What I Wore Sunday {38}

It seems the weather patterns have returned to normal: most of the Lower 48 is back to positive temperatures if not above freezing, and we were back down to -36 F this morning. Oh, winter.

It's not all that bad, I say as I'm sitting snugly inside wrapped in a sweater, a 25-pound heater snoring on my lap. But really, it's not---you just have to know how to deal with it, and avoid spending unnecessarily long outside. Little Bear and I will still run out and check the mailbox in this weather, because staying inside all day long for days on end with a toddler is enough to make you crazy; we probably spend longer getting into and out of our gear than we do outside, but he's always so happy to get out for even those few short minutes.

This morning Matt was apparently on autopilot, because at the campus roundabout we headed east toward his office instead of northwest to Mass. We thought we were going to be late after that detour, but I guess the cold had everyone moving slowly today: we were practically the first people there! 

I don't have a full shot today, because we were in a hurry and there was an angry toddler clinging to me, but:

Everything's ancient or thrifted, as always. Hair courtesy of a little boy waking me up every twenty minutes all night long; eyelash-shadows on my nose (eyelash-shadows! I didn't know that was possible) courtesy of weird lighting.

Want to join the fun over at Fine Linen and Purple?  Go see who else is participating this weekend, or snap a photo and link up!

SQTF 72: Costochondritis and a Lazy Week

I

So much for productivity, timeliness, or a "proper" Epiphany/Twelfth Night party this week. We spent Twelfth Night in the urgent care clinic doing tests to make sure the pain in my chest wasn't pointing to something wrong with my heart, and I've spent all week since then moving very slowly, taking lots of ibuprofen, and wincing as my ribs chafe against my sternum. (Costochondritis being pretty much the least-bad diagnosis I could have received, but it's still a pain with a toddler!)

II

It's getting better, slowly. On days when I can stay home all day, sitting on the floor reading story after story to avoid picking Little Bear up, actually taking my ibuprofen on schedule, I don't feel too badly. Days when I have to lug the toddler from house to car to store, keep making him sit back down in the cart, hold him still while he gets immunizations... Those are unhappy evenings, especially when I miss the midday dose.

III

Little Bear and I finally stripped the tree of ornaments and lights today, and when Matt gets home this evening he will take it outside. I could pretend that we were being Old Calendar and leaving all of the decorations up through Orthodox Christmas, but... I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a relief to finally have all of the Christmas things packed away for the year. Although I've just noticed that the Christmas cards haven't come down yet; they'll disappear as soon as Little Bear's nap is over.

IV

We did eventually celebrate Epiphany, on Wednesday: meatloaf, rotini, mixed vegetables in an asiago cream sauce, and a bread pudding made from the leftover stollen. The golden raisins, currants, and figs from the stollen made the pudding festive, so I felt like I wasn't cheating quite as much by skipping the traditional king cake. Kneading the dough sounded potentially too painful. There's always next year.

V

I know that the phrase "unless directed by a doctor" is included on the ibuprofen bottle for just this reason, but it's still unsettling to be taking double the listed maximum daily dosage. Thank goodness for the Drugs and Lactation Database from the National Library of Medicine! It was definitely reassuring to read through the test results and clinical information they have on ibuprofen and see that even at such a high dose, the amount that Little Bear is getting by nursing is negligible.

VI

At Little Bear's 18 month checkup yesterday, we seriously got the best nurse in the office. She let him stand on the big person scale to be weighed because he gets so upset about being on the baby scale; she remained happy and upbeat and encouraged him to be cheerful even when he was being his usual the-doctor's-office-is-the-worst-thing-ever-and-no-one-loves-me self; and she let me hold him on my lap for his DTaP immunization rather than making him lay down (and be pinned there) on the exam table like the other nurses do. He calmed down so much faster than usual afterward!

VII

Shrimp fajitas. My weekly menu says that I'm making shrimp fajitas tonight. I vaguely remember Matt requesting that while I was working on the menu last weekend, and I remember laughing kind of incredulously because I've never heard of such a thing and it sounds kind of awful and I have no idea how I'd do it, but... somehow it got written down. And it's going to be either that or grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, because I'm not making pasta again, and it's Friday. So if anyone has any experience with fajita-ing shrimp and wants to spare my husband from having to eat peanut butter and jelly tonight, please share your wisdom!

Check out more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary! Have a great (and hopefully warm) weekend.

Highlights

Today I learned that walking into a busy urgent care facility and telling the receptionist that you've been having sharp pain in your chest will catapult you to the top of the waiting list.

Three hours, one EKG, one "GI cocktail," and one toradol injection later, the doctors concluded that there is nothing wrong with my heart (thank heaven), and that I have costochondritis: inflammation of the junctions between the ribs and sternum. Presumably from hauling around nearly 25 pounds of squirming toddler all the time; he's been particularly insistent on being carried constantly the past few days, so that makes sense. I am to take 800mg of ibuprofen three times daily for a week or so, and to try not to pick the child up very much for a day or two.

So that was exciting. Little Bear was actually phenomenally good the whole time we were there, playing with Matt, hearing songs and stories, and giggling as he kicked a little water bottle around like a ball. Matt has been wonderful, carrying Little Bear, picking him up for me, and he's taking tomorrow off work to help me ease into the week and avoid straining the inflamed sites further before the ibuprofen has had a chance to start helping.

Getting a "perfectly normal" on the electrocardiography, after the doctor's slightly concerned frown as he explained why he wanted to have one done, was definitely the best part of my day.

Before the whole urgent-care-something-may-be-very-wrong thing, though, the best part of my day had been these:

Danskos. Free, brand-new, no-wear-anywhere Danskos, from a family friend who found them at the transfer station reuse pile. She is incredible at finding treasures there! These are the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn, and they fit perfectly. And, goodness, Danskos; I don't think I've ever in my life spent more than $20 on a pair of shoes, so I certainly never expected to have anything by them! 

I know, it's winter and I live in Alaska so it'll still be snowy in May... but I can't wait to be able to wear them!

Since I'm being frivolous now anyway, and it's been a while since I've linked up, how about a What I Wore Sunday outfit?

Grey short-sleeved sweater: thrifted

Black polkadotted pencil skirt: thrifted

Black Mary Jane wedges: hand-me-downs

Black wool jacket: gift from my mom

(Photo taken at noon. That's as high as the sun got today.)

Doesn't my outfit just scream "January in Frigid Alaska"? No? We keep hearing about horrible winter weather and bitter cold from friends down south (Minnesota, Indiana, etc), and have been trying not to rub it in too badly, but... it's nice and warm here. 20 degrees above zero, no wind, no ice, occasional light snow falling... We will get our fair share of cold eventually, I'm sure, but we are sure enjoying the overall mild weather we've gotten so far this winter!

SQTF 71: 2014

I

2014. Goodness. I look at that number, and am startled to realize how many New Year's Eves I can remember. A century ago, our lives would be half over by the time we were this old! What a morbid first thought about the new year, isn't that? I'm not actually unhappy about 2013 ending, really; just feeling thoughtful. Last year was a good one, all in all: Matt was hired as a regular employee by the university instead of just working for grants, and Little Bear was mostly healthy and learned and grew so much.

II

We used Jen's saint name generator to pick a family patron saint for 2014, and I'm so glad that we got St Isaac Jogues! I used to know much more about him than I can currently remember, so I suppose I have some research to do now. I do remember that he's one of the early Jesuit martyrs of North America, and I think he had something to do with St Kateri Tekakwitha's conversion...? Maybe? Full details when I get my act together and read up on him.

III

We had a wonderful Christmas break--it's so nice that Matt gets several days off from the university every year! A good friend came up for a week's visit and got to experience winter in Alaska... We had a couple of frigid days when he first got in, but by Sunday it had warmed up here and cooled down in Minnesota so much that it was actually much pleasanter here! He and Matt made a quick road trip down to Eagle River, outside of Anchorage, to visit another friend who is stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. They got some beautiful photos; it was so funny to see their photos looking north toward Mt McKinley instead of south! It's great that the mountain was out for their drive, though; it's said that fewer than 20% of visitors actually see McKinley while they are in Alaska, because the peak is so often shrouded in clouds.

VI

Last year may have been the first that I actually committed new year's resolutions to paper---with the caveat that I had no illusions that I would really accomplish them---and I probably forgot what they were within the first week, but... let's see how I did anyway.

V

Get back in shape. Well, if by this I meant "get back down to my ideal weight," I did it! I'm not really in much better shape than I was a year ago, though, since I lost all of the weight by not eating anything for a week and a half after getting my wisdom teeth out instead of by exercising. This year: Matt and I have agreed to get a membership at the campus gym, even though it's dreadfully expensive, because we simply aren't getting enough exercise any other way, and it's important, and hopefully we will feel guilty about spending so much on a membership and that'll spur us to get there a couple of times a week!

Stop using bad logic. Oh, how I laughed when I saw this one. The example I gave last year of bad logic is word-for-word the same as the explanation I gave Matt just the other day for why I can't get in shape: "There are Christmas cookies in my house. I cannot get back in shape until the cookies are gone. Clearly, I should eat all of the cookies so that I can get back in shape." This year: Not even trying. I don't think I use this kind of bad logic about serious/important things, so I'm just going to accept that sometimes I say ridiculous things. It's part of who I am.

Be more social. Um, a little bit? I still really only see Matt in the evenings, my family one evening a week for dinner, and Matt's parents on Skype on Sunday afternoons, and I still grumble occasionally about feeling isolated. Last summer I was pretty good about going for walks with friends and their kids once a week or so, though, and we have had a few people over this fall/winter. Little Bear  is super fussy and clingy when other people are around, and I know that that means that we should do it more often rather than less, but it makes it so much less pleasant! This year: Keep trying, I guess. Maybe we will try to make it to at least one of the first and third Friday homeschooling families' potlucks after the noon Mass at my parents' parish each month. And there are three or four families with little kids at the university parish right now, and the priest last week brought up the possibility of family catechesis once a month after Mass, so if that winds up happening that'd be another good thing to become involved in.

VI

Not terrible, especially given that I didn't remember that I'd resolved to work on those things! For this year, I have: Get back in shape; actually in shape, by exercising, and Make more of an effort to interact with other adults. Since those are both carry-overs from last year, and since I'm planning to build things into my schedule to make it hard to avoid accomplishing them (gym membership, parish commitments), I should probably add one more: Work on caring less about what others think of me, particularly in terms of my being a good wife, homemaker, and mother. I know it's easy, especially for women, to assume that others are looking down on us or judging us simply because they do things differently than we do. And I acknowledge that I'm particularly bad about worrying about what others might think: knowing that someone will be stopping by the following morning typically means that I'll spend the evening scrubbing the kitchen walls and sweeping behind the washing machine just because I "have" to make sure everything is "perfect" and they won't think I'm a terrible hausfrau. That's crazy. Who is going to check behind the washing machine? Who doesn't get lint behind their washing machine? I should work on that. Also on not letting lint fall behind the washing machine, because it's kind of a fire hazard, but that's not really worth being a resolution...

VII

When are you celebrating Epiphany this year? I've mostly reconciled myself to the modern fad of moving the observance of so many feasts to the nearest Sunday, but moving Epiphany? No way. Christmas is twelve days long, and moving Epiphany this year take away the last day of Christmas! How can you have a Twelfth Night party when there are only eleven nights? You can't. We will go to Mass and hear the Epiphany readings on Sunday, of course, but I'm making the king cake and we are celebrating on Monday.

Head over to Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!

Happy Christmas Octave!

...and New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Solemnity of Mary the Theotokos, Circumcision of Christ, etc!

We hope that you and yours are having a blessed octave of Christmas! Matt has a whole week and a half off--definitely one of the best perks of working for the university system--and we've been enjoying a visit from his college roommate, so my internet time has been all but nonexistent, but once my world slows back down to its normal pace I'll be back to writing more regularly.

SQTF 70: Five Days!

I

The neighbor's yard decorations have inspired a few double-takes recently:

"Is that Vader?"

"I think it's a penguin?"

"Why's it holding a red light saber?"

II

Christmas prep is chugging along merrily here, at what would be a terrifyingly slow rate if I wasn't unfathomably relaxed about the whole thing this year. "Oh, there's twelve days of Christmas... I'll get ______ baked eventually." This is not me, and it's pretty weird when I actually think about it, but it's really nice to be so peaceful five days before Christmas! I've accomplished roughly one Christmas-prep thing off my list each day, and some days it's as small as moving the furniture around to make room for the as-yet-unharvested tree (yesterday). 

III

What's left on the list? Well, the only things that really do need to be done before Christmas are wrapping presents, getting and decorating a tree, and prepping for Christmas dinner, I guess. Some time between now and New Years, preferably on the sooner end, I still want to make toffee bars, Hershey kiss cookies, fudge, stollen, and lefse. The stollen might have happened yesterday, but I used all of my yeast yesterday morning making four loaves of French bread for Matt.

IV

Even though they work up through 5pm Christmas Eve, Matt's department is having their Christmas party today. He wanted to bring an elaborate Italian sandwich that he grew up enjoying: pan bagno.

There's a lot of prep work involved! You definitely want to have everything sliced before you start putting it together.

Because there are so many ingredients, he scooped some bread out of the inside of the top halves so they could settle down over things. The bread then got rubbed down with smashed garlic cloves, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.

Starting on the flat bottom piece, he layered the sliced tomatoes, red onion, and fresh basil...

...diced kalamata olives, capers, and thinly-sliced gherkins...

...hard-boiled eggs, roasted red peppers, and flaked tuna, and then topped them off with full-length leaves of romaine and the top piece of the loaf. He wrapped them tightly---twice---in plastic wrap, then a layer of aluminum foil, and put them in the fridge with a cutting board and a bunch of free weights on top overnight. I wish I'd gotten a photo of that!

V

I read somewhere that December 23 is the busiest shopping day of the year. Hopefully, we will be able to avoid it; last night we hammered out a menu for the first Christmas dinner we will ever have made together, so that I can try to finish the shopping today. (There's also the uncomfortable fact that we are completely out of meat, again, so I have to go to at least one store today anyway.) Our plan for Christmas dinner: a moose roast in the crock pot, oven-roasted root vegetables with rosemary, green beans sautéed with garlic and pine nuts, dinner rolls, a strawberry-rhubarb gelatin salad, and pecan pie. It's kind of a ridiculous amount of food for three people, one of them a toddler, but it's a major feast day! And I'm looking forward to having leftovers around.

VI

Quite possibly the best decision I made this Advent was starting to bake mini loaves of quickbreads and freezing them at the beginning of December. Now whenever someone calls and asks if they can drop by, I don't panic over running around trying to find not-too-dark cookies (yes, all of my cookies got "toasty" this year... sometimes the toddler has to be carried out of the kitchen more than once before you can open the oven...) to put together a plate for them; I just pull a loaf of Christmassy bread out of the freezer, maybe even stick a bow on it if there's no one clinging to my ankles, and voila.

VII

It's been a season of firsts. First time doing Christmas dinner at home as a family. First time attempting the lefse (a soft Norwegian flatbread with potatoes) and Christstollen (German fruit cake). First time baking, oh, most of the cookies I've done so far! First time making sugared almonds---which are way too hard to stop eating, and should definitely be made closer to Christmas next year. First time Little Bear has seen candles (on our Advent wreath), and been very excited to try and blow them out. First Christmas with a child old enough to, not understand what's going on yet, but be caught up in the wonder of all of the changes slowly happening. It's been such a special Advent for us, and I'm sure the Christmas season will be as well.

Don't forget to visit Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!

Happy Christmas Trilobites

Yesterday was kind of crazy, in the sense of running around town for hours and finally getting home seven hours after leaving... only to turn around and head back out to pick Matt up from work two hours later. The jeep is finally fixed, though, hopefully; the misfires did follow the suspect coil when they switched it to a different cylinder, so that's been replaced and so far we haven't seen the check engine light back on.

Unfortunately, the incredibly off-schedule day meant that somebody took less than an hour total of nap, and was very cranky indeed by supper time. Ever the optimist (i.e. Ack, there are so many things left on my to-do list!!!), I thought I'd try to make a batch of cookies after supper before bedtime anyway. Easy cookies. Quick cookies. Spritz cookies.

My mom recently passed along a spare cookie press she found, and I've been excited to try it. For some reason, a cookie press is one of the unique tools that I've always associated with people who are pros at baking, so having one of my own makes me feel a little more confident that I'm "doing it right." I know, it's silly. And I certainly don't think that you have to have a cookie press to do Christmas cookies properly! It's just a prominent memory from childhood, I guess.

Last week I took a photo of Mom's spritz cookie recipe, so I pulled that up and followed along with the faded, smudged, well-worn instructions. Some of the steps--and ingredients--seemed kind of strange, but they apparently didn't set off enough warning bells until it was too late: Matt and Little Bear came into the kitchen to watch me work the cookie press, and Matt swiped a bite of dough. And made a face. "What is in this? And what shape are you making those?" 

Apparently, lime trilobites just don't say "Christmas".

In retrospect, how did it not occur to me that surely I would remember if my mother had actually mixed a packet of lime jello into the cookie dough each year? If I don't remember ever, ever seeing that happen, surely she used food coloring instead? I can't count how many times in the past few months I've asked for a recipe and she's handed me the card, but with a whole bunch of caveats: don't use X, use Y; double the spices; you really don't need to use all that sugar; I don't really make it like this. My mom's recipe cards are more like guidelines, really.

And lime. Of course I picked lime; my husband doesn't like sweet citrus. Now there are heaps and mounds of lime-flavored trilobites in my kitchen, and no one but myself and possibly the toddler to eat them. I guess I have something unique to give our neighbors!

On the plus side, the cookie press works great! There's about one more tray worth of green dough in the freezer; if I decide it's worth pulling it out and baking those too, I'll try to find the tree die instead of the trilobite!