Good Eats

I'm a sucker a for recipes. Cookbooks, cooking shows, recipe emails, I love them all. Part of it is that I need to come up with dinner every night. The other part is that I discovered recently that I like to cook. Those of you that have eaten my food (mostly any former roommates that had to suffer through experimental noodle dishes) may be surprised by this. I'm still at the stage where I need to use a recipe. I can't just taste a dish and know what it's missing. Bryan can do this. It's kind of intimidating cooking for such a natural.

The Food Network is one of two channels that Peter knows. (The other is PBS.) There were a few times when Cooper was new that I needed to feed him and sit still and not worry about Peter destroying things. My solution? Yeah, we'd watch 20 minutes of the Food Network. Peter often conducts his own cooking show in his room. Anyway, I dig the Food Network.


That brings me to my favorite cooking show. Good Eats. It appeals to my desire for comedy and entertainment and Bryan's penchant for science. And we both like food. Alton Brown brings the funny while explaining the chemistry and the history behind whatever food he's focusing on for the day. For instance, we learned that my least favorite food, lentils, is a nutritional wunderkind, and that Bryan's least favorite food, eggplant, has almost no nutritional value whatsoever. Which is probably part of why Bryan likes the show so much.

It happens to be on while we're waiting for Cooper to go to sleep. Which is why I'm writing a whole post about it. And also because it's awesome.

Does He Know Something I Don't?

*Peter's been telling me about his sister. He's mentioned her a number of times recently. I keep asking what her name is, but he hasn't told me. I've tried to convince him that he doesn't have a sister, he has a brother. Today he told me that after he's a missionary and gets married, he's going to have a sister.

"You mean a daughter, " I told him.
"No, a sister."

I don't know where that sister is going to come from, considering that by that time I'll be 44, and I'd really like to be done having kids by that time.

I've been asked by a number of people recently how many kids we're going to have. My answer is that we don't have a set number in mind. That doesn't mean that we're going to follow the path of the Duggars (the thought alone is exhausting), we just don't want to say a number and announce that that is all and there will be no more.

I'll be honest, I think I'm a mom of boys. Maybe I'll get a girl, but I'm not holding my breath. I love having boys. But apparently Peter thinks he'll have a sister someday.

Just not any day soon.

* After I wrote this I realized it came across as kind of judgmental. Please know that this is just what our family has decided to do. I fully respect the right of parents to decide how many kids they will have, whether it's one child or ten children.

My Grandma is Cooler Than Your Grandma

My Grandma Bonnie at Adham-Ondi-Ahman in 2007.

No offense, your grandma might be really fun, but mine is cooler. Need proof?

1. My Grandma writes. She's been keeping a journal, writing poems and short stories for years. Last year she started a blog. That's right, my grandma has a blog. You should read it. Here.
2. My grandma has always been an athlete. Sadly, none of her skills passed on to me, but we're hoping that the boys get something. Anyway, she taught PE and coached for 30 years. She's still active. Not only does she go to the gym, but she also plays ping-pong with (and beats) the missionaries that live in the apartment behind her house.
3. She stays active in another way: she has a Wii. And she plays it. And she invites her friends over and they play the Wii too. What's more, she's good. Apparently she's a formidable tennis opponent.
4. In 2007 she and my sister decided on a Thursday to take a road trip. They left the following Monday. They started in southern California, went all the way up to Maine, down to Georgia, stopped at a number of church history sites, drove through Manhattan (which was crazy), visited National Parks, and monuments, and even stayed with me for two weeks. My grandma road tripped across the whole country! I think that's awesome.
5. Speaking of traveling, she leaves for a mini-cruise today. She travels by land and by sea.

I could go on and talk about her paintings, her cooking, her mad thrift-store-shopping skills, but I'll end by saying that the best thing about my grandma is how much she loves her family.

The Lights Are On, But Nobody's Home

I made a sad realization this week. When Bryan starts explaining how things work (which is often) I automatically stop listening. I also tune out scientific explanations. This is bad for a number of reasons:

1. I'm severely limiting my ability to learn
2. I'm not giving Bryan the courtesy of listening when he talks about things that are important to him
3. He's probably giving me the answer to something Peter will ask tomorrow
4. I want him to listen when I talk, so I should listen to him
5. Guilt

He was telling me something as I opened the window to write this post. I stopped what I was doing and looked at him. He thought I was telling him to hurry up so I could write. Actually, I was wondering whether or not I had been paying attention. Turns out I had.

Now, I love learning news things and Bryan is a fountain of little known facts, so it makes sense that I would want to soak in everything he says. How can I get my brain to stay focused?

Good Morning Mr. President

The boys and I watched the inauguration on Tuesday. I told Peter that while I don't agree with much of what Obama says (gee, I think that's the first time I've shared that on here, I may have just lost some friends) I think it's important to support the office of the President of the United States of America. I also told him that not everyone lives in a country where the people can elect a president. So we watched Joe Biden get sworn in as VP, listened to a gorgeous arrangement of Tis a Gift, saw Barrack Obama take the oath of office, and listened to his speech. Then I turned off the TV because it had been on way longer than usual, so I missed what I hear was a rather exciting Benediction.

I tried to do other patriotic things throughout the day. We read:



and:



and we talked a little bit about the what the President does.

That night I helped Peter say his personal prayers. He's at the point in learning to pray that he still needs some help, but he also says some things on his own. This is how it went on Tuesday:

Me:(prompting) Please help me to be kind.
Peter: Please help me to be kind.
Me:(prompting) Please help me to obey.
Peter: Please help me to obey.
Me:(prompting) Please help-
Peter: Please help me to be President.

Huh. That's not actually what I was going to prompt him to say next, but it's good to know what you want.

Where Oh Where Has My Little Bar Gone?

Question: Is anyone missing the little bar just above the large, new-post text window in blogger that lets you change the size of your text and add pictures? Is it just me? Does anyone know how to get it back? Is it blogger, or did I break something?

I had a better post planned but, darn it, I want to add pictures without going through Picasa. I love Picasa, I just don't want to use it for every post.

That is all.

I Enjoy Being a Girl

Usually when I get my haircut I explain a few things to the hairstylist. The first is that I have very fine hair and I want to look like I don't. The second is that I spend little to no time doing my hair in the mornings. I blow-dry it when I'm being fancy. That's all. Then the stylist proceeds to cut my hair. Very quickly.

This time I told her that I wanted a change. My hair was just long. It didn't have much shape and I wanted something new. I failed to mention the whole low maintenance thing, although I did talk about how fine it is. I also mentioned that I'd been thinking about bangs for a long time. She got all excited when I said I wanted something new. And then she started cutting. And cutting. And cutting. It was the longest haircut I've ever had. In my mind I kept thinking, "Wow, this is taking way longer than usual. It's like she cares about the outcome. Gee, that's kind of nice."

When she was done cutting she asked if it was okay if she styled it. I agreed and she pulled out the "product". It was a root booster or something. Then she blew it dry using a round brush. While I'm not particularly adept at using them, I understand what that process is meant to achieve. But then she did something completely foreign to me.

She pulled out the flat-iron.

I have really straight hair. (Except for these two chunks right at the nape of my neck that curl into ringlets, but who's going to look there?)(That reminds me of when I was younger and we'd be getting ready to go out somewhere and my Mom would say, "Margot, just grab any socks you can find. It doesn't matter which ones, no one looks at your socks." This isn't true because I ALWAYS look at other people's socks. Just in case you were wondering.) Anyway, I never thought that I needed a flat-iron. Then the girl started using it on my hair. And when she finished it looked good. Really good. Even the bangs.

I tried to recreate the look on Sunday for church without the flat-iron. When I left for church it was okay. When I got home four hours later (Peter and I stayed for choir) it was, um, less than flattering. The biggest offender? The bangs. I think they can look good. I'm just not enough of a girly-girl to figure it out. Maybe I should go buy a flat-iron and experiment. And some of that 'product' stuff.

Any hair hints would be greatly appreciated.

Before and After

 

 

This picture doesn't even show the most exciting thing. I got - wait for it - bangs. I know, I'm living on the edge.

Today's Deadly Sin: Sloth!

You know those days where you just feel, well, blah? You don't have any energy and you know that you need to be accomplishing things, but you're not, so that leads to guilt and a bigger feeling of blah. You know that feeling? Anybody?

Yesterday was a blah day. In my defense, I think I may be coming down with something. Bryan came home from work early because he felt sick and I'm displaying decidedly achy symptoms. But I'm not certain that I'm sick. Or stick, which is how Peter says it. If I were really, honest-to-goodness, flat-on-my-back sick, then I wouldn't feel guilty about the overwhelming temptation to be slothful that is lurking just out of my field of vision. But I'm not, and frankly, I really don't want to be. I don't enjoy being sick. But I would like to have a good excuse to be a little lazy.

I decided that I needed to do something to motivate myself, so I told the boys that we were going to the library. This is usually a welcome outing. But not yesterday. Peter announced he wasn't going, he would "stay home with Daddy" while I took Cooper. Not what I had in mind. After debating with myself and deciding that my legs were feeling shaky (thus fueling the "Am I getting sick?" train of thought) I realized it wasn't worth it. Instead, I opened a few windows and let in the bitingly-cold fresh-air. It seemed to do the trick, actually. I started moving, Peter started cooperating, and Cooper was content to sit on his playmat and watch us put away the folded laundry from the night before.

I'm glad that I thought to open those windows. They stayed open until Bryan announced it was cold and turned up the heater. I took the hint.

Oh Spring, won't you come early? Apparently I need the fresh air to avoid being a lazy bum, and my heating bill can't compensate for the cold.

A Little More Cowbell

Thank you Mr. Walken. And thank you Bryan.