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Happy 2017, y'all!

Theo says

Theo is just at that age where some days are super aggravating but that interspersed are these transcendent moments in which I am bewildered that I birthed this person.

Sidebar: I am happy to report that I found a good counselor and that hopefully that will help me keep afloat of my own junk.

And I think she's in her 60s so that makes all this even more perfect.

Theo is not quite yet three but I've heard from other moms that three can be way harder than two (though two wasn't too bad for us), that 3.5 is the pits, that threenagers give you moments that are the best of the best and the worst of the worst.

One of his latest monster truck drawings.

I try to keep notes (on my phone, in random notebooks) of the super funny things that he says, and I think it will be important for me in the next few months to pay attention to these occurrences that make motherhood worth it.

We think he's pretty smart and a decently verbal kid (for a boy). He absolutely cracks me up with the things he makes connections between.

• Sometimes under his breath he'll say "I'm a big boy" when he's doing something he knows he is supposed to be doing, without being asked.
• "We need to get more money, lots more money, to get a tractor." (He wants a *real* John Deere tractor, not a toy one, and he keeps hoping Santa will bring him one. Any time we go out to the store - even the grocery store - he thinks we might consider buying one.)

• When we tuck him in at night, he usually says, "love you, mama" and "love you, appa." Recently he has begun to add, "I love my gray house. It's gray, and white, and there are windows, and wood, and a chimney. I love my gray house."
• This week his internal clock told him it was Tuesday and time to go to the library, even though nothing was mentioned, and David even worked on Sunday which totally throws off the schedule, at least for me. 
• Theo has been out of a toddler bed for more than six months now so it was funny when he randomly brought it up with David the other day. "Appa, do you remember my toddler bed? Where there was a short rail on one side and I could get in and out?"
• He can sing so many Christmas carols by himself and especially loves the Pentatonix version of Drummer Boy; he can even do some beatboxing, and his rhythm is spot on.
• The other day David was trying to get Theo to give him a wall charger he was holding onto, and Theo said, "No, Appa. I need that for my WiFis."

Literal guidelines

Okay, you guys might already be enlightened and all, but I did a very grown-up thing the other day which is this: I looked up a video of how to properly cut up a whole raw chicken and then I did it. And it made me giddy.

Now, while I love to cook, I can't say I love touching raw meat, but no joke, this makes me want to cut up ALL THE CHICKENS.

I had no idea that it was so simple (and fun! and satisfying!) when you follow the guidelines. Literally! Literally literally. As in, there is literally a fat line you cut along order to easily separate the drumstick from the thigh - no Asian cleaver needed, no juices flying errwhere.

Because I love y'all so much, here it is. Melissa Clark on how to cut up a whole chicken.

Multiple choice prompt for your comment submissions:
(a) I already knew how to do this; I love it; I am awesome forever and ever amen.
(b) I will have to try this out; Lisa, you are the most enlightening and generous person ever!
(c) That was pretty cool, but I'm still a little grossed out by touching raw meat.
(d) Huh.

You're welcome!

A hard week

This has been a hard week. Hence, why I'm dragging myself here on a Friday, to finally write this week's post.

I've been in a funk, and (because?) my kids are going crazy. It's probably partly due to the weather: the darkness, and the cold keeping us in.

To give you an idea of how bad this week was, let me just say that I spent one whole nap-time Googling therapists and preschools. (The former for me, the latter for a certain almost-three-year-old, if you weren't clear.)

I had one of those days when I dreamed of being older and getting momnesia, being one of Those Moms.

I think it's even harder after a year of growth and realizations. Like, aren't I supposed to be a better person now? I've learned a little about self-compassion! I've been enlightened! I can live in the moment! I can be my own best friend?! Or even my own boss! And, when all else fails, "Plot twist!"

Sigh. The spirals of despair.

Anyway, I'm just going to try to keep showing up. Each and every damn day.

---

Kendra Adachi, of The Lazy Genius Collective, my newest blog/podcast love, asks these three questions of her podcast listeners at the end of every interview. I'll answer them for you and ask for you to reply with yours.

Something I love: The Road Back to You podcast. The production has improved significantly since its inception. I particularly enjoyed Reclaiming Hope (Nov 16) and How Do You Manage the Unrest in Your Soul (Nov 10).
Something I hate: Feeling overwhelmed by the aforementioned almost-three-year-old.
Something I need: Besides therapy and/or preschool, a vacation in a warm place or at least a heated swimming pool!

---

Other randoms:

• If you have smelly kitchen towels, despite any and all past efforts of washing in borax/vinegar/baking soda/etc. in the laundry machine, try: boiling them in 1/4-1/2 cup baking soda on your stove for 20-30 minutes. In addition to smelling so clean (i.e., not smelling like anything), my flour sacks are more absorbent now, too! You're welcome.
• If you need to watch the stupidest stupid thing ever, check this out. If it's not funny to you, just watch it again.
• My friend Jason said, "for someone who's not on Facebook, you sure like a lot of dumb videos." This is for having also insisted that we watch Christopher Walken's Googly Eyes video before dinner. (Is Walken a 6, needing to know where he stands with something?)
• I've signed up for a sort of continuation of the workshop I took this summer, called The Year of Creativity. If you're interested, I have a referral link that will get you 10% off and then $10 for me. 
• Instead of doing a full elimination diet just yet, I've tried cutting out gluten for Emilyn and me. So far it's making a big difference for Emilyn, and a questionable difference for me. 

Love. Hate. Need. Go!

A pumpkin round-up: savory and sweet

Before November is over, let's talk about pumpkin for a little bit because YES PLEASE.

1. Pumpkin chili

This chili is decidedly savory and (big surprise) I love it. It is vegetarian as written but I think it'd go great with meat, which is how I'm going to make it today. Kayla - who brought us the tomato paste freezing tip in a previous post - blends the canned tomatoes before adding them, which definitely takes it to the next level.

I highly recommend doubling the recipe and making jalepeno cheese cornbread muffins to go alongside!

2a. Roasted kabocha salad

Trying out another recipe from Vegetarian that I have had bookmarked (literally, ha) for a while. I always steal the kabocha from the tempura pile; it's absolutely my favorite pumpkin (so starchy!).

2b. Oh wait, this is my favorite pumpkin:

Sweet, savory, and tangy.

4. Pumpkin bread

Kathy loves to reminisce about the pumpkin bread I made six years ago when Kenny helped me cut and roast sugar pumpkins and we made the bread from homemade puree.

(It also didn't hurt that I put chocolate chips in the batter.)

We love using this Orangette recipe, but we cut the sugar in half so we can enjoy putting the (optional?!) chocolate in it. I've written it as a doubled recipe (so you can use up a can of pumpkin, or if not you can make the pumpkin chili, see point number 1 above) so you can do one loaf plain (which a lot of our family loves) and the other with chocolate and/or walnuts. We decided we like chocolate best, no walnuts.

Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips
adapted from Orangette

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1 1/2 t salt
1 T cinnamon
1 t ginger
1 t nutmeg
1/2 t cloves

2/3 c water
1 t vanilla

12 T unsalted butter, at room temp
1 1/4 c sugar {this is halved from Orangette's recipe}

4 large eggs, room temp
2 cup pumpkin puree (if making homemade puree that is thinner in texture than canned pumpkin, you can reduce the water above)

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9x5 loaf pans.

Whisk dry ingredients together.

Beat butter until creamy, about 30 seconds, then add sugar and blend until lightened in color, abut 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time.

Add pumpkin puree, and beat on low speed until just blended.

Add flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the water-vanilla mixture in two parts, beating on low until smooth and just combined.

Fold in chocolate and pour into pans.

Bake for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a rack for five or ten minutes before unmolding to cool completely on the rack.

Friendsgiving 2016

I gotta put together a slap-bang post before Thanksgiving because sometimes done is better than perfect.

Although, perfect is: this beautiful sign that Kayla made for our Friendsgiving last Sunday with all the young families from church.

Less than perfect is: the quality of my pictures. I really need to clean off my phone from grubby hands. (You think I'm talking about my children, but I'm not.) (Although! Emilyn has been doing the cutest thing which is to put her play phone to her ear whenever we say, "Hello?")

The party was a huge success and I wanted to share some of aspects I thought made it so.

It was a potluck, and the Evite "What To Bring" section enabled us to guide people towards covering all the necessary components to a complete spread. 

I divvied food up into smaller "bites," if you will, so that people could pick and choose a couple things together if that was easier than tackling a big item. 

Asking someone to bring cider and a bag of ice guaranteed that our drinks would be cold, even if they wouldn't be refrigerated during church. I also separately requested a 1/2 lb decaf beans to be brought.

I'm learning to delegate, because even when it's a potluck, there can end up being a lot of last minute purchases that add expenses for the host. This way you have margin to splurge on other fun (or necessary) ideas that come up later.

David and I provided the turkey, and since this was a casual gathering, I felt the freedom to not have to present a beautiful (some have called it "stunt") turkey at the table. This would have been really challenging anyway, seeing as the function immediately followed service on Sunday.

So, we roasted the turkey on Friday (since David was off then but had to work on Saturday). I have never before made a turkey in such a relaxed ("not agitated" to be Earnest) manner. It was marvelous.

At 4 o'clock on a relaxed afternoon without any company expected, we got to eat the crispy skin off (ha) and then when it cooled, we sliced and refrigerated the meat to be warmed up in gluten-free (i.e., just corn starch, no flour) gravy in a crock pot on Sunday morning. Crock pot FTW again.

Pro-tip: multi-purposing cups as name cards.

The only other elements of "structure" (I really had to restrain myself here) were a Mad Lib and a brief sharing of everyone's highlight of the year and a challenge of the year.

decorations? activity? "agenda"?

There were four babies in the group that had been born within the last year so the majority of the answers to highlights and challenges was babies. (We laughed when we discovered repeatedly that so many people's "favorite activity" on the Mad Lib was sleeping.)

Kayla was an awesome co-host and I personally had a blast doing this with her. When everyone left (which was late, another good sign), I noticed that I felt so filled up, both literally and figuratively.

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. If you need more, check out our 2014 Thanksgiving or revisit the letter I wrote mysef aboout hosting parties.

If I posted on Instagram:

This dill-icious cauliflower salad first made for me by my friend Emily.

We are having two Thanksgivings this year but at neither one will there be classic trashy green bean casserole, so I made one the other day for just David and me.

Getting in two or three laps around our block at 5 a.m. for almost two weeks = surpassing my 10,000 steps.

After an appointment with a naturopath who strongly recommended an elimination diet for my eczema, I desperately needed some Costco pizza and a hot dog.

 

I didn't do the lemon, but the banana and prayer worked. Always good to know someone raised by avocado farmers. ;)