And a lovely time it was

Yesterday afternoon the kids and I hosted a Minecraft homeschoolers gathering.  Seven kids with their laptops and my guys on our desktop.  It was fun!

The introvert in me wipes out after an event like this.  I was tired last night and feel a bit more tired this morning.  But, it was totally worth it.  We met brand new folks and got to know people we've only caught glimpses of here and there.  All of us were pretty stoked.  This game is truly something.

This morning I fortified with a heaping plate of protein.  The last of the pot roast and kick ass pastured eggs showered with Parmesan.

I am moving slowly towards getting our room ready for weekend guests.  Jay, Amy and the kids are coming!  Our holiday cards are in the house and I jotted a nice little "highlights" note last night.  I'd really rather do those than clean, but what can I say, I am less governed by my impulses these days and so off I go to tidy up.

Here's a shot from our late night Photo Booth shoot two nights ago (we almost used this one but decided Sag's face was just a touch too tucked behind Gem's melon of a head):

Peace and love y'all.

Right now

Already this morning I've yammered on to Cap about being convinced that at least some of my cells have lived through trauma connected to this time of year.  What else can explain how deeply rattled my system has been feeling?

Full moon?  Yes.

Shortest day of the year?  Yes.

Seasonal Affective Disorder?  Yes.

Holiday madness?  Yes.  (The most lunatic of oxymorons.)

Yet, yet, yet...it struck me this morning.  Something is being remembered as wrong.  Way down inside me.

Here come the bullets:

• dinner and dessert were well received last night.  (Cap made poached cardamon pears...yum)

• I felt like I *got* the slow cooker a bit more yesterday as I eased the pork into a nice, tender finish.

• hosting a gaggle of homeschooling Minecrafters this afternoon.  excited and nervous.

• MA cousins coming this weekend!

• holiday celebration with family this weekend...latkes!

• getting some stuff done in the big bedroom (impending guests provide good impetus :-)

• I love tzatziki.

• my three dudes rock.

Peace and love.

Cooking for a crowd

We're hosting common meal tonight.  I rose early (for me) and picked up our chicken, eggs and apples from our CSA.  Then popped over to Whole Paycheck (appreciated that they are not sticklers for opening only on the dot) for tzatziki fixings.

Baton touched with Cap who headed downstate while I headed into the kitchen.

Dug out the pork shoulder that'd been getting loved on by a spice/herb/salt rub in the fridge for the past two days.  Placed it into the slow cooker with sliced onions and carrot disks.

Put together a tzatziki.  I'm wondering why mine looks so different from the photo accompanying the recipe.  No matter, it's hard to go wrong with plain full fat Greek yogurt, English cuke and garlic.

On deck, a veggie Thai red curry and braised cabbage.

Music mosaic

I love a good cover.



Which led to the original. The kids discovered Led Zeppelin tonight.



Which led to a certain earworm from the 90s which made its way into the kids' ears recently.



Which brings us back to another cover...though re-rendering may be a better term for it. (From one of our favorite "holiday" movies.)

Stitched together

Patiently waiting.

The pot roast I thought cooked for two hours actually needs to cook for three.  It's coming out soon, dinner is late tonight.

It smells...so comforting.

Last night we drove out to Astoria for a celebration dinner.  My cousin, Momoko, has finished her program at FIT in interior design!  She arrived to NYC seven years ago at age 18.  She has worked so hard and nurtured her passion/talent.  Incredibly independently, an ocean and continent away from her parents and friends.  Color me impressed and inspired.

My aunt, Momoko's mother, flew in for the thesis presentation (graduation will be in May).  So she was at last night's dinner.  I've always loved this aunt for her gentle manner and quick intelligence.  And, she always gives the perfect gift.  For the kids, she brought erasable markers and colored pencils.  For me, she brought thread and cloth for sashiko.

I am so grateful to my parents and extended circle of aunts and uncles.  They provided us cousins with strong and loving relationships which have connected us through decades of time and thousands of miles of distance.

Stitched together, we are.

Name day

One way we honor and celebrate the Finnish aspect of our family is by celebrating name days.  Cap and I decided to integrate this cultural tradition into our home when the kids were born.

Both boys have names which are names in Finnish and Japanese.  Cap's name is also a name in Finnish.  Mine is not.  So I dusted off and used my confirmation name to find my name day.

(I was lucky enough to be baptized at age 12, of my own choice.  At the time it was a very meaningful experience.  I was confirmed the following year and was delighted to be able to choose a name for myself, having already developed a deep interest in the origins and meanings of names.  I chose Anne...Bernadette was a very close second.)

My name day was two days ago, but we celebrated this morning.  I was presented with a lovely breakfast.  Instead of his usual GFCF Nisu (Finnish cardamon bread), Cap made me Primal-friendly sweet and savory crepes using almond and coconut flours and sweetened with stevia.

They were so good.  I am one lucky woman.

 my Sacramento skirt.

 happy name day!

 floral arrangement by Gem strawberry blossom and hydrangea.

 stevia sweetened strawberry crepes dusted with cinnamon.

 garlic scrambled egg crepes topped with tomato and showered with Parmesan.

on my 2012 book list...love this cover!

Bits

 the salvaged pork scrambled well.

 Gem put together this Winter arrangement.

a domestic scene from yesterday.

I finished Shiver and I liked it.  I've requested the second book form the library.  I've started World Without Fish.  It's a profoundly powerful read so far and I am finding it difficult to get through because it's so...depressing.

Spiriting

Thing that makes me go hmm

I find the concept of living/being goal-free very appealing and intriguing...yet untenable.  I continue to be inspired by reminders like this one which illuminate the possibilities.

The good, the bad and the ugly

camp making in the backyard.

:::

Noting to self the unreliability of online shopping during the holidays.  Truly one more reason to shop local.  So far, I've had two online orders canceled (after my money was taken, natch) for gifts for the kids.  So much for thinking I was done with their shopping last week.  (This dovetails nicely with my growing desire to reconfigure future Christmases to make them less consumeristic affairs.)

:::

The Kalua Pig was way overcooked/dry.  I salvaged what I could out of the center of the cut.  Big disappointment after waiting 16 hours.  I'll go back to the recipe and read the comments to see if others had this problem.  I'm not giving up on the recipe yet.  I will try to figure out how much to shorten the cooking time.  The inexpensive cut of meat will allow for experimentation.  On the upside, it was not too salty.

Big ol' pork butt

...has begun its 16 hours in the slow cooker.  You can find the recipe here.  I am looking forward to some succulent Kalua Pig tomorrow.  I am hoping it's not too salty (I tried to restrain myself, but it was hard...I am such a kinesthetic learner...it runs deep!  The recipe explains that when something cooks for as long as this piece of meat will, the salt gets really concentrated.)

Peace and love...oink.

2012 Book List (a work in progress)

Here is my as-of-yet-incomplete list of books I'd like to read in 2012.

So far, it's all fiction.  I did not include graphic novels/YA fiction (aka as quick and satisfying reads) as I imagine these will get read regardless of whether I set out to or not.

I did aim for balance in terms of the gender of the author.  Of the seventeen books on the list so far, seven already reside on our shelves.  Most of the others will be available through the library.  I am thinking of having a collection of 25 on this list.  If you have a recommendation, I would love to hear it.

(I am purposely not linking to Amazon in this post.  My own relationship to this vendor is being challenged once again.  I rely on them to save money, especially at this time of year.  But, I am thinking seriously, again, of committing more completely to our wonderful independent bookshops in town.)

(Wow, providing shots of the book covers was time consuming.  But, I love book covers.  Enjoy.)

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Blue Nights by Joan Didion

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich

An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah (stories)

Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro (stories)

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

The Stones of Summer by Dow Mossman

Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

Nine Simple Patterns for ComplicatedWomen by Mary Rechner

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Once The Shore by Paul Yoon (stories)

Cold couture

Way back when, I did not search out a new winter coat for Sag while I could find one on sale.  He loved his coat (bought on sale a couple of years ago at Hanna Andersson) and I thought he'd be able to get through this Winter with it, albeit under the wire.

Turns out, I was wrong.  (The kid is growing, growing, growing.)

It was the first week of December and I noticed his wrists were sticking out of the end of his coat sleeves by a lot.

So I hopped online looking for something in his favorite color, blue.  He has loved blue for as long as I can remember.  Bright blues.  (Gem loves red/orange/yellow.  I love pink/purple.  Cap loves black and white.)

I found something interesting and something straightforward (and navy).  Sag opted for interesting.  The coat arrived yesterday just as he was getting ready for common meal.  The temperature was starting to drop so he shrugged on the coat...and it looked great on him.

rockin' the plaid.

This is why

...I am happy eating sugar- and grain-free.  I present to you my breakfast, leftover lamb stew and two pastured eggs fried over easy in grass-fed butter.

My oldest friends can attest to this: I've always been happy to have non-breakfast food for breakfast...perhaps especially of the protein type.

A warm and satisfying start to the day.

Plop

Dropping in.

 seen while running errands around town with Sag.

at Vinny's.

I have Indian lamb stew (Rogan Josh) in the oven and it smells heavenly.  

Vinny noticed my upper back actually has some give now.  It hurt in new and different ways when he worked on it.  Progress.  Good news.

I am being outvoted on the tree.  I wanted to try a live one this year.

Started Shiver (a Julie pick) yesterday and picked up a Paleo book at the library today.  I'm concocting a reading challenge for myself in 2012.  Have you ever done something like that?

Almost went to the yarn store today...but thought better of it.  I may have yarn in the stash perfect for whatever it is I may knit for Moms.

Have dropped 30lbs. since going sugar- and grain-free in August.

Peace and love.

To occupy

I think a break from the blog may be imminent.

I am feeling the pinch of the Season.  I am Seasonally sensitive this time of year...the shorter days, the stress of holiday-related consumerism...  Even my menses is acting out-of-sorts.  I spotted a few times this cycle which I don't think has happened since being pregnant (...which I should most definitely not be...)  My digestion has been really challenging at the stomach point.

I spent money unwisely today.  Nothing too dramatic...just not with the thoughtfulness/patience I've been having for what feels like a solidly long time.  I feel plunked down into chaos...but that the chaos is one of many spaces which can be occupied.

I keep thinking about Qigong.  And learning that piano piece.  And knitting something.  And spending more connected time with the kids.  (And Cap when he can disconnect from the rest of his life, too.)

And I keep not bringing that stuff into the realm of doing.

Something about not occupying the spaces that are available to me, that I want to occupy...but I somehow don't....can't...won't.

Nudging myself to shift.

The kids, the dog and I had a good week last week.  Gem and I miss Baxter already.  He's been gone for two hours now.  Cap is home and we are on the cusp of the home stretch...of the semester, of the holidays...I have a chance to turn my experience around yet.  Maybe not sweepingly, but incrementally and definitively.

Here are some pics.  And a promise that if I go, I will be back.  Because occupying this space is important to me, too.

Today began with Pokemon

In this digital age, a "bad" photo like this is a rarity.  I had a nanosecond before the kids piled into the car, I saw a decent souveniring backdrop, I did not realize how blinding the sun was in their eyes.

I played with the image a bit and now I love it.  By processing it, I've hit upon a nostalgic snapshot feel.

We all enjoyed the Pokemon movie.  My favorite part was hearing various kids' sigh or exclaim throughout the hour and a half as favorite Pokemon appeared larger-than-life, onscreen.

I also liked the lyrics to the theme song.