Mentioned
**Mentioned/mentions: Obscure CanLit Mama was featured on the Fix It and Forget It blog (I wondered why a snack post from awhile back was suddenly getting so many hits). And, here I am on the Anansi web site. Still no book cover to show you, but you’ll be the first to know when the art arrives (and by first, I mean second or third right after husband and kids).
By the way, Anansi is up for a Booker prize tomorrow for Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers. Which is a Very Big Deal, and Very Exciting.
Last week in suppers: post-Thanksgiving
**Tuesday’s menu: Pasta. Roasted tomato sauce (prepared the day before). Pan-fried tofu. Steamed fresh spinach.
**Original plan: Monday was Thanksgiving, and a holiday, and somehow meal-planning for the week ahead escaped me utterly. I jotted down a quick list of veggies on hand, and hoped it would provide inspiration throughout the week. Hey, the spinach got used.
**In the kitchen: Whipped up after swim lessons. The item that took the longest was the pasta (waiting for the water to boil!) I’d just read an article in Macleans extolling the use of butter, so must confess butter was added to … everything.
**The reviews: AppleApple did not get to eat until after her soccer. I did not get to eat until after dropping her off at soccer (I also went for a run.) When I came home, I traded off with Kevin, who left for a soccer meeting. In my absence, supper had been eaten. The spinach was untouched (forgotten?) Was it ever delicious. And buttery.
**The verdict: Good leftovers. AppleApple ate pasta and sauce as a bedtime snack and declared it very good.
**Wednesday’s menu: Beans and rice (pictured above). Cabbage/daikon slaw. Tomato-cilantro salad. Broiled eggplant and zucchini. Condiments (crema, hot sauce, feta.) Tortilla chips and tortillas.
**Original plan: There was no plan. So I’m pleased with this feast.
**In the kitchen: Washed, quick-soaked, and started cooking beans first thing in the morning. Baked rice in the afternoon, left in the oven (oven turned off). Thawed tortillas. Post-piano lessons looked to the veggies in the fridge for inspiration.
**The reviews: So good, I couldn’t bear to miss it to go to yoga class as planned.
**The verdict: Excellent. We lingered, we talked.
**Thursday’s menu: Squash soup with leeks. Beets, potatoes, and carrots roasted with garlic. Broccoli with cheese sauce. Bread and cheese.
**Original plan: Thursday is the only day of the week that we don’t have an activity after school, or something one of us is rushing to immediately after supper. Yes, that’s sad. Or active. Or both. But it means that Thursday is my happy cooking afternoon.
**In the kitchen: Whipped up after school. Roasted the veggies with fresh thyme picked from our driveway (doesn’t that sound appetizing?) After roasting, tossed them with a vinegrette. Broccoli with cheese sauce was by request. Have I mentioned how much I love requests?
**The reviews: Some were not happy, except with the broccoli/cheese sauce combo (popular despite being made with a sharp swiss). Others thought it was the best meal of the week. And that’s saying something. It was a good week, food-wise.
**The verdict: Speaking for myself, I couldn’t stop eating.
**Friday’s menu: Gallo pinto (beans and rice fried together), with tortilla chips, crema, cabbage salad, and salsa. Plus a ham sandwich for soccer girl, and an energy bar for me. Yum?
**Original plan: Leftovers. But the kids wanted a real meal. Gallo pinto technically is leftovers, but, rebranded, is much preferred over those other leftover leftovers.
**In the kitchen: Kev did the frying. We were just home from skating. I was getting ready for a run, and soccer girl was getting ready for soccer (I’m getting in the habit of taking her to soccer, then running trails while she’s there).
**The reviews: Heard via the grapevine that the gallo pinto was declared “the best supper ever.”
**The verdict: Not too shabby. Even eaten cold, after the kids are in bed, accompanied by a glass of wine. Ah, Friday.
:::
**Weekend kitchen accomplishments: Nothing. Nada. Nope. Home alone with kids on Saturday, so I cleaned and tidied instead of cooking or baking. Plus we went to the grocery store and stocked up on junk food. I’m whispering that. Then we hosted four extra kids overnight (our turn in a babysitting exchange!) and ordered in pizza. And today Kevin has a soccer game, and soccer girl has another practice during which I’m going to go running in the rain, and you know, there’s a fair bit of bread still frozen in the freezer, and we’re not yet out of yogurt, and we’ve got junk food. Whispered. Everyone needs a break from time to time.
Porch progress: front steps, baby, front steps
Look what we have! Steps. Yup. Walk right up and knock on the door. C’mon in.
We’ve had some funny/awkward moments since we lost the porch a few months ago. My mother AND one of my brothers (on separate occasions) climbed over stacks of wood and balanced on sawhorses to knock on the front door. My brother’s comment? “This isn’t the friendliest way to greet guests.” Most others figured out that our back doors were somewhat more accesible, though admittedly at nighttime not well-lit. But if one really wants to complain about unfriendly design, the back staircase, which we’ve had to use as our temporary entryway, is seriously lethal. It’s unfixable, cramped, a mess of different levels, and the stairs have no railing. Stuff it with wet boots, piles of coats, and several backpacks and it’s a recipe for disaster. Basically, I’ve been on high alert for potential accidents every time that door opens and closes.
So, welcome, again. To the front door.
:::
PS I’m hesitating to post this light-and-fluffy entry, because it means my previous more serious post on working-moms and at-home-moms won’t be the first post seen here when you visit … and I’m still hoping for a few more comments and thoughts. Are you a working mom? Plan to be a working mom? A working dad? Or maybe you’re an at-home mom or dad in love with your life? Or otherwise? I don’t usually do a shout-out for comments, but I’m craving conversation on the balance, on the longing, on the wish to be several things all at the same time, or perhaps it’s a wish to do several jobs at the same time, or to participate in life in ways that seem to conflict with each other. Thanks in advance for joining in the conversation.
Where mom-at-home meets working-mom
I didn’t write yesterday. That felt strange. But I didn’t have anything to say.
I’m not sure I have anything to say today, either. In truth, life feels a little wan this week, gloomy, rainy, pale, grey. Or is that the weather?
I am tired. I might have overdone it on the exercise front, though I don’t like to admit it. I didn’t rest after my trail race, but continued apace, training toward the marathon. And I didn’t rest after Sunday’s long run (the furthest I’ve ever run). By last night, my whole body ached in a way that was unfamiliar. It still aches this morning. I did not get up early to swim, though I dreamed it; even in the dream I didn’t make it to the pool, though in the dream, I got to lounge on a snowbank under a hot summer sun. Ah, dreams.
Before sleep, I am reading the poems of Mary Oliver for my poetry book club. I am searching my heart (it is impossible to read the poems of Mary Oliver without searching one’s heart). And I have some questions. The kind that can’t be answered by reading the horoscopes, though heaven help me, I keep reading those, too.
**Where am I heading, at my breakneck pace? **What am I failing to stop for? **What if I can’t squeeze every fascinating everything in? **What matters? **Will I always be so impatient? So goal-oriented? **Can I be both ambitious and content, or do those two states of mind cancel each other out? **Do I want to be at home, all day, every day?
That last question hangs around me this fall, dogging me. Look, there is the new porch, and at the end, there is the wall and the front window of my new office, which makes the house look unexpectedly much bigger than before. But is it big enough to contain me?
A friend from grad school wrote this heartfelt post about returning to work after spending the past year home with her son, who is now a year. I was riveted by the emotions her post raised in me. She’s a full-time working mother! She loves her job! It’s a whole new frontier! I want to know more in an almost clinical way: let’s dissect and analyze this. What do I feel, reading about her major life transition? I feel envy, longing. She is expressing her working self, participating in the larger world, working with others. But when she describes missing her son’s bedtime due to a late meeting, I am gripped by the same agony she expresses, a pit opening in my stomach: missing a whole day in his brand-new life!
It’s too late to wish I’d chosen otherwise: to wish that in the past decade I’d developed my working self. I didn’t want to at the time. Instead, I got to have all those bedtimes. So many that they blur together. They seem mundane. I didn’t/don’t appreciate them enough. All that time we’ve spent soaking into each other.
More questions.
**When I unpeel myself from them, who am I? **Who am I outside this home? And the question I’m most scared of, the one I really want to ask: **How do I begin to develop my working self, now, after a decade of being mom-at-home? (Some of you might be asking, too. If you are, or if you have ideas or encouragement or more questions, too, please respond.)
We are thankful for …
Fall at the farm.
Wild apple trees.
Nobody falling out of wild apple trees.
Puffballs.
Adventures.
Sunday morning long run (34km).
Food.
Family.