An ordinary, wonderful spring day

I couldn't have predicted that today would be one that I would especially want to remember. We had an extra three-year-old hanging out with us all day, we just moved into a new house and things are still quite chaotic, and I had a dentist appointment scheduled in the afternoon. A hum-drum day, at best.

I woke up and, suspecting that I would not have a lot of time to myself throughout the day, I immediately treated myself to a shower, complete with hair-washing. I put on makeup and got dressed before going downstairs.

I made coffee, and as I sat sipping it and reading, I heard Anne wake up. I heard her pad into my bedroom where Eleanor was still sleeping. Anne knows to check and see if Eleanor's head is popped up before talking to her - if her head is still down, she silently creeps back out of the room. She must have been awake, because Anne greeted her in the sing-song voice she saves for her baby sister, then sang the song I sing to them every morning as soon as everyone's awake:

Good morning to you!

Good morning to you!

We're all in our places with bright shining faces

and this is the way we start out our day!

Unable to resist seeing their sweet faces at that point, I joined them upstairs, and then we all came downstairs for breakfast and read-aloud time. Soon after that, our 3-year-old buddy Evan (son of some of our dearest friends from college) arrived, and he and Anne ran off to play.

I nursed Eleanor, put her peacefully in her pack and play, and she went to sleep for 2 hours. 

Anne and Evan quickly took up residence in the back yard. For almost 3 hours. As aforementioned, we just moved in, so we don't have a lot of outside toys. I found a plastic tub, a funnel, some plastic cups and bowls, and our sand toys, filled the tub with the hose, and let them have at it. I left the door open and listened as that tub of water morphed from a stew to a "mixture" to a mud puddle (after they dug up some dirt from under our fence and mixed it all together).

In the middle of this, a huge delivery truck pulled up in our alley and a delivery man maneuvered a pallet full of closet organizing hardware into our garage while the two kids stood transfixed. Their outdoor time ended with them happy, tired, and muddy from head to toe. I carried them inside one by one and plopped them in the shower to hose them down, got them into clean, dry clothes, and made lunch.

My sister in law stopped by to see the new place, and we had lunch together. The kiddos had chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, and the strawberry-coconut water popsicles we had made in the morning.

After lunch, I set the kids up with a movie and I cleaned up and unpacked a bit. Eleanor went down without protest for another hour-long nap. This may not seem amazing, but she has pretty much exclusively napped in a baby carrier of some kind for her entire life, so I'm not sure how she knows how to sleep alone. I take no responsibility. She's a magic baby.

Soon after that, another delivery truck! Another crew of guys unloading and carrying and assembling,  and poof! A couch!!

Then, I enlisted the help of my small cohorts in baking a lemon meringue pie, requested by Anne after several readings of Amelia Bedelia. It turned out just right! So beautiful! So GOLDEN, as Anne will tell you. (Recipe here!)

Jamie got home and as I started to make my way out the door to my dentist appointment, Anne begged to go with me. I told her it would be very boring, but she insisted. As we walked out the door to the car she grabbed my hand, looked up at me and said, "Mamma! We're going on a date!"

Arrived at the dentist, and it occurred to me that as long as Anne was there, and Eleanor wasn't, she might as well get her teeth cleaned too!



2.5 hours later, all teeth shiny and clean, and me with half my mouth numb from a new filling (thanks to our awesome dentist for the triple dose of novocain. I love you.), Anne and I waltzed back out to the car, called in an order for takeout sushi, picked it up on our way home, and ate our miso soup, edamame, and sushi in the kitchen together, followed by a piece of lemon meringue pie.

It was just an awesome day. Not for any one specific reason. I think my expectations were appropriately low. I think I said "yes" whenever I could. I think I ate good food and drank enough water, and that I'm a better mom when I'm not hungry or craving sugar. Thank you, Jesus, for days like this. With nothing terribly remarkable in them, but somehow adding up to something spectacular. May my life be the same. A series of good days, where I did my best, enjoyed the people around me, loved, laughed, baked, played outside. Nothing flashy or ostentatious, just a life LIVED.

Radicchio Almond Carrot Cake with Orange Mascarpone Whipped Cream + Life Lessons from Childbirth

This weekend I was able to slip away for a couple of hours to take a spin class, my first real workout since Anne was born. As I settled into the bike seat and started pedaling, my brain started whining even louder than the deafening music in the studio. After about 20 minutes of "Ugh, this is terrible. It hurts. I forgot how uncomfortable these bike seats are. Ow, my legs! I hate this! It's only been TEN minutes? I'll never survive!" this thought finally occurred to me:

Lady, you had a BABY 10 weeks ago. Without drugs. This is NOTHING.

After that, I had a lot more fun.



A couple of months before Anne was due, we took a birth preparation class called Birthing From Within (I highly recommend it: if you're in the Chicago area, look up Holly. If not, the book is great, too!). Little did I know how much the lessons learned in that class, and from my own experience of birth, would come in so handy in other areas of my life.

Life Lesson #1: You can do anything for one minute (or one hour, or one day...).

Especially helpful during labor, when there are regularly spaced intervals of pain and rest, is the thought that each contraction will only last for 60-90 seconds, and that at the most, labor only lasts for one to two days. That's it! I have used this one so often, to help me when I had a difficult day of nursing, when I was completely exhausted, to get through 10 days away from home in December (not easy with a newborn!). When something is challenging or painful, the knowledge that it won't be that way forever is very freeing.

Life Lesson #2: Coping with pain through detached awareness + refocused energy.

Ow, it hurts! There's not much power in that, is there? What if you notice and try to describe it? Where is the center of the pain? Where are the edges? In our first week at home, I was exhausted, and it felt like I was on a never-ending hamster wheel of waking, sleeping, nursing, and changing diapers. When you can't count on a full night of sleep anymore, your day no longer starts at 6am and ends at 10pm. So where are the boundaries? It helped me so much to start thinking of my days as a 24-hour block that reset at 7am. That way, if it had been a rough night, we got to start over. And if it was a great night, I wasn't tempted to skip taking a nap while Anne did, because I was preparing for the unknown night ahead. It made a huge difference, and all I did was change how I thought about the day.

Life Lesson #3: A huge effort and a lot of pain yield great rewards.

This is not news, and needs no explaining, but I'll say it anyway: childbirth hurts. A lot. But after it's over you have a baby, and a crazy amount of happy hormones. Caring for a newborn is an immense effort, but you get to snuggle them (!), and after about 6 weeks, THEY SMILE AT YOU (!!). Breastfeeding can be a challenge, but it is an amazing, miraculous food for your baby, and helps you to lose baby weight! Spinning might be a little uncomfortable, but in taking care of my body, I get to provide an example to my baby of how to care for her body, and I stay healthy so that I'll be around for more of her life!

Life Lesson #4: When it's over, let it go. Savor moments of rest.

After each contraction, there is a rest. Time without pain, without work. During the rest, you can freak out ("I can't do this for much longer! That one hurt so much! What if the next one is worse?) or you can let it go. If you let it go, you take advantage of the rest, and you're better able to handle what comes next, whatever it is. If the last 10 weeks are any indicator, I'll probably never be able to predict what's next again, so I'm doing my best to just live in each moment fully. And this moment, right here? There's a lot to savor.



Radicchio Almond Carrot Cake with Orange Mascarpone Whipped Cream
adapted from Dolci, by Francine Segan

Slightly bitter radicchio in a sweet cake; an apt metaphor for motherhood.



For the cake:

3 large eggs
1 cup sugar + extra for sprinkling
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup almond flour (sometimes called almond meal)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch of ground cinnamon
2 carrots, grated (about 1 cup)
1 small head radicchio, finely chopped (about 2 cups)

For the whipped cream:

8 ounces mascarpone
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
1 tablespoon orange juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and butter and flour a 9-inch round pan. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the eggs and sugar together until light yellow. Add flour, almond flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, butter, carrots and radicchio and mix on low until well-combined. Pour batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the top is golden and crackly, and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

While the cake cools, combine mascarpone, cream, sugar, and orange zest and juice, and whip until well-combined and fluffy. Serve alongside the cooled cake, or spread decoratively over the top.

7 Quick Takes: Pregnancy Edition!

In case you didn't read yesterday's post carefully enough, that's right! I'm pregnant! And so today, 7 random things that I've wanted to say over the past few months, but haven't been able to lest I prematurely spill the beans! Go see Jen for more quick takes!

- 1 -

There is no sweeter sound to a pregnant lady's ears than to hear someone say, "You look great." No matter how excited I am to be sharing my body with this little person I'm growing, there are times when I just look in the mirror and can't muster a happy thought about what I look like. To hear someone else tell me I look nice really makes my day. (Side note: I don't know how people go back to wearing regular pants, after having worn maternity pants. I'm just saying.)

- 2 -

You can eat soft cheese all you WANT! I am really not good at following rules if I don't understand the reasoning behind them, and since there are some things you're supposed to avoid while pregnant (and I will not take your word for it), I decided to read the fine print. Fact: soft cheese is fine, as long as it's made with pasteurized milk. Do you know how hard it is to even find soft cheese that's made with raw milk? Almost impossible. So indulge in that bacon and bleu cheese burger, or the goat cheese salad, or crackers with Brie, or whatever it is that you're craving. It's perfectly safe. Sushi? Still no. Deli meat? Only if you heat it up to steaming beforehand. All of this is to avoid exposure to Listeria, a bacteria that is easily fought off by adult immune systems, but is a threat to a growing fetus.

- 3 -

Another thing you can have? Coffee. When I was so tired that I could barely make it through the morning without taking a nap under my desk, my morning coffee was an absolute life-saver. The last thing you need when you're more exhausted than you've ever been, and nauseated on top of that, is to have a caffeine-withdrawal migraine. Of course, if you drink coffee all day long, you should probably cut back. But a cup in the morning is perfectly fine and poses no risk to the baby.

- 4 -

It's possible that crackers will not be the best relief for morning sickness. In my first trimester, I had to eat about every 30 minutes to keep nausea at bay, but anything carby or sweet made me feel sicker. No crackers or bread or other things you think you should eat when you're nauseated. Nope, this baby of mine wanted scrambled eggs, cheese, and chicken. Weird, I know. As soon as the constant queasiness went away (Hallelujah!), I started balancing my diet back out again. Lots of fruit, veggies, whole milk dairy (I'm planning to dedicate a whole post to why later), and fatty fish, like salmon. And tons and tons of water.

- 5 -

Prenatal yoga is amazing. I went to my first class last week, and plan to try to take a class once a week until the baby comes. I took one regular yoga class a few weeks ago, and there were a fair number of poses I couldn't comfortably do, so I enjoy a class that's geared toward pregnant women. It also helps keep me in a calm mental space, so that when people start bombarding me with their well-meaning advice and compulsive labor and delivery war stories, I can just let it roll right off.

- 6 -

The book Baby Bargains is a great resource to help you wade through all the many, many brands and styles and types of things people will tell you you absolutely must have in order to safely and adequately raise your baby. It's part guidance from a close friend who's been where you're going, part deluxe all-inclusive Consumer Reports. A huge help as we were starting to put together our registry.

- 7 -

Here's what I looked like at 17 weeks :)

Radish Pickles

I always buy radishes in the spring. They're so colorful, peeking out from rows and rows of baby greens and asparagus at the market. Especially these Easter egg ones - a purple vegetable will always have a special place in my heart. But here's what happens. I get excited when I see them. I buy them and take them home. They sit in the fridge, lonely and sad, until they get all wrinkly and semi-soft, and then... I throw them away.

That is crazy talk.



Thing is, until I thought of this idea, I did not know what to do with a whole bunch of radishes. A single solitary radish thinly sliced and mixed with salad greens? That I can handle. A whole bunch? What do I look like, some kind of radish fiend? I can't handle that much radish action. For how cute and pastel-colored they are, those suckers are spicy and assertive!

Speaking of things that are cute and pastel-colored, but can be spicy and assertive... we are expecting a little baby girl! She should make her big debut in November, and we can't wait to meet her. In the past couple of days, I've been thinking about what a weighty responsibility it is to teach a girl how to be a woman. There's just so much I want to make sure she knows, so much that I hope for her life.

I want to teach her that she should only laugh when boys are actually being funny, not just because they're being boys. I want her to be healthy and happy in her own skin. I want her to have a soaring imagination and a fabulous sense of humor. And I want her to know how to take a vegetable she doesn't really love and turn it into pink pickles!



This is my new favorite thing to do with radishes. I've tried cooking them, and it wasn't bad. It's just that, ok, what gives a radish its inherent radish-ness? It's crispy and spicy. If you cook it, it's soft and not spicy. It's not horrible, it just doesn't really remind me of a radish anymore. These pickles take radishes to the next level - they don't have the same raw bite, but they're still crispy and a little spicy.



Radish Pickles

Substitute these any place a normal pickle would go. One delicious option: piled on buttered toast, and sparingly salted. Actually, taste first to see if they need salt, since the brine is already pretty salty.

1 bunch radishes, any variety, washed and sliced thinly
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 cup water
1 cup white vinegar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon crushed peppercorns

Pack the sliced radishes and the garlic into a pint Mason jar. In a medium saucepan, combine water, vinegar, salt and sugar over medium heat and stir until dissolved. Add the peppercorns and pour the brine over the radishes. Screw the lid on tightly and allow to come to room temperature. Refrigerate for 24 hours. Voila pickles!

Can be kept in the refrigerator up to a month.

Yield: one pint.

Cyber-Tag!

Oh HI THERE!

People in blog-land have been playing Tag, and I'm IT! Sarah tagged me. :-) Here are the rules (it's so fun, and you won't have to get winded or sweaty at all!):

1. The first rule is to post these rules.  (Done!)
2. Post a photo of yourself then write 11 things about you/your life.
3. Answer the questions for you set in the original post.
4. Create 11 new questions and tag people to answer them.
5. Go to their blog/twitter to tell them you have tagged them.

11 Things About Me

1. I really like living in the city, but I would love to have a garden that partially or completely sustained my family, as well as bees and chickens. The book Farm City was very inspiring to me.

2. I grew up in a committed Protestant Christian family, but in 2005 I was received into the Roman Catholic Church. I read dozens of books on my journey toward "Rome Sweet Home" (ha), and while the decision to become Catholic was painful and difficult, I have never regretted it for one second.

3. I think the taboo against drinking alone is silly. When I'm having dinner alone because the Guy is working late or traveling, or for whatever reason, I will often pour myself a glass of wine. Dining alone is a time to treat yourself well. For me, that means wine.

4. I like to run and do yoga, and I wish I were more committed to both.

5. After a year of working in very close proximity to a candy bowl, I can tell you with confidence that my favorite candy bar is Twix.

6. I HATE scary movies. Especially the supernatural ones, like with spirits and demons and stuff. They give me nightmares and I will not watch them.

7. I got a sewing machine for my birthday in January and it's still in the box. I wish I had already learned how to use it because I want a specific floral A-line skirt with wide high waist and big bow in the front, and I don't have the patience to shop for it. If I already knew how to sew, I could just whip it up. Motivation!

8. I got a perm when I was a freshman in college. It took three hours and 2.5 bottles of the chemical solution. It never relaxed and about a year later I had to chop all my hair off. That was the shortest it's ever been. My hair has never again been chemically treated.

9. Once I went into a tanning bed for 5 minutes. It was too hot, and I could feel myself getting cancer, and I regretted it the whole time. There was also some disconcerting sound that made me feel absolutely convinced that the thing was going to explode and I was going to die in a burst of flames. Needless to say, I'll never do that again.

10. I absolutely can't stand it when you say you haven't seen a movie or read a book or something, and someone says, "WHAT?! You've never seen/read that?! Oh my gosh, I can't believe that." Really? You've seen and read EVERYTHING? For crying out loud.

11. I like rollercoasters and bubble baths.


Sarah's 11 Questions for Me:

1. What is your favorite movie? Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Nobody's ever heard of it, and that is a crying shame. I could watch it over and over again.

2. Do you have a favorite saint? I was confirmed as an adult, and I chose St. Monica as my patroness/confirmation name because she was so faithful and fervent in prayer, and because she is the patron saint of mothers, and I feel that motherhood is a huge part of my vocation (even though I'm not a Mama yet!). I feel like "favorite" saints can change at different times of your life, though - and I really loved reading James Martin's book My Life With The Saints.

3. Name one or two things you want to do before you die. I would like to travel to Israel, and I would like to have at least a couple of kids. I would also like to publish a book. (Sorry, that was three.)

 

4. What’s the best meal you’ve ever had? The best one I can think of recently is a dinner at Fore Street in Portland, Maine. The meal began with an absolutely kick-ass Manhattan, and some great fresh crusty bread at the table. I ordered spit-roasted rabbit, which came with a warm lentil-ginger-cranberry sauce. I had never had rabbit before, so the novelty was exciting. I was in heaven. The ambiance of the place was fantastic, too. Exposed brick and rustic wood, and an open kitchen in the middle of the restaurant. Perfectly lit. Romantic.

5. Do you have a favorite store or shop? I love Myopic Books in Chicago, but really any musty-smelling, stacked-to-the-ceiling, used bookstore will do. Oh gosh, I love the Strand in New York, too.

6. If you were going to be on a desert island with only one kind of food and drink, what would it be? Is this like, one single food and one single drink? Or one type of cuisine? I shall answer both. Without regard to nutrition (since you couldn't possibly eat only one food and live), I would want Reuben sandwiches and Manhattans. Cuisine? Italian food.

 

7. Are you a dog person or a cat person? DOG. Cats are too sneaky and you never know if they love you or they're getting ready to bite you. And most of the time it's both.

8. Do you watch any TV shows? ...Yes. Too many. I usually only watch them on Hulu or Netflix, though. I don't stay home on Thursday nights and deny real interactions to watch TV. That said, I watch 30 Rock, The Office, Modern Family, Parks and Rec, Up All Night, Once Upon a Time, Smash, GCB, and (intermittently) Grey's Anatomy. I also watch Friends when I'm doing things around the house. And I wish Pushing Daisies had lasted for 10 seasons, it was so fantastic.

9. What’s your favorite blog post that you’ve written? Only one? I can't decide. It was this one or this one or this one. :-)

 10. Are you on Pinterest? Oh yes. I love it. Particularly for keeping track of recipes I want to try and ideas for diy/kid/decorating projects.

 11. What would you consider your greatest accomplishment? My marriage. We were 17 when we started dating, and we've done a lot of growing up and changing since then. We're closer and more in love now than we ever have been, and I think the daily living of that relationship is my greatest accomplishment.

My 11 Questions for YOU!

1. Would you rather read fiction or nonfiction? Why?

2. What would an ideal day look like?

3. What was your favorite vacation?

4. If you could live anywhere in the world for a year, where would you live?

5. What is one thing you've always wished you could cook at home, but have been to scared to try?

6. How do you take your coffee?

7. What color Starburst is your favorite?

8. What was your favorite class in college?

9. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? What do you want to be when you grow up now?

10. Do you subscribe to any magazines?

11. What is the one part of your daily routine you can't live without?

Cynthia, Cassie, and Giana... TAG! You're it!

 

Spring Cleaning: The Fridge

This weekend, my kitchen and I came to blows, and I am proud to say that I emerged victorious.

When your life is busy and full, it's easy to let clutter and mess creep up on you. It happens gradually. You run by the grocery store after work to pick up a few things for dinner, and you don't put everything away. You accidentally buy something you had forgotten you already had. Leftovers get piled high and pushed to the back of the fridge. Then one day you realize you can't find anything, and although the cupboards and fridge seem stuffed to bursting, you feel certain there is no food in the house.

It makes you feel crazy, doesn't it?

Having a clean, well-organized kitchen makes it much easier to cook, reduces stress, and shrinks your grocery bill by eliminating redundancies and making it easier to see what you have to use up. I tend to look at recipes and shop for what I want to eat, rather than starting with what I have on hand and building meals that way. First step to change: getting everything clean, organized, and clearly labeled.  Let's get started!

Working systematically through the different areas of your fridge and freezer, repeat the following steps:

Step 1: Take everything out and sort through it. Is anything obviously spoiled or freezer-burned? Can you identify it? Do you even remember putting it in there? Toss toss toss!

Step 2: Fill the sink with hot soapy water, and scrub out the inside with a clean soapy rag. Rinse out the rag and wipe down with clean water, then dry with a towel.

Step 3: Look critically at the setup. Is this particular arrangement working for you? Is there anything you can do to change it? I decided that the dinky wire shelf in my freezer was not cutting it, so I replaced it with a wider and slightly taller shelf. Same thing in the fridge: a tiny shelf in the middle that got absolutely no light made it virtually useless. Rearrange shelves until you come up with something that works.

Step 4: Try to organize each area by category. Don't obsess. Not everything fits into a category, but if you establish general areas (i.e. one drawer for fruits and veggies, and one for meats and cheeses), you'll have an easier time putting things away and finding them in the future.

Step 5: Establish a system for labeling leftovers. This is crucial! It can be as simple as a roll of masking tape and a Sharpie. Write what's inside, and when you put it in there. The dates will help to remind you which things to use up first, and the labels will help your family members to be able to find something to eat without asking you!

The Freezer: Before



The Freezer: After

There are a few things that I try to buy in bulk and keep in the freezer. Butter, salted and unsalted. Bacon. Organic free-range chicken (whole chickens and some boneless breasts for quick meals), and ground beef. Pecans, walnuts, and almonds, which can go rancid quickly if not kept cold. Whole grain flours (not in bulk), for the same reason.



Freezer Door: Before




Freezer Door: After

If you like to bake and there aren't always enough people around to eat up the things you make, pop them in the freezer. Homemade waffles are sealed two-by-two in sandwich bags, and put Eggo waffles to shame. Freeze leftover muffins and cookies, too. You keep yourself from overeating (who in the world can resist fresh baked goods?) and you provide delicious treats for your future self. Frozen bananas become smoothies and muffins!




Fridge Door: Before



Fridge Door: After

Guess what I found in my butter shelf? ...Anchovy paste. Don't be like me! Don't accidentally bake with anchovy butter! Give your butter a private room. Think about all that butter does for you! Doesn't it deserve some privacy? Also, why does Asian cuisine contain such a bewildering number of specific sauces? Sweet chili sauce, sriracha, soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil and toasted sesame oil, chili oil, ponzu sauce... Make it stop!



The Fridge: Before



The Fridge: After



Once I got through this ordeal of cleaning and tossing and rearranging, I felt better. My heart swells with pride every time I open the fridge, and I feel the sense of accomplishment radiating through other areas of my life, motivating me to change and improve! I'm gaining momentum and taking control, and little by little I'm allowing peace to replace the chaos in my home.

Want to see some more inspiring refrigerators? Go visit Tracy and Jen!

30 Days (or 3 months...) of Gratitude

Remember when I said I was going to do a 30-day photo challenge? Back in November? Well, I just finished. Better late than never, I always say!

        
                     

(I originally got this idea from Positively Present. Here's a link to the original challenge. Let me know if you decide to do it - I'd love to see your photos!)