Having Abe home for the past three weeks has been glorious. To be perfectly frank, I am terrified about what next week will bring. It would all be easier if I weren’t in cooking school, but I just have to remember that Abe and I both feel extremely good about that decision. I keep going back to those assurances, because starting Monday Abe starts his new job and we will not see each other much for the next four months. I have class three nights a week, and the other two nights Abe will work late. Pity party at my house!
Aside from feeling terrified that our blissful vacation is drawing to an end, today was pretty good. Abe, who is turning 30 this month, even went outside to work on the snow fort…by himself. Lydia refused to go because she didn’t want to get cold, and Mary was napping. Here’s the fruit of his hard work:
He still says it has a long way to go. When he will find time for the going, I don’t know. But doesn’t it look great? Can you imagine the size this would be if we had the weather currently affecting the Midwest?
I got some fun time in with my children, some cooking, some piano, and now I’m about to don headphones while Abe and I snuggle up to watch our separate movies. He’s going to watch training videos for work while I watch youtube piano videos. Super romantic, I know.
Here are today’s pictures:
Okay, Lydia and I played the piano together, read a ton of books, stamped and crafted postcards for her cat, talked on the phone to my mom and Grandma, and yet…there were still somehow many hours left in the day to kill. These no-nap days are craaazy!! Needless to say, she spent a couple hours with Daniel the tiger, too.My house is a mess. Instead of cleaning it, I took a picture and ran to the piano to get more practice in before 9 pm hit.Since I had all the ingredients on hand, dinner tonight was free. (And by that I mean it didn’t come out of this week’s budget. Ain’t no free lunch in real life.) I just braised some cabbage and onion and layered that with some leftover spelt bread (frozen since Christmas) and some cheese I bought a week ago. I drenched it in broth and baked for 30 min. Loosely based on a recipe I read a couple days ago, and I think it was yummy.Mary in her high chair. These times of day make us all so, so fussy.Since Mary had trouble getting to sleep last night, we fed her second dinner to her a little later today. She is a fan of ramen…and, we found out today, milk! She drank a TON of milk tonight. I’ve only been giving the girls water because I don’t like milk, but I guess it turns out their preferences differ from mine.
After Bikram this morning, I came home to discover this:
Abe and Lydia had spent over an hour building this together.They were still outside, hard at work.Lydia packed the snow by kneeling on it.
Abe told me that he’s done with snowmen for the season.
These are leftover remnants of snowmen from the last snow. The one on the right used to be 10 feet tall. Lydia named (all by herself) the one on the left “Snowhopper.” My mom named the one on the right “Mr. Snowshine.” Their time has since passed.
After I came home, Abe went to lunch with his friends, Morgan, Kendall, and Kade. After that he went to his dad’s house to work on his homework for his new job, and so I had the girls to myself. We played, ate, and napped.
During their naps, I read some more of The Hobbit. That book is meant to be read on a day like today:
While I was reading, fat snowflakes were falling outside of my window and I felt so cozy and warm inside. It felt so wonderful to be reading about such adventures while I was snug under my blankets during an actual snowstorm. I also really like the parts of the book where the travelers get hungry–and then really enjoy getting fed. That cycle seems to happen every couple pages, and it never grows old (on me).
In fact, I was so taken with the coziness of the whole situation that I went downstairs and made soup. Then Abe came home and I spent the rest of the evening practicing. Last night I had nightmares that I had memory slips on La Campanella, and I woke up panicky and spent the next thirty minutes trying to see the score in my head. It was nice to address the shaky parts in real life.
Also, I am really nervous about my competition audition tapes. I did not realize they were an actual audition until Abe read the fine print before packing them up to mail. When I made the recordings, I just thought that the judges wanted to see how you played, and it didn’t really matter what you sent in. Those recordings a) weren’t memorized, b) were chock full of technical errors, c) seriously lacked in musicality, in part because of a. But I guess that the good news is, if I don’t make it into this competition, there are tons of other ones around the country, and I can make other recordings–hopefully, ones that I actually like. In the meantime, though, I’m biting my nails and hoping I make it into the competition.
This morning we all woke up with tummy aches. Lydia said, “Daddy, we are all sick because we ate meat yesterday. Can we not eat meat anymore?” Abe and I happily yielded to her request (today).
I went to Bikram this morning with Cynthia, and we slid into class a little late. Our instructor, Marc, doesn’t like latecomers, and he often lectures on how latecomers should reflect on the way their behavior affects others around them. Today he was a little milder in his rebukes, but he still delivered a rather stern post-class homily to us on the virtues of punctuality while Cynthia was signing up for her pass.
After sweating it out in yoga, I proceeded to be cold for the rest of the day. (Although I shouldn’t complain–the recent reports and pictures from the Midwest make Salt Lake look like the tropics right about now). When I finally warmed up enough to move, we packed up my sewing machine and took it to a sewing shop in Murray that does repairs on warranty. I KNOW my machine could not sew buttonholes last I checked (in June), but it magically fixed itself on the way to the shop. I felt like an idiot for bringing it in–but a happy idiot, since no further repairs are needed. Now I can sew buttonholes all day long if I want to!
Speaking of repairs, Abe has spent hours this week following various tutorials on how to break a Master Lock. We lost the combination to a lock we have on a door that leads to the roof, and Abe tried hundreds of combinations before finally just taking a hack saw to the clasp. I felt sorry for my poor husband, frustrated to the point of having to use a hack saw on his vacation. Also, his vacation ended today with an email giving him loads and loads of homework for his new job. It’s been fun while it lasted.
I also read Preethi’s recent blog on resolutions and loved her idea of having her toddler start memorizing scriptures. Lydia and I started on this today, and I have to say, after an hour of drilling, drilling, drilling, Lydia’s recitation of the first clause in 1 Nephi 3:7 was… spotty. Preethi, if you’re reading this, how do you do it?
Also, my friend, Maria, and I have been exchanging a very fun, spirited set of emails on Amy Chua (she has a new, super controversial book out, people!). As Lydia and I repeated the same clause over and over (at least a hundred times, no exaggeration), I did feel slightly closer to Amy Chua (my number 2 idol, right after Martha.) Maria made the awesome point that Amy Chua takes sole credit for her daughters’ success when actually, a whole host of unacknowledged social privilege played into that. So true! But I still admire Amy Chua’s personality, humor, intelligence, and even her ability to play the media. The link in this paragraph actually irritated me quite a bit because the reviewers seemed not only derisive, but dim. But I’m lazy and it’s the first thing I clicked on when I googled her new book…by now I should have just gone back and changed it to the simple Amazon link, seriously.
Here are today’s pictures:
Lydia was picking her nose with the corner of this paper just seconds before the picture snapped.We took this picture because we realized during dinner that we thought we hadn’t taken any pictures today and wanted a blog picture.Same reason for this one.Then I took some of Abe for his linkedin profile. This is a contender.One of Lydia’s favorite games is to pretend Minnie Mouse is shopping in these “stores.”We have to distract Mary because if Mary touches the Minnie Mouse set-up, Lydia loses it. We could just make Lydia deal, but we’re not always up for noise decibel that entails.
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?
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.
My friend, Maria, is in town, so this morning we went to Bikram together. We had a great time, despite the profuse fountain of sweat spurting off of the man behind us. Afterward Maria humorously referred to the situation as “his hydroponics.” That made me laugh.
Then we went to Liberty Heights for cheese, and then to Harmon’s for groceries and lunch. We ate in their little cafe area and talked a lot about blogs.
Maria had a lot of great insights into blogging, one of which was that our children deserve privacy. I agree, and so I came away conflicted about my own blog (which deprives my children of that right). So I’ve been thinking, and here are the reasons I blog:
a) personal therapy/fun
b) to preserve memories and chronicle our family life
c) for my sweet grandma’s daily reading material
d) to help any interested people to get a glimpse of how some Mormons live (light on a hill and all that stuff, except when I’m writing all the bad stuff down–then the light gets pretty dim!). I know there are a lot of monetized Mormon mommy blogs out there, and from what I’ve read and heard of them, I don’t think they represent my “Mormon mommy” life at all. So even though I would never try to monetize this blog or even try to reach a large audience, at least I’m representing my reality as best as I can.
e) because I must be a narcissist. I mean, who else blogs their thoughts every single day? Even though this troubles me greatly, the thoughts keep happening and the blogs keep getting written…
For reasons c and d, not to mention what a hassle it was for me to read my own blog when I had the password system in place, my blog is public. But maybe sometime in the future, that will change again.
We also talked about reading blogs. Personally, I’ve cut out reading any blog that does not teach me to do something (like cook or craft). By my standards, I would not read my own blog if it weren’t my own.
So enough meta. Tonight we had a great dinner party with Maria, her husband, Kyle, and a mutual friend, Cynthia Barlow. I had heard a lot about Cynthia but never met her before tonight. What a lovely person! I am excited because I think she might buddy up with me on a yoga pass, which would be awesome.
Also, to record the bad stuff: I burnt the squash for the dinner party. It was pretty mortifying. I did the squash rings again, and I was SO excited because I amped up the egg and cheese in the filling…but then I baked them on the bottom rack so that there’d be room for the souffle (tonight’s menu was an exact repeat from our dinner party on Friday), and the bottoms of the squashes burned. So sad!
Today’s pictures are few, but here they are:
Abe and Lydia playing with Lydia’s play food.Then Abe left, so Lydia and I played with her new doctor set. After curing me, she helped out her sick doll, Tessa. At one point, Lydia took all of my measurements and exclaimed, “You look great!” I love this little girl.
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!
Watching the Tchaikovsky piano concerto no. 1 this morning on Youtube was so thrilling that I accidentally gave myself shin splints running to the music. But tomorrow is Christmas Eve, so lying around nursing sore legs was not an option. Instead, Lydia and I turned out several batches of Christmas cookies before we packaged them up and delivered them to our awesome neighbors.
I had never made zimsterne before, but they are my new favorite Christmas cookie.
Zimsterne (cinnamon stars). Oh my gosh, I can not believe I had never tried making these before. The cookie is a nut meringue with a meringue icing baked on. I could live on these, I think.They are perfect for making with kids. Every step is kid friendly, and Lydia was so proud of herself.After I took this photo, I taught her how to spread the icing all over the cookie.This is out of order. Between the meringue-making and the cookie icing, Lydia pooped in her pants for the first time ever since we took away her diapers. She made it to the potty for most of it, but I wonder if the meringue set her off….I forgot to post this picture a couple days ago. I am so proud of this hair…even though it all fell out within a matter of hours. I need to find kid-sized bobby pins!
Anyway, my favorite part of today was dropping off gifts to our neighbors. It felt like Halloween again; we got short visits in with so many wonderful people, and I just love my neighbors! For some crazy reason, we decided to drive the gifts around and our car got stuck in a snowbank across the street from our house. I felt SO dumb, but luckily, the three boys who live across the street pushed the car out. The whole incident made me feel even more grateful for good neighbors who have compassion and help their apparently idiotic neighbors across the street.
Abe worked late tonight, so this day that started at 6:45am did not slow down until 9pm when I finally got the girls in bed. After that, I lay in bed watching Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, Olga Kern, and Yuji Wang (respectively) play the Rachmaninoff 3rd piano concerto. At that point, Abe kicked me out of bed so he could go to bed and I could blog.
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.
He still says it has a long way to go. When he will find time for the going, I don’t know. But doesn’t it look great? Can you imagine the size this would be if we had the weather currently affecting the Midwest?
