Links

8 Things Whole-Hearted Creative Women Do Differently.

This Taiwanese chicken soup sounds amazing. It seems similar to my mom's postpartum confinement meal, which I always loved, even as a kid, ha. (It's not weird to be a kid who loves ginger and wine, right?)

Parenting Explained in 5 Simple Graphs.

This lady has such a gorgeous (minimalist) house and I need her mud kitchen.

The sweetest essay by Amy Krause Rosenthal, who has authored many of our favorite children's books, the most notable of which was introduced to me by a dear friend who very recently gave birth to her first child! ;)

Christine and her husband Ken are starting a podcast! This makes me so happy because they are regular people (in the best possible way) doing extraordinary things.

I also enjoy this woman's Instagram and her new Weekly Cleaning Rhythm pdf is beautiful if not handy.

What we're eating, II

m: braised pork belly and egg (similar)
tu: slow-cooker chicken tacos
w: russian cabbage soup (still looking for a good recipe but probably will make it up as I go; craving something borscht-y but without the beets, but not because I don't like beets, because I do)
th: Chinese ground pork omelettes over rice
f: baked potatoes
sa: turmeric dill salmon (trying out a new recipe that looks fun!)
su: burgers / korean tacos

Simultaneously fast and slow

These two little people fill my days with laughs and aggravation. My friend Christine said it best when she said that motherhood sometimes makes her feel like a crumpled piece of paper.

One of the consistently best moments of every day is waking them up from their naps. I love entering their warm and dark rooms, hearing their soft breathing, and inhaling their fermented honey / yeasted bread smell.

Both of them always worked themselves into the corner and slept like froggies.

However, and related to that, one of the things that is about to drive me crazy is the nap transitions we are currently in. Emilyn is in the transition to drop to one nap, and I think we're smack in the middle of the time where having a nap makes it hard for Theo to fall asleep at night, but no nap is no bueno (probably more for me than for him, insert sweating emoji).

Gah, I can't get enough of this.

Every day, I am just in awe of how simultaneously fast and slow time moves.

Both of them have grown so much - physically and mentally - in the past couple weeks and it shocks me when I look at them. Theo's thighs and legs suddenly got super chunky, and Emilyn is solidly heavy to hold. I definitely think Theo shot up an inch or two overnight, because one day he was tripping all over himself, when he is normally very careful. Emilyn's pants got short on her one day as well. Crazy.

Here are a couple notes on them at their current stages.

Emilyn {15 mos}:

• is juuust about walking. She can do a number of steps in a row. The last few days she's been "running" for a couple steps before she falls, as if she thinks she can get more steps in before the fall this way. 
• does squats and pliés when music is on.
• is starting to learn to go down the stairs backwards.
• loves putting on accessories, like headbands and especially purses. She doesn't even mind socks! (Though she will pull them off in the car, obviously.) She grabs clothes and signals to you that she wants you to help her put it on, and cooperates when you put clothes on. (Except for diapers, of course.) This is the complete opposite of Theo, whom I can barely get to wear pants most days.
• (Related: we had a stretched-out strap from an LED headlamp, which she would put over herself like a beauty pageant sash, so we called her Miss LED for a while.)
• is more clearly saying mama/umma, dada, and nuna (big sis). 
• says "tck-a tck-a tck-a" (tickle tickle tickle) while tickling your feet.
• still loves her food. One day I shared a smoothie with her and she drank more than half of it. I seriously thought to myself, oh, no I cannot share food with her when she grows up. We will both be like, "Who ate my hamburger? / Where did my hamburger go??" Basically, we'll be really mad at each other.

Theo {3yr 3mos}:

• says "Oh, hi, ____!" when people are around, as in "Oh, hi, Appa!" The "oh" adds this element of surprise in his tone, like's so delighted to see you, which he is.
• said, "Can someone watch the kids?" when he saw me going upstairs one day.
• found an evangelism tract one day and decided to call it "my college." When he dropped it from his carseat, he exclaimed, "Oh, no! My college!"
• loves shaved ice. We discovered a couple places we like and it's our way of embracing/getting through winter. One night after dinner, he stage whispered across the table to Kathy, "Should we go to shaved ice?"
• responded when I told him we were going to Ace, "Oh, for popcorn? Paint? Wood? A new house?"
• said, "I can't hear you downstairs when I'm going upstairs!"
• told me "put your phone in your pocket" when it fell on the steps when I was going to the car.
• told David, "finish your coffee, don't spill" when he was carrying his coffee to the car. (Totally different day.)
• sings "the shadow proves the sunshine" from Switchfoot.
• ended one walk with the song "Mama Knows Best" because, even though he wasn't too reluctant to go for the walk in the first place, he wanted me to feel appreciated for making a good suggestion that we go for a walk. I guess he really understands how much work it is to get clothes on both of them and get loaded up to go! Especially when it is so gloomy and/or raining.
• slipped a small cardboard sleeve over his elbow one day and proclaimed that he was a "doctor for babies!" Maybe he remembered how I would always get my blood pressure measured at the OB/GYN when I was pregnant with E?
• folds up hand towels and "warms" them up over of the heater registers and calls them burritos. (He did this before he turned 3 but I forgot to write about this earlier.)
• told me "it will stop raining, when you go to your nap, in your dreams" when I told him I was tired of all this precipitation.
• asked David if he would "talk it over with umma"; "it" being getting a John Deere monster truck/tractor.
• asked Emilyn, "why are you crying? We're almost home" on the drive home yesterday. And when we chuckled over his sweetness, he deadpanned,"don't laugh, it's not a laugh game."
• fake-breathed in and out very quickly when he started getting upset on a walk, because I had taught him just the day before to take a deep breath when you get upset.
• asked me to get new sidewalk chalk, and when I said, "maybe in a week or two when it's more spring-like," he responded by going to the camellias blooming around the corner of the house, and said, "look, it's spring! Can we go get sidewalk chalk now?"
• uses a baby bird voice to call me "Mama!" every night when we play hide-and-seek before bed, and when he wants me to feed him a snack.
• says "have fun, good luck!" whenever we put him to bed/nap because he used to always say that to Uncle Kenny when he was playing games before T's bedtime
• asked me "you wearin' shoes?" when he wanted me to climb into his bed, and when I said, "no," he clarified, "just your feet?"
• is staying dry at night on his own. We used elimination communication very casually (which I loved) so he was using the potty before 1 (mostly for #2), day trained somewhere in year 2 (#1 didn't come until after 2yo), and now starting to night train himself. A few times we did a "dream pee" and it was so sweet to see him sleepily sit on the baby potty, his long, lanky legs propped up on the floor.

The two of them together are a such a sweet pair. It surprises me how extremely and mutually tolerant they are of each other. Theo is so gracious about sharing toys, noticing when she doesn't have something and getting it for her (or grabbing her purse and putting her phone in it), offering her water to drink, etc. And Emilyn doesn't mind his wrestling or pommeling her. She worships her oppa and wants to do everything he is doing.

Okay, and lol, the main reason I had to write this post is to share this hilarious series of drawings by Theo.

A couple of days ago, Theo asked me if Emilyn could be in his tummy when he grew up. (I said no.) So then a day or two later, he drew this picture:

"That's Emilyn in my tummy, when I'm a grown-up."

And then a minute later he drew this:

"That's Emilyn in my tummy. She lookin' for food."

There are no words.

(Also, we think it's amazing that he knows how to draw smiley faces because in all the drawing we do together we never taught him explicitly how to draw smileys. Maybe he studied those Costco receipts?)

What we're eating

Here are a few pictures from what we ate last week.

Hainanese chicken rice with ginger-scallion sauce and sauteed spinach

Corned beef + cabbage, potato, and carrots

Last week seemed to drag on forever, so when it was Friday, I loaded up the kids and took them out to Mexican food by myself for lunch. They did really well.

Maybe too well. See the missing flauta in picture above, and the flauta thief below.

I literally tried to take pictures as soon as the food was laid down. I was eager to eat too. But apparently not quick enough.

David made beignets from scratch on Saturday. 

There's no way I could have married better.

Made these mini breakfast kabobs for Theo and he gobbled them right up.

And here's our menu for this week.

I need 497 xiao long baos.

Hoppipolla

When life gives you rain, go puddle jumping.

Today I was inspired by an article that suggested going for walks with absolutely no plan. I'm usually a three-times-around-the-block-helps-me-reach-10,000-steps kind of gal, but it sounded like a fun, if not different, idea.



As per the directions (I have to follow the plan even if the plan is to not have a plan), I did not predetermine our route, but instead let Theo pick whether we turned right or left whenever we got to an intersection.

Letting go and just following where the day might lead was a good change for me.

I did, however, struggle when it came to this fork in the road.

Theo jumped right past it.

What are you guys doing to get through this blessedly long winter?

Freedom + discipline = being an adult

tu: Lo shee fun is the Malaysian dish that inspired last week's post, and was good enough that Kathy requested it again this week / f: corned beef and cabbage for St. Patty's / sa: I can't share my grandmother's recipe for Hainanese Chicken Rice or I'd have to kill you, but here's a pretty good internet recipe, 

We had a busy weekend so I'm just barely getting to this post now on Tuesday. I also had to scramble to come up with a menu for this week but the blog is keeping me accountable.

Besides choosing to post here as a method of staying on top of meal planning, I've been using Trello, which Slai had suggested to me in a comment five months ago. I've come around to using it almost two months ago, when I mentioned The Menu-Planning Reboot of 2017, and I'm loving it. I really wanted to make sure my new system was sticking before I wrote about it here.

Honestly, it's been great to have a menu plan. I mean, the worse thing that can happen is, like:

Lisa to self: Really, we're going to eat __________ again today?
Self: Well, do you have any better ideas?
Lisa: Uhhh...
Self: That's what I thought.

So, the way I'm starting to see it, menu planning is just one part of #adulting. One more place where freedom and discipline do a good little dance.

If you're curious for the nitty gritty (nerdy dirty?) on how I use Trello, read on.

I only have two lists on my menu board: a list for this week's meals, and then a list for previous meals.

When I start planning for the next week, I archive the items from this week into previous, so they automatically get pushed to the bottom.

When I'm planning the current week I get ideas from our past favorites. Here's this week's menu.

I only use Trello for the initial pull, and then when I put it up on the kitchen chalkboard, I think about the best order for the week. 

I only spend a few minutes doing this, so it's relatively painless. Like I said, once it's decided, I can either go along with it and be grateful to my grown-a** self that I did this, or I can be like, "Oh, let's have _____ instead" and then run with that new idea. It's no biggie.

Also, one last CRITICAL step to this whole system working is that I then write up the shopping list and my lovely David helps me with all the shopping. SO WONDERFUL. <3

Let me know, as always, if you have any other menu planning tips, meal ideas, questions or anything you need help with!

P.S. Slai, we need this in our life, right??

P.P.S. Happy Pi Day!

A few randoms, II

I am so ready for the weather to be anything other than what it is now. The rain, snow, hail, and cold are getting to be quite tiresome. 

This past Monday afternoon, Theo pointed out the window and shouted, "Appa! I found the blueness!" He was referring to the first patch of brightness we'd seen for a while. 

Hashtag Seattle kid.

I have zero motivation to write anything, so I figure it is a good day for dumping all the stuff I've been collecting.

It's cool to see people continue to talk about reading goals more than two months after the new year. Is it just me or are a lot of people talking about how they want to read more?

Related to that, I think David came up with this helpful motivation to read more: the number of pages you read per day is roughly equivalent to the number of books you'll finish in a year. (This is based on the assumption that a book is 365 pages long, and most books are less than that. So you actually read more.) Isn't that amazing?

I loved this article on giving your (older) kids a way out.

This post made me think about the difference between self-care and "me time."

Pre-ordered and am so excited for one of my favorite blogger's first book!

Crushing on these cute earrings.

I've been doing something lately (most often in my morning pages) called "writing to my intuition". At first, it seemed kinda woo-woo to me, but I've gotten over it and have found it super helpful. I stumbled on the concept through Jess Lively (you can also read a powerful letter re: world events / news in the show notes of this episode, you don't have to listen to the podcast). My default mode is to operate from fear, striving, and anxiety. This exercise helps me (re-)parent myself from a place of faith, maturity, and peace. The message I need to hear over and over again is "all is well" or that "all will be well." I'm not ready to share examples on the blog yet but if you're curious, you can email me and I can share it with you. This is also a good reference of questions to ask when you're feeling stuck.

A beautifully written essay on motherhood.

Pickles! The Koreans and Taiwanese are all over this already, but I'm always excited when I remember how easy and delicious it is to use pickles in your food. I love kimchi but dislike the way it stinks up the fridge. Enter: regular ol' pickles. (Kosher/dill always. Never bread and butter.)

Eating these pickles with my breakfast sausage one morning reminded me of Taiwanese ground pork sauce with pickles and inspired me to make some with rice noodles earlier this week. Chinese peasant food for the win!

I didn't use a recipe but just made it up as I went. It turned out great and we devoured it. I know 16 oz of rice noodles looks like a lot (and side bar: this is totally what I think is weird about so many pad thai recipes that talk about only using like 4 oz of rice noodles. Huh?!) but this is so good that you'll want to make that much.

Ground pork sauce with pickles over rice noodles

1 16 oz package dried rice noodles (I used banh pho noodles)
1 lb ground pork (ground beef would be okay too)

2-3 gloves garlic, minced

1 T red miso paste

2-3 T soy sauce

1-2 cups chicken broth 

1 T corn starch, or 1/2 T potato starch, dissolved in a couple tablespoons of water

1/3 cup chopped pickles

chopped green onions

sesame oil, shaoxing wine, and white pepper to taste

Soak rice noodles in a pan of cold water. 

Heat up 1 T oil in a wok, then add garlic, ground pork, and miso paste. Stir fry until pork is mostly cooked. Add 1.5 cup chicken broth and soy sauce. Pour in starch slurry and bring to a boil to make gravy, and add more chicken broth if desired. Add a little shaoxing wine and/or sesame oil (both optional). White pepper is probably not optional.

Keep the sauce warm on low and bring your noodles to a boil. When they are almost done, drain them and add to the sauce. Add more broth if needed (we like it brothy, but it's totally personal choice), stir in green onions and pickles (or serve on side), and serve with extra white pepper. Picked jalepenos or thai chiles are also recommended here.

We had soup with mustard greens on the side, but if you wanted to put a green in the noodles, I'd recommend baby spinach wilted in the gravy before you add the noodles.

The life raft I've needed

Somewhat abashedly, I bring you this post that has been sitting in my drafts for a couple months now: The Three Most Influential Books I Read in 2016. 2016 was a big year for me, and the biggest gift - besides the birth of my daughter, obvs - was learning about Overdrive and getting access to a library (#literally) of books at my fingertips. 

I'm thankful for all the discoveries I made through falling in love with reading again this last year; there was so much magic in it (#literallyagain), and I look forward to reading and sharing more in 2017!

1. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

I keep thinking I need to write a separate post about this because it is changing my life, as well as still kicking my butt because I am not done with it (i.e., the tidying, not the book).

I'm sure you have heard enough about Kondo's concepts from everyone else on the internet already, but it has been the one method that has really worked for getting me to confront the underlying reasons of why I can't always do the things I need to do to get to the place I want to be.

A few of you texted me after I wrote The Secret Sauce. I still really struggle with scarcity mentality, and I've been thinking a lot about how if I let go of fear, what will be left?

2. Essentialism by Greg McKeown

Oddly, I can't remember exactly why I loved this book so much (other than having it read to me by the author; I've since changed Siri to a UK man voice so I can pretend that Greg McKeown is with me always).

The most convicting point was when he challenged his readers with the question (paraphrased): are you going to look back on your life and regret not doing the one thing you were made to do, because you were so busy chasing the meaningless other things you thought you needed to do (or that you thought other people expected you to do)?

3. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

This was another good one to have read aloud (Christine rightly recommended the audio version, and I am SO not an audiobook person), because it's also read by the author, and Liz Gilbert has thee most soothing and encouraging voice ever.

I loved everything Gilbert had to say, but the most important takeaway for me was: don't take yourself so seriously / don't be a tormented artist / follow inspiration and curiosity / don't worry so much about the outcome / enjoy the process / have fun with your art.

This is the message that I've been carrying into my life for the past half-year now, and am incorporating here by showing up on my blog, starting to Instagram more, doing random art projects, and working on some diy projects around the house.

I think she really gets it right when she talks about how inspiration is from the Divine, and that if we want more opportunities for it, we have to take action on the ones we are given.

This seems like a bold statement to make, but I feel like Big Magic has been the life raft I've needed ever since graduating from college.

Please let me know what you've been reading and loving!

--

And this week's menu!

Miso mapo tofu is my own creation to make mapo tofu without gluten (so many black bean sauces have wheat in them, didn't know that before!). Miso works really well (not soy free, however) and makes a flavorful dish that incidentally serves as a non-spicy version great for kids! Another standby is to have rotisserie chicken from the grocery store on one night and make broth with the carcass the following day for pho (just add fish sauce!). For bún (i.e., Viet noodle bowls), we work off of Molly's recipe from Delancey.

P.S. I am so giddy because apparently on February 23 I got my first two Amazon Affiliate purchases from this blog. Besides feeling giddy, I am so curious who that was, so if that was you and this wouldn't embarrass you, would you please let me know either by comment or email what you got?? Thanks, on all counts!

P.P.S. Shout-out to Christine, whose What I'm Reading series inspired this post, and which will inspire you as well.

Morning pages, a month later

I'm here to report that, one month later, I'm still doing morning pages, although I've allowed myself to stop at two pages (they are, as I mentioned before, 9 x 11, so that counts for something, right?). Something about always being able to start on the fresh side of the page every day as opposed to every other day makes a difference for silly people like me.

I've also concluded that for me, morning pages are simply a discipline that doesn't usually result in anything in and of itself, but allows everything else in the rest of the day to flow much more smoothly.

I kind of see it like turning on a water tap after being away for a while - it sputters and spits out for a bit, but after a little time running, it then flows clean and smoothly.

The exercise is the crappy first scribble before the crappy first draft.

On the days I don't do them (I've skipped a couple weekend mornings), I've found myself stumbling on one thing or another because I haven't gotten "it" out there, whatever "it" is.

Essentially, it's free therapy, so for now I am going to keep plugging along.