The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

In Which I Reveal That I’ve Apparently Been Fooling You For the Past 7 or 8 Years

Sometimes it just takes a little irritation to make the day better.

Here’s what I mean.

Thanksgiving Recap

Hm.  This is usually the sort of post I might write on a Sunday morning, but apparently the Thanksgiving days off have me confused.

Ah well.

For Now

So, my laptop was infiltrated by a rather clinging and persistent spyware program.  I'd run my anti-malware software and it would look like it found the problem and then got rid of it, but after rebooting and running the laptop a while, the problem would creep back in.  Or come out of hiding.  Whatever they do.  So I shut the thing off, went to our other computer and looked it up and realized...well...that I was going to need a bigger boat.

A Smattering of Updates

I believe I have ADCD.  Not ADD, not ADHD, not even AC/DC, though my husband probably has a CD or two of theirs (or a cassette tape, even!) kicking around somewhere. 

No, the recently diagnosed affliction I speak of is the less-known ADCD:  Attention Deficit Creativity Disorder.  You might have some of the symptoms yourself.  It’s basically when you start one project, and then you think of another one to do and decided that THAT one is more important/necessary/interesting/fun/easy and so you set the first one aside and move to the next, but you also know you need to put together a little recipe to send to a friend who’s putting together a new thing on her blog and you said you’d contribute and those apples and pears really need to be either baked with or thrown in the compost and we need bread so you better make it toDAY and oh wait, this would be a cool idea, i’d better sketch it so i don’t forget it, and i really need to clear off the stuff on the table so i can move my sewing machine over to a better spot and i wonder how much striped fabric i have…that would work well for project idea #352…should i work on these…or this?  I really want to make these, but would those sell better on Etsy?  where’s my crystal ball?????

And that’s just during a 17 second time period in my head.

And I left out the parts having to do with laundry or feeding family (including cats) and errands and kids’ homework and all those other things.

I also wish I didn’t require sleep, but that’s old news.

~~~

I spent a chunk of yesterday baking stuff – bread, a pumpkin pie, an apple/pear cake (yes, I finally used them up), and some oatmeal cookies with some chopped-up Halloween candy mixed in.  Bill made two batches of Thai red curry paste (one mild and one scorching), and prepped stuff for the pho we were having for dinner.  He’d made the stock a couple days earlier.  I’m telling you, I would be quite content to just sip a mug of pho broth instead of tea or coffee.  Well, not first thing in the morning, maybe, but it’s really, really, really good.  Oh, and he made green papaya salad, too.

We had the pho for dinner.  Yum.  I love the fact that my kids just take this sort of meal for granted.  And that Alex – who has never been a big fan of soup, listed his favorites (or the only ones he really likes) as – in order of favoriteness – miso soup, pho, and tomato.  (And he means canned Campbell’s tomato, btw.  With crumbled up Ritz crackers in it and a grilled tuna melt made with cheddar cheese and JUST tuna, no mayo.)  I just love the fact that miso and pho top the list.

~~~

I am in a less cooking/more sewing phase at the moment.  That’s my excuse for the lack of food writing on this here blog.  But I did take pictures of the cake I made yesterday so I’ll put together a post about that at some point in the next few days. 

And here’s a picture of the pumpkin pie. 

 

I made this with the pumpkin Julia picked out on a field trip last month, shortly before Halloween.  We carved (well, Bill carved) the other two we had and they ended up as compost.  This one we saved, and Julia wanted it to become a pie.  I cut it up, toasted the seeds with a little vegetable oil and salt, and roasted the flesh.  Actually, it’s going to become two pies – I froze the rest of it for Thanksgiving. 

Here’s another picture of the pie.  I liked the light.

 

That’s it for now.  Time to make lunches for the kids and shuttle them to school, run to the store for coffee and cat litter and a few other necessities, and then I’ll be downstairs in my work area at my crowded little work table, sewing one of my too-many projects. 

Have a lovely Monday!

Needle and Thread

I’ve got little to no voice today.  A cold has moved from my head down to my chest and along the way has bound and gagged my vocal cords. 

I don’t mind, in a way.  Not entirely.  It’s nice to not talk sometimes.  And I find I can communicate enough with pointing and gesturing, with a bit of whispering when needed.

Yesterday and today I’ve been sewing.  I made a triceratops for my son (see previous post), and today I’m working on an elephant for Julia.  I’ve also sketched and cut out a pattern for another dinosaur.

I’m sewing by hand.  Every little bit.  I’ve got a machine.  It’s right here – to my right on this table.  But I’m not using it.  Not right now.

I think, somehow, my enforced muteness has made me want to work quietly as I play with fabric.  I don’t want any unnecessary noise.  Of course, there’s the hum of the dryer…and I have the tv on for background noise (and since I’m sick, I get to pick the channel.  I’m on the Create channel right now.  Love that stuff.  I need to add woodworking to my hobbies.)…but mainly it is quiet down here. 

Quiet and peaceful.

I like sewing by hand.  I used to do a lot more of it, once upon a time when I had an entirely different life.  Now, I’m trying to reclaim some of that old me.

I like the rhythm of the stitches, and I like the feel of fabric in my hands.  (The elephant is a soft, thin flannel.)  I like letting my mind drift around where it will while my fingers take care of the needle and pins and thread and fabric.  It’s meditative.  And productive. 

That’s about it for the moment.  Need to get back to Julia’s elephant.  I’m hoping to finish it today, and if I do, I’ll put the pictures up.  I think she’ll be a pretty little pachyderm. 

Morning Frost

Sorry for the lack of food posts recently.  I’ve been sick, and wrapped up in making my kids’ costumes, staggering through the most recent 5K (see last full post for costumes and staggering), and then moving around like Frankenstein’s monster because of all the resulting soreness and stiffness in my underused muscles.

Yesterday, election day, was a day off from school for my kids and my husband.  After he went to vote, Bill bundled up the kids – really bundled up, it was cold and windy – and took them fishing for trout.  They brought two thermoses of hot cocoa, and the kids had fun climbing around on the rocks.  They caught nothing, and Bill got tired of the cold sooner than the kids did (for a change), so they didn’t really stay out all that long.

But to back up a bit…after they all left in the truck with their tackle box and poles and thermoses of cocoa, I bundled up, started up my ipod, and walked.  First – over to the elementary school to vote.  I scooted past the campaign volunteers with their signs and ducked into the gym (or “all-purpose room” which was WARM, took my time voting just to soak up the warmth, and then hit the road.

I didn’t run at all, but I walked probably about a mile and a half, wincing with every step.  Ow ow ow.  But – I did it.  And today, interestingly, I don’t feel as sore or stiff.

Oh – and to back up further…on Monday, I registered for another 5K.  It’s the “Downtown Jingle 5K” – another new 5K in Providence.  Same route, I think, as the Monster Mini Dash. 

There’s some humor in the fact that I was hobbling around in pain and still felt it absolutely imperative that I register for the Jingle 5K. Some form of insanity, I think.

So that’s the reason for my walk yesterday.  I did two minutes better in this 5K than in the one in September, and I think that got my competitive  juices flowing.  (Although, given the fact that I’ve been sick for days, those juices might just be a sinus infection.)  If I did two whole minutes better without even trying…maybe I could do even better if I tried harder.  Wow!  What a novel idea! 

So my goal, this time, is to…well…do better.  Not very specific, I know, but in my thoughts, “better” might mean running the whole 3.1 miles, or at least running more of them than I did in this last race.  And I know that to accomplish this, I need to run more.  I need to build up endurance and muscles. 

Simple stuff, but so hard at the same time.  Not the actual exercising.  That’s actually not difficult.

It’s that whole “finding the time” thing that I still struggle with.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

 

Yesterday, after my walk, I went shopping for ingredients so I could make ALL FOUR of this month’s French Fridays with Dorie recipes.  And I made them.  All.  Yesterday.  For dinner and dessert.

Again with the insanity.

First I made the dessert, then the main course, and then the two sides.  (Main and sides needed vastly different oven temperatures – something I neglected to make note of when I was planning my marathon.)

Everything turned out the way it was supposed to, though the dessert wasn’t as pretty as I’d hoped – totally my fault and nothing to do with the recipe itself.  And it tasted good, which is the most important thing anyway.

Likes/dislikes will be discussed when I write up those four posts, but I will say that I wasn’t surprised at all with who liked this and who didn’t like that.  No – wait – I’m wrong.  There was one surprise.  But you’ll have to wait to hear about it.

I know.  I’m so mean.

This morning when my husband headed out the door to go to work, we were surprised to see frost all over the car and the truck.  Heavy frost that had to be scraped.  (It’s dark when he leaves the house, so we hadn’t noticed the frost earlier, while sitting in our chairs drinking coffee and checking on the election results and grumbling about still feeling run down.)

After he’d gone, and the sun rose higher, I was in the kitchen reheating coffee when I noticed the spoon out on our deck railing.  The spoon in the first picture of this post, I mean.

I love frosty pictures.  So I got my camera and went outside to snap a few.  The spoon.  The welding gloves Bill uses when he’s playing with fire (or grilling, whatever you call it), dill, kale, and the peas we thought we might have time to grow.  As you can see, we’ve got a few blossoms, but I’m not sure they’ll bear fruit. 

Though it’s supposed to warm up a smidge this week, so who knows?

And with that, I’m done for now.  I’ve got some other non-food and non-computer projects I’d like to work on today.

See you tomorrow!

Sunday Notes

 
~  Bill took the kids trout fishing early this morning.  They didn’t catch any trout, or anything else they could keep.  I’m just happy they weren’t mistaken for turkeys – it’s huntin’ season.  Yes – they were all wearing bright orange, just in case....

Why Barefoot Kitchen Witch, and How Popcorn Is Keeping Me Humble

Yesterday we went apple picking and pumpkin selecting at Jaswell's Farm with a friend of ours and his daughter, who is a year younger than Julia.  The two girls get along really well, and they leave Alex alone, and we adults don't have to get involved in any altercations, so everyone's happy.

My Fifteen Minutes

Back in April I threw together a quick post about a batch of spaghetti tacos I made for my kids.  You can read that post here.  It was a quick post, just for fun, and I didn't think much of it after that.

But I've noticed, in the last several months, that "spaghetti tacos" is one of the top searches that leads people to my blog.  Spaghetti tacos.  I was, at some point, in the number 2 spot on Google when you looked up spaghetti tacos.  Interestingly, the iCarly website link was in the number 3 spot.  Bizarre.

And then last week I got an email from Helene Stapinski of the New York Times.  She said she was doing a piece on spaghetti tacos and wanted to know if she could talk to me.

Me?

Turning

Autumn is my favorite season.  But I like them all.  I think, mainly, that I appreciate the fact that we have, here in New England, four distinct seasons.  Sure, sometimes spring seems to go by in the blink of an eye, and temperatures go from late wintery forties and low fifties (on a warm day) to humid eighties and nineties.

But for the most part, we have winter.  We have spring.  We have summer.  And, best of all, we have autumn. 

Early Morning Baking

I’m not always great at organizing my time.  If I’m working on a post, for instance, I feel like I should be dusting a bookcase or vacuuming in the basement.  And when I’m cleaning out the pantry, I feel a definite pull from unfinished Etsy projects.

Rosemary Garlic Chicken and Potatoes, and a Question

The smell of a roasting chicken says “home” to me.  The aroma is cozy and comforting and evocative of childhood…Sunday afternoons…cool Autumn days…dark, early evenings…cribbage games in the living room, and – a real treat – glasses of ginger ale mixed with orange juice for my sister and me.

We didn’t move – ever – when I was a child.  Our house was also my father’s place of business, so we were pretty well tied to that spot.  But once I was in college and then on my own, I lived in a variety of places in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, and again in Rhode Island.

And whenever I’ve moved, I’ve had to roast a chicken soon after moving in.  I need to.  It’s my way, I think, of blessing the place.  Of saying “this is my  home.”  Instead of burning sage or incense, or popping open a bottle of champagne, I roast a chicken.

NK5K

My freshman or sophomore year in college - I don't remember which it was - I had five papers due in one week, all for different classes, each one due on a different day, probably.  I think it may have been the week after Thanksgiving, perhaps the last papers for the semester before finals and Christmas break. 

Whatever it was, I actively chose not to bring ANY of that stuff home with me to work on over Thanksgiving break.  It was supposed to be a BREAK, right?  So I took one.

And then I came back on a Sunday and wrote my paper for Monday.  I wrote Tuesday's paper Monday night, and so on through the week.  No drafts, no outlines.  I was an English major.  It probably was freshman year, now that I think about it.  I had at least two classes...Chaucer, maybe, and something else...Poetry.  And some sort of history class, I think, and I don't remember what else.  Intro to Theatre comes to mind.

Anyway, I cranked out my papers....

Walking Home Alone

 
I took a quick snapshot of our shadows this morning as we walked up the road.  That's me on the left, holding the camera.  Then Julia, the big girl, and over on the right, kind of hidden in the tree shadows, is Alex.

First day of school.

48 Ears of Corn

When my sister and I were kids, my mom used to put us to work at various points throughout the summer helping her prep vegetables for freezing.  She used to do a lot of canning, originally.  Probably before we came along, or before we were big enough to help.  Or before she and my father bought that really big stand-up freezer and put it in the basement.  I think it maybe just became easier to pack things in the freezer in plastic containers than to can them.  I don’t know.

All I know is, my sister, me, and our friend, Dolores, if she was at the house, became extremely cheap labor. 

Sunday Morning Notes

Happy 4th, everyone!

Well, working on the house continues.  The sprayer we bought is well worth the money spent in terms of time saved and sanity retained.  Here's the status update, for any of you interested...

More Thoughts on Self Image

I know, I know - "More food posts!"  Bear with me, they're on the way.

I wrote this post about a week ago and it seemed to resonate with some of you, and then a little something happened that got me thinking about other related things...so here you go, I'm pouring that out for you today.

Self Image

Yes, I'll write about food again some time soon.  And cheese.  Which, of course, is food, but at the same time MORE than food around here.

A few things...

Guess what?  If you eat less, you might lose weight.  Especially if you eat less junk.  Or stop that whole "fourth meal" nonsense.  Do I NEED to eat another meal's worth of food at 8:30 or 9:00 at night?  Um, no.  Turns out I don't.  Good to know.

Weekend Recap and Broccoli Rabe

I was going to write about the Jalapeno Cheddar I made last weekend, but I started babbling on about other things, so I'll save that for later today.  I know, it's becoming "The Barefoot Cheese Witch" around here.  Can't help it. 

Actually, it was a pretty busy weekend, and it flew by incredibly fast, and I don't think very much of it had to do with food of any kind.  Well...I helped out in the snack bar during my son's baseball game, but that doesn't really count.  Didn't even get to run the grill, either, this time.  I was on the register.  Sigh.

And the Lists Continue

Last night, while the kids were in their swim classes and I was sitting on the bleachers "watching them" (usually I watch, but yesterday I felt like I couldn't take the half hour to do that, I had too much buzzing around in my brain), I made my preliminary list of cookie-related things.

Has-Not-Been

It's so hard to break old habits, old thought patterns and old patterns of behaviors that happen in response to those old thought patterns.

I could make a quilt of all the old patterns I'm trying to change.

Maybe I should.

A Word to the Wise (from The Stupid)

When you're very tired, and you're trying to make a nice oven roasted chicken dinner (with stuffing) for your sick family, don't jab that bag of giblets you're holding in your left hand with a knife.  Use the scissors.  Or bad things might happen.

For Now

Didn't do any Tuesdays with Dorie baking over the weekend OR yesterday, so I'll be doing that today and posting the results later on today.  At least that's the plan.

This is the time of year when everything starts to feel like the ascent to the highest point on a flume or roller coaster.  That up, up, up, anticipatory feeling...right before the drop and the feeling like your stomach is in your mouth and all the screaming erupts (around the stomach that's in your mouth) and everything just ends in a rush and swoosh and (sometimes) a splash.  And maybe nausea.  And then relieved laughing that you didn't crash.

So what the heck am I talking about?

Lost

Dropping Julia off at kindergarten this morning.

She and another girl are the first two to arrive, and we wait outside, all of us, for the assistant teacher to open the door to let everyone in.

Julia begins sifting through gravel and dirt.  She's squatting down, no thought to being ladylike in her skirt.  She's busy.

Other parents - mostly mothers, but a few fathers or grandparents, arrive, their kindergarteners and a few younger siblings in tow.

Julia has moved to a different patch of gravel.

"Julia," I say.  "Don't play in the dirt."

"But Mom," she looks up at me, a concerned expression in her eyes and in the slight pout of her mouth.  "I'm looking for your diamond!"

Adjusting

I feel like I haven't written anything here in ages, but it's really just since yesterday.  That's all?  It feels like a lifetime.

It's the readjustment to the school year schedule, I guess.

The getting up by such-and-such a time every morning, packing lunches and/or snacks, cooking breakfasts, making sure everyone has what they need as they head out the door.

Feasting on Seafood

First there was the pork-fest, and then there was the seafood extravaganza.  Bill's brother, Ray, came back up for a couple of days after he and the rest of them headed down to CT to visit with Nina's part of the family late Sunday.  Ray arrived Wednesday afternoon and helped with the installation of the Anniversary Toilet, and he, Bill, Alex, and Julia went out for sushi while I was taking pictures at the beach class that night.

On Thursday, while I was being tortured fearing for my life drowning in my own saliva losing feeling in my fingers from clutching the armrests so tightly having a root canal done and a new core put in, Ray, Bill and the kids went down to Galilea, to the docks, to get some lobsters for our dinner.  They got 3 pound-and-a-half lobsters, 3 culls (lobsters missing a claw) and a dozen crabs, too.  When they returned, I was sitting on the couch reading and slurping ice cream on the side of my face that wasn't numb. 

Nine, Yesterday

Over the past several years, Bill and I have moved from buying each other gifts for Christmas and our Anniversary (do you capitalize that one?) to buying one thing we both can use.  We cook a lot (in case you hadn't noticed) and ENJOY the whole process, so we've started buying ourselves things like big heavy-duty stock pots, including a Le Creuset dutch oven, or a paella pan - things along those lines.  We get lots of use out of them, and at the same time, it's kind of nice to look at the item as we're using it and know that WE bought it for US and LOOK at the use we're getting out of it!  Aren't we clever?!

It's working better than "Gee, thanks for the socks."

Just kidding.  I don't think we've ever bought socks as gifts for each other.  Just for the kids.  And they'd darn well better appreciate them, too!

We've also (I am realizing now) not really paid attention to those symbols of wedding anniversary years.  You know, the Silver Wedding Anniversary, the Golden Wedding Anniversary.  For one thing, those two are a few years off.  And for another, I have no idea what the other "themes" are.  I think there's paper in there somewhere...and leather...glass?  I don't know.  So, obviously, those sorts of things are not high up on our list of priorities to remember.  (Instead, we have, on that list, things like the legal lengths that you can keep various fish each season.  For example, scup need to be ten and a half inches.  Bill knows that.  I know that.  Our marriage is working.)

I think, for us, a better kind of anniversary theme or symbol, might be, say, different kinds of cookware.  That's the route we seem to be taking anyway.  For other couples it might be something else - for travelers, for instance, it might be a new destination each year.  There shouldn't be one blanket thing for everyone, because clearly we're not all the same.  Not the same as individuals, and not the same as part of a couple.

I could go on.  I won't.

I have, however, been thinking about the whole relationship/partnership/marriage thing, and why do some of them work and some don't?  Why do some seem fine on the outside when in reality they are, like the tree that fell a few weeks ago, rotted out and ready to break when you least expect them to. 

I wouldn't presume to speak for anyone else.

I will just jot down a few things I've noticed over these last several years.

I think you have to relax.  Maybe not about EVERYTHING, but in the marriage, you have to relax, let go, and trust in yourselves, in each other, and in the long term, and not try to force things to conform to the way you THINK they're supposed to go.  Because they won't.  Life together will have a life of its own, and it's best, sometimes, to let nature take its course.

It will not always be easy.  There will be days (weeks, months, etc.) when everything's a strain, nothing goes easy, and you wonder if you'll ever have smooth sailing again.  Hang in there.  You'll get through it.

There will be good times, too, hopefully.  Days that pass along so easily you won't even give them a second thought.  But you should.  You should stop and smell the roses, so to speak, of those uneventful times, because they don't last.  There's always another bump in the road.

Those are my little words of wisdom.

Yesterday was our ninth anniversary, Bill's and mine.

We bought a new toilet.

That, my friends, is love.

The Wages of Multitasking

Yesterday I babbled on and on about all sorts of things that were going on in the house and the fact that I forgot I had loaves of bread rising in pans and they kind of rose a bit higher than I'd have liked.

Here's how they looked before I attempted to peel the plastic wrap off them.

They looked deflated and tangled and ugly afterward, and I didn't take a picture of that.  I just let them rise back up again and finally baked them. 

They turned out fine.

You're SO relieved, aren't you.

Of Shreds and Patches

It is raining.

Again.

Still.

It's a good thing Bill mowed the lawn the other day - when the sun was still in view - because right now it looks like he won't have that opportunity again until July.  Or something like that.

The rain is great for the gardens, of course - and for me, because it means I don't have to go around watering parched plants - but the sun would be good for them, too.  I'd also like to be able to hang the laundry out to dry.  But that's not happening any time soon.

~~~

Yesterday Julia and I drove up to the middle school where Bill teaches to take pictures of one of his classes.  His grade 7 chorus earned a platinum medal at a recent music festival - first time anyone's gotten a platinum at that school - so yay, Bill and yay, kids!  It's really quite an achievement.  Anyway, they wanted something in the local paper, but for whatever reason (I can't remember), no one from the local paper was going to be able to get there before the next deadline or something, so Bill asked me to come up and take a picture and to write up a little something for the paper.  He's emailing that and the photo to them this morning.  So yay, they'll make it into the next edition.

Julia was all excited to go see Daddy at "his work" and she somehow crawled to her bureau - over and under all the other furniture that's in front of it - and dug out her Easter dress to wear for the occasion.  I put her hair in two pigtails, she put on a lovely pair of very scuffed brown shoes, and off we went.

When we arrived, the bell had rung and classes were changing, so the hallway was overrun with middle school children who were so busy talking to one another that they might have run Julia over if she hadn't moved behind me to travel in my wake.  That spooked her, and she spent the rest of the visit "being shy."  I put that in quotes because I think she would have been fine if it hadn't been for the Running of the Students.  So she didn't want to go into the classroom - Bill came out and had to peel her off of me to bring her in.  And then she stood behind me most of the time Bill's students were arriving and warming up a bit before I took the group shot. 

It was too bad - a good portion of the girls in the class reeeeeaaaaally wanted to make friends with Julia, but she was having none of it.  She just moved behind me and stayed there.

I was able to slip out of her reach a few times to get pictures of her, though.  Here she is - being shy.

She was very glad to leave. 

~~~

On the bedrooms front, later this morning I will tape off Julia's room and put down the drop cloth and PRIME!! 

Can't believe this project is winding down.  Of course, there are still a few ugly parts left.  There is a section of the floor that Bill needs to fill in.  It's where the original doorway to that big bedroom was, and the wall of the double-sized closet it used to have.  There's no hardwood flooring there, so Bill's going to be pulling up some of the existing floor and laying down new hardwood pieces to fill in the gaps. 

That's one ugly project.  He actually started doing some of that last night.

And the final ugly part will be removing EVERY SINGLE THING from the bedrooms and bringing it all downstairs so we (okay, Bill and a friend of his) can sand the hardwoods and then - ugh - put down new layers of polyurethane. 

We still don't know for sure where we're going during that time period.  We can't stay in the house because of the fumes.  There's talk of camping out in the back yard, but the way the rain's been lingering, I don't know about that either.  We'll have to see what the weather's like when it's closer to the time all this will be taking place. 

I look on all of this like labor and childbirth, though.  It's the best analogy I've got.  The pain builds and builds, and then the final series of pushes and then - finally - it's done.  And we'll have shiny new-looking floors and pretty bedrooms to show for it. 

I cling to that.  That there WILL be an end to it. 

~~~

The sour cherry tree is offering up lots of lovely red berries now - and I think the catbirds and blue jays are getting the majority of them.

I marched out there the other day and grabbed what I could reach, but it wasn't much.  And they weren't entirely ripe yet, either.  The thing is, the birds don't care, so they'll just take them, and if I wait until the cherries are properly ripe, there won't be any left.

I have a feeling the birds will win this year.

At least I've managed to grab most of the strawberries.

~~~

Speaking of strawberries, Bill has made us strawberry margaritas a couple times now, and there is NOTHING like a drink made with real fruit.  Mixes cannot compare.  I'd rather have one or two extremely delicious strawberry margaritas and be done with them than have a year's supply of the mixed version.

Just saying.

But we're not big on bottled mixers here anyway. 

~~~

I wonder who will be at the farmers' market this morning.  It's been pouring - it's pouring now - but I really want to get more rhubarb and more goats' milk today.

Why?

Because I want to make more of that rhubarb ginger jam, for one thing.

And -

I'm going to make goat cheese.

My kit arrived yesterday, and I can't wait to get started!!

~~~

I guess that's it for now.  Almost time to make Alex's lunch and get going here.

I wish I knew where my umbrella was.

 

Things Going On Today...

While I have a minute to type.

*  About twenty minutes longer and I can take the pie out of the oven.

*  I made 7 jars of jam.  It would have been 8, but, well, accidents happen.

*  Bill took the kids to their T-ball game earlier today - I had about two hours of quiet while I made the jam.  Ahhhhhhhhhh.

*  Finally, the peapods have appeared - seemingly overnight.  The kids will eat them as fast as they appear, so don't expect to see any peapod recipes here featuring the year's harvest.

*  We have a Swimming Banquet to go to in a little over an hour.  The kids don't know it yet, but I believe they will each get some kind of award or certificate or something from their swim teachers.  Should be fun.

*  Alex's room is allllllllllmoooooooooooosssssssssssttttttttttttttttttt ready to prime and paint.  I know I've been saying that (or hoping it) for an eternity now, but this time it actually seems like a possibility.  Woo hoo!

*  Julia's room - not yet.  Little setback up there, but nothing we (or Bill, really) can't fix. 

*  Sometimes I have more fun making little treats with the scraps of pie dough than I have making the pie itself.

*  The canning bug has bitten me hard.  I've got plans, baby.  PLANS.

*  Bill has done all the work in the bedrooms today - including a ton of ceiling sanding.  THANK YOU!!!  I needed a break.  And besides, I was making jam and baking a pie.  Priorities are priorities!

That's about it for now. 

Things Tugging

So much to do, so little time, and only one of me....

Well, okay, it's not ALL on my shoulders, but there's STILL a lot to do - stuff to do with the bedrooms, normal household stuff, kid stuff, more household stuff, trying to find stuff because it's all crammed everywhere other than normal places because of the bedrooms project...on and on.

Thank goodness we are doing this project in the spring.  The kids' play areas in the house are becoming scarce (scarse?  no, it's definitely scarce...though neither one looks right to me because SOMEWHERE IN THIS HOUSE I HAVE LOST THE ABILITY TO SPELL) and so they're stuck with each other even more than usual, and it's getting on everyone's every last nerve.  Okay, not always, but there seem to be more flare-ups of "Well HE did - " and "Well SHE said - " than usual...but maybe it just seems that way because there are fewer places for me to hide.  heh heh.  did i just type that?

And other things...things that i don't go into here, but that take up a lot of space in my mind and heart...things that I can't do a damn thing about and it's a horrible, frustrating feeling.

Plus I've cooked several things that were fabulous over the weekend, but - I TOOK NO PICTURES! - because...I just didn't think of it in time or didn't feel like it once I thought of it.  I'm in some sort of foodie slump, I think. 

Today's plans include - woo hoo! - another trip to the landfill to get rid of debris from the bedrooms project.  Did I tell you that last week when I went I almost fell into a dumpster?  Now THAT would have been entertaining!

I also need to take more pictures and post them, because YAY - the walls are UP and the ceiling is PATCHED and there are now, officially, two bedrooms where there once was one.  It's fabulous.  In my mind I can see them finished and looking cozy and fun.  It's still going to be a while before that's the reality, but having a wall and the closets done is a big step in the "done" direction.

Now that I think about it, I also have a few loads of laundry to do.  Since we have no access to closets or bureaus, we are living from our laundry baskets, and it behooves me (I just wanted to type "behooves") to keep on top of the laundry because if I don't, the piles of dirty laundry take over our sleeping area in the basement and it's just ugly. 

But for now?  Time to get moving.  It's Monday.  Back to the work/school week routine! 

Have a good week! 

Snippets

Tonight's another Work On the Bedrooms night.  Tomorrow I'm planning to bring 89 tons of debris to the landfill tomorrow morning.  I tried making it sound exciting to Julia, since I'll have her with me, but she wasn't falling for it.

Julia likes playing shallow infield at t-ball - that way she has more opportunities to get the ball and throw to first.  During the first "inning" at practice last night, she batted well and ran fast, but she was put in center field, kind of, when the other half of the group was up to bat, and she was, apparently, so bored that she sat down in the grass, her back to the infield, and picked dandelions.

Alex is having a blast at t-ball this year - he gets to play first a lot, and he's hitting really well (for a little kid), which is great for his confidence level. 

The pollen in the air and the dust from the construction have everyone (except me, for some reason) coughing and sniffling. 

I think I'm going through some sort of manic creative phase.  Except can someone tell me why I can't just pick a damn hobby and stick with it?  why must i keep wanting to do something ELSE!  something NEW!  this will be THE thing for me!   But I like ALL of my creative outlets.  I wish there were more of me so each of me could focus on one thing.  And another me could do the housework stuff.  And another of me could take naps in the afternoon.  I think I'll be THAT me.

I still have to post this week's Tuesdays with Dorie post.  I have the images all ready to go.  Just need to add words to them.  But I keep doing other stuff. 

Like this rambling post. 

So, how are things with you?

Why Valentine's Day Only Causes Pain

I should have just been happy to give him a card and a small bar of (Godiva) chocolate.  The dark chocolate with raspberry filling.  Yum.  That was plenty, right?

But because it was Valentine's day, it didn't end there.

I have to back up a bit first.

Bill recently bought a pair of skiis, and boots.  And a new waterproof coat.  And base wear.  And socks.  And ski pants.  I think that's everything on the list.  He's become a born-again skiier.  And we all suffer the fallout of his fanatacism.

Anyway, his new skiis arrived a few days ago, and he promptly brought them to the local Ski Market so they could put his bindings on and fit them to his boots, or whatever secret ski club stuff they do.  He got them back on Friday after work, and now he's itching to try them out.

So he and a friend were going to go.  Saturday night.  As in yesterday.  Yes.  Valentine's day.

Now, I'm not really over the top about Valentine's Day.  We exchange cards, maybe some chocolate, but that's about the extent of it.  We stay FAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR away from restaurants.  It's hard to have a nice quiet just-the-two-of-you meal when you're packed elbow to knee with all the OTHER couples trying to do the same thing.  So we eat at home.  And besides, we can cook pretty well ourselves.

Back to the skiing.  He and his buddy decided not to go skiing Saturday - not because it was Valentine's day - there were other reasons, including the slightly warmer weather we've been having.  So they've made plans to hook up some other time in the future.

Bill still wanted to ski, however.  Soon.  He looked up the conditions locally and discovered that despite the weather, they had been making snow like crazy and had plenty of trails open.  (See that, I don't ski, but I can speak a bit of the language.)  He got the look in his eye.  A rubbing-the-hands together, gleam in his eye, boy-waiting-for-Santa sort of look. 

And I cannot resist a good opportunity to torture a person.  So I feigned hurt and asked "You would go skiing tonight?  Valentine's Day?  And when I'm sick?  Cough cough."  (Big sad puppy eyes.)

He looked torn.  I continued.  Then I stopped.  He might as well go.  It's not like I was all that exciting to be around, mucus-filled as I was (and am.)  He said he'd think about it.

Later on, when I was trying to work on one of the current dolls I've got in the works, he came into the room and announced that he was NOT going skiing that night because it wouldn't be right.  On Valentine's day.  I told him not to let that get in the way of things - I'd even make him a little sign to wear on his jacket "My wife said I could go skiing on Valentine's Day" just so no one would chastise him.  But no.  He wasn't going.  Maybe he'd go the next morning, though.

And that was nice.  I had a warm little feeling inside.  Selfless gestures are way better than flowers, after all. 

So.  Fast forward a few hours.  I was getting dinner started.  Nothing fancy - just comfort food - a double batch of chicken tetrazzini.  (One pan for me, the other for everyone else.  No, not really.)

Bill had gone outside to put some things in the garage.  And as I looked out the window, I felt a resurgence of that warm feeling I'd felt when he gave up an evening of skiing to hang out with his germ-laden wife.  Sweet man.  And I just thought - I'll go give him a hug.  Just a simple Valentine's Day hug.  A simple gesture.  Just because.

So, wearing flip flops, because I don't have slippers and that's what I wear sometimes to keep my feet from feeling cold on the kitchen tile, I opened the back door.

And I opened the storm door with my right hand, stepped out with my right foot, onto the little rubber mat on the top step -

And then, quick as the proverbial wink, the mat slipped across the concrete step, bringing my foot with it, and next thing I knew, my foot was jammed under the iron railing on the other side of the step.

Here - in case you'd like a better visual - this is the rubber mat and our concrete stairs outside the kitchen door.  (Well of course I went and took pictures after the fact.  You'd be surprised if I didn't, wouldn't you?)

 

Next up, the railing, which is just beyond the door in the picture above.

 

And now, a closer view of the danger zone.

 

Okay, back to the story.  My right was jammed under that lower rail.  Not all the way to the ankle - about midway between where the toes attach to the foot and the ankle.  Yeah.  All those skinny little bones.  And no padding.  Ouch.

I stood there on my left foot, clutching my right foot with one hand and hanging onto the door with my other hand.  I couldn't move.  I wanted to cry.  In fact, I could feel tears stinging my eyes.  Peripherally I saw Bill look up from what he was doing.  And I knew what he was thinking.  Something along the lines of "What did she do now?"  Because there are times, I admit, when I'm sort of a bit of a klutz.  I stub a toe or whack an elbow from time to time.  More times than normal, in Bill's opinion.  I don't know about that.  But whatever.  I knew he was figuring something like that had happened.  Something minimal. 

I couldn't say anything.  Or move.  He yelled "Are you okay?"  And I think I squeaked out a "no" because he left the garage and came over.  I whimpered a quick explanation of what had happened, and he helped me hobble into the house.  I made my way into the dining room and peeked at my foot. 

"Do you want some ice?"  Bill called from the kitchen.  I think I said yes.  I don't remember.  I was busy staring at the icky top of my foot.  There was a jagged triangularish purple outline and inside that area, it was white.  I don't know why that grossed me out, but it did.  Made me think of episodes of Man vs Wild when Bear Grylls eats caterpillar or worm guts.  That's just how my brain works.  I stared in morbid fascination at that white icky part and, in a bit of a panic, yelled to Bill "CAN I HAVE THAT ICE, PLEASE?"  And then I thought of the ice pack touching my wounded skin and I felt my skin crawl, so I added "AND A TOWEL???"  As I watched, the middle white part slowly turned purple to match the border.  Oddly enough, it didn't look as creepy to me then.

Oh, and yes, it hurt.  Not as much as what happened to my sister several years ago, of course, but still.  It hurt.

Bill brought the ice pack and a dish towel and I gently draped them on my foot.  The kids were in the room, too, looking concerned.  I said I was fine, I'd just hurt my foot a bit.  I'd be fine. 

Bill asked if I needed anything else.  I asked for my camera. 

Here's my foot, after I'd kept the ice on it a bit.

  

I know.  That little thing?  The flash washes it out a bit.  Try this one.

 

You can sort of see a reddish area surrounding the wound.  I'm guessing that will eventually turn bruisy colors. 

 

While I was sitting there, I noticed that the glass on our china hutch needs cleaning.  But not until I'd take a picture of this:

See it?

 

See them now?  The lips?  Not sure who did that.  I'd suspect Julia, of course, but unless she was on a chair, it's too high for her.  Interesting what you see when you're just sitting.

Anyway, that was all yesterday.  Today my foot still hurts, especially if anything touches the scab area.  And also my left calf feels tight, like a leg cramp almost.  But other than that, I'm okay.

And that's my story.  I blame Valentine's Day.  If it hadn't been V-Day, Bill wouldn't have decided not to go skiing, I wouldn't have felt like hugging him out of the blue like that, - in fact, at that time he probably wouldn't even have been home - and my foot would be fine.  It's an evil holiday.  Evil, I tell ya.

Now I'm going to limp upstairs and make pancakes or french toast for us all for breakfast.

If anything more colorful happens with my foot, I'll be sure to post the pictures.

This Is Not a Valentine's Day-Themed Post. Mostly.

Because my day began at around one in the morning when I woke up.  I've got a yucky cold or something and I woke up dry-mouthed, achy-throated, and just generally achy over all.  I couldn't go back to sleep, so I went downstairs, took a variety of meds, made some tea, and went further downstairs to watch stuff on the food network.

I fell alseep during a Good Eats episode about...oranges?  I think?  I don't know.  I just know that's when I took off my glasses, curled up under some blankets on the couch, and just listened. 

I like to listen to Alton Brown.  I like his voice.  More than that, I like his wit and intelligence.  His shows are kind of like story time.  Story time about food.  Which sounds good to me.

So I snuggled down, eyes closed, and listened to the start of the show - and I was out. 

For three solid hours. 

And then I woke up in the middle (or some section) of a weird, unpleasant, kind of disturbing dream that I couldn't entirely sort out.  I went upstairs to my own bed, thinking I just needed to be sleeping in the right place.  It was a lovely idea, but it didn't work.  I lay there, awake, breathing out of my mouth for a while, then I schlepped back downstairs, made more tea, and searched for something to watch.  Not a whole lot to choose from at that hour.  I was hoping for cooking shows on PBS - seems to me I've seen Lidia Bastianich in the wee hours before.  But not this morning.  I watched the tail end of something on the food network again - one of those recipe for success shows about someone starting a business in the food industry, and then figured that would be it.

But no!

There was something coming on...something educational - there was a little blurb at the bottom of the screen that said teachers could utilize the following program in the classroom...

I stared at the screen through half-closed eyes as the show came on.  Bunch of people sitting at the counter in a diner.  One of them spoke.

And

It was Alton Brown.

I would say I wept with joy, but that would be silly.  But I was definitely joyful, in my own, special, congested way.

This show was about potatoes - yay!  I didn't fall asleep this time around, I just watched and wished I had some russet potatoes on hand because a baked potato sounded really good to me right about then.

After the show, I went (again) back to my own bed and fell into a peaceful, contented sleep.

Now it's morning - true daytime morning.  Kids are up - and in the other room "secretly" making me valentine's day cards.  I already made their day with a book each, a little stuffed animal, a card, and some chocolate. 

And that's about all the effort I intend to put into anything today.

Yay, it's Friday

Not that it matters all that much to me which day of the week it is, but at least today there are no after-school obligations for the kids.

Yesterday Julia had a make-up swim class, since she missed Monday's lesson.  We didn't say anything about it when we'd scheduled it.  At that point there was still the possibility that she would be scared to go and would try to find reasons to get out of going.

I told her on the way home from the grocery store yesterday, before we picked up Alex after school. 

And she was fine.  "Okay," she said.  No fear, no tears.  Reconfirming for me that Monday she was genuinely sick, as if the vomiting hadn't done that already.

Anyway, we went to the pool last night, Julia all snug and cozy - and purple - in her new Warm Belly Wetsuit.  Alex has red.  These things are great - no more purple lips or chattering teeth.  Anyway, she went into the water with her teacher, Ms. C, and Alex and I watched from the bleachers.  Well, we watched, and also Alex drew pictures of collections of animals:  Animals from Africa...Dinosaurs...Sea Creatures.  

And Julia did SO well.  It's kind of culture shock for her, especially, in these lessons.  I think I've mentioned that before.  But the main things are 1) the kids don't wear any kind of flotation device during the lessons and 2) they actually are DOING SOMETHING during the whole half hour class.  Before, she was used to casually floating along in the pool with her classmates, maybe swimming, sort of, but nothing really intense or serious or scary.  She would have remained in that same class for another year, probably, because there was no emphasis on progress.  But don't get me started.  Anyway, this time around, she is LEARNING.  And it's not easy.  It's scary.  She's not tall enough to touch bottom with her head above water, so she really needs to keep herself afloat.  And she does.  Last night she swam from the end of the lane to the flags, which is, I think, about ten or fifteen feet.  She floated on her back, and the teacher slowly - talking to her all the time - took her hands away so Julia was floating all on her own.  I watched, remembering that feeling from when I took lessons an eternity ago.  And Julia stayed there, a little purple starfish on the surface of the water, until fear kicked in and she began to sink.  She was scared.  I could see it on her little face - that furrowed brow, the pout, the worried eyes.  But her teacher held her and talked to her and hugged her and worked with her, worked her through it.  It's horrible and wonderful to watch.  After the floating/sinking thing, Ms. C had Julia lie on her back, Ms C's hand under Julia's neck, supporting her.  Then they went up and down half the length of that lane, Ms C counting 1, 2, 3 and then having Julia turn over from her back onto her stomach and swim for another count of 1, 2, 3, and then flip back onto her back and float 1, 2, 3, and then flip back to her stomach again.  Over and over.  So Julia would know HOW to do that herself and NOT just sink down to the bottom in terror. 

And at the end of the class, Julia was all smiles, and I hugged her wet little warm belly'd body and told her how proud I was of her.  She got two stamps on the backs of her hands - they're big on positive reinforcement there - and then we headed back to the locker room, Julia somehow taller than when she'd arrived a half an hour before.

~~~

Let's see, what else....

Well, thank you to the people who have shared their spayed cat/abdominal stitches stories with me in the comments section of this post.  So far Softie is taking it easy (mostly) and her suture wound looks fine.  I check it multiple times a day (much to Softie's growing annoyance) and it is looking pink (not red or bloody) and healthy.  I apparently have strong, rapidly-healing cat stock here.

Funny thing about Softie - I don't know if I've told you about this before - she adores Alex.  It's funny - she's technically Julia's cat, and Scratchy is Alex's.  But really, they're all the family cats.  Of course, cats being cats, they decide where their own individual loyalties lie.  Scratchy, as I've said before, loves me.  I'm not bragging or anything, he just does.  It's obvious.  He is smitten.  And so adorable about it.  If he had opposable thumbs and was allowed outside, he'd probably pick dandelions for me just because.  In the summer, I mean.

But Softie - she loves Alex.  More specifically, she loves Alex's head when it's asleep and on a pillow. 

Last night at some point Julia was out of her bed and in our bed for a little while.  I brought her back to the kids' bedroom, and when I opened the door to go in, out of nowhere, Softie came racing past me, into the room, onto Alex's bed, and to his head, where she paced, purring LOUDLY and rubbing her cheek against his hair.  It's adorable and hysterical. 

I put Julia in her bed, tucked the covers around her, and Softie continued to purr and purr and purr, overjoyed at her luck.  But I had to put an end to her happiness.  Had to (gently because of the stitches) remove her from the bed and from the bedroom and close the door before she could race back in again.  If allowed to stay, she would have woken Alex up with all her loud, insistent affection.  It's only so cute when you're trying to sleep, apparently.  So Alex has asked that we keep the door shut so the cats won't wake him up.  (Scratchy would have joined in the fun, too.  He likes to attack Alex's feet.)

Softie accepted her exile without complaint.  She went back downstairs to sleep wherever she sleeps.  Just waiting, I presume, for the next opportunity to come along.

~~~

And that's it for the moment.  Have to get Alex to school.  Then it's back here for my big exciting project of the day:  I have to clean out the fridge.

Wish me luck.

Trust

It was on Monday.

Bill was at work, Alex was at school.  Julia and I had an assortment of errands to run. 

First we went to Staples, one of my very favorite stores in the whole wide world.  I love office supplies. 

I had to get just a few things.  Julia asked if she could get a package of post-it notes and since she'd been almost very good in the store, I said okay.  Don't want to crush the office supply spirit in my daughter, of course.  She picked out bright pink (of course) for herself, and asked if we could get orange ones for Alex.  I said yes - I'm always happy when they want to get something for the other one. 

A bit later we went to this little shop that sells swimming gear to get Warm Belly suits for the kids.  They're taking swimming lessons at a different place now (we quit the Y - did I write about all that?  In a nutshell, we were tired of the lack of real instruction.  Too much playing around or down time, not enough actually swimming.  The new place is amazing.  One-on-one instruction and the kids are swimming or doing SOMETHING the whole time.  It's a bit of a change for Julia, especially - in this class she is challenged more, and she's having a hard time with it.  But at the same time, she loves her teacher.  So the class is chlorine and tears and hugs, over and over.  But she is learning so much more.) and the pool, I don't know, is maybe colder then the one at the Y.  Anyway, both kids' teeth chatter, and Julia's teacher suggested these suits for the kids.  She wears one herself.  So that's what Julia and I were doing on Monday morning.  Because I am a procrastinator, and their next swim class was that evening and I still hadn't bought the things yet.

We got there and picked out a purple one for Julia and red for Alex.  (The only orange one there was too small.)  They have adjustable velcro straps over the shoulders, so as Alex's genetically pre-disposed to tallness little torso grows taller, we can adjust the suit.  Julia.  Well, she's at the small end of her suit size, so she'll probably have the same one til she's twenty.

Anyway, that was the morning.  We came home and I went upstairs to work on some projects in my little work are in my bedroom.  Julia sat on the bed and tortured played with one of the cats, and eventually she crawled into the bed and, after thrashing around a bit, fell asleep. 

Woo hoo!  Uninterrupted time for me! 

She slept for an hour and a half - then I had to wake her up so we could go pick up Alex at school.  I brushed the tangle of hair from her face and kissed her, and when she woke up she immediately started crying and said her tummy didn't feel good. 

I kissed her forehead and her cheeks, and she felt hot, but she'd also been fully dressed under all the bed covers.  She was a little sweaty, too, but again, that could be from being too hot all that time.  I uncovered her and quizzed her about her not feeling well.  Did she think she was going to throw up?  Did she need to go potty?  Was she hungry?  She hadn't had lunch, really.  Just a little snack that she didn't finish.  She said she wasn't hungry. 

She kept crying, too.  I got her into her boots and coat, hat and mittens, and into the car.  She was quiet (a sure sign something was off) and whimpery and sad.  We got Alex, came home, and I brought Julia upstairs to take her temperature.

Of course, the battery had died in the digital thermometer.  So I'm kissing her head, feeling her torso, trying to decide if she truly feels HOT or if she's just over warm from crying, or what.  I attempted to take her temp the old fashioned way with a glass thermometer under her tongue, but I was too worried she'd chomp down on the glass, swallow mercury and shards, and go insane while her insides slowly shredded, that I took the thing out after only a minute.  Inconclusive.  I don't think she even kept it under her tongue.  I know I didn't like doing that as a kid either.

So what to do?  She felt on the warm side to me, and she doesn't usually wake up crying like that.  Swim class was in about an hour.  Should she stay or should she go?

She felt warm, and she just didn't seem right to me.

So I called and cancelled her lesson.  Bill could bring Alex, and I'd stay home.

About a half hour before the class, Bill called - he was nearly home, should he just go straight to the pool and meet us there?  I told him no, come home, Julia's sick.

He said "Oh." and in that word I heard a boatload of doubt and suspicion.

The previous swim class had been a hard one on Julia.  She was basically taken outside her comfort zone, and she was scared to go back.  Of course, nothing bad was going to happen to her.  Her teacher is fabulous - has Julia do a little something new - face all the way in the water, or swimming about three feet on her own - and then lots of hugs and "I'm so proud of you!" and then maybe something less scary, like swimming using the pool noodle or floating on her back.  So like I said earlier - chlorine and tears and hugs.  

She was a mixture of scared and proud, and wasn't all that excited to go back.  But we'd kept being supportive and encouraging and we told her Miss C would NEVER let anything bad happen to her.  It might be scary at times, but that was part of learning to swim.  And if you face your fears, and work through them, you'll be all the better for it.  (Of course, it doesn't work on trips to the dentist, but that's just me.)

She hadn't said anything earlier about being scared of her swim class - in fact she was VERY thrilled about her new purple Warm Belly suit (which she insisted on calling a wet suit) that day.

But.

So Bill's voice in my ear on the phone allowed some doubt to start working on me.  Julia genuinely seemed sick.  The whole waking up from the nap crying part was so unusual for her....but.

What if?  

It's not like she's never been sneaky.  She's four.  It's part of being a kid.

But she'd felt warm.  Her cheeks were flushed.

I went downstairs to where she was lying on the couch, watching tv.

I asked how she was feeling.

"Not good."

"Julia, did you say you were sick so you wouldn't have to go to swim class?"

She didn't answer.  Just snuggled under the blanket.

"Julia, are you REALLY sick, or did you SAY you were sick so you wouldn't have to go to class?"

She started crying.

"Julia?  Are you REALLY sick?"

"I don't want to go to swim class!"

Grrrr.

"Do you feel sick?"

"I don't wanna go to swim class!"  She was crying and not looking at me.

"Julia, DO YOU FEEL SICK?"

"I just don't want to go to SWIM CLASS!"

"Are you saying you feel sick because you don't want to go to swim class???!!!"  I was getting angry.  Trying to be sure she understood the question and appalled that I'd been duped.

She nodded.  Crying.

"Julia, you lied to me.  I know you're scared to go, but you can't pretend to be sick just because you don't want to do something."  (oh, really?  since when?)

She cried more.  "I don't want to go!"

"Do you feel sick?"

She shook her head.

I swallowed all the yelling that was welling up inside me.

"You can stay down here, then, and you'll go to bed right after dinner.  If you say your sick, you're going to be treated like you're sick."

I went upstairs.

I was furious.  At her for faking it SO WELL.  At me for falling for it, and at Bill for figuring it out so fast when he wasn't even here.

He got home and I filled him in and he nodded like he wasn't the least bit surprised.  I found myself defending my blindness - her warm cheeks, her sweaty head, no lunch, the crying.  I was more annoyed about being fooled than I was about Julia's deception.  I ALWAYS know when they're hiding something.  "How did you know, Mom?"  "Because I'm a Mom.  I just know."

Til now.

Bill took Alex to class, and I tried, unsuccessfully, to convey to him that I didn't want him to tell Julia's teacher of her recent confession.  Because, truth be told, I didn't want to look like an idiot Mom who can't read her kid. 

Dammit.

I made dinner.  Fish tacos.  Easy to do when you use frozen fish sticks.  I was too grumpy to be more creative than that.

Julia seemed to perk up a bit while Alex and Bill were at the pool, so I squashed that quickly and efficiently.

"Julia, do you understand what a lie is?"

"Yeah."

"What is it?"

"...I don't know."

"A lie is when you tell something that isn't true.  Like when you said you didn't feel good but you really just didn't want to go to swim class.  That was a lie.  When you tell lies, it makes it hard for people to trust you.  To believe what you tell them other times.  I'm really not happy about this, Julia."

"I'm sorry." 

Bill and Alex got home - Alex did really well and got two lollipops for his efforts.  He'd eaten one in the car and was finishing up the next one as he came in the door.  Bill was full of praise for him.  He also told me Julia's teacher had suggested a make-up lesson - maybe Thursday?  I said fine.  Call her.  I was still wallowing in grumpiness and feeling like a fool.  Of course I was overreacting, but I was too busy DOING it to notice.

Bill thought I was annoyed about the make-up lesson.  No.  I was just frustrated because DIDN'T HE UNDERSTAND HOW ANGRY I WAS THAT MY FOUR-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER PUT ONE OVER ON ME SO WELL.  She SEEMED SICK. 

I don't like to be wrong.  I know.  Get over yourself, Jayne.  But honestly.  She really seemed sick.

Anyway, we sat down to dinner.  Alex told me I could win a cooking contest (because fish sticks wrapped in soft tacos are so innovative and tasty, apparently) and Julia didn't want anything to eat.  Just maybe some cheese on a taco.  I fixed that for her, but she just sat and cried.  And cried.

Something in me let go, and all the annoyance evaporated.  She really felt bad about her story.  Time to stop being the dispenser of morals and just give the girl a hug.  So I did.  Several.  She sat in her chair and I sat beside her in mine, and I just hugged her while she cried.

She finally stopped, but she still didn't feel like eating, so I told her to go ahead back downstairs and I'd sit with her in a few minutes.  She went back to watching Sponge Bob or whatever was on, and I ate dinner.

After the plates were cleared, Bill gave Alex a guitar lesson and I went downstairs.

Julia looked so tiny on the couch, all wrapped up in green blankets, her small, sad face on the pillow.

"Would you like me to lie down with you?"  I asked.

She nodded. 

I slid under the blankets beside her and gave her a kiss on the head, then turned to watch the cartoon.

And then Julia made some little noise and threw up.  Not much.  I kind of thought it was some kind of burp with benefits, but she suddently had this "OH NO" look on her face and before I could say anything, she REALLY threw up, on me, the blankets, herself.  Just liquid, but still.

She started crying.  Again.  I shot questions and orders at her:  "Do you think you're going to throw up again?  Upstairs!  Run!  To the bathroom!  Hurry!"  I ran along behind her, a Border Collie, nipping at her heels.  pleasedon'tthrowuponthestairspleasedon'tthrowuponthestairs...

She made it to the bathroom and I flipped up the lid and the seat and told her to just stay there, just in case.  I ran back downstairs and grabbed the wet blankets and tossed them in the washing machine, then went back upstairs in time for Julia to retch again - productively - a couple more times.

She was really sick.

And I have to admit - I was glad.  Not glad she was vomiting.  That's no fun for any of us. 

But I was glad she had been telling me the truth.  I thought back to my earlier interrogation - trying to figure out if she felt sick really, or if she was trying to get out of swim class.  And the answer was now fuzzier.  Less clear.  She felt sick AND she didn't want to go?  She felt sick AND SO she didn't want to go?  She felt sick BECAUSE she didn't want to go?  Who knows?  And what does it matter, at this point.

I cleaned up Julia's face and the couch, put new blankets and towels all around.  Bill brought in a bucket for her, just in case.  But she seemed a lot better.  No more crying.  She was perkier - more like her usual self.

Later, when we were rehashing things, Bill wondered if maybe she'd cried so hard she made herself throw up.  After all, she seemed SO much better immediately after....

Possible, yes, but I didn't think so.  Too much lag time in between the crying jag and the race to the bathroom. 

And I told him I'd had a couple times when I'd maybe eaten something that didn't sit well with me, and I spent several hours just not feeling right, and then, finally, I'd run my own race to a bathroom, and afterward, I felt completely fine.  Like nothing had happened.

So it was certainly possible - or probable - that Julia ate something in the morning that made her feel sick when she woke up from her nap.  She'd spent several hours feeling lousy, and then, finally, got rid of it and felt better.

And I had second guessed myself.  I'd doubted my own intuition, my motherly radar, and I'd believed the worst of Julia.  Believed that she wasn't really sick; that she was faking it and lying to me.  And that she'd been successful.

And I was wrong about that.  I was right the first time. 

And she hadn't lied.

Trust.

I need to remember to trust my own Mommy gut instincts.  And Julia's gut, too, apparently.

Trust. 

I should not have been so quick to doubt. 

To doubt myself or Julia.  Myself, especially.

Lesson learned.

No, I'm Not Really a Slug

I know, posting - of any kind - has been rather light lately.  I realized yesterday that I'm in some other sort of mental state at the moment.  Neither good nor bad, just...other.

So I haven't been posting much of anything.  It was like pulling teeth (my own - horrors) just to put up that TWD post the other day (and a day late at that).  I've got other food posts in the works:  photos taken, edited, ready to join up with some text - any text.  And yet...there they sit.  On my desktop.  Waiting.  Growing cold.

But I haven't been doing nothing - I'm working on some other things (yes, dolls are kind of part of that sort of in a roundabout way), and I've been putting my time and effort into THAT when, before, I would have been typing. 

My pendulum doesn't linger in the middle part for very long.  It's either one upswing or the other.  I'm still working on balance.

Anyway, that's kind of my status update.

Blustery Day

 

This was the view out our big front window a couple mornings ago.  When the snow's not there, that area is part of the boat garden that I started several years ago and Bill finished this past summer.

Above, between some lavender and a beach rose, you can see one of the newer members of our outdoor family.  Bill picked her out.  She's a mermaid, and if she were real I'm sure she'd be really, really cold out there.  But then again, if she was a real mermaid, I'd wonder what she was doing sitting on mulch in a garden rather than swimming through the waves, so I suppose that's enough of the flights of fancy for this morning.  Anyway, the sunlight was trickling in through the trees that morning, and I thought it looked interesting.

In the back left you can also see our sad, pathetic December deer.  They've both fallen and have become welded to the frozen earth and partly buried by the crusty snow.  They still light up at night, though.  It's sort of like something from a Calvin and Hobbes panel, I'm thinking.

No trickling sunlight this morning, though, kids.  The sky is a bluish grey and there are tiny little snowflakes drifting and hovering and falling groundward.  The weather forecast has called for blustery winds and snow throughout the morning, and super cold air.  "Extreme weather conditions" they're calling it.  But as I look outside, I don't really see a lot of extremeness.  Just...winter.  And yet, they've cancelled school in our school district and some others throughout the state.  Because of the cold.  So the kids are home.  I don't mind - they've both got colds/sore throats/coughs (mainly Alex) and I kept them home yesterday because of that.  Another day being away from all the other germy kids isn't a terrible thing.  But still.  I don't remember missing school just because it was cold.  Ah well.  I'm sure there must be other reasons as well.

Anyway, the kids are (at the moment) playing nicely downstairs, and my coffee is cold, so I'm trying to decide if I want to reheat it or not. 

I know.  How can one woman handle SO MUCH???

My plans for today...I need to make bread - there's a chore (hahaha).  Hmmm...maybe I'll make some cookies.  Didn't expect to want to do that, but since I'm home and the kids are...we'll see.  And for dinner I'm planning to make a clam chowder.  I was looking through cookbooks yesterday and saw a recipe for corn chowder and since I have a huge bag of frozen corn at the moment, that seemed like a great idea.  But we also have bags of clams in the freezer downstairs, so...clams, corn and potatoes.  Three of my favorite foods.  So that's the plan.  Let me know if you'd like to join us, so I can be sure to make enough.

The lizard is shedding...that might explain why he hasn't been as aggressive in the last few days. 

The cats keep hopping up onto the kitchen counter so they can gaze, big-eyed, tails twitching, at the birds and squirrels out on the two feeding platforms.  Alex thought it was hysterical yesterday.

Speaking of Alex - he just came in here to tell me he's starving, so I'll end this post for now and tend to my starving children. 

But I'm sure I'll be back soon.

As 2009 Begins...

 

I wish for everyone a year of peace and harmony.

Well, So Much for That

My mistake?  I sat down and had dinner with my husband.

He had been teaching and then met with another guitarist to run through some pieces they'll be playing together this month. 

When he got home, I was in mid-lebkuchen production, and I offered to fix him something to eat.  And I realized I hadn't had dinner either.

So I fixed us a plate of nachos with the previous night's taco leftovers and we sat downstairs, watching Andrew Zimmern and eating nachos.

And it was kind of nice to sit.

And then, we watched "House."  Still sitting.  And that was the end of my baking for the night.

Which, as it turned out, may have been for the best, because Julia, for the first time in, oh, a century, slept through the night.  So if I'd been awake all night, baking, I"d have missed out on sleeping through that myself.

So here we are, a new day.  Bill's heading to work soon, and then it'll be time to get the kids going. 

 And then?  It'll be back to the kitchen for me.

The Coffee is Brewing

I've been up since just before 4:00 this morning.  I was up early yesterday, too, though not as early as this.  Yesterday it was only 5:21.  Slacker. 

This morning it was sort of Julia-related.  She had come into our bed around 3-ish (I only looked at the digital display with one eye, so I didn't see the rest of the numbers, ha, ha.  Yeah.)  Anyway, I vaguely remember that Julia was tearful about something when she climbed up onto my side of the bed and promptly fell asleep between me and one of the cats and Bill.  I don't know what she was upset about, and she didn't say.  She just curled her little pajama-clad body up, cat-like, and all was right again in her world.  I fell back to sleep soon after, but then somewhere near 4:00, she woke me up.

That's the danger of allowing children to sleep in the bed.  The stray arm or leg that will fling itself wildly in any direction - usually in the direction of the bridge of my nose.  That, or the silent territorial dispute that occurs between feline and small human.  Blur had already staked out her usual spot, upstage center, snuggled between the pillows.  (Sometimes, lately, she will take over my whole pillow, and I have to gently remind her that, elder citizen though she may be, the bed, the covers, AND MY PILLOW, are not her property.)  When Julia joined the little group, she unwittingly intruded on Blur's territory.  I moved the cat initially, but she will creep right back again as soon as possible. 

Anyway, I guess Blur had had enough of Julia's wiggling and flailing, and so just before 4 this morning, she must have pushed back.  Just a bit.  Blur is extremely polite and gentle MOST of the time.  Her patience has really been pushed to the limit since we got the kittens, though, as they just don't GET that she doesn't want to play with them.  So maybe some of that impatience is carrying over toward the human children, too. 

Whatever the cause, Julia yelled out "OW!" and sort of whimpered.  That was it.  But I was awake.  And she wasn't.  She shifted around a bit, made a grumbly noise when she bumpted into Blur again (who was NOT moving), and then rolled onto her side and started to grind her teeth.

Ah, such a lovely sound, the grinding of the teeth. 

I was very definitely awake at that point.  I gave up the futile thought that maybe she'd only grind them once or twice and then (hahahahahaha) stop, and I rolled out of bed, picked up her completely floppy little slumbering body and brought her back to her own bed.  I also noticed that her sheet and blankets were all on the floor, so I'm thinking either she rolled around so much that they just slid off the bed, or, she fell out of bed in one big fabric-wrapped bundle.  That would account for the whimpering when she showed up at my bedside.

I dumped her on the bed (just kidding), covered her up again, and...well...was AWAKE. 

So I came downstairs, turned the heat down more (it's on some weird cycling thing where it only heats the bedrooms in the middle of the night, so though they're chilly during the day, they're like the Sahara while you're sleeping.  Even though I don't set the thermostat high at all.  Mmmm, nice, dry, hot, eyeball-dehydrating heat.

And then I brought my laptop and a big glass of icewater down to the basement, turned on PBS and watched "America's Test Kitchen" and then "Lidia's Italy" while I checked email and Google reader and other stuff.

And now I'm here.  In the living room, by the big front window, wrapped in a blanket and my husband's big flannel jacket.  Laptop on my knees, which are propped up by a pillow.  As I snuggled into position here, everyone else asleep, no sound but the random little house noises and the clicking of my fingers on the keypad, I whispered to myself "This is awesome!"  I'm so glad I got up when I did. 

The coffee pot has just chimed to let me know my beverage is ready, and so, for now, that is all.

In Which I Remind You I Am A Moron

For example, when I posted this yesterday.  And told you I wouldn't be posting for Tuesdays with Dorie.  Tuesdays.  And yesterday?  Was a Wednesday.  Yeah.  I's real smart.

And then, to that post, I received the following comment from Chocolatechic:

"Drat.  I was looking forward to your creativity with the cupcakes."

And I thought "that's nice - I am missed..." but I also thought..."yeah, but it's only cupcakes..."

Because - Moron Evidence Exhibit #278,586 - I forgot all about the "decorate them for Halloween" part.

Oh, DRAT INDEED!

I didn't realize I'd forgotten that until I started checking out one or two other TWD members...and I thought...hey, that's funny, they both decorated them for Halloween!  Yes, Jayne.  Clever observation on your part!  Wonder if anyone else noticed???!!!!

Well.

I stopped looking at TWD posts and decided that, despite my tardiness and my moronness, I would make these cupcakes, dammit, and decorate them APPROPRIATELY!!!

So today, while I am also baking bagels and bread, I'm going to make those cupcakes and decorate them somehow. 

Because, while I am a moron, I am also mad at myself for forgetting about the Halloween decorating part, and I can't NOT do it.  So look for something from me later today or - maybe more appropriately - tomorrow.

Tomorrow IS Halloween, right?  Okay.  That's what I thought.

Purple Flowers at CVS

I was out of salted butter, so I went to the CVS near our house just now to get some.  I'm sorry, but I just have to have salted (not unsalted, which I use in my baking) on my toast.  Have to.  Non-negotiable.

Anyway, while I was there I remembered that I am out of bubble bath stuff.  Shower gel/Foaming Bath Gel - whatever it's called.  I need some.  It's cold out now, and therefore the start of my soaking-in-a-hot-bath-while-Bill-puts-the-kids-to-bed season.

Down the end of the aisle there was a display of the brand of good-smelling stuff I like.  Of course, I can't remember the brand.  But whatever - the sale was 2 for $10.00.  I would buy one.  I'm on a budget.  I selected "Ocean Breeze" in the blue bottle, and looked at the others to make sure I wasn't missing one I liked better.  Oh, wait, is that lavender scented?

I picked up the bottle - it just said "Purple Flowers" or something like that, so I opened the top and squeezed ever so slightly so that some of the fragrance might waft out.

It had one of those heart valve-type openings and as I squeezed, suddenly the valves popped open and a little blob of violet goo flew out and hit me right in the face. 

I don't think anyone saw it happen, though depending on where the surveilance cameras are, someone watching may have had a really good laugh this morning.

I put the bottles back, wiped off my lenses and peeked in a mirror above a display of hair clips to make sure there were no unsightly shower gel splatters on my face or in my hair. 

Then I casually strolled to the dairy case to get my butter.

I'm going to smell like Purple Flowers for the rest of the day.

Dating Rituals of the Younger Set

My daughter, as of several minutes ago, has nine boyfriends. 

It took her most of the ride home to get the number sorted out.  First she said five, then seven, then six, and finally, just a block from our house, she settled on nine.

I knew of one.  A little boy in her Pre-K class.

Yes, Pre-K.  Just in case you are new to this site, my daughter is four.

Back to the boyfriends.  There's the one, Z, in her class.  She said the others "don't live there any more; they live next door."  To the daycare.  Oh.

She is so casual about them.  She speaks as if nine boyfriends was the norm.  And, I guess, if  you're a pre-schooler, maybe nine IS the norm. 

Their names, besides Z, are, if I remember correctly, Chewie, Lar, Pretty, Cutie, and four others that rhyme with each other but I can't remember the rhyming root, so I couldn't even make them up.  I don't think she's known them as long.  Pretty and Cutie are, as boyfriends for my daughter, a bit questionable.  Lar - I don't know where he came from, his name sounds Skandinavian or something, except he's missing the "s" I expect to hear on the tail end of his name.  And Chewie...well, I guess a big, strong, gun-toting space pilot is someone good to have in your corner...but I would have hoped she might have gone for Han instead.  Ah well.  And that brings us back to Z.  The only one with a "regular" name, which is why I'm just giving you the initial.  He's real.  And she's been with him the longest.

She and Z like to climb trees and - according to Julia - lick the bark.  I would bet he's a sweet, quiet boy who is perfectly content to let her boss him around.  Just a guess.

O, to be four and in love.

Of course, that's all going to change in a couple of years.

Alex, my son, who is six, is no way in heck going to hang out with a girl if he can help it.  At least not at school.  At this age, girls are icky.  He and his friends spend some of their recess running from the girls.  You know, so the girls can't touch them and give them cooties, or whatever it is the toxic girls are icky with these days.

Just last year, when he started Kindergarten, his first best friend in the class was a girl.  He attended both boy and girl birthday parties, and boys and girls attended his.

But that's all changed now.

And I wonder how they handle it.  This sudden separation of the sexes.  After all, kids grow and change and - eventually - mature at different rates, and how frustrating and sad and confusing it must be, as a girl, especially, to discover that you are no longer just a kid, playing with whoever was in your neighborhood.  Even if you were the only girl and played with a whole mess of boys - first it didn't matter, and now, all of a sudden, this year, when you are six, it matters.

You are no longer invited to play ball, but you haven't figured out how to play with the girls, because before, it didn't matter.  So you stand there, on the playground at recess, fitting in nowhere. 

And then, because you started out playing in the rougher world of boys, you communicate as best you can in a way you think maybe they'll understand.

You shove one of them.  Or you hit one.  Because, well, he's a sweet boy and you thought he was your friend.

You say HEY, look at me!  I want to play ball, too!

Unfortunately, they no longer understand what you're saying.

I tried to explain this, sort of, to my son yesterday. 

He, the recipient of physical miscommunication this year. 

But he's gone over now.  He's six, and a boy, and if there are other boys around, he can't be friends with or play with a girl.  Not right now, anyway. 

She will have to figure out how to play with the girls.  At least for now.

Until the boys learn - again - that girls aren't icky at all.

Unsolicited Commentary

I'm going through the checkout line with Julia a little while ago. 

The cashier is simultaneously ringing up my items and having a conversation with the bagger.

And then she (the cashier) says to me:

"You got a lot of weird-lookin' pasta."

Inspired. Nudged. Kicked in the Pants.

My house looks like some giant 4-year old picked it up, turned it upside down, shook it a few times, and then dropped it on the floor.  A bit later that giant 4-year old's mom tripped over it, cursed, and set the house right-side up again.

We all weren't home when it happened, otherwise we'd have concussions and broken bones and all that.

And I'm sitting here INTENDING to type some long-overdue posts...I've got a whole mess of recipes and photos to post, and yet...and yet...I can't concentrate.

That pink electric Barbie guitar over on the floor, for instance.  Where my little rockin' baby girl left it.  And the knocked-over stack of construction paper in the other room.  The kittens did that.  And the dishes in the sink.  The 58 cookbooks on my little work table in the kitchen.

A little bit here, a little bit there.  It's distracting me.  I tried to ignore it.  Tried to say, well, I'll type for a few hours and then I'll clean until it's time to go get the kids.  So I sat myself down with my coffee and my laptop and started.  Except that first I checked email and submitted a photo to Food Gawker and PhotoGrazing and Tastespotting...and while I was at Tastespotting I clicked on a photo that linked to this post about food photography (it's a terrific post - go read it if you are at all interested in improving your food photos) and so I sat here and read the post and slouched lower and lower because lately I don't think my food photos have been all that good...and so I started thinking, yes, I need to make some improvements tdo the way I do things, don't I...okay, so I bookmarked that post.

And then I figured that since I was already procrastinating (posting a photo of one of the cats doesn't count), I should (should!) check my Google Reader...and there was this post by Susan about - of all people I should encounter on my day of procrastination and self-loathing - Martha Stewart.  She has a blog.  And grumpily I clicked on the link so I could check out Martha's blog.

  

I admit that my initial thoughts were not charitable.

And that's odd, for me, because I have always been a Martha Stewart fan.  Not an "OHMYGODIT'SMARTHASTEWART!" kind of fan.  But more of an "oh, that's a cool idea" kind of fan.  Like, if she was bringing her dogs to the vet and I was bringing my cats to the vet (and we had the same vet), and we were sitting in the waiting room with all our pets barking and hissing at each other, I figure we could share a laugh about the situation.  And take pictures of our fighting pets and then frame them in clever hand-crafted gilt-edged frames we'd fashion from accululated trimmed pet toenails and pine cones.  And then make cookies.

So anyway, I went to Martha's blog - The Martha Blog - and my initial thought (seeing's how I'm in this grumpy mood already) was something like "Oh great, she's got a blog, TOO???  Doesn't she have ENOUGH stuff she's great at?  She's got to go and have a blog, now, so that I feel even more inadequate than I already do????  In my messy house????  With my bad food photos?????  Gee, thanks, Martha." 

And then, because I am a glutton for punishment, I went and read a recent post entitled "Come Visit My Blog Studio at My Home."  And several words in that blog post title stood out.  (Actually, they didn't stand out, they turned away, dropped trou and mooned me.  No, really, they did.)  Those words were:  Blog.  Studio.  at.  My.  Home.  Studio?  Well THAT must be my problem.  I only have a laptop and a juice-stained loveseat.  No wonder I'm not popular!!!!

Anyway, I took a look at the images of her Blog Studio at Her Home.  It's a converted goat shed (darn, I just sold mine at the yard sale) that she's decorated in the Shaker style.  (Ah, my Rococo-influenced goat shed interior was probably too distracting for me to get any work done in anyway...much like the SloppyHomeWithChildren style in my house.  Those Shakers sure knew how to design for maximum productivity in a Blog Studio at Your Home.  Who'da thunk?)

Anyway.  In her glorious converted goat shed Blog Studio at Her Home, Martha has, well, first of all, lots of uncluttered space.  Two computers.  A staff.  A great wall of blog ideas.  And a really good paper trimmer.

And me?  I have a blood blister on my left hand from one of the crappy banquet tables we used during the yard sale to enticingly display some of our rejected posessions.

Does Martha have yard sales?  I wonder if she's got an extra goat shed she doesn't need....

And you know, as I write all of this, I do it with affection.  Or something like that.  I could probably have at least a small Blog Studioette somewhere In My Home.  And I could take better food photos.  

I just need to change the style in my home from SloppyWithChildren to something simpler.  Less cluttered.  I need to tap into my innerMartha, I guess.

Or I need to get a really good paper trimmer.  That might just do the trick... 

My Dangerous Lifestyle

You know how the name of this blog is "Barefoot Kitchen Witch?" 

The "barefoot" comes from - big surprise - the fact that I prefer to go sans socks or shoes if at all possible.  You probably already knew that or you figured it out.

Moving on...

Yesterday was my favorite kind of day, almost.  Clouds and showers and wind.  Didn't like the humidity, but hey, you can't have everything.

I had grand plans - bake some bread and make ravioli.  I've been wanting to try this particular recipe for a while now and finally I had all the ingredients and the time to do it. 

The ravioli is filled with a mixture of meat and spinach, and rather than go out and buy spinach, I harvested the following from our garden - 3 huge bunches of swiss chard, 2 enormous pak choi, several baby arugula plants, some parsley, some basil..........I think that was it.  But there was a lot of "it."  The recipe calls for 2 cans of spinach.  It's an old recipe - I'll talk more about it when I post it eventually - and that will depend on how the pictures look - and so cans of spinach would have been the norm.  But you know how spinach and other leafy greens are - they look big and impressive when you yank them up by the roots from your garden, but once you chop them up and steam them, they shrink.

So I thought - I'm going to need WAY more than just the swiss chard.  That's why I grabbed everything that looked like it would work well.  (I left the cabbage alone.)

So I trimmed leaves and rinsed well in cold water and chopped them up and steamed them and that part was all set.  I did that, by the way, on Saturday.  So Sunday, all I had to do was make the sauce, cook the meat, make the filling, make the pasta dough, form the ravioli and cook them.  (The recipe also calls for leaving them out to dry overnight, but with all our cats prowling around, that would be a disaster.)

Okay, so back to Sunday.  The bread was in progress, the sauce was bubbling, and soon it would be time to cook the meat and put the filling together.  I also needed to make some space on the counter so I could roll out the pasta dough eventually.  My bowl of compost stuff was ready to overflow, so I figured I'd get rid of that stuff first.  Besides, it was hot in the kitchen (bread baking at 400 degrees) so a stroll through the damp grass seemed like a nice interruption.

I carried the compost container outside.  The cold, wet grass felt good on my feet.  The air, despite the humidity, had that feeling of "autumn's coming" to it, and I looked at tomato plants to see if there was anything ripe enough to pick while I was out there.

We've got several garden spiders living near the compost bins.  Makes sense - the perfect place for them to trap flies.  I don't mind them being there - I think they're pretty, and their webs are huge and stunning.  I just don't want to walk into one of the webs if they decide to change locations.  So I paused by the corner of the garage to scope out the path and make sure there were no new webby developments along my walkway.  There were none.  I dumped the vegetable trimmings, said hi to the one spider visible and admired the webs.  Then back past the garage and into the yard.

I walked past the white clematis blooming on the lattice beside the garage, past the garden bench and the overgrown ornamental grass growing around it and up through the slats in the seat.

And then it happened.

Suddenly there was something sharp and extremely painful sticking me on the underside of my right big toe.  Like a splinter, only...more persistent.  More...on fire.

Now...I have a dread of sharp things sticking the undersides of my feet.  I know it's a common enough phobia - sharpthingstickinginthebottomofthefootophobia is the scientific name.  You've probably heard of it.  I know exactly where mine originated.  I was seven years old, and I had a plantars wart on the ball of my left foot.  I don't think Doctor Scholl had been born yet, or if he had, he had only invented wooden-soled flip-flops and hadn't gotten around to the wart removal stuff yet.  So I had to go to the doctor - the REAL doctor, not the flip-flop-making doctor - to have this taken care of.

And though he was a very, very wonderful doctor - he delivered me and my sister - delivered me without doing a c-section, even though I was a breach, so yeah, it can be done - I hated going to his office.  It was a beautiful office, with a huge red leather chair for the patient to sit in while he asked questions...but it was also the chair of torture.  The high back was perfect for cornering small kids who didn't want tongue depressors stuck in their mouths. 

But I digress.  (That could be the name of this blog, come to think of it.)

So I had to go see Dr. N. to get rid of this thing on my foot.  Up til that point, I had lived a rather happy and carefree life, free of pain save for the occasional scraped knee.  But no tonsil problems, no broken bones...none of the painful realities of life.  Until that day.

I followed Dr. N to the exam room - where the exam table, steely and shiny, waited.  My mother and the nurse escorted me, probably to make sure I didn't run.  But I had no desire to run.  Yet.

They had me lie down on the table and Dr. N removed the white Keds sneaker from my left foot and took a look.  He conferred a bit with the nurse and my mother, but I wasn't listening, really, and even if I had been, I wouldn't have suspected what was to come.

And then he got the needle.  It must have been a foot long - really.  He said he had to kill the root of the wart.  He also told me to lie still.  Huh?  Warts have roots??  Like trees?  I was still pondering that when I felt the first sharp pain in my little delicate tootsie.

And I flinched.  I probably recoiled and was ready to fling myself to the floor, but the nurse and my mother - one on each side of the table - stopped me.

And then the awful words.  "Well, I'm going to have to do that again, because you moved."  Out came the big needle again, and with the nurse and my mother practically prone across my struggling little body, kindly Dr. N JAMMED the needle into my foot.

I am sure I made them all aware of the pain I felt.  The pain I felt TWO TIMES because - silly me - I moved the first time.

And then after he injected the wart-root-killing stuff into the right place, he proceeded to kill the wart.  I really don't know what he was actually doing.  I just know it involved my poor little foot, and that if I moved, he might have to start all over again.

Got that?  So I really don't like pain in my feet.  And you'd think that, because of that, I would wear some sort of footwear all the time.  But I don't.  I like to live on the edge.

Back to yesterday.  OW.  Pain - sharp, small, burning pain.  I stood on one foot and looked at the bottom of my other foot, looking for maybe a thorn or an unlikely splinter.  There was nothing to see.  But there, on the wet ground, was the culprit.  A little yellow jacket writhed in the wet grass.

Ah.  That's what happened.  I haven't had that happen since I was a little kid.  A summer's day, my sister and I running back and forth under the sprinkler in the back yard.  Frolicking happily, until one of us stepped on a waterlogged honeybee and got stung and all the fun ended for the moment.  Both of us got stung the exact same way that day.  Each of us, right underneath a little piggy toe.

So yesterday, after I saw the little yellow jacket and figured out what the pain was from, I hobbled/limped/hopped/skipped/looked really silly back to the house as quickly as I could manage - my foot burned. 

I threw the empty compost container on the counter and hiked my injured foot up to the sink so I could look at it again (good thing I'm pretty flexible - it took some contorting to get a good view) to see if the stinger was there (no) and to run it under some water. 

Ow, ow, ow.  I wanted to be a little kid and have permission to cry.  But no.  That era has passed.  Bill hovered on the periphery "what can I do?" - I told him to get me the baking soda.  In the pantry.  The big orange box.  It should be right THERE because I just put it away.  He found it.  I had him pour some in a little bowl and I mixed it with a bit of water and was about to slap some on the general underside-of-the-toe area when he suggested using that "After Bite" stuff we bought for camping trips.  It's for stings, too.  Fine, I'll take whatever you've got.  So he grabbed that from the bathroom and I tried to apply it to where the sting might be originating.  "It's gonna hurt, " he warned.  "It already DOES," I pointed out.  I didn't notice any additional pain, so either I missed the point of entry or it just didn't have the same pain-making power that my little buzzing friend did.  I slapped some of the baking soda-and-water paste on my foot and hobbled into the living room so I could sit.

I also called my sister.  "What do I mix with baking soda for a yellow jacket sting?" I greeted her.  "Ammonia" - that's what I had thought.  I didn't have any.  Then Bill said that's what was in the After Bite stuff.  Oh.  Okay.  So I mixed that with the baking soda and patted that into place and waited for relief.  And I admitted to my sister that yes, I'm a bad mother, bad wife, failure as a human being because I don't have any ammonia in the house.  I thought I did, but no. 

Despite this pain - and the ugly swelling of my already-ugly big left toe - I persevered.  I finished the bread, I made the ravioli filling, I made the pasta dough, and I put the ravioli together, cooked it, and served dinner to my waiting parasites family (JUST KIDDING ABOUT THE PARASITES THING!!!!!!!!).  They all loved the ravioli - no, wait, Julia didn't because she'd fallen asleep earlier and isn't all that hungry or jolly when we wake her up from a nap. 

After dinner, I sat.  Foot UP.  Gradually the sharp stinging/burning faded to a dull, sometimes sharp but mostly throbbing and really annoying constant reminder of why some people wear shoes outside.  My husband suggested that I might want to give that a try.

I'll think about it.

Sidelined

I spent nearly all of yesterday on my feet - walking Alex to school, picking him up after (with Julia in tow), and then reorganizing and cleaning my kitchen (to make room for the newest KitchenAid member of the family - see yesterday's post), and then making pizza dough and sauce and prepping toppings to make pizzas for dinner.  10 pizzas.  Well, okay, Alex and Julia each made their own pizza, so really I only created 8 of them.  I took the last two pizzas out of the oven just before nine. 

Today, my left ankle has siezed up and I can't walk.  I can, however, hobble.  And I've perfected this one-legged sideways heel-toe-heel-toe zig-zag maneuver that is actually faster than trying to put weight on my foot and FEELING LOTS OF PAIN and pausing to do a sort of speeded-up "heh heh heh" Lamaze breathing thing while I wait for the pain to subside, and then repeating the process all over again as I make my way from one room to the next.

I actually scooted down the stairs on my butt this morning.  And in the process, I discovered a great multi-tasking workout for arms and leg (eventually legs, but not today) as I support my own body weight and kind of crab-walk down the stairs.  Really works the triceps!

It's a circus around here today.  Or at least it's my very own freak show.

And you'd think I'd be so grateful to have an excuse to just SIT and type or read or watch cooking shows, or whatever, but actually I'm having a hard time with it.  Because I SHOULD sit, I don't WANT to.

~~~

I'm back.  Never missed me, did you?  I actually went upstairs to look in the deep, dark recesses of my closet to find a couple of old purses/handbags/pocketbooks/whatever you want to call them - for Julia to use.

Right now she's got one that I received at my bridal shower - it's kind of formal, and it's something you have to carry in your hand or maybe looped over your wrist, as opposed to something you can sling over your shoulder and have your hands free.  I'm all for having as many hands free as possible as I go about my day.  So I gave that one to Julia (the strap is too short for me but just about right for Julia, who is considerably shorter, and also hasn't developed a preference for bag styles yet) and another one that I think my sister gave me or I bought because it reminded me of my sister - it's just a simple fabric envelope-like bag on a long thin fabric strap, and the bag itself is embroidered in this cool, offbeat pattern.  It's really nice - actually, and I'm thinking that since my current little bag thing is going to fall apart soon, maybe I should get this other one away from Julia now, before she does something to it.

She actually went for the larger, shorter-strapped bag first.  She looped it over her head and one arm, like she sees me do, and struck a mature-woman pose (in her Disney princess underwear - I think she's featuring Jasmine today) and said "Don't I look like a grown up girl who's going shopping?"  I told her yes and suggested she go show this look to Daddy, because he'd be so proud.

I like to mess with him.

She came back a bit later and removed that purse and went for the other one.  Too formal for everyday wear, I expect.

And then she came over to the couch to tell me - in her best motherly tone - that she was going shopping, and not to worry about "that big boy" in the kitchen, because "he's all growned up."  And then she tilted her head and gave me a June Cleaver smile and said "Just like you are, dear." 

And off she went.

~~~

You might be wondering why just doing stuff on my feet all day would affect my ankle so badly.  I don't know.  I think I have a habit of standing with all my weight on my left foot at times, and I just don't realize it as I'm doing it.  But also, it's most likely due to a lack of good arch support, plain and simple.  Much as I rebel against it, I really should wear my sneakers when I'm on my feet a long time.  Problem is, I don't WANT to.  I'm much happier (at least initially) going barefoot (hence the name of this website) and wearing shoes when I'm not even going to the store or a restaurant or something is just...it's hard for me. 

And yes, I realize how trivial this is.  I'm feeling trivial at the moment.  If you want substance today, look elsewhere.

~~~

While I was polishing up all my beloved KitchenAid workhorses yesterday

(and here they are, all lined up nice and pretty)

 

the kittens were doing this:

 

 

(Yes, that's Softie in mid-leap.)

Oh, how they loved that loud crinkly brown packing paper.  They played with it - in it, on it, under it, around it, between it - for hours.  It gradually got pushed and pulled down the little hall and into the music room - one long sheet of brown paper stretching from here to there.  I redirected the paper into the living room, just because the music room actually has important valuable music stuff and if it done got broke, Bill would be cooking the kittens in the deep fryer.  NOT REALLY!  We don't have a deep fryer. 

Anyway, by the time Bill got home, the paper was all in the living room and heading for the stairs.  He had a student coming over, so he put an end to the fun, but the kittens were deep in slumber by that point anyway.

~~~

For some unfathomable cat reason, Softie and Scratchy love Bill's footwear.  Shoes, sneakers, sandals, and - as you can tell - slippers. 

Five minutes after I shot this, Softie was sleeping. 

~~~

Okay, I think that's enough to bore you with for now.  Time to do my one-legged softshoe routine into the kitchen and get some lunch.

Turn, turn, turn

We went camping for a few days last week, up in NH, in and around Conway and North Conway.  Took the kids to Storyland, built fires, explored, and lazed.  No laptop, no tv, no phones (mostly).  Although we did listen to part of the Sox game Thursday night on the truck radio.  Kids fell asleep early, so Bill and I sat around the fire and listened to some of the game...it was nice.  Didn't need to see it - just listening was enough, watching the flames and coals shimmer in the dark.

Anyway.

Trips like that - northern New England - always affect me the same way.  They make me want to start quilting again.  They make me want to simplify.  To clean out.  To pare down.  To live differently than I do most of the time. 

And coincidentally, it is mid August, and though it is still technically summer, the transition to autumn has already begun.  We can see it in the gardens - plants like the zucchini and pattypan and cucumber have given all they can give.  Leaves are curling up and fading.  Tiny, last-of-the-season fruits are clinging to the vines - itty, bitty pattypans...a half-big, half-small cucumber way up high on the plant. 

We are picking tomatoes as they ripen, and I'll pack some away, but it really hasn't been a banner year for them.  We won't put away nearly as much as last year.  But that's how it goes.  We get what we get.  If I want more, I'll buy them at the farmers' markets, along with corn, which we didn't grow this year because we really don't have the space to make it worthwhile.  It's fun, but the plants take up a lot of space that we could be using for other, higher-yield plants. 

We've got second rounds of some things in...kohlrabi...scallions...more carrots...pak choi...I forget what else.  Bill's gone out to pick the ripe blueberries.  I should make some batches of pesto this week, too.

It's harvest season, yes, or at least the start of it.  But to me, this time of year is more about the start of things than the winding down.  The beginning of the school year has always felt much more like the real beginning of the year than January 1st.  Maybe it's just the feeling of transition, from summer to fall, from shorts and bathing suits to new shoes and school clothes.  So much is new, especially when you're a child - new teacher, new classmates, new pencils and pink erasers.  It is the start of the school year, and really all of your life, at least until you're out of high school or college, revolves around the beginning and ending of that year.  Things don't begin in January at all.  You go back to school after the winter break.  You're in the middle of winter.  It's not even time to start seeds yet.  September - or late August - is really the start of the year, no matter what the calendars tell you.

And spring cleaning?  No...I don't feel like cleaning then.  I feel like it now.  The humidity - at the moment - is somewhere else, and the cooler mornings are so much more invigorating than mid-summer warmth.  

I am in the mood to clear out.  Clean out.  Get rid of what I don't need or want.  Just like my husband will be pulling up the spent vegetable plants and composting them, leaning out the gardens to prep them for next year, so I will do the same in our house.  It's that time of year.  'Tis the season, at least for me.

  

A Quick Hello

I'll be posting later on today - I've got a few things I need to take care of this morning.  But I'll be back.

I've been working on some improvements (I think)/changes/new stuff for this site - I've started a navigation bar just below my banner, and you'll notice one of the options is "Slideshows."  Well, at the moment it's only one slideshow - I wanted to try it out and see how it looked. 

It's a WILDLY EXCITING (hahahaha) slideshow of me kneading bread dough left-handed (because I was holding the camera in my right hand).  I thought that instead of posting 20 pictures of me kneading dough every time I post a bread recipe, I could just refer readers to the slideshow. 

So let me know what you think, and yes, I know, in some shots my arm looks freakishly huge and wide and bizarre.  I have to work on avoiding that in subsequent slideshows....