The week in suppers: festive edition # 2
**Monday’s menu: Sweet potato coconut soup (crockpot). Turkey slices. Cranberries. Mashed potato stuffing. Broccoli. Bread and butter.
**Best-of-all: Mostly leftovers. Super easy. Changed plans early on and did not make turkey pot pies, though they would have been lovely. This was so much less stressful and left more time for visiting with Kevin’s family who arrived from north of Kingston to spend a few leisurely days with us and to celebrate our FOURTH Christmas of the season. We’re a lucky family.
**Happy chef: I put the soup in the crockpot first thing in the morning and instantly felt prepared for the day.
**Tuesday’s menu: Hot and sour soup. Ham. Cranberrries. Sweet potato/apple stuffing. Middle-Eastern herbed rice stuffing. Creamed leeks. (pictured above)
**The occasion: Christmas feast number two. I love cooking! But even better, I love cooking for an appreciative audience (no offense, kids).
**If-I-do-say-so-myself: This meal was a FEAST. A beast of a feast. I need to post recipes for pretty much every single side. After having done a more traditional meal on Sunday, I decided to be adventurous. I called this meal theme: Around the World. The flavours covered a lot of geographical territory.
**Wednesday’s menu: Supper out at a Pho restaurant. A treat from my mother-in-law. Delicious and no dishes!
**Thursday’s menu: Ham and cheese melts for the kids. Dinner out at Uptown 21 for the parents (birthday treat).
**Friday’s menu: Pasta. Red sauce with hamburger (yes, hamburger: local and organic and bought for the guests, but instead we went out for pho, see Wednesday’s menu).
**Somewhat lacking: A side vegetable.
**Sad vegetarian observation: Hamburger tastes good.
Snow falling on resolutions
Resolutions. Do you make them? We went around the table last night and everyone had the chance to make a resolution for 2012. Not all cared to participate, but here’s what we got:
**Albus resolved to finish his Perplexus game (at least it’s not a video game), and buy two new ones and finish those too. (Inspiring … sigh).
**AppleApple resolved to train for and complete a try-a-tri. Her dad wants to, too. We’ll check age limits, but try-a-tris are short-distance triathlons with lengths I’m certain she could manage.
**In addition to the try-a-tri, Kevin resolved to dance more. He intends to practice with help from a wii game we played on New Year’s Eve called Just Dance (we had a kid-oriented New Year’s; very fun). I’m not sure whether a wii game will make him a better dancer, but it is good exercise. (Fooey said, “The best part is that you don’t even have to have a wii remote–you can just dance!”)
“all the little grains of snow,” taken this morning, back porch
Today, I am pretending the holiday is over; Kevin is helping with that. Whenever the kids are off school or home sick, childcare coverage falls to me, and as I start both working more and wanting to take on more work the imbalance becomes more obvious. I’m thankful that Kevin came around to recognizing this himself, and offered, for this coming week, to share childcare and split the days. Today he’s off anyway, so I get the full day. Friday I’d already arranged for babysitting in the morning, so he gets the full day. We’re splitting the other days half and half. I’m already floating the idea of doing this for summer holidays too. Something’s got to change this year.
I don’t usually do resolutions because who knows what will come or how a year will change a person. But I love lists, and this is good place to start.
1. Share the childcare. Take on more work projects. Work more hours.
2. Explore work options. Take risks. Dabble. Whatever I do to fill my hours and earn money, may it be creative, and perhaps surprising.
3. Budget better. Needs no explanation. Kevin and I are already collaborating on this front.
4. Continue early mornings + exercise. On my race list this year (assuming no injuries): the 30km in Hamilton in March; another Olympic-length triathlon; another marathon; and maybe just maybe a half-Ironman triathlon. I’d also like to do another half and another 10km. But racing is expensive. See #3.
4b. (late addition) Stretch!!!! After all exercise. For at least five minutes.
5. Develop book ideas. Apply for grants. Write another book!
6. Promote THE JULIET STORIES.
7. Practice photography. Use my eyes. Use my feet. Find new locations and subjects.
8. Make music. Write songs. Record.
9. Do everything I can do to continue to be “a good model” for my children. Be forgiving. Be kind. Seek to understand. Love.
10. Go bravely forth.
“Desert in the snow,” taken this morning, back porch.
*note: to see photos in full please click on them
Day of doing nothing, whatever that means
There, I’ve caught up on sleep for 2011.
The house is full of kids, a few extras just for fun, and we’re spending the day doing NOTHING, whatever that means to each of us. For me, that means sleeping in, not cooking a thing, and playing with my brand new portrait lens. It was a surprise Christmas gift from Kevin and this morning was the first opportunity I’ve had to open it. Well, there were opportunities earlier, of course, but not an expanse of hours to do nothing but take photos. Which is how I’ve spent this morning and early afternoon.
Ideas for new photo projects bound into my brain. I’m so excited to have a lens that allows me to photograph food properly. I love my other lens, but it is meant for panoramas, lovely sweeps of moments, and not for close-ups. All I need now is a good flash and I’m set.
So here are my spontaneous probably over-the-top ambitious plans for photo projects, 2012:
1. Sunday self: a weekly self portrait. Daily is too onerous given the other projects (not just photo related) I’d like to complete this year.
2. 365 days of food: Photographing food is a special art, and not easily accomplished as anyone who’s tried can tell you. It’s difficult to make food look as appetizing as it tastes. There is no better way to learn a new skill than daily practice. Ergo, a daily food photo. I use them on my blog, so it’s practical too. And I’m rolling around the idea for a cookbook project which would tie in very nicely.
3. Portraits of strangers; portraits of friends. Or husbands, as the case may be. This makes me nervous, but is definitely something I’m interested in working on. My friend Nancy would like to attempt, with me, a combined project that would involve photographing our mutual Facebook friends (we have about 34 in common, living as we do in the same ‘hood). More on this to come, if anything comes of it.
Okay, about four hours just slipped away there as I organized my photo files and played with post-processing. Good grief, digital comes with some drawbacks. But I’m good now. I’m ready for the new year, and for the pile of new photos to come–with places for every one. Exciting.
Now to order take-out Chinese for supper. It’s been an excellent, chip-eating, stormy weather, movie-watching, Just-Dance-playing, nothing-doing first day of the new year here at our house. Hope yours has been just as fine.
The worst/best time to have a birthday
Yesterday was such a perfect day. First thing in the morning, my friend Nath delivered a birthday cake that was just like my Grandma King used to make for me when my family happened to be travelling on my birthday (and which I remember eating for breakfast before getting in the car for a long ride home): angel food with strawberry frosting.
The kids and Kevin gave me the whole day off. I went shopping, an annual event, and refreshed my wardrobe for the coming year. (And, no, I’m not exaggerating; it really is an annual event. Lucky me, my birthday falls during prime sales time). Add to the list of happy happenings: yoga, naptime, dinner out, and late-night vegging on the couch watching episodes of Modern Family (why so funny? can’t analyze it), and it was such a fine day.
When I came home from shopping, I found these messages on our chalkboard.
“Happy birthday Mom! why we love you.”
“I love everything about you mom, the way you look smell and act.” “I love how you’r a good role model to look up too. When I grow up I want to be just like you.” 
“She plays piano.” “You are generous.” “I love how she does everything.” “She makes the best cookies.” “She makes the best food.” [this message brought to you by the fussiest of all my eaters!] “She gets lego for me.” “She cooks for us.” “You read bedtime stories.” “Because you are organized and kinda bossy.” [“Who wrote that one?” “Daddy!”]
When I was a kid, I was pretty sure my birthday fell at the wrong time of the year. Now I’m pretty sure it’s exactly right. Just when I’m collapsing into the post-Christmas/pre-New-Year’s slump, along comes my birthday to fill me right back up again.
Which is good, because today we return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Birthday girl
Well, that’s me. On my original birthday. It’s been awhile since I looked like that. Soon after this photo was taken I developed a wicked red rash and all photos for the next few months (and there were plenty; I was the first child) show the homeliest infant you can imagine, though I did exude a lot of personality. I was not an easy baby: a screamer with stamina. In one of my favourite baby photos, I’m standing stiff-legged in the palm of my dad’s hand, probably about six months old. Strong and determined. And grinning ear-to-ear.
I haven’t had the chance to blog over the holidays, which is a good indication of an excellent holiday, and a busy one. The photos posted yesterday equal the sum total of decent photos I took this Christmas season. (With the exception of some adorable captures of my beautiful nephew, but I didn’t want to confuse you by including him in my wordless album post–Hey, Carrie’s got an extra kid, when did that happen?) I didn’t take many photos, truth to be told. This year, I felt pulled to participate in the moments rather than record them.
My birthday falls at the perfect time for annual summations and dreaming ahead. On the night before my birthday, for the past number of years, I’ve stayed awake until midnight, and written something in my journal about the year past and my hopes for the one to come. Since I rarely write anything by hand anymore (and thank heavens for that–my printing is virtually illegible, even to me), the journal contains a series of snapshots, which I re-read every December 28th with a mixture of sadness and appreciation. It gives me a sense of movement and change. I catch glimpses of the groundwork being laid that allowed for major life shifts in attitude. Change is slow. And you never know what will actually change when you choose to do something different, or try something new, or leave something behind. Change is rarely predictable. We go where we’re going, not necessarily where we point ourselves.
But it’s helpful to point ourselves too–beyond helpful, actually. It’s critical to be alert and reflective and not to avoid recognizing the things that hurt. I would never speak against plotting and planning and organizing and trying your best. Just leave plenty of room for free-form leaps in your carefully laid plains. Leave space for rest and enjoyment. Be kind–to yourself and to everyone around you. That’s perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned over the years. And the best advice of all is To thy own self be true.