Mary, bless her, took a four hour nap today. During that time, Abe made his final trip to the office, and I parented Lydia horizontally from bed. Mainly she ran around the house playing pretend while I lay there exhausted, but she did climb up a couple of times and join me. We watched a lot of figure-skating Youtube videos together and daydreamed jointly about Lydia ice skating. I think I will take her ice skating tomorrow since she was so excited about it.
After Abe came home, I left to do Bikram and some grocery shopping. Today is the first day of my new budget, and I have already spent half of my weekly allowance. Although this is cause for alarm, I am also really excited to finally bite the bullet and adjust. I feel like this new regime will make me a better, more disciplined person, and, frankly, I’ll take that over great cheese any day. (Although I quite like great cheese…)
While I was gone, Abe and the girls organized the basement craft station, and now we only have one more closet to go before our house is totally organized (at least by our loose standards). I am so excited!
Since I was sweaty and gross after Bikram, I jumped in the bath with Lydia and Mary. Lydia had fun dumping water all over me and told me to “be brave.” (She watched Brave today.)
I forgot to take pictures since I spent most of the day in bed. Maybe tomorrow?
Abe and I didn’t roll out of bed intending to take the day by storm. We had two things on our agenda: The Jewish Community Center (to sign Lydia up for preschool) and the Library (to pay down our fines).
But the day had us in its sights. From morning until evening, it was packed with events, planned and unplanned, delightful and…well, less than delightful.
First off, we fell in love with the JCC again. Thank goodness we have been saving up for it, because with Abe’s new, slimmer salary, we would not be able to pull off tuition otherwise. As it is, I have to figure out how to feed a family of four three meals a day (plus snacks!) on less than a quarter of my former budget. I figure it comes out to about $1.75 a meal–for ALL of us. I’ll post any ingenious, creative meal solutions, but since I am currently stumped, we’ve started eating Ramen. Thank goodness Mary seems to be a huge fan! As long as we don’t all die of sodium and MSG in the next few months, Ramen it will have to be. But, as Abe pointed out, at least Lydia’s education will be stellar, and that trumps fancy (fresh?) food…we think.
And as long as we’re on the topic of budgeting, today we spent two hours at the library reading to our children–and paid down $24.00 in fines! (I had $31.00 in fines to begin with.) By the time we were done, Abe was glassy-eyed and unresponsive, Mary was sleepy, and Lydia declared herself “fursty (thirsty), hungwee (hungry) and sweepy (sleepy)–every of them!” I felt a little guilty (not to mention dehydrated) for putting us all through that, but there was a smidgen of triumph in there as well. I mean, it’s a brand new year, and my fines are almost entirely paid off!
Then we came home and got everyone fed and rested, right before I got a call from a dear old friend letting me know she and her mother were in town and could drop by. It was an opportunity too good to pass up, so I raced downstairs and took down ALL of the Christmas decorations and vacuumed like crazy before she arrived. Abe had a nightmare during his nap which woke him up, so he came down and helped. By the time my friend and her mom arrived, the house was completely, 100% Christmas-decoration-free.
My friend, Carolina, was my first friend when I transitioned away from my Presbyterian upbringing and started attending the Mormon church at the age of 13. It was a huge cultural shock, and all of the kids at my new church had known each other since infancy. I had been quite solidly integrated into my old church, and entering a new, foreign environment was scary–especially since I was so shy I couldn’t even bring myself to talk to anyone for the first year. Carolina, though, was a familiar face, since her mom and my mom had let us play together a couple times throughout my childhood. She was so kind to me, and she was the only person at church I felt comfortable being around for a loooong time. It was a deep joy to see her and her lovely mom today, and I loved meeting her little daughter, Leah. Carolina now lives in Utah, so I hope to see more of her now that we’ve reconnected.
After our impromptu reunion with Carolina and Derly, Abe and I went through our regular dinner-bath-bedtime-piano practice routine. After I finished practicing (I memorized the Bach today!!), I went upstairs to check on the girls, who had been giggling and squealing ever since we put them to bed. Shortly before I checked on them, their laughs had turned to sobs. I grabbed my camera before entering, since I hadn’t taken a single photo of the day, and since I expected only to find two tired out little girls. When I entered the room, I immediately took the following picture. It wasn’t until after I’d taken the picture that I realized what had happened…
Lydia had poured baby powder all over herself and Mary, and she’d smeared diaper rash cream into her hair and Mary’s. Mary was pretty upset.
I immediately picked up Mary and took her to the bathroom to bathe her again, and when Abe came up, he took a close-up of Lydia before bringing her to the bathroom, too.
Lydia was hysterical for the next hour. Scrubbing diaper rash cream out of hair is crazy difficult, and both girls were exhausted and very, very sad by the time we finished.
Poor little things. Despite the fact that we heartlessly photographed their pain, we actually felt really bad for them. At the same time, we feel happy because after the cleaning ordeal, we are sure Lydia will never do this again.
I am going to go read my first book of the new year now. Maybe I’ll finally be able to finish one!
Happy New Year! Last night Abe and I watched the entire Salt Lake valley explode into fireworks from our bedroom window. It was beautiful! I remember having New Year’s on my mission (in Salt Lake) and wanting so badly to see the fireworks, and with that memory in mind, I enjoyed the luxury of watching the fireworks a little extra last night.
After Bikram this morning, I tried to make sure that I was heading into the new year with only positive connotations about everyone I know. To the best of my knowledge, I think I’m heading into the new year with happy and grateful feelings about all of my friends and acquaintances; if I had any official resolutions, the first would be to keep it that way all year long. If you’re in my life and reading this, know that you are appreciated, respected and loved. If you’re in my life and not reading this, then you’re still appreciated, respected and loved…and I’ll have to try to find ways of communicating that throughout this coming year.
Here are today’s pictures:
We took the girls to the playground today, since it was actually pretty nice out.
In their winter clothes, they made the jogger soooo heavy.Lydia fell asleep on the way to the playground, so Mary got some attention all to herself.She loved going down the slide.I loved cuddling her, but she was wriggling to get down and play some more.…and then Lydia woke up and bravely walked across the wobbly bridge. I love the way she cautiously holds on (an inherited trait from my side of the family).
After dinner, Lydia was in a snuggly mood.
We missed FHE on Monday, so we had it today. We acted out the walls of Jericho three times, and then Abe built a mountain out of pillows which the girls proceeded to repeatedly climb for the next thirty minutes.
Circling the “walls of Jericho.”
Mary was in heaven climbing this mountain of pillows. She’s a happy girl, but Abe remarked that he’s never seen her that happy…and we suspect she would have kept climbing for days–given the opportunity.
I’m watching a Youtube documentary as I type, so here’s a short break-down on today:
Slept. Ate. Wasted time online. Slept. Ate. Fed children. Played with children. Read to children. Practiced piano. Ate. Cleaned the hall closet. Folded laundry.
And now for the pictures of our closet clean-up:
The mess after we emptied the closet.Lydia discovered some lotion.I walked into the bathroom with my camera (since I had just taken a picture of Lydia) and discovered this. I quickly took a picture and then cleaned Mary up.This is how Mary felt when I banned her from the bathroom.The emptied, organized closet.
Thanks to the combined baby-sitting efforts of Tom, Suzanne, and my mom, Abe and I were able to sneak off to the temple this morning. Some of the women who worked in initiatories radiated so much light and intelligence that they reminded me of my mom, and then I got to thinking: How do I get from point A (who I am now) to point B (where my mom and these women are)? Maybe it’s a matter of time, experience, and perhaps more suffering. But maybe it’s also a matter of constant mental discipling; I need to consistently notice and replace any thoughts that don’t serve a compassionate or loving cause. That’s hard! But I really, really, really, really want to be a wiser, kinder person by the time I’m a grandma, so I figure no time like the present to get started.
On that note, I will refrain from stating all of the negative, self-critiquing commentary that bubbled up when I watched the videos I recorded tonight. My competition deadline is December 31st, so Abe helped me record some pieces tonight. I won’t even post the Brahams, because after watching it I realized I need to overhaul the whole piece…but here are the Chopin Scherzo no. 2 and the first movement of Bach’s Italian Concerto.
Also, today’s pictures:
I tried making zimsterne again for my grandma. My mom went back to Springfield this afternoon, so this was another early morning project…My mom loves her new scarf from Karin and wanted me to take a picture.Lydia loves being with her cat again.She gets wistful when she thinks about his adventures and says, “I hope my cat stays with me!”She also dressed herself today.More fun with Puss.Mary hugged me when I got back from the temple. Instead of hugging her back, I took advantage of the camera in my hands and got this instead.While I was practicing before my recordings, Abe let Lydia wear this headlamp and be Dora the Exploreer. They explored the whole house and then did crafts in the dark.
It’s past midnight and my desk chair is currently at the dining room table because we had another family dinner tonight (with Tom, Suzanne, Jere and David). My mom and I spent the morning swimming (we each did a mile!) and grocery shopping, and the rest of the afternoon I spent cooking. The whole house smells like fried shallots, and the after-smell isn’t that great. The smell is also stuck in my hair, which is unfortunate, since I can’t escape.
In other news, Abe and I are on a movie kick! We have more than doubled the movies we’ve seen together in the last two months. Tonight we saw The Hobbit. We were a little late and sat in the front row, but I liked that because it meant that all of the scary fighting scenes were so blurry that the scariness was significantly mitigated.
Anyway, my elbows and knees are going numb, so here are today’s pictures:
Abe and Lydia did an Insanity work-out together.
I baked pears again. They are so easy! I just peeled them, put them in a buttered pan, sprinkled some cinnamon and allspice cloves on top, and put them in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes. Then I poured some cream over them and baked for 20 more minutes. We paired these with Argentine Caramel ice cream, and voila! Yesterday’s brunch food became today’s dessert!After dinner, this is what we looked like. It’s officially the day after Christmas.I made space for myself next to my hubby.
Also, ever since the doctor told me to aim for 150 minutes of exercise a week, I have been keeping meticulous track. Today’s swim put me at 170 minutes. It is a testament to the horrific amount of sugar I intake that all this exercise manages to be consistently offset by my poor (but oh, so yummy) diet.
Another also: If anyone knows how to get fried-food smell out of your house, I need your knowledge! The last time I fried food in this house was last Thanksgiving when my friend, Jennifer, heroically stepped up to the plate and fried shallots for this green bean casserole. I’m scared of splatter, so I needed her help. I made it again today because I’d a) gathered my courage and b) totally forgotten the smelly side-effect of frying…
Merry Christmas! Technically, it’s already Christmas. All I can say is, at least Abe and I are not in the throes of assembling Lydia’s kitchen–which is what we were doing last Christmas until 3am. He’s still downstairs wrapping the last present and tidying up, and I am typing as fast as I can so we can go to bed. Tomorrow I have to get up at 6 am to start the orange rolls.
Today has been loooong. It started with scriptures and Bikram yoga–a delightful combination, made better by Anique’s company at yoga. Then we both did some last minute grocery shopping, after which Abe and I went to Barnes and Noble to do our Christmas shopping. Before today, we had not even started to think about the process. The busy mall comforted us and helped us feel better about the fact that we are not the only procrastinators of the season.
Then I came home and played some piano, after which we headed over to the Miner’s for their Christmas Eve celebration. They do readings, songs and a talent show of sorts, so that was fun. I always miss the First Presbyterian Church of Evanston on Christmas Eve, because the pageant there never failed to bring home the story of Christ’s birth for me. But since there’s no similar event here, it is really nice to celebrate with Suzanne’s family. Plus they have a great cookie buffet at the end.
After that, we put out cookies and a letter for Santa, and we told the girls to listen for the reindeer as they fell asleep. Abe shook some bells outside their door and said, “Ho! Ho! Ho!” We could hear Lydia inside telling Mary to be good and that Santa was here to bring her cat back.
Then I made stratas for our brunch tomorrow, and Abe wrapped all of the presents. We still have to order some gifts online, and then we’ll be done and ready for bed!
Here are today’s pictures:
The girls started the day in bed with Nana reading books.Lydia sometimes cries so much she gets a nosebleed. Or she picks her nose to the point where she gets a nosebleed. I think the latter happened here.Leaving cookies for Santa.Writing a note to Santa.The note Lydia helped dictate to Abe.See that blue bag? I didn’t see it until this evening, but Abe brought it up from where he’s been storing it, and it turns out that Clark and Swathi sent us a microwave for Christmas! Those two. They are the sweetest siblings ever. But Abe has been eyeing the bag the microwave came in, and he used it as “Santa’s sack.” Also, note Lydia’s cat peeking out of her stocking. We are so excited for her to reunite with him!
I started off the day with an 8am session of Bikram Yoga. It felt awesome, and I hit 180 minutes of exercise this week! When I saw my doctor last week, he said to shoot for 150 minutes, so it felt really great to meet that goal.
I also finished the Book of Mormon yesterday, so I started again on the title page today. I have been thinking a lot about truth, courage, and missionary work lately. Missionary work confuses me, but thinking about it in terms of absolute truths helps me understand it a little better. Finishing and restarting a reading of the Book of Mormon always gets the juices flowing around truth, so my scripture study felt meaningful.
I even got some practice in, although my piano is by a huge window and can NEVER stay in tune. Right now it’s so out of tune I almost shudder to hear some registers (especially the upper), but I pressed on (!) through the awful sounds.
We also played in the snow today. Abe is sure that by the end of winter we will have a full blown snow fort, so he and the girls worked hard on it today:
Working hard on the snow fort.Mary was at the ready.And happy about it.:Lydia busied herself decorating the ground with snow angels.The snow fort.
We also went to This is the Place Heritage Park for their Candlelight Christmas with Balu, Tom, Suzanne, Steve, Charlie and Henry. We walked all over, sampling gingerbread, square dancing, learning about the first Christmas cards, signing Santa’s lists, meeting Santa, eating the best doughnuts I have ever had, and feeling moved by the live Nativity. Lydia spent the whole day anticipating the Baby Jesus and kept talking about how she would be quiet and not wake him, how she’d give him a binky, and how she’d take off her gloves when she saw him (I have no idea about that last part, but she was adamant…). Anyway, I love that place. To make it even better, at the end, Abe bought me a new wedding ring!!! I can only wear a plain band in my lab classes, and we found a plain silver band for $14.50!!!!!! It fit perfectly, and since I’ll probably wear it for the next decade, I could not be more pleased.
Mary Berry in her poof outfit. She toddled all around the park in this and kind of stole the show.
When I came home, I baked more cookies.
I baked a forest of bittersweet chocolate Christmas trees. Now if I can just get around to packaging them and giving them away before I eat them all…
Oh! I made another pint of lemon curd today. I think I’m going to make this for Christmas brunch. It just so happens I have a lot of mascarpone and now a ton of lemon curd in the fridge already. Now I just have to make a million crepes and it’ll be all downhill from there.
And now, my mom is here!!! So I’m going to stop blogging and go talk to her.
This morning we got off to a rocky, tantrum-y start; I even had the thought, “Oh, no! It’s only 8:30am and I’ve already had it up to HERE with being a mom!” …but things got better as soon as I took the girls to the Gateway Children’s Museum. They had so much fun playing in the water, “shopping,” climbing up stuff, and decorating paper stockings. We were the only ones who signed up for the stocking class, so they had the whole quiet craft room to themselves. It was such a nice note to end on, and the girls were both perfectly behaved–Mary didn’t even poop until we got back home. So considerate of her.
Lydia and I spent Mary’s nap reading a bunch of Christmas stories and playing the Primary book’s Christmas songs together, and at dinner I almost lost my voice cheering for every single bite Lydia took of her squash. (She took approximately 30…I lost count around 23 because around then I started cheering and playing high-five and tickle/hug games with Lydia in between each bite.) I cuddled Mary a lot, and basically enjoyed my children for the rest of the day. I ended up LOVING being a mom today.
After the kids went down, I learned a really simple, sweet piece called “Shepherd Boy,” by Grieg. The meditative, soft progression of the notes helped me reflect on the Good Shepherd and on the shepherds that visited Jesus. Considering one of my recording deadlines is fast approaching (the end of December–YIKES!), this was ultimately a foolish way to spend the limited time I have at the piano. But it also made my evening feel perfect, so I guess I don’t regret it that much.
I then discovered that Talenti ice cream containers are the perfect way to store the lemon curd I made today. I polished off the rest of the ice cream just in case I need another container tomorrow…
My friend, Cierra, gave me this recipe. It didn’t turn out like hers because I had to attend to several emergencies while I was supposed to be stirring, but it was still delicious. Here’s where she got her recipe.
The only thing that would make the evening even better is if Abe had not JUST started his trip home from Rock Springs. I hate him traveling those middle-of-nowhere roads in the middle of the night, but guess what? This is his last trip with Guardsmark! Hip, hip, hooray!
And so for today’s pictures:
Why did I cuddle Mary so much today? Well, she missed her morning nap because of our outing, and she was a little sad for the rest of the day. Also, she kept getting stuck on this chair.I forgot to post this picture from yesterday. Isn’t it cute?
When I wasn’t practicing piano today, I was either lying in bed or feeding my children. I’ve had a headache that I only forget to notice when I’m super focused (e.g., on the piano), so it’s been hard to get much done. Oh! But I did have a play date with Aria, Espen and Enna, which made the morning a delight. Enna waved to me! And I guess I did the treadmill this morning, so there was some activity in the day. Just not a lot.
Lydia, on the other hand had a TON of activity today. Since I was out of commission, she just ran around the house playing pretend the entire day. Even at meals she would pretend her utensils were Abe, Mary, her and me, and she’d say stuff like, “We are togever foh-ever, Ma-wee!” (Translation: “We are together forever, Mary!”).
I forgot to write down a cute exchange we had yesterday. I had been reprimanding Lydia a lot, and as I was practicing, I heard suspicious sounds coming from the kitchen. “Lydia, what are you doing?” I called out. There was a pause. “Mama, I don’t know,” came Lydia’s extremely exasperated reply. “Just pway the pwano, okay?” (Turns out she was engaging in one of her favorite forbidden activities: eating butter. Today I gave her a little lesson on how arteries clog up, and she hasn’t touched the butter since.)
Here are today’s pictures:
Before he left for work this morning, Abe gave the girls a ride. Lydia’s wearing the same outfit she wore yesterday because, well, she never quite made it into pj’s last night. When she woke up, she was already dressed, so why make more work for everyone?I made garlic mashed potatoes and wilted kale and called that dinner. No one seemed to mind.Before bed the girls got rides on the magic potty seat.One of the girls got a faster ride than the other…
