Eventually the Husband will move his office to share with the baby. It was certainly a lot of work, but I took the opportunity to shuffle and sort some toys, pack away some too-small clothes, and re-assess what room needs really need to be. We are slowing progressing towards the idea of bunk beds for the two older kids. I feel like room sharing is somewhat passe as an idea, particularly among children of opposite genders. But I really like the idea of the kids learning to co-exist before they get their own rooms. Perhaps, though, this will backfire and room sharing will make them crave their solitude rather than value communal living….

Some fun projects from this week:

The sourdough starter is alive and bubbling. I haven’t made break yet, but I did make English muffins the other day. They were a little dense and didn’t have the nooks and crannies that I wanted, but they had an appealing sourdough tang to the flavour. The kids almost ate the whole batch before dinner. Also – I was surprised and pleased how much they ended up looking like commercial English muffins.

Handprint Christmas tree – The Husband has Handprint Christmas trees lovingly preserved from his childhood – construction paper craft projects he and his sister made in elementary school. He brings those out at Christmas time and hangs them on our walls. This year, I did a version using the kids hands, along with my hands and the Husband’s hand I would love to say we all sat down one evening with hot cocoa and crafted. But that would be a lie. It was more like, I grabbed hands as I could over the course of the day and then used painter’s tape to tape the to the wall. The result makes me smile nonetheless.

John McLane Christmas ornament. I saw this online and had to make it for the Husband. Incidentally we watched Die Hard this week too. Also – the Husband says Little Women is not a Christmas movie. I’m a little outraged by this.

There were more Cardboard projects this week thanks to the new oven. When they delivered it, I said, “Can you leave the box?” and they said yes. And they also had a refrigerator box that they left us as well. There are parts of the house that look like a cardboard city. It is getting a little ridiculous. At any rate:

Another Cardboard Fort for secret sibling meetings.

Well, the presents are wrapped, the cookies decorated. For the record this year – I made the Gingerbread recipe from King Arthur’s flower with the spice combination from Tartine. I like the texture of the results, but it is still not spcy enough for me.) The cut out cookies were also from King Arthur Flour. I liked the texture of this last one, but prefer the taste of the one from Cooks Illustrated that we made last year. Frosting from Cooks Illustrated with orange juice instead of milk.

The kids got baths and matching Star Wars Pajamas and we watched It’s a Wonderful Life. We read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and cookies and milk have been put out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. I’m sitting up waiting for the first rise of the dough for cinnamon rolls. I bake them every Christmas- a tender, not to decadent recipe from The Irish Pantry cookbook. It involves boiling and mashing a potato. I always seem to leave it til the last minute and then am up til all hours making them. At least this way, I can stay up for a peek at Santa.

What we ate:

Saturday: Was our 11th anniversary and we got take out from a Malaysian Restaurant that is one of our favorites. They gave us a free dessert. We also watched Elf.

Sunday: Breakfast for dinner – pancakes and veggie egg scramble. I love how we can make six pancakes at a time on our griddle – makes it so much faster to whip up pancakes!

Monday: Hoppin’ John with Collard greens form Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everyhing Fast. There was a mix up with our produce box this week and we were sent an abundance of collard greens and Brussels sprouts, neither of which are family favorites. But the Husband said this was not as bad as he thought it would be.

Tuesday: Broiled Salmon and Asparagus with Zucchini pancakes. This last was from the Moosewood Cookbook; I was hoping they would be like fritters, but they were more like omlettes with egg. The Salmon and Asparagus was from the Bittman Book, though it’s hardly something you need a recipe for: salt pepper, olive oil. Broil for 10-15 mins.

Wednesday: Charred Tomato and Broccoli Tabbouleh. Also from How to Cook Everything Fast. I thought this was really tasty. So I see a trend this week… I borrowed the Bittman cookbook from the library because I wanted to incorporate more efficient yet healthy meals to our dinner rotation. While I love a good project meal, most days I just want nutritious, fast, and edible. Tasty would be a plus, too. So far, I’m finding a lot of really good ideas and reminders in this cookbook. It’s a little heavy on the meat recipes, so it’s not a “cook your way through” type of book, but I’m finding that most of the recipes fulfil the nutritious, fast, and edible requirements and are tasty too.

Thursday: I had planned Toful Banh Mi bowls, but really we had the Husband’s specialty snack sausage balls with cookies. Also some cut up carrots, pepper and cucumbers. And we ate this while watching It’s a Wonderful Life.

Weekly recap + what we ate – SNOW!!!

It’s been a festive and celebratory week.

There were certainly many things that just made me weary – Distance learning continues to be… challenging. I find Christmas and gift buying kind of overwhelming and mentally taxing. The baby seems to have two modes these days: clinging barnacle or destructive tornado. I’ve been really bad about making sure I get enough sleep, which is making me cranky and short tempered.

But overall, a lot of fun things brought me joy this week.

I keep a list in my journal of things I’ve learned to do. This weekend I added “changing a bike tire” to that list. The eight year old’s bike has had a flat for some time now, and the parts that the Husband ordered for it finally came in. He talked me through one tire and then I did the other tire. I also disconnected and removed the hand brake because it wasn’t really working and the eight year old preferred the pedal brake anyway. I realized as I was working that the bike is just a series of pieces screwed together. I had always been intimidated by the idea of bike repair, even simple stuff like changing a flat. But when I could see it as merely screwing and unscrewing, the whole process was somewhat demystified. The tricky part, of course, is keeping track of what one is tightening or loosening and not losing the bolts. I’m surprised it took me so long to figure this out.

On Sunday, we were invited to a driveway birthday party for a friend of the eight year old. Everyone signed up for a time slot and we drove up and hung out in their front yard. I convinced the Husband to get out his baritone and play Happy Birthday to the birthday girl. Before we set out for the birthday party, he made some booming baritone music to everyone’s delight at home. It was definitely a highlight of the weekend. Making music is such a joyful thing. Even when it is effortful, there is such a sense of accomplishment.

Speaking of music – Every so often I get obsessed by a certain song and want to find all the versions I can and listen to it and then also find the sheet music and learn to play it. This week it was More I Cannot Wish You from Guys and Dolls. I had heard Loudon Wainwright III perform a version of it on Fresh Air, and it kind of wrenched something in me. I had forgotten about the song because it wasn’t in the movie. There is something in the heartfelt simplicity of the song that is so perfect. I’ve been listening to it on repeat this week and evenadded it to the 3 year old’s bedtime playlist.

For the record, this bedtime playlist:
-Put on Your Sunday Clothes (movie version)
-Octopus’s Garden
-Put on Your Sunday Clothes (Broadway Revival)
-Rocketship Run
-More I Cannot Wish You
-Try to Remember
Certainly a sentimental mix of songs….

Christmas lights. This was not the most impressive display, but the one that I managed to remember to take a picture of.

Tuesday we went to a drive through light display in a local park. Usually we go to the zoo’s light display, but it was closed this year because of COVID. Still wanting something festive and this drive through light display seemed to fit the bill. I picked up some Christmas cookies from our favorite bakery and we cranked up the Christmas music and we set out. It was delightful (pun!). Afterwards we battled rush hour traffic home and picked up Indian food for dinner.

Wednesday, there was snow! Kind of crazy given that it had been 60 degrees the weekend before. The eight year old loves snow. I managed to find snow suits for everyone and outside they went. I had a vague fear that by the time I got the baby into her snow gear, the older two would be ready to come inside, but I was wrong. They were outside for almost two hours. Having no sled, the eight year old got out the kiddie pool and tried to push her siblings around in it. It was the baby’s first real snow and she seemed to have a good time, taking off into the snow without fear. I think I do need to put a reminder in my calendar to look for the snow gear in November; while we had snowsuits and hats, the mittens were kind of… not quite adequate. Also I need to order some better base layers. But no one really complained. I think, for some odd reason, my kids don’t seem to mind the cold. Or maybe they were too enthralled by the snow. They got two great days out of the snow before it melted away.

On Friday our new range arrived! We had been without an oven since the summer. It wasn’t one thing, really, just a rather slow demise. By August, it was taking an hour and a half to preheat and the burners had to be lit manually. I’d been having a hard time pulling the trigger on buying a new one; big ticket items tend to paralyze me and being unemployed kind of compounded that paralysis. But the Husband did the research, took the lead on things and we finally ordered a new one last month. We had been making do with just the toaster oven and anything we baked had to be able to fit in an 8″x 8″ pan. Which meant a lot of bar cookies and only four scones at a time. I especially missed having an oven when I wanted to roast a whole sheet pan full of vegetables. Some of my favorite recipes that involved the stove I learned to adapt to cooking in a frying pan, or I figured out how to roast things in batches and combine them.

The new range has a double oven and six burners. It feels so decadent, but I’m very much looking forward to being able to baking pans and pans of cookies again. There is a little issue with it not sitting flat against the wall, but someone is coming to fix that soon. Until then… I’m so excited to be able to bake again!

In anticipation of the new oven, I dug out my sourdough starter and began the slow process of reviving it. I’m always a little skeptical about the viability of my sourdough starter after it sits for months in the fridge for a while. But somehow nature always surprises me and after about a week things are bubbling again. I did have to pitch a batch once after it turned pink and putrid, but I’ve have more successes than failures, thankfully. I do have a jar of starter in the freezer as a back up.

Cute Baby Things:
When I ask the baby if her diaper is dirty, she will walk to her room and pat the changing table. It makes me really happy. And really, anything that can make diaper changing happy is a plus.
Also: Baby playing Parcheesi. Not as cute as it seems. Actually quite difficult.

Onward to Christmas!

What We ate:

Saturday: Pasta with red sauce (from the Italian Deli next to the Husband’s office), bagged salad, and garlic bread. So simple, yet so good! Also watched A Christmas Story, in our tradition of a Christmas movie on Saturday night.

Sunday: Tostadas w/ BBQ pinto beans, pineapple salsa and coleslaw

Monday: Udon noodles with cabbage, carrots, and tofu.

Tuesday: Indian Take Out

Wednesday: Roasted Salmon with Broccoli, Beans and Rice

Thursday: Butter Chicken from Indian Instant Pot. I also threw in some potatoes that had to be used up.

Friday: Pizza and A Christmas Carol (George C. Scott version)

Weekly Recap + what we ate: We got a tree!

This week we got our Christmas Tree. We picked it up from our local fire and rescue station which has a Christmas tree fundraiser every year. Last year we bought a tree that was too tall for our living room and had to lop it off a little. This year we were a little more prudent and bought a more modest tree.

(Incidentally, I listened to a fascinating and hilarious episode of Planet Money this week about the Christmas Tree market and why there seemed to be fewer trees this year. It seems to be a combination of more people staying home and the economics of ten years ago, when this year’s crop of trees would have been planted.)

Most of the Christmas tree decorations we have are from the Husband’s childhood, carefully preserved by his mother. The children loved the Garfield ornaments and the Star Trek ornaments. These last ones are pretty cool – they plug into the light string and make noises and say things like “Live Long and Prosper.”

Also on our tree are the ornaments from our wedding. The Husband and I got married the week before Christmas. And instead of a guestbook, we made Christmas ornaments and had people write us a message. The ornaments are simple wooden shapes with tissue paper and magazine images modge podged onto them. Every Christmas we read the messages on the back as we put them on the tree, remembering that snowy day in December when the city was shut down for a snow storm, but we were surrounded by so much love from family and friends.

Our wedding guest ornaments adorning our tree. This one says “May your marriage and live be filled with this… and don’t forget to say goodnight.”

Some Christmas/ Advent things we’ve been doing:

– lots of hot chocolate. I’ve been making my own mix with semi-sweet chocolate, cocoa, malted milk powder, powdered sugar, cinnamon, cayenne, nutmeg and cornstarch. It took some experimenting, but I think I’ve gotten a good balance of chocolate-y flavour and not too sweet. Not that I can recreate it because I kind of made it up.

– Advent books. I used to borrow 20 or so Christmas and winter books from the library every December, augmented several Christmas books that we own. Then I would wrap them and we would unwrap on every night and read it. It would sometimes get complicated when books had to be returned to the library and couldn’t be renewed, but hadn’t been unwrapped yet. Anyhow, last year, what with the new baby and all – I didn’t have the bandwidth to wrap them all, so I just put them in a shopping bag and we picked one out every night. And it was fine. So this year the Husband got a box and I gift wrapped it and we put twenty odd books in it and we have been reading one or two every few nights. Because of COVID restrictions we couldn’t go to the library to browse books, so I basically did a search for the word “Christmas” or “Winter” in children’s picture books and put a bunch of books on hold at the library for pick up. They’ve been coming in at a trickle, but we have more than enough to get us to Christmas day.

-Advent calendar. One of those chocolate ones with Gospel verses behind each door.

-Bonus Christmas movie night on Saturdays. We did Home Alone this week. I had forgotten that the bulk of the movie is not the slapstick humour that you see in all the previews. There is actually a lot of heart in this movie.
Also on our list for Christmas movies is Elf, Meet Me in St. Louis, and It’s A Wonderful Life.

Other fun food things:

-Another pomegranate from our Hungry Harvest box. I had read about a technique where you cut the pomegranate in half and then hit it really hard to dislodge the seeds. So I tried it and it worked better than expected. These seeds I have been eating with the spaghetti squash. An odd dish of spaghetti squash, pomegranate seeds and roasted sweet potatoe. Surprisingly tasty.

-I found a jar of refrigerator pickles in the back of the fridge. I’m not at all sure how long they’ve been there, but they were still tasty and quite garlic-y. A little slice of summer in December.

-the three year old decided he wanted a bread sandwich the other night. He was not a fan of the black bean burgers. The rest of us liked them, though.

Love the shadows of the Christmas tree needles on the floor.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Smoked salmon on bagels.

Sunday: Perch cooked in oil and Green Beans

Monday: Spaghetti Squash with kale and chickpeas. I’m not a huge fan of spaghetti squash, but this came in our Hungry Harvest box, so I wanted to use it up. I feel like I never get the texture quite right. I’ve been cooking it in the InstantPot, but maybe it will be better once our oven comes and I can roast it. This recipe from Love and Lemons was actually quite tasty and even better as leftovers.

Tuesday: Black Bean Burgers from Dinner Illustrated. We had it with bagged salad. Trying to get more beans and legumes in our meals.

Wednesday: Mushroom and Broccoli Stir fry wwith Udon noodles.

Thursday: Chicken Makhani using this sauce. The Husband made this. It was really tasty.

Friday: Pizza and The Twelve Dates of Christmas. It’s Hallmark Christmas movie season!

Weekly Recap + what we ate

View of the late fall colours at Longwood Gardend

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we went to Longwood Gardens. We didn’t stay late enough to see the gardens ablaze with lights, but we still got plenty of festive holiday experience. There were poinsettias and Christmas trees and toy trains and fire pits. The weather was pretty mild and the skies were blue.

On the way back from Longwood, we listened to the audiobook version of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson, narrated by Elaine Stritch. Oh my goodness was it funny! The eight year old cackled with delight all the way home. We agreed that listening to it should be a Christmas tradition.

We finished putting up Christmas lights. I had convinced the Husband to get one of those image projectors for the house. I figured when calculated per square foot, a projector was the most cost efficient way to add some holiday cheer to our house.

“And this one,” I said, “comes with two Halloween slides too! So we get two holidays for the price of one!”

There was also a great debate about white lights or coloured lights. The compromise we came to was coloured lights before Christmas and white lights after.

There was quite a bit of rain the following week. In keeping with my determined plan to have outdoor time, I put on rain boots and my windbreaker and took the three year old and the baby outside. It’s actually no struggle to take the three year old out because he loves rainy walks. We didn’t go to the park, but walked around our block, finding plenty to explore. A good fifteen minutes was spent watching a work crawl across the sidewalk.

The rain tends to collect at the end of our cul de sac and we went down there to find puddles. Not only did we find puddles, we also found mud. Mud pies and dams were made. The mess makes me a little nuts, but the kids really loved it. I have to remind myself that it’s just mud. On the bright side, I managed to get them into the bath when we got back in the house.

Now that drawing class is over, I’ve been back at sewing masks for our church maks ministry. As I sew, I get some good listening in and this week I listened to a beautifully candid interview on Fresh Air with David Chang, the chef behind Momofuku. I always find it fascinating to hear chefs talk about food on a every day level. There is something that can be so rarified about food, but at the basic level, food’s main purpose is pretty simple; we eat to nourish and sustain ourselves physically. When Chang talked about food, I really got the sense that food can be amazing and accessible at the same time.

During the interview he also talked a lot about growing up as the son of immigrants, and about the almost manic culture of hard work that is familiar, I think, to many children of immigrants. He made the point that work is the last socially acceptable addiction, and that has really stuck with me – this idea that work can be so all consuming that it can be detrimental. But at the same time we life in a culture where our jobs define us and how we live. It’s something I’ve been thinking about as these days of unemployment stretch out.

Fun things:

My parents sent some mandarin oranges from their garden. They were a tasty as they were pretty:

The baby started signing “milk” and “more”. I had considered weaning, but now that she’s actually signing to nurse, my resolve is softening.

Sometimes I forget what an architecturally beautiful city I live in. (Or rather adjacent to):

What We Ate:

Saturday: Can’t remember. Probably leftovers after we got back from Longwood Gardens. Or maybe takeout?

Sunday: Pad Thai from Dinner Illustrated.

Monday: Brussel Sprouts and Mushroom Farro Bowls w/ Lemon Tahini Dressing

Tuesday: Paneer Biryani.

Wednesday: Tofu Udon – The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Sushi rolls with Tuna. This was kind of a failure. I made it before taking the eight year old to dance class, and before I took off to for my weekly walking date with my friend. The food was all luke warm and mushy by the time the Husband came home with the kids from the dance class pick up. He called it the “worst meal ever”.

Friday: Pizza and the eight year old’s (virtual) piano recital. I’m sure there was some Stinky and Dirty in there as well since it was the 3 year old’s turn to pick the movie. Oh, and we watched half an hour of the Rockette’s Christmas special.

Weekly Recap + what we ate

I’m really glad we got a picture of the tree at our old house last week. This week when we went over, the tree had dropped its leaves and the branches were sparse. We spent Saturday afternoon washing windows and raking leaves. The eight year old got to use the leaf blower – which was hilarious to see, but also really made me feel proud of her.

This week was the first week all month that the eight year old had a full week of school. So no big adventures this week, but rather five days of slog and small moments. Small moments such as:

– Lunch breaks at the playground in 60 degree weather.
– The baby figuring out so many things: waving, taking her dirty dish to the sink, putting dirty napkins into the laundry bin, putting her shoes away. getting her shoes out of the bin when she wants to go outside.
– Zoom chat with moms from my mom’s group. Almost all our babies are now one, and I’m really glad for such a supportive group of women.
-Standing date with my friend/roommate from college. Realizing that we’re so much better at life than we were in our 20s and 30s. Being able to laugh over things like period products.

Conversation I had with the Husband at 2pm on a Sunday:
me: Why does it feel like it’s 4:00 in the afternoon?
Husband: Because it’s dark outside. That’s what happens in the fall. You’re usually in a theatre this time of year so you don’t know that this happens.
me: !

Which speaking of which – I found out this year that the shows I had scheduled for late spring have now been cancelled. So I haven’t any glimmer of stage management work for at least the next year or so. It’s a tough blow, but I also feel so lucky that it isn’t as devastating for me as it is for so many of my colleagues. Staying home with the kids full time is not really what I’m suited for, but it is also somewhat of a luxury.

This was the last week of drawing class. We were given carte blanche for our final project. I chose to draw the Husband’s childhood home. Three years ago, when his parents passed away, he sold the house. I took a picture of it, thinking that one day I would find an artist on Etsy to make a drawing of it as a present for the Husband. Instead, last week I decided to tackle a picture of the house myself. I was inspired by another student’s hatch and cross hatch project. She was the only one do do that assignment in ink and I loved how detailed and crisp her picture was. I wanted to do something in the same vein.

There is always a point in every project that I did for this class when I realized that I’ve perhaps chosen a subject that is a tad ambitious and I feel in over my head. But then I just keep plugging away and somehow, magically, the lines coalesce into something recognizable.

With this picture, it was the roof. I knew that drawing every tile was probably the best way to go, but doing something that detailed seemed so daunting at first. But I just turned up the show tunes and kept plugging away, one row at a time, and it somehow turned out okay. I’m going to miss the weekly drawing assignment, even though it definitely took up a large chunk of my evenings. I’ll be looking for new evening projects – I do have some mask making to catch up on, and I did promise the Husband to make him a pair of lounge pants. And more writing. And reading. And finishing the blanket that I started for the baby last year. And that programming course I signed up for. And also the Science of Well being course. I guess there is no shortage of projects.

Surprise discovery of the week:
One day, in a fit of cleaning, I decided to clean out behind the fish tank cabinet. It was a mess of small pieces of toys and puzzles. I fished around blindly behind the cabinet, clearing stuff out, then my hand came across something hard and dry and stuck to the floor. I picked it free and it turned out to be… a dead fish. There was no small amount of screaming. The Husband’s theory is that the fish managed to jump out of the fish tank at some point while the lid was open. Poor, sad fish.

A more pleasant surprise discovery, however:

We discovered this pumpkin, growing in the garden. The Husband stays that it is a volunteer – maybe planted by an animal who ate last year’s jack 0’lantern off our porch and then naturally deposited the seed in our garden.

This week’s simple pleasure: Toast with butter. Something about the crispy exterior and chewy interior of perfectly toasted bread, slathered with creamy, salty butter – perfect for autumn mornings. Or afternoons. Or really any time.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Hmmmm…. I can’t seem to remember. I think it was something out of the pantry because we didn’t get to the grocery store that day.

Sunday: Poblano and sweet potato tacos from Dinner Illustrated. Our oven is still broken, so I made these partly in the toaster oven and partly in a skillet. The eight year old made the guacamole.

Monday: Stuffed pepper skillet. Basically everything I would put into a stuffed pepper (ground turkey, rice, tomatoes, cheese) but in a skillet with peppers cut up rather than than used as a vessel for the filling. I also threw in mushrooms and turnips.

Tuesday: The Husband cooked. He made mac n cheese from scratch and coleslaw. The kids loved the coleslaw.

Wednesday: Wings, Fries and leftovers. Not what I had planned, but we had a last minute change in plans which involved picking up wings and fries from one of our favorite pubs.

Thursday: Chicken farro soup in the InstantPot. Sort of made this one up. Carrots, celery, onions, garlic sauteed in the InstantPot, then add chicken broth, a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes and bone-in chicken thighs.

Friday: Pizza and The Gardener. The Husband was in the mood for something gentle at the end of the week, and this documentary fit the bill. It tells about the creation of Les Jardins de Quatre Vents in Quebec. The children were (surprisingly) fascinated by the lush vistas and garden scenes. There was a part of me that kept wondering about the wealth and privilege that brought about such a landscaping feat.

Weekly Recap + What we ate

We celebrated the baby’s birthday last week. with a chocolate cake. All three children have had chocolate cake on their first birthday – does that make it a family tradition? The cake did not go over terribly well with her. She had gotten her shots earlier in the day, and perhaps that contributed to her great fussiness. She was not having it with the cake and eventually rage smashed it, while refusing to eat any of it. Oh well. More for me.

We also went to the Supreme Court to pay our respects to Justice Ginsburg. I almost didn’t go because the whole prospect of taking the metro down and standing in a crowd seemed perhaps not prudent. But ultimately, I decided that these things could be done safely with masks and hand sanitizer, and that saying goodbye to a lady who spent her whole life championing gender equality was something that I wanted to be part of, and something that I wanted my daughters to be a part of.

Last week was also the second week of my drawing class. We talked about how in drawing you have to learn to draw what you see and not the actual object. So you draw lines and angles and not plants and flowers. Learning how to breakdown drawing into concrete steps has been really helpful; it’s shaping up to be a good brain excercise. The Husband had to go into work a couple days last week, one day being class day. I managed the lunch chaos while “attending” class, with my camera off. Being able to take a class while keeping track of my kids certainly opens up all sorts of possibilities.

The “This is Motherhood” moment of the week: wiping the three year old’s behind with one hand while using the other hand to keep the baby from sticking her hand in the (yet unflushed) toilet. It was kind of akin to cuing on the chorus while keeping track of the tenor.

Two things sighted on our morning walk – one made the three year old happy, one made me happy:

What We Ate:

Saturday: Chicken cooked on the griddle and salad.

Sunday: Thai Chicken Soup – From Dinner Illustrated. I added rice noodles.

Monday: Sausage, Peppers, and Onion sautee. Using up an excess of peppers.

Tuesday: Red Pepper Soup – From Dinner Illustrated. See above about excess of peppers.

Wednesday: Tortellini (w/ Red Sauce or Pesto, Diner’s choice), and Arni’s Jr. Salads. This was the baby’s birthday dinner. The Arni’s Jr. Salads are a staple of the Husband’s childhood and home state. We like to re-create them at home since we can’t get them here.

Thursday: Indian Eggplant Curry (Instant Pot), and Cumin Potatoes from Indian Instant Pot Cookbook.

Friday: Pizza and Lilo and Stitch. I had picked up Lilo and Stich four or five years ago, but we had never made it through because the eight year always got sad and scared and had us turn it off. I particularly remember her saying, “You don’t rip books!”

Weekly Recap + What we ate

One week of distance learning in the books! I have to say, it wasn’t as difficult as I had feared. This fall is has had a much more structured and supported learning environment than what everyone (students, parents, teachers, administrators) were thrown into last spring. I felt last spring that there was a lot of independent learning expected from the students. Our school district still has implemented a very long day of distance learning (9am – 3:15pm), but the day is built so that the kids are usually never on Zoom for more than an hour at a time. The one exception is when morning meeting runs into math period – so a 1h 20 m session. But it’s the first period of the day, so not horrible. There is an hour and a half for lunch and two 10-15 minute breaks – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It seems to be much closer to what I had when I was growing up, where there was lots of outdoor play time.

Wednesday afternoons are designated “independent study.” I’d love to spend a few hours either going on an outing or tackling something the eight year old is independently interested in learning.

I do feel like in person learning is probably more effective for the 8 year old, but at least I am able to be home and support her. I know that this is a luxury that not all families have, so I’m trying to see this as a side benefit of this period of unemployment. All in all, however, the week of schooling went quite smoothly. There were a couple of incidents of accidentally logging out of the Zoom waiting room before class, but hopefully we are turning it into a learning experience on how to tell time.

(Speaking of which – are kids still expected to be able to read analog clocks and watches? I feel like all the clocks on our walls are analog, so this is indeed a good thing to teach the kids. Also is a good lesson in how to count by fives.)

This week was a bit of disaster for the younger two kids’ routines because I was trying to make sure the eight year old got where she needed to be virtually. School started right around the baby’s nap time, making a bit of a mess out of that. I’ve never been one of those people who are slaves to a baby’s nap times, but I do think the day goes more smoothly when the baby has regular naps. I’m hopeful, that having the eight year old on a schedule will be helpful in giving the rest of us a rhythm to the day eventually, though. I can try to fit naps, nursing sessions, and structured activity time for the baby and the three year old around the eight year old’s class, and we can all have recess together. New school year, new patterns for everyone, I guess. It is an ever evolving thing.

Other highlights this week: The baby has figured out how to drink from a straw. At least she figured out how to suck the water up. She still is working on swallowing the water that she fills her mouth with. Half the time she sucks up a great big mouthful and then lets it just dribble out the sides of her mouth.

She has also figured out how to climb up on low chairs. She’ll climb up on them and stand, holding on to the chair back as if at a lectern, her face glowing with pride and accomplishment. It is cute but so scary.

We didn’t get out for as many long walks as we used to, but on Thursday there was a giant downpour and both kids took great laughing delight in running in the rain. It’s funny how these kids don’t like to bathe, but love running outside as the heavens open and unleash sheets and sheets of water.

Two food highlights this week:

The Husband brought home a watermelon from the grocery store. I love watermelon but it does take a while to finish. Now that we have a new full size fridge in the basement, there is not as much urgency to eat it all in one day, which is nice. I’ve been enjoying watermelon, feta salad – something my friend Lizzie introduced me to. Watermelon, feta, a sprinkle of basil. That’s it, simple and tasty.

Leftover rice and salmon, with avocado, umboshi paste and cucumber.

Also – for lunch I’ve been making sushi rolls with leftovers. It’s not true sushi rice, so things fall apart a little bit, but it’s still a tasty way to eat things up. A couple years ago, I picked up a packet of umeboshi puree from a fancy grocery store just outside of Philadelphia. It’s one of my favorite ingredients in sushi; there used to be a Japanese restaurant that had a Ume Shiso roll – just ume paste, and a shiso leaf wrapped in rice. It was the most delicate, delicious thing you ever tasted. I don’t actually know of too many other ways to eat umeboshi puree, so it’s been sitting in our fridge for a while. Surprisingly, though, it is still good, and really made these rolls special.

This Week’s Menu:

Saturday: We had Indian take out from the local Indian restaurant.

Sunday: Lasagna. This was the lasagna the 8 year and I were supposed to make last week, but had to postpone. It was her idea and she helped me make the sauce, mix the ricotta and layer the lasagna.

Monday: Pork and Green Bean Stir Fry. From Dinner Illustrated.

Tuesday: Cauliflower Tacos with Mango Cabbage Slaw. From Dinner Illustrated.

Wednesday: Green Curry with tofu and veggies. I used this new curry paste from HMart and it was definitely spicier than the Thai Kitchen brand that I usually get.

Thursday: The Husband made dinner. Breakfast sandwiches with bacon.

Friday: Pizza and Bend it Like Beckham. The eight year old has been listening to the Aru Shah series and it put me in the mood for this movie, though I hadn’t seen it in a while. It mostly holds up in its story of being stuck between two cultures, as a child and as a parent. The soccer bits and the wedding scene are pretty fun too. (“That’s not football!” the kids said.) I’d forgotten how cringe-y the romantic subplots were, though. I think there are a lot of romance storylines that are not aging well in the wake of the MeToo movement. The realization that power imbalances are not really healthy foundations for romantic relationships certainly has me seeing these plotlines with a new awareness. I don’t think those kind of relationships are necessarily something that is impossible to have now, I just think it needs to be navigated in a more conscious way.