Our Everyday

Remember in writing class when you had to make those outlines, with all the a,bc's and 1,2,3's, Roman numerals and all that stuff. I was thinking that is what I need here, which would be the only time ever outside of school that I ever thought of using that skill which drove me up the wall back in the school days.
So anyway, I will proceed without the assistance of the outline. One Tues, Sadie had a "feast"at school consisting of chicken nuggets and smiley fried potatoes. They learned about giving thanks and the Pilgrims and all everyone left class topped with their own rendition of a Native American feather hat, for lack of a better or more appropriate term.
For Thanksgiving, we had my mom and Sonja out here to visit. They flew in on Thursday so I planned the feast for Friday so I could have some help with the ol' bird and everything else. We brined the turkey and it turned out really yummy. So now with my second attempt at roasting a turkey under my belt I feel I have achieved the gold star in turkey preparation. Sorry to those who suffered thru the first attempt!
Bare with me as I digress...

There is something about the whole turkey feast at Thanksgiving that seems to parallel some ancient tradition of hunting and ceremony, all in a modern light.

THE HUNT
Let me explain...I was some what naive when it came to getting a turkey. I thought you just go into the butcher and say I need a turkey around so and so pounds. Also this year I was going to get a fresh turkey from Whole Foods but I had no idea that there was a need to pre-order. So I look on line on Sunday and there is no info about pre-ordering so I decide after some consideration that I will go in to the store on Tues to get our festive bird. Upon arriving at the meat counter there are people lined up all over and a table for special order pick up, I find a man who seems to be running the show and ask him about getting a turkey. "Did you order ahead?"
"No."
" We are out of turkeys but we are getting some more from another store in about an hour."
"Would there be an extra that I could hold until tomorrow?"
"Yes, what size?"
Yada, yada, yada, he says he will have one for me tomorrow when the store opens. We make it to the store around noonish and Sadie decides that she needs some lunch, so I find some hot soup. We pay but the printer for the register breaks so we have to wait for that to be fixed and sit down to eat. Once we are about finished I sign the receipt and we pack up to pick up some other last minute items and head back to the meat counter, along with all the other masses of fresh turkey loving folk. There is really no order and you saddle up to the counter and wait for a unencumbered butcher. One such man asks me if I need some help I tell him my name and that I have a turkey on hold. He searches all over, consults the same list several times and finally I see the man running the show and he remembers me and even my name! I tell the confused and fluster butcher that this ring master has my turkey so not to fret and sorry for the confusion. Soon I have the fourteen pounder in the cart and head for the check out.

THE PREPARATION FOR THE FEAST
Thanks to modern conveniences like butchers, I did not need to gut and de-feather the bird myself!
So the brining of a turkey takes 24 hours. Wednesday evening I prepare the brine according to Martha Stewarts Perfect Roast Turkey recipe on www.marthastewart.com. Basically, it is salt, sugar, water and spices. Bring to a boil and let cool. So Thursday the turkey takes a dunk in the brine until the following morning. Friday morning after a nice late morning rising I prepare the turkey for roasting, which does not reallly involve much. This of course sets back the dinner time a bit, but sweet sleep is really worth it these days. And to give my mom credit it was more of a joint effort throughout.
We get all the fixings together. Pies were baked on Thursday. And next is the feast

FEAST AND ALL OTHER TURKEY RELATED MEALS TO FOLLOW

So we eat and be merry. It was all quite good, but after returning to the kitchen after dinner there sits before me a turkey with most of one half carved but there is still more than half left. So I carve as much off as possible and throw on the big stock pot with some water and the rest of the uncarvible. That cooks for some hours that night and out into the ice box, otherwise known as the garage for the night. This is one of the greatest things ever about living where it is cold. The out of doors can be your refrigerator. I must thank Amilda for the idea, I would have never thought of it without seeing her do it over Christmases past.
That made a winters worth of soup and now the bottom of our freezer is stocked for easy dinners on cold nights.
We had turkey sandwiches, and reheated turkey dinners. We had turkey and gravy over noodles and turkey soup. We had all that and honestly I am not sick of turkey yet. But I must admit that I am glad it is gone for now.

So I feel like I truly was invested in the tradition of the turkey feast this year, my first time for preparing it all. It was a lot of work but I look forward to many more to come where I am making more than just a side dish.


Now back to the previously schelduled review...
It has been warm the last three days so today we went out the playground for awhile around lunch time. And spent the afternoon playing around the house.
Yesterday, Sadie went to school and had fun. They were singing and dancing to Frosty the Snowman when I got there to wait to pick her up. When Miss McGlynn opens the door after class, it is like these live wires come exploding out the door.

Today we were at Down Cellar dropping off three dolls for consignment. There was a pile of buttons on one of the tables and Sadie asked if she could pick out one to take home, so I agreed. This is the button she picked. Up until today, I did not think she could read...

On Friday we went to the mall for a picture with Santa. We have never up until this day had "professional" posed pictures taken of Sadie, well that is not exactly true. She had school pictures on Thursday. It turned out quite good. The "professional" assistant was trying, for whatever reason I don't really know, to get Sadie and Emma to smile at the camera before the shutter went click. But I was like" just take some pictures before Emma realizes that she is sitting on the lap of a big, bearded man she has never seen in her life." She cries when the man stocking the milk smiles at her! After looking over her shoulder for the second time, she slowly turned her head back toward us, turning bright red, mouth wide open with no sound and then wailing as loud as possible. The jolly assistant continued to shake and squeak miscellaneous items to try to get her to smile but there was no way Emma was going to be persuaded to smile. Sadie told Santa that she wanted three balls and ice skates for Christmas. Sadie really loved the whole ordeal and did not want to leave. So we sort of milled about for a bit longer until something else seemed more appealing, namely a cinnamon roll.

When it's winter, the spider puts its fur on so it is not cold. It puts its fur on out of the drawer. Spiders like fur.

I found this post hiding in the drafts file. I was going to delete it but I think I will publish to remind myself of where I was that year. We are overly sensitive creatures, us mothers.


Last time I was at the thirft store there was an older woman, maybe in her fifties or so, and she asked me about the Baby Bjorn I was wearing, how I liked it, etc. Her daughter was pregnant and she wanted one for her baby. I gave my opinion and she says" Everyone wears their babies facing out these days. My daughter always wanted to face toward my breast as she was always wanting to nurse. But with my son, I had to give him a bottle because he was always distracted and turning away. He would never eat." All this without any solicitation. But I am really done with the stories about how babies had to go onto a bottle at three...or whatever months for whatever reason or the other. Basically it comes down to the mother just deciding that the baby is ready for a bottle because the mother is done nursing. No healthy baby is going to starve itself. Nursing a baby can be wonderful and frustrating, difficult and rewarding. I must say that when I was first pregnant I enjoyed reading Mothering Magazine, an alternative mag that tells you all the ways to be all natural and the like. But once I actually had Sadie so many things changed. I had to have a c-section because of her breech position and it felt like I was going to have to go thru this horrible trauma to have our baby. But it was fine. I healed and Sadie was a healthy little baby from the start. I had a doula but without a natural labor her services were basically to take pictures for us. Then learning the breastfeeding was difficult for Sadie and I. But after a couple of difficult weeks she was wanting to eat as often as possible and it turned out that is was the answer to all of her woes.

Showers get moved from mandatory to optional on a daily basis.

All toys that you pay money for will only be entertaining for the day of purchase, but phones, remotes, cords, and anything else you don't want in their mouths will be an endless source of entertainment.

If you put on nice clothes that you would not mind leaving the house in, some little one will spill something on them before you leave the house.

You will say no more times in one day than you thought you were capable.

Once they reach the age of three, you will be bombarded with questions, a. you never thought needed answering, b. you already answered three times in the last two minutes, and c. you have no clue of how to answer.

There will be cheerieos everywhere, I mean everywhere.


There are probably fifty more I could add to the list, more to come.

Baby face

Big Brown Eyes

Okay there are some "problems" with my other blog so I am posting my yarn that I found in Princeton here. The store, Pins and Needles, had a great sale section and I just could not help myself. I bought a ton. There was lots of cotton and cotton blends on sale including Rowan and Debbie Bliss, my two favorites. yarnstash.mov

That was my birthday outing of choice. We both enjoyed the day and Emma was along for the ride with out too many complaints. She likes yarn too.

This was a long week here at the homestead. Nathan has been immersed in a proliferation of projects. Erb told him a couple weeks back that adato is now his life and this it has become. So we had dinners without Daddy most of the week. Well, me expound on the details of this lovely week that I am most pleased has ended. Last Saturday Sadie came down with a cold, by Monday Emma had also erupted into a snotty mess. And so we have learned, the child does not sleep in her bed if she can not breath thru her nose. So I bunked down with her Monday thru Thursday in the office/guest room/craft/whatever maybe come room. But she was asleep before ten any of those nights. Meanwhile, Sadie missed school Tuesday and then school was closed Thursday. Basically we were spending the days watching shows and playing on the computer, eating, sleeping a bit, and trying to recover from the bout of colds. All the while, missing out on having Daddy around. I probably saw Nathan for about an hour a day. I was not too happy about this. So in comes Thursday, a category seven on the scale of bad days if the scale was the same as those used to measure hurricanes. I was worn out from the minute I woke up. I was hoping that Sadie would be at school today but thanks to state wide teacher conventions all schools were closed. By eleven I HAD to get out of the house. So on goes the search for the keys.
Okay I have a serious problem with keeping all my stuff together and weeks like this seem to throw any sort of organization I can muster out...way out. So I am frantically looking in every pocket I can think I may having been wearing over the last four days, mind you I have not left the house in a motorized vehicle since probably Sunday. Emma is screaming as I try to attach her car seat to her, Sadie is carrying on in her usual hysterics about "where are my keys, have I found them yet, we need to go now Mama", and I am running around not finding my keys. And this goes on for a good half hour. Then we break for lunch, well at least Emma's lunch and I make a sandwich for Sadie for the car ride and find the key. Sadie is asking where we are going and I am saying we are just going for a drive in hopes that Emma will sleep somewhere other than my lap for longer than fifteen minutes.
So we are off and Emma is asleep within minutes. We cruise around the country roads and Sadie enjoys her sandwich. Yada, yada, yada we pull into the garage and Emma wakes up like her alarm clock went off.
So back into the house we go. I try to feed Emma some actual food and she eats a bit. Sadie wants a snack and I am overdue for some lunch, it is about 2pm. So I put together a sandwich for myself and a piece of my b-day apple pie. Sadie has a plate of apples, crackers and cheese. I begin my descent into, where else, the office to deliver the goods and slip...I am falling. Thump. I am crunching against the stairs while the plates are crunching against the tile floor and my face. I am laying there moaning and the kids are both screaming because none of us knows what just happened. My face hurts, my back hurts, my arm hurts and there is food everywhere. I am so done with this day. I pull myself up from the stairs and go into the office and pull Emma out of the saucer to try to calm her down and Sadie too. I feel blood running down my cheek. I am a blathering mess. I call Nathan and he is there to answer and calm me down so I can calm everyone else down. I am going to survive this day.
So that was Thursday in a nut shell. I still feel Thursday in my back and arm and face. I am fine. Nathan and I both laugh because I just keep saying I feel like I fell down a flight of stairs and well, I did.

Guess what we did Friday?

We, as a family, went to see the Wiggles at Madison Square Garden and it was great. Emma slept most of the train ride in and through most of the show. Sadie had lots and lots of fun riding the train and seeing Greg, Anthony, Jeff and Murray and playing peek-a-boo with the conductors. The show was great and worth all the ridiculous amounts of dollars shelled out for each ticket. You know the commercial, it was priceless.

Emma and Sadie sat in a pile of leaves but Emma was not too keen on the idea.

emmacry.mov

The sun on the backs of the new fallen leaves gave the lustre of red, orange, yellow and gold, when, what to my wondering should appear, but an old Jack-o-lantern and a hungry, brown deer.
(Turn up the sound for this one!)

seeya-jack.mov

Yes this is our site. I am changing it a bit. Trying to put a little something different down. I still have a bit of work until I am happy with it. I know it is a bit boring, but the green dots were making me a bit green, if you know what I mean. And the title was just so ..., well we just plopped it in the bar when prompted at the very beginning of the creation of this blog. I need to put up some pictures to bring a bit more life into the screen , soon, soon.

Sometimes when you are at a playground where small children are frolicking about, none of which weigh more than thirty-five pounds, and you notice a flock of buzzard type birds decending on the park you may start to think to yourself, "Self, why is there a flock of buzzards landing in the park? Are these birds, with four foot wing spans, just landing to rest their wings, maybe to take a smoke break? Do they only eat things that are not moving?"

I guess prospects where not too good in the eyes of a buzzard and off they flew, but not before black and white flashes of Hitchcock-esque scenes raced through my mind.

A list of things that are no fun...

I am really tired of wet beds in the morning, especially when the list includes my own.

The spiders here can be really huge, like you might mistake it for a mouse running across the floor. (They are hairy and brown, too.)

The phone call that enivitably follows a few hours after the one I just ended to inform me that the husband will in fact be later than the time he previously stated he would be no later than.

The after school time-to-leave-the-playground battle.

The I-don't-need-to-go-potty battle.

The stockingette stitch when you have to do it 192 times per row for nine inches.

When you have to say "no more candy" one million times per day.(or cookies, or dessert, or anything else that might resemble a sweet, sugary item)

Trying to get Emma back into a diaper after the removal of the yucky. Did I mention that the kid does not sit still?

My dry, crackly hands snagging on everything.

Now for some more uplifting imagery...