Category: another day in the life

Here’s the thing.

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I find I write blog posts while I’m doing other things, mostly cooking, although it’s a good time killer when you are waiting on the floor to dry after mopping or babysitting the printer (because no matter what, my printer demands I sit next to it whenever I print ANYTHING or it will somehow screw up, then becoming an hour long study in frustration as to what the heck is going on with that thing and just when I am about to go all Office Space on it, it suddenly starts working again) or to avoid doing things, like cleaning the house or laundry.  The batteries on my camera died last weekend, and I’ve been too lazy to run out to get new ones, so everything I’ve thought about blogging, like uhm, the latest scarves I’ve knitted, or what’s happening in my garden right now, has required me to run out and get camera batteries to either capture the moment or move the pictures from my camera to my computer.  And since I generally have something on the stove at the moment I’m inspired, or, it’s late at night,  I’m waiting for the big yellow angel to swing by and drop miss thing off, there’s always a reason to not drop everything and run right out.

What’s particularly sad about this is that just today, I drove not just right past the K-mart, but cut through the parking lot TWICE on my way elsewhere.  Sadder yet, I have driven by it several times this week, as it’s right next to my current frenimy, Whole Foods, which I go to at least 3 times a week, because you know, they need me to.  (Sort of like how Eloise was needed to oversee so many events at The Plaza.) Also, I have decided it’s the closest grocery store to my house, other than Reid’s, which I consider more a convenience store/butcher shop.   When one has X number of errands to complete in X amount of time, I don’t always feel like adding one. more. stop.  I am lazy like that.   So, I drive through the Kmart parking lot without stopping. 

It’s not like I’ve been that lazy all around – I’ve been cooking up some tasty morsels, sneaking in a little bit of gardening here & there despite the fact that it’s technically still winter and we got a bunch of snow while we were out of town last weekend and yes, mopping floors and doing laundry.  I moved the vacuum cleaner yesterday – AND turned it on.  Here’s a small confession – our vacuum really doesn’t have a good home that’s out of sight.  We are slightly closet challenged here, so I use my mother’s old trick of just leaving it lying out in the middle of a room, so it always appears as if I am in process of cleaning.  Of course, when it sits in that spot for 2 weeks right by the front door, it gets obvious that I’m not actually cleaning, so sometimes I just move it from room to room.  Sometimes, in that process, it actually will get plugged in, turned on and used.  Yesterday was one of those days.  Honestly, no matter how much I vacuum or not, there is always glitter all over my floor.  I think little girls off-gas it.  Seriously.  It is all over my house, even in my car.  My house breeds glitter dust.

I almost made time to grab batteries yesterday so I could take pictures of my Girl Scouts doing a craft project, but then got nervous that if I was prepared to capture moments, they’d be their usually needy selves when it comes to crafts.  Over the years I’ve learned that what the Girl Scouts say are age appropriate crafts turn out to be anything but.  Or, if they are age appropriate, it’s with a one on one adult to child ratio.  We’ve had some epic craft fail and I blame the Girl Scout Handbook for each one. It also taught me the lesson the hard way to run through every project ahead of time, especially the ones that look easy, because they are the ones that get you the most.  Yesterday was different though – I don’t know if it’s because my girls have gotten big enough to do things on their own or if it’s because the project was fairly easy (Paper Beads), but they did an outstanding job yesterday.  I probably have the only Girl Scout troop out there that avoids craft projects – honestly, I hate the kids making stuff to just bring home and clutter up the house more, just for the sake of making something.  I don’t want that stuff in my house, so I’m not going to do it.  We also don’t sell cookies.  We are sort of a slacker Girl Scout troop, but it works for us.   I make all the parents take turns helping, so we are all in agreement on how things go.  If anyone wants to see something done, then they get to be the ones to make it happen.  I feel that’s very democratic, yes?

In the immortal words of Scarlett O’ Hara, Tomorrow is another day.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll find some time to swing by and get me some camera batteries.  You know, in between all my other activities.  ‘Til then…..

Sometimes Life Hands You Mystery Citrus.

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Remember how I said all of our friends brought pretty much everything we needed for Pat’s Birthday Party?
We ended up with quite a bit of leftovers when it was all said and done, from a dozen eggs from the Royston chickens, to a package of sausage from Miss Piggy, to a case of assorted beers as well as some citrus that Eric had brought back from his recent trip to Florida.  He mentioned something about lemons in the mix, but honestly, most of the fruit appeared to be the same size and turned out to be some of the tastiest, if smallest grapefruit we’ve ever had.  There were a few pieces of fruit that had damaged skin and we couldn’t quite tell what it was.  It was the same size as the grapefruit, so we really sort of assumed that they were grapefruit as well.  
The other day, while on Tastespotting (which is my absolute favorite food porn/time suck these days), I saw this link for a grapefruit olive oil cake.  It was described as more of a ‘breakfast cake’ than a dessert cake.  Which actually sounded quite do-able, since I swore up and down I was not baking a cake the entire month of February.  But, my family does need to eat breakfast and while some of us are quite content to eat things like oatmeal and raisin bran and homemade granola with yogurt day after day, others are not.   As this member of our household loves carbs as part of her breakfast, I thought this might be a nice treat.  Reading the recipe, I saw it was made with whole wheat flour, eggs and olive oil, so really, it did look fairly healthy.  I decided to skip the glaze, as that was just added sugar and I do keep an eye on how much sugar we consume, even if I have a wicked sweet tooth and serve things like cake for breakfast.  Everything in moderation, including moderation.
I thought it would be great to try this recipe out while I had such amazing grapefruit.  Certainly this would turn out fabulously and then I would be applauded for such a wonderful breakfast treat.  The recipe called for grating the rind, but as the exterior was so damaged, I sort of skipped that part, which I do realize was probably a crucial step to the flavor and while I do know better, you wouldn’t have wanted that zest either.  I cut them open to juice them and THAT’S when I realized they were a lemon, and not a grapefruit. 
I was undeterred however in my quest for cake.  So I pressed on, thinking it was now a full blown experiment and what was the worst that would happen?  A lemon cake instead of a grapefruit cake?  They’ll still eat it, because they eat just about everything I attempt to cook and if they don’t like it, then we’ll feed it to the squirrels, who love everything we give them. 
I am sad to say the cake was slightly overbaked, despite the fact that it didn’t cook for the full 50 minutes called for in the recipe. You know how you can smell a cake starting to burn? That happened, so I pulled it out early and while it wasn’t burnt, it was definitely starting to crisp on the edges. When we cut into, I found it was indeed, dry, but not too crumbly. Flavorwise, I found it sort of meh at first, but this morning, dipped in coffee, it was just right.  Breakfast cake indeed.  Although clearly, grating the rind and combining it with the sugar is key to more flavor in this cake.
Oh, and my main reason for a baking break, that whole muffin top thing?  I am quite pleased to say that a little over a week without cake combined with some serious workouts made a visible difference in that muffin over the top of my pants.  Yes, I do realize that for a woman past 40 this is an incredible gift of genetics and that noting it here probably just helped to shorten that window of time I have left to pull this sort of thing off.  I am no where near bathing suit ready, but at least I can still fit into my pants without looking unfortunate.  I can only imagine how fantastic I’d look if I would work out like that and forgo cake all the time.  But then, everything in moderation, including moderation.

Valentines.

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That’s Edie’s Valentine this year, made with a few images she found on the internet, some Photoshop skills and Daddy’s iphone.  Personally, I think it turned out sort of brilliant, although I really didn’t know where she was going with it until I saw the finished product.  The greeting on the back was a simple “Happy Valentines Day”, in an Edwardian font.  She was quite specific about using that font.
Edie had a sleepover last weekend, so Pat & I took the opportunity to go to Beer Run for beers & nachos.  We don’t always make Valentines a big deal, but  it is special to us.  And I do love that we still celebrate with nachos and beer.  Although you’d think that after all these years, he wouldn’t be surprised at how I will eat nachos every chance I get.
Mostly what I like about Valentines Day is that it was an excuse for a boy to call a girl. And that girl still thinks that hearing his voice at the end of the day is the best way to end a day.  Every day.

That was a good week.

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Thanks everyone, for all the love for last week’s posts.  Last Monday was most certainly a very good day, for when I had gotten home from that estate sale, in my inbox was the notification that my long awaited piece in Women we Love was going to run on Wednesday.  As if that wasn’t enough, there was also an email saying that Bingo Night that I had put together at school the previous Friday was the biggest Bingo Night our PTO had ever had, with a record breaking fundraising total.  I was feeling pretty darn tooting proud of myself.

This Monday was a little different, as I woke up to discover we were out of coffee.  Oh well.

I got a good number of congrats on the success of my business with the “Women We Love” piece and while I am thankful for the good wishes, to be perfectly honest, the business still has quite a ways to go.  There are certifications and licenses to be had and recipes, packaging and delivery methods to be perfected…..it’s a little overwhelming at times.  And always, that little voice in the back of my head asking,  am I really up to this?  Learning to shut that voice up is a job in itself.  I just keep putting one foot in front of the other and see where the road takes me.  

After months of ignoring invites,  I finally joined Pinterest this morning.  I keep hearing it’s a time suck and I really do not need any more of that, but I’m hoping it will help organize all these recipe links I keep saving in various folders on my computer.   Perhaps a little bit of method to the madness?  One can only hope.

I think I might make these for my Valentines this year.  Last year I made them in full size muffin cups and they were downright decadent.  I’m going to go for mini muffin tins this year, so we can eat them in one pop.   We do celebrate Valentine’s around here, maybe not in a full blown chocolates, flowers & jewelry sort of way, but it is a special day for us. 

In the meantime though, there are bathrooms to be cleaned and floors to be mopped and I swear, laundry breeds while we are sleeping at night. Just when I think it’s caught up, I’m wrong.  Sigh.

Happy Sights.

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Things in my back yard that are currently making me happy:
My purple Hellebore.
It’s going to be gangbusters this year.
It was really hard to get a shot of all the blooms in a close up.  
I’m just not up to the task.
It took 3 years for it to bloom after I planted it.  I was close to digging it up and moving it.
Which probably would have been the kiss of death.
So glad I found some patience for it.
Patience is one of those over-rated virtues that I don’t really have.

My ‘neighbor’ hellebore is putting out some blooms too.
I got it at a neighborhood plant swap hosted by The Barns down the street.  
I love walking through my garden and seeing all the plants from friends and family.
When they shoot up out of the ground and then bloom, it’s like a little ‘hello’.
Yesterday afternoon, I looked out my back door and saw the empty red recycling bins going up the hill on Rose Hill.  As I walked up the road yesterday, the trend of red recycling bins continued up around the bend.
As we have green ones, I know it’s not a uniform thing, and maybe they are out there every Thursday and I just now noticed.  Either way, something about it made me really happy.  At one point the sun seemed to make them all glow – little spots of glowing color in the otherwise drab winter landscape on a spring like day.

"No" feels so good.

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The new principal at my daughter’s school is putting together a committee of parents to work in the gardens there.  There will also be a vegetable garden, and yes, it is going to be worked into curriculum.  I am so freaking excited I don’t know where to begin.  Except that I’m not in charge.  That’s right, when the question was asked who wanted to head up the vegetable garden committee, for once I didn’t volunteer.
This is huge for me.

I love gardens.  Digging a new hole is my favorite form of therapy.  Teaching kids how to garden, so that they can learn how much better it is to eat fresh, healthy food, how easy it is for them to be able to do so?  So part of my goal of overhauling our entire food system.  I have a tendency to stand up and take charge when no one else does.  But not this time.  My main reason is really that my daughter moves up the upper elementary school after June and I feel this project needs a parent that’s more invested in the long term than myself. There are other reasons, like, a need to really focus more on my fledgling business and my own garden.  There are other parents that have the same ideas I have, so it really was sort of easy to let go.
I’ve had a few people tell me how I should be in charge of this committee.  I know, it seems like a good fit, but at the same time, it’s not.  I’m happy to help out, but let someone else take charge.  It might not seem like it, but I don’t always like being in charge.  I might be good at it, I might do it quite a bit, but that doesn’t mean I like it.  It’s far easier to say “Yes” to something and find a way to juggle it in than to say “No”, but man, saying “No” is really empowering. 

The Sisterhood of the Bromance and other adventures from our weekend.

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My husband is cute, smart, witty, loves the great outdoors,and really is one of those people that when other people meet him, they fall madly in love with him on the spot, myself included.  He has some very special friendships with other males that definitely fall into the ‘bromance’ category.  He has one friend in particular, that the friendship is extended to a circle of male friends.  The love between them is strong.  So strong, that our families get together several times a year.  Thankfully, their wives and kids are equally kick-ass, so much so that when we get together we call it ‘cousins weekends’.  I’ve realized recently, that we are a sisterhood in our own right.  I’ve named us “The Sisterhood of the Bromance” and we all agree, it’s fitting.  I might not be friends with them if it weren’t for our husbands, but thanks to our husbands, I have gotten to know these women, whom I adore.  Who else understands that PTO events sometimes require a flask?  They do.
The last weekend in January is one of those weekends each year that is set aside for a ‘cousins weekend’.  Last year, I went ahead and told everyone that I was going to steer it this year, because it was going to be Pat’s 40th birthday, and we were going to have a fest.  We rented Dunlodge, a PATC ‘cabin’, that is tucked away behind UVa.  It is an amazing house.  It was the perfect venue.  I wanted there to be enough room for the brotherhood for the weekend, plus we wanted to be able to invite a few of our local Cville friends for a small celebration one evening.
I had in my mind I had to plan not just the party, but the entire weekend.  I had gotten some emails and phone calls from the sisterhood, asking about details and I told them all, let me get through Edie’s birthday….so day between their actual birthdays, I got an email out.  I’m not sure why I was so worried and felt I had so much to do, because not only did the girls respond quickly with what booze and food they were bringing, I realized that our style of potlucking it and pulling together whatever we have on hand works beautifully.  Our husbands all manage to wing it and we have found ourselves equally adept, maybe even more so.   Mollie has often told us we are the family they choose to have and I feel the same way.  It extends to the kids, too. 
Between the sisterhood and the extended bromance, the weekend was absolutely spectacular.  The weather was wonderful, the house amazing, everyone showed up determined to throw something in to Pat’s party.   I decided we needed 3 cakes to properly celebrate, why, I’m not sure.  Friday, at our house, as there was epic  failure of a pound cake, Rieman just so happened to call and assured me, she would fix it with frosting when she arrived.  Thankfully, Mollie & family just happened to pull in and further pulled me off the ledge of baking fail.  Saturday brought cake failure number two, when I realized I put way more rum into the pineapple upside down cake than was called for. It tasted heavily of Capt. Morgan’s, but hey, there are worse things than too much rum in the cake.  I think the hot fudge chocolate pudding cake may have gotten a tad overbaked, but it was still okay and at that point, the chocolate martinis Rieman was pouring made it all much better.  I seriously could not have pulled off this party for Pat without any of them.  The highpoint of every weekend that we get together with them is our Saturday afternoons in the kitchen, were we ladies retreat with drinks and pull dinner together.  This weekend was no different, only this time there was cake involved.  The boys & kids wandered in & out and all of them commented on what a good feeling was coming from the kitchen.  Indeed.
Outside, the men cleaned the patios, built a fire in the firepit and built a fort for the kids.  We declared Nick a member of the sisterhood, because he called last week, offering to bring his soup pot and make brunswick stew for Saturday dinner.  Bringing your own cookware is one of the things the sisterhood does.  The first time I met Nick, he helped me can peaches.  Sisterhood candidate indeed. 
Blogger wouldn’t let me load pictures in the order I wanted, but here are the highlights of the weekend, in no particular order.




PJ time, singing Happy Birthday. I think cake tastes better in your pj’s anyway, doesn’t it?

Pound Cake Fail. 
After baking it for the correct time and pulling it out, letting it cool, I dumped it out, which is when I discovered the middle was still raw.  In trying to put it back in the pan, it fell apart.  I dumped the raw batter on top, rebaked it.  When I pulled it out and dumped it again, it fell apart, again.  At least it was cooked this time though.

Failed pound cake fixed with whipped cream.

Dunlodge. Cville peeps, check it out next time you need to put up a bunch of out of towners.  It’s fabulous, in a great spot, just behind UVa, near STAB. 

Pineapple upside down Capt. Morgans cake.

The men, cleaning the patio in front of the guest cottage and building a fire in the outdoor pit.

Nick’s contribution, 15 gallons of brunswick stew in the turkey cooker.

The Fort.

The fort under construction.

All the kiddies in the fort – with Edie, the oldest, feeding popcorn to Teal, the youngest.

Back view of the fort.  Seriously cool, isn’t it?

Eric brought cheese, sausage & crackers. 
We found a tray, added some apples and I cracked open a jar of bacon jam.
Yum.

Poundcake after I doused it with blueberries & strawberries I picked last summer and froze.
Ryan made a fabulous sauce to go with it, from the juice left in the bowl after the berries defrosted.  So good, we had it for breakfast the next morning.

Cousins pile. 
Edie, 10.
Abigail, 6.5.
Gus, 6.
Owen, 4.
Teddy, 3.

Action shot of cousins pile.
Nick’s brunswick stew. So tasty.

One of Rieman’s martinis.  Not sure if it was the chocolate or the pama one.  They were both good.
And I no longer cared about cake fail after them.
The hot fudge pudding cake covered in sprinkles that resembled a peace sign.  At least, we all thought so. 
Thanks everyone that came out, that pitched in and made it so awesome.  It was definitely one of those worlds colliding evenings, where our everyday neighborhood world got to spend quality time with our cousins world.  There were oysters, there was guitar playing, banjo picking,  there was good bourbon being passed around and just lots of good fun.  Everyone said how brilliant it was to have the party at another location in town,  seeing how our house is too small to really have any sort of party at during the winter. I received a number of compliments, but honestly, all I did was line up a house and then threw it up to everyone we invited. I couldn’t have planned a party that good, because you just can’t plan fun.  Fun happens.
And my dear husband is one of those people who just happens to have fun with everything. I am lucky to have him. 

Sprinkles optional.

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The ice on the trees at the park this weekend was just gorgeous.  It made the grey seem sort of magical.
It also was quite conducive to curling up, cooking yummy things for my birthday honeys and on Sunday, when all the celebrating was done, to stay in our jammies all day, reading the New York Times and watching tv. Over the course of 4 days, I made 2 dozen cream filled chocolate cupcakes, 2 dozen carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (made from the organic, heirloom carrots we planted last spring), a batch of tapioca pudding and one half dozen cheesecake cupcakes with a raspberry sauce.  I spent two days making my dad’s spaghetti sauce recipe, which is actually a very authentic Italian gravy.  And yes, per Edie’s very special request, I included all the meat the recipe calls for (usually I omit most of it, mostly because I’m not a big fan of meat other than bacon).  She was quite pleased.  For Pat’s birthday dinner, I tried a new recipe from a friend for a lamb risotto that’s made in the crock pot with barley.  It also called for arugula, which I always seem to have a small row of in the garden,  regardless of season, so I grabbed some of that and threw it in.  I, who don’t like lamb, liked this dish very much.  Those who like lamb (the other people that live in my house) weren’t as wild about it.  Oh well.  Can’t win them all.  I also managed to whip up a new shirt for Edie for her birthday.  It’s a tunic, made out of plaid flannel I picked up at the SPCA store.   She loved it, wore it to school and the boys complimented her on it, which lead to her coming home and telling me about, wondering why boys like plaid flannel.  So I played her some Nirvana videos on you tube, to show her exactly how cool plaid flannel is.  I’m not sure she was impressed.  She watched the Pearl Jam movie with us a few months back and was pretty taken aback at the time about the hair(!) and the clothes (!) that her father and I so fondly remembered.  Some days I wonder how I got a child so uptight.  (She calls herself that.  Admitting is the first step to getting over the problem, yes?)
You’d think that after all that cooking, I’d be steering clear of it for a few days.  Well, sort of.  This morning I assisted with a kid’s baking class at  The Charlottesville Cooking School, dragging Edie along so she wouldn’t spend 2 days in a row, in her pj’s watching tv (like she did last weekend, also a three day weekend).  They made coconut macaroons, chocolate dipped oatmeal cookies and carrot muffins, with cream cheese frosting.  Can you tell which muffin was decorated by a third grader and which one was decorated by me?

Which is why I have signed myself up for the weekend long cake class at the cooking school the first weekend of February.  I think it’s time my cupcakes looked as good as they taste.
(Hint, I didn’t use sprinkles.)

Courage

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Courage is being
brave.  Courage is
facing your fears.
Courage is being confident
in yourself.
Edie recently wrote this right before bedtime one night.  I found it on the nightstand the next morning.  She shrugged it off as something she was supposed to write for school. 
I am biased, but I think it’s one of the most beautiful, truest things ever written.
I am posting it here in honor of her 10th birthday.  Motherhood is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life and one of the most rewarding.  Every time I read this, I realized we’ve done something right with her.

January is not quiet here. Not at all.

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While that first week in January seems like an abrupt change from the quiet pace of the week before, it’s also the week you realize that you haven’t done much of anything for oh, the better part of a month, that wasn’t holiday related. At some point in that week, I start to remember that the other two people that live in my house have birthdays this month, although at that point, they feel like they are at the end of the month and still so far away, despite the fact that at least one of the birthday people is highly bothered you haven’t done a thing about her birthday party yet.

Which leads me to the second week in January, when I sort of have an ‘Oh Shit’ moment and realize those birthdays are NEXT WEEK and I really need to get my act together.  I tend to approach their birthday week the way I do Christmas, with a menu & baking plan – after all, there are cupcakes to be had for her class, something for her actual birthday dinner, something for the party she insists we have in her honor and although he says he doesn’t need anything, something for Pat.  Edie came home from the hospital on his birthday and for the first few years of her life, I’d point to her as his gift, stick a candle in what was usually the last piece of her cake and call it a day.  Really, I need a plan, otherwise the week just spins out of my control and Pat’s birthday gets overlooked. Again.  Which is so not fair to him.

This year, they are both having milestone birthdays (She’s 10!! and he’s 10 years older!) and after all those years of neglecting Pat’s birthday, I want to do something to celebrate him.  My sisters & I have birthdays the same week and my mother was able to pull off 3 celebrations in one week, every year, not to mention an actual party for at least one, if not two of us on top of that.  Surely I can do two birthdays in a week, yes?   I think what gets me is that it’s just after the holidays and I’m ready to give up desserts and eat rice & beans for a few weeks and curl up with a pile of books and watch lots of bad movies, while these two birthdays smack dab in the middle of January means the party keeps on rolling….

And it’s not like I’m just working on birthday celebrations.  Putting things off the month of December into January means I also spent the week meeting with people and beginning the process of taking the business to the next level, which is exciting and scary all at the same time. I have my next wine column due in a few days and while I have topic in mind, I have a slew of research to do, not to mention writing the thing.   I had volunteered to chair Bingo Night at school for the PTO back in November, thinking, oh, it’s not until January.  Which turns out, is this month.  The one with all the birthdays.  At one point Pat looked at me and asked what I was thinking when I took that on.  I’m not sure.  One of these days, “January” will click with me as actually very busy.

I think this is why I don’t do resolutions – because January is just as crazy as December is for me and after the lull of the first week, when I think I can just settle into winter coziness comes the realization that I need to continue to keep it in high gear for just a few more weeks. 

I’m really looking forward to February.