Just the Tops

I made a double batch, 24, of these Morning Glory muffins yesterday afternoon.

They were left on the cooling rack, like lambs to the slaughter.

As I was otherwise occupied in another room, Hudson silently pulled himself up to the counter, sat down comfortably on a bench, and removed the paper from 7 muffins- devouring the bottoms in a crumbly mess Cookie Monster style, tossing the tops across the counter, obviously considering them inedible waste. Apparently, this unique, extraordinary child loves the stumps.

The mess was cleaned up, the muffins stored away.

And this morning we enjoyed my fantastic Morning Glory Muffins gourmet-style- just the tops.

My Life in France

You saw what I read in January.

In February, I read one book. I read slowly and deliberately and savored every single page and hard-to-pronounce French word. And I can't just post it, without saying something.

In my life of reading, I have found along the way a certain handful of people, stretched across time, who have met me on the same soul-road. Isobel Kuhn, Hudson Taylor (that's one Jim and I each found before we were together, and yes he's Hudson's namesake), Elisabeth Elliot, Brennan Manning, Sally Clarkson, and Julia Child are some of these people- and through the power of biography, the power of honest, real life, I've found understanding, encouragement, enlightenment, and affirmation for the road I've travelled, and for where I'm going from here. People who, through the writing of their own life, struggles, revelations, and victories, I've found real, true kinship.

The details have been different, the heart discoveries have been the same.

And these are the books that become part of my fabric.

Not sure I've ever waxed so philosophical in a book report.

Ordinaryness is not a word. I Checked.

We do all kinds of great stuff during the week when no one else is around. Like go to the zoo, museums, shopping, parks. Midweek, Mid-Morning, no one's out doing this stuff. Until summer, then some places are a little touch-and-go all day, but, it's summer, so you're happy and warm and you roll with it.

On the weekend, we stay away from all those places because they become twilight zones of out-of-towners and frenzied shoppers, coming to our big city from the small, surrounding places. Good for them. They keep our economy running. But they make traffic crazy. There's like, people, hundreds of people, everywhere. Craziness. So we keep our weekends low key, and bake, go to off-the-beaten path parks, and do other stuff that pops up in life.

But back to my point, because I have one, we have the flex and freedom to enjoy things midweek.

Last week, I brought my DSLR everywhere. I took pictures of all kinds of everyday things we do when we're out, like, shopping at Target, and going to the Washington Pavilion.

Here's a few shots from The Pav, as I call it in my mind to myself, and YES, I promise, a few shots from Target are coming sometime soon. I know, I know, pins and needles to see this wonderful ordinaryness.

I just wanted to get out and shoot some normal, life as it happened, stuff we do on a weekly basis. Because I celebrate the everyday. To save you from a photojournalistic tour de force, I am only sharing a few shots. You can thank me in whatever way you feel appropriate.


Lily's behind is always before me. It's an unstoppable force. Girl can not keep her pants up.


We've been here about 57 times, but the Water Cycle slide was more fun today because we'd just learned about it in class the day before (with ACTIONS!).

I don't think I could have gotten that shot any straighter.




What did I tell you?

The most fantastic people volunteer at the Pavilion during the week. Lots of super-friendly retired teacher empty nester types that LOVE children. This guy, in addition to having fun animals to touch, does a mean ball in cups trick. Gets the girls every time. If you live here, you should definitely get in on this. It's astonishing.

There's actually several levels to the science center, I just didn't take pictures of EVERYTHING on this day. There's also a free art/creativity room for kids in the Visual Arts center- and your small children may like going through the Art exhibits more than you'd expect.

And finally, this year, your membership includes unlimited trips to see Cinedome movies.

Slay my heart, that child is adorable.

Faux Board

I wanted this chalk board. For a long time. Words are my thing. I love quotes. I love messages and notes and I wanted it. For it's size, and it's endless possibilities of usefulness. It, this lovely 24x36 board of possibility was $99. Plus massive Pottery Barn shipping. You just can't find something like this in stores. I tried. But that was too much, even with all it's possibilities.

So I made my own.

Finally. I finally got to it.

24x36 frame from Hobby Lobby, 50% off: $25.00

I took out the glass and stored it in the basement, turned around the black cardboard backing so it was in the front, and wrote on it.

Because it's too cold to paint outside. Bitterly cold. And chalk board paint STINKS and STAINS (we've got a wall of it in our school room- it's perfect, but painstaking to do it right.) But when I do have a warm spring day to do it right, Jim will obtain and cut to size a piece of MDF (wiki-linked for anyone like me that's not in the know of anything handyman like) and I will paint it with my under $5 can of chalk board paint, and I'll swap out and have a real board. Not a faux board.

For about $30.

See? It's all an illusion. Do not come to my house and erase this. It will smear around and make a big mess.

But the first above 50 degree day, you can believe I'll be outside finishing this up and making an honest chalk board out of her.

It Hurts to be Pretty

Ah. That ancient rite of passage, ear piercing. When it's done right it's quick, though mentally gross, but once it's done, it's oh, so rewarding. Once you're pierced, your options for cute earrings are endless, yet it's something so irky to think about for some, that even Oprah herself waited until post-midlife to be forced into it.

Our girls have asked about it often, and I always told them any time they felt like they really wanted to do it, we'd go.

Friday morning, Patie declared, out of nowhere, that she was READY. (Grace was quick to point out that Patie only wanted to do it because so many of her friends have pierced ears. Patie, loudly miffed, "No, that's NOT why. I just want to do it." She then listed her friends with pierced ears, and what colors they were wearing last time she saw them.

I knew Grace was terrified at the idea, but really wanted to do it. By that afternoon, she sheepishly owned up to it and said she wanted to go too. It's tough having a fearless kid sister when you're squeamish like your Mom.

So Saturday was the day. I was really excited for them. What a little milestone.

I really wanted to take pictures of the actual event, but Grace's heart was pounding and she was having a hard time keeping it together while we watched Patie (who was very matter of fact throughout the whole ordeal, recounting later that, "It hurt really bad, but then it was done. Now it doesn't hurt." No tears, just triumph for Patience.

Grace was terribly nervous, but DID IT. And through the tears, got the victory. And the sparkles in her ears. I'm proud of her. But no pictures. I held her hands instead. I've got my priorities straight, you know.



Lily, far too independent to get sister-peer-pressured into anything, thought it over and decided she would like to wait until she's 4. We'll see.

Cake.

On Saturday morning, a friend asked me for cake recipe recommendations. I threw her a reply, but after consulting the cookbook with the girls looking on with all kinds of commentary, we decided it was now mandatory that we bake something. Mandatory.

So while we were out that morning we picked up a couple of items at the store, like Cream of Coconut- have you seen this stuff? Amazing.

Something about covering a cake with toasted coconut is just, very domestic. I think you should try it.

You can find the recipe here. And if you really love to bake, you'd better get this one too.

Blueberry Galette

Find it here.

Love Locked Up

Jim and I each wrote the kids a note for their plates at breakfast on Valentine's Day.

I hadn't thought about them since, until I was putting their AWANA tote bags back into the lockers this morning. This is what I saw.

First Lily's, crumpled, but they got there.


Then, opening Patie's locker, I found she'd stashed likewise. Folded, stuck away for safe keeping with other sundries.


Then, you bet, there in the third locker, were Grace's notes. Not a single crumple or fold, stuck up with care for display.

As the girls busied themselves with their work, I couldn't help but smile quietly to myself, at the different ways they tucked away their notes- Lily's discrumpled and smudged with chocolate but lovingly saved just the same, Patie's perfectly folded with exact precision (she loves this), and Grace's, on display for beauty's and future encouragement's sake. She's definitely our beauty and words girl.

It was just so "them".

I have absolutely no idea where Hudson's are. None.

Wednesday Night Confessional **Updated**

We're eating roasted garlic for dinner tonight.

Garlic heads, ends cut off, drizzled with EVOO and white wine, touched with salt and pepper, and roasted until they are kinda caramelized, nutty, sweet, and divine.

They're in the oven right now. They smell amazing.

Then we're going to eat them, crushed in dipping bowls and covered with more EVOO and some Balsamic. With whole grain crackers, because we don't have any baguettes in the freezer and I didn't feel like baking quick bread this afternoon.

Roasted garlic and crackers. And probably water. That's what we're eating for dinner tonight. Then we're out the door for AWANA.

And I'm really excited about the roasted garlic. It's absolutely dinner all by itself. And I just wanted to tell someone.

Also, we use regular pepper. Not freshly ground pepper from a mill. Which America's Test Kitchen says is essential. Might as well not use pepper at all if it isn't super-nice pepper, that you grind yourself. And I always feel a little ashamed that we don't have a pepper mill, or nice pepper to grind in it. We just use the plain, apparently terrible stuff. And I just felt like confessing that to someone.

And I used an old picture, because I think posts are better with a picture. And I didn't feel like taking a new one- even though the roasting garlic is sensational.

***

Yep. It tasted amazing. Surprisingly, the Triscuits tasted great, bread is better, but the crackers weren't weird at all. We also had string cheese, and a graham cracker and a yogurt for desert. Patie likes the dipping oil so much she dipped the graham too. I liked it so much, when my crackers were gone, I used my finger to grab the rest.

Scroll Down to See the Sexiest Mixer in the History of KitchenAid.

That's right. Don't scroll down unless you're ready to get seriously hot and bothered. But first, a story...

My mother bought her Pro-Grade KitchenAid mixer when I was very small. She almost never used it when I was small, maybe a few times a year, but had every attachment available at the time, just in case she ever got the itch. Really she just liked the idea of it. All it represented. She could make applesauce or grind her own meat if she wanted to. Just in case.

By the time I entered grade school, it was shoved to the back of the kitchen and never saw the light of day again until I got a little older, and was intrigued by it's appeal, it's sense of mystery, and it's raw power for any task I could throw it. It's great usefulness whispered to me, and in my spirit I knew how much it ached to come out and be useful, to be needed, to be properly appreciated. So a few times a year, from the time I was 11 or so, I'd dig it out, clean it up, and use it. All by myself. My mother continued to not.

Then I went away. It sat alone in the dark. Then I got married, and got pregnant, and got done with school, and got serious about making a home of our own. What my mother idealized as the perfect domestic vision but didn't possess in real identity, I had the power to embody. I actually like to cook. Love to cook. Love to learn more and more about how to cook. I make mean baked goods. My husband cooks for fun on the weekends, makes mean breads. Because it's our thing. Not her thing. I needed that mixer. But this had to be done delicately. I knew what it symbolized to my mother, though she left it in the dark for some 20 years. As a woman, I could understand- it's the idea of it, the idea of that identity, the idea of the ideal, to her. And she never became it. Giving it away would mean admitting that time had passed, and she didn't become that ideal she'd idealized. Though maybe she never really wanted it for herself, she still attached that ideal to being the right kind of woman. You follow?

Jim and I talked it over. We both wanted her bad. Over Spring Break of our senior year in 2003 we house sat for my parents and we got that old KitchenAid out and loved on her. Cleaned her up, gave her a proud spot on the counter- as a surprise for my mother. If she began using it, we'd know she really wanted to make a new start. If not, we'd wait a while and see, and if it felt right, we'd ask. So we sat, eating pizza, my belly full of Grace not yet born, and I asked, ever so delicately, right there in the middle of the restaurant. Just in case it got ugly, we were in a public place, so it couldn't get too bad, if you know what I mean. I asked if she'd used it much lately since we got it out last March (this was 2 months later). She'd used it once, to make some brownies. Like, the from a .99 box brownies. Great. Once. For a job you can do by hand if you wanted. Sad, and great at the same time. So the moment felt right. I let her know if she felt like she wasn't going to need it, Jim and I would give her a great home. Instantly, her face changed, and she let me know she was actually planning on baking some bread soon. (I've never, ever, in all my years seen my mother bake bread). Right. She's not ready.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and Grace was about to be born. My mother came up to visit, mixer and all the many special, amazing attachments for grinding, shredding, and the like along. Glory Hallelujah, she had a breakthrough. That big, heavy, bowl-lifting super machine was ours. Jim baked bread almost immediately. I ate some of that first batch of whole grain bread the morning I went in for my induction. I remember it clearly. It was good.

And ever since that spring day in 2003, we've kept that KitchenAid purring like a kitten. That bowl got dirty at least a few times a week. It, paired with my trusty KitchenAid food processor, kept our kitchen tasty and messy.

And on Friday, February 12, 2010, she gave a fond farewell. After just nearly finishing a double batch of sugar cookie dough, we heard a small sizzle, and the girls and I watched as smoke began pouring out her back (a story they retell with great panache). Oh, sweet mixer, your time is done. You were old and a little rusty at the bottom from years of living in the dark, but you were trusty, and I'm glad we gave you these last Renaissance years before you paddled your last.

But, out with the old, the next day, after thorough inspection by The Engineer, we put her away and I very proudly went out to purchase a new one. My new one. Not a hand-me-down, but one that encompasses my identity, our identity.

She had to be beautiful- and oh, she is. And she had to be powerful, for this baking, cooking, processing family of 6. Oh, she's powerful.


The KitchenAid Pro 600 Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer in Cocoa Silver. A color that I believe is perfect. I have walls this color. Just off the kitchen. So they salute one another in their brown-silver loveliness.

After intense online searching and comparing of models, The Engineer gave me three models to choose from as the best for this house, and I was off to Macy's.

And there she was. Oh, Have Mercy, there she was.



And the very first icing she made for my cake did not come out of her giant-sized 14 Cups of Flour capacity bowl, but from her price.

Originally $499, she was on sale this weekend for $399 (KitchenAids are on sale everywhere right now- it's their 90th Anniversary- thank you, old mixer for dying now). On top of this sale, there was a $40 rebate, which Macy's didn't even know about, but we did after all that online searching and I told them, and By George they found it online and gave it to me, and on top of that, I did something I rarely do and signed up for a Macy's card (this is one rare exception when playing the credit card game benefits you, and when I get a chance to play their game and take all their benefits and not get caught up in the scam, I do it with reckless abandon. Digressing here...), and that card gave me another 20% off. Are you doing that math???

$500 mixer. For about $280. Give or take some tax.

The first thing we made was some sugar cookie frosting. The kids all helped. In her inaugural run, she got all covered in confectioner's sugar and corn syrup and love. It was a fitting start to a wonderful life together.

My Funny Valentines

This is what you looked like when you came to the Valentine's Day breakfast table. And I just wanted to remember it.

Also, let's not forget how your Dad let you eat all your chocolate, suckers, and cookies for breakfast, with a few strawberries and a cup of milk on the side.

And this year, Grace and Patience, you could read your Valentine's notes from Mom and Dad all by yourselves, because you're reading rockstars now. That is so much fun. Thanks for translating for Lily and Hudson too.

Love you, you lovely ladies.

Love.

As V Day approaches, I went digging through my archives for this picture that I remembered taking, so I could throw it on my desktop background. I took it about 5 weeks after getting my first DSLR. I loved it. When I pulled it out I was all, "Whew dog, that is one bad picture." It was just a jpeg, from long before I shot in RAW or owned Photoshop, and if I'd known what I was doing at all, it would have been a completely different exposure. But it wasn't. It was so sweet, all full of nostalgia and yellowish-colored goodness from back in the day when I was just getting to know what's up and what's down, and I remember I was experimenting with depth-of-field. Good for me. That's how you figure things out.

But this just couldn't do for my desktop wallpaper.


So I threw it into CS3 and within 30 seconds, it looked like this.


Ahhhh, that's better. Still not perfect, but Oh, so much better. I have looked everywhere for these little conversation hearts this year, and it looks like they don't sell them in the bags any more- only those little boxes. What is up with that? I digress.

I just wanted to say, I remember vividly what it was like to not know what I was doing. And I still work nearly every day to make myself better. You don't ever just arrive at some moment of ultimate greatness. Every photographer is on a journey. At every level.

And I'm a teacher. It's what I do all day long. And I love learning- from people, experiences- I love the whole process.

It's one thing to learn something, but for me, it's completing the joy-circle to share it with someone else, and it's covering the joy-circle with gourmet chocolate and sprinkles to help someone make a new light bulb-moment discovery. And nearly 100% of the time, I learn something too, when I'm answering questions, just as much as when I'm finding answers for myself.

All that to say, I love answering questions. I get photography-related questions frequently. How do you..., When did you..., How do I get... and the like. And usually there's some sort of apology for bothering me, or a general, "I feel like a dork for not knowing how to do this, but..." and there's also a big dose of feeling ashamed for reading my blog when they don't actually know me. Well, if you read this blog, you do know me- you might know me better than some of the people I see on a weekly basis. See? Don't feel awkward.

So many people have handed me torches along the way- I really just want to pass them on. They're burning holes in my pockets.

If you're local, I'd love to meet up for coffee and focal points advice. If you're far away, you can absolutely email me. I love doing things like that.

I'm not very intimidating, because I'm not cool at all. Really. Not at all. Basically a total dork.

That One Kind

I remember vividly the snapshot moment when I knew. The very first moment I knew I loved you. Not as a friend, not as my neighbor, but that One kind.

It was snowing, upon snowing, upon snowing. And it was deep. And it was cold. And it was windy. And it was very late. And you lived at the complete opposite end of campus from me.

You threw on your coat, we said goodnight, and you walked out- ready to walk all.the.way.home.

A minute later, I turned to my fourth floor window see the crazy storm, and there you were, in the parking lot, walking away. In the cold, cold, cold. And instantly, I wanted to be the one walking in it, if it meant you didn't have to. I didn't know where that selfless thought came from, selfless thoughts being rare for me, but there it was, instantly and easily called up from my heart and in that moment, I knew it. I knew you had me.

This wasn't the love word I'd easily thrown around to a hundred friends, though I loved them, and it certainly wasn't the love I professed over new shirts, or songs or hobbies. Not that kind of love.

It was Love. The I'll Go Where You Go and Stay Where You Stay Love. The Never Leave You Even if I Hate You Love. The Make a Promise I Don't Ever Back Out On Love. The Give Up My Selfish Plans Love. That Love.

There it was.

And there you were, the one I loved, walking away in a blizzard.

Last week, as we talked you had an idea for something you're working on at work. And you needed to quick write it down on the nearest piece of mail so you didn't forget. 15 minutes later this whole booklet was covered. And you were thinking it out.

Jim I don't always understand you.

But I'm not going anywhere.

Fine Art from Full Life

Check it out.

Living Books

I recently wrote about my deep, deep affections for Living Books over at Home Schoolin' Mamas. It is the week of love after all.

Yes. They Rock.

Baby Just Say Yes

Sorry, that song started running through my head as I typed this.

In honor of the upcoming day of hearts and flowers and other obligatory showings of (hopefully) authentic affection,

Anyone in the mood for a Love Story?

Quirky

A couple of weeks ago we were eating at Panera and Lily ate her way through her huge, sweet and twisty cinnamon roll, down to the very center-most, coveted, holy grail of cinnamon roll parts- the moist and perfect center.

Looking down at her plate with perfect nonchalance, she announced she was full and gave her center to Hudson.

Lily is just quirky like that.

I ♥ Faces Week 6: We Heart Kisses

This ONLY happened for a SPLIT SECOND, I promise!

Head on over to I Heart Faces for more kissin'....

Method ♥ Mosaic

I love Method products. Love them. As Valentine's Day draws near, I thought it would be appropriate to say how much I ♥ them.

I especially ♥ that when I'm cleaning my house, I don't have to worry about the four pets who chase and track my every move. If their paws land in some cleaner, so what?

I especially ♥ that when, say, a certain 3 year old draws little stick people in black crayon all over the walls, I can hand her the bottle, a roll of paper towels, and say, "Clean it up, Buck-O."

I ♥ that.

And as I conceived the idea for this simple and pointless post, it hit me. And a recent conversation with a friend I ♥ confirmed it.

After 3 1/2 years of blogging simple, ordinary things of life, a beautifully ordinary mosaic is formed. A mosaic of who we are. Hundreds of days, thousands of ordinary thoughts spanning the emotional continuum. That's a blog. A pictures-and-words document of all that is authentically ordinary that makes up Us.

It's shared, published, "out there", a place to meet and connect and know others, a place to intersect with friends from every season of our lives- and I ♥ that.

But it's just hundreds of moments of ordinary Us, all together in one place.

I ♥ blogging.

The Love Bundt

It's not just a bundt cake. It's a Bundt Cake.



It's a perfect-classic recipe Rich Yellow Bundt Cake with a Zesty Citrus Glaze.


It's an experience.

And it is loaded with a secret ingredient: Love.

Really.

After preparing the batter, we saved the best mix-in for last. Each one of us put our hand to our heart, and thought our best love-thoughts about each member of our family, what we love best about them, one at a time- a secret thought we didn't say out loud. First Daddy, then Mommy, then Grace, Patience, Lily and Hudson. We put all those love-thoughts into our hand, then rolled them into a nice love-ball, and each one took their turn putting their loveliest love thoughts into the batter, while I gently folded them in.


I'm not joking. We actually did do this.


Because that's just the kind of nut-case sentimentality I wax on these children regularly.

I like it when someone I respect says they loved a book, then doesn't say much more than that.

Because then I can get said book if I'd like to, and read it and think about it for myself without said friend's opinions racing through my head. Then later I can chat it up with said friend about said book. Enough said.

Here are some books I read in January that I'd highly recommend to another reader. Like you. So you can get your hands on one or all of them if you'd like to. Then chat it up with me.

Now that I'm writing this, it's actually kind of hard not to splurge commentary. I resist.

The Story of My Life: The Restored Classic, by Keller, Sullivan, Herrmann, Hermann, and Shuttuck.

Love is and Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community, by Andrew Marin.

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University, by Kevin Roose.

Pillow Talk

I have loved this pillow since the first week it appeared at Target. I know, that sounds silly. To some of you.

I noticed her every time I visited the store, but at $20, I wasn't ready for a commitment. I was ready to wait.

This week I went to Target just to see what clearance I'd find in the Home section. Because the end of January and early February is clearance hunting season for lovers of decorating and Target. Because they're about to clear out for the next season/year. Frames, oh the frames, sheet sets, vases, pillows.

Clearance. The real kind. The 50% or more kind.

I've carried out this tradition since 2005.

And so this week I found her, 50% off. Just under $10. And she was mine. If you look closely, you will find a piece of pug hair. Ah, the dogs have already made themselves at home with her.

No guilt, no impulse-buyer's remorse. I saw and admired from afar, set my limits, and reaped the rewards of patience.

And that is why I love living well for less.

Because I'm a Member, I can make fun of the club...

You have to watch this episode of Martha I caught up on this past weekend.

First of all, nearly every person in the audience has a cat in their lap. Their own cat. Just watch them constantly stroking their cats all episode long.

Half of them look like they're going to go home and knit a sweater as their kitty bats at the ball of yarn, 45% of them look like they don't like any people at all and only talk to their cats and the one thing they love more than their cats is their cat jewelry, and 5% look ready for world domination.

Absolutely hilarious.

True Story.

In a given week, we eat more meals blessed by the bulb than times we eat sliced bread.

True Story.

Grateful 2010: January Edition

On January 4 I found an old journal I didn't need for it's original use anymore, and decided to repurpose it on the fly. I wrote down one thing I was thankful for, and planned to leave it on my kitchen counter, to be added to just once a day. Just one thing. Sort of a word association play every morning. Also sort of a loose, no pressure, New Year's Resolution.


I see it when I get my coffee. It says, "Thankful." I say, ".....".


Here are my responses for January, in order. Sometimes the order is funny. Like the day I said "Productivity." and the next day I said "Sleeping in."



A house that is just the right size. Medicine when I need it. Soft-falling snow and a warm house. Chapstick. Jim's work ethic. Late night movies with Jim. Email. Coffee. Doctors. Quicken. Jim's work ethic- at work and at home. Productivity. Sleeping in. Date night. My fearless daughter. Work. Early mornings. Antibiotics. Clarity. Resolve. Perspective. Glasses. Safety. Gray. Refunds. Like-minded friends. Jim is a hands-on Dad. Art.