Another Birthday, Another Lemon Cake

Daddy-o once again has caught up with me, age-wise. And we once again celebrated with pizza and a lemon layer cake. Most years I don't manage to get the cake quite right--I'll admit that the first year we were married, I'd never made a layer cake and didn't know the difference between lemon filling and lemon pudding, so that cake had no hope. But this year I got the okay to just try a new recipe from Cook's Illustrated since their recipes are usually so good. Except once again, I didn't look into it close enough and didn't have near as much lemon curd as the recipe called for. So I just left off one of the 4 layers and spread out what I did have and hoped for the best.

Well, that lemon curd is STRONG! No problems with this cake tasting lemony, although the cake itself is just a white cake. I'm really glad I didn't have anymore lemon curd because as it was, it was a very overwhelming flavor. And Daddy-o wasn't terribly impressed with the frosting. I was tempted to just chuck the whole thing, but he told me to keep it and he'd probably have a peice the next day. Turns out, the second day, the filling had settled into the cake a little, the frosting somehow seemed better and the whole thing was pretty good! Still not the perfect lemon cake, but not a total flop. I don't know what my mental block to making a good cake for my husband is.

The more successful part of the evening was the Wii that we surprised him with. It can be hard to surprise Daddy-o with a gift that he really wants, but doesn't expect, but this was on his pipe dream list and I decided that at this point in his life, he really needs a destresser that he can pull out in the evenings that doesn't involve leaving the house since he gets to do that so seldom. And it turns out that Bean is quite the bowler--her high score is already 174 after 24 hours of owning the game.

So Daddy-o got another year older, another year wiser, and another year more loved by his family. He is truly an amazing guy who has made some big sacrifices for his family and we appreciate him so much!

National Days

Do you have any idea how many of these there are?! I found a website that lists thousands--not sure if its a complete list or not, but they swear these are all real days designated by somebody. We could go crazy trying to celebrate them all. I did go through and pick out a few for February. And let me just say that for anyone who dreads the winter and the lack of celebrating once the December holidays are over just needs to dig a little deeper because this is one busy month!

Feb. 1--Give Kids a Smile Day (I hope I do that everyday, but I think having a whole day where I try to make all our interactions positive, at least from my side, would be awesome.)

Feb. 2--Groundhog Day, of course

Feb. 9--Read in the Bathtub Day--this is my type of holiday!!!!

Feb. 11--National Shut-In Visitation Day--I think this would be a good one with the kids. I've been wanting to find some service we can do together, so maybe we'll take treats to a few of the older people we know who can't get out much.

Feb. 14--Chinese New Year--We had already decided that we weren't going to do anything much for Valentines Day. Like I told Daddy-o, I hope he loves me every day (and he does!), so who cares. And we can enjoy going out to eat a lot more if its not so crowded. So Chinese food at home sounds great!

Feb. 16--Pancake Tuesday. We do this one every year--love it!

Feb. 17--Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. Same as above.

FEb. 19--Chocolate Mint Day--who can pass that up? I think some of our favorite brownies are called for.

Feb. 22--Single Tasking Day. This is exactly what I need to keep me focused on my New Years' Resolution.

February is also Bake for Family Fun month, Grapefruit month, Pull Your Sofa Off The Wall Month (already done!), National Pet Dental Month (Molly needs to get into the vet anyway), as well as the better known Black History Month and I skipped about 329 other things! I think we'll stick to this for now. Maybe there is such a thing as too much celebrating.

A Chicken, a Donkey, and a Carrot Walked Into a Restaurant

That's pretty much as good as the punch line. There is nothing quite like telling jokes with 5 and 3 year olds. They're very forgiving--as long as I throw in a funny voice at the end, I can usually get a laugh, and believe me, I know my days are numbered, since I don't actually know very many real jokes.

Other random funnies:


Bean: Pretend I'm that snake that spits vinegar (venom) into your eyes!

We have a Berenstain Bears book (The Papa's Day Surprise) where, at the end, Papa Bear sits in his new Bearcalounger and gives baby Honey a bottle. Well, Bugaboo has started crying at this part and yells, "I DO NOT WANT PAPA TO DO THAT! I WANT MAMA TO SIT THERE AND FEED THE BABY!" If it was so sexist, I would laugh, but seriously, where does this kid come from? I always swore if I had boys, I was going to raise the "good kind"--you know, who respect women and men equally and believe that parenting and household duties should be shared and the whole "girls can do anything boys can" type. And he gets a good example from his parents overall, although this now makes me wonder if this apparently inborn thinking in him is why he refused to take at bottle at 4 months--no way daddy could feed him if he'd only breastfeed, hahaha (imagine evil baby laughter right there).

Good Food

I am a big fan, and recent convert, to braising. When my brother, D., was out here, he braised some short ribs that were some of the most incredible meat I've ever had. I'm not a big red meat eater--I hadn't even heard of short ribs before--but these were delicious. And there's something so inviting and wintery about food cooking for long periods of time and making the whole house warm and aromatic.



So, Sunday night, I decided to do braised chicken legs in white wine and broth with carrots, celery, onions and mushrooms and they turned out so tender and juicy. Later that night, I reused the liquid (not sure if that was a faux pau, but it worked) to braise an eggplant I had which I diced up and added to the thickend sauce and served it over pasta for dinner the next night. I'd just been reading one of the Moosewood cookbooks that mentioned they thing that is THE way to cook to eggplant, and it did turn out really good. And then, Monday night, I finally let this girl make her "Na-movies"--a recipe she made up herself that she's been begging to make. We discussed proportions of ingredients, as well as the function of certain ingredients (like salt and baking powder) so I was able to lend a little guidance without her feeling like I was taking over and what we got was a sweet chocolate chip pancake type dessert that was very edible (unlike her last similar experiment where even she admitted that the product didn't taste very well). Who knows--maybe Bean really will open a bakery like she plans someday. Her current list, in order, of future careers is: a waitress ("because I'm really good at carrying a plate with one hand up in the air") and a baker with her dad (not sure Daddy-o is entirely sold on this idea--he's not much of a morning person.) She'd had another filler job in there, but neither one of us can remember, so it obviously wasn't a strong passion.

National Pie Day

We love an excuse for pie. I was planning to have a little pie party, and maybe get adventurous and try something different than our standard fare, but honestly, these last couple weeks have just felt incredibly hectic and stressful and I didn't want any pressure on Saturday, our one day of the week that is truly OURS. So I whipped up a pumpkin pie that afternoon and we were all happy. We stick to the standard Libby's pie recipe that's on the back of the can of pumpkin, with just the addition of a pinch of nutmeg. A pinch of nutmeg seems to perfect a lot of recipes. Oh, and I followed Daddy-o's crust recipe, which calls for 2 Tbsp. of butter to replace 2 Tbsp. of the shortening. His crusts really are SO good.

The kids were really excited about National Pie Day, even though we couldn't satisfactorily answer Bean's questions about WHY there is a pie day. I need to look up more of these random "National Something or Other Days"--who doesn't need a reason to celebrate?

Kidbits

My mom called the other day and pointed out that (until I went back and filled in the zoo post) I hadn't posted for over a week, so here's a few random things the kids are up to these days.This little bug got a polar bear hand puppet for Christmas and has since morphed into a pregnant mother polar bear. He sleeps with the polar bear shoved in his pj's almost every night and often walks around looking like this. For a boy who has been obsessed with everything "boy" and insisting on only being matched with other boy items, this is a welcome, albeit wierd, change.

And on the subject of sex, Bean decided that our house needed segregated bathrooms (maybe it goes along with what she learned about MLK), so she put up these boy/girl paper dolls. After a little debate, I was at least able to convince her that the 1/2 bath downstairs needed to be a family bathroom so Buggy didn't have to go all the way upstairs to wash his hands for dinner. But now I'm technically not allowed to use my own bathroom because its been designated the boy bathroom.

And then there's the Legos. These kids are loving their new Christmas gifts. Bugaboo actually built all of these vehicles. And both of them come up with dozens of these types of creations every day. And they each got a set of people (of various ethnicities--should provide for some interesting play with Bean's new interests) so they can set up great games and adventures. In fact, I put away all their toys except the Legos, train set, and cars and new road rug for the week and they've been fine. I think we're going to be doing extreme rotating--its so nice to only have to seperate out a couple sets of toys each week. Maybe next week we'll get out all the kitchen toys.

MLK Day at the Zoo

We took advantage of Daddy-o being off work on Monday to go down to the Greenville, SC Zoo and met up with some friends. There isn't a zoo in Charlotte, so we are slowly exploring the 3 zoos within 2 hours of us. This was the smallest of the three, but the kids had a blast.

There were a couple fun play areas and plenty of animals to see. Things were a little more casual than we're used to--people throwing food into the animals, the elephant throwing poop out to the people--lots of fun. We also talked a little bit about Martin Luther King, Jr. and what he did. I'm not sure about how these discussions went. We tried to keep it pretty basic--people used to be seperated in schools and shopping and church, and he helped change it so everyone can play and work and live together, wherever they want-- so I thought the kids understood, but the take-away message doesn't quite line up with what I thought I was saying. Bean now plays games where she seperates out the "blacks and whites", when she's eating beans, or playing with toys, and the other day told me that she had a disease that made her white and that if she touched any black people, they would get sick and turn white, too. I asked her if there was a cure so they could go back to normal, but she didn't think so. I'm unsure if its a good thing that this seemed to open up the idea of race and different colored skin, or if we're completely missing the point. I just read something about how caucasians tend to not teach their kids anything about race because they are afraid of coming off racist by acknowledging the difference, so I guess we are fighting that trend, right?

Slow Year

I think this has been my least motivated start to a year. We did finally get the Christmas stuff down and put away this weekend. Mostly--one box managed to escape being put up in the garage loft, which is good because I now have somewhere to stuff all the things we keep finding that we missed the first round. But we're still not back into a normal routine and the days we have to leave the house then feel like we're running behind all day. I hope I can turn this feeling around and get inspired to do SOMETHING.

I haven't been exercising--too cold for outside and I'm too lazy to do indoor workouts that I don't really like. And the longer I go without a good sweat session, the harder it is to get myself to move.

We've still been on a vacation of sorts from school. Still a lot of learning going on, but we could be doing a little more. Or a lot. I'm sure the homeschoolers who diligently follow a rigid curriculum would be horrified at my version of educating my children, even on the best days. When I've been paricularly lazy, I'll admit to being a little horrified myself.

Haven't been cooking much. Haven't felt much reason to. Daddy-o is in California for his Granny's funeral right now--she'd been suffering from a lot of health problems for awhile, so its a blessing, but at the same time, its sad that she's gone. I didn't have any grandparents left by the time that Daddy-o and I were engaged, but he did, and the first time I went to visit his family, and met Granny, and saw how much she loved him, I started to look at Daddy-o a little differently. There's something about seeing someone through the eyes of another person, and she quite apparently (and justifiably) had a very good opinion of her grandson.

And haven't been sleeping enough. Some of it is my fault, some of it is due to kids waking up to poop in the middle of the night, get re-tucked in, and then for some reason, thinking that its perfectly acceptable to wake up before the sun after a busy, no-nap day and too late bedtime when I was completely counting on sleeping in until at least 8. You really can't count on anything when it comes to these kids and their sleep. Wonder when I'll learn?

I think I need a do over for the first half of January. Guess its good that I've decided not to make big goals for this year--I'm sticking with my goal of taking baby steps, in whatever strikes me along the way, but we're taking things one day at a time. And for the rest of the day, my goal is to smile, get everyone to bed on time, including me, and try to do something productive tomorrow.

2009 in Review

I'm a little slow this year on all my year-end wrap up, and setting new goals. Having houseguests and sick family this last week took priority and I haven't even been thinking much about what I want my goals to be. The only thing I decided right away was that this is going to be the year of simplicity--if our start to the year is any indication of what is to come, then I need to be flexible and keep my expectations realistic.

But for last year's goals:


#1--Journals--Print the blog through 2008 as a book. I've heard this is a lot of work, but I really want to have it in print form each year. Computer issues made this one not happen, but we got a new laptop for Christmas, so I have no excuses now.

#2-Spiritual--Spend 15 minutes before bed praying, reading, and/or meditating. Wish I could cite computer issues for this one, and in a way, I guess I can--as in, I spent more time on the computer than examining my spiritual health. But I did do some of this--not sure if I improved over the year before though.

#3--Physical--Run a 10K this spring, run a mile in 9 minutes (I am seriously such a slow runner these days) and give up my 2 times (or more!) a day dessert habit. Finally a goal I did well at! I ran the 10K, ran a half marathon, never actually timed myself for the 9 minute mile, but I'm pretty sure my other times mean I could do this--I need to get to a track to try it out. I still eat too much dessert, but I'm working on it.

#4--Mental--Cut back on mindless computer time to make more time for crafting and learning new things. I need to come up with some specific short term goals for this, but I think that I will be repeating my Lent challenge from last year. I had ups and downs here, but I did spend time on new craft projects and lots of reading, and had some spells of very little computer time other than blogging.

#5--Social--Each month, have people in our home for something fun, go out for a date night with Daddy-o, and have one girls-night-out. Another pretty good one. We hosted quite a few dinner guests over the course of the year, as well as playgroups, and book club, and friends. Daddy-o and I did make it out most months, and bookclub and church women's group took care of my girl's night out.

#6--Home/Family--Get our storage boxes (everything in the garage, kids toys, old clothes)purged and labeled. Get on a GOOD cleaning system where my floors are mopped at least once a month. I made huge progress here with the storage--inventoried about 75% of our house and its already come in handy when I can't remember where I stored something. And the cleaning. . . well, I mopped the floor more this year than last, so that's a start. I won't say how few times that took, but this is still a work in progress.

So, all in all, I feel like I made some good changes this year and at least had the spirit of change and improvement in my mind. And in a more general review, this last year was a pretty great one for us. Nothing big, but we've enjoyed overall good health, comfort in our living situation, lots of creativity, quite a bit of travel, enjoyment in our interactions with others, and a pretty happy home life. There's always things we'd like to change, but really, we feel very lucky that in this time of economic crisis and general upheaval in our world, we have a job, a home, family and friends we love and who love us, and we find plenty to laugh at each day. Things could certainly be worse. And I guess if we'd sent out Christmas cards this year, that's what we would have written.

Top Ten Books of 2009

I'm not going to actually try to rank these books because there were a few that I liked so much, I'm not sure I could pick my absolute favorite. And they fall into very different genres so they're hard to compare. But I felt like this was a good year for books for me. I read 53 books this last year and some of these are now on my list of all time favorites.

I've already mentioned some of these before, but here they are as a comprehensive list, in the order I read them:

I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith I'd already read this a few years ago, but reread if for bookclub this year. I seldom remember a lot about a book after awhile, excpet whether or not I enjoyed it. And this one was just a funny the second time around. Its a very quirky story set in the 1930's of a destitute English family who live in a crumbling old castle, told through the eyes of 17 year old Cassandra. It has a slightly similar feel as Jane Austen novels, but I find myself laughing out loud more in this.

Wicked, by Gregory McGuire I haven't seen the play (and from what I hear from a lot of people, they liked the play a lot better than the book), but I enjoyed this story a lot. I love reading well-known stories from a different point of view, so these retellings of fairy tales and other classics are always appealing to me. And this one definitely gives a different view of the Wicked Witch of the West.

The Homework Myth, by Alphie Kohn This is one I've mentioned already, but it was just such a great look at something that I always took for a necessity and fact of life. And I felt like it's claim that homework really isn't helping students until they are into high school was very well backed by research and examples. I actually read every single footnote in this book because I was so interested in all the research, but I think it would be a fairly fast read for a nonfiction if you skipped all those.

Cold Sassy Tree, by Olivia Ann Burns This is such a great book set in a small, southern town in the early 1900's. I love reading about the south since we moved here, but this book is great no matter where you live. The characters are amazing and their voices are so strong. The story is based on Burns' grandparents history, but is fiction.

The Omnivores Delimma, by Micheal Pollan Fascinating look into our food and where it originates and how our eating habits have developed to what they are today.

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell Nonfiction, looks at what makes people the best, the biggest, the most successful. It is fascinating to see how many little things have to work out just right--the year they are born, the city they live in, the people they meet--to let them end up as the genius of their field, like Bill Gates or the Beatles. And it all makes me feel a little better about being mediocre.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer This novel written in letter form is a fun look at post WWII life, largely through the eyes of a London author, on Guernsey Island as the people recover from the effects of teh German occupation. It took a little while to keep the various letter writers straight, but the characters have pretty good voices so it gets easier to jump from one point of view to the next.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak Another WWII era book, this time set in Germany and narrated by death, this book is the story of a young girl who was sent to a foster home before her Communist mother was taken to a concentration camp. The style is very unique, the characters are incredible, and even though I wouldn't classify it as an easy read, it quickly became one I couldn't put down.

Twenties Girl, by Sophie Kinsella I'll admit to enjoying Sophie Kinsella's books, including the Shopaholic series, although I enjoy her other books more, when I'm in the mood for a very light read. But I really enjoyed this story and felt like in the end, it actually had a good message which is a nice twist for a fluffy romance/comedy type of book. It's a modern day ghost story that examines family and loyalties and life. It has some silly parts, and I actually debated whether it really belongs on my top 10 list, but in the end, I did really like it.

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett I know I just mentioned this book, but I have to mention it again. The characters in this book are awesome. The three women are all so amazing, so strong, and go through such well-developed character changes through out the book. The incidents in this book are so hard to understand, and yet so easy to see happening. I'm a big fan of a well written human rights type of book, and this is probably one of my all time favorites.

And some runner-ups:

My Sister's Keeper, by Jodie Picoult (would have made the top 10 but I hated the ending so much that I can barely recommend it to people.)

Reading Magic, by Mem Fox (Love her kids books and this had great reasons to read aloud.)

Siblings Without Rivalry, by Adele Faver (Good parenting book.)

Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv (About our national nature-deficit disorder.)

The Willoughbys, by Lois Lowry (reminded me a little of the Series of Unfortunate Events. And while we're at it, the Gooney Bird Greene books by Lois Lowry are some of my favorites to read with Bean--Lowry is so good at writing the quirky girls and I love it. I've always been a big fan of her Anastasia Krupnik books.)

Bad Mother, by Ayelet Waldman (Memoir of a mother of 4, didn't agree with everything in it, but it was interesting to read her experiences.)

I'm Down, by Mishna Wolff (Memoir of a poor white girl raised in an all black neighborhood by a father who thought he was black--fascinating, but overall left me feeling really sad.)

The Pirate's Daughter, by Margaret Cezair-Thompson (Novel about the love affair of actor Errol Flynn while he lived in Jamaica and then the daughter born from that--also left me feeling sad.)

And finally worth mentioning, I read the most recent of Alexander McCall Smith's books--he writes The #1 Ladies Detective Agency, which is set in Botswana, and then two series set in Scotland. I think I've read all of them except the most recent from the Isabel Dalhousie series, which are my favorites. All of his books move at a slow pace, but I really enjoy the characters and the rambling tought processes he presents through them.

And now I'm on to my 2010 readings--I started a couple books last week and then came home from bookclub last night with a whole list of new books to look for, so I'm off to a good start.

Fun with the Family

Rara brought a gingerbread house kit to decorate with the kids

and Uncle D. helped them with all the frosting. (And I managed to finish up the last of the christmas gifts and a lot of my wrapping while they did all this.)

Then, after Christmas, and when Uncle C. and Aunt R. had joined us, we went up to Asheville and spent the day at the Biltmore,

where it was freezing cold and the kids had more fun with the snow than anything else.

They even made a miniature snowman, which was still there several hours later, meaning there were hundreds of people who went home that day with pictures of the Biltmore, and Bean's snowman.

The greenhouses were nice and warm, which helped us thaw out after a couple hours outside.

That trip marked the beginning of all the illness. Uncle D. was hit with food poisoning just a little after we started our house tour (we couldn't even get in until 4:30, so we were in for a LONG day), which meant he missed most of the house, and then, what should have been about a 2 hour trip home because more like 4 because our car battery died while we were at the McDonald's just outside the Biltmore. Luckily, that is the poshest McD's I've ever seen, so as AAA called us over and over, postponing their time of arrival, we were at least able to wait in comfort, listening to Christmas carols from the player piano, while a fire crackled nearby and we admired the tin-inset ceiling a beautiful tapestry over the hearth.

We made a lot of puzzles, played a lot of games, including some very spirited games of Nertz and Old Maid, and watched a lot of movies. Especially as we took turns this last week succumbing to the stomach bug and strep throat.

But we did have a day in there that both kids seemed healthy, and everyone else was willing to overlook their stuffiness so we could explore the Shipwreck and Pirate exhibit at Discovery Place. We tried out the windtunnel (which only makes it up to Category 1 hurricane, but that was more than enough for Bugaboo--I think he made us open it when the winds hit 30 mph.

Uncle C. makes a great pirate.

And in an unrelated part of the museum, we got to try laying on a bed of nails.

We had a great time with everyone, ate way too much traditional southern food, which really didn't mix so well with all the tummy issues, and were sad to say goodbye to everyone this week.